unique and interesting: February 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

How To Put The Hen Holster On Your Chicken

The Hen Holster/Chicken Diaper is a two-in-one product that allows a chicken to walk around freely without leaving a mess on the ground. The 'D' ring on the spine of the Holster allows for control of the chicken in a unfamiliar environment with a leash of your choosing.

YouTube link

(via Nothing To Do With Arbroath)

A new environmental awareness?

(via Criggo)

Today Google Search shows a doodle that celebrates two events. Since leap years and leap days are usually associated with frogs, the leaping amphibians, the Google doodle on February 29 has four frogs. The other event is the 220th birthday of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini who's best known opera is 'The Barber of Seville.

What Is A Leap Year?

Today is February 29. Which means 2012 is a leap year. But what exactly is a leap year?

YouTube link

(via Neatorama)

They're, Like, Way Ahead Of The Linguistic Currrrve

From Valley Girls to the Kardashians, young women have long been mocked for the way they talk. Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like 'bitchin' and 'ridic,' or the incessant use of 'like' as a conversation filler, vocal trends associated with young women are often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity.

But linguists - many of whom once promoted theories consistent with that attitude - now say such thinking is outmoded. Girls and women in their teens and 20s deserve credit for pioneering vocal trends and popular slang, they say, adding that young women use these embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize.

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We've learned to be skeptical of product packaging and not always trust the claims it makes, but our hopefulness sometimes gets the best of us. Here are five products you've likely used, or maybe even purchase regularly, that don't yield the results you may expect.

(via Look At This...)

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The Altai region of southern Siberia is a place of geological wonders and rare biological diversity. The name Altai comes from the Mongolian word for 'gold' and 'mountains,' an apt moniker considering the ecological value of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

Gold was also the colour of the trees and grasses during photographer Andrew Kudrin's visit in Autumn 2011, which resulted in these stunning photographs.

(via Miss Cellania)

The Artist is a silent black and white romantic comedy drama film that won the Oscar for best picture. Now you can make your own historic black and white movie. The Artistifier turns any YouTube video into black and white. Music is added and you can even add captions. The result is something like this.

Make your own black and white movie.

Chameleon Frightened By iPhone

Not everyone loves the iPhone. Especially not this chameleon.

YouTube link

The psychological climate in which you work has a lot to do with your health and happiness. Recent research has found, perhaps not surprisingly, that bad bosses can affect how your whole family relates to one another. They can also affect your physical health, raising your risk for heart disease.

Bad bosses can shoot themselves in the foot, hindering their employees' morale, rather than helping it. Some of the findings in the study are intuitive: Most people can tell you that a bad boss can seriously affect one's work experience and overall happiness.

The Bad Piper Plays We Will Rock You

The bad piper was one of the finalist at Australian Got Talent.

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(via Everlasting Blort)

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It's 2012. Our last year here on Earth. There are a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. So, before that happens, here are some must-see places before the world ends.

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It's safe to say that we now live in a geek's world. One only has to look at the way gadgets and the Internet dominate every aspect of modern existence. Geeks are essential to the normal functioning of billions of lives daily. Without them, civilization as we know it would come to a screeching halt.

Just imagine a world without something like the Internet - entire businesses would freeze, failed GPS systems would delay countless travelers, unemployment would shoot up even more, and people everywhere would commit mass suicide. Although we don't like to think of it this way, geeks are king and pretty much rule our lives whether we like it or not.
Here are 9 ways geeks have inherited the earth.

(thanks Yan)

Ramen has been a staple in American student cuisine for quite some time now, because of how inexpensive and edible it is. Ramen can also be quite filling if you add some of your own signature cooking hacks to it.

Paint Your Own Nebula

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. Nebulae are often star-forming regions where materials clump together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become massive enough to form stars.

Now you can make your own nebula.

Where do you put your ring when you take it off? On the bedside table, the jewlery box, or some other place? And can you remember where you put it or do you sometimes have to search for it? Then this ring holder shaped like a cute narwhal is something for you. The tusk will hold your rings safely and securely. And they're unique. No two are exactly alike because the paint details may vary as these are hand painted.

Our friends at Neatorama, in cooperation with The Presurfer, are giving away a Narwhal Ring Holder. All you have to do is go to the NeatoShop and take a look around. NeatoShop has great gifts for any occasion. For your loved ones and for yourself.

