Wrangler, a capuchin monkey practices riding on the back of Bo a border collie rounding up sheep as part of his act in the Pro-Rodeo being held at the Hardeeville Motor Speedway
– Made of 1,700 pounds of fine milk chocolate - Sculpted on-site in four weeks - Pond is white chocolate tinted with food coloring - Unveiled July 1, 1997
Daoheng Sun of China’s Xiamen University and Liwei Lin of UC Berkeley managed to create an improved electrospinning method to create nanofibers in orderly fashion. Above, grad student Chieh Chang wrote "Cal", UC Berkeley’s nickname, using the technique. Link
I built a potato battery out of 500 pounds of potatoes. It powered a small sound system. With the help of the Red 76 crew I installed the battery and sound system in the back of a U-Haul truck and drove it around town inviting people to enter the truck and take a listen.
Batteries work by allowing electrons to pass from one electrode to another. In this case the potato provides phosphoric acid, which enables a chemical reaction causing electrons flow from copper to zinc. The zinc came from galvanized nails and copper came from small pieces of copper. You don’t have to use potatoes; any acidic medium such as citrus fruit will work. I chose potatoes because they are traditional and cheap.
Each potato generates about 0.5 volts and 0.2 milliamperes. I connected groups of potatoes together in series to increase voltage and then connected these groups together in parallel to increase amperage. The entire 500 lb battery generated around 5 volts and 4 milliamperes.
Don’t eat potatoes after using them for a battery.
Gaumard Scientific Co.’s $20,000 "pregnant" robot is used to train doctors and nurses deal with complications of pregnancy:
The full-sized, blond, pale mannequin is in demand because medicine is rapidly abandoning centuries-old training methods that use patients as guinea pigs, turning instead to high-tech simulations. It’s better to make a mistake on a $20,000 robot
than a live patient. …
She can be programmed for a variety of complications and for cervix dilation. She can labor for hours and produce a breach baby or unexpectedly give birth in a matter of minutes.
She ultimately delivers a plastic doll that can change colors, from a healthy pink glow to the deadly blue of oxygen deficiency. The baby mannequin is wired to flash vital signs when hooked up to monitors.
Posted by Alex in Travel on April 24, 2006 at 2:05 am
This particular one comes from Kevin Kelley’s Asia Grace photo set, titled Dye Store, India.
From the website:
These colors are sold before the festival of colors "Holi". This festival marks the beginning of spring (mostly celebrated in March). People color each other with colored water and dry colors. The festival is marked by revelry, drum beating and crowds of people roaming a round the streets to color any unsuspecting individual. The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm all over India.
Posted by Alex in Travel on April 24, 2006 at 2:03 am
From the website:
Sukulen 37 Mt. Nyiru, Kenya
As a young girl, Sukulen began having dizzy spells and hearing voices. She said she was very frightened and thought she was getting ill. Her grandmother assured her that she was healthy and was, in fact, very gifted. Sukulen is now a highly respected “predictor” in her tribe. Two months before I arrived, she had told several people in her village that I was coming, and had described in detail my appearance and the equipment I was using.
See more of Phil’s amazing photos (don’t miss the Tibetan Portrait!): Link
Posted by Alex in Art on April 23, 2006 at 2:05 am
From the website:
[Tony Robbin] was a founder of Pattern Painting, showing widely in the United States and Europe with this school, and committed, as were his colleagues, to the lyric fusion of color and the intellectual understanding of the symmetries of pattern, as in the vast tradition of Oriental arts. …
… Robbin began to think more about his paintings as four dimensional knot diagrams:the flowing sheets are really hyperplanes that have not only thickness but an internal structure as well. The hyperplanes braid in ways that are impossible in three dimensions but are the natural consequences of projecting higher-dimensional structures into lower dimensional spaces.
Pran Datta and colleagues at Vanderbilt University discovered that the loss of a single protein molecule called Transforming Growth Factor-b (TGF-b) may be responsible for 75% of all lung cancers.
"We’ve established for the first time that these important molecules are either missing or that their action is reduced in three quarters of all cases of lung cancer.
"When we restored the molecules in lung cancer cells in mice they reduced the ability of the cells to grow as tumours."
Gordon Rutter of Edinburgh, Scotland, has a private collection of weird – I mean really weird, stuff.
In addition to the two-headed duck on the left, he also has the Hand of Glory (you have to see it for yourself), a Buddist sacrificial holder, and more…
Visitors are fascinated by the world’s biggest embroidery shoe at a shoe exhibition in Shenyang, N. China’s Liaoning Province Saturday, April 15, 2006. The 2.8m-long, 0.71m-wide, and 0.84m-tall shoe is able to hold three litlle kids inside.
Posted by Alex in Pictures on April 22, 2006 at 2:06 am
Japanese company tmsuk made this giant rescue robot called T-52 Enryu ("Rescue Dragon"). The giant robot has a bulldozer-like base and a 5-m long arms that can lift cars stuck in the snow.
