Gypsies are known for being very colorful people, and their traveling wagon homes reflect their flair for style, and help them stand out from the rest of the caravan.

It's like Pimp My Ride from the old country, and most of them look like they come straight out of a fairy tale, except for the creepy shirtless guys hanging around everywhere.

Head over to Flavorwire and check out these gilded mobile homes for yourself, it may make you want to hit the road and live the life of a nomad.

Link  --image credit: Lenora Genovese

Newly appointed Norwegian minister of international development Heikki Holmas feels that role playing games can be beneficial to society, and could even help foster peace in the world by creating realistic conflict in a fictional setting.

Here's what he has to say about roleplaying:

“RPGs can be extremely relevant in putting people in situations they’re unfamiliar with, Save the Children have their refugee games. I have friends in Bergen who’ve run human-rights RPGs. But you have to be professional. You create real emotions when you play role-playing games, real emotions that stick.”

“That’s kind of the slightly scary aspect of role-playing games, which has to be considered. At the same time, it’s what makes it possible for RPGs to change the world. LARP can change the world, because it lets people understand that humans under pressure may act differently than in the normal life, when you’re safe.”

Heikki's opinion was formed by his experience as an avid tabletop and live action gamer, and the founder of Norway's roleplaying game convention RegnCon.

I like where Heikki is going with his strategy to use RPGs as a form of conflict resolution, but when you have all that Mountain Dew and Hot Pocket grease coursing through your veins things can get ugly, even if the conflict is only on paper.

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Want a new hairdo that will also watch your back? Then check out this cyclops inspired hair creation, which comes to you courtesy of Biglilkim.

She really knows how to make an entrance and an exit, and I pity the fool who tries to sneak up on her from behind, because the eyeball on the back of her head has been known to shoot purple laser beams at bad guys.

Link  --via Obvious Winner

 

This incredible prop looks like it's been through a hundred years of intergalactic conflict, and appears to weigh a ton, just like the one carried by Boomers in the video game franchise Gears of War.

Created from scratch by Ryan and Dena Palser of Kronos Props, it's the perfect way to launch some nasty little Diggers at the Gears and take over the planet, one emergence hole at a time.

I've seen some Gears of War cosplay, mainly Gears in COG armor, but have any of you seen Locust cosplay on the interwebs? If you have, please share!

Link  --via Rampaged Reality

Caroline Larsen creates her interesting, and colorful, needlepoint style images entirely out of paint, using a most peculiar technique of her own invention. Here's how it's done:

Over several years she has developed a unique technique for applying paint: her works are created by squeezing undiluted oil paint through a bag outfitted with a serrated stainless steel tip resulting in an exceedingly thick, intricately woven oil painting. Using this piping process she is able to apply ribbons of paint that weave up and over themselves to create images.

Her works have such a uniquely textured look that it's natural to wonder how she does it, so now you know-she creates them with some custom formulated awesomeness.

Link  --via Beautiful/Decay

It's funny to think how movies would play out if characters had to choose between multiple morality choices, like you do in the Mass Effect video game franchise.

Things would have turned out quite differently if Ray had sat there discussing religion with Gozer in Ghostbusters, or if Jules had nicer conversational options to choose from as he shook down Brett in Pulp Fiction.

Movie studios should take note, because this would be a fun bonus feature to add to some DVDs, and a really good way to use outtake footage at the same time.

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If you've ever wanted to create GIFs on the fly with your smartphone, but found complexity of existing GIF creation programs like Cinemagraphs daunting, then you have to check out Flixel.

Flixel lets you decide which portion of the frame you want to be animated, then it records frames to play back as a GIF, while the rest of the photo remains still.

The result is a pretty cool bit of motion applied to your photos, and makes for some interesting, albeit twitchy, imagery. You can see a short video of Flixel in action, and many more GIFs created with the app, at the links below.

Link  --via DesignTAXI

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This animated short by Hauke Scheer has it all-action, aliens, and whales in mecha armor powered  by their minds.

The one thing this short doesn't have is the music rights to AC/DC's classic song "Back In Black", so Hauke came up with his own version, which sounds pretty close to the original.

