Dennis Upper had trouble finding content to write about for his article on writer's block. You can view a larger image at the link. Be sure to read the comments by his first reviewer.

Link via Volokh Conspiracy

A condo in the Cole Valley neighborhood of San Francisco was made from an old fire station. The pole that allowed firefighters to descend to the bottom floor is still there. It's to the right of the fireplace in this photograph.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/8-Carmel-St-94117/home/1416512 via Gizmodo | Photo: Redfin

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Christiaan Van Vuuren became an Internet sensation in February by composing a rap video while in hospital quarantine for tuberculosis. This was followed by a second video before Van Vuuren was released from the hospital.

As a promotional stunt, the makers of an Australian energy drink hired him to set a record for the world's longest rap. He claims that it lasted nine hours and twenty minutes. The above video is taken from the end of his effort.

via Urlesque

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The Z-Saw is a tool that has a little piston built into the handle. As the user pulls back and forth, the piston compresses and then blows a small puff of air at the material that the user is cutting. This way, the cutting line isn't hidden by sawdust.

Link via Make

Graphic designer Alex Freeman made posters that display, with only basic colors and shapes, the first six incarnations of the Doctor on Doctor Who. At his Flickr photostream, you can also view minimalist book covers that he's designed for Star Wars novels.

Link via Technabob | Freeman's Photostream

An issue of Life magazine published on July 23, 1945 includes an article about a secret weapon proposed by some Nazi scientists toward the end of World War II. It was a huge mirror that, if placed in orbit, would focus sunlight on enemy nations and burn them:

Plausible schemes to build a station in space were engineered on paper long before the war. European rocket enthusiasts, including Dr. Hermann Oberth, who may have been the designer of the V-2, had planned to use the space station not as a weapon but as a refueling point for rockets starting off on journeys into space. ... The only major obstacle: constructing a rocket powerful enough to reach a point where a space station could be built. If the modern German scientists had been able to make such a rocket, they might have ben able to set up their sun gun. Whether the sun gun would have accomplished what they expected, however, is another matter."

The German idea of using the sun as a military weapon is not new. There is an ancient legend that Archimedes designed great burning mirrors which set the Roman fleet afire during the siege of Syracuse, in which Archimedes later died. This legend, and the German plan for building may be proved physically impossible by a simple axiom of optics. This is that light cannot be brought to a sharp, pointed focus with lenses or mirrors unless it comes from a sharp, pointed source. Since the sun appears in the sky as a disk and not as a point, the best any optical system can produce is an image of this disk. At very short focal lengths, the image is small and hot but as the focal length is increased the image becomes progressively bigger and cooler. At the distance the Germans proposed to set up their mirror (3,100 miles) the image of the sun cast on the earth would be about 40 miles in diameter and not hot enough to do any damage.

Link via blastr | Image: Life

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The fire department of Cottage Grove, Wisconsin decorated one of their trucks with Christmas lights. It plays "Wizards in Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The lights are synchronized with the music.

via The Presurfer

Previously: Christmas Light Hero

Before Melvin Baker died at the age of 79, he asked that during his funeral, he be carried in the front bucket of a digger. He had driven one most of his life, and wanted to leave this world in one. So his former boss arranged for an operator to pick up the casket with a digger and carry Baker's body from his home, to the funeral, and then to the crematorium:

Melvin had originally worked for Keith Bell’s father Jim. Keith remained a family friend and after chatting with his family was happy to make the wish come true.

He said: ”Melvin ended up driving the diggers for us and told me he wanted to make his final journey in one.

”When he first brought it up I thought he was joking but kept on going on and on about it.

”After he died, I dreaded bringing it up with his family, but Jean just said ‘we’ve got to do it for him, Keith, he went on about it all the time’.

http://swns.com/mans-dying-wish-to-be-carried-to-funeral-in-the-bucket-of-jcb-granted-021605.html via Jalopnik | Photo: SWNS.com

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In this commercial for the Logitech Revue, Kevin Bacon plays his own most obsessed fan. The best part is when he does an impression of himself doing an impression of himself.

via Urlesque

Debbie Wright invented this culinary delight. The batter and frosting are both made of oreos, and there's an oreo resting at the bottom of the cake. Finally, it's topped with a mini oreo.

Article Link and Recipe Link via Michael Silence | Photo: Eat. Drink. Smile.

Previously: Oreo Cupcakes with Internal Milk Glass

Yu-Hsiang "Shaun" Chung is an artist specializing in typography. He made a movable wooden Rubik's Cube that can be used as a stamp:

Chinese has a long history with the printing. In 105 AD, Cai Lun invented the paper. In 200 AD, the Chinese invention of Woodblock printing produced the world’s first print culture. In 1040, Bi Sheng invented the first known movable type technology. Therefore, I want to use a Chinese text for my cube. The text I used for my cube is called “Three Character Classic.” It is a traditional Chinese text that teaches young children to be a good person in the society. The text is written in triplets of characters for easy memorization, which is perfect for the cube since the cube is 3 by 3 on every side. The text is written by Wang Yinglin during the Song Dynasty, so I used a font called “Song,” which is correspond to the Song Dynasty when a distinctive printed style of regular script was developed.

Link

An Israeli company called ID-U Biometrics thinks that the patterns of eyeball movement are unique to each individual, and are therefore a definitive means of identifying people:

In ID-U Biometrics' system, the user has to watch a moving object onscreen, while the camera observes the motion of their eyes. Since the way our eyes move is based on a combination of factors --such as anatomy, physiology, behavioral characteristics, eye structure--it's a signature that simply can't be duplicated or forged, according to its developers.[...]

This approach differs radically from eye-related biometrics we've written about previously, such as iris scanning. Iris scanning systems rely on matching the image of your iris structure with a stored pattern of your iris. In contrast, the pattern the ID-U technology is based on consists of dynamic movements made by your eyes as they track a target, something that cannot be controlled or learned. "Most of the eye movement components are involuntary, and we are not aware of them at all," says Palti-Wasserman.

Link | Photo by Flickr user CJ Sorg used under Creative Commons license

Previously: Ear Scanning as a Means of Identifying People

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Apache Pictures made a short film that imagines Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner as human beings. It's called Wiley vs. Rhodes. The special effects are impressive for an independent short film.

via Nerdcore

The architectural firm y+M designed this house in Japan. It's two stories tall and one exterior side is a functional staircase:

To allow sunlight into the house, there are a number of glass slits in-between the steps on the south side.The glass slits not only make them feel liberating but also keep their privacy at the same time.[...]

The outside structure links the garden to the rooftop, and the inside of the house links a private porch/reception/lounge area to the bedrooms. The windows are designed and situated to allow in as much sunlight as possible, whilst retaining privacy.

Link via DVICE | Architects' Website (Google Translate) | Photo: Dezeen

Photographer Håkan Dahlström snapped this picture in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. He tilted his camera so that the building would be appear to be tipping over instead of lying on a steep incline.

Link via Boing Boing | Photographer's Website