Remember when you were a kid and you'd watch those aerobics shows that came on the morning to see the instructor bend over in tights? Me neither *wink* but this is a bunch of Predators dancing around in what I can only assume is some sort of f***ed up mating ritual. Hey, still beats taking a girl out to dinner and convincing her you're a doctor.

Lionel Douglass -AKA- Big "D" is a member of the original Don Campbellock dance group the "Lockers" He is also the creator of this dance act and one of the Predators of this number. Lionel Douglass -AKA- Big "D" will be the last one dancing doing the "Alpha". Yes that is Danny Glover in the video.

Danny Glover, no way! I loved you in the Lethal Weapon series! Tell me, how was working with Mel "Sugartits" Gibson. Did he ever call you anything funny? Saltballs? Pepperpeener? Youtube Thanks to Keryn, who kept waiting for them to do the electric slide but they never did because it's a known fact Predators can't slide for shit.

Members of MIT's Bits and Atoms lab visited Afghanistan some time ago. While there, they showed locals how to turn pieces of board, wire, a plastic tub and some cans into reflectors for a wireless network. The result? Fab Fi.

The project resulted in 25 simultaneous live nodes being up in the city of Jalalabad and residents being able to enjoy a stable connection all over the place. Locals are even expanding the network by adding more reflectors and routers. There are some difficulties in actually obtaining the routers though, but the MIT crew—now dubbed the Jalalabad Fab Lab—are helping resolve those by shipping routers over.

On the surface this is a tale of some clever University MacGyvers, a small place in Afghanistan, and a makeshift Wi-Fi network, but the greater idea is that people came together to provide a new method of communication to an area where Skype calls and quick Google searches weren't a common luxury. Sure, now the area is exposed to time wasters and Internet porn, but it's also been provided some new opportunities to learn and explore. [Free Range International via Futurismic via Boing Boing]

There's no place like home when it comes to security, and VPNs allow you to connect into a home network securely from a remote location. This week we want to hear about your favorite software for the task.

Photo by ryan_franklin_az.

Virtual Private Networks are networks built, virtually, over existing networks. You could, as a simple example, set up a VPN so that you and a friend could play a LAN-based game from two different locations. Businesses often have VPNs set up for the army of laptops they have roaming around in employee hands, keeping everyone on the same secure network regardless of where they travel.

This week we want to hear about your favorite software for establishing and maintaining VPNs and why the tool is your favorite.

Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: VPN Software. Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.

About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get: "Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Five Best Music Streaming Services.

OK, not really, but Canon was indeed giving out these novelty coffee mugs -- in the shape of an EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens -- at the Winter Olympic's press center, and here's Microsoft's Josh Weisberg (Director of Rich Media Group) showing off his swag to the whole world. Yes, we're just a bit envious. So anyone got a spare Canon L-Series lens that we can tamper with? Or maybe that big-daddy Sigma lens if you're game with sharing coffee?

Canon captures your coffee in a 70-200mm telephoto lens originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox/Chrome: Sure it's nice and all that we get Gmail for free, but those ads to the right of open messages aren't really all that helpful. Free browser add-on Rapportive replaces Gmail ads with contact info about the sender.

Beyond installing it, there's nothing to using Rapportive. You have to give it access to a minimum of information to get started (looks like your name and email address, via your Google account). Then whenever you open an email, it cross-references the email of the sender with various social networking sites, then fills the ad space with whatever information it finds.

As ReadWriteWeb points out, some users may be wary to trust a third-party add-on with their inbox, but your Gmail credentials don't end up with Rapportive, and they don't have any access to your password. My take: If you can get over the tin-foil hat concerns, it's an extremely cool extension worth trying out.

Alright, so maybe Nessie isn't lighting up my living room just yet, but you can bet that if this concept lamp design ever gets produced, she will. The big question though: Shall I put her on a wall or ceiling?

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Nessie the Lamp was designed by 2-B-2 Architecture and is everything I want in a lamp. It's silly, curvy, and can be split into pieces if I ever get bored of it. Somebody please produce this thing already. [Yanko Design]

Valtteri Halla -- Nokia employee and one-half of MeeGo's Technical Steering Group -- has blogged up a storm this week about the first baby steps that'll get the platform off the ground from its Moblin and Maemo roots, and from the sounds of things, we'll be able to get our first glimpse at it on production hardware before the month's out. Currently, the plan is to open up MeeGo's code repository to all comers "by the end of this month," targeting both Atom boards and the N900. Now, we certainly wouldn't say that MeeGo's decision to use the N900 as an early target device is indicative of an official upgrade down the line -- but this is particularly interesting in light of the fact that we've never gotten a commitment out of Nokia to bump its latest MID to Maemo 6. And besides, considering that the average N900 customer is a bit of a hacker in his or her own right, let's be honest: a code repository that supports the phone is just about as good as an official gold build anyhow.

MeeGo repository going public later this month, coming to Nokia N900 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/03pCyixPuws&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); Hey, Topeka, Kansas! Duluth, Minnesota is calling you out for changing your name to Google in an attempt to get Google's Gigabit fiber Internet. They're announcing that all firstborn children shall be named Google Fiber.

Ah, thank goodness for that lengthy disclaimer at the beginning of the video or I'd have thought they were serious. [Thanks, Draven301!]

Designer Brad Colbow details how to download an audio book from the Cleveland Public Library (or why DRM doesn't work), YouTube adds closed captioning to all videos, and a Google employee predicts that "in three years time desktops will be irrelevant."

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

• Why DRM Doesn't Work?
  Another side of the same coin as why piracy works. [The Brads]
• Platform shifts Mainframe to Mini to PC to Mobile. Why leaders fail to make the shift
  Google Europe's John Herlihy says "In three years time desktops will be irrelevant." [The Next Big Thing]
• Adobe Demos Flash 10.1 for Android on the Nexus One [VIDEO]
  See what Flash on mobile devices is shaping up to be. [Mashable]
• 
  newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/EbmnvikY0rg&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} );
• Opera downloads triple after browser ballot screen debut
  Windows users in Europe now see a browser ballot screen to let them choose a browser rather than giving them IE as the default, and already competitors are seeing the difference. [Computerworld]
• YouTube Gets Automatic Captioning For All Videos
  The closed captioning uses the same basic speech recognition software used in Google Voice, meaning you can expect some translation doozies for a while. [Gizmodo]
• ‘Google' Hackers Had Ability to Alter Source Code
  "[T]he hackers gained access to software-configuration management systems (SCM), which could have allowed them to surreptitiously make changes to the code." [Wired]
• Apple yanks Wi-Fi detectors from iTunes
  Not sure what good reason they've got for this one, but Wi-Fi detectors that actively scan for hotspots are now forbidden from the App Store. [The Register]
• Dev Channel Update
  Most interesting: Geolocation API available in early stages for all platforms, Macs see improved plug-in stability. [Google Chrome Releases]
• An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits
  All those wacky phone manufacturers are sue-crazy. [NYT]
• Google Index to Go Real Time
  Everything trends toward real-time. [RWW]