unique and interesting: March 2011

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Twin Baby Boys Have A Conversation

These twin baby boys are having a conversation. They're obviously talking about Dada.

YouTube link

Photographer Jeffrey Martin took a 40 Gigapixel photo of the Philosophical Hall, a Baroque reading room in the 868-year-old Strahov monastery library in Prague, Czech Republic. The photo consists of 2,947 individual shots turned into a single picture.

Martin's panorama lets you examine the spines of the works in the Philosophical Hall's 42,000 volumes, part of the monastery's stunning collection of just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century - more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time. You can even zoom in to read the titles of the books.

(via Neatorama)

My Internet Speed

I saw an infographic about broadband Internet speeds around the world. It seems there's a huge difference in the speed with which various countries can connect to the Internet. Around the globe the average speed is 8.61 Mbps. Fastest on average is Japan with 61 Mbps. The average in the USA is 4.6 Mbps. The average here in the Netherlands is 9.0 Mbps. Here's the infographic.

Of course, averages don't say everything about one's personal Internet speed. I just sealed a new contract with my provider for the highest Internet speed they are offering. I'm now on the high end of this with a speed of 94.72 Mbps, as you can see here.

Take the speedtest to measure your Internet speed.

Beijing has been on a manners kick for the last few years, but on the hottest summer days, there is no stopping men of all ages and shapes from rolling up their shirts and exposing their tummies.

They're known as 'bang ye,' or 'exposing grandfathers.' In the hottest weather, bang ye seems to be everywhere, striding among the tall buildings in Beijing's business district, playing chess in parks, holding children's hands at the zoo and negotiating crowded alleyways.

Read the whole story at The Los Angeles Times.

Robert Bunsen's 200th Birthday

Today Google is celebrating Robert Bunsen's 200th birthday with doodle.

Robert Bunsen - born in Göttingen, Germany - is best known for his improvement of the gas flame device which bears his name: the Bunsen burner. But Bunsen's contributions to science extend far beyond this one invention; he developed a number of other common laboratory instruments, as well as a new device and process for analyzing the elemental constituents of chemicals called spectroscopy.

Gorilla Reunion

In the African jungle, conservationist Damian Aspinall searches for Kwibi, a lowland gorilla he hasn't seen for 5 years. Kwibi grew up with Damian at his Howletts Wild Animal Park in England.

When he was five, he was released into the forests of Gabon, West Africa as part of conservation programme to re-introduce gorillas back into the wild. Now Kwibi's 10 years old, much bigger and stronger. Will Damian find him? Will Kwibi attack him?

YouTube link

image credit

If you're asked to name America's most thriving towns, chances are you won't come up with Bodie, Cahawba or Centralia. But once upon a time, these areas were booming. Then their demise - brought on by economic downturns, pollution or other circumstances - led to their abandonment. Here are 12 places that are now a shadow of their former selves.

(thanks Jessie)

Many earlier cloaking systems turned objects invisible only under wavelengths of light that the human eye can't see. Others could conceal only microscopic objects. But a new system, developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre, works in visible light and can hide objects big enough to see with the naked eye.

The cloak is made from two pieces of calcite crystal stuck together in a certain configuration. Calcite is highly anisotropic, which means that light coming from one side will exit at a different angle than light entering from another side. By using two different pieces of calcite, the researchers were able to bend light around a solid object placed between the crystals. Whatever is put under this gap, it looks from the outside like it is not there.

(thanks Mike)

Tsunami Ravaging Kesennuma Port

A new video emerged in the aftermath of the 2011 Japan earthquake. It's terrifying to see the devastating tsunami wiping out the port of Kesennuma in a matter of minutes.

YouTube link

(via Laughing Squid)

Clay Yourself

See how great you look in clay. Create your own clay avatar.
Here's how I look in clay. Sort of.

The Memidex online dictionary and thesaurus is the Internet's first combined index of external definitions, audio, and etymology. Memidex now has over 12.5 million detailed references making it a useful and unique English language reference tool for students, teachers, researchers, professional writers, and casual browsers alike.

