unique and interesting: April 2008

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Tim Nolan

A demonstration by Tim Nolan, a professional juggler and basketball entertainer.

Dangling horizontally out of a skyscraper, this hovering figure looks set to fall to his doom. But Chinese artist Li Wei hasn't just lost it all on a game of chance - this is performance art with a difference. Li Wei has produced an unsettling series of self-portraits involving his face reflected in mirrors in public places, and photographs of himself crashing into walls and sidewalks.

His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.

High on a sacred mountain in Southern France, the whitened ruins of Montségur are a reminder of the last actively visible gnostic school in the West, the Cathari. Below Montségur lies a peaceful meadow, its name, 'Field of the Burned', the only indication of a grim event that took place there a little over 700 years ago. In March, 1244, 205 Cathars were burned alive on the site, rather than renounce their creed.

The name Cathari, means 'pure' in Greek. Cathars in general formed an anti-sacerdotal party in opposition to the Catholic Church, protesting what they perceived to be the moral, spiritual, and political corruption of the Church. They claimed an Apostolic succession from the founders of Christianity, and saw Rome as having betrayed and corrupted the original purity of the message.

The History of the Cathars.

(thanks Sam)

Linkdump

5 Veggies That Make Any Salad Super-Healthy

What Programming Languages Should You Know?

20 Science Books Every Scifi Fan Should Read

Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

The Mended Spiderweb Series came about during a six-week period in June and July in 1998 which Californian artist Nina Katchadourian spent on Pörtö. In the forest and around the house where she was living, she searched for broken spiderwebs which she repaired using red sewing thread.

All of the patches were made by inserting segments one at a time directly into the web. Sometimes the thread was starched, which made it stiffer and easier to work with. The short threads were held in place by the stickiness of the spider web itself; longer threads were reinforced by dipping the tips into white glue.

(thanks Stanley)

Around the world stand empty hotels that symbolise the loss of prosperity and the death of dreams. Lavish resorts and small hotels which were once filled with life and activity are now abandoned and filled only with decay.

Abandoned hotels range from decrepit to like-new and exist everywhere from remote parts of the globe to modern urban cities. These abandoned hotels serve as reminders that even the best laid plans don't always work out over time.

(thanks Andy)

He's Dead, Jim

The Neo Cube

The Neo Cube is composed of 216 individual high-energy sphere magnets, which can be formed into billions of shapes and patterns.

(via reddit)

Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico is one of the most bioluminescent bodies of water in the world.

Any movement in the water sends a billow of bright blue-green light spinning and undulating in fractal beauty, until it eventually diffuses back into the dark stillness of the bay. Below you, bright blue tracer lines suddenly appear in the water as small fish dart through the blackness.

Bioluminescence is a form of natural light created by living organisms converting internal chemical energy into light. The light in Mosquito Bay is created by a tiny organism called Dinoflagellate.

Mosquito Bay contains an astonishing number, roughly 700,000 of these glowing fellas per single gallon of water. Although they are microscopic, the light they give off is a hundred times larger themselves, and in great numbers they light up like an underwater aurora borealis.

Mmk Kobayashi's Photostream. A series of beautiful, funny and weird photos on Flickr.

Quest for the Crown is a Role Playing Game parody. It's not very hard to play. As a matter of fact, you may find it too easy. And you'll probably be disappointed. Very disappointed. But that's because it's a parody. And don't forget to take a look at the end of game credits.

I Wish There Was...

Do you have a practical problem, and do you wish it could be solved? Place your wish on 'I Wish There Was...' so others can see it, and suggest solutions.

The main goal of the website is to share wishes worldwide and learn from one another. A problem might have been solved in one country but not in another, so by sharing our problems and solutions, we can share good ideas.

Alien Performance Art.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

When you were a child, were you afraid of the dark? Scared of the monsters hiding under your bed? Fearful of the shadows on the wall?

Joshua Hoffine made a series of photos bringing back those childhood fears.

(via Neatorama)

Pint Price is a database of World Beer Prices. Use this site to find the best watering nation. It seems beer is cheapest in Congo. You'll get a pint for only 20 cents. Most expensive is Monaco where you'll pay $ 15 for a pint.

The price of beer in 178 countries.

(via Optical Poptitude)

Workers' Memorial Day

Today is Workers' Memorial Day, an international day of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work. According to the International Labour Organisation, across the world each year, more than two million women and men die as a result of work-related accidents and diseases.

