unique and interesting: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

7 Billion

The global population is expected to reach 7 billion today, just 12 years after hitting 6 billion.
How much is 7 billion?

Seven billion seconds ago, the year was 1789. That was the year George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president and Congress met for the very first time. If you took 7 billion steps along the Earth's equator - at 2 feet per step - you could walk around the world at least 106 times.

Android Dreams

Android Dreams by Samuel Cockedey is a tribute to Ridley Scott and Vangelis. It's a time-lapse movie of Shinjuku, Tokyo, set to Blade Runner music.

Vimeo link

The First ever Baby Chewy. A Wookie/Chewbacca inspired reborn baby.

(via Everlasting Blort)

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What's happening to the bedtime story? A study carried out by Common Sense Media has found that children aged between 0 and 8 now spend more than triple the amount of time watching television than reading books, or having stories read to them. The research also looked at the growing use of mobile devices by children.

Anyone with a young child, niece or nephew will know the ease with which they take to devices like smartphones and tablets. Within minutes they seem to have the hang of it, swiping, pinching, and possibly even purchasing a few things they shouldn't be.

Let one of the Village People moan out your IP address in a 'sexy' voice. No bad intentions here, it's just funny.

(via b3ta)

How To Quickly Cook Pasta In A Frying Pan

Harold McGee, author of 'Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes,' shares a handy way to speed your pasta dinner along. Plus it's ecofriendly!

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(thanks Cora)

There was a period of apparent poltergeist activity in a house in London, England, between August 1977 and September 1978, with an added outburst in August 1980. During this time furniture is said to have moved by itself, knockings on the walls were heard, and children's toys were said to have been thrown around and to have been too hot to touch when picked up.

The Poltergeist activity centered around an 11-year-old girl, Janet Hodgson. She seemingly acted as the mouthpiece for Bill Wilkins, a foul-mouthed, grumpy old man who had died in the house many years before. Naturally, many questioned whether it was all a hoax - but no explanation other than the paranormal has ever been convincingly put forward.

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Have you ever wondered what there is for entertainment in a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship with a dead but nevertheless eternal president? It sounds like something Eric Idle might ask in a Monty Python sketch and is an idle thought for us, perhaps.

Yet for the people of North Korea the list of answers is hardly as endless as their deceased president's rule. Mangyongdae funfair would certainly feature high on the list. Yet from our perspective it is little more than a rusting death trap.

(thanks Robert-John)

The Biped Robot Which Rides On A Bicycle

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(thanks Cora)

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The stories of presidential ghosts in the White House are pretty well known. But plenty of other landmarks have their own ghost stories. What about the haunted Hollywood sign, or the ghostly curators of the Smithsonian Institution?

That's it. Just a sticky thing.

Halloween Light Show 2011

This Is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Four singing pumpkin faces, tombstones, hand carved pumpkins, strobes, floods and thousands of lights.

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(thanks Miss Rare)

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The Cubic Houses are a curious and magnificent architectural wonder located in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They were conceived and constructed by architect Piet Blom in the 1970s. Blom was asked by Rotterdam town planners to solve the dilemma of building houses on top of a pedestrian bridge, and, having built similar houses earlier in another town, Blom chose to repeat the design in Rotterdam.

He tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest.

The Statue of Liberty celebrated its 125th birthday on 28 October 2011, and marked the occasion with the turning on of 4 Torch Cams, webcams actually inside the flame of the statue, with views of Ellis and Governors Islands, Liberty Island and the Freedom Tower.

(thanks Cora)

Iranian Boeing 727 Lands Without Front Wheels

An Iranian pilot lands a Boeing 727 with no nose gear at Mehrabad airport, Tehran. The plane was carrying 94 passengers and 19 crew members. The plane faced a technical problem and its front wheels did not open, so it landed with the wheels closed. No injuries were reported.

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The idea of the earth tearing itself apart is terrifying enough, but the devastation that earthquakes cause is only intensified by the huge waves that can follow a massive seismic disturbance in the ocean bed. Often, coastal inhabitants have just minutes to flee to higher ground, and any delay can cause shocking casualties.

In the last 50 years our ability to investigate, predict and record tsunamis has reached new heights, but the devastation these unstoppable walls of water can cause has also become ever more evident. A list of the ten most catastrophic tsunamis in recent memory.

Are you tired of how boring Lorem Ipsum got? How about using auto-generated text that will actually make people love your project even more? Cupcake Ipsum is a sugar-coated Lorem Ipsum generator.