Memidex external references currently include over 5.4 million definition references, 5.3 million audio references, and 1.8 million etymology references. Each reference has a title, a list of any other associated terms, an excerpt or description of the resource, a link to the actual web page, and a link to cite that specific resource in various established bibliographic styles.

image credit

A creepy cake bust of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, baked by Aaron Jue for the wedding of Zeph and Sara LaFassett.

Prevent A Crime By Putting Your Finger On The Screen

Put your finger on the screen and help prevent a crime.
An advertisement for Skittles.

YouTube link

(thanks Jesse)

A collection of pictures of people pointing from various newspapers in Austria. The owner of the blog says:

I find it strange how newspapers attempt to write a compelling article and fail. It seems as though they never find interesting things to write about in this city so they try to add some 'spice' to the crap that they write by forcing participants to point at a rock, or tree, a hole in the ground, or some other object.

(via Look At This...)

A 2,500-year-old human skull uncovered in England was less of a surprise than what was in it: the brain. The discovery of the yellowish, crinkly, shrunken brain prompted questions about how such a fragile organ could have survived so long and how frequently this strange type of preservation occurs.

Except for the brain, all of the skull's soft tissue was gone when the skull was pulled from a muddy Iron Age pit where the University of York was planning to expand its Heslington East campus. Researchers who assessed the state of the brain after it was found in 2008 and looked into likely modes of preservation.

(via Neatorama)

Alphabet shaped ships made with LEGO.

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

Cloud Girlfriend Promises To Give You A Pretend Facebook Girlfriend

Cloud Girlfriend is a new Internet company that promises to help guys to a virtual girlfriend. But nobody will know that she doesn't exist. The new service allows users to create the perfect girlfriend who will write on your Facebook wall and otherwise make her ghostly presence known through social media.

According to the site, signing up is easy: Step 1: Define your perfect girlfriend. Step 2: We bring her into existence. Step 3: Connect and interact with her publicly on your favorite social network. Step 4: Enjoy a public long distance relationship with your perfect girl. Cloud Girlfriend has yet to officially launch, but the site is already generating overwhelming interest, advising visitors to 'register early to
get in line.'

Cloud Girlfriend website.

No, not 'text-align: center,' but 'text-align: centaur'.
For if you need some silliness in your text alignments.

A new study by Neal Roese, Kellogg professor of marketing, finds that romance is the most common source of regret among Americans. Other common sources of regret include family interactions, education, career, finances and parenting. For the study, Roese and Mike Morrison of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign analyzed data from a telephone survey of 370 adult Americans.

Subjects were asked to describe one regret in detail, including the time in which the regret happened and whether the regret was based on an action or inaction. We found that one's life circumstances, such as accomplishments or shortcomings, inject considerable fuel into the fires of regret, Roese said. Although regret is painful, it is an essential component of the human experience.

(via Neatorama)

The most beautiful pictures of a baby hummingbird nest you've ever seen.
Taken by Alek Komarnitsky.

German curator Tobias Megerle came up with the idea to let a dozen Mahim woodcarvers from Mumbai, India, produce their own traditional skateboards.

As an artist I was driven to do something with these woodcarvers and their work. I visited the workshops several times and after a series of thoughts I hit upon the object to be combined with the traditional woodwork - the good old skateboard. In Mumbai the skateboard is, in many places, more than just a piece of sports equipment.

It's an entire lifestyle that's created around it, a unique music style, special clothes, whole skater-parks. Invariably all commercially-available skateboards are artistically designed, mostly with graphics, spray paintings, printed, often in a comic style.

(via Everlasting Blort)

(via Reddit)

The 'Bufalino' by German industrial designer Cornelius Comanns is a small camper which is equipped to meet the basic needs of one person. The concept behind the project is to offer absolute flexibility during periods of travel. The minimalist construction is based on the existing Piaggio three wheeled light transport vehicle.

