unique and interesting: March 2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

Soccer Throw In

This girl has a far more impressive throw-in technique than any male soccer player.

Last Sunday I posted about Webcam girl MRirian, also know as Magi or Magibon) who, in her videos, did nothing else than stare into the camera.

Presurfer reader Miameetza says this whole MRirian phenomena is probably just a viral marketing campaign for a Japanese horror movie.

But on different forums across the internet it is said that her real name is Maggie Ririan. She seems to live in Virginia with her family and she pretends to be Japanese. One of her fans, who calls himself Frank, not only made a fan-video but registered the site magibon.com and put up a real freak-show in order to gain her attention.

So it's not clear what this is all about. A girl wanting some attention. a stalker, an artist or even a commercial media scam?

The Circle of Life.

A bookmark is a strip of material, as of ribbon or leather, or a metal clamp, that is placed between the pages of a book to mark the reader's place. Mirage Bookmark is the most comprehensive reference site on bookmarks.

Mirage Bookmark has a collection of outstanding bookmarks vintage and modern with designs in manifold shapes and make-up.

Found Comics are comics made from images randomly generated from the internet. A lot of them look like vacation photos. Plus there are a disturbing number of photos of people's cats for some reason. Captions are added and a little story is created.

(via Uncertain Times)

Really Stupid Sites

Do you know where you are? I mean, do you really know where you are? If you do, that's OK. If you don't, go here.

Oh, and here's what a simple web page looks like.

Just Ping shows whether your website is accessible from different cities of the world. Just Ping runs the ping command on your website from 25 different locations so you have a better idea about your site availability in different regions.

Cardboard Tron

Cardboard Tron is a stop motion remake of the Light Cycle sequence in Tron, the 1982 sci-fi cult classic. It was made by French filmmakers Freres-Hueon.

(via Neatorama)

nclüdr

nclüdr is the social network where everyone and everything is your friend. Tired of only having 60, 100, 200 friends? nclüdr is the most awesomest ultimate social network ever.

Upload photos or publish notes? Get the latest news from your friends? Post videos on your profile? Use privacy settings to control who sees your info? Not with nclüdr! But you can have that warm, comfortable feeling in knowing that everyone and everything around where you live, study, or work is your friend.

I signed up with nclüdr yesterday and I already have 12.3 billion friends!

Meatwater is dinner in a bottle. It comes in a variety of colors and flavors to satisfy any palate. And whether you seek simple nutrition or serious energy enhancement, MeatWater delivers. MeatWater creates a product in the marketplace that fulfills the desire for streamlined sustenance while embracing your inner carnivore.

Meatwater is available in the flavors Beef Jerky, Beef Stroganof, Cheese Burger, Chicken Teriyaki, Dirty Hot Dog, Fish'n Chips, Hungarian Gulash, Italian Sausage, Peking Duck, Tandoori Chicken, Texas BBQ, and Wiener Schnitzel.

Check your breath by breathing into the microphone on your computer. No microphone? No problem. Just type in what you last ate.

Test Your Breath.

You're Not Smart

Does your PHP network have double back-end XHTML redundancy? Is your PDA hard drive triple access enabled for Wi-Fi management? If you don't have end-point security in your adaptive architecture strategy, then you need us.

You don't understand things like Continuous Network Access Compliance Upload Speed (even though you pretend like you do at parties when people talk about it). You don't understand these things because you're not smart. But that's OK. We're smart. You can trust us.

If you hire us, you'll never see us in person. We might respond to your emails from time-to-time, but usually not. It's not that we're too busy to talk to you, it's just that your emails are usually so stupid that we're too busy laughing about them with everyone in the office.

MapJack

MapJack is like Google StreetView but with better quality. MapJack is a privately held company founded in 2006, a small team dedicated to high quality Immersive Street-Side Imagery.

MapJack's on a mission, on foot, by car, and by boat. Their coverage area doesn't stop street-side, they also include walking areas such as Parks, Universities and famous walking streets.

San Francisco was MapJack's starting point, and Sausalito and Chiang Mai in Thailand have been added. Coming soon are Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, Pacifica, Palo Alto, San Jose, and Las Vegas.

When you end up following a dead or incorrect link or mistype a URL, you are likely to end up on a 404 error page. It doesn't have to be a bad experience, though.
Here are 17 of the best 404 pages.

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: They call him 'Dylan, Satan-puncher.'

click on the picture for real size

The Laziest Camgirl Ever

Times were when a 'camgirl' had to do something to attract attention. Talk, walk around or whatever. This Japanese-American girl (or at least I think that's what she is) does absolutely nothing. Twenty-one year old MRirian, as she calls herself, just stares into the camera.

Still, in the past two months this 35 second video had 2,879,908 views. Maybe it's because she's so damn cute.