Koi Observation Tower

A German fish lover added an observation tower to his koi pond. The fish can enter and leave the tower at will.

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(thanks Cora)

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Halloween is the time of year when people reveal their most ghoulish fears and fantasies, decorating their houses with fake mummies, plastic skulls and skeletons, and eerie contorted faces carved into apples and pumpkins. But for a certain breed of collector, like artist Ryan Matthew Cohn, this sort of decor is just not creepy enough.

Such collectors would rather deck their apartments with specimen jars, real mummified heads, musical instruments made out of human bones, Victorian hair art, and actual skeletons - human or otherwise. Take a look inside Cohn's Brooklyn apartment, decorated with taxidermy.

(thanks Lisa)

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Reflection photography is not as easy as some might imagine. It takes creativity and skill to both see the possibilities and then end up with a fantastic photograph - particularly if your subject is something that's not likely to keep still and behave.

Then again, sometimes animals seem perfectly content to sit quietly in front of their reflections in water; in fact, if these images are anything to go by, they're as vain as the rest of us! They may not be looking into actual mirrors, but many have been caught apparently looking at their own mirror images.

7 Billion People And You: What's Your Number?

The world's population is expected to hit seven billion in the next few weeks. After growing very slowly for most of human history, the number of people on Earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years. Where do you fit into this story of human life? Fill in your date of birth to find out.
It seems that when I was born, I was the 2,512,863,975th person alive on Earth.

What's Your Number?

(thanks Yvonne)

Smashing Pumpkins In Slow Motion

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(thanks Cora)

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Identity theft is on the rise each year. In 2011 alone, Sony won the crown for largest number of people affected with a shade over 100 million. In spite of more advanced security measures, it seems data leaks are here to stay.

With that said, take a look at these Top 13 Most Embarrassing Data Breaches. Perhaps you were affected by one or more of these.

(thanks Casey)

Neatorama Give-Away Winners

The Neatorama Give-Away in cooperation with The Presurfer has ended.
The winners are: Gwendolyn who wins a Zombie Back Scratcher, and James who wins a set of My Monster Family Car Stickers.

Congratulations. The winners already have been contacted by email. Thanks to everyone who participated. Better luck next time.

The Hidden Beauty Of Pollination

Pollination is vital to life on Earth, but largely unseen by the human eye. Filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg shows us the intricate world of pollen and pollinators with gorgeous high-speed images from his film 'Wings of Life,' inspired by the the vanishing of one of nature's primary pollinators, the honeybee.

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(thanks Cora)

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Frogfishes are bottom-dwelling fishes of the family Antennariidae of tropical and temperate seas, characteristically having a prickly or warty globose body and pectoral fins adapted for grasping.

Frogfish generally do not move very much, preferring to lie on the sea floor and wait for prey to approach. Once the prey is spotted, they can approach slowly using their pectoral and pelvic fins to walk along the floor.

Do you know what a solis is, or a asterism, a sheffer stroke, an interrobang?
They are punctuation marks you never knew existed.

Halloween is almost upon us, a time when the streets fill with costumed kids angling for candy, and the multiplexes clog with scary tales angling for a sequel. And with all things spooky clawing at the collective consciousness, what better time to post the top 10 scariest movies of the last 10 years?

(thanks Sheridan)

Metalmorphosis

Metalmorphosis is a mirrored water fountain by Czech sculptor David Cerny that was constructed at the Whitehall Technology Park in Charlotte, NC. The 14-ton sculpture is made from massive stainless steel layers that rotate 360 degrees and occasionally align to create a massive head.

Dramatic Animals - Inception

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Washed ashore on Siesta Key Beach Tuesday morning was an 8-foot-tall Lego man, his shirt emblazoned with an enigmatic and grammatically challenged message: 'No Real Than You Are.' Similar Lego men with the same grammatical mangling were found on beaches in the Netherlands in 2007 and England in 2008. On the back of the Siesta Key Lego man's shirt is the name 'Ego Leonard' and the number 8.

Ego Leonard is purportedly the name of a Dutch artist, but it wasn't clear if that was a real name or if a real artist was behind the work. On the artist's website he says: My name is Ego Leonard and according to you I come from the virtual world. A world that for me represents happiness, solidarity, all green and blossoming, with no rules or limitations.

The World's Fastest Ever Car Crash Test

High speed driving can be dangerous. Fifth Gear conducted the world's fastest ever car crash test. Usually car crash tests do not exceed 40 mph. This time a Ford Focus is smashed into a concrete wall at 120mph.

