unique and interesting: October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Mimic Octopus

The Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) is a fascinating animal that was discovered in 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The mimic octopus is the first known species to take on the characteristics of multiple species.

This octopus is able to copy the physical likeness and movement of more than fifteen different species, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, sea shells, stingrays, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp.

The animal is so intelligent that it is able to discern which dangerous sea creature to impersonate that will present the greatest threat to its current possible predator.

Banana Slip-On created by Israelian designer Kobi Levi.

(via Everlasting Blort)

A lot is going on about bedbugs lately. I've done some posts about these creepy little bloodsuckers in the past and here's another one. Infographic: Bedbugs attack!

related posts:
Bedbugs Take Over USA
Bedbugs: The Baleful Biters Are Booming
The Bedbug Inspectors

image credit

In sixteenth century Italy the nobility would often leave testimony of their greatness through the form of religious art. Not so Pier Francesco Orsini. He wanted to be remembered in an entirely different way - through his Park of the Monsters. He did not want his monuments to please - he wanted them to astonish.

(thanks Robert-John)

Rushmore

A group of friends recreates Mount Rushmore.

Google's search market share topped 66% in September. While there seems to be room for competition, monopolies are not all about market share. The US government filed anti-trust suits against US steel when they had 67% of the market. Could it happen to Google?

(via Boing Boing)

related posts:
Just How Massive Is Google, Anyway?
How Google Works

A map where movies represent the US states.

Bookmans Does Book Dominoes

Advertisement for Bookmans, a second-hand bookshop in Arizona. The song is 'Café Connection' by morgantj.

(thanks Cora)

This light-up colour changing cushion is made from ultra-soft plush fur. An internal light source illuminates the whole cushion with a gently shifting light that shimmers between various different colours.

Powered by a battery pack that sits tucked away inside a zip-up compartment, low energy LEDs ensure that the Moonlight Cushion is both bright and safe. You can use this light up cushion anywhere you want some calm mood lighting, or even as a reassuring nightlight for a child's bedroom.

That Moonlight Cushion is nice, isn't it? But tomorrow is Halloween and on that day you need something more fitting. You need some 'Dead Tired Pillows.'

Blood splattered and with a matching bloodied axe to go with it on the reverse, you will certainly raise some questions when you get your early morning cup of tea brought in to you. Just be prepared for shrieks of horror and hot tea flying all over the place.

Bedbugs Take Over USA

Bed bugs are spreading across the USA. Bed bugs have overrun New York City and are now popping up in cities coast to coast. To date, high profile victims of bed bugs include the Metropolitan Opera House, the offices of the Wall Street Journal and the Waldorf Astoria.

Next Media Animation, founded by entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, is the largest-listed media company in Asia based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The animation studio produces computer-animated dramatizations of news events. Here's Next Media Animation's take on this bedbug problem.

(via Everlasting Blort)

related posts:
Bedbugs: The Baleful Biters Are Booming
The Bedbug Inspectors

Spooky Halloween Sounds

In need of some spooky Halloween sounds? Listen to these puppies.

(thanks Cora)

An amazing photo pieced together from 17 panoramic frames by Russian photographer Dmitriy Chistoprudov. The photo features 48 floors of a Russian office building called 'Federation' in Moscow City.

According to a 2009 survey, 40% of workers say they've dated a colleague at some point in their careers. 30% Say they married the person they dated at work.

So, there's a good chance that you will get involved with someone from your office. Here are some useful tips to be succesful in your career and your relationship.

(via Look At This...)

Big Bus

Wanna see a big bus?

(via UniqueDaily)

Turn Yourself Into A Zombie

What would you look like as a Zombie? Turn yourself into a Zombie and find out.
This is me as a Zombie.

image credit

It seems that locks aren't just simply used to keep property secure from theft and vandalism any more. For decades now a custom has slowly been creeping across the world whereby loving, romantic, and sometimes superstitious couples have decided to write messages on padlocks, attach them to certain landmarks in specific areas - more often than not railings and fences - and then throw away the key.

The practice, as well as symbolising a couple's unending love for each other, is in some countries thought to bring good luck to a relationship.

(thanks David)

Gaming has a weird, gory kind of love affair with zombies. With Dead Rising 2 hitting two million sales, franchises like Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead etched into our cultural memory, it's clear that undead fever is as strong as it ever was.

(thanks Matt)

We've been waiting a long time for this but it's finally here.
An Inception Button.

(thanks Cora)

A Robot With Coffee-Filled Hands

Researchers at Cornell University, the University of Chicago and iRobot came up with an ideal robotic gripping device, a latex party balloon filled with ground coffee. They call it the Kinetic Object grippiNg Arm.

It takes advantage of a physical phenomenon called jamming transition. When particles (like coffee grounds) are so densely packed that they can no longer slide past each other, they behave like a solid. When they’re loosely packed, they behave like a liquid.

