unique and interesting: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

I Like Beef

This cat really likes beef.

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We all know that cheese goes well with almost everything - wine, pasta, vegetables, even fruit. But did you know there are sculptors around the country who use monstrous blocks of cheese for their... art?

Whether made by professional carvers or self-described food gurus, cheese sculptures have grown in popularity over the last few years. From Abe Lincoln to the Eiffel Tower, these eight seriously impressive hunks of cheese are definitely worth a look.

(thanks Jessie)

The Laptop Burka lets you work and play on your laptop without the glare of sunlight or stares from uninvited strangers. Laptop Burka lets you work or watch movies in your own portable private space, and its made from high-quality, breathable, lightweight fabric.

Take it anywhere, anytime. No more eye straining or battery draining from glare. Take your Laptop Burka to the pool, the patio, the park, anywhere.

Here are some of the world's biggest foods. When the American love of big things meets the farm the results are outrageous. This slide show contains a 127-pound cabbage, a 268-pound watermelon, a 150-pound hamburger and much more.

(thanks Taylor)

Siqueira Lima Guitar Duo Plays 'Tico Tico No Fubá'

The guitar duo plays their 4-hands arrangement of Tico Tico no Fubá. They are Fernando Lima from Brazil and Cecilia Siqueira from Uruguay.

(thanks Cora)

Here are the best movie monsters to ever rumble the subwoofers. We're talking big, big beasts. Nasty ones. No friendly Godzilla or loveable King Kong here.

(thanks Sheridan)

Weirdest And Worst Beatles Cover Ever

From Hungary, a choir of ventriloquistic monstrosity.

(via Boing Boing)

My Zombie Insurance the #1 zombie insurance provider recommended by home builders, general insurance companies, and undertakers.

It is suspected that each year, millions of dollars in personal property is damaged by hordes of zombies. And yet, regular insurance companies don't deal with these claims. We all know how zombies like to break down doors, come through the windows, and indiscriminately break all your stuff. Zombies just don't care, but we do.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Talking of a bad hair day.
Don't Judge My Hair.

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The historian Edward Gibbon believed that Christianity bore the ultimate responsibility for the fall of the Roman Empire. However, during the third century, the Romans were well on their way to destroying themselves.

Ultimately, the Christians may have disrupted the foundations of the Roman Empire; however their actions hardly destroyed the Romans as Edward Gibbons had implied. The empire was on the decline well before Christianity was becoming a dominant force.

(via Lauren)

EyePet

EyePet is a game for the PlayStation 3. The game uses the PlayStation Eye camera to allow a virtual pet to interact with people and objects in the real world. Using augmented reality, the simian, gremlin-like creature appears to be aware of its environment and surroundings and reacts to them accordingly.

The player can place objects in front of the animal and the game will interpret what the object is and respond to it. For example, if the player rolls a ball towards it, it will jump out of the way to avoid being hurt. It will also react to the player's actions and sound allowing the user to, for example, tickle the animal or clap their hands to startle it.

Salvation Mountain is a colorful artificial mountain north of Calipatria, California, USA. It is made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of paint. It was created by Leonard Knight to convey the message that 'God Loves Everyone.'

Mr. Knight refused substantial donations of money and labor from supporters who wished to modify his message of universal love to favor or disfavor particular groups. Salvation Mountain is the second most visited tourist attraction in Imperial County.

(via 2leep)

Photojojo has a tutorial not for the faint of heart. They will teach you how to photograph a ghost and it's going to be very simple.

In just three little steps you can have a photo of a real live ghost that looks a lot like one of your real live friends. A photo so spooky it'll send you running for mommy (to get her to pose for more ghosty photos).

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Operation Cornflakes was a World War II Office of Strategic Services PSYOP mission in 1944 and 1945 which involved tricking the German postal service Deutsche Reichspost into inadvertently delivering anti-Nazi propaganda to German citizens through mail.

Operation Cornflakes involved special planes that were instructed to airdrop bags of false, but properly addressed mail in the vicinity of bombed mail trains. When recovering the mail during clean-up of the wreck, the postal service would hopefully confuse the false mail for the real thing and deliver it to the various addresses.

