This past week, we’ve featured music played on office equipment, vegetables, and an octopus toy. Now it’s the professionals' turn! Here’s the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing the Victoria Bitters theme on beer bottles. -via Dark Roasted Blend
Who needs a shower stall when you’ve got Pluviae? A great design for a minimalist bathroom, or a very small space for one, from Matteo Thun & Partners. http://www.matteothun.com/content/pluviae.htm -via Ursi’s Blog
A collection of surreal animations about the misadventures of a couple of incarcerated bunnies. Scroll down on the site and click on a video image. The site is in Japanese, but the videos have no dialogue. Link -via Militant Playtpus
Engineers at the University of Washington are developing techniques to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. The lenses incorporate circuits made from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick and light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. The possible uses for such technology range from drivers and pilots reading meters while watching out the window, to video games and internet usage.
"People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about. Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it's safe," said [Babak] Parviz, who heads a multi-disciplinary UW group that is developing electronics for contact lenses.
The lenses were tested on rabbits, who showed no adverse effect. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Just what you’ve always wanted -your very own tentacle arm!
While we've been using our primitive, apelike arms like a bunch of jerks, the squids of the world have been clutching their prey with their superior tentacles and laughing at us. Until now! For the first time, you can have tentacles of your very own. Equipped with suction cups and plenty of creepy greenness.
http://www.gaiastore.com/servlet/Detail?no=221 -via the Presurfer
A tourist who visited the Frank Aston Underground Museum at Mount Isa in Queensland, Australia in 1983 lifted an artifact and took it home to the US -a boomerang. Twenty-five years later, he mailed the boomerang back with apologies. The package was sent to the old museum address, which is now a paper manufacturing plant. The mayor of Mount Isa said that no one ever realized the boomerang was missing, but they hoped to return it to its original owner.
This case tends to prove what Australians have always told us -a boomerang will always come back! http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/boomerang_comes_back__after_25_years_538257 -via Arbroath
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories taught us how to build a fast-moving “bristlebot” out of a toothbrush last month. The sequel is another robot that moves using the same principle of vibrating fibers, but this “snailbot” runs very slowly, on the oriented nap of velvet! Link
In this video, Google’s parents are out of town and she throws a party, and many popular sites show up. Wikipedia takes notes, eBay wants to make a deal, Something Awful and eBaum’s World get into a fight, Facebook annoys everyone, Cracked tries to impress Digg, and YouTube gets it all on video. I LOLed! Warning: some adult language. Link -via Metafilter
Photographer Lewis Hine {wiki} spent a decade documenting child workers for the National Child Labor Committee in the early 20th century. His famous photos helped to outlaw child labor in America. Joe Manning has spent considerable time on a project to find out what happened to the children in the photographs, and is posting his findings. Among others is the story of how he uncovered the fate of Addie Card, described in a Hine photo as “an anemic little spinner”. Manning began his search inspired by the work of author Elizabeth Winthrop.
How long did she work at the mill? Did she finish school? Did she have children? How long did she live? Could she have living descendants? Had she been aware of Hine's famous photo? That's what Elizabeth wanted to know - and at that moment, so did I. As a historian, author and genealogist, I had experienced the excitement of the hunt and the elation of turning over the right rock at the right time.
Manning found what he was looking for in the case of Annie Card, and it’s a fascinating story. He’s had varying levels of success for the other photo subjects in this ongoing project. Link -via Metafilter
The MESSENGER mission took this picture on January 14th just after its closest approach to Mercury -about 17,000 miles away. This is the previously unmapped part of the planet that was missed by the Mariner 10 probe, which flew by Mercury three times in 1974 and 1975. NASA says that enhanced and color pictures will follow. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/status_report_01_15_08_2.html -via Wired Science
Koalas, like some other animals, often have blue eyes as infants. But at nine months old, Frankie’s eyes never turned brown. He is therefore the world’s only known blue-eyed koala. His caretakers were so worried that they had his vision tested, and found that he sees just fine. Frankie, named for Frank Sinatra, is a resident at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast of Australia. Link (with video) -via Unique Daily
If you loved the lush images of Samorost, but don’t have the time or patience to play the game, Amanita Designs has the animation Plantage for your viewing pleasure. Link -via Dump Trumpet
Corey Delaney, also known as Corey Worthington of Melbourne, Australia threw a party while his parents were gone. It got out of hand, 500 people showed up, and eventually involved the police. Corey appeared on a news show to talk about it, but the desire to remain cool trumped his remorse. Gawker has a timeline tracking how the video became an instant worldwide viral hit. Link (warning: post contains an autoplay radio show near the bottom)
James Earl Jones is larger than life in whatever role he plays. In this mashup, the audio from Coming to America is used for Darth Vader. Ahaa! -via I Am Bored
