Scientists & great thinkers as rock stars:

Monsters of Grok releases this brilliant T-shirt line replacing rock bands (everything from glam to industrial) with names of physicists, chemists, philosophers and an economist. I'm so impressed, I couldn't decide between the two above to post here.

Hanna Solo

Yes.

How not to run a national surveillance unit

Photoblogger Edu Bayer of the Wall Street Journal shares some terrific photos from inside a six story building in Tripoli, once used by Q'addaffi's secret police to spy on Libyan citizens. For his efforts, Bayer grabs this gem; a cache of 3½ inch floppy disks, VHS videos, and completely disorganised arch lever files. Cutting edge technology from 'the Lion of Africa'!

Rob Beschizza over at BoingBoing points out that in the top photo (click to enlarge) we can see an innocent looking black box with yellow text centre-right. Yeah, that 1.44 means that those floppies are high density floppies. Rebels beware!

Look at this CD Sleeve!

Look at it!

Redditor this_time_i_mean_it shares this reclaimed 5 ¼ inch floppy disk, transformed into a rather handsome CD sleeve. Neat!

Please jump on the roof of my car

This motorist very may as well have had the eponymous as a bumper sticker. [Original photo by the blog author]

Two AI bots talking to each other

AI has a long way to go before our robots can pass for human in a free-wheeling conversation, but maybe not that long. In this video uploaded by Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab, two AI robots chit-chat for just over a minute. It's clunky and unrealistic, but if Cornell are putting adequate resources behind AI research, we can expect much more realism from our robots in the months and years to come.

Anonymous' tactics fill Time-Warner's coffers

Nick Bilton over at the NY Times points out that each instance in which an 'anonymous' protester purchases a Guy Fawkes mask, as pictured, Time-Warner (the multi-national and multi-billion dollar corporation) earns some scratch as it owns the rights to the design. This, of course, because the particular design originated from the 2006 flick V for Vendetta, and both the mask specifically and the film generally are owned by Time-Warner.

Now naturally 327 pixels wouldn't begrudge a company, no matter the size, their success (although Time-Warner hasn't had too much success recently); but the irony must be pointed out that in purchasing these masks, protesters typically defending peer-to-peer file sharing with the battle cry 'Information Wants to be Free', are, in fact, enriching one of the worlds largest content owners. 

It's dangerous to go walkies alone, wear this

Dog clothing retailer YoungUrbanPuppy is selling, via Etsy and the Link to your left these slightly adorable and slightly concerning costumes for your canine pal.

I join Jay Leno in listing dressed-up dogs as one of my pet peeves, so please, only for Halloween, guys.

Space invader couch

Avant-Garde design wizard Igor Chak produces this fun and whimsical space invader couch, as well as others, over at his dedicated website www.igorchak.com.

Hurricane Irene forms a Fibonacci spiral

Redditor rhennigan points out that Hurricane Irene closely follows a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is approximately φ, aka the Fibonacci spiral. Sweet!

gif.tv goes live

With a simple URL, simple interface, memorable name and a single-serving site concept, http://www.gif.tv is an excellent little website, and the best new website I've seen all month.

German firm builds gorgeous little engines

German engineering firm Böhm Sterling-Technik (who I've only just discovered) have released a series of little engines which run on ethanol, and are engineered with extreme precision.

Pictured is one of their larger examples 'Classic Smoking'. Although they don't perform any function, they could become a component in another project (such as a funky, geeky clock) or as ornaments in a modern home.

A clock that tells the time using words

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "From now on, we'll be spelling everything with words". These clocks are over at Instructables with everything you need to build your own, up to the functional clock pictured (you still may need to add a nice frame).

The craftsman responsible for this clock, Doug Jackson, has a dedicated site wherein he sells complete kits starting at the not-to-be-sneezed-at price of $145 for the basic model pictured, and a vinyl-faced model for an additional $15.

Balloon animal Link

Incredible!

Found on generic lolcat site cSlacker, origin unknown.

Proposed zodiac system based on pop-culture

The so-called 'geek zodiac', a larger version of which may be found here, is the brainchild of fellow geeks James Write and Josh Eckert. They take the concept of the Chinese zodiac, with ones birth year determining which sign one has, but use heroes and villains from pop-culture in place of animals.

Not being a Samurai, whose seed year is 1910 on account of my favourite director Akira Kurosawa's birth no less, I can't say I'm too pleased with my sign; then again, I was never happy with my Chinese sign anyway. Who wants to be an ox or a monkey when you can be a dragon?

Online electronics retailer Sparkfun allows you to view their entire product range as ASCII art... for some reason.

Have you ever been shopping online for electronic components and left wondering what your desired product would look like as ASCII art? Well neither had I, but I suppose somebody must have to motivate online electronics retailer Sparkfun to convert images of their entire product line to ASCII art.

The picture above depicts three items, all from their top seller range. Can you pick them? You may spy a 9 volt power supply on the left, a voltage regulator on the right, and that happy little chap in the middle is a humble 25c ceramic capacitor.

I certainly don't mean to discourage Sparkfun, it's truly something different, but I must say it did leave me scratching my head.

Australian Geographic sells a Rubik's Cube coffee mug

On sale at Australian Geographic stores, and on their website right now is this rather curious Rubik's Cube coffee mug. No, it's not a functional cube and nothing on it can turn.

It's a little ugly, but you must admire the concept. Perhaps with a little more ingenuity, a solvable cube-cup could be engineered with moving blocks; just in case, you know, your morning coffee routine isn't mentally strenuous enough as is.

Do Aston Villa's new Jerseys celebrate the beauty of the pixel?

This may be a bit of a stretch, but the Aston Villa jersey for this season seems to celebrate the humble pixel. I didn't realise this until I found myself combing through the internet for a replay of the Villa v Blackburn game, but the away Jersey (pictured, as worn by star striker Gabriel Agbonlahor) in particular reminds me of the background of this blog.

Re-imagining of film posters for the original Star Wars trilogy

Okay, okay, these have been bouncing around the internet for over six months now. Nevertheless, I feel 327 pixels would be remiss if it didn't chronicle, at least in retrospect, these wonderful creations by graphic genius Olly Moss

EDIT: here are the larger poster images

Beautiful French data center is a triumph of form and function

This data center was recently completed in the city of Roubaix on the French side of the Franco-Belgian border. It is not only beautiful, but is also optimised for external airflow, minimising the need for money-chomping air conditioning systems; so the locals have cheaper data storage and something nice to look at.

"The OVH Roubaix facility treats the cube shaped building as an air handler." Reports Rich Miller over at Data Center Knowledge. "Outside air enters the facility through louvers in the exterior wall. The air travels through the racks of servers, and then exits the IT corridor via large fans behind the racks, which vent the air outside into the open center."

The company behind the project, French data firm OVH, expects to install over 35,000 servers in their new building.

A multi-tool for every geek's keychain

Currently on sale over at Fred is this wonderful looking Space Invader Intruder Multitool.

Modeled on the ubiquotous fourth-row alien, this keyring certainly looks the part. The drawback, however, is that it's a "multitool" which only has a bottle opener and two screwdrivers, so don't go throwing away your Victorianox just yet.

Look at my Post-It Note Megaman

Look at it!

All it took was 2 beers, 327 post-it notes and one seemingly endless search for black post-its.

EDIT: click here for a larger photo.