By Andrew Rae. Via Ffffound.

(Happy New Year everyone.)

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Isn’t it beautiful? -via Living the Scientific Life

Pro Traveler lists ten of the biggest, fastest, and scariest rollercoasters in the world. Just imagine, someone had to ride all these and more in order to rank them. Have you ridden any of these? Link

Crystal Island, the world’s biggest building, is set to be built in Moscow within five years. The plans are for a 27 million square foot interior! The cost? Four billlion dollars.

The statistics for the project are absolutely staggering; floor area alone will be four times the size of Pentagon in Washington DC. The incredible 1500 ft. tall multi use structure will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, sports complex and much more. There will also be a 16,500 space underground parking lot for all the visitors. The Crystal Island visitors will be able to enjoy panoramic views of Moscow on the viewing platforms located 980 ft. above ground.

Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

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Every New Year in Germany and Scandinavia, it’s a tradition to watch Dinner for One, a comedy sketch written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theater in the 1920s. It’s also known as The 90th Birthday, or Der 90. Geburtstag. The full German TV production is available at Google Video. The English section here is ten minutes long. In the routine, Miss Sophie has outlived her friends, so her butler plays the part of each at the birthday dinner, which means he must drink multiple toasts! It’s one of 6 New Year Traditions from Around the World at mental_floss. Link

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An amusing rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, performed by the Turtle Creek Chorale from Dallas, TX. 3 minutes, 53 seconds long. Via Gord

Neatorama had a lot of stories and videos about cats in 2007. Here are some of the more popular ones, in case you missed them or want to see them again.

January

Goliath is a twenty-pound cat who got wedged in a dog door!
Video of what became ubiquitous in 2007: LOLcats.
A family of cats performing to a waltz.

February

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Nora lives with a piano teacher, and loves to play the piano. This was later followed by a video of Nora’s Piano Duets. Nora now has a CD available called Cat on the Keys. $2.00 from every CD sold are donated in Nora's name to Best Friends Animal Society.

Otto’s very strange video valentine for perfect strangers.
Video of a cat climbing into a fish bowl.

March

A fourth-grade class raised money to buy the disabled cat Xavier a wheelchair.
Agui, the cat who can pronounce his own name!

April

Macavity rides a bus by himself to the chip shop!
One Useless Cat makes friends with a rat.
Kosh doesn’t want to walk on a treadmill.

May

Smokey owes his life to blogger EMT Tom Reynolds.
Video showing how to vacuum a cat.
Tama, the cat stationmaster for a Japanese railway.
Pippy, the cat who will beg for anything.

June

Mr. Lee’s Cat Cam shows what the world looks like to a cat.
Des, the cat with 26 toes!
Where did they come from, anyway? The history of housecats.

July

Oscar, the cat who predicts death in a Rhode Island geriatric ward, became an internet sensation and one of the most talk-about stories of the year.
A litter of kittens playing with toilet paper.
How to compute the volume of a cat.
The Hemingway Cats get a reprieve.
A cute cat eating corn on the cob.
The Laws of Cat Physics.
Nimra adopted a litter flock of chicks!
The Hello Kitty Cat Humiliation System.


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Meet Charley, who has cerebellar hypoplasia.

August

The Russian lady with 130 cats!
This Japanese TV show answers the question: How much weight can a cat carry?
Video of a DJ scratchin' cat.

September

Caption monkey contest featuring a swimming cat and a bonus pic.
Tiger Lily has the shape of a heart on her side.
The Mean Kitty Song, starring Sparta.
Video of a kitten eating a melon.
Nine videos of the adorable Scottish Fold breed.
Video of cute kittens sleeping in dishes.

October

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The animation every cat owner can relate to: Cat Man Do, by Simon Tofield.
The Flo Control Project must recognize your cat before he can come in the house!
Molly survived the washing machine.
Fitzy, the fabulous fetching feline.

November

Scientific proof that cats are liquid.
A cat who loves his horse.
Video of a cat that acts like a dog.
Snoopy playing an invisible piano.
Video of a dog, a cat, and a crawfish. With earworm music.
Lil'Bit, the cat with two faces.
Two cats having a conversation, plus a remix with an English translation.
Baby, the bionic cat with metal implants in all four legs.
A kitten battling a ferret.

December

Scientists clone fluorescent cats that glow red in the dark!
Video of the cute upright kitten.
Jelly came home with a copperhead wrapped around her neck!
Japan’s Rent-A-Cat industry.
Musashi's Christmas Song.

To compile this list, I sifted through 25 pages of Neatorama's animal archives, which took a long time because there are so many interesting stories about all kinds of animals. I highly recommend that you take a look!

A king penguin living at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland has been promoted to the rank of honourable regimental sergeant major by the Norwegian Army.

Retired Major Nils Egelien of the Royal Norwegian Guards said: "It all started in 1961 when the King's Guard of Norway came to the military tattoo and we were very very interested in the king penguins.

"In 1972 we came back again and adopted a king penguin in the name of Nils Olav and the rank of lance corporal.

"In 1982 he was a corporal, in 87 a sergeant and in 1993 a regimental sergeant major."

The penguin that was promoted is the second Nils Olav, as the first to bear the name died in 1987. A bronze statue of the penguin will be made for the King of Norway. Link -via the Presurfer

Nicole Cotroneo at Girl Eats World is in St. Lucia, and has a delightful account of eating cocoa fresh from the tree in the Venus Rainforest Preserve. Link -via Grow-A-Brain

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A mashup of video from The Matrix and audio from Fight Club. They mesh so well, these movies must have more in common than I thought! -Thanks, kinomozg!

The "Trends in Japan" blog got the chance to stop by the Tokyo Traffic Control Center and get an in-depth look at how traffic operates in Tokyo minute-by-minute.