In addition, the postage stamps used were subtly designed to resemble the standard stamp with Adolf Hitler's face, but a close examination would reveal that his face is made to look like an exposed skull or similarly unflattering imagery. Also, the country identifier 'Deutsches Reich' (German Empire) read 'Futsches Reich' (Collapsed Empire).

LED Eyelashes

If you fancy creating a little extra sparkle at any party, why not wear the latest in tech fashion LED Eyelashes created by Korean designer Soomi Park.

(thanks Cora)

This incredible photo was shot for National Geographic by Monica Szczupider, and shows chimpanzees at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon. They're observing as the body of an elder troop member is taken to burial.

The story behind the photo of grieving chimps.

(via Boing Boing)

Before you can read a crystal ball, you should program it and do a dedication. You need to program your crystal ball or it becomes a useless dust collector. Through meditation, you set up the guidelines for communication between yourself and the ball.

Quartz crystal is a very powerful crystal that is capable of being programmed, storing information, bridging the gap between spiritual dimensions and this material world. Quartz crystal is a powerful healer and can also be used in uncovering health issues. Once you have programmed your crystal ball and have become familiar with it, you are ready to being crystal ball gazing.

The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds.

The first two thirds of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Although there were sensationalist accounts in the press about a supposed panic in response to the broadcast, the precise extent of listener response has been debated.

In the days following the adaptation, however, there was widespread outrage. The program's news-bulletin format was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast, but the episode launched Orson Welles to fame.

Tomorrow, October 30th at 8pm EST, tune into War of the World Tribute for a special re-airing of the Halloween episode of 1938's Mercury Theatre on the Air.

(thanks Maury, Jake)

Name that car. They give you a clue, you guess the car.

(thanks Matthew)

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Plants, bark, roots, and vegetables with strong flavors have been used for thousands of years. Spices were one of the main products in early international trade and a major reason that some European nations sought to expand their colonial holdings.

Many of today's popular pungent plant-based flavors are the same as their equally desirable fore-bearers.

22 Halloween cakes. Some are just gross or creepy.

(thanks Nick)

Twinester lets you create or join groups and communities for Twitter and interact with other Twitter users of similar interest. Groups are known as 'nests' which symbolizes the many people in a particular community.

You can either create groups or browse them by categories such as business, lifestyle, entertainment, technology, internet, etc. The landing page also displays the hottest nests, recent and last users.

(thanks Katy)

Wearable Hummingbird Feeder

Heatstick has invented a Wearable Hummingbird Feeder. It is based on a Professional Grade Fully Adjustable Full Face Face Shield with a miniature hummingbird feeder built into it on the inside. Hummingbirds feed right in front of your eyes.

Heatstick website.

(via Boing Boing)

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School

With classes, homework, and projects - not to mention your social life - time is truly at a premium for you, so why not latch onto the wide world that Google has to offer?

From super-effective search tricks to Google hacks, specifically for education, to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time.

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Since construction began in 2005 the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge has been a project which has kept the world watching. It has had its pitfalls but things seem to be pretty much on schedule.

The latest milestone has been the completion - and joining in the middle - of the main arch. The supporting cables have now been removed and it is freestanding - all that is left is to build the pillars from it on which the road will stand.

(via Robert-John)

Davy Crockett Hats.

Meggins

Meggings are leggings for men. Men's stores in Tokyo, Japan, are now selling leggings, which some guys like to wear under capri pants.

(via Tokyo Mango)

When you are on a farm, it is somewhat easy to imagine that one can get bored relatively easily. Stuck on a remote location in an environment where thirsty and repetitive work is the rule of the day, it is all but inevitable that one will eventually turn to unconventional use of common farm products if its means attaining the amusement that they yearn.

Get out the paint and start applying facial features to the side of a haystack; or get more adventurous. Some people like to make statues with more than one haystack, but there are also impressive life-size sculptures of a satellite dish, a rocket ship and even a ferris wheel.

