unique and interesting: October 2008

Friday, October 31, 2008

Spooky Sounds From Saturn

To celebrate Halloween, NASA Cassini's website has posted spooky sounds from Saturn and Titan.

(via naacal)

Attention Halloween Partygoers

Thinking of going to your Halloween party dressed as Sarah Palin?
Think again!

(via Some Guy With a Website)

Can't read your mobile phone because of the disturbing bright sunlight?
Use the Immersion Scarf and you'll be sure to look like a fool.

Some people could not bear to do it. Others might be able, but only with their eyes closed.

Others might swallow hard and grasp it with both hands. Given a Slippery Dick, ask yourself one question... could you handle it?

(via Robert-John)

Dystopic Horizons Realty

Dystopic Horizons Realty has found the solution to our depressed economy and the local housing crunch. 'Artist Housing' is not a cardboard house... it's a cardboard home! The exceptional lifestyle that cultivates creative thinking.

Each inspired live/work unit is hand-crafted, and capable of magnificent views. The loft-like Cubist floorplan allows convenient interior access and customized storage solutions. Green construction and copious natural lighting and ventilation support ecologically responsible living.

(via Laughing Squid)

Things you do not need to know.
Unnecessary Knowledge.

Sacramento kids developed a hobo-esque code for Halloween, leaving chalk symbols on the sidewalks outside houses to indicate positive or negative candy information.

You really do not want to have wet hands when handling delicate visual materials for your work. No more sweaty hands to disturb your creativity.
This keyboard has three internal cooling fans to keep your hands cool and clean.

McCain - Obama Dance-Off

(thanks Marion)

Considering we spend a third of our lives occupying them, it is surprising bed designs have remained so stable throughout history - until now.

Here are 18 groundbreaking beds that are straining to free themselves from convention, predictability and even gravity.

Top 10 Countries Censoring The Web

When the World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, its main objective was to enable the free exchange of information via interlinked hypertext documents. Almost 20 years later, that objective has been accomplished on most parts of the world, but not in all of them.

Some countries are trying hard to keep an iron hand over the flow of information that takes place on the Web. Here are 10 countries who are censoring the web.

Yes, you read correctly. Robocop and Unicorn are united in a meme that is sweeping the internet (and possibly ridding it of wrong doers at the same time?).

Yet what is the point, if indeed there is one? Take a look at this web-based phenomenon and make up your own mind.

(via Robert-John)

5 Signs You've Had One Too Many To Drink

Check out this funny 'Hollywood-style' Heineken trailer of introducing some of the embarrassing characters that emerge when one of your friends had one too many to drink.

Then go to the bar to keep an eye on things. See if you can detect when somebody has had too many drinks.

(thanks Paul)

Top 10 Web Political Moments

On the eve of an historic US election that has seen the Internet dominate the political landscape, The Webby Awards named the Web's ten most influential political moments.

From Senator Dianne Feinstein breaking new ground with the first campaign Web site in 1994 to the celebrated CNN YouTube debates in 2007, the list charts the Internet's evolution from political postscript to powerful political tool.

(thanks Jenny)

If you are stretched and squeezed by everyday life, then you might be in perfect shape to explore caves. Enter a narrow natural passageway that may lead to a simply mind-boggling underground world.

Caves may lurk right under your feet: a fascinating and unexpected environment, which is often known only to spelunkers and dedicated Gollum-seekers.

A list of libraries that are said to be haunted. The list is compiled by George Eberhart of the American Library Association.

The paranormal has a strong hold on the imagination of many people, and for them this series should be especially attractive. But who doesn't enjoy a good ghost tale?

(thanks Barbara)

Meat Art Gallery

Meat After Meat Joy is a group exhibition of contemporary artists who use meat in their work. Curated by Heide Hatry, the show's title refers Carolee Schneemann's performance/happening Meat Joy itself projected in the gallery.

The show features sculpture, photography, painting, and video pieces 'in order to investigate the paradoxical relationship meat has to the body.'

Your Debut Album

Here's something funny to do when you're bored.

1 - Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. If you want to do this again, hit refresh to generate new quotes, because clicking the quotes link again will just give you the same quotes over and over again.

3 - Go to Flickr's 'explore the last seven days':
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/.
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. Put it all together, that's your debut album.

Here's my debut album:

My band: Bat Hawk,
My album: Take a Long Run,
My album cover:

(via This Could Only Happen To Me)

Roughly three years from now, former RAF pilot Andy Green will be strapped into a purple-and-yellow contraption. And a few seconds later, he hopes to become the first man to drive through the 1,000mph barrier.

