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Here’s something you don’t see everyday…a blood spewing fountain! Now I’m no artist (or should I be saying it like this: arteest?) but I would love to see this in real life on a gigantic scale.
Not entirely anatomically correct (nor real) this heart fountain spews, shoots, and jets “blood” all over the box it is contained in much to the amazement of the spectators. Created by artist Billy Chasen this fountain was displayed at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2008 “Heart of New York Gala”, which took place at Waldorf Astoria in NY City.
Click play or here [YouTube Link]
[Link] – Billy Chasen’s website.
[Link] – American Heart Association.
[Link] – Story via BoingBoing
The Interior of Bedlam, from A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth (1763)
In the 18th century, watching and taunting "lunatics" in an asylum was a popular form of entertainment.
The cost of admission at the Hospital of St. Mary in London, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world (later renamed Bethlem Hospital), was one penny. The asylum was so chaotic that it became the basis of the word "bedlam."
Remember
the brouhaha when Apple
told a third-grader to get lost when she wrote a letter to Steve Jobs
about her ideas to improve the iPod?
Well, compare that to how Nokia treats its users' suggestions:
Nokia researchers didn't quite know what to expect when, in March, 2007, they posted a mobile phone application called Sports Tracker on a company Web site that is open to the public. The program, still a work in progress, was designed to let runners and cyclists take advantage of the global positioning capability included in some Nokia models. Users can record workout data such as speed and distance, and can plot routes.
The response to Sports Tracker was overwhelming. Eventually more than 1 million people downloaded the program and used it for sports the developers never dreamed of, such as paragliding, hot-air ballooning, and motorcycle riding. More importantly, the users avidly provided criticism that Nokia (NOK) then used to make improvements. Based on reader feedback, for example, developers added the capability to create online groups where users can share favorite routes and even photos they took along the way. "People were misusing the application in creative ways," says Jussi Kaasinen, a member of the team at Nokia Research Center in Helsinki that developed Sports Tracker.
You've heard of user-generated content? Sports Tracker is an example of how Nokia has begun experimenting with user-generated innovation. That's the premise behind Nokia Beta Labs, a Web site where the Finnish handset maker lets users test the latest smartphone software. Instead of people recording silly Web cam videos for YouTube or inventing frivolous advocacy groups on Facebook, they can help make the mobile Internet more useful.
The photo above is Sam from Accra, India Ghana, who sketched his dream phone
in open studios set up by Nokia's design team where users can submit their
best ideas.
Link: Article at Business Week by Kerry Capell | Nokia Beta Labs website - via Core77
Medusa (2006) by Timothy Horn
Details of Medusa from underneath
Inspired by the illustrations of the 19th century German Zoologist Ernst Haeckel [wiki], Australian artist Timothy Horn created this 9 ft wide "jellyfish" lamp, titled Medusa, out of cast silicone and fiber optics.
Link: Timothy’s Website | Medusa installation at the Hosfelt Gallery in New York
Christopher David Ryan of Atmostheory created these nifty posters, titled Commands, that seem to make sense to Mac users 
Link – via Apartment Therapy Unplugged
This has got to be the ultimate gadget for Star Wars lover: the R2-D2 Projector, complete with built-in DVD, iPod dock, and Millenium Falcon remote control!
Link – via Star Wars Blog | R2-D2 Projector in Action video
Vaune
Dillmann, a craft brewer from Weed, California, thought that he got a
cute marketing gimmick by labeling his beer bottle caps after the name
of his town ("Try Legal Weed"). But the Federal alcohol regulators
didn't get the humor:
The agency responded that the message on the caps amounted to a drug reference. In a letter explaining its decision, the agency said the wording could "mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage."
Dillmann scoffs at the notion that his label has anything to do with smoking pot.
"I've never tried marijuana in my life," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I don't advocate that. It's just our town's name."
Apparently, making fun of the town's name is somewhat of a sport with its inhabitants:
A sign posted on the way out of town reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed," while another says "100 Percent Pure Weed." Dillmann noted those examples in an appeal letter he sent to the alcohol bureau, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Once, Dillmann said, his wife, a former teacher, was delayed on a field trip to San Francisco as tourists clamored to pose next to the school bus, which said "Weed High."
Link - via Beyond Madison Avenue
(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Elephants are expensive to feed and care for, and many of India’s elephants earn their living with years of hard work. Then after the elephants are too old for labor, they are often neglected or cast aside due to their maintenance costs. But a new retirement home is opening on a thousand-acre preserve at Kottur, Kerala. The government will pay a nominal fee to buy elephants too old for work and provide them with room to roam and proper veterinary care.
“We want them to enjoy their last years after being such good workers without worrying where their next meal will come from,” said V.S. Verghese, Kerala’s chief wildlife warden who is in charge of the scheme.
