Vincenzo Cosenza created a series of maps tracking the most popular social networks around the world over the past year and a half. This month's map is above. Consenza writes:

Zuckerberg’s creature continues to gain users around the world (almost 600 millions). Since June 2010 Facebook has stolen new important nations from local, previously strong, competitors (in 115 out of 132 countries analyzed it is market leader) especially in Europe. In particular:

- From Iwiw: Hungary

- From Nasza-Klasa: Poland

- From Hi5: Mongolia

- From Orkut (Google): Paraguay and India. Orkut remains the first social network in Brasil.

In Japan Mixi is still the most used web-based social network (Ameba that I previously mentioned it’s not a pure social networking site, but also a portal/blog-hosting provider). But if we look to mobile social networks usage the leader is Gree followeb by Mobage Town.

Link via Geekosystem

The design of this Charmander cake is simple, but effective. When lit and seen from above, it looks like the Pokémon is actually breathing fire.

Link via Geekologie | Photos: My Food Looks Funny

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A railgun is a weapon that uses electromagnets to accelerate a projectile to very high speeds. The US Navy has been developing one for several years. Today they fired a shot at Mach 7 at a target 100 miles away:

An electromagnetic railgun offers a velocity previously unattainable in a conventional weapon, speeds that are incredibly powerful on their own. In fact, since the projectile doesn't have any explosives itself, it relies upon that kinetic energy to do damage. And at 11 a.m. today, the Navy produced a 33-megajoule firing -- more than three times the previous record set by the Navy in 2008.[...]

Ellis says the Navy has invested about $211 million in the program since 2005, since the railgun provides many significant advantages over convention weapons. For one thing, a railgun offers 2 to 3 times the velocity of a conventional big gun, so that it can hit its target within 6 minutes. By contrast, a guided cruise missile travels at subsonic speeds, meaning that the intended target could be gone by the time it reaches its destination.

Furthermore, current U.S. Navy guns can only reach targets about 13 miles away. The railgun being tested today could reach an enemy 100 miles away. And with current GPS guidance systems it could do so with pinpoint accuracy. The Navy hopes to eventually extend the range beyond 200 miles.

Link via DVICE | Photo: US Navy

When astronauts work outside the International Space Station, they remain tethered to it with a very strong cable. Nonetheless, NASA has made preparations for the unlikely event that the tether breaks. Astronauts have an emergency jetpack that they can use to move back to the station. But what if the astronaut is unconscious or the jetpack fails?

Jim Oberg, a space journalist who worked at the space shuttle’s mission-control center for 22 years and specialized in rendezvous procedures, weighs in on the options for rescue. The station’s robotic arm, he explains, is usually not within range of where the astronauts work and moves too slowly to grab someone. The Soyuz vehicles need a full day to power up and undock. By then, the carbon dioxide filters in the astronaut’s spacesuit would run out, asphyxiating him. And the ISS cannot redirect its positioning rocket quickly enough to catch up to a runaway astronaut.

In a worst-case situation, the only rescue option, according to Oberg, would be for a second astronaut to link together several tethers end-to-end, attach them to the station, and then use his Safer pack to jet over to his crewmate and haul him in. Certain conditions could make a rescue easier, he says. If an astronaut floated away more or less at a right angle from the station’s orbit, orbital dynamics (which require too much math to explain here) dictate that he would float back toward the station in about an hour.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-11/fyi-how-would-nasa-rescue-astronaut-who-floated-away-international-space-station | Photo: NASA

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Last year, we featured artist Chris O'Shea's giant human-crushing hand projected onto a public screen. One of his more recent projects was to hack the Xbox Kinect gaming platform so that it can play an air guitar:

First it thresholds the scene to find a person, then uses a histogram to get the most likely depth of a person in the scene. Then any pixels closer than the person to the camera are possible hands. It also uses contour extremity finding on the person blob to look for hands in situations where your hand is at the same depth as your body. It only works if you are facing the camera front on. Then it uses one hand as the neck of the guitar, drawing a virtual line from the neck through the person centroid to create the guitar line. The other hand is tracked to see if it passes through this line, strumming the guitar. The neck hand position controls the chord.

http://www.chrisoshea.org/lab/air-guitar-prototype via CrunchGear

In 2002, blogger Julie Powell decided to spend a year cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She blogged about her experience daily. The blog led to a book. Then, in 2009, this story was turned into a movie called Julie & Julia.

Lawrence Dai is taking this process a step further. He's going to watch this movie every day for a year:

For the moment, I will not tackle the existential query, "Why, Lawrence? Why Julie & Julia? Why now?" Instead, I shall stick to explicating the rules of engagement.

Starting today, Tuesday, November the 30th, 2010, I will watch the comedy-drama Julie & Julia every day for a exactly one year--from the opening title sequence until the very last credits roll.

The film clocks in at a humbling 2 hours, 2 minutes and 33 seconds, which means if I am successful in my endeavor, I will have watched 745.5125 hours of Julie & Julia, or rather, a little over 31 days of nothing but this movie.

Link via Urlesque | Image: Columbia Pictures

Studio V is an industrial design firm in Tel Aviv. It recently produced the Manifold Clock, which folds and unfolds a fan as the hands circulate. At the link, you can watch a time-lapse video of it in action.

Link via Make | Photo: Core77

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Artist Noah Scalin decided to make a representation of a human skull every day for a year. He used a wide variety of media, from spaghetti to sea shells. This video shows all of them.

Link via Dude Craft | Artist's Website

Double rainbow! This image is from Google Maps' satellite view. It shows a plane flying over Hyde Park in Chicago.

Link via Geekosystem | Screenshot: Atlantic

Bonnie Burton made a Christmas wreath out of Star Wars action figures. She used acrylic glitter paint to make them a festive green and attached them to a foil garland wreath.

http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/crafts/f20061221/index.html via Wonderland | Photo: StarWars.com

The miracle of Hanukkah, according to Jewish tradition, is that there was only enough holy oil in the Temple in Jerusalem to burn for one day, but it lasted for eight. The above chart by Towson University professor Seth Gitter explains the event from an economics perspective.

Link via Marginal Revolution

Yes, Susan Boyle fights multiple Paddington Bears while attempting to make off with their suitcase. Why, does this image by deviantART user korintic somehow surprise you?

Link via Popped Culture

Scrambling an egg inside its shell is nothing new, but Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories wanted to go the extra step of making a complete omelette without fully opening an egg. Here's how he planned to do it:

1. Puncture the egg with a small hole (1-5 mm)
2. Scramble the egg inside the shell, through that hole
3. Plug the hole (maybe with egg) so that the egg won't leak
4. Boil the egg for a few minutes to cook the outside part alone
5. Use a syringe to extract the (still-liquid) center
6. Fill the center with some appropriate filling
7. Plug the hole again, so that the egg won't leak
8. Return the egg to boil, to cook the raw part that is contacting our filling
9. Retrieve the egg and serve it

That turned out to be much easier said than done, and Windell had to ultimately resort to cooking the eggs in vacuum-sealed bags. At the end of the post, he proposed a number of advanced recipes, such as inverse Scotch eggs -- that's sausage injected into an egg.

Link via Nerdcore

The salak fruit, native to Indonesia, has an outer skin resembling that of a snake. The pulp inside divides into three edible lobes. Agriculture Guide has pictures of this fruit and fourteen other odd-looking fruits and vegetables.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo by Flickr user Jayson Emery used under Creative Commons license

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World of Filkcraft created this song about the WoW lifestyle to the tune of "Part of Your World" from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. It's called "Part of Your Guild."

via Nerd Bastards | World of Filkcraft