Workers suffer approximately 270 million occupational accidents each year, and fall victim to some 160 million incidents of work-related illnesses. Hazardous substances kill 440,000 workers annually – asbestos claims 100,000 lives. One worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide. 6,000 workers die every day. Work kills more people than wars.

Workers' Memorial Day is an opportunity to highlight the preventable nature of most workplace accidents and ill health and to promote campaigns and union organisation in the fight for improvements in workplace safety. The slogan for the day is Remember the Dead - Fight for the Living.

New OGC Logo Turns Faces Red

The Office of Government Commerce, a department of Her Majesty's Treasury in England, unveiled their new logo. It was intended to signify a bold commitment to the body's aim of 'improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement.' The design cost almost $ 28,000 to create.

When you tilt your head to the left you'll see why this logo falls in the category 'disastrous designs.'

How to Access Google's Filter By Date Dropdown Box

Filtering Google searches by time periods has been one of the most frequently requested features. By manipulating the search URL, you can trigger Google's 'filter by data dropdown box' to appear. With this drop down box, you can easily select what time dates you want Google to filter the results.

First goto Google and enter your search term. Next, add '&as_qdr=d' to the end of the URL and press enter.
A dropdown box will appear.

A male orangutan, clinging precariously to overhanging branches, flails the water with a pole, trying desperately to spear a passing fish. It is the first time one has been seen using a tool to hunt.

The extraordinary image, a world exclusive, was taken in Borneo on the island of Kaja, where apes are rehabilitated into the wild after being rescued from zoos, private homes or even butchers' shops.

(via Weird Blogs)

Our niche happens to be 18 gauge steel coffins which we collected from local funeral homes primarily in Southern California. It is a health and safety law that funeral homes cannot resell used coffins to the general public. We approached funeral directors with the attitude of recycling.

These coffins are not used for burial due to slight cosmetic inconsistencies. They are reconfigured and modified resulting in a finished product - a unique one a kind coffin couch.

(via Everlasting Blort)

They Do It With... - Chez Goodman

Animators do it 24 times a second. Firemen do it with a big hose. Optometrists do it face-to-face. Introverts do it alone. Scientists do it experimentally.

A long 'do it with...' list with maybe some questionable content but some of these may actually make you laugh.

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: Rug + Pirate + Handgrenade = Hoisted.

click on the picture for real size

This is not a costume. This is a kit to completely transform your beloved dog from a cute canine to the ultimate unicorn.

It includes screw-in horn, hoof attachments, medical grade glue, peroxide, mane fur, a tail and a handful of glitter. Not legal in California, New Mexico and part of Maine.

(thanks Dean)

Funny idea. A ~~Vespa~~ Lambretta scooter with a Volkswagen campervan sidecar.

(via LikeCOOL)

Continuum Crowds

A computer simulated crowd model based on continuum dynamics. A dynamic potential field simultaneously integrates global navigation with moving obstacles such as other people, efficiently solving for the motion of large crowds without the need for explicit collision avoidance.

Reserve a Spot in Heaven claims to be 'the only licensed and registered distributor of reservations in heaven.'

The site offers two packages: The 'Essential Travel Kit' for $12.79, and an 'All Access Travel Kit' for $24.95 that comes with an additional VIP pass that 'will grant you access to VIP exclusive areas including the Land of Milk and Honey, where all the elite get together and kick it.'

The site is created by Edgar Kim and Nathan Davis of Tacoma, Wash., who say they don't want to offend anyone, and it's just a funny idea that no one should take too seriously.

It's also possible to Reserve a Spot in Hell.

Judy Dunaway is a composer, improvisor and conceptual artist who is primarily known for her sound works for latex balloons. Since 1990 Judy Dunaway has composed over thirty works for balloons as instruments and has also made this her main instrument for improvisation.

Judy Dunaway has developed techniques allowing her to play rubber balloons the same way avant-garde musicians use extended techniques on, say, the saxophone. She squeezes the mouthpiece, uses breathing techniques, and uses various types of rubbing to make incredible noises.

Some creative ways to get the last iota of toothpaste out of the tube. Anyone who's dedicated time to this activity discovers a shocking amount of extra brushing sessions hidden in that seemingly flat foil wedge.

(via ausgefallene ideen)

Björk's Wanderlust

An awesome video of Icelandic singer Björk's song Wanderlust from the album Volta. The video was done by Encyclopedia Pictura.

See Wanderlust in 3-D (you'll need 3-D Glasses).

Malric Kittens

Some kittens bopping their heads. The annoying song is from a Crusha milkshake drink ad.

Children's letters to God.