Seated in the middle is the Commander of the Control Center, with operators on the sides to collect information. The Information Board on the far right can display anything from handwritten notes to additional maps brought up on the computers.

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If you saw someone wearing these Hello Kitty contact lenses, you would miss everything they said because you would be busy trying to figure out what is wrong with their eyes. Come to think of it, my eyes are starting to hurt! Link -via Scribal Terror

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Make your own LED slippers, so you won’t trip over toys while making your way to the bathroom at night. They may also help you to avoid cats, but only if they are stationary. -via Unique Daily

(image credit: Reijo Kemppainen)
When the wind chill is below 0°F and the water is below freezing, surfing is the last thing on most people’s minds. Not so for Toronto surfers Mark Karvonen, Walter Tuokkola, and Geoff Johnson, who headed down to Lake Ontario to catch some waves. Why?

Mark: Because that's when the waves are at their best! Storms that track up the US, especially along the east coast, kick up some serious swells on Lake Ontario. A little snow storm won't keep us from the sport we love. In fact, we look forward to big storms because we know they bring waves with them.

Link -Thanks, photosapience!

A black hole in what has been nicknamed the “death star galaxy” is sending a jet of radiation and energy to a smaller neighboring galaxy. Millions of stars are in the path of the deadly stream, possibly with orbiting planets. Such an attack would render any planet lifeless. The cosmic violence is only about a million years old, and may stretch for another 10 to 100 million years. The two galaxies revolve around each other, and are 24,000 light years apart. The attack poses no danger to Earth, as the galaxies are over a billion light years away. Link -Thanks, Cheese Duck!

Inspired by a list of “best and worst quotes from 2007” and a trip to Krispy Kreme, Marty Z and his wife created this funny t-shirt design. Link -Thanks, Marty Z!

This is a type of hybrid carp, featured on a Korean news broadcast. Via Inventorspot

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How cool would it be to have your portrait done by a robot? The robot was designed by Sylvain Calinon, robot researcher at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA).

When the robot recognizes a face in its field of view, it first grabs a snapshot of this face and extracts the relevant features and contours characterizing it. The robot then grabs a pen and start drawing the user's portrait, starting from the rough contours and adding details iteratively.

Link to Calinon’s site. -via Dump Trumpet

Just about everyone knows the song Frère Jacques (Brother John). Here are 45 versions of the song, in many languages and several dialects of French. Link -via Metafilter

Celebrity Hotel Rooms is a collection of ten of the swankiest hotel suites ever. This picture shows the Peninsula Suite in Hong Kong's Peninsula hotel, which will run you $5,000 a night! Amenities include a 24-hour butler and a stand-by Rolls-Royce. Link

Cat owners have the spa for their pets and now the dog owners can surprise their best friend with a treadmill. No doubt that it's a good thing for your dog, but with prices starting at $1,400 it makes you wonder if you really need a special "dog version"?

Link - via BornRich

What do robot programmers do when they get bored? Apparently this one decided to transform the robot into a fun(?) ride.

Link [YouTube] - via Pusha

These interactive flash toys may be educational, but they are so much fun you probably won’t notice. I spent a lot of time just throwing things around! Link -via reddit

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This kitten didn’t get the memo that said cats don’t enjoy a bathtub of water! -via Arbroath

Artist Jay Broemmel designed a dragon bike! Its eyes are blue LED headlights that turn when the handlebars are turned. The jaws snap when you squeeze the left brake. Link -via Gizmodo

Oliver Thompson made arrangements with the staff at the Blackpool Zoo to set the stage for his proposal. During a zoo visit, his girlfriend Emma Morgan was surprised when a six-ton Asian elephant named Marcella delivered a ribbon to her, with a ring attached!

"Elephants are my favourite animals so when Oli told me that I was going to be spending the day in the elephant enclosure I was really chuffed.

"Then, this one elephant came up to me and handed me a ribbon. I didn't see the ring at first, but then I smiled at Oli and he opened a box he was holding and handed me my gorgeous engagement ring."

The elephant was carrying an inexpensive version of the actual engagement ring, just in case it was swallowed. Oh, and Emma said yes. Link -via Unique Daily

While browsing through the website of Chris Sanders, I found a link to Eric Tan's website. He created the terrific X-Men poster you see above as well as these Wall-e postcards and posters for The Incredibles. Sanders is no slouch himself, take a look at this illustration, reminiscent of Lilo & Stitch.

Oh, I started browsing Sanders' website in the first place because I learned he'd been dumped from the Disney film American Dog. Too bad, Lilo & Stitch is easily my favorite Disney cartoon.

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Mariah Wilder only wanted one thing for Christmas -for her Daddy to come home from Iraq. Sgt. Matthew Wilder found he would be able to come home to Kentucky for the holidays while going to aviation school. His wife arranged for an assembly at his daughters’ school, where Mariah and her sister were presented with a large box. Link -via Video Sift

Haydn, Liszt, Tchaikovsky.. who would’ve thought these classical composers had lives that supermarket tabloids would be interested in? Mental_floss has stories of mental illness, rabid fans, and bizarre death in the history of superstar composers. Link

17-year-old Rachel Rosenfield was touched by a newspaper report on Cambodian children who don’t have access to education. She went to work writing fundraising letters and selling t-shirts, and raised $52,000 in donations to open a school! Rosenfield was in Siem Reap province, Cambodia yesterday for the opening of the new R.S. Rosenfield School for 300 village students.

"It makes me feel great to know that I was able to help so many people," the teen said when contacted by telephone. "Just seeing everyone so happy (today). It meant a lot to me."

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Heng Sinith/AP)