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Whether you're an old grump with no Halloween spirit or you have a baby with an early bedtime, there are any number of reasons you could want to avoid greedy trick-or-treaters this Halloween.

Page 23

At first sight it might look like an IKEA commercial. Instead, Page 23 is a beautiful 4 minutes short movie that describes a surreal yet real world many of us might live in. The language spoken is Dutch but it's with English subtitles.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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Life, in all its varied forms, can be described in many ways. 'Astounding', 'beautiful' and 'majestic' are just a few of the words that spring to mind while looking at some of our planet's living things. Yet watch a spider scuttle across a desk and words like 'horrific' and 'terrifying' suddenly feel far more apt. But what about those times when you come across a life form so strange-looking it seems to have come from a different planet altogether?

Here are some of Mother Nature's more bizarre creations.

Radio Controlled Crawling Zombie

Wouldn't you like to have this Radio Controlled Crawling Zombie on your front lawn at Halloween?

YouTube link

(via Everlasting Blort)

The average adult human takes fourteen minutes to fall asleep. Sleep cycles typically last 90 minutes. Waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle leaves you feeling tired and groggy, but waking up in between cycles lets you wake up feeling refreshed and alert.

The Bedtime Calculator tells you when it's a good time to fall asleep, based on when you have to wake up. The calculator works by counting backwards in sleep cycles.

(thanks Cora)

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In the 1940s, toy inventor Eddie Goldfarb saw an ad for a false-teeth holder called a 'Tooth Garage' and he started cracking up. In his head, he saw a pair of dentures, chomping and sputtering down the road like a car, and parking on their own.

Thus, in 1949, Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth - the wildly popular wind-up gag commonly known as 'chattering teeth' - were born.

(thanks Lisa)

You know what a Photobomb is, don't you? And wouldn't you like to walk into any book store in the world and point out YOUR photo in a book! Now's your chance. Oddee, an entertainment blog on oddities, has secured their first book deal and are putting together a fun book about Photobombs.

And they want your help. If you have your own hilarious photobombs lying around, send them to Oddee for a chance to be included in the book. They also give you a photo credit so you can see your name in print too. How cool is that? You must own these pictures and be willing to give Oddee permission to print them in the book.

Find out more about the Oddee book project and also some examples of the types of Photobombs they're looking for.

Saving A Calf

During the Amgeza Gauteng Motorcycle Rally race in South Africa, motorcyclist Johan Gray pulls over to rescue a calf that has fallen into a canal. The biker then gets the animal on his motorcycle and find the calf's pack, returning it to its owner.

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(thanks Cora)

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Ever heard of Resveratrol? Or Tyramine, Malvidin 3-Glucoside, or 3-Isobutyl-2-Methoxy-Pyrazine? They're ingredients of red wine. Get to the bottom of your glass of vino - as in what tannins do to your tongue and why tyramine gives you a headache.

(via Look At This...)

Robots Playing Table Tennis

Wang and Zu are two robots who play table tennis. Developed by the Institute of Cyber Systems of Zhejiang University in China. The robots track the ball with head-mounted cameras and calculate its path. The arm that hits the ball has 30 different motors and can perform 7 distinct motions. It's impressive but it's not much of an exiting game.

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(via Singularity Hub)

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The sight of a dam - some of the largest constructions that humanity has ever created - can be quite breath-taking. Take a look at some of the most spectacular dams.

Want to know whether a link you send to your friends, colleagues or Twitter followers is a new link, or that it has been tweeted before?

Type the link in 'IsItOld' and find out.

A picture, taken from video footage, which purportedly shows an alien lurking in the Amazon, shows an unidentified being standing with its back arched a few feet from a what looks like a floating orb of light behind a group of children. The video was taken by two British tourists visiting the Mamaus region of the Brazilian rainforest.

update: Found the video.

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Mount Vesuvius: One Of The World's Most Dangerous Volcanoes

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East of Naples, Italy, looms the volcano Mount Vesuvius with an elevation of 4,203 feet. Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in 79 AD that led to the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. It has erupted many times since and is today regarded as one of the most dangerous and infamous volcanoes in the world.

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Paperback Charlie Brown is a collection of forgotten paperback Peanuts books.

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Long before there was an Internet or an iPad, before people were social networking and instant messaging, Americans had already got wired. Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental telegraph. From sea to sea, it electronically knitted together a nation that was simultaneously tearing itself apart, North and South, in the Civil War.

Americans soon saw that a breakthrough in the spread of technology could enhance national identity and, just as today, that it could vastly change lives. On October 24, 1861, with the push of a button, California's chief justice, Stephen J. Field, wired a message from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, congratulating him on the completion of the transcontinental telegraph that day.