This short left me with one nagging question-why didn't they give the whale a helmet?

--via Geekosystem

Digital Abstracts, an online design resource, has brought together 54 artists to create an extremely unique deck of playing cards, with an image from each artist on their own card.

With some really cool designs, some of which correspond to the card that the image is on, this is one deck of cards you won't get tired of staring at as you plunk down your kid's lunch money during a few quick hands of Texas Hold 'Em.

But these cool cards come at a price-$54 to be exact, so I'm not sure if they're meant to be played with, or admired under glass...

Link   --via DesignTAXI

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Engineers at Osaka University in Japan have created this robotic hand for use with video chatting, to help people talking to each other online feel more connected.

It's warm like a human hand, registers grip force, and will be programmed "to harass their colleagues with a constant stream of formal greetings".

I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't really matter either way, because this device looks like the beginning of a strange new world of online arm wrestling matches and *ahem* safe virtual encounters.

Just don't ask this thing to wash your windows, or you will see a strike sign appear in it's hand faster than you can say Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto!

--via Engadget

(YouTube Link)

Companies make it hard to tell if videos like this one, which shows Peter the Elephant using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone with the help of his lovely assistant, are advertisements or just genuinely cool animal videos.

This particular example is a commercial and an adorable animal video, and even though a few scenes are faked I still love watching Peter play with the smartphone. Yay for animal approved technology!

--via The Daily What

When the fantasy movie Willow came out in 1988 it was received well by audiences, but not as well as blockbusters Rambo III, Big and Crocodile Dundee II which were released around the same time. Because of this overshadowing by the big boys, Willow was deprived of a sequel and, more importantly, an animated series.

Sadly, all we have now are scanned sheets of concept art, most of which are simple uncolored line drawings, to show us just how fantastic the Willow cartoon would have been. At least you can check out the sketches for yourself now, because nostalgia is free on the interwebs.

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It seems that one of the newest trends in gaming is the addition of a chicken in some way, due no doubt to the success of Angry Birds.

The first video shows gameplay from The Chicken Bandit, "a western side-scrolling action game" where you "Play as a lone cowboy accompanied only by his over-sized chicken sidekick as you travel from land to land robbing trains and lassoing up as much loot as possible."

The second video is the trailer for Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chickens for the Playstation Vita. It's also a side scroller, full of shoot em up action, atmospheric environments and a chicken revolution.

It seems like 2012 might be the year of the chicken after all, at least when it comes to video games.

--via Joystiq   and   The Chicken Bandit

(YouTube Link)

This strange and stylish animated music video is for the Gorillaz song DoYaThing, and it's great fun to watch!

Directed by Gorillaz artist and co-creator Jamie Hewlett, this video is so good looking it makes me wish there was a Gorillaz animated feature in the works. Oh well, a guy can dream, can't he?!

--via Cartoon Brew

The electron synchrotron lab known as DESY in Hamburg, Germany made a startling discovery, and confirmed the authenticity of two of Van Gogh's works, when they exposed Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses to X-ray and ultraviolet analysis.

This painting of two wrestlers, assumed to be lost forever, was hiding underneath the layers of paint!

Here's how they made this startling discovery:

This portrait of two half-naked wrestlers was painted by Vincent Van Gogh when he was an art student in Antwerp. It's been hiding in plain sight for over 125 years, and its discovery also confirmed another disputed Van Gogh painting.

The painting, called Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roseswas obtained by the Dutch museum Kröller-Müller Museum in 1974, and the big question since then has been whether this is really a Van Gogh. The size of the canvas and the gaudy look of the flowers don't look much like Van Gogh, which is why the museum declared the painting to be anonymous in 2003.

Now, thanks to ultraviolet and X-ray analyses by DESY, the electron synchrotron lab in Hamburg, we know the truth: the two wrestlers were hiding under Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses all along. Van Gogh painted the still-life over the wrestlers without even bothering to obscure the original work. As New Scientist explains, this reveals an all-new Van Gogh and confirms another one all in one fell swoop:

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