More info.

image credit

Winsor McCay, cartoonist and animator, died in 1934 but he set the standard in animated movie making that others, including Walt Disney, were duty bound to follow. He was also well known for his newspaper comic strips, Gertie the
Dinosaur and Little Nemo in Slumberland.

However, his socio-political cartoons have been somewhat overlooked, perhaps because of the success of his strips and animations. Here is a selection of those cartoons from the years 1929 and 1930 - in some ways very similar to our own.

(thanks Robert-John)

Smell is one of the most powerful of our senses and it's also our most sensual. In all we can pick out a massive nine thousand different odours. Here are a few of the more stranger odours.

(thanks Danny)

In 2009, 4,340 workers lost their lives due to fatal occupational injuries in the USA. Which jobs are the most dangerous, what are the risks of each occupation and what can you expect to get paid for potentially putting yourself in harm's way.

Young Guard

A guard at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, shows he has a heart of gold.

This is a Daguerreotype taken by the inventor of the process, Louis Daguerre, in 1838. It is a view of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, France, and is believed to be the first ever photograph of a human being. To achieve this image he exposed a chemically treated metal plate for ten minutes.

Others were walking or riding in carriages down that busy street that day, but because they moved, they didn't show up. Only this guy stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show up in the picture.

For when you don't want your shoes to get wet.

Time Traveller From 1928?

This is currently doing the rounds on the Internet. Irish filmmaker George Clarke 'discovered' this footage in the extras of a Chaplin DVD boxset. The footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's The Circus shows a woman walking in the background who appears to be talking on a cell phone. In 1928! More info here.

Of course it's not a time traveller. I'm not even sure if that's a woman. It could be a man in drag. If you take a look at the Siemens hearing instruments history site it could be a compact, pocket sized carbon microphone/amplifier device, which they patented in 1924.

Wow, someone made a bookend that looks exactly like the waves in The Presurfer's logo. In fact, it is taken from the same image, 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' by Japanese artist Hokusai, which was published sometime between 1830 and 1833.

Playstation3 Singstar Ad

An ad for the Sony PS3 Singstar in France.

(thanks Cora)

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The question 'what have the Romans ever done for us' was famously asked in the Monty Python film Life of Brian and certainly you might think that a few thousand years later that question is potentially redundant. However, one look at the Pont du Gard aqueduct bridge may put paid to that idea.

(thanks Robert-John)

A large padded earpiece that attaches directly to your iPhone will save your delicate ear holes from wear and tear. Designer Robert Potter created his Earos concept in response to the minimalist approach to headsets by modern phone manufacturers.

While this seems a bulky addition to the iPhone, it's true that Apple didn't give much thought to comfort in their design process.

(via NeatoHub)

With governments committing huge sums to tackle the world's most pressing problems, from the instability of financial markets to climate change and poverty, corruption remains an obstacle to achieving much needed progress.

The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). The most corrupted country is Somalia. The least corrupted countries are Denmark, New Zealand, and Singapore.

SwissRoomBox Portable Camper

SwissRoomBox, the world's smallest motor home set up fitting most cars.

More about the SwissRoomBox.

(thanks Cora)

Halloween, a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today.

The Visual History Of Halloween.

More than 1,200 new species of plants and vertebrates have been discovered in the Amazon over the past decade - a new species every three days - according to a new WWF report, Amazon Alive.

The new species include 637 plants, 257 fish, 216 amphibians, 55 reptiles, 16 birds and 39 mammals, confirming that the Amazon is one of the most diverse places on Earth.

Whether we like it or not, human life is subject to the universal laws of physics.

Shortest Video Ever On YouTube

What the title says, the shortest video ever on YouTube.

(thanks Cora)

image credit

Welcome to the incredible world of water skeletons. Profoundly unique in shapes, sizes and extortionate forms of movement, it's hard to believe that these skeletons are purely made from internal fluids.

But how do they work? How do they move? Let's take a look at this remarkable skeleton evolution that represents some of the most unique aquatic species both beautiful and freaky in nature.

Presurfer reader Bogdan created a site which lets visitors know if a site is down for maintenance, and how much long it will take. 'Down for Maintenance' serves two functions: it confirms whether a site really is down (sometimes, sites only appear to be down to some web surfers, because of local connectivity problems), and, if that's the case, informs on why the problem exists and how long it's expected to take.

Travelogue

Travelogue is a pop-mythological and auto-biographical road movie by Robert Arnold, a journey through an imaginary American landscape, made entirely out of postcards.

(thanks Cora)

Paul the Octopus, who correctly predicted the outcome of games during this year's World Cup soccer tournament, has died. The eight-tentacled cephalopod oracle died of natural causes. He 2 and a half years old. Paul enthralled millions of people around the world by correctly predicting the outcome of several World Cup matches this year.

