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Did the movie Inception make sense to you? Me neither. But this video by YouTube user weikang helps. It shows the four different dream levels in the story simultaneously, rather than flipping back and forth between them as the movie does.

via Urlesque

Instructables user sdudley created a frame for his Dremel rotary tool that makes it an effective, if tiny, table saw. He's provided a stencil that you can print out and use as a guide when cutting the wood.

Link via Make

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Until recently, robots have been unable to replace human workers at the task of deboning meat due to the differences between individual pieces of meat. But the HAMDAS-R built by Mayekawa Electric can now debone ham effectively:

HAMDAS-R has made it possible to automate the processing of irregularly shaped, soft foods like meat. Until now, the use of robots for food processing hasn't progressed very much. That's because it's necessary to mechanize the techniques of skilled workers, and it's hard to mechanize tasks that rely on human hands. Another problem was that the cleaning and hygiene requirements of food processing plants made it difficult to introduce robots into such an environment. Until now, very little progress had been made in that regard, but HAMDAS-R enables those requirements to be met. So we hope this robot will expand the possibilities for automating the processing of irregularly shaped, soft types of food.

Nom Nom Nom.

http://www.diginfo.tv/2010/12/06/10-0250-f-en.php via Popular Science

Matthew Connor of Cheshire, UK made two snowmen that look like Iron Man and Spider-Man:

Inspired by my 5 year old son's love for the Marvel Alliance characters, I made them for him. We have Spider-Man and Iron Man costumes for him, the Marvel Ultimate Alliance game for Xbox we even have the bath characters, all twelve of them, which we fight with every bath time.

The snowmen were made December 1st and 2nd 2010, in our back garden at home, in some of the lowest temperatures seen in the UK for a long time, but worth every frozen finger. Unfortunately the snow has turned to ice otherwise there might have been a Silver Surfer to send you, that's the next on the list if we have anymore snow..."

There are several more pictures at the link.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/06/iron-man-spider-man-snowmen/ | Photo: Matthew Connor

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The Canadian documentary show How It's Made shows viewers how ordinary objects in their lives are created. This segment explains how crayons are made. The factory in the video can produce 30,000 crayons an hour.

via Flavorwire | Show Website (warning: sound)

The Webb Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist bridge across the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia. It's designed to resemble eel traps used by the Koori, a people native to New South Wales and Victoria. The bridge was constructed out of material recycled from a previous rail bridge of the same name.

via DVICE | Photo by Flickr user mugley used under Creative Commons license

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The above video shows a SUV crashing through the front wall of a barbershop in Anchorage, Alaska. Shop owner Heng Song paused to make sure that no one was hurt, and then resumed cutting the hair of his customer:

He was momentarily stunned, yes, when the vehicle burst through a door and window Wednesday afternoon as he was clipping a customer's hair.

But with no one hurt, and another customer in the shop already notifying police, the 53-year-old shop owner went back to finishing the cut.

On top of that, Song gave both customers haircuts on the house. He says it's the least he could do.

http://www.adn.com/2010/12/02/1583943/anchorage-barber-keeps-on-clipping.html via First Things

When zoologists previously attempted to return a panda bear cub to the wild, the cub did not survive. They suspect that other wild pandas killed him. So this time, the researchers at China's Wolong panda preserve limited human contact as much as possible. They even dressed in panda suits while returning cubs to the preserve:

In a new strategy, earlier this year conservationists released four pregnant Pandas into a protected area of Sichuan forest in order to prepare their future cubs for life in the wild.

In these pictures researchers at Wolong's Hetaoping Research and Conservation Center take the temperature of a four-month-old cub before carefully returning him to the 'wild' where he is monitored by 24-hour CCTV.

Link via Jim Treacher | Photo: Reuters

Italian sculptor Franco Recchia builds models of cities from components of old computers. Pictured above is a representation of Central Park in New York City made from circuit boards. At the link, you can view other sculptures of New York City, Boston, and Pittsburgh.

Link via Dude Craft | Photo: Agora Gallery

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"Shop Vac" is Jonathan Coulton's song about life in a suburban paradise. This music video for it features the clever typographic animation of Jarrett Heather. Words and corporate logos flow across the screen as the narrator embraces a lifestyle of prosperity symbolized by the Shop-Vac in his basement workshop.

via Urlesque | Jarrett Heather | Jonathan Coulton

Previously: "Skullcrusher Mountain" by Jonathan Coulton

Bill Watterson is now famous for his Calvin & Hobbes cartoons. But several years before that strip began, he was a contributor to the student newspaper of Kenyon College. There he studied political science from 1976-1980. At the link, you can view a selection of his cartoons from that time.

Link via Geekosystem

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The folks at Springfield Arsenal in Lorton, Virginia acquired a 16th Century cannon that would be fitted onto the end of a pole. It has three barrels. Presumably the musket nipple on the side of each barrel would be slapped against a hard surface, causing the gun to fire. At 2:55, they fire it with 75 grains of black power and a .69-caliber musket ball in each barrel.

via Make

The Electrical Engineering Institute at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, Switzerland, has developed a camera that can see 3D images in all directions. The design is based on insect eyes, which are hemispherical and contain many individual photoreceptors. Potential applications include gaming, media production, and robot navigation systems.

Link and Video via DVICE | Photo: GearLog

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People who bag groceries for a living have to work quickly and efficiently without breaking anything. Not everyone is good enough to make it as a bagger, but some are superb at the task. And they can enter the world of competitive bagging. The above video is a trailer for Read, Set, Bag!, a documentary about this sport.

Link via Brian J. Noggle | Competition Website | Film Website

For a year and a half, the Norton family's home on Staten Island was used to shoot scenes for the movie The Godfather. It has eight bedrooms, a pub, and an asking price of $2.9 million. The gates featured in the film, however, were put up by the production crew and were never a regular part of the house. You can view a video of the house at the link.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Image: Paramount