In the tests, which began on February 1, T-52 Enryu showed off its avalanche prevention skills by removing accumulated snow from the edge of a cliff. The robot also demonstrated its ability to extract a car buried under a bank of snow. Remote control operation is being tested at avalanche sites, where extreme caution is required to prevent secondary avalanches.
Posted by Alex in Pictures on April 22, 2006 at 2:03 am
From the website:
Follow the rabbit tracks. BAM! The tracks suddenly end where the wing prints of an owl start. This picture was taken by a friend of a friend who teaches in Bethel, Alaska.
Posted by Alex in Art on April 22, 2006 at 2:02 am
Artist Tom Phillips takes casts of human skulls and then cover them in his own hair clippings:
A work in (slow) progress features two casts of the skull covered in my own hair. Now at the transition stage on the way to the bus-pass years my pepper and salt hair represents all phases of my life past and (D.V.) future: the dark brown of youth can still be collected from my head whereas my beard yields almost pure white. The first of two projected works is shown in its present form; awaiting further growth. It represents the old artist meeting his younger self coming the other way, a sort of Bonjour, Monsieur Tom.
I’ve seen lots of metaphors about life in various places, but this is, by far, the most accurate one, as it reflects perfectly how fast everything passes and, at the same time, how beautiful this world is…
Posted by Alex in Art, Pictures on April 21, 2006 at 2:05 am
Check out the entire collection of custom ladies on latex – don’t worry, safe for work: they’re just painted dishwashing gloves! Link (via Jaf Project)
On Good Friday, Filipino Catholic devotees in Lenten, Philippines were nailed to the cross (for real) in an annual ritual. From the website:
Forty-five-year-old Ruben Enaje grimaces as he is nailed to the cross for the 20th time during annual lenten rites in San Pedro Cutud village, in San Fernando city about 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Manila on Friday April 14, 2006. Enaje said it is his way of thanking God for miraculously surviving a fall from a building when he was a construction worker. At least seven Filipino devotees were nailed believing that the sacrifice would save them from sin.
Dutchman Johan Huibers is building a modern day Noah’s Ark!
The 47-year-old from Schagen, 45km (30 miles) north of Amsterdam, plans to set sail in September through the interior waters of the Netherlands.
Johan’s Ark is a fifth of the size of Noah’s and will carry farmyard animals.
Mr Huibers, who plans to open the vessel as a religious monument and zoo, hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands.
Although Mr Huibers has tried to remain true to the ark described in the Bible, Johan’s Ark is constructed with American cedar and Norwegian pine, rather than "gopher wood".
The Getty Museum has a very cool interactive "edutainment" exhibition featuring vintage devices from the wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) of 1600s to the 1800s.
This particular one is a French compound microscope c. 1751:
Luxurious microscope like this one were made for wealthy Europeans, who maintained collections of natural specimens in the manner of Renaissance Wunderkabinette (cabinets of wonder). This compound microscope possesses a micrometric stage and an ocular micrometer devised to allow measurement of specimens.
Designers at Plusminus.ru want to create this smartphone that looks like a comic speech balloon.
Smartphone featuring a color touchscreen – speech balloons are brought to real life from comic strips. Oh-yeah! The smartphone adapts to your favorite comics: talks to you in your favourite character’s language, updates you on new series, contains tunes, ringing tones and games based on the comics. The tail of the balloon serves as a USB connector to interchage data between the smartphone and a computer.
Link (via Random Good Stuff, who also wrote me: checkout criticker.com – It’s our new baby and replaced our day jobs – so we need that site to work out!!!! hint hint )
This is the first post that I am "co-blogging" with Hanan who blogs at grow-a-brain.
I don’t know how Hanan came up with those fantastic links on a particular topic day after day after day – his kungfu is certainly better than mine (did you know that he also speaks English, Hebrew, Danish, Norwegian, and French?).
The topic of the day is Crime and Punishment:
Explore the life of 18th century English criminal, à la choose your own adventure.
You Have Chosen to Incite a Riot
You are a textile worker in a small village a two day’s trip from London. The recent harvest has produced much less than was previously expected … you won’t be able to afford food for your family!
You organize a meeting that is attended by most of the town … You decide that there are two options afforded to you. First, you can organize a price riot where you all determine a "fair" price for grain and then, with threats of violence, force the farmers to set the price there … Secondly, you could simply blockade and seize the shipment of grain that is leaving town and distribute that grain to everyone.
LONGVIEW, TX—Area pedophile Dwight Sanderson said Monday that his interest in getting to know and eventually meeting MySpace.com member "Courtneee" has significantly declined after a closer read of the "lame" hobbies and "self-involved" blog entries on the 13-year-old’s profile.