(thanks Marcella)

Like it or not, fake images are everywhere and have become a part of today's culture. Thanks to the popularity of digital cameras and the availability of desktop imaging software that allows users to easily manipulate images, fake images have become commonplace, especially on the Internet.

A fake image can be defined as an image of an object or scene that wasn't captured as the image would imply. In general, fake images are created to generate a deception, but not all fake images are bad. Identifying fake images can be straightforward if you know a few tricks.

Korean Drummer Steals The Show

I don't know the name of the band, the name of the song, or when this was recoreded. But watch the drummer.

(via Neatorama)

Linkdump

Gas and Flatulence Prevention Diet

7 Things You Should Know About Air Conditioning

Monoprints by Nick Cooper

Top 10 Detox Foods

David Cavanaugh, best known as the guy who says 'Previously on Heroes' at the beginning of the hit NBC program, revealed to reporters that his true career ambition is to become the guy who says 'Previously on Lost' on the popular ABC show Lost.

The secrets of windowsills.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Sardoodledom

Is that a word? Yes, it is! The definition of sardoodledom is 'mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterizations in drama.' In another word, melodrama.

Eleven year old Kennyi Aouad became a crowd favorite after he couldn't stop laughing when he was given this word. He could hardly believe it when he spelled the word correctly.

Most drivers vent a little steam when they get a parking ticket - and the number who appeal successfully proves they're often right to be annoyed.

But a new list of the most ridiculous parking tickets ever issued shows that almost nothing will stop the determined parking warden from slapping a ticket on a vehicle.

A savage fish more terrifying than a piranha has been caught in Britain for the first time - sparking fears of a deadly invasion. The vicious giant snakehead eats everything it comes across and has even been reported to kill people.

The monster - from south-east Asia - has a mouth crammed with fearsome teeth, can 'crawl' on land and survive out of water for up to four days. It is feared the fish had been smuggled in for an aquarium and then illegally released.

Mug shots made into cheesy studio portraits or glamour shots.

(via Weird Blogs)

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right

Social worker Julio Diaz is my hero.
What a great story.

(via kottke)

Elephant Paints Self Portrait

update: The backstory on this video.

This watch has been dubbed the 'Accurate' not so much for its abilities to keep accurate time, but for its reminder about our inevitable demise.

The Accurate watch continuously alerts us to the fact that life is short and that we should strive to seize the day.

Dropclock

Dropclock is an aesthetically intriguing motion clock screensaver. Every minute of real time is numerically expressed with heavy Helvetica dropping into water in super slow-motion.

Home businesses know they must seem successful to become successful. So they play Thriving Office while on the phone.

This valuable CD, which is filled with the sounds people expect to hear from an established company, provides instant credibility.

Thriving Office contains the sounds of voices, phones, computers, and much more. One 39-minute track is 'Busy' and the other is 'Very Busy.'

(via J-Walk Blog)

You've alle heard of the 'Face on Mars,' the 'Mother Teresa Cinnamon,' or the 'Twin Towers Demon.' Things that look like other things are often referred to as pareidolia.

A vague stimulus from an image or sound is being perceived as significant. A slight pattern in an object is perceived in our brain and linked to something we know in real life, such as a face or a religious symbol.

Here's a list of the top 20 things that look like things.

The Job

The Job is a comedic short film written and directed by Jonathan Browning. Taking a humorous look at the immigration debate, The Job pokes fun at a political hot-button issue.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Linkdump

25 Ways to Simplify Your Life with Kids

DIY Education: Teach Yourself

50 Tiny Health Habits that Can Save You Big Money

Top 15 Science Fiction Book Series

Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth. It's no joke. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel this month, Japan's space agency adopted it Wednesday for feasibility studies, and a well-known astronaut is interested in participating.

In the picture above, a 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide Space Shuttle-shaped paper plane is seen in a wind tunnel before a durability test at a Tokyo University laboratory.

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential to all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor. About 1,460 teratonnes of water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, mostly in oceans and other large water bodies.

Employed by cultures around the world in rituals and ceremonies, water bathes us from birth to death. Water is essential to life as we know it.

A video loop made out of 787 cliparts by Oliver Laric.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

The Cosmic People Of Light Powers

Ivo A. Benda is the leader of a strange Chech movement called the Cosmic People of Light Powers. What he has to say is weird, very weird!

People! Saurians from the dark worlds want to put chips into your bodies and enslave you like pitiful puppets!!! They already nowadays manipulate your thoughts and acts from 90 percent by means of remote controlled waves!

Ouch!

Some Canadian Global news reporter thinks the bottom of a sledding hill is a great place to do his broadcast. He was wrong. Or, in his own words: 'That was a bad idea.'