His prescience attracted a legion of news reporters and photographers. It also inspired a special clothing line and mobile phone applications. A documentary film on Paul is scheduled to debut soon. And donations made in Paul's name helped pay for a permanent sea turtle rescue center on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

A Guide On Choosing Your Best Hat Style

A guide on choosing your best hat style, because not all hats fit on all faces.

(via J-Walk Blog)

Saudis In Audis

Saudis In Audis is a funny car music video parody.

It has everything you need. Imitation leather seat, heater so it don't get colder, even has a mustache holder. Headlight so I see at night, cup holder for my sprite. It is flex fuel, don't you know, runs on gas and on cologne.

(thanks Cora and Erin)

What is the Phoenix Project, hoe did Mozart die, can apricots cure cancer, who was the man in the Iron Mask, is the Earth hollow, did Tom Ogle invent a vapor-fuel intake system for all automobiles?

10 Long Awaited Conspiracy Theories.

The new movies of 2011. It still doesn't sound like a real year does it? Hopefully 2011 is the year of surprises and sleeper hits, because the blockbuster line-up looks a little lackluster. And that's before we get to some (inevitable) disappointments.

Here's the list of the 20 most anticipated movies, 2011.

(thanks Sheridan)

Google Diagnostic Page For Malware Check

Did you know there's an easy way to perform a quick malware check on your site? Google Safe Browsing has a diagnostics page where you can find out. Just visit this URL and change the domain name in the end to the name where you host your site.

Google Diagnostic Page will tell you if it has detected malware on the website, how many pages were tested over the past 90 days, and how many networks (servers) are hosting the site.

Swedish designers have created a cycling 'collar' that is worn around the neck with an airbag hidden inside. When sensors in the device determine a crash has happened, an airbag, called Hövding, instantly inflates around the cyclist's head to form a helmet.

The device has been tuned by recreating hundreds of accidents using crash test dummies and real riders. The airbag stays inflated for several seconds. It is powered by a rechargable battery.

(via Everlasting Blort)

20 brilliant Halloween costume ideas.

(thanks Andi)

Dimensions is an experimental prototype for the BBC. Dimensions brings home the human scale of events and places in history. The D-Day landing beaches measured from London to Norfolk in the UK. How far would the Titanic stretch down your street?

Dimensions simply juxtaposes the size of historical events with your home and neighbourhood, overlaying important places, events and things on a satellite view of where you live. Type in your postcode or a place name to get started.

(thanks Cora)

Tractor Music

If you haven't noticed, cats are big on the Internet. Even though the occasional panda, turtle or slow loris gets a slice of the viral action, cats are, and always have been, the prevalent species to be found online.

Why is it that the collective web is a 'cat person,' so to speak? Why are there so many kitty pics and videos cluttering up the Interwebs? And what is it about feline-themed content that makes it so weirdly shareable?

Cities where pedestrians happily walk to their destinations instead of driving everywhere are our dream, but what if walking means taking your life into your hands? This is a look at a handful of cities around the world, and how often their pedestrians are killed while attempting to traverse them.

(thanks Cora)

It was on July 15, 1976, we are told, that couch potato came into being, uttered by Tom Iacino of Pasadena, California, during a telephone conversation. He was a member of a Southern California group humorously opposing the fads of exercise and healthy diet in favor of vegetating before the TV and eating junk food.

Many people want to be a couch potato and for understandable reasons. Maybe it's their one day off, maybe they just got back from practice, or a hard week at work. Maybe they're just tired and want everything intellectually and physically demanding to just flee for a time. Whatever the reason, you can be a prime example of a couch potato by crashing on the couch and using some fun techniques.

A squeeze, a flick, a touch - but keep those grimy, germ-infested hands off that iPhone. Who knows where those fingers have been? Personal touch-screen devices - iPads, BlackBerrys and Droids - are now seemingly everywhere, potentially harboring the germs and viruses that turn voices raspy and send noses running.

Want to peek at a digital snapshot, a friend's Facebook status or to show off the latest YouTube video? Best to just look, not touch - or risk going viral yourself. British researchers provide some stomach-churning data: Mobile phones harbor 18 times more bacteria than a flush handle in a typical men's restroom.

According to a study, published by the Journal of Applied Microbiology, the risks of transmitting pathogens from glass surfaces to a person's skin are relatively high. If you put a virus on a surface, like an iPhone, about 30 percent of it will get on your fingertips and a fair amount of it may go from your fingers to your eyes, mouth or nose, the most likely routes of infection.

Belgium

What do you know about Belgium? The country was inhabited in ancient times by the Belgae, the region was part of the Roman and Carolingian empires before breaking up into a number of feudal states during the Middle Ages. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Belgium was given to the kingdom of the Netherlands, from which it gained independence as a separate kingdom in 1830.

