unique and interesting: September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Google Search 2001

Google put its old 2001 index online for everyone to play with. The World Wide Web and the world have both changed a lot since 2001.

If you searched on 'Michael Phelps' in 2001 for instance, you were probably looking for the scientist, not the swimmer, 'ipod' didn't refer to a music player, and 'youtube' didn't refer to much of anything.

A map that shows where iconic album cover photographs were taken.

Last Saturday 32-year-old Michele Allen, wearing a cow costume, was chasing kids, and blocking traffic in Middletown, USA.

When officers arrived, they told her to go home. But later that night, they found her again standing in traffic.

The officers said Allen smelled of alcohol and swore at them. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Allen plead guilty and was sentenced to a month in jail.

Linkdump

Top 10 Ways to Stay Energized

Painted Pumpkins

Surprising Things You Can Get For Free

25+ Sites About Obama and McCain

Most urban dwellers are used to the sight of vending machines on their streets and have become accustomed to buying drinks, newspapers and cigarettes from them.

However, in Japan, this form of selling has been taken to its possibly illogical extreme. Take a look into the strange world of the Japanese vending machine.

(via Robert-John)

It's iconic, nostalgic and inspirational. We see them in the movies; they're the realm of the high paid executive. They come in all shapes, sizes and styles from zen-influenced minimalist havens to whitewashed colonial.The beach house is all these and more.

Here are 10 of the most evocative beach houses in Australia.

(thanks Andy)

Italian Lorenzo Campani and his friends want to create the highest blog in the world. They want to update a blog directly from the Cho Oyu mountain in Tibet, which is over 26.000 feet high.

Their goal is to update, directly for a month, the highest blog in the world, do the highest Skype call, and bring Twitter up to 26.000 feet.

(via naacal)

Nowadays, benches come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some beautiful and unusual bench designs.

LP Cover Lover

The weird and wonderful world of record covers from the golden age of LPs.

John Chiara

Visual artist John Chiara built his own camera. Not a normal camera, but a room-size picture-taking device which is mounted on a flatbed trailer. It sometimes requires the artist to climb inside and push moving parts around himself.

Ever wanted to point out a short 10 second clip in a 15 minute video? Splicd allows you to isolate an interesting tidbit from a YouTube video and provides you with a link to share it with everyone else.

Just type a YouTube URL and tell Splicd what the start time and end time for the clip is.

Slime and mold are two words guaranteed to send a shiver down many a spine. However, plasmodial slime molds, fungus - like organisms with about eight hundred and fifty species worldwide - possess a strange beauty that you might not expect.

Come and take a look at a few, thanks to some exquisite macro photography. You may never look at slime mold in the same light again.

(via Robert-John)

Jack Hall - Musical Matchstick Man

On February 23, 2007, I posted about Jack Hall, The Matchstick Man. In 1984, Jack created a ukulele made entirely from used wooden matchsticks.

Here's a video about Jack Hall where superstar Glen Campbell praises and performs 'Amazing Grace' with a 1937 Matchstick Guitar. Also on this video are the Matchsticoustic Men and their striking performance of 'Billy in the Low Ground,' and a segment with Jack Hall and The Match Quintet playing 'Jambalaya,' and.

Everything About The 50 US States

From Armadillos to Yellowhammers.
Everything you want to know about the 50 US States.

Are you getting nervous when your kids roam the Internet unsupervised? KidZui is a new browser that makes surfing the Internet fun and easy for kids from 3-12. Content is reviewed by teachers and parents so your kids can safely and indepentently explore the web.

Rather than filter the Internet, KidZui shows an entirely new one - customized for kids. There are already over 800,000 websites, pictures and videos in KidZui, all painstakingly reviewed by caring teachers and parents. There's a free version and a membership version for $49.95 per year.

GasBag is a free iPhone application for finding the cheapest gas near you, with price data submitted by users. With real-time data feeds from many sources, including yourselves, you can now benefit from on-demand updates that will allow you to better manage your gas expenses.