(via Optical Poptitude)

TV-B-Gone is a universal remote control that is designed not only to turn TVs on and off, but also to enhance your life. You control when you see, rather than what you see.

The TV-B-Gone device is so small that it easily fits in your pocket, so that you have it handy whenever you need it wherever you go: airports, bars, restaurants, laundromats, etc.

The Supra Glacial Stream

Matt Nolan, a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, spends most of his time studying the changes in glaciers and his projects range from hydrology, limnology, and science outreach, to glaciology, which is his favorite.

Meltwater on the surface of the glaciers drains into small streams that feed into this large one, which has melted itself several meters into the glacier. The stream ends in a moulin - a more or less vertical shaft carrying this melted-water to the bottom of the glacier. Falling into this stream is not advised.

18 Foods That Make Your Skin Glow

Top skin creams average about $400 an ounce (and you thought gas was expensive!), yet most offer little proof that they do half of what they promise. Want to save a bundle and improve your skin?

Load your shopping cart with nutrients that research has shown to have skin-hydrating, sun-protecting, and even wrinkle-preventing powers. Here's a grocery list of best foods for your skin.

Memorial Japanese stone maker Ishinokoe will soon begin producing grave stones with QR codes embedded in them.
They are calling the concept Kuyou no Mado, roughly meaning 'Memorial Service Window,' as visitors can scan the code with their mobiles and get information on the deceased.

Contents can include pictures, video, family information, and other items. While using a QR code for this may actually seem a bit outdated in a country of burgeoning RFID technology, they are simple and will likely be readable by generations of future devices.

Visual Acoustics is a concept for interactive expression. A canvas to paint reactive music and vision as a real-time artistic performace.

Brushes are painted across the screen, each consisting of an instrument (piano, violin, flute, guitar, harp, strings, bass, tenor sax) and accompanying visual. The position of the mouse pointer on the screen determines which instrumental note the brush paints onto the screen.

(via Ursi's Blog)

Jonathan Haeber shot some truly amazing night photos of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

(via Weird Blogs)

Survivor Lie Detector Game

Can you tell a true story from a tall tale? Here's your chance to (im)prove your prowess. Drag a Survivor onto the skull, then watch both short videos and guess which is true.

Guess wrong, and one of your four torches gets snuffed. If you finish the Survivor Lie Detector Game with at least one of your torches still burning, you'll unlock special bonus footage.

(via One Click)

Frogs that survive freezing excite our imagination with visions of immortality. Underlining this excitement is the unexpected: our experience tells us that freezing kills. We've all read news stories of people who have lost fingers or toes to extreme cold, or even their lives. Thus, a whole animal that can survive freezing comes as a shock.

When the mercury falls, the common wood frog displays a rare trait called freeze tolerance. The animal becomes, to the eye and touch, a frog shaped ice cube.

A Day In The Life Of The World's Tallest Man

Leonid Stadnik's phenomenal height (8 feet 5 inches) has forced him to quit a job he loved, to stoop as he moves around his house and to spend most of his time in his tiny home village because he cannot fit in a car or bus.

But Stadnik says his condition has also taught him that the world is filled with kindhearted strangers.

(via MW Daily)

Prowling the city of Tokyo are hoards of taxis, chasing down lonely passengers on their way, to and fro. Characteristically, all are equipped with automatically opening doors and a driver's white gloves.

However, little distinguishes these roaring vehicles, classically Japanese, outside the small glowing beacon perched on the center of their tops - each company from every region set themselves apart with their own special logo and shape. How practical, since, from far, a passenger can see what type of ride they are in for that night.

Linkdump

10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies

5 Ways to Synchronize Your Body's Clock

Extreme Pizza Cutters

The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips

Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century depiction of Jesus announcing that one of his 12 disciples would betray him is so iconic that it has been co-opted by those wishing to give weight to their parodies, tributes and caricatures.

Suddenly Last Supper.

Red Hot Riding Hood

A famous Tex Avery 1943 animated short. It was voted #7 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time.

A travelling exhibition of unusual toys. More than 370 original toys, collected and created by Miquel Angel Juan, out of nothing. Music boxes, robots, soldiers, animals, clowns, religious toys.

The Strange Museum Llonovoy.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Darvaza, The Flaming Gas Crater

Located in the Turkmenistan desert, the Darvaza flaming crater is one of the most apocalyptic landscapes in the world. It is 60 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep. It is not caused by volcanic activity or a meteorite impact.

This crater was created sometime in the 50's when the Soviets were prospecting for natural gas in this area and it's been burning since then.

(via Dark Roasted Blend, via Fogonazos)

Obama is always looking for more ways to help.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

This is crazy. The Trakonya Mutator is an interactive hardware/software addon for the Unreal Tournament game. It helps the player to feel the game and to feel the pain.