Now you know a little bit more about Belgium. But what you may not know is that Belgium is a very complicated country.

(thanks Cora)

Sony announced it will stop manufacturing and selling cassette Walkmans in Japan - after 30 years. Sony says the final lot was shipped to retailers in April this year, and once the last units are sold, there will be no cassette Walkmans available anymore.

The device was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips. The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK.

Former NPR analyst Juan Williams, among other ignorant people, has an irrational fear of Muslims, and thinks you can identify them based on what they look like. Here I will post pictures of Muslims wearing all sorts of things in an attempt to refute that there is such a thing as 'Muslim garb' or a Muslim look.

Aboce is a picture of Anousheh Ansari, the first Muslim woman in space.
Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things.

(via Boing Boing)

WheelchairNet is a community for people who have a common interest in wheelchair technology and its improvement and successful application. It's a community organized along the lines of a real town.

This virtual town is inhabited, visited and managed by people who have an interest in wheelchairs and how wheelchairs can best serve the needs of people who use them. Its primary audience is the person who uses a wheelchair. WheelchairNet's services and information are free.

Ecuadorean Crowned Spanish Siesta Champion

The first national siesta championship was held in Madrid, Spain, and was organised by the National Association of Friends of the Siesta. Participants were monitored as they rested on bright blue sofas in the middle of a shopping mall for a 20-minute nap.

Some were wearing pyjamas; others sported eye masks or covered their faces with their jackets. They had pulse monitors attached to their bodies and the maximum of 20,000 points was awarded to those who managed to sleep for the full 20 minutes.

Pedro Soria Lopez, a 62-year-old Ecuadorean man managed to ignore the uproar of a teeming Madrid shopping center and won the championship by sleeping for 17 minutes. They said he not only slept soundly but his snoring on Tuesday also registered 70 decibels. That earned him extra points and enough to defeat the runner-up who had slept for 18 minutes.

Sears is an American merchandising company, historically one of the world's largest retailers. Now Sears targets a new group of customers: Zombies. There are special shops for female and male Zombies.

There's a Zombie gift guide, and a Zombie Friend Maker to create a Zombie wallpaper like the one below that I made. You can even switch to Zombian and the whole page turns into Zombie-speak.

(thanks Cora)

This wooden car apparently rides on a 1986 Toyota truck frame and gets power from a Chrysler 318 engine. It is driven by an automatic transmission and has just 1,800 miles on its odometer. The whole body is made of cedar and its interior is just as cool as the exterior.

The Bed Moat is a sleek, new, innovative and effective bed bug monitor to assist in the battle against bed bugs. The Bed Moat monitors should be placed under each leg of the furniture where people sleep. The leg of the furniture should rest in the centre well of the device.

Create an island by not letting any items hang off of the bed or furniture and touch the floor at any point during the day or night. Move the bed and furniture away from the wall so there are no 'bridges' for bed bugs to access a person other than through the Bed Moat.

The Bed Moat should remain in place for a minimum of 30 days to assist in monitoring for bed bugs, however it is recommended that you keep it indefinitely for continuous bed bug monitoring.

(via J-Walk Blog)

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The Norias of Hama in Syria have been turning for hundreds of years. There are still seventeen of these enormous waterwheels in the city.

At the time that Dante was writing The Inferno, the minds of Islamic engineers turned in this ancient city to a problem which still affects us today - how to provide a burgeoning population and the associated agricultural areas with enough waters. Their solution was and remains magnificent.

(thanks Robert-John)

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If you're the parent of a tween, you're probably familiar with 'spaghetti tacos.' For those not in the know, the idea for this newfound dish - literally spaghetti piled into a hard taco shell - was sparked by a recent episode of Nickelodeon's iCarly.

Within days of the show airing, as The New York Times reported, a kid-friendly culinary hit was born. But there are other instances of TV food coming to life. Here are eight unique dishes that were thought up in the writer's room but created in kitchens.

(thanks Jessie)

Baby Monkey (Going Backwards On A Pig)

Have you ever seen a baby monkey riding a pig backwards?
After seeing this video you can say you have.

(via Humanyms)

They're shaped like everything from a ballet slipper to a dinosaur, and you've probably seen kids, teens, even adults sporting the colorful bracelets on their wrists, making Silly Bandz the 'it' accessory of the moment. But this isn't the first time youngsters have gone loco over a new toy, game or accessory.

Remember Trolls? Or how about Furbys? And who could forget the Beanie Babies hysteria of the '90s? Whether it's something kids wear, something they play with or just something they collect, here are 10 unforgettable kids' crazes from the last century.

(thanks Jessie)

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Saturday, October 23, 2010