(YouTube Link)

You know what would be fun? To pilot your jet ski from the lake directly into the back of an open van that has been backed into the water. Just like in the movies. What could possibly go wrong?

via Gizmodo

(Video Link)

"Cardboard Mechanics" is an art installation created by four students at the Utrecht School of Art and Technology in the Netherlands. It is a clockwork machine built out of cardboard and controlled by an arduino. You can view more videos of the machine at the link.

Link via The Presurfer

Adorable, isn't it? Ah, but you haven't what seen the interior of this Ferrari 360 Modena spotted in Jakarta looks like. It's really cute/grotesque! More pictures at the link.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: Detikoto & GTSpirit

A Dutch navy sergeant was scuba diving off the coast of Aruba when he lost his waterproof digital camera. It washed up six months later on the shore of Key West, Florida, where it was discovered by Paul Schultz. He turned it on, downloaded the pictures, and then posted them on an Internet message board in the hope of locating the camera's owner:

Under the name "Aquahound", he uploaded the images to Scubaboard.com, an online diving community, asking for help. Within days, users identified the location as Aruba, a Dutch island off the Venezuelan coast.

A plane's tail number was visible in one shot, and a computer search showed the aircraft was on the island on the day the photograph was taken. There was also a school poster written in Dutch.

Mr Shultz duly posted the pictures on the travel websites Cruisecritic and Aruba.com, and two days later a local woman contacted him to say she recognised the children in the photos as classmates of her son. Camera and owner were duly reunited.

Link | Photo (unrelated): CDC

(YouTube Link)

I've heard more than one New Yorker wish that tourists on sidewalks would either speed up or get out of the way. Improv Everywhere ran with this idea and spray painted actual traffic lanes marked "New Yorkers" and "Tourists" on a section of sidewalk. Then the pranksters tried to enforce them.

It took four days for municipal maintenance workers to remove the lanes.

New Yorkers, would you like to see carried out officially?

via Urlesque | Official Website

Previous Improv Everywhere Pranks:
Food Court Musical
Ghostbusters in New York Public Library
Frozen in Grand Central Station
Mobile Desktop Prank

The vicar of Collingbourne Ducis, UK, discovered a law on the books that allowed her to summon the men of her village to archery practice. So she did:

Church warden Mike Cox said: "It seems she's still entitled to do that."

"I've been checking on the web and most archery experts and clergy seem to agree she is," Mr Cox added.

"Though a lot of the laws were repealed, that particular one still stands so she's entitled to call the men of the village, and presumably the women and children too, to archery practice.

Those who attended were rewarded with beer, barbeque, and live music to celebrate the completion of the church's new toilet.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: BBC

(YouTube Link)

British custom furniture maker David Fletcher makes capstan tables -- tables that expand and contract radially. They're handy in confined spaces, such as yachts. When the transformation is complete, the surfaces look quite seamless.

Link via Make

The Dutcher designer Wieke Somers used 3D printers to turn ashen human remains into sculptures:

her project 'consumer or conserve' evaluates this notion of a second-life. she considers, how human ashes can be reused by means of rapid prototyping or 3D printing, so that we may afford someone a 'second life' as a rocking chair, vacuum cleaner, perhaps even a toaster? would we become more attached to these objects if this was the case?

Pictured above is "Dung Beetle with Vacuum Cleaner" made from John Steegman (1939 – 1985). This and other works are on display at the Grand-Hornu Images gallery in Belgium until September 12.

Link via Nerdcore | Designer's Website | Photo: Design Boom

(YouTube Link)

A team led by Steve Hassenplug built programmable chess piece robots using LEGO's Mindstorms system. They used $30,000 worth of LEGO pieces to construct this chessboard, which appears to be about fifteen feet across. The robots are programmed to get out of each other's way and leave the board when they've been captured. The video above shows them as flat objects. But Hassenplug also built animatronic pieces, and you can see them at the link.

Link via Geekosystem | Previously: Star Wars Chess Made Made from LEGOs

Filmmaker Yassine Ouhilal took four top professional surfers to the northern Norwegian and Russian coast to film them surfing in the extreme winter conditions of the Arctic Ocean:

While planning the trip, charts showed that waves would be better in the winter, but it was deemed suicide to try surfing during the coldest and darkest part of the year. Even the spring temperatures hovered between 20 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit; not exactly the most ideal surfing weather. As they traveled around they often found beautiful, calm beaches that taunted them with signs of large waves that came just days before.

At the link, you can view more photos of their expedition.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Yassine Ouhilal

When Alex and Donna Voutsinas were photographed together at Disney World, they didn't know each other. In fact, they didn't even live in the same country. But fifteen years later, they met and married:

That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street at the same moment in 1980 by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye.

“My mother pulled out albums from the same trip. My dad is wearing exactly the same outfit.”

Other pictures from that trip showed Alex on his dad’s shoulders. The boy in the background of Donna’s picture and the boy in those pictures were the same.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Voutsinas Family

Hey, don't eat that tarantula just yet! Apparently, when mixed with rice wine, these spiders make a good cocktail:

The arachnophobe’s nightmare is made using rice wine, jack fruit and a tarantula – which many Cambodians believe can help your heart and work as an aphrodisiac.[...]

The trade for spiders as food has been in effect since the 1970's in Cambodia - but only very recently have tourists been finding a way to see where the spiders are hunted in the nearby countryside.

Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Tom Whitby/Getty

This unique German naval vessel is designed to recover spilled oil. The Bottsand-class ships, of which there are two, splits in order to scoop-contaminated water into its 790 cubic meter recovery tank:

The German Navy's Bottsand class oil recovery ship is built for handling seawater pollution control. The ship, with its twin hull, opens up by 65-degrees and captures seawater into a 790 cubic meter tank. There the vessel separates the oil from the water, processing 140 cubic meters of water every hour.

The ship first entered service during the 80's and are used to contain spills from German ships in the area.

Link via DVICE | Photo: gCaptain

That's not a tiger in the picture, but a dog dyed to look like a tiger. It's an example of what The Daily Mail reports is a growing hobby in China: dying and trimming dogs' hair so that they look like different animals.

Recent figures show money spent on pets across the nation has seen nearly a 500 per cent increase between 1999 and 2008 - but, arguably, at the cost of their pets' dignity.

Quite what the animals might think about it is another matter.

At the link, you can see what I think are keeshonds costumed as panda bears.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: China Foto Press/Barcroft Media

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YouTube user andrewid1976 was flying his remote controlled airplane when it was attacked by a bird. After several attempts, the bird, which Andrew identifies as a raven, was able to take down its prey.

via The Presurfer