The News Feed #003
The latest web essentials served up weekly
Mon, 04/23/2012
Earthy:
In honour of Earth Day I'll start this off with something green. If you need a way to stash your bike(s) in a smallish space, the Two Bike Gravity Stand from Public Bikes is an affordable and elegant solution. It's designed to work without the need to drill holes in the wall of your rented apartment. (Which also means, ladies, that you won't have to endure your boyfriends making beeping sounds while passing the stud finder over themselves - classic). 
More Green:
The yearly celebration of marijuana, "4:20" also took place this week. Head over to the always interesting In Focus blog at The Atlantic.com for a selection of photos highlighting various issues related to the drug.
(photo: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/04/marijuana/100282/#img03)
Life Goes On?:
If you enjoyed the celebrations on the 20th then there's a good chance you've checked out (or seen live) the performance at Coachella by a "hologram" of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. I was blown away by the lifelike nature of the performance so I was looking for info about how it was achieved. It turns out that "Tupac's" rapping was a high-tech take on a 16th century optical illusion. Read more at Ars Technica.
(photo: http://static.arstechnica.net/assets/2012/04/tupac-snoop-4f8cb6e-intro-t...)
Weee:
What's eco friendly and fun as hell when you're high? Slides. The Technical University of Munich has 4 story high slides that you can rip down to get to the lobby from the top floor of the building. No word on whether during Octoberfest the slides become giant beer bongs.
Big Brother Is Watching:
So you've just read about the environment, weed, and Germany. Since the NSA can see essentially everything you do electronically your computer has probably been flagged as one belonging to a eco-nazi narcoterrorist. That's a little over the top, but before you think I'm sounding paranoid check out this article by James Bamford in Wired. Bamford writes that "the NSA is building the country's largest data centre." But don't worry too much, The Rooster is approved reading material!
