unique and interesting: June 2007

Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Ultimate Bed

The Ultimate Bed, the bed that pays for itself.

A nice world clock with lots of extra information like world population, prison growth, Earth temperature, forest lost, cars produced, etc.

Rick Roll

Have you ever been 'Rick Rolled'?
Do you know what a 'Rick Roll' is?
Click here and you will find out.

FiveFingers is an alternative to conventional footwear. It's the first and only footwear to offer the exhilarating feelings of going barefoot. FiveFingers enhances your natural walking motion and gently spreads your toes to strengthen foot muscles, increase range of motion, and improve general foot health.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Beware Of Prince Charles

In the future, if Prince Charles decides to marry, somebody please warn the Pope. Why?
Here's why!

What are your chances of surviving a Zombie apocalyps?
Mine are very dim.

The Principality Of Hutt River

The Principality of Hutt River is Australia's oldest micronation. It has purported to be a self-proclaimed independent sovereign state since its foundation, but has never been recognised as such by the Commonwealth of Australia or any other state.

It is located on a large farming property 517 km north of Perth. The Principality of Hutt River was founded on April 21, 1970 by farmer Leonard George Casley, when he and his associates proclaimed their secession from the state of Western Australia.

Pictured here are His Royal Highness Prince Leonard and Her Royal Highness Princess Shirley.

Domain Hacks

A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain labels, especially the top-level domain, to spell out the full 'name' or title of the domain, making a kind of pun.

For example the second-level domain 'blo.gs' makes use of the top level domain .gs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) to spell 'blogs.'

Domain Hacks is a special domain name search utility. The name of this site, 'Presurfer' could be hacked into 'http://presurf.er' which means I should register the site in Eritrea.
Type in the name of your site and see what's possible.

How To Get Free Food At McDonalds

I'm not suggesting you try this yourself. This is only to show you how easy it is to get free food at McDonald's. But remember, it's actually stealing.

The animal in this picture has not been Photoshopped.
It's a zorse!
Dad was a zebra stallion, mum was a horse. The animal, called Eclyse, can be seen at a safari park in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock, Germany.

(via J-Walk Blog)

Yesterday I posted an item about Guerilla Marketing. Presurfer reader cb from digimills said in the comments he prefered Guerilla Gardening. I had never heard of Guerilla Gardening before.

Guerilla Gardening is all about the illicit cultivation of neglected public space. It is political gardening, a form of nonviolent direct action. Activists take over an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.

Some guerrilla gardeners carry out their actions at night, in relative secrecy, to sow and tend a new vegetable patch or flower garden. Others work more openly, seeking to engage with members of the local community.

Beware The Dangers Of Oxygen

There's a caustic substance common to our environment whose very presence turns iron into brittle rust, dramatically increases the risk of fire and explosion, and sometimes destroys the cells of the very organisms that depend on it for survival.

This substance that makes up 21% of our atmosphere is Diatomic oxygen, more widely know as just oxygen.

The Radical Rodents

The Radical Rodents are the coolest and hippest mice in the world. They are all mad keen surfers and their names are Chopsticks, Bunsen, Harry and Curly.

(via Miss Cellania)

Beautiful miniature motorcycles made from watch parts.

The Lion Whisperer

Animal behaviourist Kevin Richardson has such an intimate bond with big cats that he can spend the night curled up with them without the slightest fear of attack. Richardson, 32, who is based in a wildlife conservation area near Johannesburg in South Africa, works his unusual magic on other species too. Cheetahs, leopards and even unpredictable hyenas hold no threats for him.

Kevin says he is most confident with animals he has known since birth, but claims he can become close friends with any lion less than a year old, when it is still flexible enough to accept him as part of its own pride.

Article via Neatorama.
Visit Nothing To Do With Arbroath to see videos of Kevin Richardson in action.

Female expressions.
The ultimate cheat sheet for dealing with your girlfriend.

The rare recurve-billed bushbird, recently rediscovered by scientists in Colombia after a 40-year absence, sports a curving beak that gives the illusion of an enigmatic smile. This photograph is the first ever taken of a live bushbird.

