unique and interesting: May 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

No Posting For The Next Couple Of Days

Dear readers. There will be no posting here for the next couple of days.I have to go to the hospital for inflammation of my gallbladder. The bladder will be surgically removed this afternoon. If everything goes well, I may be back to posting on Friday. Thanks for your patience.update: This comes from...

First Flying Platform - 1955

The US Navy demonstrates its 'Flying Platform' in 1955, a vehicle that uses a direct lift rotor aircraft, using contra-rotating ducted fans controlled by the pilot shifting his body weight around to tilt the platform. Development ceased because the US Army judged them to be impractical as combat vehicles...

image creditIf you have an open mind, there's no limit to the number of awesome celebrations you can find. Instead of just spinning a globe and putting your finger on a random place, though, here's a guide to help you find some of the best on...

It's one of the most iconic photos in American business. A ragtag group of bearded weirdos assembled for a company portrait of Microsoft from 1978. It was taken just before the then-startup left Albuquerque for Seattle. We all know what happened with...

image creditWe use them every day - but what are the mysterious origins of these symbols we take for granted? Here are a few short explanations to demystify the meanings of our favorite symbo...

Measuring The Universe

The Universe is absolutely huge and it's really amazing that we're able to look up from this tiny, little planet and actually measure the distance to things which are so incredibly far away. But how do we measure the distance to the stars?Vimeo l...

Tony Karp has been working with projects involving art and technology for over fifty years. He believes that all art requires technology, and vice versa. Tony calls this blending 'Techno-Impresssionism.' He's also the creator of the Techno-Impressionist...

There are so many things we want in our life, but sometimes little things mean a l...

Bottle Cap Blues

Sitting around with your friends killing a couple of six packs of beer trying to think of different means to open your next drink is pretty funny.Vimeo link(thanks Co...

image creditA spindly orange vine known as dodder is a particularly striking example of dynamic plant life.Dodder is a parasite - it lives off of other plants. Instead of waiting around for a suitable host, the vine hunts one down. The vine sniffs out...

Put your fist in the center and see how things speed up.(via BuzzFe...

Fugu And Tako

Fugu and Tako follows the story of two Japanese salary men who's lives radically change when one of them eats a live puffer fish in a sushi bar.Vimeo link(via Everlasting Blo...

Imagine a world where we never again hear the symphonic startup of a Windows 95 machine. Imagine generations of children unacquainted with the chattering of angels lodged deep within the recesses of an old cathode ray tube TV.The Museum Of Endangered...

image creditRick Schrager is a professional beachcomber and hobbyist photographer living in Southern California. He is passionate about written communication. His creative work has been featured in USA Today, The Village Voice and other publications....

Laziest Polar Bear Ever

Straight from the Arctic to your screen, here's the laziest polar bear ever recorded.YouTube link(thanks Co...

image creditFlamingos aside, you do not get to see the color pink in the animal kingdom a great deal. A notable exception is the pink katydid. Yet this is by no means a separate species - this coloring affects around one in 500. You may have already...

Tornado Wedding

Caleb James Pence and his bride-to-be Candra refused to let a tornado delay their wedding vows at their ceremony near Harper, Kansas, USA.YouTube link(thanks Miss Ra...

Think alpine sports and you'll probably think of skiing and snowboarding, but there's another alpine sport that doesn't get the same coverage - Alpine Finger Wrestling. The 35th edition of the annual Alpine Finger Wrestling Championships took place in...

image creditMany have visited an abandoned city and wondered what catastrophic event could have caused such an exodus from a metropolis once so evidently thriving. Yet these cities are usually hundreds if not thousands of years old, the everyday clamor...

Adventures Of The League Of Steam - 'Musical Miscreants'

In this adventure Crackitus, JayAre and Jasper investigate a client's home for paranormal activity. While there they encounter a trio of happy haunts intent on making mischief for the League.YouTube link(thanks Trip)related posts:Adventures Of The League Of Steam - Bitter Gnomes And GardensAdventures...

image creditThese hair-raising photographs demonstrate fantastic examples of lightning photography. Hopefully one of these them will hit you with a bolt of inspirati...

The latest product range from Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, Salt made from Tears, has just launched. The salt is collected from humans experiencing a range of emotions, and in various situations. You can pick up salt made from: tears of sorrow, tears...

Max - CCTV

The future of CCTV. Watch what you do.YouTube l...

image creditStarfish belong to a beach vacation like sandcastles and sunburn. They're not fish, of course, but rather close cousins of sand dollars and sea urchins. Just the sight of these stellar sea creatures is enough to excite even the most jaded...

image creditIt's possible that whales can sense things that no other living creatures can. Scientists have discovered a grapefruit-sized mass of vessels and nervous tissues located in whales' chins, and they believe it's an entirely new kind of sensory...