Linkdump

50 Best Cult Books

Become a Lifestyle Entrepreneur

6 Ingredients For a Green, Clean Home

The Seven Deadly Sins of a Relationship

Around 1,500 Belgian students kitted out in waterproof ponchos discovered exactly what happens when you drop a mint sweet into a bottle of Coca Cola, in an attempt to break a world record.

Top 10 Amazing People Who Cheated Death

Roy Sullivan was a U.S. park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. In his lifetime he gained 'Human Lightning Rod' as a nickname.

This story and nine others of unbelievable but amazingly true accounts of human beings that beat death.

Even today, modern wonders of engineering like the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge inspire awe (and songs and works of art). A quick look at their origins, however, can turn awe to amazement and astonishment.

Minesweeper

Travis Louie's paintings come from the tiny little drawings and many writings in his journals. He's created his own imaginary world that is grounded in Victorian and Edwardian times.

It is inhabited by human oddities, mythical beings, and otherworldly characters who appear to have had their formal portraits taken to mark their existence and place in society.

Sacred Geometry And Coherent Emotion

Since all biologic growth is limited by ability to absorb energy it is self evident the best way to compress that in to nourish biology is FRACTAL! Recursive Feedback=Self Awareness=Fractality.

I don't exactly know what this site is all about but whenever you visit, be aware that it can be a little too much to absorb mentally.

From Modern Drunkard Magazine, a story on The Greatest Drunk on Earth: Andre the Giant, professional wrestler. Andre Rene Rousimoff was born on May 19th, 1946, in Grenoble, France, the child of Russian immigrants.

While it can be argued that a miniscule handful of professional wrestlers matched Andre’s in-ring achievements, no other wrestler ever matched his exploits as a drunkard. In fact, no other human has ever matched Andre as a drinker. He is the zenith. He is the Mount Everest of inebriation. As far as great drunkards go, there is Andre the Giant, and then there is everyone else.

From The Steampunk Workshop: How to make a Victorian All-in-One Personal Computer.

Supernatural Spirit

Have you had a supernatural incident in your life, ghosts, psychic attack, curses, Satanists, strange dreams, a presence in your house, or evil that follows you, seen strange things, heard them, felt a cold wind?

If you have a supernatural problem you need advice from the expert. At Supernatural Spirit.com you can get any supernatural problem investigated personally by Tim Rifat, the world expert on Psi. As a Psi-Lord, Tim Rifat hunts evil supernatural spirits be they demons, arch demons, incubi, succubae, vampire spirits, werewolf spirits, Illuminati, Satanists, Archons, insectiles, Reptiloids, and evil people.

Larger than life catches, a catfish the size of a small car, the cutest, the most vicious, and the ugliest of fish.
Out-Of-This-World Fishing.

Activate

Activate is a totally new functional beverage featuring an interactive experience people have never had before. The drink's vitamins and herbs are stored as powder in a chamber inside the cap. When you twist the cap clockwise, a small plastic blade cuts the seal in the chamber.

Simultaneously, a small armature opens the chamber allowing the ingredients to drop into the water below. Vitamins and other healthful ingredients deteriorate sitting in water. Storing the ingredients separate inside the cap keeps them fresh until the moment they're released, for maximum potency.

Here's a demonstration video.

(thanks Jamie)

The World's Most Dangerous Bird

Cassowaries are very large flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. Normally cassowaries are very shy but when disturbed can lash out dangerously with their powerful legs.

They are capable of inflicting fatal injuries to an adult human. Wounded or cornered birds are particularly dangerous. Cassowaries, deftly using their surroundings to conceal their movements, have been known to out-flank organized groups of human predators.

Cassowaries are considered to be one of the most dangerous animals to keep in zoos, based on the frequency and severity of injuries incurred by zookeepers.

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

It's Just a Plant is an illustrated children's book about marijuana. It follows the journey of a young girl as she learns about the plant from a diverse cast of characters including her parents, a local farmer, a doctor, and a police officer.

It's Just a Plant does not advocate marijuana use for children. The book explicitly addresses the potential harm of drug abuse and insists that marijuana is something not to be experimented with by children.

Not all economy seats are created equal. Can you get a good seat experience for decent shut-eye? By doing a little bit of digging you'll find out enough info to help you make a flight in economy a pleasant flight, instead of an unbearable one.

The 10 Most Comfortable Airline Economy Seats.

You know those stuffed animals that sing, dance, light up, or talk back. There must be a fascinating robot underneath the fur and fluff, right?

