(YouTube link)
Simon takes on 74 balloons in an epic battle with the clock running! I didn’t count the balloons; that’s what the video description said. -via Arbroath

Tom Parker has published several books on “rules of thumb” over the past 25 years, and has collected even more information, which he’s turned into a collective website.

A rule of thumb turns information you have into information you need. The goal of this website is to gather every rule of thumb on earth into one gargantuan, easily searchable online reference database that will be accessible from anywhere in the world and continue to grow forever.

Some featured rules cover how to choose a lawyer, the safe stopping distance at traffic lights, caring for your car, and winning at blackjack. There are 151 categories of rules so far! You can submit yours, too. Link -Thanks, Tom!

This article gives us scenarios that range from the familiar (nuclear war, divine intervention) to the incomprehensible (the Omega Point). In between are somethings that might not have caused you nightmares before, but might now! Link -Thanks, Jon Jason!

Photographer Cyril Helnwein’s new exhibit is called Myths and Fairytales, which will open February 2nd at the Continental Gallery in Los Angeles. POVevolving has a sneak preview. Link -Thanks, Jeremy!

You can see Helnwein’s earlier works at his site. Link

This beautiful music box can’t be found in any antique shop. Because it’s a laptop computer!

This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts.

Link (site has NSFW ads) -Thanks, Nikola!

(YouTube link)
Hugh Atkin edited this video which makes the theme of the US presidential election clear to everyone. Music by David Bowie. -via Sadly, No!

The Library of Congress recently found four photographs of the crowd at President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration on March 4, 1865. The negatives of the photos had been mislabeled! In this picture, Lincoln is at the podium, almost in the middle, not wearing his stovepipe hat. Link -Thanks, Mr. Lonka!

Two British men on vacation, Nick Calleya from Cubert in Cornwall and George Carstairs from Scotland caught a 100-year-old fish in the Fraser River in British Columbia in Canada. The 500 pound white sturgeon was 10 feet long! After taking pictures and video of the catch, the fishing guide who had piloted the boat tagged the huge fish with a microchip ID as part of a conservation research project and released it back into the river. Link -via A Welsh View

(YouTube link)
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

(image credit: University of Washington)

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