Green, 45, hopes that in his Bloodhound supersonic car he will smash his existing land speed record by more than 200mph.

Top 10 Most Outrageous Opening Lines In Literature

I am a sick man... I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts. From Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Top 10 Most Outrageous Opening Lines In Literature.

Barack Obama Eats Babies.

No, it's not the first of April. The phenomenon known as a 'fire rainbow' does exist. A fire rainbow is a halo or an optical phenomenon similar in appearance to a horizontal rainbow, but in contrast caused by the refraction of light through the ice crystals in cirrus clouds.

Here, read the science behind it and marvel at some amazing photography of this rare beauty, the circumhorizont arc, known to its friends as a CHA.

(via Robert-John)

Spider Cakes.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Beautiful Halloween Wallpapers And Halloween DIY-Tutorials

Halloween is around the corner and the atmosphere is filled with pumpkins, skeletons, bonfires, horror movies and other scary things spread across the houses, stores and, of course, web sites.

Just the right time to spice up your desktop and your designs with an appropriate Halloween spirit. Here are some beautiful Halloween wallpapers, art works, recipes and tutorials for your scary Halloween party.

Short Term Memory Checker

Short term memory is information that undergoes little processing or interpretation and can be recalled for only a few seconds. Estimates of short term memory capacity vary - from about 3 or 4 elements (i.e., words, digits, or letters) to about 9 elements.

Check your short term memory. You are shown some items. Push the OK button when you have memorized them. Next find and click them among a lot of other items. You advance to the next level if you found all items. But if you make a mistake in even one, it's game over.

Did you know Pablo Picasso's full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso?

Or that Picasso had such a difficult birth and was such a weak baby that when he was born, the midwife thought that he was stillborn so she left him on a table to attend his mother.

10 Fun Facts About Pablo Picasso.

Skip Conversions by artist Oliver Bishop-Young. It's a project which suggests new uses for dumpsters.

Electric Stimulus To Face By Daito Manabe

German Police Seek Speeding British Muppet

German traffic police have been left looking like proper muppets by a British prankster. An ~~Audi TT~~ Audi A4 Avant with British registration plates has been repeatedly caught speeding on roads in the Bavarian city of Bayreuth.

The speed cameras in Germany are made to take photos of drivers who sit in the left side of the vehicle, so drivers of UK-style cars driver can't be easily identified.

A police source said: 'Because this is a British vehicle we can never get a decent picture. The driver has obviously worked this out because he has placed a large puppet in the passenger seat.'

The GreenDot Project

Everyone has a unique body signature. GreenDot is a research project that investigates motion capture, pattern recognition, and Intrinsic Biometrics'' techniques to detect human body language in video.

The goal of the project is to train a computer to recognize a person based on his or her motions, and to identify the person's emotional state, cultural background, and other attributes.

(via Boing Boing)

Life's enchanted cup! Byron may not have been referring to the humble egg cup when he wrote that line, but design and technology have brought the egg cup bang up to date with some new takes on an old idea.

Take a look at these 21st century egg cups - breakfast may never be the same again!

(via Robert-John)

PR campaigns blow millions on them. News anchors announce their arrival like they're members of state. And the rest of us suffer when they utterly fail to deliver.

They're overhyped tech products, and unfortunately, we've run across quite a few of them through the years. Here are a few of them... or at least, the ones we most bitterly remember.

Virtual Husband

Yesterday I posted about a Japanese woman who had been arrested after she killed her virtual husband.

The question is not how she killed him, but why?
Here's the answer!

This timeline is a presentation of popular and electoral voting data from U.S. Presidential elections since 1860.

If you think that the current economic crisis is something that has never happened in history before, you may be wrong!

After the collapse of the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe in 2000, the inflation in that country skyrocketed to 231 million percent a year.

Where These Internet Pioneers Got Their Names

Yahoo!, Sony, Motorola, RedHat, Oracle, Google, etc. These names are mentioned everyday in the Tech world. We know who they are and what they do, but we might not know how they settled with their brand name and the story behind it.

Here are 18 Internet giants and stories on how they end up with their names.

Trick photography is hardly a new phenomenon – in fact it has been around since the invention of the camera.

Here though is a strange new obsession – creating 'transparent' computer screens and capturing a digital image of a digital image of, well – a digital image!

(via Robert-John)

On October 24, 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence when its Charter was ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council (France, Republic of China, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and United States) and a majority of other 46 member countries.

To celebrate, here are 10 fun facts about the UN.

