The show was trying to figure out how fast a cannonball could travel, when it misfired and shot hundreds of feet in the air, eventually going through someone’s home, hitting another roof and finally entering a minivan and hitting the dashboard.

When it hit the first home, it entered through the front door and bounced around, heading to the second floor before leaving through a back bedroom wall.

“This cannonball was supposed to go through several barrels of water and through a cinder block, and then ultimately into the side of the hill,” according to J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jj-CErr0VOY

The team was at the Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation as usual and they must have fired this thing with enormous power to do so much devastation.

[via cbslocal]

Long story short, Hough only received minor injuries and Harris is now a local hero. There are however a couple of kryptonites in this story: for some reason the Associated Press says that there were no witnesses to Harris’ feats. Ummm… what about the kid he saved? And the driver? And the people nearby? Also, lifting a car isn’t the same as rolling it off of something – or in this case, someone – which, as some of the Boing Boing commenters have pointed out, seems to be what actually happened based on Harris’ accounts. But regardless of what really happened, it’s Harris’ quick response to the emergency that makes him a hero in my book. It’s also funny how Harris tried to repeat his feat later that day but failed to lift any more cars. Maybe your powers only work if someone is in need sir. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the adrenaline.

[via Boing Boing]

Well now you can, thanks to this little bit of modern technology from Korea’s Selfic Technologies.The Selfic Cube 7100 mounts on the windshield or dashboard of your car, and captures your every move on a built in digital video recorder.

The tiny black box camera (appx. 1″ x 1″ x 2″) features a 360-degree swivel mount and can record each of your driving sessions, automatically tracking date and time stamps, as well as the speed of your vehicle, your exact GPS coordinates and any shock due to an impact. And it can also record audio, so if you decide to turn the camera on yourself and your passengers and shoot your own episode of Taxicab Confessions, you can do that too.

The Selfic Cube can capture video at 640×480 resolution at 30fps, and stores all of its images and data on either a micro SD (2GB) or micro SDHC card (up to 8GB). Here’s a little bit of sample video shot with the Selfic that I found over on YouTube. Not exactly thrilling footage, but it sure would come in handy if you got broad-sided by a moose.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Of course if you get hit from behind, you’d better hope you bought a second one of these for the rear window. At this point the Selfic Cube 7100 is only available in Korea, but if you’re willing to deal with the translation and currency challenges you might be able to grab one over at the Early Adopter Shop for 207,000 South Korean Won (appx. $167 USD).

Unfortunately, the robot suddenly sprang into action and grabbed the man’s head. Let this be the 4th law of Robotics: Always approach a robot with a sense of trepidation.

Shia LeBouf The man managed to free himself from the robots’ grasp, but not before it broke four of his ribs. Public prosecutor Leif Johansson fined the company 25,000 kronor ($3,000 USD) for its “inadequate safety procedures”, but also acknowledged that the worker is partly to blame for what happened. Prosecutor Johansson is obviously a robot, as he did not fine or even reprimand the machine.

[via BB Gadgets]

Run down in the prime of his life, it’s unknown why Sonic was wandering around this parking lot in the North of England. Police report a that a number of golden rings were found scattered across the parking lot, fueling speculation that foul play was involved. The driver of the Opel Corsa couldn’t be located after the accident, but a rotund, egg-shaped man was seen fleeing from the scene carrying a briefcase full of emeralds.

[via UK Resistance]

Buttons on the sides of each car automatically trigger ejector seats that make its passengers and driver go airborne on contact. A carefully placed side impact should propel two of the occupants, but it’ll take a serious rollover wreck to get all four of them out and eating the pavement.

Each car comes with an RF wireless remote control and is propelled by AA batteries. A pair of the crashing stock cars costs £24.99 (appx. $44.98 USD) over on I Want One Of Those.

The Clarion DriveEye camera automatically senses emergency braking and captures video before, during and after an accident. A G-force sensor detects aggressive braking and then automatically triggers a digital recorder.

It saves 15 seconds of footage in its buffer from right before the crash occurred, and an additional 5 seconds after impact. Since the device has no moving parts, and is encased in a heavy duty magnesium alloy housing, it should withstand all but the nastiest fender benders.

The camera can also be used to manually record video whenever you want, so I guess if you want to record your street racing escapades, you could.

The DriveEye is currently only available in Japan, and can be found from Yodobashi for ¥49,800 (about $412 USD.)

The SuddenStop is a high-tech license plate frame with motion sensors built into it. It calculates the G-force of the vehicle it’s mounted on, and if your braking force measures more than 0.7Gs (normal braking produces around 0.3Gs,) it immediately flashes super-bright LEDs to alert the driver behind them. This extra warning could seriously reduce the likelihood of accidents, since it might give drivers just a little more advance warning that something is wrong in front of them.

The $29.99 purchase price seems like a worthwhile investment if you don’t want to be rear-ended, but it’s too bad they haven’t invented something you could put on the front of your own car to detect the deceleration rate of the car in front of you. That way, you’d be protected from not just the handful of cars with one of these, but from all the people who don’t bother to buy one.

Seriously, this is a good idea, and maybe auto manufacturers will think to license (no pun intended) the technology to incorporate into their own vehicles.