Tony Hawk Freerunning Graffiti

Freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures. It incorporates efficient movements from parkour, and adds vaults and other acrobatics, such as tricking and street stunts, creating an athletic and pleasing way of moving. Here's a freerunning video, made to look like a Tony Hawk video game.

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(thanks Roman)

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Scientists are obsessed with studying the impact of Facebook on our brains. Usually the news is bad. But a new study says having more Facebook friends might be make your brain bigger.

Studying 125 undergraduates, scientists at University College London found a 'direct link between number of friends on Facebook and size of certain brain regions.' People with more friends on Facebook had more grey matter in four areas associated with memory, emotional response and social interaction.

Neatorama Give-Away

Neatorama and The Presurfer are cooperating once again in a give-away. With Halloween just a week away, wouldn't you like to own a Zombie Back Scratcher? You will have an unique item because no two are exactly alike - paint details may vary as these are hand painted.

Or what about a set of My Monster Family Car Stickers? Featuring Franken-dad, Mummy mom, Werebrother, Vampsister, Baby from the Black Lagoon, Dogberus and Cyclop Cat.

Here's what you got to do. Go to Neatorama, check out the site, then go to Neatorama's NeatoShop and take a good look around. There are great gifts for any occasion. After you've done browsing the shop, send me an email which one you would like to have, the Zombie Back Scratcher or the set of My Monster Family Car Stickers.

Here are the rules:

Go to the NeatoShop.
Look around and take a look at all the great products they have.
Send an email to webmaster@presurfer.com
Give-away runs from Monday October 24 until Thursday night October 27, 12 o'clock GMT.
Winners will be picked by a True Random Number Service.
Winners will be contacted by me and asked for their postal address.
Neatorama will send the prizes directly to the winner.

Oh my God! Look what happened! The Presurfer got occupied!

I've been reading Cliff Pickover's 'The Physics Book' lately with much interest. Besides being a science writer he's also the author of Reality Carnival, one of my favorite blogs.

Physics is a branch of science traditionally defined as the study of matter, energy, and the relation between them. That may sound boring, but it's not boring at all when Pickover writes about it. He has the talent to explain everything, from the Big Bang to Quantum Resurection, in a fascinating and gripping writing style that even a layman can understand.

The book covers subjects like Is time travel possible?, Could we really be living in The Matrix?, Is a curveball pitched in baseball really curved, or simply some kind of optical illusion?, Foucault's pendulum, What's St. Elmo's fire?, How does radiocarbon dating work?, The Piezoelectrix effect, Why do golf balls have dimples?, etc.

More information about 'The Physics Book.'

What A Formula 1 Driver Really Sees

Join in an installation lap around the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, with Brazilian racing driver Lucas di Grassi. The first time ever an eye-level camera was used to see a real driver point of view.

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According to the dictionary gung ho means extremely enthusiastic and dedicated. Most of us are not aware of it today, but gung ho has been in English only since 1942 and is one of the many words that entered the language as a result of World War II. It comes from Mandarin Chinese gonghe, 'to work together,' which was used as a motto by the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society.

Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson borrowed the motto as a moniker for meetings in which problems were discussed and worked out; the motto caught on among his Marines, who began calling themselves the 'Gung Ho Battalion.' From there eager individuals began to be referred to as gung ho.

(via Humanyms)

Why Computer Voices Are Mostly Female

From voice-mail systems to GPS devices to Siri and beyond, why are so many computerized voices female? One answer may lie in biology. Scientific studies have shown that people generally find women's voices more pleasing than men's.

Another answer lies in history. According to some sources, the use of female voices in navigation devices dates back to World War II, when women's voices were employed in airplane cockpits because they stood out among the male pilots. And telephone operators have traditionally been female, making people accustomed to getting assistance from a disembodied woman's voice.

Shirt Removal Made Easy

If you thought you could take your shirt off fast, you ain't seen nothing! This commercial shows you exactly what technique to use in order to maximize your free time.

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The Mother Of All Hot Wheels Tracks

A 3 minute long video of a 2,000 feet long powered Hot Wheels track that goes up and down the stairs, through 14 rooms of a house, around the outside of the house, and a jump over a hot tub.

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It sounds like a joke, but it's not. MC Hammer, the rapper and businessman, has announced WireDoo, a new search engine focused on 'deep search' and relational topics. Most search engines are built on links and keywords, explained Hammer at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Google and other search engines aren't as strong at connecting keywords to related topics - something he called relationship search.