7 Reasons To Keep Your Tyrannosaur Off Crack Cocaine.

A state by state, country by country index of haunted places. Probably the largest listing of haunted places on the net.

Not all of these places may be haunted, some of these are just local legends and folklore, but often these legends do spring out of past events.

(thanks Cora)

The Ancient Welsh Decorative Art Of Baragami

Baragami is the ancient Welsh decorative art of 'toast arranging.' First documented in Aberystwyth, Wales, baragami involves the presentation of toast in intricate and preferably topical arrangements. A skillful baragami endeavours to make reference to current affairs although there are a number of classical toast arrangements.

Baragami aims to create designs with the minimum use of cuts. It may be necessary to remove crusts or to use slices from different loaves to attain different sized pieces, but fancy bread-trimming such as curves, zig-zags, crenellations etc. are frowned upon.

(via Bifurcated Rivets)

A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm. Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create 'lifelogs' that archive their entire lives.

Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

One Man Band

This guy from Croatia is making some extremely entertaining music with little more than himself and some toy instruments.

(thanks Cora)

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Change your socks! Really! It's an amazing trick. Bring a change of socks to work, and change your socks midway through the day. You'll be amazed at how much fresher you'll feel. Other ways to get more energy are to have a piece of chocolate, sniff some citrus, have a laugh, or eat some eggs.

55 Ways To Get More Energy.

Researchers from the University of Toledo have reported the first ever case of someone using the internet while asleep, after a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar.

The 44-year-old woman, whose case is reported in the latest edition of medical journal Sleep Medicine, had gone to bed at around 10pm, but got up two hours later and walked to the next room.

She then turned on the computer, connected to the internet, and logged on to her email account. She then composed and sent three emails. Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well formatted and written in strange language.

Old weird black and white images that makes you say: 'Huh?'

(via Neatorama)

Next Generation Talent 2009 Winner Announced

Romaine Reid is the winner of the second Next Generation Talent competition. A student at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in the UK, Romaine's video entry was crowned best advertisement for Panasonic's G10 Viera.

A panel of nine online creative experts, from sites like CNET and The University Blog, shortlisted two ads from the unprecedented number of entries, but the ultimate decision was made by the public who voted for their favourite ad.

iPhones and Crackberries are all very well, what with their apps and widgets and electronic functionality. But there are moments in life when the prosaic pressed-pulp appeal of proper paper is preferred. For those particular purposes, Photojojo proudly present these paper pads, complete with pictures on the cover.

Fabricate a few fetching folios with photos of your friends, or pair them with pencils to make pleasant presents! You'll swoon for these sleek stacks of stationery sheets.

Parking Fail

Park your car.
Press the accelerator, not the brakes.
Reverse.
Get the hell out of there!

(via UniqueDaily)

For those who always wanted to hit a gong with a large mallet.
Go on! You know you want to!
Hit the gong!

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Devil's Town or Djavolja Varos as it is known in Serbian, can be found on the southern slopes of the Radan Mountains. The locals believed for centuries that they were formed when devils fought for supremacy.

In fact their origins are much more down to earth - literally.
Take a trip to Devil's Town, a peculiar place if ever there was one.

(via Robert-John)

Everybody knows what a cloverleaf looks like, but could you identify a Lofthouse, a ParClo, a Butt, a Spooey, or a Braid? These are among the distinctive designs that transportation engineers have conjured up to keep traffic flowing and motorists headed in the right direction when major roads intersect.

For your driverly edification, The Infrastructurist compiled photo examples of more than 20 different kinds of strange and delightful highway interchanges found both in the US and abroad.

Fairey Rotodyne

The Fairey Rotodyne was a 1950s British compound gyroplane designed and built by Fairey Aviation and intended for commercial and military applications. The Rotodyne featured a tip-jet-powered rotor that burned a mixture of fuel and compressed air bled from two wing-mounted Napier Eland turboprops.

