Techie Gist: Latest Gists on Technology & Gadgets!

[techieguy]

Sous vide is the four-star chef's secret to perfectly cooking almost anything. That kind of precision requires expensive gear—unless you build it yourself. Cooking for Geeks shows us how to engineer this miracle cooking technology ourselves.         



There's never been a better time to be in the kitchen as a hacker. In the past few years, the swinging doors leading into the kitchens of high-end restaurants such as wd~50, minibar, and el Bulli have been opened up, revealing kitchens that would be more familiar to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Willy Wonka than the esteemed French Chef Auguste Escoffier. Vacuum chambers. Centrifuges. Cold plates. Water baths. To an outsider, the hardware in modernist cuisine must seem maddeningly insane. With a little explanation—and some tinkering—not only can you understand these tools, you can make your own versions. Here's how.

How to Steal a Four-Star Chef's Secret Cooking Technology—By Building It Yourself [Food]

[techieguy]

Glass balls, tacky sequined stars, little trains—most ornaments suck. But these custom Lego designs from Giz illustrator emeritus Powerpig, do not suck. They are the coolest tree-adornment we've seen in some time. Here's how to make you own.

      

Powerpig's site offers more than one way to piece together some plastic cheer. You might think November is a little early to start picking out Christmas tree ornaments—but Powerpig is looking out for you. See, designs mapped out in Lego's Digital Designer software can only have their parts custom ordered from Lego's warehouses up until around November 27th—so if you get crackin' now, you'll have your own beautiful brick balls in time for the holiday.   

Build a Lego Ornament with Powerpig [Lego]

[techieguy]

Afraid of heights? These may not be the videos for you. Alain Robert, the real-life spiderman, scales towering monuments across the globe—sans ropes, or security of any kind, for that matter. Don't slip, dude!            

http://www.youtube.com/v/VfBitUoDWjM?fs=1&hl=en_US
12 Gravity-Defying Videos of the Real-Life Spiderman [Video]

[techieguy]

T-Mobile claims the largest "4G" network in the country. Verizon's launching its "4G" LTE network later this year. And Sprint loves talking about "4G" WiMax. Thing is, none of these networks are actually 4G. Not by a long shot.         


The Dirty Secret of Today's 4G: It's not 4G [4G]

[techieguy]

The internet was totally grossed out recently by images that showed a McDonald's hamburger sitting out in the open for six months without decomposing or rotting. But one blogger dug a bit deeper, and it turns out no hamburgers rot.

            

Well, no burgers that are roughly the shape and size of McDonald's plain burger, anyway. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt over at Serious Eats was tired of people slagging off the Happy Meal burger without any real scientific sense of what was going on. The Happy Meal burger doesn't rot, sure, but he wanted to know why it doesn't rot.

The Truth Behind the Everlasting Happy Meal: Burgers That Size Don't Rot [Debunkery]

[techieguy]

Let's be honest: if you really had the power of inception, you wouldn't waste it on something as mundane as corporate espionage. You'd do exactly what this guy does. Creep.            

http://www.youtube.com/v/8avQkpnpaXs?version=3            

This Week's Top Web Comedy Video: A Gross Misuse of Inception [Video]

[techieguy]

                                                                                                                                             Adafruit's $2,000 bounty for an open source Kinect driver hack was only offered up late last week and already someone has allegedly delivered, said Adafruit's Phillip Torrone in an email to us just now. This was inevitable.            More »             

Microsoft Kinect Hacked? Already?! [Video]

[techieguy]

                                                                                                                                              Remember the iPhone recurring alarm DST bug that affected Australians and Europeans, making them oversleep? Well, I didn't. It just happened to me and I'm sure it has happened to you too. If it did, write to us in the comments.            More »             

Did You Oversleep Because Your iPhone OS Alarm Failed Today? [Video]

[techieguy]

                                                                                        Just like last year, Google is paying the Wi-Fi for people flying to meet their relatives—or run away from them—during the holidays. You just need to fly the right airline.            More »             

How To Get Free In-flight Wi-Fi From Google [Free]

[techieguy]

                                                                                                                                             "Breaking News," the first single from Michael Jackson's forthcoming posthumous album Michael, is pretty awful. But that might not be Michael's fault! While Sony insists the track's legit, Jackson's nephews say that it actually isn't MJ singing at all. Controversy!            More »             

Is the New Michael Jackson Song a Complete Fake? [Video]