Supported on the Apple iPhone, GasBag includes some great features, including a gas mileage and expense manager, and you can track how much you're saving whenever you fill up.

(thanks Mick)

Putting Toys Into Groups

How hard can it be to put some toys into groups? Well, if it's done by Ernie from Sesame Street you know what you can expect.

Hurricane Ike's waves pounded the beaches of the northern Gulf Coast and revealed a mystery ship. The roughly 150 foot long, 30 foot wide wooden ship appears to have been powered by steam.

One of the artifacts within the perimeter of the ship's hull appears to be an old water pump. A long pipe runs down the center of the ship, with smaller pipes found near by. While no one knows for sure what ship this is, historians speculate that the ship was a blockade-runner from the civil war.

Amazing Paper Cutouts.

A map showing the popularity of social networks around the world. The data shows the highest ranking social network for each country by traffic, not by members, page views or any other method.

People's Airbag

Japanese company Prop made an airbag designed to stop elderly people injuring themselves by falling over. The device is strapped around the body and inflates in 0.1 seconds if it detects it is accelerating towards the ground.

Time was you had to be a properly trained artist to produce propaganda art. Sometimes known as agitprop, this form, honed to perfection in the twentieth century has been hijacked by the Photoshop brigade among others.

Fortunately, the results are often hysterical but nevertheless can still be thought-provoking.

(via Robert-John)

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: The Joke Is: I Don't Know Anything About Comedy Either

click on the picture for real size

The Apocalypse Codex Vol 1 is a compilation of Home Schooled comics that appeared on The Presurfer in the past three years.

Sound Waves

In this video, a metal plate is placed on top of a loud speaker. The sound causes the metal plate to vibrate and the salt moves into the regions of the plate that are not vibrating. As the pitch of the sound is increased, the pattern of lines changes.

Warning: At some point in the video, the sound gets so high that it might hurt your ears. Also, make sure your pets are not around while playing this video.

Irkutsk is famous for it's many monuments including ancient log structures. Some of the log structures have presently been restored. Others, once beautiful, are quickly degrading, being destroyed by time.

Siberian Wooden Houses.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Nine Weird Ingredients Hiding In Your Toiletries Bag

Since ancient times, humans have combined strange ingredients to create personal care products. Today, the ingredients are only slightly less bizarre.

Here are nine weird items you may not have known about.

Coin Lamp is the first product in a range based on the concept of values and reward, it subtly heightens awareness of consumption through design.

Turned on by a coin-operated switch, the coin lamp is set to predetermined time by an internal mechanism.

(via Ehrensenf)

A six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time.

That's the US Army's concept, and it has awarded the University of Michigan College of Engineering a five-year, $10-million grant to help make it happen.

What makes celebrity deaths particularly eerie and poignant is that often their final work only comes to light after they have gone. In the case of movie stars, it's their last film that's released months after they are buried/cremated/blasted into space.

Cinema provides a form of immortality, and watching these farewell movies really is like seeing a ghost on screen. Here are ten actors who didn't live to see their final movie, based on a scale of plain old bad luck.

Timelapse Of Boeing 729B Demolition

This demolition of the Boeing 720B aircraft was completed on June 21, 2008. The actual demolition process lasted about 4 1/2 hours.

Lasagna Cat is a series of live-action recreations of Garfield comic strips.

And I'm A PC

Take 'When Obama Wins' and Microsoft's 'I'm a PC,' combine the two and you get this.

And I'm a PC.

(via AdFreak)

The Bittersweet Art Of Cutting Up Books.

Are you plagued by Stuck Tune Syndrome? Do you have a song stuck in your head you just can't get out? Take heart friend, for your suffering is over.

The Maimograph Machine, through complex analysis and calculation, will find an even catchier tune to counter-act the one you already have. To use the machine, hit the power button.

Without knowing which Presidential candidate said it, decide which statements you agree with, and learn which candidate supports your viewpoint most closely.