Hammer explained a search for a car is not just about the car, but about the model, the mileage, the specs and even the zipcode. A search for a home is related to the surrounding community, schools, neighborhood condition and other related concerns. 'It's about relationships beyond just the keywords,' Hammer said on stage.

Feeding The Monkeys

Feeding the monkeys at Iwatayama Monkey Park located in Arashiyama in Kyoto, Japan. It is inhabited by a troop of over 170 Japanese macaque monkeys. The animals are wild, but can be fed food purchased at the site.

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(thanks Cora)

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The scientists in this article left an indelible mark on the world and lived adult lives which will be remembered forever. Yet they were once children. Here are pictures of famous scientists when they were very young. See how many you can recognize if not from their photograph (or painting) but from the short bio included.

(thanks Robert-John)

OmniTouch

OmniTouch is a wearable depth-sensing and projection system that enables interactive multitouch applications on everyday surfaces. The system allows the wearer to use their hands, arms and legs as graphical, interactive surfaces.

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It's that time of year, when we look to graveyards for tales that scare the dickens out of us. Ghosts, unexplained phenomena, and even vampires figure in these stories of graveyards from all over.

How To Pronounce Banana

The website Thesaurus.com is a dictionary organized to supply alternative words rather than to offer analytical explanations of what words mean. They take their job very seriously.

For example, if you want to know how to spell the word 'banana' go to Thesaurus.com and click on the little loudspeaker. Also try pineapple, octopus, pussycat, carrot, watermelon, cheese, confetti, band aid and antelope.

(via Miss Cellania)

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There are many castles all over France but the ones from the Valley of Loire River are the ones perfectly illustrating the fairytales. Beautiful architecture and elegant lines are perfectly illustrated in each and every castle but the most impressive aspect is the way these castles were preserved.

It is truly an opportunity of a lifetime to step into the land of fairytales and visit the majestic looking fairytale lands, not to mention that you can rent the castles and live the fairytale yourself. One on top of the other, if you are looking for a wonderful trip, consider seeing the castles from Loire Valley during fall.

Free Email Address Verifier

People putting fake email addresses in online forms and other such places is not an uncommon practice. If you suspect that an email address given to you is not authentic, you can go to verifyemailaddress.org, enter the email address and click on 'Verify Email.' There's no registration needed.

The tool also lets you do a reverse email search to see who owns a particular email account. It redirects users to everify.com for this. That's a paid service and it won't show any details unless you sign up with them.

(via MakeUseOf)

Bill Gates And Steve Ballmer - Night At The Roxbury

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A look at the stories behind some of our favorite instruments, from the tambourine to the sax.

With Halloween zombie attacks looming on our not-so-distant horizon, this handy Guide to Zombie Survival will assist you in making sure you have everything you need for survival in your Zombie Invasion Kit, educate you on the different types of zombies you may encounter and show you the signs of a 'person' (read Zombie!) who has been bitten.

Sure, you know you need water for any apocalyptic situation, but have you also stocked up on bleach, towels and duct tape in case of a zombie invasion?

Why Are Some People Afraid Of Clowns?

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Coulrophobia is a fear of clowns. For some, clowns are the stuff of horrific nightmares. The fear can be so strong that a simple picture of a clown can induce a panic attack.

Often used for entertainment at birthday parties and circus acts, clowns are supposed to do just the opposite - they're supposed to create a fun, humorous and happy environment. So why are some people deathly afraid of clowns?

Animated Human Face

Janimation used motion capture data, face robot, zbrush, ice, and a little magic to create this real life human face.

YouTube link

(via AdFreak)

Transform your pictures to make them look like an Andy Warhol Original Pop Art Painting in 3 simple steps.

(via No Subscription Required)

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They say that being in the top job of any organization is stressful, but that the pay is worth it. It seems the same is true when it comes to the government - as these super-rich heads of state show. Who says working in the public sector has to pay badly?

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A compilation of baby meerkat photos.

Stick Bomb

New record for a stick bomb, a mechanical spring-loaded device constructed out of flat sticks woven together under tension.

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(via Reality Carnival)

This hilarious Dog Toilet Bowl will sure be a puppy pleaser as well as a crowd pleaser. This will keep your pet well hydrated as you fill any 2 liter bottle and invert it into the back of the tank as gravity pulls fresh water into the 6-ounce bowl as needed.

Wow! This really is a crappy piano. Play it and you'll see why.

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

Pages - Menu

Monday, October 31, 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Thursday, October 20, 2011