Hasta La Gadget!

Death is inevitable. That’s where we’re all headed, although when exactly – we’ll never know. But just because we don’t know when we’ll go doesn’t mean we can’t prepare ahead.

Photographer Frieke Janssens agrees. That’s probably why she came up with tombstone photography in her project called ‘Your Last Shot.’ The series basically features portraits that the subjects will eventually use on their tombstones. Each will bear a caption with the subject’s name and birth date, followed by a dash where the date of death is to be filled in.

My aim is to make an iconic portrait that is beautiful, serene and fearless, preferably with a gentle smile, indicating that the model is clearly aware of the fact that this portrait will be used for a very long time to come.

You can view more shots from the series in the gallery below.

Interested in having Frieke shoot your tombstone portrait? If you’ve got at least $1,060+ to spare, then you can. That’s how much it will cost for a shoot with Frieke, complete with makeup, assistance, styling, and post processing.

[via Petapixel via New Launches]

Twitter has suspended the NYT On It account after the New York Times filed a complaint.

The popular Twitter account had over 20,000 followers and mocked Times lifestyle stories with tweets like, “GUYS, teenagers are big fans of caffeinated drinks, and The Times is ON IT.”

Benjamin Kabak, who runs NYT On It, said that the suspension came after the newspaper objected to the account’s use of a modified New York Times logo as its avatar. He has filed an appeal, writing, “I say fair use. Right now, I’m waiting for Twitter to process my request to fix the problem so I can get the account reenabled. But feel free to spread the word over how the country’s largest newspaper feels threatened by a small Twitter account right now.”

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With its new Balance Smartphone Scale, Wahoo Fitness clearly has designs on Withings‘ corner of the fitness gadget market. There’s no phone dongles or shoe clips here — simply step on the scale and your weight will be recorded and synced to the companion iOS app. The Balance can record up to 130 weigh-ins before needing to push the information to your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth, which you can then share with the usual cloud services (should you need further reason to feel ashamed). The scale can manage the profiles of up to 16 different users and keep tabs on everyone’s weight and BMI goals. Unlike its competition, there’s no WiFi option, which means you can’t sync your shame directly to the web. But, having to take the intermediary step of pulling out your phone presumably has helped the company shave the price down to $99. You can pre-order the Balance now for delivery the first week of December.

Continue reading Wahoo Fitness launches a Bluetooth smart scale for $99

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Source: Wahoo Fitness

All is not well at Meg Whitman’s HP, we learned during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call this morning. HP just recorded a $9 billion devaluation of its assets stemming from serious accounting tomfoolery at a company that HP bought for $10 billion last year. Ouch. More »

Researchers at the National Museum of Computing in the UK have restored a massive computer operated in the 1950s known as “The Witch,” and it’s now the world’s oldest working computer. A team of computer scientists has restored the computer to its former glory, and now it’s on display for the public to see.

The Witch was originally built in 1949 at the UK’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire. The computer weighs in at a whopping 2.75 tons, and it was designed to crunch calculations for nuclear scientists, so they didn’t have to use mechanical adding machines. However, it was soon replaced by newer and faster technology.

The old computer was put on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Birmingham from 1973 to 1997, where it was then dismantled and put in storage. However, researchers have recently dug it out of storage and restored the historical computer to working condition. The computer uses valves as its memory store, and it takes up to 10 seconds to multiply two numbers, but it regularly cranked out up to 80 hours of service in a typical week. A lot of the parts were covered in dust and needed cleaning, but the researchers say that they didn’t need to replace as many parts as they originally thought.

While The Witch was replaced by quicker and better technology, it continued to be used as a teaching resource. In fact, it was loaned to a different educational institution where it received its nickname, known as the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell — or WITCH. The computer will be on display at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire, UK starting today.

[via BBC News]

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Researchers bring back world’s oldest working computer is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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