Dan Veeneman collects old, er vintage calculators and computers.

He’s always looking for those missing from his collection, so if you’ve got an ancient calculator lying around, see if he wants it.

Link

From the website:

Chinese artist Wang Qingsong sits in the shop window of Selfridges. Wang has created an installation across the entire run of Selfridges front shop windows entitled `Follow Me`, which employs motifs and symbols of popular culture inspired by the global appetite for shopping.

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Joanne’s the one who painted that famous Demi Moore’s body suit on the 1992 issue of Vanity Fair.

You can see more of Joanne’s awesome body and face paintings here: Link

Living in Southern California, I couldn’t agree more. See more of Todd’s cool paintings: Link

Marla Olmstead is an up and coming young artist in New York - she paints vibrant, colorful, abstract art.

She has already sold $50,000 worth of paintings. And oh yeah, she’s four years old.

Link (via Militantplatypus)

Matt takes "Photographs of the bizarre, the unusual, the sublime, and the beautiful found in my travels through the deserts of California and Nevada." This particular one is captioned:

Along Angeles Crest Highway in Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Mountains, I came across this man playing drums. He set himself up at the edge of the road, overlooking a vast canyon through which his drums echoed, and beat along to the music playing through his headphones. As I was making the photograph, an emergency truck sped by, sirens blaring — cacophony shatters the mountains’ silence.

Link (via grow-a-brain)

For more of Chris’ cool paper art, see: Link (via Paper Forest)

See more of Bill’s illustrations here: Link (via Chapel Perilous)

Checkout PODpulp’s other comic books dope covers: Link.

See more cool perspective-painting of rooms here: Link

Megan knitted this awesome pink wig for Halloween. Link (Thanks Jen!)

Not your taste? How about a knitted womb, headphone cover, and … a chain scarf! (See more at Knitty’s awesome collection: Link)

Update Jan 30, 2006:

Tens of thousands of people have visited the site, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Nepalese Buddha Boy - and a cottage industry selling pictures, CDs, etc. of Ram Bamjan has sprung up around this phenomenon (with proceeds going to rebel Maoist, said gov’t officials).

The screen that was erected to shield him from view has been taken down, but there is still no resolution to the claim that Ram has not eaten or drunk anything since he began his meditation 8 months ago.

(Does this matter? The 16-year old has been meditating for 8 months! I couldn’t sit still for 5 minutes when I was that age)

Nepalese eKantipur website’s got the latest news:

‘The biting cold has had no effect whatsoever on him so far," says priest Prem Lama…

…claims that the news of Bomjon’s "godly power" began to spread after two dumb people started speaking after visiting the meditation site.

Link

Previously: Ram Bahadur Bamjan’s friends said that he has been meditating without drinking water for 6 months, and will carry on for another 6 years until he attains enlightments.

"Bamjan has spoken only a few times since he began the meditation, according to Prem Lama.

He said the first time Bamjan spoke was when a snake bit him around a month ago.

Bamjan took the incident as his second test, which he must overcome, Prem Lama said."

This has people calling him Buddha-reincarnate. Now, scientists are gathering to see whether he indeed can meditate for so long without drinking any water.

Link (via Boing Boing)

FMS Advanced Systems Group’s uses its flash-based Network Navigator tool to visualize the relationship between entities in a database (in this case, of terrorists). Link (via WFMU blog)

I guess this guy is really into My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)!

From the website:

Kanjana Ketkaew, 36, left, holds and is covered with scopions next to her 29-year-old fiance Bunthawee Sengwong. Kanjana holds a world record for staying in a plastic cage with 3,400 scorpions for 32 days. Her husband-to-be holds a world record for staying in a cage with 1,000 centipedes for 29 days. The couple will get married on Valentine’s Day.

How creepy! Link

From a 1952 issue of Popular Mechanics, here’s how to make your own iron, er wooden lung:

INTENDED only for emergency use until a commercial respirator could be obtained, this “wooden lung” was designed by engineers and built by a volunteer group under the supervision of Dr. Gerald M. Cline, Dr. Homer O. Dolley, and Sister Celine of the medical staff of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Bloomington, Illinois. On completion, the unit was put into immediate use in emergency treatment of eight-year-old Rudy Landheer, a victim of polio in the epidemic of 1949. The original unit did emergency service for 12 hours until a conventional iron lung could be obtained.

Link (via Make Blog)

Rep. Blake Oshiro of Hawaii was shocked - shocked! - to find out that the humuhumunukunukuapuaa or humuhumu for short, is no longer the official state fish.

In 1984 the state Legislature asked the University of Hawaii and the Waikiki Aquarium to survey the public and come up with a candidate for the state fish. The humuhumu was swept into the spot in part through the support of school children who learned of the campaign through classroom projects.

Although the issue of the state fish would seem to come with little controversy, the method used to poll the public was questioned and lawmakers limited the designation to five years.

No one told the public that the humuhumu’s reign was over, so few knew anything had changed.

Link

Bolivian President Evo Morales sparked an "Evo Fashion" trend with his signature red, white, and blue striped alpaca sweater. The sweater is all the rage on the Net, says Reuters.

Evo made more news today when he cut his salary (and his Cabinet ministers’, too) in half and gave the savings for public school teachers, says CNN

Jessica Flack, David Krakauer of the Santa Fe Institute and colleagues discovered that monkey has a complex "voting" system to appoint monkey cops to police their group.

Once elected, police monkeys earn certain rights and responsibilities, one of which is to peacefully settles conflicts. They usually do this by stepping between combatants or chasing bad monkeys away. Very rarely do they need to dish out a whooping, but their actions are always respected by the group.

When Krakauer and his colleagues removed the police force—which in this case consisted of three males, but can also include females—they saw a drastic change in a once peaceful, interactive society.

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West Virginia has partnered with Konami to bring Dance Dance Revolution to all of its 765 public schools to fight childhood obesity!

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Man skipped doghouse after domestic dispute, opted instead for treehouse.

Kapila Pradhan, 45, a resident of Nagajhara village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, left home after an apparent tiff with his wife.

"My son and daughter-in-law quarrelled constantly after their son was born and their relationship soured day by day," says his mother Sishula. "One morning I found my son had left the house while everybody was still asleep."

A month later, villagers found him deep in the forest living in a tree.

Link

Mike Wood’s remote-controlled submarine was attacked by a giant Pacific octopus during a research dive.

"I go full reverse and blast him with all these seabed particles," said Wood, describing the attack shown in the video. "Finally, he lets go and disappears off into the gloom.

"It was desperation. It’s a $200,000 machine, and it’s not insured," said Wood, who runs SubOceanic Sciences Canada in Duncan, B.C.

Link (via Collision Detection)