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NOTICE: Large moosehead wall lights have finally been invented.

360 Modern is a real estate firm in the Pacific Northwest U.S. that specializes in modern homes. Beautiful stuff.

Handy way to skip all the intro crap on DVDs that is usually forced on you when you throw a disc in your player. Apparently the chapters on DVDs that you can't skip (FBI warnings, copyright stuff, etc.) are flagged, on the disc, as UOP, or User Operation Prohibited. This site lists some of the techniques you can try to skip the ennui.

This colour coordinated bookshelf looks cool, but you might have a hard time finding a particular title.

For chewie edge lovers or corner brownie fans - it's the Edge Brownie Pan. All edges, all the time. Via BoingBoing

Puzzle carpet.

This to That is a handy site that will tell you what adhesive to use when attempting to glue various objects together.

Super creative bathroom tiles.

Skinny house in Brazil.

Apparently there are many LED lightbulbs available already. Via TreeHugger

WiiRoomba. YouTube of a guy controlling his Roomba with a Wii remote.

Hardcore Lost fans have a party and repackage the snacks and beer as Dharma Initiative rations. Make your own with the PDFs that they've so generously shared.

Here's a nice set of home improvement videos with the energetic and snappy Eric Stromer.

Faucet Fountain turns your regular faucet into a drinking fountain.

Kids and the Home Office. Here's a list of tips for the parent that works from home.

Save the Internet.

Great Pac-Man bathroom tile work.

Crazy toaster from the future TODAY!

Here is a nice napkin folding howto site with clean pictures and straightforward instructions. I think the shirt's my favourite.

DIY T-Shirt Rack via Instructables.







Househacker/tags/hdtv

ZDNet Offers Thorough Rundown on Numerous HDTV Options

As any casual TV shopper may know, venturing into your local electronics store's HDTV section can be a bit confusing, to say the least. Unless you keep up with the ever changing technology and terminology of the industry, you risk making a mistake, or worse - wasting money, when the time comes to purchase your new set.

This article by George Ou should help sort things out. He covers the advantages and disadvantages of:

Projection: Pro: price. Con: viewing angle.
Plasma:Pro: resolution, colour, viewing angle. Con: price.
LCD:Pro: picture quality. Con: expensive large size sets.

George also advises, bluntly, against getting suckered into buying so-called high end cables:

Consumers need to get the concept of "monster cables" out of their minds since they DO NOT apply to the digital world. There is zero difference in quality between the cheapest $12 HDMI to DVI cable versus the $100 gold plated "monster cable".

He also makes available some colour gradient graphics and explains how to use them in testing the colour quality of an HDTV.

This is a great piece for anyone in the market for a new HDTV, and it's especially useful for those of us that may be more than a little confused and/or overwhelmed by variations in HDTV technology.

Also see this previous post on HDTV resolutions.

Find a Home Theatre Projector with this Exhaustive Database

ProjectorCentral has a large projector database with an extensive criteria filter that enables you to find the projector that works best in your space. If you're planning a home theatre setup, you'll want to know which projectors will work with your available real estate. Feed the site the distance the projector will be from the wall as well as the desired image size and you'll receive a list of suitable units. There is a plethora of other filtering options available too; price, brightness, HDTV compatibility, PC card reader and so forth. Also worth checking out is the site's top 20 overall projectors.
       



Informative CNET Article on HDTV Resolutions

If you're in the market for an HDTV, check out CNET's response to reader questions regarding HDTV, and specifically 1080i vs 1080p, source importance, price/value, and some gotchas:

Those of you thinking of running your PC through a 1080p set should be aware that you may not necessarily get to use all that extra resolution--even if you have the right high-end graphics card. For instance, the Sharp set we tested allows you to max out at only 1,280x1,024 resolution while the less-expensive Westinghouse LVM-37W1, along with Samsung's 1080p RPTVs and one series of high-end sets from Mitsubishi, accept true 1,920x1,080 resolution from a PC.

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