Then send me an email and tell me you would like to have the Narwhal Ring Holder. The Give-away runs from today until Wednesday night Februari 29, 12 o'clock GMT.

Here are the rules:

Go to the NeatoShop and take a look at all the wonderful items.
Mail me at webmaster@presurfer.com to tell me you want a Narwhal Ring Holder.
Give-away runs from Monday, February 27, until Wednesday, Februari 29, 12 o'clock GMT.
The winner will be picked by a True Random Number Service.
The winner will be contacted by me and asked for his/her postal address.
Neatorama will send the prizes directly to the winner.

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Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard. Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation. A report from 2002 found that there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world.

You may think skateboarding is a relatively new activity, but it was probably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers in California wanted something to surf when the waves were flat. No one knows who made the first board; it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at around the same time. Here arew some 1960s photos of skateboarding in the streets of New York. It's a German-language site but the pictures speak for themselves.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Out Of The Box

Most phones come with flimsy manuals with complicated language and jargon. These books, which can live on a bookshelf actually contain the phone. Each page reveals the elements of the phone in the right order, helping the user to set up the sim card, the battery and even slide the case onto the phone.

The second book is the main manual - the phone actually slots into this and becomes the center of attention. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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On hot, hazy summer nights, fireflies take centre stage as they fly through the night air, punctuating the darkness with flecks of yellow light.

But Japanese photographer Tsuneaki Hiramatsu captured their beauty in a whole new light, using time-lapse photography. The result - lush images that show patterns of light that looks more like celestial figures than arthropods.

Soccer Grandstand Baptized

Danish soccer club FC Copenhagen has a new grandstand. Beer brand Carlsberg has taken over sponsorship of the C-grandstand at the stadium. Of course the grandstand had to be baptized and what better way to do that than with a beer bottle.

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You may be familiar with these animals, but maybe not their range of colors. No need get your eyes checked. Nature's just messing with you.

Mandarin Ducklings Leap From Tree

Encouraged by their mother's calls from below, Mandarin ducklings jump from their nest high up in a forest tree trunk and fall to the ground, cushioned by dry leaf litter.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Helicopter Self-Destructs After Landing

Some observers speculate that a bad episode of ground resonance may be to blame for the violent self-destruction of a rescue helicopter as it landed in a field in Para, Brazil. The helicopter appears to be a Eurocopter A-Star AS350BA. That there were four people aboard - two pilots, a doctor, and a nurse - and all escaped serious injury in spite of the helicopter engaging full-flail mode.

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Pictures of Australian bike culture from the archive of the State Library of New South Wales.

Disappearing Car Door

Jatech is a company from California, USA, that equips your car with a Retractable Vehicle Door, also know as the Disappearing Car Door. You will definitely grab everyone's attention when you drive a car with disappearing doors. No matter where you are, whether driving to the club, grocery store, gas station, or restaurant, your drivable work of art will be appreciated and admired.

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(via Miss Cellania)

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Peter the Wild Boy was a mentally handicapped boy from Hannover in northern Germany who was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin, the town of Pied Piper legend. The boy, of unknown parentage, had been living an entirely feral existence, surviving by eating forest flora; he walked on all fours, exhibited uncivilized behaviour, and could not be taught to speak a language.

Once found, he was brought to Great Britain by order of George I. After Peter's transportation to Britain, an extraordinary amount of curiosity and speculation concerning the boy was excited in London. The Princess of Wales, Caroline of Ansbach, took an interest in Peter's welfare, and in 1726, after the initial public curiosity began to subside, she arranged for Dr Arbuthnot to oversee his education. All efforts to teach him to speak, read or write failed.

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Water villages are settlements that are usually built on the water. Houses often float on the water or are located on stilts and rarely on small islands. This is a list of water villages, which are becoming increasingly popular tourist destinations.

Little Tombstone

A small dusty town in the wild west plays host to a gun duel between the Bad and the Good. The town is silent as the two meet in the middle of the street while the Undertaker is very interested in the show-down between the opponants.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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Every cook, being human, errs, bungles, botches, and screws up in the kitchen once in a while. If you have not 'caramelized' fruit in salt rather than sugar, you have not suffered the most embarrassing mistake.