A rare photo, released by the White House, shows Barack Obama fielding calls from a tent in Brazil, to keep up with events in Libya. The tent is a mobile secure area known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, designed to allow officials to have top secret discussions on the move. They are one of the safest places in the world to have a conversation.

Designed to withstand eavesdropping, phone tapping and computer hacking, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities are protected areas where classified conversations can be held. They can be permanent enclosures within a building, or mobile areas set up when a world leader is on the move, to allow them to view sensitive documents or have secret conversations without any outsiders listening or hacking in.

Adya & Geisha - Cherubino's Aria

Belgian artists Adya & Geisha (Adriaan Van Landschoot & Elle Yana) perform 'Cherubino's Aria - Non So Piu Cosa Son Cosa Faccio' from 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (The Marriage of Figaro) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

YouTube link

(via Everlasting Blort)

Good to know!

You can now buy the Authentic Boardwalk Photo Booth, a replica of the classic units found in amusement parks, arcades, and boardwalks. This is the photo booth that can take and print a four-frame strip of pictures in 16 seconds. The booth works just like its predecessors; individuals, couples, or groups press a button and pose for each of four pictures, taken in five-second intervals.

The booth comes with two rolls of film that provide up to 3,200 pictures. And for only $11,000 it's yours. An additional roll of film sets you back another $500.

(thanks Cora)

The newest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary revises more than 1,900 entries and includes a ton of new words. Internet-speak is finally getting recognized in the dictionary.

Among the new words made popular by texting and online chatare OMG, an abbreviation for 'oh my God.' LOL, meaning 'laughing out loud.' And FYI, short for 'for your information.' Not only that, but the heart symbol (as in 'I heart New York'), the actual graphic, has also made it in.

Man Puts 2,747 Toothpicks In His Beard

He was attempting to get 3,000 toothpicks in his beard, but he ran out of surface area. But he did make it to 2,747.

YouTube link

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature. It seems like everyone has a manifesto these days. Why haven't you? Now you can have your very own manifesto. Don't know how to do that? Here's some help from copywriter and creative director Kim Mok.

Protect your money with this Biometric Wallet.

Virtually indestructible, the Biometric Wallet will open only with the touch of your fingerprint. It can be linked via Bluetooth to the owner's mobile phone - sounding an alarm if the two are separated by more than 5 metres! This provides a brilliant warning if either the phone or wallet is stolen or misplaced. The exterior of the wallet is constructed from highly durable carbon fibre that will resist all but the most concerted effort to open it.

image credit

The exploration of our seas and oceans have unearthed some fascinating island and archipelago finds. Subsequent claims of national jurisdiction sometimes fly in the face of apparent geographical proximity and make these idyllic destinations ever the more interesting.

The barren volcanic masses of Heard Island and McDonald Islands for example, though north of Antarctica and technically part of Australia, are actually closer to Madagascar. The globe is replete with countless territorial island quirks. Here are 10 unusual island territories that stand out as superb vacation destinations, some more unusual and random than others.

Horse Boarding

If a horse cannot be fed by its owner every day, it is usually kept at a boarding stable, where the staff will care for the horse for a fee. This is called horse boarding. But horse boarding is also a sport where participants are towed behind a horse at 35mph on an off-road skateboard. Adrenaline junkies stand on a mountain board while gripping a rope and attempt to maintain their balance as the horse is spurred into a gallop by its rider.

Professional British stuntman Daniel Fowler-Prime invented the sport five years ago after he strung a rope between his off-road 'mountain board' and a horse. Now he has developed the daredevil stunt into a fully fledged sport and is looking forward to hosting the UK's first ever horse boarding championships this summer.

It's a fact that literally thousands of people go missing every year. Some of these are likely well-covered up homicides, but most are voluntary. However, there are a few vanishings that remain inexplicable or have so captured the public imagination that they continue to intrigue us to this day.