A Flock Of Seagulls

A flock of seagulls singing 'A Flock Of Seagulls.'An advertisement for Cape Cod potato chips.YouTube l...

image credit NASAThe Dragon has landed! Photos of yesterday's historic, first-ever docking of a private space craft with the International Space Station. The Dragon was captured by a giant robot arm, operated by American astronaut Don Pettit and Dutch...

Watching documentaries is always a fun and educational way of passing your time. But for a documentary film to be interesting, it must be relevant to your topic of interest. Thanks to a website called Watch Documentary, you can now browse countless documentaries...

News Reporter Caught Faking Sandstorm After Missing Event

Romanian news reporter Adrian Boioglu was left red faced after he was caught faking a sand storm live on TV after turning up too late to capture the real thing. The bungling reporter convinced an assistant to stand just outside the camera shot and kick sand towards his direction. He was caught out however...

A motivated Sioux chef?(via Crig...

image creditRemember the scene from Seinfeld where George Costanza is standing in front of the buffet table at a funeral reception, snacking on chips and dip. An onlooker spies him dipping a chip, taking a small bite, and then going for more dip. How...

Amazing Coating For Bottles' Interiors Lets Ketchup Flow Like Water

LiquiGlide, developed by a team at MIT's Varanasi Research Group, is a surface coating that liberates the notoriously non-Newtonian fluid ketchup from its glass- or plastic-walled prison.(via Popular Scien...

Legal Cartoon by AndertoonsMark Anderson is a professional cartoonist from the Chicago area. His cartoons have been published in Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Woman's World and the Saturday Evening Post, to mention just a few. Among...

image creditQuicksand is a staple hazard of adventure movies, TV shows and video games. Whenever a minor character needs to be killed off quickly, the hero needs someone to rescue, or danger needs to be introduced without calling the villain in, quicksand...

The Sick Kitten (1903)

A century before Rolf Harris and 'Animal Hospital', audiences had more than their fair share of films about sickly pets, brave dogs and assorted animals in peril. Here, cinema pioneer G. A. Smith's tale features two under-aged vets and a feline patient.'The Sick Kitten' is interesting for more than...

image creditThe fourth Star Trek series, Voyager, told the story of a ship and its crew hurled to the opposite side of the galaxy. At the best possible speed, it would take 75 years for them to return home - if they completed the journey at all. From...

Bowser Beer - A Beer For Dogs

Bowser Beer is for dogs... seriously! Bowser Beer isn't technically beer in the human sense. It contains no alcohol, no carbonation, and no hops (which can be poisonous to dogs).Instead the brewer, 3 Busy Dogs Inc. use all natural dog-friendly ingredients...

image creditThe Codex Mendoza is an Aztec codex, created about twenty years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico with the intent that it be seen by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.It contains a history of the Aztec rulers and their...

image creditAn international tripoint is a geographical point at which the borders of three countries meet. There are currently 157 international tripoints by some accounts. Usually, the more neighbours a country has, the more international tripoints...

Hexapod Robot

MorpHex is a hexapod robot that can transform into a sphere shape and back.YouTube link(via Everlasting Blo...

Chocolate-lovers need look no further for a place to pay homage to their favourite treat after chocolatiers created a mouth-watering edible sculpture of an ancient Mayan temple.Chocolatiers have broken the world record for the largest chocolate sculpture...

image creditChromeography is a website with pictures of the lettering, logos, and ornaments adorning old automobil...

You have probably heard of Douglas Engelbart. He is best known as the inventor of the computer mouse - but in fact, this man created just about all of the conceptual underpinnings of what we now think of as the standard human-computer interface. Engelbart...

image creditJellyfish have enchanted humanity since we first laid eyes on them. Unsubstantial and wispy, they float around our oceans almost without thought or effort, their tendrils carelessly drifting behind them as they go. Jellyfish have existed...

Happy Food

A short film by Yum Yum London featuring audio from German sound designer David Kamp.Vimeo link(thanks Co...

image creditSome have created fantastic illusions consisting of sculptures that look as if they're sinking into the ground! Whether it's Sue and Peter Hill who made the magnificent Mud Maid at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, UK, or Banksy who transforms...

Robert Moog (1934 - 2005) was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer. In celebration of his 78th birthday, Google has created a Google doodle. The Google logo has been incorporated into an electronic...

image creditThis is what the Food Court in Hell must look like.The 11 Worst Fast Food Restaurant Nam...