10 Useless Or Even Dangerous First Aid Myths

Tip your head back to stop a nosebleed. Slap a raw steak on a black eye. Pee on a jellyfish sting. Suck venom from a snakebite.

Old wives tales, that's what these often heard remedies are. If you try any of these myths, you may run the risk of having an adverse reaction or the opposite result of what you would like to happen.

10 useless or even dangerous first aid myths.

Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional way of performing promotional activities on a very low budget.

Such promotions are sometimes designed so that the target audience is left unaware they have been marketed to.

More examples of guerilla marketing.

A free collection of 'Weigh Less... Wireless' cell phone images for the iPhone.

The images are meant to help you remember to make healthier choices in what you're eating as often as you can, or if you really want to eat some fast food or a special treat, at least slow down and enjoy every bite. 'Weigh Less... Wireless' images are meant to be your 'digital conscience' whenever you need them.

(thanks Jay)

The Sonic chair offers a special auditive experience because you sit in the middle of the sound center. Whether you enjoy a symphony orchestra, a pop concert or a radio play - the integrated loudspeakers are finely co-ordinated with your hearing.

Several impact sound generators in the seat and backrest support the deep frequencies and give you the feeling of being there 'live.' The open building method provides for a resonance-friendly, balanced sound area.

Psychological Card Trick

A card trick created by Richard Wiseman. The first time you watch this you probably wonder how it is done. Watch it a second time and I'm sure you'll figure it out.

The Map Room

The Map Room is a weblog that points to maps, map collections, map-related resources, and material about maps on the web. Anything that fits under that rubric, from medieval mappæ mundi to satellite imagery, and from topo maps to Tolkien, is fair game.

Launched in March 2003, The Map Room is aimed at a broad audience. While GIS professionals and cartographers seem to enjoy reading it, it's meant to be accessible to anyone with nothing more than an interest in maps.

This happened just a couple of miles from where I live.

A driver who was high on cocaine destroyed an entire cornfield in an attempt to escape from the police. Four police cars were destroyed before the 35-year-old crashed into a ditch and was arrested, near the village of Dussen in the south of the Netherlands.

Are you one of those people who taps at the bottom of an inverted ketchup bottle, waiting in frustration for the sauce to pour? I am speaking of traditional ketchup bottles, not squeeze tubes, wide-mouth jars, or bottles designed to stand on their heads. Have you ever wondered if there is a right way to do it – a way that works, and makes scientific sense?

Yes, there is a right way to do it, and it does make sense.

(via Czeltic Girl)

ScienceHack

ScienceHack is a unique video search engine for science videos. Every video is screened and approved based on accuracy and quality by scientists.

So far the following fields of science are indexed: Physics, Chemistry, and Space. Coming soon: Geology, Psychology, Robotics and Computer.

Nikola-Lenivets is a tiny village in the Kaluga region in Russia. Recently it has become well-known in Moscow art circles thanks to Timur Bashkayev's 'Half-Bridge of Hope,' a giant wedge that plunges over the outcropping's edge and tapers to nothing at a height of about 10 meters above the ground.

10 strangest weapons through history.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

The Dramatic Prairie Dog

Remember the video of the 'Dramatic Prairie Dog' I posted last Thursday? Now someone created a weblog dedicated to the little critter. Dozens of people have send their own version of this video.

We're Not From Here

Scientist from the University of Massachusetts announced that the Sun, the Moon, our planet and its siblings, were not born into the familiar band of stars known as the Milky Way galaxy. It seems we actually belong to a strange formation with the unfamiliar name of the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.

Using volumes of data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey, a major project to survey the sky in infrared light, the astronomers are answering questions that have baffled scientists for decades and proving that our own Milky Way is consuming one of its neighbors in a dramatic display of ongoing galactic cannibalism.

Apple Form Factor Evolution. From 1976 through 2007.

Here are some amazing pictures of the history of Apple.

The Best Otter Video Ever

(via Everlasting Blort)

More about otters at Cute Otters.

