If you take a look at a catalog of tools for a specialized craft, you might be amazed at the vast number of specialized pieces of equipment available that you've never heard of. This tool, for example, is a perforation gauge. It's used by stamp collectors to measure the gaps left by tear marks in postage stamps.
Junior, an agency in Australia, made a brochure for a criminology course at Griffith University that goes way beyond a trifold flyer. It's like an ad for CSI!
The American philosopher Homer Simpson once praised the concept of the motorhome as "a car I can go to the bathroom in." The custom-built (no, sadly, this was not a production vehicle) Bath Tub Buggy made by George Barris during the 60s and 70s is the fulfillment of this dream:
The design features a bathroom. In front of the grille is an actual handsink. The rear displays a french bathtub. Hardware and facets for each bathroom fixture is included in brass. There is a tile flooring with long hair mats. Front headlights are spot beam or flood and the rear lights are ornamental styled bathroom fixtures.
The listing doesn't say firmly that the fixtures aren't also functional. There's really one one way to know for sure.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260789351608&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT#v4-38 via Jalopnik | Photo: eBay
Quickly! A wormhole will only open if the ocarina is played at 88 beats per minute! This ingenious fan film by Grant Duffrin explains and unites the stories of The Legend of Zelda franchise by suggesting that they are all necessary components of a particular timeline. Doc Brown's mission is to ensure that Link takes the necessary steps to set the chain of events in motion.
I don't have any information about this clever piece of street art except that it was discovered by Flickr user Bear in Mind. I wonder what material was used.
The admission standards for the US service academies are incredibly demanding, to say nothing of the task of graduating. But success runs in the Robillard family. The four children of the family, who form two sets of twins, are all graduates of the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
As twins, and soon-to-be 2nd Lieutenants, Alicia and Amanda Robillard graduate today, the Robillard’s makes history as the first family to graduate four sisters from the Academy.
“As anyone who attended the academy can attest to, there is just that language and shared experience that all grads have in common, and being able to share that with all my sisters has really kept our bond strong,” said Lauren Robillard, Class of 2007 and the eldest sister of the family. “I would even venture to say that by having all attended the academy, we are closer than we otherwise would have been.”
Whether they remind you of Princess Leia's hair buns or Princess Vespa's headphones (Spaceballs), redditor Jacquielonglegs did a great job with this craft project. She wonders if she should sell the set. Would you buy them?
In the olden days of the Internet, it was fun to trip people up by linking to The Onion stories and acting as though they were real. Now, people are too Internet saavy to fall for this trick. Well, one would hope so, but it is not to be. Literally Unbelievable is a new Tumblr blog filled with screenshots of Facebook users taking articles from The Onion seriously.
It's an AR-15 short-barreled rifle rendered in stained glass by Joe Thunstrom. I can so easily imagine it in a kitchen window in a picturesque country cottage.
Here's how it works: the palm of your hand is in view of a depth camera. Wherever you point on your palm corresponds to an area of the screen on a touchscreen phone. The computer hooked up to the camera then sends relevant commands. Researchers at Potsdam University figure that this technology that they've developed could go from experimental to commonplace without many people even noticing:
In their tests, the depth camera was a clunky head mounted device. "But ultimately, we envision the camera becoming so small that it integrates into clothing, such as the button of a shirt, a brooch, or a pendant. So people would not even notice if someone carries an imaginary phone," Baudisch told New Scientist.
"We envision that users will initially use imaginary phones as a shortcut to operate the physical phones in their pockets. As users get more experienced, it might even become possible to leave the device at home and spend the day ‘all-imaginary'."
Answering calls on the phone would still require the physical device – but it would be possible to access apps and forward calls to voicemail with the imaginary version.
A DPU manufacturer called InFocus recently held a contest for the worst ever PowerPoint slides. Although they don't say it explicitly, I gather that these were not slides that were intentionally designed to be terrible, but simply found in that condition and passed on to the contest judges. Some entrants actually offered photos of the slides being displayed in front of large groups of people, presumably as evidence that they were real.
The above image was the 1st runner up. You can view the other winners at the link.
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Previously: Dan McMillan's PowerPoint Standup Comedy
Ross Crawford faced four challenges with this project. He had to be able to shape the LEGO pieces into generally curved shapes. The assembly had to be strong enough to withstand the pressure of four tight strings. There had to be a way to tune those strings effectively. Finally, even though it was made of plastic, the ukulele had to sound like a ukulele. Crawford writes that he was successful:
So, after all that, I ended up with what I like to call an alto ukulele – it is tuned to C-F-A-D (normal ukes are generally tuned to G-C-E-A).
Hopefully he'll soon put up a video of the ukulele in action.
Guy Nesher, a photographer based out of Tel Aviv, shot this picture of the Salar de Uyuni. At over four thousand square miles, this region of Bolivia is the largest salt flat in the world. It functions like a natural mirror, but I've never seen a picture of it that expresses that quality quite as well as this one.
Wanted: Dead or Alive was a half-hour Western television show which ran from 1958-1961. It starred Steve McQueen as the bounty hunter Josh Randall. The character was noted for wielding a modified Winchester 1892 .44-40 lever-action rifle called the "Mare's leg". With a reduced stock and a barrel cut down to less than a foot long, Randall could carry it holstered on his hip. It was his signature piece, and now gunmaker Rossi is selling it in .44 magnum, .45 Colt, and .38 special/.357 mangum.
Of this design, Tamara Keel writes:
When I was younger, I used to think cut-down lever guns, a la Steve McQueen's "Mare's Leg" were just the coolest thing ever.
Now that I am older and actually know a little bit about firearms, I think they make about as much sense as a kickstand on a tank.
They still look cool though, and, y'know... Firefly.
It probably wouldn't hurt their sales for Rossi to come out with a Firefly special edition.
This is pretty amazing. Katie Alves recreates movie scenes on the eyelids of models, such as the above presentation of The Nightmare before Christmas. Other featured films include The Lion King, Aladdin, and Alice in Wonderland.