An electric shock is sent to the user when their player takes damage. This electric shock is low but can be harmful. It is not recomended for people who have any health problem and people who need medical device. In any case it is not advised to use the Trakonya Mutator for over 10 minutes.

Starfleet Bridge Illustrations.

The word 'tantra' is derived from the combination of two words 'tattva' and 'mantra.' 'Tattva' means the science of cosmic principles, while 'mantra' refers to the science of mystic sound and vibrations. It is also often accused of being a kind of black magic.

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most powerful tantrik to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment.

After all his chanting of mantra and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the 'ultimate destruction ceremony' on live TV. Sanal Edamaruku agreed and sat in the altar of the black magic ritual.

Fun with Food.

How To Clean Up Your Kitchen

What would the world look like when we've gone? How much would we leave behind? What would an alien visitor learn about us upon landing on our planet a century or more after we had disappeared from it? The answer, astonishingly, is: almost nothing.

Within a hundred years most traces of our modern-day lives would be so destroyed by weather, corrosion, earth tremors, surviving animals, insects and bacteria that the monuments and hieroglyphics of ancient civilisations would be better preserved than our buildings and our billions of books and electronic records.

Financial worries. You may be familiar with the feeling. Northwestern Mutual has a simple solution. Let them go! You can launch your worries to outer space, over land, into the sky, or under water.

Just select your worries, put them in a vehicle, and launch. I know, it's too simple and it probably won't help. But you have to agree, it's a well done way of advertising.

Oh Pointy Birds?
Don't ask.

Dear Agency

Chances are you're tired. Fed up. Confused. All telltale signs of a relationship going down the tubes. Maybe they don't answer the phone anymore. Maybe their notion of a great idea involves a talking baby. Or a monkey. Or both. The point is, your marketing agency's not cutting it and it's time to do something about it.

Just answer a few simple questions and a perfectly worded Dear John letter is created telling your agency to buzz off. No stressful phone calls or awkward goodbye hugs.

Linkdump

Jesus Tattoos

5 Tools to Track How Much Time you Waste Online

The 8 Least Impressive Guinness World Records

10 Ways to Control Your Cravings

The Ten Craziest Parking Tickets of All Time

An animation of the anatomy of a black hole.

Croatian creative agency Bruketa & Zinic have designed an annual report for food company Podravka that has to be baked in an oven before it can be read.

Called 'Well Done,' the report features blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink that, after being wrapped in foil and cooked for 25 minutes, reveal text and images.

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: I am the Matrix.

click on the picture for real size

Happy Easter

Happy Easter.

RealScoop

RealScoop utilizes proven voice analysis technology to analyze statements made by public figures. The 'Believability Meter' analyzes each celebrity video second by second, displaying the real-time results in a color-coded manner from left to right. The most believable statements are green, gradually turning red as they become more questionable.

As an example, here's a video of Eliot Spitzer announcing he is resigning as Governor of New York following the Emperors Club scandal.

(via Uncertain Times)

Since they wear out and lose their bounce quickly, most tennis balls simply end up in the garbage when they stop being useful on the court. If you can't stand to throw them away, they tend to pile up quickly.

So, what can you do with tennis balls?

Adopt A Who

Horton Hears A Who is a new CG animated film based on the book, first published in 1954 by Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

With Adopt A Who you can create your very own Who. Choose your language, name your Who, pick a boy or a girl, a house and a background and you're ready. You can talk to your Who, feed it, and dress it. Here's my Who.

(via The Thinks I Think)

What's Your Style?

The MyDeco Stylefinder will help you discover your style.
I am a 'City Sophisticate.'

You love the variety and bustle of city living and embrace all that modern living has to offer. Your home has a clean, easy look that shows off key pieces of furniture and accessories to maximum effect.

Playboy, gent, aesthete - your living room is a shrine to bachelorism. The living space has sharp lines and a hedonistic approach to life that's all about having fun and very little to do with mundane chores.

You make quite a statement with clean, strong lines in your bedroom, using a palette of beautifully muted colours to create the perfect retreat from daily stresses and strains.

You're a modern maverick, a supremely elegant entertainer. At home, your dining room combines clean, contemporary lines with quite formal sophistication.

Blonde @ Work

Ah yes, all those years at university are really paying off.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Are You Getting Bored Of Facebook?

Created and launched in February 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Hughes, Facebook is an online social networking directory that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.

The belief that an aluminium foil helmet can significantly reduce the intensity of incident RF radiation on the wearer's brain is not completely without a basis in scientific fact.

A well constructed tin-foil enclosure would approximate a Faraday cage, reducing the amount of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation entering from outside.

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study.

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Monday, March 31, 2008

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Friday, March 28, 2008

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Monday, March 24, 2008

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Saturday, March 22, 2008