This map by James Richards overlays a map of the United States with the flags of countries with populations equal to the respective states. You can view a much larger image at the link.

Link via Strange Maps | Flags of the World

(YouTube Link)

Filmmaker Noah Flangian of Tullahoma, Tennessee and his father assembled a Suzuki GSX-R motorcycle, but used stop-motion animation to depict the bike spontaneously assembling itself. Flangian claims that the project took thirty hours to complete and that the motorcycle engine started on the first try.

via Wired

(YouTube Link)

Many college students use laptop computers to take notes during class. The student in this video, as a prank, took an old mechanical typewriter to a lecture for that purpose. The professor gets quite perturbed and asks him to mute the sound effects.

via Gizmodo

Nate Heagy, a musician from Saskatoon, Canada, decided that the best way to promote his career was to get pictured on Google Street View. So he followed a Street View picture-taking car around his town until he could predict its path and get his image captured. CBC News quotes Heagy:

"Promoting a band is hard. And all the while I've been working on the album I've been trying to think of how I can promote it — how I can get noticed.

"When Google announced that Street View was coming to Saskatoon, a light bulb went on," he said. "I just thought Street View would allow anyone on any corner to be seen by any number of people anywhere."

Hatching the plan was one thing, execution was another.

"I figured Saskatoon's not that big, I could probably find the Google car if I really wanted to," he said. "So I built a sign, and kept it in the trunk of my car."

Heagy said he enlisted friends to keep an eye out for the vehicle and to call him if they spotted something with a large camera mounted on a tripod on the roof.

As it turned out, Heagy was having lunch one day and saw the Google car himself. He rushed to his own car to catch up to it and figure out where it would be going.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/12/05/sk-street-view-google-maps-musician-picture-fear-salesman.html via Gizmodo | Musician's Website | Image: CBC

More than three decades ago, Scott Weaver began building a model of San Francisco out of 100,000 toothpicks. He began the fragile project at the age of fifteen, which has survived four homes, an earthquake, and a destructive dog. In The San Francisco Gate, Janny Hu writes:

"Rolling Through the Bay" is 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep. It sports four pingpong ball tracks with more than a dozen entry points.

There's the Golden Gate tour, which snakes through Chinatown and Aquatic Park and ends at the old Fleishhacker Pool. There's the Cable Car tour, which travels past the painted ladies of Alamo Square into Golden Gate Park and onto the old Ferris wheel at Ocean Beach. There's even a nod to the East Bay that features a BART train and the Bay Bridge.

Look closely, though, and an even more detailed world appears. Surfers give the peace sign as they ride the waves near Ocean Beach. Two crabs are escaping from Fisherman's Wharf. The tail of Humphrey the humpback whale splashes by the bay.

Link via DudeCraft | Image: Dornob

Michael Goudeau's Pancake Project is a compilation of his pancake, waffle, and toast art, as well as photos of user-submitted art. Pictured above is his "Leggo My Eggo." Given the national Eggo shortage, this threat is a bit more serious.

Link via Urlesque

The Murphy Family home in Jupiter, Florida features a child's bed shaped like a dinosaur mouth. Bonnie Murphy, a muralist, did the painting and her husband did the carpentry. Can you imagine anything more soothing?

Link via Geekologie | Photo: 3 Murphys

Comics Alliance asked professional cartoonists to submit their own depictions of Bill Watterson's comic Calvin & Hobbes. Eleven responded. Pictured above is the work of Paul Hornschemeier, the graphic novelist responsible for Mother, Come Home.

Link | Artist Website

Pictures of this stylish suit of armor made from beer can tabs have been circulating the Internet today. What gifted artist will step forward and claim credit for this magnificent creation? There are more detailed pictures at the link.

Link via Geekologie

The present landspeed record for a lawnmower is 80.792 mph. Project Runningblade, led by Stephen Vokins of the Beaulieu National Motor Museum in the UK, hopes to break that record with a lawnmower capable of reaching 100 mph. Note that these are not just small race cars made to resemble lawnmowers -- they must cut grass on racing day and be manufactured by a lawnmower producer.

Link via DVICE | Official Website | Photo: Gizmag

Twenty-five years ago, Kris Marshall of Iowa draped a strand of Christmas lights across his pickup truck. Now, eight incarnations later, the Christmas Truck has 3,000 lights. Matt Hardigree writes for Jalopnik:

It's amazingly nontechnical, it's literally just lights taped to a truck. According to Marshall "It's not very scientific, it's a hideous site in the daylight, there's black tape and wires in the daytime." But at night it's amazing. Marshall has used eight trucks and added dozens of strand since, though it's always a 2WD Chevy/GMC with a regular cab and eight-foot truck bed "the way a truck ought to look."

By his own estimate there are 50-to-70 strings with a mixture of 50 and 100 lights each, making a conservative estimate of 3,000 lights. There are no LEDs, just the cheap $0.89 strings, though he'd like to add some to take pressure off the taxed generator

Link via Instapundit | Photo: Jalopnik

Upon hearing that Rolling Stone magazine plans to open its own restaurant, Slate author Justin Peters imagined reviews for restaurants opened by other magazines and news sites, such as Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Cosmopolitan. Here's his review of The Huffington Post restaurant:

What a selection! Marvel at the 47-page menu of hot entrees, most of which are sourced from other, better restaurants. While you can't beat the price, remember that you get what you pay for: The food is often reheated and many of the "celebrity chefs" who dabble in the kitchen don't appear to know how to cook. Remember to pay cash, as the staff has been known to "aggregate" patrons' credit card numbers.

Peters is quite willing to poke fun at Slate, too:

While the dishes are sometimes unappetizing, the kitchen will occasionally convince you that everything you know about curly fries is wrong. The opinionated waitstaff makes it clear that they know what you want better than you do; don't be surprised if your order of chicken elicits a riff on why you actually wanted trout. We hope the owners know what they're doing, because the business model—the food is free, but there are ads on the plates, glasses, tablecloths, and forks—seems iffy at best.

In the comments, describe your visit to a Neatorama-themed restaurant.

Link via Hit & Run | Photo: US Department of Health and Human Services

(YouTube Link)

A fellow who calls himself "The Duckman" built an electrically-powered automatic crossbow. His objective was to have a usable crossbow now that arthritis prevents him from cocking each arrow, as he would on a conventional bow. The Duckman built the weapon with a magazine of 15 arrows and the battery allows him to fire 100 before replacement. I don't see his trigger finger move while he's firing, so it appears to be fully auto, rather than semi. More pictures and specifications at the link.

Link via Gizmodo

The Fibonacci sequence, named after a 13th Century Italian mathematician, is a sequence of numbers in which every third number is the sum of the previous two numbers. This ring and others like it by Etsy seller Holmes Craft is an homage to that mathematical sequence in that the beads are organized according to the first four Fibonacci numbers.

Link via Technabob | Math Explanation | Photo: Holmes Craft

Kids Crave has a list of eight children's books that range from offbeat to weird to extremely specialized, including It's Just Another Plant: A Children's Story of Marijuana and It Hurts When I Poop. Pictured above is a book that will help parents when kids ask the most difficult of questions: "Why is there a server in the house?" I tell you when you're old enough to understand, sweetie. I promise.

Link via Bits & Pieces | Photo: Kids Crave