The original Star Wars trilogy is best known for its practically still unparalled high quality miniature model effects. But here's a cool video on the making of the computer effects used in the film-- mainly the wireframe models of the Death Star and its trenches. These days, this sort of thing could be done in 5 minutes by anyone with a basic 3D rendering program, but in 1977, this was super hot shit.

God, I keep feeling bad for Microsoft lately. They're still the biggest guy on the block by far, but they keep trying over and over and over to out-cool Apple and they just end up always looking like the really lame and sort of creepy 40 year old dancing his ass off at a teenage dance club.

On a budget of only $148, using a weather balloon, a cell phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler, two students from MIT-- Oliver Yeh and Justin Lee-- sent a camera right to the edge of space and snapped a couple of pictures. Oh, and before you try to do this, make sure you contact the FAA or your relevant national air traffic agency to get clearance.

From CNN:

Earlier this week, some jackhole in Texas accidentally drove his sweet sweet $1.6 million Bugatti Veyron into a marsh in Texas. That's the old news. The new news is that while he initially tried to blame his unholy misfortune on a low-flying pelican, it turns out that he's just a rich guy who's way too stupid for such a beautiful car.

You already know that the Burj Dubai tower is tall. Really god damn tall. Like over half a mile tall. Damn, it's good to have all that oil money. If you've ever wanted to know what it looks like to stare straight down 2,684 feet at the top of a wobbling skyscraper, here's your chance. I bet parachuting off that thing is a fucking blast. Via: YBNBY

This a very rare recording from 1890 of Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky and his buddies fucking around with an Edison wax cylinder, which was super high tech shit at the time. Why do I get the feeling that if Tchaikovsky were alive today, he'd be uploading one video after another to YouTube where he's making goofy faces and twirling his mustache while talking in silly voices? The sound quality's pretty bad, and it's all in Russian, but there's a translation below.

The NTSB recently released the flight data of the US Airways Flight 1549 that had to ditch in the Hudson back in January into the public realm, and from that data, the team at ExoSphere 3D created an amazing CG simulation of the crash. I fucking love how incredibly cool Captain Sullenburger is as air traffic control is trying to free up runways for him and he just says "Nope, we're going into the Hudson."

When Berlin's Tempelhof Airport closed its operations last year, it left a vast swath of land currently unused. And an increasingly vocal group wants to replace the airport with the world's largest man-made mountain, adding snowy peaks to the now-flat city.

From io9:

More and more people are using home theater PCs to stream media straight to their television and a number of companies are responding. Hulu's been talking about larger and better quality downloads and a monthly fee, Apple's talking about a monthly iTunes TV subscription and now YouTube has introduced YouTube XL, especially made for bigger screens for people using their TVs to watch internet video.