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: Happy Halloween!

click on the picture for real size

Weird Sound Generator

The Weird Sound Generator makes wacky, zany, weird, and unusual sounds. They stimulate brain cell growth in humans and pets.

Exposure of fetus to Weird Sounds promotes genius and prodigy...ism. Exposure of adolescents to Weird Sounds promotes respect and admiration for parents. Exposure of octogenarians to Weird Sounds reduces flatulence.

This project was personally endorsed by Albert Einstein who, while alive, looked into the future and declared: 'Zom day zomvun iss goink to make a very veird zound generator.' Not many people know this fact but now you do.

Weird Sound Generator.

Street culture and graffiti are well-known for being provocative, appealing, bold and uncompromising. Originally used by gangs to mark their territory in some urban area, graffitis have now become a rich medium for unrestricted expression of ideas and statements.

50 Examples of beautiful graffiti artworks.

Turn Your Name Into A Face

Want to waste some time with something useless?
Turn your name into a face.

I turned my name into a face and this is what it looks like.

Ultra Rigs of the World.

A Japanese woman has been arrested after she allegedly killed her virtual husband in a popular video game. The 43-year-old was reportedly furious at finding herself suddenly divorced in the online game Maplestory.

Police say she illegally accessed log-in details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character. The woman, a piano teacher, is in jail in Sapporo waiting to learn if she faces charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data.

Bentos, or boxed lunches, have a long history rooted in ancient Japan. They originally began as simple meals that required little or no effort to assemble. Today they are a vibrant art form that is popular worldwide.

(thanks Andi)

Water Figures

Water Figures.

Terrified Corn Cobs

(via Everlasting Blort)

Find The Exact Address Of Any Point On Earth

If you know the exact road directions for reaching a particular point in the city but you have no clue about the postal address of that place, this Google Maps mashup can help.

Use a search box to find an approximate location on Google Maps. Then click any point to see its address. You can use a zip code, address or city name.

Playing The Building

Playing the Building is a sound installation by artist David Byrne in which the infrastructure, the Battery Maritime Building in New York - is converted into a giant musical instrument.

Devices are attached to the building structure - to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes - and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

Saturn's tiny, icy moon Enceladus has recently been visited by NASA's Cassini orbiter on several very close approaches.

Scientists are learning a great deal about this curious little moon. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for over 4 years now, and has provided some amazing views of Enceladus.

Search!o is a tabbed search engine which aims to simplify your searching needs by bringing a lot of sites in a single page.

Search!o allows you to search in particular categories, including music, images, books, blogs, news, fonts, recipes, jobs, torrents, tutorials people and many more.

RealSnailMail

RealSnailMail is the first webmail service using live snails.

The moment you click 'send' your message travels at the speed of light to our server where it awaits collection by a real live snail. Our snails are equipped with a miniaturised electronic circuit and antenna, enabling them to be assigned messages.

Your message is collected from a despatch centre at one end of their enclosure. Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snail's shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Here more hardware collects your message and forwards it to its final destination.

It's festive, it's traditional and it's inedible - just like the real thing. When inflated, this inflatable fruitcake makes a great centerpiece for the holiday dinner table.

Miroslaw Magola moves objects with his mind, Manjit Singh pulls an airplane with his ears, and Zhang Quan can clap as loud as a helicopter.
Just some of the people with unbelievable talents.

(thanks Luke)

Pro Thumb Wrestling is a full-size, officially sanctioned professional thumb wrestling ring. All contenders must insert their thumbs through the opposite corner holes and come out wrestling.

A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds. The unpleasant aroma of the gas, called hydrogen sulfide, can be a little too familiar, as it is expelled by bacteria living in the human colon and eventually makes its way, well..., out.

The new research found that cells lining mice's blood vessels naturally make the gas and this action can help keep the rodents' blood pressure low by relaxing the blood vessels to prevent hypertension.

A Wkipedia list of multiple births and pregnancies greater than twins, such as triplets (3), quadruplets (5), quintuplets (5), and up to quindecaplets (15).

In day to day life it is hard to sometimes appreciate the restrictions put on us because they become camouflaged into our every day life and are just accepted as the norm. The media industry is trying to camouflage a lot of unethical restrictions to become the norm of how we consume video and music.

Applying the logic of the digital media industry to the handbag industry may seem like an unorthodox topic but it sure does point out the hypocrisies and bad ethics of certain media companies and organisations.

If the MPAA Did Handbags.

(thanks Lauren)

Pages - Menu

Friday, October 31, 2008

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Monday, October 27, 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Thursday, October 23, 2008