The creative cook can often cook his/her way out of a kitchen error, but the smart cook aims to prevent such creativity from being necessary. Here are 25 ways to be smarter every time.

(via Nag on the Lake)

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Small hermit and soldier crabs in Malaysia and Australia build their home digging a deep hole in the sand on a beach. They got a good idea of how to move sand up during this construction. Down in the hole this crab is making sand balls and later pushes them up to the surface, 2 or 3 balls at a time. They form a kind of sand ball flower or sand ball galaxy.

Bottling Bacardi

Watch the 50-mph roller coaster ride these bottles take as they're filled with Bacardi Rum.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is an orphanage, nursery and captive breeding ground for wild Asian elephants located at Pinnawala village, northwest of Kegalle town in Sabaragamuwa Province of Sri Lanka. Established in 1975, the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage has become one of the most popular touristic destinations in Sri Lanka.

Why? Orphan elephants! Baby orphan elephants. Lots and lots of baby orphan elephants, that want to cuddle with you, and then frolic and play in the water.

(thanks Juergen)

An infographic showing which films tweeters are most willing on to win this year and which films are most talked about. Midnight in Paris has the most vocal of fans with 19.2% of its total tweets in the past week expressing supporting sentiment for it to win at this year's Oscars.

The Artist dominating the share of tweets might not be surprising. It is Hugo's buzz position which is seemingly high considering it has the least support of tweets willing it on for honours.

(thanks Adam)

The Catlin Seaview Survey

The Catlin Seaview Survey is first and foremost an important scientific expedition. It aims to carry out the first comprehensive study to document the composition and health of coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea across an unprecedented depth range - addressing a series of important questions regarding the changes associated with the rapidly warming and acidifying oceans.

However this is not just another scientific survey. This project is very different. The images from the expedition, when stitched together, will allow scientists and the public at large to explore the reef remotely through any device connected to the Internet. It will allow them to choose a location, dip underwater, look around and go off on a virtual dive. Click on Seaview Demo to see some beautiful 360 degrees panoramas.

image credit: Google Maps

Booming urban populations have seen poverty on the rise in some of the world's biggest cities. Of the 3.49 billion people that now live in cities, 827.6 million are slum dwellers, according to a UN Habitat Report. Global slums can be vastly different in nature.

Some are working-class neighborhoods that have been torn up by gang wars like the Petare slum in Venezuela. Others like Dharavi in Mumbai, a mini-city that operates as a recycling hub and has a booming leather industry, are a permanent fixture. Slums like Kibera are notoriously difficult to measure because they often serve as a conduit for people shifting from the country to big cities.

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With a double dose of wit and color Nikita Nomerz transforms derelict buildings, towers, and crumbling urban spaces into whimsical, quirky faces in locations around Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

(via Everlasting Blort)

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. In some cultures, the surname may be a patronymic or matronymic. Some cultures, for example the Burmese, large population of South Indians and some Javanese, do not use surnames.

Some surnames are rare, and the others are so common that their population can be measured by millions. This is a list of some of the most common surnames in the world.

Grandfather

A grandfather and his grandchild. Ooh, I smell poopy.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

An interactive hoarding at a London bus stop aims to show a 40-second advertisement only to women and girls. The screen showing the short video campaign, by children's charity Plan UK, is located at a bus stop opposite Selfridges on Oxford Street. A camera will measure facial features of the person standing at the screen to decide whether it is a man or a woman. It guesses right 90% of the time.

If it is a male, the screen will direct him to the charity's campaign website. The advertisement highlights the issue of women and girls in developing countries, who face poverty and discrimination, not getting the choice to decide how they want to lead their lives.

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Dolly Parton is two amazing singers. If you slow her songs down (as if you were playing an old 45 at 33rpm) she sounds completely different and really terrific. At the blog 'Waking Up Now' you can listen to 2 songs - 9 to 5 and Jolene at regular speed. Then listen to them slowed down to a bluesy lament. Sounds great, expecially Jolene.

(thanks Cora)

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Think about munching on a bag of your favorite potato chips. Let that image sit in your brain for a little while. How does it feel? Are you craving chips right now? Sometimes, a single mention of a word is all it takes to trigger a craving, and unfortunately, cravings often entice you to do things that aren't good for you. What if you could change that?