“They’ll get special treats like big slabs of rice, a course sugar called jaggery, and honey. And vets will be on hand.”
The first 30 elephants are scheduled to move in this month. Link -via Fark
Mirhejazi also discovered the horse can power two LCD advertising screens mounted on the sides of the Naturmobil
“Bearing in mind the originality and uniqueness of the idea, Naturmobil was designed and built to achieve the maximum level of attention from its audiences,” said his marketing manager, F. Minooeifar.
Mirhejazi plans to exhibit his Naturmobil in Pittsburgh, California in June. Link -via Arbroath
Nitpick compensates for his limited fighting ability by pouncing on points that are only marginally relevant to the discussion. For example, if his opponent in a sports forum conflict casually mentioned the Cubs’ 4-2 victory in the 1908 World Series, Nitpick would quickly counterattack with something like, “4-2 !? Any moron knows the Cubs won the Series 4-1! Someone so ignorant about baseball history can’t possibly know anything about salary caps!” Even if the minor point is conceded by his opponent Nitpick will return to it whenever the battle turns against him. Though weak, Nitpick is very tenacious and will never admit defeat. Nitpick is a close ally of Artful Dodger.
Illustrator Mike Reed began caricaturing the personalities that forum users display during flame wars some years ago, and the collection has expanded over time. There are now 89 distinct warriors! Surely you will recognize some of these from your own experience. Flame Warriors should be required reading for all users before participating in any online forum. Link -via Everlasting Blort
School bus driver and amateur artist Steve Kreuscher of Zion, Chicago, wanted to change his name legally to "In God We Trust":
Kreuscher says the new name would symbolize the help God gave him through tough times.
Kreuscher also told the Daily Herald that he’s worried that atheists may be successful in having the phrase "In God We Trust" removed from U.S. currency.
Would his first name be In? Link
With all the hoopla about Iron Man, DVICE blog wonders if we can actually build a real Iron Man suit. Step one is to check out what history has to offer, and that’s Hardiman exoskeleton for humans:
Before we start building our own Iron Man suit, let’s first benefit from the experience from those who have tried this in the past. In 1965, GE (disclosure: our parent company, bless ’em) was the first to try creating an exoskeleton for humans. But the first iteration went berserk — kicking, bucking and gyrating so much, they never chanced it with a human inside. The project was scaled down to an arm that would be able to lift 750 pounds, enough to load up a bomb onto a plane on an aircraft carrier. Big problem, though: The arm itself weighed 1,500 pounds, far beyond anyone’s capacity to handle it. The idea was scrapped.
Read the rest of the entertaining article here: Link – via Gorilla Mask
This guy probably thought it was a good idea at the time: mooning the speed camera …
A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in Northumberland. [...] His behaviour has been labelled as "dangerous and offensive" by road safety campaigners.
Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt.
When angler John Berzins and guide Al Simson of Kettafly hooked a saratoga fish, they didn’t expect to find a skink – the fish’s last meal – inside its mouth. And they certainly didn’t expect the partially digested skink to come back to life!
While they were taking photographs the fish started regurgitating its last meal _ the lizard _ which clearly should have been dead and looked dead with its lifeless eyes.
But as Simson continued taking photographs a miracle happened. "As I was looking through the lens of the camera I noticed that the once-glazed over eyes of the skink were now black," he said . "I said, `hey John, the skink’s alive’. John said, `wow man, it just blinked at me, and look, it’s breathing’."
The lizard began to struggle and with a little help from the fisherman it crawled from its captor’s jaws. There were some teeth marks down its back and the tail was partially digested, but when they put it back on the river bank it happily scurried off.
Link (Photo: Al Simson) – via Underwater Times
UK Consumer group Which? conducted the test that showed keyboards may actually be dirtier than a toilet seat:
Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office’s toilet seats.
Microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson said a keyboard was often "a reflection of what is in your nose and in your gut".
During the Which? tests in January this year, a microbiologist deemed one of the office’s keyboards to be so dirty he ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned. It had 150 times the recommended limit for bacteria – five times as filthy as a lavatory seat tested at the same time, the research found.
Wendy Gonaver lost her teaching job at Cal State Fullerton one day before class was scheduled to begin, because she refused to sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn’t expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."
California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath.
"The position of the university is that her entire added material was against the law," Potes-Fellow said.
In February, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word "nonviolently" when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention.
It is hard to know how many would-be workers decline to sign the pledge over religious or political issues. Some object because they interpret the pledge as a commitment to take up arms. Others have trouble swearing an oath to something other than their God.
Here’s an interesting story at the Los Angeles Times by Richard C. Paddock: Link
(Photo: Mark Boster / LA Times)