The rotor was driven for vertical takeoffs, landings and hovering, and low-speed translational flight, and autorotated during cruise flight with all engine power applied to two propellers. Although promising in concept and entirely successful in trials, the Rotodyne program was eventually cancelled when a combination of politics and the lack of commercial orders doomed the project.

The New York based landscape and urban design office of Balmori Associates has designed the 'Garden That Climbs The Steps' in Bilbao, Spain.

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: Great Last Minute Costume Ideas.

click on the picture for real size

Visit the Home Schooled Webcomic.

Twittas has different apps to find out statistics about your Twitter account. Find out when your first tweet was, how much time you wasted tweeting, see how long you are on Twitter and wich celebrities arrived after you, find out who your first followers were, whether you have more followers than the Pope, see a map to locate the people who follow you, etc.

I'm not much of a 'twitterer.' As a matter of fact, if my 'twittering' would be a car, I would go only 0.6 mph. At the moment I have 422 followers.
Twittas estimates that I will have 1.000.000 followers on Saturday, August 4, 2057.

Internet Rules And Laws

Ever heard of Godwin's Law, Rule 34, Skitt's Law, DeMyer's Laws, or the Law of Exclamation? They're Internet rules and laws. Any internet user will know that the web, like the outside world, follows certain rules.

Here are 10 Internet laws, some are well-known and widely used while others are lesser known.

British tennis-playing socialite Susan Travers (23 September 1909–18 December 2003) became the only woman in the French Foreign Legion, leading a daring, wartime, desert escape.

Born in southern England as the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, but raised as a young tennis-playing socialite in the south of France, Travers was among thousands of women who joined the French Red Cross at the outbreak of the Second World War.

When France fell to the Nazis she made her way to London and signed up with General De Gaulle's Free French and was attached to the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Legion Etrangere, which sailed for Africa. Volunteering as a driver to the brigade's senior officers, she exhibited such nerves of steel in negotiating minefields and enemy attacks that she earned the affectionate nickname 'La Miss' from her thousand male comrades.

(via Look At This...)

Online Converter

Distance, weight, volume, speed, pressure, area, or temperature. With this online converter you can convert just about anything to anything else.

Vodafone Symphonia

Vodafone New Zealand hired a production team to orchestrate cellphones into playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. The effort took 1000 phones and 53 different ringtone alerts, synchronized to recreate the famous classical piece.

(thanks Cora)

Most modern bathtubs are made of acrylic or fiberglass, but alternatives are available in enamel over steel or cast iron, and occasionally waterproof finished wood.

Here are 12 most creative bathtubs.

Perfect Boiled Eggs

Nearly every basic cookbook offers conflicting techniques on how to boil an egg. Start the egg in cold water, or gently lower it into boiling water; add vinegar to the water to lower its pH, or add baking soda to the water to raise it; cover the pot, don't cover the pot; use old eggs, or use new eggs, and on and on - but very few offer evidence as to why any one of these techniques should work any better than your average old wives' tale.

Serious Eats shows you how to make perfect boiled eggs.

An interesting exhibition was presented at the festival of ceramics in China. A wall with a total length of 100 meters and five meters height was completely littered with toilets, sinks and other sanitary ware.

More than ten thousand objects were used. Then, the water started to run and a 'toilet waterfall' was created.

(via Boing Boing)

LEGO Pop-Up Temple

A brilliant LEGO construction of Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

Chinese photographer Lu Guang won the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography Award for his documentary project 'Pollution in China' at the 30th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.

A People's History Of The Internet: From Arpanet In 1969 To Today

On October 29, 1969, computers at the University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford connect for the first time - the first two 'hosts' on what would become the internet.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the first stirrings of the internet, here's an interactive documentary with stories and videos, alongside interviews with key figures.

Public Debut For Rare White Lion Cubs

Three rare white lion cubs, Portia, Phoebe and Pandora, have gone on show at the West Midland Safari Park near Bewdley, Worcestershire in central England under the ever-watchful eye of their mother.

(thanks Cora)

Strange Cloud Formation Spooks Moscow Citizens

Citizens of Moscow, Russia, were spooked by a strange cloud formation. The cloud looked like a huge alien mothership.