Take a look at how you can rewire your brain and use those cravings to your advantage.

Landscape With Duck

A wayward duck tries to catch up with his companions on their migration south in this hand-drawn animated short.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night - but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural. In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks.

His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria. These references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by a waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.

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France has abolished the term Mademoiselle from all official documents because it suggests a woman is 'available'. Prime minister Francois Fillon said the word - the French equivalent of 'Miss' - discriminates against women by asking them to reveal if they are married.

In a major victory for French feminists, the change was revealed in an official decree to ministries and regional authorities. From now on, Mademoiselle should be replaced with 'Madame', the female equivalent of 'Monsieur', because it does not indicate marital status, the order said.

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The Navajo call it 'the place where water runs through rocks' and that is literally true. The peculiar formation of a slot canyon can make for an eerie experience and certainly the Antelope Canyon, on the lands of the LeChee people of the Navajo Nation is one of the stranger places you might choose to visit if your budget doesn't quite run to a space shuttle.

The shuttle, though, never lands on alien planets - yet you can still get the experience for very little here on our very own third rock from the sun. One of the most unearthly places on the planet, take a look at the astounding Antelope Canyon.

Incredible Ice City

The temperature in Harbin, China reaches forty below zero and stays below freezing nearly half the year. The city is actually further north than notoriously cold Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away.

So what does one do here every winter? Hold an outdoor festival, of course! Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it, with an annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

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Would you auction yourself on eBay to get a job? Or spent $7,000 to rent a billboard to advertise yourself? Or write a song that explains your qualifications? Some people do! Here are some of the crazy stunts people pulled to solidify employment for themselves.

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People have set world records for most 'ghost chillis' eaten in two minutes, eating the world's largest burger, fastest ice cream eating, drinking the largest cup of coffee, etc. But it's really not that healthy.

Top 10 Worst Food And Drink World Records.

MyAllSearch is an internet search tool that saves you time and makes your Web searches much easier. With MyAllSearch you only enter keywords once, then getting and comparing original results from over sixty search engines across seven categories is as simple as clicking the engine's name. No more retyping keywords into different search engines.

MyAllSearch gives one click access to the search results of the best search providers on the Internet, featuring Google, Bing, Ask.com, Yahoo!, Temoa, Lycos, MetaCrawler, Blekko, and DuckDuckGo.

FriendSheep

A short film made entirely by students from the Valencia-based school of animation PrimerFrame , pre-production began in March 2010, completing a year later and has since received numerous awards, nominations and national projections and internationally.

Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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Worf is a Klingon character in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and in seasons four to seven of 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.' Worf is a character who doesn't get much respect - despite frequent suggestions for action, he is routinely denied, his orders belayed, and his opinion generally disrespected. In fact, frustration is his primary emotion. Despite this, he never loses his cool.

Today's Google doodle takes the form of electromagnetic waves to pay tribute to German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz on his 155th birth anniversary. Hertz was born at Hamburg on February 22, 1857. Hertz was the first to broadcast and receive radio waves. His pioneering work laid the way for the development of radio, television and radar.

Malaysian artist Hong Yi (nicknamed Red) graduated from the University of Melbourne, Australia, with a Master of Architecture degree and a Bachelor of Planning and Design degree. In her final year, she was awarded a Melbourne Abroad Scholarship to study at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, which broadened her perspective and exposure in the field of European architecture.

She also likes to create art. Not with the usual paintbrush and pencils though but with whatever she can get hold of. Using nothing but coffee cup rings she created a portrait of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou. The work took 12 hours to complete.

(via Fresh Pics)

Wau: The Most Amazing, Ancient, And Singular Number

Wau (the ancestor of the Latin letter F) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number '6'. Whereas it was originally called wau, its most common appellation in classical Greek is digamma.

YouTube link

(via Reality Carnival)

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It looks like Europe has started turning into a new sahara desert. The Great Dune of Pyla is the tallest sand dune in Europe. It is located in the Arcachon Bay area in France.

The dune has a volume of about 60,000,000 m³, measuring around 1,640 ft (500 m) wide from east to west and 1,9 miles (3 km) in length from north to south. The dune moves relentlessly towards the interior of the country and gradually covers buildings and roads.