Linkdump

10 Reasons To Drink More Water

What Spices to Use

Timeline of Web Browsers

Funny Vegetables

Top 10 Uses for Used Coffee Grounds

Tricks to Keep Your House Cool this Summer

If fire was made of water.

Ancient Astronauts

The term 'Ancient Astronauts' generally refers to extraterrestrials who came to Earth and were in some way responsible for seeding the human race. There are references to these entities in the bible, in ancient art and other texts.

Most of us would love to find evidence of ancient astronauts, be visited by friendly aliens who could enlighten us to our true creational blueprint. Throughout the history of the human drama, we find all sorts of evidence that makes us think, believe, and quest for the greater truth. They are all just myths, legends, and theories...

Eleven of the most-dead soft drinks, each with its own story to tell, each way past its expiration date.
Relive the glories of things you used to drink.

Amsterdam Bicycles

Someone from San Francisco, USA, took 82 pictures of bicycles during 73 minutes in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

I stopped in Amsterdam, Netherlands on my way back from a motorcycle trip. During a 73 minute period at one corner of a nice open square, I took 82 pictures of bicycles.

Why? Because sitting there I noticed how remarkably different the whole Amsterdam bicycle scene was from my home, and at the same time certain very clear 'Amsterdam Bicycle Trends' appeared I thought might be interesting to point out.

(via Look At This...)

The Hanging Bridge Of Bilbao

I've never seen a bridge like the Hanging Bridge of Bilbao in Spain. Officially opened in 1893, it was built by engineer Alberto de Palacio, a disciple of the Frenchman Gustave Eiffel. The bridge transports people and cars across the river Nervión every few minutes.

(via deputydog)

You're in the drivers seat.
Use your keyboard. Show no mercy.

Soap is a pointing device based on hardware found in a mouse, yet works in mid-air. Soap consists of an optical sensor device moving freely inside a hull made of fabric. As the user applies pressure from the outside, the optical sensor moves independent from the hull.

Bird Chases A Squirrel

(via Nothing To Do With Arbroath)

Home Schooled

Home Schooled is a comics series by American artist Ash Jackson.
Co-writing by Silas Jackson.
The Presurfer will feature a Home Schooled cartoon every Monday. This is an absolute exclusive cooperation between The Presurfer and Ash Jackson.

Home Schooled is more or less a reflection of the wacky and occasionally interesting adventures of the artist, Ash Jackson, himself, with the aid of his friends, family, and other cohorts.

Title: Can I get a pizza, four espressos... and meatballs!

click on the picture for real size

Progressive Boink's list of the Top 50 Muppets.

Creator Olivier Peyricot calls it a self-service design. It's a padded cushion you can wear as a backpack and use it as a seat wherever you are. It doesn't seem to feel uncomfortable wearing it but it does make you look kind of stupid.

A Worth1000 Photoshop contest.

Obviously, Hollywood has been improving its stars with photomanipulation for years: erasing wrinkles, removing fat, filling in bald spots. But they haven't been able to create entirely new paragons of beauty from scratch - at least not yet.

For this contest, we want you to assemble the ultimate beauty from the pieces and parts of existing celebrities. Show us a star with Angelina's lips, Jennifer's nose, Farrah's hair, and Bette Davis eyes. Add in some body work from Pamela or JLo.

Step aside Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and Steve Jobs... because I am by far the Supreme Computer God! At least that was the outcome of the 'Are You a Computer Geek' quiz I took. According to the dictionary a geek is a technically oriented person, someone with limited social skills who likes to tinker with scientific or high-tech projects.

That's not me! I don't consider myself a geek and I am certainly not socially inept. Maybe I scored that high because I know a lot about computers. I've had one for over 30 years now and I know how to program in Basic.
How about you? Are you a Computer Geek?

(via BrykMantra)

Linkdump

How to Memorize Anything

Laurence Hutton Collection of Life and Death Masks

12 of the Best Music Social Networks

Do Not Use Wayne as Your Child's Middle Name

Philosophy of History

When you think Formula One cars, you think 'fast', then 'logos'. Well, most normal people do. And for the simple reason they're fast, and usually covered in logos, lots of logos. At Red Bull, we like the idea that our Formula 1 cars go fast, but thought it would be rather nice to see our fans on our cars and to hell with the logos.