AppAppeal is a comparison website for web applications. Despite the advantages of online services as opposed to traditional software, many users are not fully aware of the possibilities offered by various applications. Moreover, new applications are launched every day.

In order to make the choice for the application which suits the needs of a user and to stay up-to-date with the latest news, the website AppAppeal has been launched.

Moccasins Are Not Shoes

Contrary to popular belief, moccasins are not shoes. They are the footwear of hunters, settlers, and Minnesota moms.

(thanks U R)

Professional Bird Shit Removal

The bird population has exploded in recent years. With the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, birds of all types have grown more savvy, their proficiency growing at an exponential rate. Do you want to take a chance in this new day and age?

Our skilled technicians are highly trained in the art of Professional Bird Shit Removal and will thoroughly dig out your home, vehicle, or loved one from the offending pile. Whether the culprit is one bird, or an entire flock of feral pigeons, Professional Bird Shit Removal has you completely covered from head to toe.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Alien Captured On Closed-Circuit Television

How an 8 foot alien was spotted on CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras prompting 3 police cars to respond to the scene in Bournemouth, UK.

Linkdump

Clean Your House In 19 Minutes

10 Books that will Substitute a Computer Science Degree

The Best Mouse You've Ever Had

How to Just Do It

In Quotes

Google released 'In Quotes.' In Quotes allows you to compare quotes from different people in the news about a particular topic.

You enter a keyword and the feature currently allows you to choose and compare quotes from political candidates and other political figures in the USA, the UK, Canada and India.

This rubber band gun is based on the Konami PlayStation3 videogame Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The gun is made out of stainless steel and includes a 'precision laser pointer.'

(via Zootrópole)

Sardine King collects old Cannery Row, Monterey, California sardine can labels from the 1920-1940s.

You can find photo galleries of old California sardine, pilchards, mackerel, squid and tuna can labels from the old canneries and fishing fleets of Monterey, San Francisco, Oakland, Oxnard and Los Angeles.

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Internet Will Run Out Of IP Addresses By 2010

Vint Cerf, the man who helped invent the system and one of the world's leading computer scientists, said that the web does not have enough unique codes that allow computers to communicate with each other.

He said that when the internet protocol (IP) addresses do run out, the connectivity of the internet will be damaged and some computers will not be able to go online.

Woman Lives With 130 Cats

Nina Kostsova from Novosibirsk, Russia, has 130 stray cats crammed into her tiny apartment.

12 Vintage Cigarette Ads They Would Never Get Away With Now

Cigarettes aren't bad for you, in fact they make you happier, sexier, more popular and quite possibly richer. Not true? Then take a look at these vintage ads and see what the 'Mad Men' of the time tried to get away with - and did.

(via Robert-John)

Only A Buritto

A strange newspaper message.

Opponents of illegal immigration are fond of telling foreigners to 'get in line' before coming to work in America. But what does that line actually look like, and how many years (or decades) does it take to get through

Try it yourself.

Whether you partied all night, stayed up with a newborn, or lost sleep while finishing up a project, now you're at work and you're having a difficult time staying awake. You promise yourself that you'll get more sleep, if you can just make it through the day without being discovered by your boss with your eyes closed.

Here's How to Stay Awake at Work.

Project 10 To The 100th

Google launched Project 10 to the 100th. The project calls for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.

10 Seriously Unusual And Outlandishly Weird Asian Hotels

As a whole, Asia is one of the most innovative continents in the world. From the latest in technology to the most unbelievable hotel designs in the world, the Asian continent is, to say the least, one-of-a-kind.

But some of the Asian nations are home to some of the weirdest hotels anywhere in the world. Maybe it's their imaginative thinking or maybe they just have a more innovative culture? Either way you slice it, Asia has some of the most off-the-wall hotels on the planet.

Here are 10 of the most strange and offbeat hotels across the massive continent of Asia.

(thanks Andy)

An interactive timeline of Google history. Travel through time by dragging the timeline or the slider. Click on any event to see more information.