(thanks Stanley)

Listerine is a brand of antiseptic mouthwash. It was named after Joseph Lister who promoted the idea of sterile surgery by sterilizing instruments.

Originally marketed by the Lambert Pharmacal Company (which later became Warner-Lambert), it is currently manufactured and distributed by Johnson and Johnson. For a short time, beginning in 1927, the Lambert Pharmacal Company even marketed Listerine Cigarettes.

In a world where all things small are considered beautiful and cool, a photographer is doing something quite drastically different from the norm. Dennis Manarchy is in the process of creating a camera that is so huge, it captures 24-foot tall realistic photographs of incredible detail.

The camera itself is huge. Being 35 feet long, 12 feet tall and 8 feet wide, it's large enough to fit a small apartment into. It uses negatives that are 4.5×6 feet in size. An actual window needs to be used as a lightbox to view them. As opposed to dipping the negatives in chemicals, they need to be showered with the stuff in order to be developed.

(via Nag on the Lake)

6 Everyday Things Seen Really Close Up

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Microscopes turn everyday things like table salt and Velcro into otherworldly landscapes full of massive crystal blocks and fields of black twisted trunks thrust into the air. Besides being an invaluable tool in scientific fields too numerous to mention, microscopes are great for expanding a person's perspective on the world.

It's a well-rounded person who has at least some basic concepts of the scale of the universe - from the smallest quarks through the enormity of the observable universe. Here are some great examples of what some normal everyday things look like really close up.

10 Things You Didn't Know About The President's Secret Army

The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command is best known for the Osama bin Laden raid. But it has long served as the president's secret army, planning and executing the most dangerous, highly classified missions of the United States military. In 2009, its snipers rescued an American ship captain held captive by Somali pirates.

In 2003, they hunted down and captured Saddam Hussein near Tikrit, Iraq. In 1993, two Delta snipers earned posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor for actions during the Battle of Mogadishu. And before that, members of the Command were tracking Scud missiles during the Gulf War and slithering down ropes in Panama.

Here are a few things about the president's secret army that you might not know.

DarwinBot - The Pet Companion Robot

Jordan Correa is a developer on the Microsoft Robotics Team and recently built a remotely operated robot for interacting and playing with his pet over the internet. It has two way audio and video through Skype, a ball launcher, treat dispenser, ball recovery arm and a pan and tilt camera.

YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Here's something to brighten up your day. Take a tuba, a trumpet, a bass drum, a snare drum, a sousaphone, and a trombone and what do you get. You get a fanfare. Click on the characters to make them play.

(thanks Cora)

(via Criggo)

Buenos Aires - Inception Park

Buenos Aires - Inception Park, directed by Fernando Livschitz.

Vimeo link

(thanks Miss Rare)

In this infographic, you'll see the hospital room of the future where advances in medical science and technology promise to provide you with better medicine and a more pleasurable experience.

(via Look At This...)

Self-Made Carousel

A self-made carousel from ~~Moldova~~ Brazil. That has to go wrong.

YouTube link

What's the difference between a street and a road? Although both terms are often applied to the same thing, a road is different from a street, at least in theory. Looking at the definitions and history of the usage of the words, the difference is a matter of place and purpose. And what about an avenue, a boulevard, a drive or a lane?

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The Kila Raipur Sports Festival, popularly known as Rural Olympics, is held annually in Kila Raipur, in Punjab, India. Competition is held for major Punjabi rural sports, including cart-races, and rope pulling, plow-in-the-mouth balancing, and leaping through fiery hoops.

Every February since 1933, Kila Raipur becomes the destination for hundreds of sports enthusiasts. They come to see the special breed of bullocks, camels, dogs, mules and other animals competing in competitive events.

(thanks Cora)

Nerd alert! Pants with a built-in keyboard. Designed by Dutch duo Erik de Nijs and Tim Smit. The 'Beauty and The Geek' pants also contain a wireless mouse, and speakers. The keyboard pants can be tethered to your computer using either a bluetooth connection, or a cable that wraps around your waist like a belt.

Pages - Menu

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Monday, February 27, 2012

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Friday, February 24, 2012

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Monday, February 20, 2012