A look at the insides of toys.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Myth Busting Mom-isms

If you shave your facial hair, it will come back thicker. Watching TV too close will hurt your eyes. Don't swallow that gum - it will stay in your stomach for seven years. Eating carrots will improve your eyesight.

Myth busting Mom-isms.

LSD vs Alcohol vs Tree.

The 'Amen break' was a drum solo performed by Gregory Sylvester Coleman. The drum solo is frequently used as a sampled drum loop in hip hop, jungle and drum and bass music. It is 5.20 seconds long and consists of 4 bars of the drum-solo sampled from the song 'Amen, Brother' as performed by the 1960s funk and soul outfit The Winstons.

Mathematician Michael Schneider became intrigued when he saw an image of the audio waves because he immediately recognized the Golden Ratio in the structure of its timing. And he was surprised to find an even deeper relationship to the structure of the human body.

10 Beautiful Indian Roads.

(via Uncertain Times)

Old Style Photo Generator

Turn your photos into really old photos with this Old Style Photo Generator. The site is in Japanese but it's not hard to figure out what to do.

I turned this photo:

into this old photo:

(thanks Martin)

Britain's Got Talent: The Worst Singer Ever

We can see from past presidents that this job ages you a few decades in a fraction of the time. The stress just comes with the territory.

We can now magically guess what the next American president will look like in 4 years, by the end of their first term.

(via LinkNotes)

I Love You But I'm Not In Love With You.

Linkdump

The Origins of Some English Place Names

10 Things You Might Not Know About Marijuana

10 Common Travel Scams

Drilling Square Holes

Zurich Chamber Orchestra : Roller Coaster

The Museum of Unworkable Devices is a celebration of fascinating devices that don't work. It houses examples of the perverse genius of inventors who refused to let their thinking be intimidated by the laws of nature, remaining optimistic in the face of repeated failures.

Watch and be amazed at the eccentric and even intricate perpetual motion machines that have remained steadfastly unmoving since their inception. Marvel at the ingenuity of the human mind, as it reinvents the square wheel in all of its possible variations. Exercise your mind to puzzle out exactly why they don't work as the inventors intended.

CreativeSpace, a creative image search where you can scroll through images visually with a scrollbar.

Do You Speak English?

Do you speak English?
No, sorry, I don't!

(via Optical Poptitude)

Smashing Magazine has a great article on retro design. It's a celebration of retro and vintage design - ads, illustrations, book covers, pins and posters from 1920-1980s.

The images weren't necessarily created in the mid of 20th century. Vintage is living today which is why the article also features artists and designers who make use of the vintage and retro style in their works.

The Alien Abduction Lamp - created by Norwegian designer Lasse Klein - is a lamp for Sci-Fi fans of all ages.

A light bulb inside the metal UFO lights up the beam and the windows. The glass of the beam is frosted to distribute light in all directions.

(via Everlasting Blort)

I have linked to Pixeloo before (see here).
His latest work is Jessica Rabbit Untooned.

Take a tour through a world of type that can help transform your design landscape. Use your arrow keys on your keyboard to walk through Type City.

(via The Thinks I Think)

The Singing, Ringing Tree

Looking like the wreckage of an Alien space craft, this futuristic sculpture makes the strangest sounds when the wind blows, which is often round the location at Crown Point, on the moorland overlooking Burnley in England.

(via MerapuLand)

20 Animals in Desperate Need of a Tanning Salon.

Photographs of the coolest Lego creations anywhere in the world. People have made just about anything that you can think of out of Legos including portraits of famous people, life-size replica cars, full scaled-down cities, and even working computers.

Danica Patrick Makes IndyCar History

Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history yesterday, taking the Firestone IndyCar Japan 300 after the top contenders were forced to pit for fuel in the final laps.

Boolify is an educational boolean search tool. Web searching can be hard. Boolify makes it easier to understand web search by illustrating the logic of the search, and by showing how each change to the search instantly changes the results.

Drag a green piece from the Boolify puzzle menu to the puzzle board. Entering a word will add a keyword to the search. Refine your search by dragging AND, OR or NOT pieces to the puzzle. You can completely clear the search by clicking on the 'X' on the right side of the board, or delete specific pieces by dragging them to the bucket icon.

(via SEGA Tech)

Darwin Online is by far the largest Darwin publication in history. It contains over 43,000 pages of searchable text and 150,000 electronic images.

Darwin Online contains Darwin's complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and much more.

Pages - Menu

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Monday, April 21, 2008

Sunday, April 20, 2008