Today is The Presurfer's 8th birthday. It was great fun to start The Presurfer on September 24, 2000, and I'm still enjoying updating the site every day.

I do realize that The Presurfer couldn't have made it through those 8 years without you, my readers. You motivate me, you inspire me, and sometimes some of you are a big help to me.

Thank you for your loyalty.

Seduction is an art not easily mastered. If you need a few tips on the right techniques, have a read! Ten easy to follow steps to getting it right - at least some of the time!

(via Robert-John)

Choose your gender, enter your name, and upload your photo. Then play the video.

Here's an example.

Turn yourself into a Superstar.

(thanks M.C.)

Nanosoccer

Imagine a robotic David Beckham six times smaller than an amoeba playing with a 'soccer ball' no wider than a human hair... with all of the action happening on a field the size of single grain of rice.

It may sound like the stuff of science fiction but at the National Institute of Standards and Technology nanosoccer is serious business.

More about Nanosoccer.

(via Zootrópole)

Social Mention

Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and micro-blogging services.

It allows you to easily track what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the webs social media landscape in real-time.

Search results are aggregated from numerous popular social media sources, including Google blog search, Twitter, Delicious, FriendFeed, Flickr, Digg, YouTube etc. and remixed as a single stream of information.'

The Maverick - a limited edition pocket knife to honor John McCain.

The Change is a pocket knife honoring Barack Obama.

(thanks Ken)

The biggest steak in the world has been made in Milan, Italy. Achieved by 'Butchers for Children,' the record is of a steak measuring 24.8 square metres.

The street (Via Spallanzani) was completely filled with butchers' stalls and Italian meat delicacies. To take part and eat something, the cost was eight euros for a bracelet, with proceeds going to charity.

(thanks Alison)

Google may take its battle for global domination to the high seas with the launch of its own 'computer navy.'

The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles offshore.

The 'water-based data centres' would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google's costs.

Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which are sited across the world.

Don't Show Off

Street fight lesson number 1: Never, ever, show off before a fight.

When veepee candidate Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, there were approximately 6,000 people living in the town.

Here are some other things with approximately 6,000 people.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Don't say we didn't warn you: wacky warning signs.

(thanks Andi)

23 Ways To Use Tea

This good-for-you item does more than brew up a good beverage. It can relieve your tired eyes, stop foot odor, shine your mirrors, or give roses a boost.

See what else tea is capable of.

Burning Mercury Thiocyanide

Have you ever seen a piece of mercury thiocyanide burning? Take a look at this video and be amazed. Do not try this at home because it produces poisonous mercury vapors.

(via UniqueDaily)

Feathers abound in nature. The winged creatures of the world have a huge diversity of plumage, coming at us in all the colors of the rainbow. When viewed close up they can give the impression of being more successful attempts at abstract art.

Here are just a few of our feathered friends, up close and personal. When, at last, does art imitate life?

(via Robert-John)

Everything's going green these days, and the toy world is no exception. Perhaps appealing to our guilt at the amount of plastic we consume as toy fanatics, a growing crop of collectibles attempts to balance the extraneous and the ecological.

Just because you live in the city doesn't mean you can't grow a garden. Here are some herb-n art toys.

(thanks Jeremy)

Scientists have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study. The findings, published in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

The hand and the foot emerge from pre-existing bits of the fin skeleton that were just reshaped, rather than being entirely new bits that were bolted onto the existing fin skeleton.

Prairie Dog Sings 'Another One Bites The Dust'

Bubblicious is a bowl comprised of varying volumes of spheres, to place fruit of different sizes, in a way that enables to position the object in a new equilibrium each time, due to the change in the center of gravity.

(via CrookedBrains)

Today is Elephant Appreciation Day.

Elephant Appreciation Day was declared beginning in 1996 by Mission Media (a digital and print publisher of graphics).

The elephant generally deserves to be appreciated and upheld as an example of courage, strength, self-reliance, patience, persistence, and general high quality of being.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Friday, September 26, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sunday, September 21, 2008