Talking about aliens, there is an official announcement imminent by the Obama administration disclosing the reality of extraterrestrial life.

For several months, senior administration officials have been quietly deliberating behind closed doors how much to disclose to the world about extraterrestrial life.

The impending disclosure announcement follows upon the secret implementation of a year long openness policy on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Over the period February 12-14, 2008, the United Nations held closed doors discussions where approximately 30 nations secretly agreed on a new openness policy on UFOs and extraterrestrial life in 2009.

Here's an easy to wear Politically Incorrect Balloon Boy Halloween Costume. Now you too can enjoy all the media attention you want with this Balloon Boy Hoax kit. Just ring the doorbell and say 'I'm supposed to be flying in there, but my dad said to stay in the box for the show.'

You are practically guaranteed to get double and triple halloween treats with this authentic and collectible Balloon Boy Flying Saucer Hoax trick costume.

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The Third Reich, Germany's Nazi era, existed from 1933, when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker's Party came to power, until 1945, when the regime collapsed at the end of the Second World War. At the time of Hitler's rise to power Germany was recovering from the First World War and coming to terms with the conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

The media of the Third Reich era were instrumental in creating the impression of a confident and stylish modern European country, with an air of optimism and triumphalism reflected in the print ads of the time.

(thanks Andy)

Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Disney's Magic Kingdom

See the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida from a whole new perspective. The video was created from a series of photos snapped inside the Magic Kingdom Park.

(thanks Cora)

To celebrate the release of Windows 7, from October 10 untill October 18, Microsoft and Burger King Japan are offering the Windows 7 Whopper measuring 5.1 inches in diameter with up to seven beef patties totaling 1.75 pounds.

Crazy, completely crazy.
Here'a a link to the (badly) translated Japanese page.

Most of the many languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Another major family is the Finno-Ugric. The Turkic family also has several European members. The North and South Caucasian families are important in the southeastern extremity of geographical Europe.

(via Neatorama)

Time and again, exercise equipment is created specifically to help users bypass the tried-and-true method of sweating it out.

From the weSurf, which attempts to recreate the surfing experience at home, to a treadmill that powers a bicycle, some no-gym-needed gadgets encourage the most calorie burn-by way of cracking us up.

(thanks Jessie)

British Pubs: Signs Of The Times

Pub signs are almost like time machines. Britain's great military heroes of the Napoleonic Wars - Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington - have many pubs named after them, as do significant ships and famous land and sea battles.

Extremely Polluted Romanian River

This video was sent to me by 'Gutza', a Romanian who says he's not proud to show me this. He also says that if nobody raises awareness about the pollution and waste problem in Romania they're going to be the first to suffer - and, of course, the rest of Europe along with them.

He also wants to point out that not all rivers in Romania look this way, but if improperly regulated this problem can only escalate.

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Since the global financial debacle of last year, it's shocking how many homes are available for sale for under US$50,000, especially in the US where the housing market was hit hardest. Across the States it's now relatively easy to find affordable homes and get quite a bit for your money into the bargain.

Unfortunately, it's usually as a result of some poor soul having had their home repossessed following foreclosure. And while some of the homes on offer require a lot of creative flair and vision to make them inhabitable again, others are in such a good state they're an absolute steal.

(thanks Andy)

As time passes by new technologies emerge. In Ukraine, they have new technologies at their service. But sometimes it turns to be a bit too much. As with the monument to the Motherland, erected in Cherkassy city shortly after World War 2.

When the Soviet Union fell and its former states became independent, the whole infrastructure supporting different regions became interrupted. The gas used for the torch of the statue became too expensive to be burnt without any real purpose. So they shut it down. For years the statue was standing without a burning torch. But then... new technologies came into play.

(thanks Stanley)

Full Moon ia a new game by Bart Bonte. The fullest moon, a rabbit with desires, can you bring satisfaction? Explore, point, click, drag, drop! You have to figure it out yourself.

More Bonte games.

Pages - Menu

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Friday, October 30, 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Friday, October 23, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009