So at Silverstone, England, on July 8, we've made it possible for everyone who wants to, to stick a photo - any photo - on the side of one of our cars. All we ask in return is that you make a minimum donation of £10 to the charity Wings for Life.

Mensa is the largest, oldest, and best-known high-IQ society in the world. The organization restricts its membership to people with high testable IQs. Specifically, potential members must score within the top 2% of any approved standardized intelligence test.

Georgia Brown has become the youngest female member of Mensa after scoring a genius-rated IQ of 152. Her parents knew she was bright. After all, she could count to ten, recognised her colours and was even starting to dabble with French. But it was only when their bubbly little two-year-old took an IQ test that her towering intellect was confirmed.

Age Progression

Forensic Compositing does age progression/regression to help investigators solve crimes and find missing people. This service is also available for the general public. Ever wonder what your child will look like in 10 years? Have you lost a loved one and are wondering what they would look like now?

You can upload a photo and for $199 Forensic Compositing will make the person look older. They also combine 2 peoples features to predict what their children will look like. Here's what Elvis would look like if he were still alive.

(via J-Walk Blog)

Something very odd happened in the early mourning hours of February 25, 1942. An aircraft flew over LA County that sparked an air raid alert. Searchlights and guns were locked onto the aircraft for about an hour. That alert was unlike any other.

The picture above appeared in the LA Times in a story about the Battle of Los Angeles. It clearly shows a night time defensive response to an air raid. The men firing the guns weren't desperately searching the sky trying to find a target. They clearly had a focus for their efforts.

More on the Battle of Los Angeles.

MythBusters Results

MythBusters is an American popular science television program on the Discovery Channel starring special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who use their skills and expertise to test the validity of various rumors and urban legends in popular culture.

MythBusters Results shows the outcome of every experiment from season 1 until now.

Weird painted cats.

The 80s Movies Rewind

A site to learn about those awesome retro movies that made the '80s one of the most exciting and diverse in cinema history. Like an online eighties encyclopedia, there are pages full of info, pictures, trivia, soundtrack details, trailers, filming locations and much, much more.

Art by UK based designer Nik Ainley.

What's My Blog Rated?

If this blog was a movie, what would it be rated? I try to keep this weblog accessible for all ages. You won't find any shocking items, obscene writing or pictures of naked ladies here. And I think I'm doing a good job with that, because my blog was rated G.

Of course, this is just a nice little gadget to play around with. I don't think it has real value because the rating is determined based on the presence of 'bad' words.

Apparently I used the word 'kill' twice and the word 'death' once. Those are hardly 'bad' words, are they? One of my other sites, The Generator Blog, was rated R (Restricted) because I used the words sexy, and zombie.

What's Your Blog Rated?

(via Nag on the Lake)

Norwegian Kids Mess With Train

The Alphabet of Horror.

The Women Of Wikipedia

From the bold to the beautiful, from the wicked to the wise, Wikipedia features women scientists, artists, entertainers, leaders, and entrepreneurs.

The Women of Wikipedia.

Half the fun of traveling is getting out and enjoying all sorts of foods you're not used to eating. A simple trip to the corner market or grocery store in a foreign land can keep you amused for hours.

This is the Tele Atlas map machine, a Toyota van tricked out with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras, laser range detectors and global positioning hardware.

In 2004 Tele Atlas, a Dutch company, started Mobile Mapping, a state-of-the-art field data capture technology that utilizes survey vehicles and vans to capture digital information about specific road details and rich images faster and more accurately than traditional methods allow.

The Abydos Helicopter And Secrets Of The Golden Section

At Abydos, Egypt, in the ancient temple built by Seti I, and his son Ramses II, on a heavy stone slab supporting the ceiling are hieroglyphical writings, which are illustrated by a most eye catching, and thought provoking scene - an array of four futuristic craft.

If this were modern art, we would have no doubt that it clearly shows a helicopter next to a stacked formation of three harder to identify advanced craft. Disavowal stems strictly from the fact that this art is over 3,000 years old, and we know that there was no advanced technology and science in our misty past - don't we?