From the website:
The collection of confiscated knives, spears and points grows daily at Pelican Bay State Prison. Prisoners, alone in their cells 23-hours a day, have plenty of time to contruct weapons from rudimentary materials.
"Jack the Ripper" is the popular name given to a serial killer who killed a number of prostitutes in the East End of London in 1888. The name originates from a letter written by someone who claimed to be the killer published at the time of the murders. The killings took place within a mile area and involved the districts of Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Aldgate, and the City of London proper. He was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and "Leather Apron."
Large jars of peanut butter have been banned in Tennessee’s 15 state prisons because inmates were hiding guns, drugs and other contraband in the 18-ounce containers, state corrections officials said.
The ban came after an investigation revealed that George Hyatte, a prisoner in Knoxville, had concealed a smuggled cell phone in a jar of peanut butter at the prison where he was being held and used it to coordinate a deadly breakout while being taken to court in August.
The Chicago Crime Commission states that a burglar spends an average of 8 minutes in a victims home. Put the odds in your favor… hide your valuables in plain sight! The diversion safes are a unique home-security product. We offer a wide variety of personal care, household products and food containers with removable tops and bottoms to use as secret safes. Valuables can be discreetly stored inside these look-a-like containers and kept in their seemingly rightful places. Each is undistinguishable from the genuine product and is even weighted to feel full.
As murders in major cities across the United States continue at a relatively unaltered rate, we have formed a task force to analyze the surrounding community to see if we could find any patterns. What we found was disturbing to say the least. The common bond? Within 1 mile of each murder scene we able to locate a McDonald’s restaurant. Coincidence? We thought so, until further investigation provided more evidence to link McDonald’s to a campaign of murder.
The notes, in 300, 600 and 1,000 euro denominations have a ring of 12 hearts instead of the usual EU stars and feature hunky men and big-breasted nude women.
Instead of the word ‘Euro’ being printed in the corner these notes have ‘Eros’ – the Greek god of love.
How to Make a Fake. Buy a mid-level Gauguin. Duplicate it. Slap the original papers on the copy. Sell both paintings to gullible collectors, while the art world looks the other way
“I am not an expert in the artist’s work,” she later wrote in an e-mail, “but the painting didn’t evidence the signs of age one would normally expect. It looked almost comically fresh and new.” (She leaned in closely to see if she could smell fresh paint, but her nose was overwhelmed by Sakhai’s cologne.) She advised her client against buying the painting. Another gallery owner, Y. Mano, also met Sakhai at the hotel, where he was shown works by Monet and Laurencin. He, too, declined: “Fake,” he says bluntly. “No good.”
A new Robotcop, Hong Kong’s first locally made animated robot, has joined the Police to raise kids’ crime-prevention awareness.
Jointly developed by the Police and the University of Science & Technology, this third-generation Robotcop employs advanced computer, electronics, mechanics and digital-imaging technologies.
The new Robotcop is capable of moving its arms, tilting its head, walking, dancing, moving in any direction and detecting obstacles.
A bait car is a generic term used for a vehicle that has been rigged by the police with the intent of capturing car thieves
Auto theft in Nanaimo has dropped by 17% in the three month period since the bait car program was launched throughout Vancouver Island on April 1, 2005. Auto theft in Victoria, British Columbia’s capital, has dropped by 36% over the same period compared to the same three month period in 2004.
If you see a sale price in the newspaper, don’t fall for it. You will probably pay much more than the regular price at an honest dealer. We know of a major store in Florida that marked gold chains up from $100 cost to $500 regular price, then marked them half-price during a sale. That means the customer paid $250, thinking it was a great price. This same thing happens with diamonds on sale. Liquidation and "going out of business" sales are usually no different. We heard of one store in New York City that has been going out of business for 15 years.
My own suggestion: Don’t buy diamond – it’s not a rare stone at all.
Crime, Web 2.0 Style. Let’s say you wanted to commit a criminal act, but needed a significant amount of money to successfully commit the act. Let’s say the commission of the act was the important thing, and that getting caught afterward would be acceptable, if not preferable…
Posted by Alex in Art, Pictures on April 19, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Artist Christopher "CK" Wilde chose an expensive medium for his art: money.
From the website:
Wilde painstakingly cuts various shapes out of paper money from around the world to form collages with economic and political undertones and overlays. The relationship between art and commerce is another theme that cannot be avoided when an artist cuts and pastes with money. Wilde bases a lot of his works on found images that he develops into his own compositions, which he will lay down on museum board before skillfully applying his umpteen bits of currency so that they abut in order to keep to the ideal of an even surface. The resulting puzzle is then sealed with wax. A tidy alternative to keeping it under the mattress.
This amazing amphibious RV is manufactured by a company aptly named Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International LLC. They also make amphibious Hydra Spyder sports sedan, the unsinkable Hydra Terra bus, and more…
RSS
Comments Off