Here is a listing of the top ten most mysterious or famous disappearances over the years that continue to baffle investigators to this day.

related posts:
10 Bizarre Disappearances

Two weeks after northeastern Japan was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami, the cost of the disaster is becoming clearer. The Japanese government has estimated the direct damage at as much as $310 billion, making it the world's costliest-ever natural disaster. As of today, more than 10,000 deaths have been confirmed and another 17,000 people remain missing.

Earthquake survivors return to their homes to collect what they can find, to mourn their losses, and try to find a sense of normalcy in lives that have been ripped apart. Here are recent images from northeastern Japan, 14 days after it was rocked by disaster on a historic scale.

The EaTheremin is a fork with an embedded theremin that begins making unique and oddly unpleasant screeching noises once it touches a person, completing a circuit. But the pitch of the theremin changes based on the feedback from the fork's tines: The more resistance it encounters, as when you're gnawing on something particularly tough or chewy, the lower the tone.

Flexible items like chicken skin can generate vibrato effects as they stretch, so theoretically you could put together a dish that produces a melody, based on the textures you choose. The video on the site is worth watching if only for the uncomfortably close shots of the spokesperson gnawing sausages and fried chicken.

image credit

Nine miles off the coast of County Kerry in the west of Ireland there are two small rocky islands peeking out of the Atlantic Ocean. The larger of the two, Skellig Michael, is home to something quite extraordinary - a 1400 year old monastery which only a handful of people get to see each year. Who could possibly have wanted to live here - and when?

It is thought that the monastery of Skellig Michael was founded at some point in the seventh century and monastic life persisted there for over 600 years. Why it was abandoned is lost in the sands of time but because of the sheer inaccessibility of the island what the monks left behind remained, through the centuries, remarkably intact.

(thanks Robert-John)

Brain bulbs designed by Maria and Igor Solovyov from Minsk, Belarus.

(via Everlasting Blort)

The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine located in Butte, Montana, USA. It is one mile long by half a mile wide with an approximate depth of 1,780 feet (540 m). It is filled to a depth of about 900 feet (270 m) with water that is heavily acidic (2.5 pH level). As a result, the pit is laden with heavy metals and dangerous chemicals that leach from the rock, including arsenic, cadmium, zinc, and sulfuric acid.

The mine was opened in 1955 and operated by Anaconda Copper and later by the Atlantic Richfield Company, until its closure in 1982. When the pit was closed the water pumps in the nearby Kelly shaft were turned off and groundwater from the surrounding aquifers began to slowly fill the pit, rising at about the rate of one foot a month. Since the Berkeley Pit closure in 1982, the level has risen to within 150 feet of the natural groundwater level.

The Daihatsu Trek, the Avrocar, the Kaz (pictured above), the Spruce Goose, and the Amfibidiver are just some of the vehicles that never really made it as a popular way of transportation.

Pringles is a brand of potato and wheat based snacks produced by Procter & Gamble. Pringles are sold in over 100 countries and have yearly sales of over US$1 billion. Procter & Gamble chose the Pringles name from a Cincinnati telephone book, having been inspired by Pringle Drive in Finneytown, Ohio, due to its pleasing sound. Pringles brand potato crisps were first sold in the United States in October 1968, and distributed internationally by the mid-1970s.

Here are 101 Pringles flavors from around the world.

24h London Twitter Traffic

An animation of the Twitter traffic in London during 24 hours. Tweets are shown as red circles, and re-tweets as yellow points moving in the direction of information, i.e. from the original tweets towards the location of the re-tweets. Apparently, the parallel Twitter universe wake up much later than the real world of commuters.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

Take a look at the picture above. At first you might think it's a swan. But it's not! It's a shoe, designed by footwear designer Kobi Levi from Israel. He says:

In my artistic footwear design the shoe is my canvas. The trigger to create a new piece comes when an idea, a concept and/or an image comes to mind. The combination of the image and footwear creates a new hybrid and the design/concept comes to life. The piece is a wearable sculpture. The result is usually humoristic with a unique point of view about footwear.

