A screensaver that can make frequent fliers feel at home?

by Scott Carmichael on

One of the signs that you are flying too much, is when you can’t sleep in your own bed without the soothing background noise of a jet engine, or when you find yourself looking out your bedroom window and feeling annoyed that all you see is the street, and not puffy clouds.

If you fit that description, then I suggest checking out Holding Pattern “First Class”. Holding Pattern is a screensaver for the Mac and PC that shows panoramic scenery from 57 different flight routes. The program has some of the worlds prettiest shots, including aerial photography of New Zealand, the Sahara, the Great Barrier Reef and Mount Rainier.

The photo you see above, is a real snapshot of how amazing the application looks. True flight junkies can turn on engine noise, set the time zone of the images, the flight path, the cruising speed and even the plane population (imagine being able to turn off seatmates in real life!). If you are lucky enough to have more than one monitor, you can even stretch the view over multiple screens.

Holding Pattern costs just $17.95, but you can get a taste of how nice it looks with their free version, Holding Pattern “Coach Class”. Of course, since this is a free version, you don’t get as many features, and only 15 different aerial views. Once you’ve installed this, you’ll probably be like me, and upgrade to first class right away!

You can download Holding Pattern here, just don’t blame me if you spend all day at work staring at your approach into LAX, instead of getting some real work done.

Food court musical by folks who cooked up frozen Grand Central

by Jamie Rhein on

A friend and I were looking through a few Improv Everywhere videos, the folks who created Frozen Grand Central, and loved this one so much we watched it twice and then showed it to others.

For anyone who has ever eaten in a food court anywhere in the world, imagine what it might be like if folks broke out into song, but not just any song–one that fit the location and the situation. This particular food court is in a shopping mall in Los Angeles.

One of the details I liked about this effort is the diversity of the entertainers, as well as, the audience members who had no idea what exactly was taking place as they chewed their food.

I loved the woman with the “baby.”

Can I get a napkin, please?

Photo of the Day (08.02.08)

by Anna Brones on

Taken by janekeeler in Kyrgyzstan, this photo is absolutely impressive. The action of the foreground is as stunning as the colors and intensity of the background. To find out exactly what was being played, I looked at another one of janekeeler’s photos from that day which had the title of Ulak-tartysh. After some internet research, I learned that it is a traditional Kyrgyz game in which two teams compete to see who can get the headless carcass of a goat onto a target first. Sounds like fun…

Do you have a great photo from your travels? Submit it to the Gadling Flickr pool and it just might get selected to be on Photo of the Day.

Japanese company reaching out to socially awkward young males

by Aaron Hotfelder on

A Japanese company named Avex has discovered a novel way to serve the needs of some of its younger, socially withdrawn customers. The company has recently produced a new DVD designed to help these so-called hikikimori become more comfortable around young women.

The DVD is called Miteiru dake, or “Just Looking,” and features attractive young Japanese women simply staring straight ahead, occasionally blinking or saying something like “Good Morning.” The idea of the DVDs, according to one article, is “to get young males who aren’t used to socializing with women to become more accustomed to making eye contact and/or handle the fact that a sentient being sits across from them and awaits interaction. The DVD hopes to cure those afflicted with shyness so that they may rejoin society.”

So do these videos actually work? Who knows– but they sure are popular. The Japanese staring goddess known as Magibon has made similar videos and become a Youtube sensation. This video alone has been viewed over three million times.

It seems the vast majority of the over 21,000 comments the video has received are variations on the same thing: “I don’t get it.”

Neither do I.

Iranians the biggest gamblers in Asia? What are the odds?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

In the US, gambling online is technically illegal, but that doesn’t stop millions of Americans from playing poker and betting on sports over the internet. Some of us are even known to fund our travels that way (allegedly).

It turns out all of us dangerous gambling delinquents have something in common with the Iranians– we’re both fans of non-government-sanctioned internet gambling.

A British online gambling outfit called RummyRoyal has determined that the Islamic Republic of Iran has the highest ratio of online gamblers to population in all of Asia. This despite the fact that gambling is forbidden in Islam and under Sharia law.

Sasha Arkin, RummyRoyal’s game room manager, sees this as a good sign coming from Iran: “[T]hrough the exchange of messages and money, [Iranians] are breaking out of their isolation imposed by the State.”

It’s nice to know that the US and Iran, two countries often at odds with each other, have something in common: a propensity for passing dumb laws and an inability to enforce them. (Also we both like gambling.)