Slinky On A Treadmill

Running a slinky continuously on a treadmill.YouTube l...

image creditWhether you're a Trekkie or not, you have to admit that there's some sense of wonder to exploring the stars and trying to find life on distant planets. Of course, the U.S.S. Enterprise is a fictional ship, but have you ever put into thought...

image creditNursing for the sick was a family obligation back then, so nurses were but family members. In some cases, though, where the sick has no family or is a settler from another land, a self-appointed nurse will attend to his medical, physical...

Social media technologies take on many different forms including magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking.The State Of Social Media 2012.(thanks ...

The Oberfranken Steakknife Massacre

A homemade 'chain saw.' The weapon consists of eight razor sharp, serrated steak knifes that rotate at fast speed. A battery drill is the power source, using a transmission with a rubber band as a belt.YouTube link(via Everlasting Blo...

For sale: Oral B Triumph Electric Tooth Brush. I don't need it.(via Crig...

A good book is hard to put down. But if you're enjoying it on an eReader you eventually have to break and recharge. How many pages can you get through before your battery runs out? How fast can you read classics like The Lord of the Rings or War and...

Superfoods are full of antioxidants, fibre and essential fatty acids which have fantastic health benefits. When consumed as part of a healthy, balanced diet, superfoods improve immune system function, prevent or help treat illnesses and reduce the physical...

Rivers And Homes

Rivers And Homes is a taggable music video directed by Eran Amir.YouTube link(thanks Jino)related post:500 People In 100 Seco...

image creditThe best place to see the eclipse was across Asia and parts of the western United States. It was the first solar eclipse of its kind in nearly 18 yea...

Car-Sized Turtle Found In Colombian Coal Mine

Excavating in a coal mine in Colombia, paleontologists have discovered the fossil of the world's largest turtle, a 60-million-year-old specimen nearly 8 feet long - the size of a small car. If you were to stand it up, it's 5 foot 7 inches, just shorter than the average male.And that's just the shell....

image creditThere are a couple things at play here, some involving the paper, some involving your skin. For one thing, what part of your body comes in contact with paper the most? Right, the majority of paper cuts happen on the fingers and hands. Your...

iPad Beer At Hofbräuhaus In Munich

Magician and performance artist Simon Pierro shows some iPad magic at the world famous German Hofbräuhaus in Munich, Germany, the beer capital.YouTube link(thanks Co...

Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series that premiered in 1990 and completed its 20th and final season in 2010. Law & Order & Food is a tumblr photoblog about the food eaten on the TV show.(via Neat...

image creditJust the thought of mold is something that makes many people involuntarily shudder. There are thousands of known species of molds which include opportunistic pathogens, saprotrophs, aquatic species and thermophiles.Like all fungi, molds derive...

Are you a fan of Nicolas Kim Coppola? I mean Nic Cage? Then here's a tumblr blog for you.An endlesss stream of Nicolas Cage Gi...

Light Hearted Kites

A train of six kites flying in tandem. The kites are made and flown by Steve Polansky. The Music is 'Lighthouse' by Patrick Watson.YouTube link(thanks Co...

image creditAn archive of all Batman's significant outfits from comics, movies, games from 1939 until tod...

image creditA propeller-driven suspended monorail, claiming the speed of aircraft with the safety and reliability of railways, was designed by George Bennie in 1926, and named the 'Bennie Railplane'. A short test track was built over a railroad line...

image creditThe naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a burrowing rodent native to parts of East Africa. It has a highly unusual set of physical traits that enables it to thrive in an otherwise harsh, underground environment, including a lack of...

Opening A Bottle Of Beer With A Chainsaw

A man opens a bottle of beer with a chainsaw.YouTube l...

image creditThe Dhole is also called the Asiatic Wild Dog or Cuon alpinus. It is not closely related to any other canine, so it is a species apart from dogs, wolves, foxes or dingoes. This native of Southern Asia is an endangered species. A Dhole is...

image creditIf you are very lucky you may see a fire rainbow once or twice in your life. It sounds like it could be one of a series of children's books - Harry Potter and the Fire Rainbow has a certain ring to it, but this phenomenon is not fiction.If...

Dog Rides A Bike

Norman the Scooter Dog rides a bicycle.YouTube link(thanks Miss Ra...

image creditThe Megalithic Passage Tomb at Newgrange - located in County Meath, on the eastern side of Ireland - was built around 3200 BC. The kidney shaped mound covers an area of over one acre and is surrounded by 97 kerbstones, some of which are richly...

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