Breaking in to an encrypted router and using the WiFi connection is not an criminal offence, a Dutch court ruled. WiFi hackers can not be prosecuted for breaching router security. The court also decided that piggybacking on open WiFi networks in bars and hotels can not be prosecuted. In many countries both actions are illegal and often can be fined.

A computer in the Netherlands is defined as a machine that is used for three things: the storage, processing and transmission of data. A router can therefore not be described as a computer because it is only used to transfer or process data and not for storing bits and bytes. Hacking a device that is no computer by law is not illegal, and can not be prosecuted, the court concluded.

Bigfoot Captured?

Thomas Byers from Shelby, North Carolina, USA, says he has captured a video of Bigfoot. On the evening of Tuesday March 22, he and a friend were driving down Golden Valley Road in northern Rutherford County in North Carolina just off Highway 226 when they both observed a large upright brown furry animal between six and seven feet tall come up out of the field beside the road.

Om this site - where you can see the video he took - he says: It was truly amazing. But as I stood there filming it I saw and felt the hairs standing up on my arms. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. One thing I know is the smell of it was horrid. It smelled like a cross between road kill and a skunk. And it did not like the fact that I was there on the road with it. In the video you can hear it snarl or growl at me as it crosses the road.

related posts:
Stabilized Bigfoot Film

image credit

Millions of tennis and pingpong balls get produced every year, only to be thrown away shortly after they are bought. Tennis balls are probably the most difficult of any kind of sports ball to recycle, as the rubber used is not biodegradable.

However, about 300 million balls are produced each year, contributing to some 20,000 metric tons of rubber waste. Just what is there to do with so many used and unwanted tennis balls? Here are 10 creative uses that could be easily replicated at home.

(thanks Ritu)

image credit

Ships and boats are ancient inventions whose rise parallels the spirit of human adventure. From antiquity to modernity great powers have relied on shipping to expand empires, while grand liners transported tourists to far flung places previously only accessible to the imagination.

But the rise of air travel and decline of shipbuilding have left coasts and rivers littered with abandoned ships, boats and shipyards, that may not look pretty but provide a fascinating retrospective subject for photographers and maritime enthusiasts.

(thanks Tom)

related posts:
10 Amazing 'Above-Water' Shipwrecks
Shipwrecks And Sea Disasters

It's Showtime!

Collection of 'It's Showtime!' shouts from various movies.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

An advertisement in Popular Science of February 1932.

Using the exhaust gas of the automobile to clean the upholstery is the accomplishment of a recently invented device. An aluminum attachment is fastened to the exhaust pipe and the engine is allowed to idle. As the exhaust gas passes through this device suction is created at the inlet hole. Collected by a nozzle, the dust and dirt are drawn through the hose and expelled into the air at the rear of the car. It is made in three models, for cars of different size.

(via Modern Mechanix)

Scientists working on the Spanish island of Minorca announced the discovery of Earth's biggest known rabbit species, an oddly unbunny-like giant dubbed Nuralagus rex - the 'Minorcan king of the hares.' The 26-pound (12-kilogram) prehistoric species was about six times bigger than a common rabbit.

The animal, which lived about three to five million years ago, had several odd features that have never before been seen in rabbits, living or extinct. For one, the giant rabbit's 'short and stiff' vertebral column meant it couldn't bunny hop. And the relatively small sizes of sense-related areas of its skull suggested that the animal had small eyes and stubby ears - a far cry from modern rabbit ears.

related posts:
Man Discovers 12ft Fossil Of Carnivorous Plesiosaur
Giant Seabird's Fossilized Skull Found In Peru

Petite Lap Giraffes

From Sokoblovsky Farms in Russia:

Petite Lap Giraffes are very funny animal that require special care. They need lots of love. Hugs and kisses every day. Otherwise they make tears. Size: adult is 76 centimeters, baby is 15 centimeters tall.

