The BBC is reporting that an experiment is underway in parts of London where select cops will be outfitted with video cameras. The cameras are about the size of a ‘AA’ battery and mount to the side of the officer’s cap. It feeds the video to a tiny storage device worn in the cop’s utility belt.

The purpose of the experiment is to see if it helps in reducing unruly behavior on the streets as well as provide visual evidence of crimes in progress.

I’ve seen the military in Iraq wear these, as do special forces. Though they usually are transmitting the data back a headquarters for the commanders that are ‘directing traffic’ from the rear.

Some people jot a quick note on money as a reminder to themselves, perhaps a “to do” list. Some do it to mark the bill as theirs in case of a dispute later as to what was really handed over to the cashier. Some doodle on a fiver. And then there are those that you just have no clue what was going through their heads at the moment they put pen to a twenty dollar bill.

Check out this gallery of slightly defaced bills. 

 

 

 

 

This has been making the rounds on other geek sites listing a Neko, a Russian design  studio as the creator of a mouse made of stone. Some are guessing it’s just polished rock as the outer shell glued onto plastic, but we can’t really tell until more information surfaces. I think it’s all plastic but would love find out it’s real rock.

I tried to find the original to link to or at least get some more information on Neko but failed. So you’ll just have to admire the nice photos below :-)

    

[Found on Make]

I’m not a big Scrabble fan, but I’m aware of the several hundred Scrabble clubs and the professional Scrabble tournaments held around the country throughout the year.

On Oct. 12, in the basement of a church in Lexington, Mass., a carpenter named Michael Cresta scored 830 points in a game of Scrabble.

His opponent, Wayne Yorra, who works at a supermarket deli counter, totaled 490 points.

The two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America:

1. Most points in a game by one player (830)
2. Most total points in a game (1,320)
3. Most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta’s play of QUIXOTRY).

‘Quixotry’ means a quixotic action or thought.

You can read the play by play on Slate with analysis of the most critical moves, here are views of the final board, one from a camera phone.

   

Interested in starting a Scrabble club, finding a club or joining a club? Here you go.

 

You probably heard about ‘lock bumping’ last year and how in a matter of seconds even a child could unlock a standard 5 pin tumbler lock.

Well the Mythbusters took on biometric locks, in fact they took on the claim by one manufacturer that their fingerprint scanning, heat sensing, galvanic skin response verifying, pulse detecting door lock has never been defeated. Check out the video of their attempt, we should all be afraid and live and work in bunkers.