Talk about 8-bitboxing: Sebastian Bender created this clever music video called Game Boy Music, by "playing" various parts of the handheld gaming console.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Photo: Peter Dejong
If we were to prevent a Malthusian catastrophe, we'd better figure out a way to boost crop yield to keep feeding the planet's growing population. Gertjan Meeuws and other bioengineers of PlantLab have found an answer: a greenhouse where every aspect of the growing condition is controlled, where climate (or even the Sun) is not a factor at all.
In their research station, strawberries, yellow peppers, basil and banana plants take on an eerie pink glow under red and blue bulbs of Light-Emitting Diodes, or LEDs. Water trickles into the pans when needed and all excess is recycled, and the temperature is kept constant. Lights go on and off, simulating day and night, but according to the rhythm of the plant — which may be better at shorter cycles than 24 hours — rather than the rotation of the Earth. [...]
Sunlight is not only unnecessary but can be harmful, says Meeuws. Plants need only specific wavelengths of light to grow, but in nature they must adapt to the full range of light as a matter of survival. When light and other natural elements are manipulated, the plants become more efficient, using less energy to grow.
"Nature is good, but too much nature is killing," said Meeuws, standing in a steaming cubicle amid racks of what he called "happy plants."
Delfina Delettrez created this chic Skeletor Belt that looks like Death has got you by the waist. If the style doesn't kill you, then perhaps the $4,000 price tag will! Link
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Sarah Gallejo knows a winner when she sees one. This young girl was chosen out of the audience at Disneyland's Jedi Academy to participate in a stage show. She went off script and, rather than fighting Darth Vader, joined him.
via Super Punch
Artist Ji Lee creates miniature rooms of furniture, and installs them on ceilings!
People fill the floor of their homes with furniture and walls with paintings and pictures. So why are the ceilings left empty? Decorating ceilings was a celebrated art form in the past centuries that somehow got lost through the reductionism of modernism. People don't look at the ceiling anymore. It's a dead space. So I wanted to bring a small wink to this space. I also liked the idea that somehow there's a parallel world which coexists with ours.
One of the installations in Lee's Parallel Worlds project includes R2D2 and a hippo! http://pleaseenjoy.com/project.php?cat=1&subcat=&pid=75&navpoint=4 -via Laughing Squid
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A driverless tractor runs circles in a Walmart parking lot in Richmond Hill, Ontario, smashing cars and anything else in its way for several minutes. -via Cynical-C
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Certainly adding an additional human element to curling could make it even more exciting, as this commercial by the Buzzman agency suggests. The speedos, would, probably and unfortunately, be necessary.
Link via Colossal
What a lovely photograph from yesteryear, eh? Not quite.
It's a model. Specifically, it's one of the astoundingly detailed models of 1950s American homes, cars, and street scenes made by Michael Paul Smith. His work is being compiled into a new book called Elgin Park, the name of a fictitious Pleasantville-like town which his models and photographs depict.
Link and Smith's Flickr Photostream via reddit
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Sapientia University has created a series of online videos that illustrate different sorting algorithms using folk dances:
What you have to do is just check that they are in fact implementing the algorithm correctly. The dancers have numbers stuck on their front and they do seem to look down and examine the value on another dancer before performing the dance routine dictated by the algorithm.
Embedded above is the bubble sort, as explained by a troupe performing the Hungarian "Csángó" dance.
Link via Slashdot
When he was a boy, John Weber, 70, was given an old cup by his grandfather. He assumed that it was just a worthless piece of brass and occasionally used it for target practice with his air rifle. Eventually, Weber decided to have it appraised, and experts concluded that it was a 2,300-year old Persian gold cup of enormous value. It sold at auction for £50,000 in 2008.
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2011/04/worlds-most-expensive-plinking-target-million-dollar-gold-cup/ via Say Uncle | Photo: Duke's Auctions
Joystick-It iPad Arcade Stick - $24.95
Mother's Day is right around the corner. Is your Mom old school with new school moves? Get her the Joystick-It iPad Arcade Stick from the NeatoShop. With this little joystick she will be able to play all her old favorites on her favorite new toy.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulously fun Computer Accessories!
Canal St. Cross-Section (2009-2010)
What's that giant quarter doing in the Canal Street subway station? Actually, the entire diorama is a realistic miniature urban sculpture by Alan Wolfson. It took him 18 months from start to finish, but the result is simply amazing.
Check out the rest of his fantastic miniature sculptures here: Link - via Nerdcore
Ah, Paris, the City of Lights. Every year, more than 45 million people visit the city but roughly about 1 million of those starry-eyed tourists (mostly Japanese) fall sick with what has been dubbed the Paris Syndrome - what could cause such a strange effect?
Dan Lewis of Now I Know (That's Half the Battle!) explains:
Paris Syndrome is marked by a psychiatric breakdown suffered by the visitor, often including physiological side effects such as dizziness, an increased heart rate, and otherwise unexplained sweat. Extreme cases come with increased anxiety, a sense of persecution, and even hallucinations. Most of those affected are Japanese, but on occasion, a non-Japanese tourist will fall prey to the syndrome.
The cause? Most likely, it's a mix of a few factors: jet lag from the long trip; elation (similar to Stendhal syndrome) from taking a once-in-a-lifetime vacation; the language barrier; and, most critically, culture shock. As the BBC noted in its discussion of Paris Syndrome, "[m]any of the visitors come with a deeply romantic vision of Paris [but the] reality can come as a shock. An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures. But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much." And, also according to the BBC, the Japanese embassy there takes culture shock seriously, staffing a 24-hour hotline for citizens and expats who suffer culture shock while in La Ville-Lumière.
Link - via Look At This
It may sound paradoxical for you, but smoking may actually benefit society by causing smokers to die younger, before they cost the health care system more:
Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it does not save money, according to a new report.
It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that
preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars."It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
What do you get when you combine Tetris with Rubik's Cube? I can only imagine how long this clever YouTube clip by BananaNeil must've taken him to make!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Have You Seen This?