Dramatic Chipmunk

The best 5-seconds-video on the internet.

Alex Chiu is a San Francisco, California businessman who has invented a number of products that he claims achieve remarkable results in healing. He is best known for his Immortality Device.

Now he has a new product called Gorgeouspil.

This pill was named 'Gorgeous Pil' because it turns a user prettier every time the pill was taken. The user will gradually look PERFECT, even more gorgeous than super models. You will one day reach PHYSICAL PERFECTION!!

If your head is too big, this pill will shrink your head size. If your nose is too large, it is believed that this pill will reduce the size of your nose. If your eyes are ugly, this pill will gradually make your eyes look beautiful. If any part of your body is deformed, this pill will force the cells to re-align thus making that body part look normal. If you are too skinny, this pill will give you more muscles. If your back is crooked, this pill will straighten up your back.

Journey To Chernobyl

Yesterday I posted The Ghost of Chernobyl, a series of photos of dead towns around Pripyat 21 years after the major nuclear power plant accident on April 26, 1986.

Presurfer reader Mark visited the Chernobyl area in June 2006> He toured the Chernobyl Plant (including the Reactor 4 control room), several of the abandoned villages, and Pripyat.
He posted a photo journal of his trip on his website.

Sorted Books is a project by Nina Katchadourian. The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom.

The final results are shown either as photographs of the book clusters or as the actual stacks themselves, shown on the shelves of the library they were drawn from.

(via Neatorama)

Use our simple reservation system to schedule your appointment when you want it, and select the type and quantity of bacon. Do not make a mistake when filling out your information. Lying to the computer is punishable by death.

When your appointment comes, a specially-trained BaconRobots android will arrive, ready to cook bacon. Within ninety minutes of her arrival, our android will have a flaming hot plate of bacon for you to eat. You never knew mostly-synthetic bacon could taste this good.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Inkjet Printers Are Filthy, Lying Thieves

A new study says that on average, more than half of the ink from inkjet cartridges is wasted when users toss them in the garbage.

According to the study, users are tossing the cartridges when their printers are telling them they're out of ink, not when they necessarily are out of ink.

Kashif

Kashif dances on America's Got Talent.

(thanks Jessica)

The World is in Your Hands.
A project by photographer Michael Hughes.

Hillary Spoofs 'Sopranos' Finale

A diner and a jukebox. A nostalgic song. A long fade to black. It worked as a finale for 'The Sopranos.' It now marks a new beginning for 'The Clintons.' Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign unveiled its new campaign song with a web video that spoofs the final scene of the popular HBO mobster series.

To announce the winner of her campaign song contest, Hillary Clinton takes Tony's seat in the diner. She orders for the table. With a special appearance by Bill Clinton. Where's Chelsea? Parallel parking.

Listen to the winner.

In August 2006, the yacht 'Maiken' was travelling in the south Pacific when they came across a weird sight.

Vatican Issues 10 Commandments For Motorists

Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

That's one of the 10 commandments the Vatican issued yesterday. The set of commandments tells motorists not to kill, not to drink and drive, and to help fellow travelers in case of accidents. It warned about the effects of road rage, saying driving can bring out 'primitive' behavior in motorists, including 'impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code.'

Most photogenic chess players of the Torino Chess Olympiad 2006.

(thanks Sanja)

Have A Slogan

Terrible things mixed with popular commercial slogans. Click on Murphy (that's the guy pointing his finger) to generate a random slogan.

Get your own slogan generator.

(via Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm)

Linkdump

39 Ways to Live, and Not Merely Exist

Old Vinyl

Worst Photoshop Ever

The World's Worst Currencies

The Ghost of Chernobyl.

(via Look At This...)

Art, female identity, and day-to-day life intersect in Melissa Ann Pinney's photographs. Deeply focused on the worlds of her daughter and other girls, Pinney's work tells a story of girlhood as it's being written.

(thanks The Morning News)

Pages - Menu

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Friday, June 29, 2007

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Monday, June 25, 2007

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Friday, June 22, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Tuesday, June 19, 2007