Restart Page & Robot Hand

Two completely unrelated internet finds, one about a nice robotics feat and a restart page with all the major operating system, a bit weird but cool nonetheless!

Smallest Electrical Motor Ever Created (to date)

We are one step closer to making nanobots with the recent advance to a motor the size of a single molecule. Via Boing Boing.

Star Wars Uncut

Star Wars Uncut "The Escape" from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

I am hugely impressed by this attempt to re-shoot the entire Star Wars canon by cutting up the films into 15 second pieces and letting fans re-make those 15 seconds however they like. A truly great idea. A small sample is shown above.
Via BoingBoing.net

A website for everything.

In the future, there will be a website for every possible concept, no matter how obscure. We are already getting down to the dregs: we now have BabiesWithLaserEyes.com.

Via the inimitable BoingBoing

On the absence of compulsions as a blessing

Image via Wikipedia

BoingBoing reports that "When asked why he strangled his little brother to death, 17-year old Andrew Conley of Rising Sun, Indiana said: 'Like, I had to. It's like when people have something like when they're hungry and there's a hamburger sitting there and they knew they had to have it.'"

Although of course the boy's answer is horrifying, I don't doubt that it might yet be true. Surely some of what we all do (lose our tempers, enjoy reading novels, eat too much, like The Beatles, drink a cup of water...) is due to forces acting on and inside us that we are not aware of and that we therefore cannot begin to comprehend.

To the extent that we are free of (or can consciously counter-act) forces that make us do things we regret or that harm others, we should feel blessed.