Weight is 4.5kg unless the giraffe is fat cow then 5.44kg. Diet: distilled water and bonsai tree leaves. Petite Lap Giraffes love being indoors in filtered air conditioning. If they can listen to music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov it is dream.

Of course, this is either an April Fool's joke or a marketing campaign. I go for the latter since the domain petitelapgiraffe.com was registered a month ago by Grey Global Group, a New York Marketing firm.

Kennedy Space Center Employees Assemble For Historic Photo

Employees at NASA's Kennedy Space Center took a few moments to assemble for a historic aerial photo outside Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building. Thousands of workers stood side-by-side to form an outline of a space shuttle. The event was organized in honor of the Space Shuttle Program's 30-year legacy.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Superflex, a group of Danish artists, have created a 240-hour film titled Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso Building, Helsinki) and will screen it in Helsinki for the festival IHME Project 2011.

The film shows 'ravages of time marking a box-like office block, Helsinki's Stora Enso building,' and they are in fact projecting the film on that same building. In the film, 'centuries of decay are apparently compressed into the span' of the 10-day runtime.

Apart from being present in our everyday lives, quietly changing for ten days, the film's time races ahead at an estimated several-hundred-year gallop each day. The film is a fiction about what could happen to the Stora Enso building as an architectural and ideological symbol, over the next few thousands of years, if the days of humankind come to an end, and only time and the weather affect the building.

(via Reddit)

Pop-ups! They're Not Just For Kids

A new exhibition at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, USA, showcases pop-up books for children and adults from the Harold M. Goralnick Pop-up Book Collection. Bowdoin College has a collection of over 1,800 pop-up books.

Vimeo link

(via Laughing Squid)

Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz on March 24, 1874) was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts. Houdini is still considered one of the greatest illusionists and magicians in history. In addition to his fantastic escapes and stunts, he was also well known in the 1920s for his debunking of fraudulent Spiritualist medium.

Today Google celebrates magician Harry Houdini's 137th birth anniversary with a doodle on its home page.

The Brewery Map uses the Google API to find local breweries in your area. Enter your zipcode, choose how far away you want to travel (up to 100 miles) and the site will return all the locations of various breweries.

(thanks Cora)

In the first days of 1896, just three weeks after the announcement of the discovery of what would soon be known as X-rays, a high school headmaster and math and physics teacher in the Netherlands started his own explorations using school equipment. Three weeks after that, the headmaster, Hein Hoffmans, published his results, days after snapping an image of the hand of the hospital director's 21
-year-old daughter, (pictured above) revealing the bones inside.

More than 100 years since those pioneering experiments, researchers at Maastricht University Medical Center flipped the switch on Hoffmans' still-functional machine. They measured the radiation it emitted and took another image of a hand - this time from a cadaver. What they found revealed just how far the technology has come.

Elizabeth Taylor Dead At 79

Elizabeth Taylor, the legendary actress famed for her beauty, her jet-set lifestyle, her charitable endeavors and her many marriages, has died this morning. She was 79. Taylor died 'peacefully today in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles,' said a statement from her publicist. She was hospitalized six weeks ago with congestive heart failure, a condition with which she had struggled for many years.

Though a two-time Oscar winner - for Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) - Taylor was more celebrated for simply being Elizabeth Taylor: sexy, glamorous, tempestuous, fragile, always trailing courtiers, media and fans.

Japanese Coast Guard Ship Heading Into Tsunami Wave

The Japanese coast guard released a video showing the massive tsunami waves swelling in the sea off the coast of northern Japan, after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck offshore on March 11. The footage showed the first huge wave rising up above the prow of the coastguard ship as it sailed straight towards it.

YouTube link

(via Waslijn)

Professor Ahn Sang-soo of the Hongik University in South Korea keeps a blog where he shows pictures of people covering their other eye.

(via Everlasting Blort)

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Monday, March 28, 2011

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Friday, March 25, 2011

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Wednesday, March 23, 2011