The future keeps coming at us, despite our best attempts, locally, to stay in some long-dead time warp where everyone behaves, worships the government and believes the media.
So, this week we are looking at a combo of unexpected things as well as the usual “Behold the future!”-type items — along with a few yummily tasteless links, to appeal to the prurient interest.
It’s always good, at times, to show no socially redeeming qualities whatsoever. So let’s dive into this week’s barrage of excess.
For instance, those rather tacky and overpriced storage devices known as iPods can now be bought like throwaway hot noodles. Look at iPods in Vending Machines. If you’d like to see what iPods look like when modelled from food, go eat the winners at iPod Shuffle as Food.
For humans tired of struggling to open plastic packaging around their new gadgets, all ironic comments aside, go look at yet another plastic-wrapped gadget that is designed to Open Plastic Packaging.
Then drool over the National Geographic images of an airplane that is large enough to have its own duty-free shop onboard: the new Airbus A380.
A geek with a fetish for body modification has had magnets put into his fingers. Go read the odd but informative interview at The Gift of Magnetic Vision.
We’re not the only country with stupid ideas about combining marriage with handing over valuable assets as a dowry — take note of South Korea’s hi-tech dowry concept, at Tradition of Dowry Changes.
Something for the geek who has everything. Feel the need to print out your documents on to sheet metal or wood? Here’s an application you aren’t going to see advertised on TV any time soon — it’s an $8 000 laser that connects via USB to your PC. Stare at Versalaser.
Science has found a new medical use for virtual reality. Read Virtual Reality Allows for Spotting of Concussion.
Have a problem with keeping your cupcakes unsquished when you go on picnics? Do cupcakes that you pass to your spawn, to take to school, end up flatter than roadkill? At last, someone has come up with a perfect solution to end your days of misery. Go to Cup-a-Cake Container.
But wait, it gets sillier! Does your banana often end up bruised? Flat? Are you continually socially embarrassed whenever you have to pull out your banana in company, and show others just how damaged it is? Well, your troubles are over. Hold your banana carefully and run towards the amazing new Banana Guard.
Over in countries where education actually happens, a bunch of kids — as part of being taught about expressions in common usage that have to be explained in order for them to be understood — were asked to draw idioms. Go take a look at some of the great results at Drawn Idioms.
For something wondrously unexpected, in the United States they auction off property and objects confiscated from travellers, usually at airports. Go stare at one object that was put up for sale, by the NTSA (I’d imagine it’s the National Transit Safety Authority?) on eBay — namely One Purple Sombrero.
Things-you-may-not-have-thought-of time. Films nowadays — especially if they have scenes needing to show blackboards filled with apparently “real” equations or maths — have access to companies that supply genuine scientists and mathematicians to create the scribbling. (Disney used this method in its film Flubber, for instance.) Look at the website of Hollywood Maths and Science Film Consulting.
Another curveball of note. Remember “circuses”? Well, it may scare you to realise that there are online forums where real clowns gather to share information and discuss clowny things. Put on the big shoes, get the car horn ready and stagger over to The Clown Forum. (Staying briefly with clowns, gamers will know of a first-person shooter called Unreal Tournament, but I wonder how many have stumbled across a “clown” modification enabling players to fight each other by doing tricks. Look at Clownerstrike.)
Some of you geeks out there might know of the work of Boris Vellejo — lots of overly muscled, sword-waving heroes and buxom females … the kind of art that makes Vladimir Tretchikoff look rather conservative. For instance, take a look at Vellejo Gallery. Point being, a 1969 oil painting he did has gone on sale on eBay. If you’ve ever wondered what Jesus would look like with way too many muscles, captured artistically midway through tearing himself off the cross (presumably en route to kicking some Roman ass), go stare at a unique bit of glorious bad taste, at JC Oil on Masonite.
Speaking of “ass”, look at this photograph of the name of an Estonian trucking company. Would you ever expect to see a company proudly and happily calling itself Ass Transport?
Free download of a quietly classic dignified moment in news media: What happens if you suddenly get the urge to vomit while you’re reading the news? Well, if you’re this Australian newsreader from a week or two back, you desperately try to keep reading, in between hurling. Take a listen to the joyous, subtle and humiliating event in this 640k MP3 of a Vomiting Australian Newsreader.
Free digital video recorder: you may have seen the insanely pricey first glimpses of what the United States calls Tivo. This is basically a gadget that allows you to record live TV signals, and thus also to “pause” live TV. Locally, they’re starting to try to sell expensive clones of this concept, but if you have an old computer or two lying around the house, you can build your own, with minimal effort. Read Build a Better Digital Video Recorder Out of an Old PC.
Free electricity: here’s a very interesting angle that suggests a great way of stealing free electricity for locals. As you probably know, when the power goes out, the telephone on the other hand stays on — because it is powered separately. Now, some bright spark in the US is selling products that can be powered off the phone jack itself, using that little bit of power that’s always coming through. Naturally, the more I think about it, a little light bulb goes on over my head as obviously this can be applied right here.
Look at this partly joking but completely serious site, selling the adaptors and various objects that can be powered off any phone line’s electricity (including vibrators, lights, car batteries, toothbrushes and more). Look at Telco Powered Products.
Free scary and stupid masks of British politicians (courtesy of the BBC): firstly, here’s the BBC’s own “election party pack” article. To download the small PDF file containing the “politician masks” ready to print on paper, see Politician Masks.
Huge-shaped-melons time! No, I’m not talking about those kind of mammary-focused websites, I’m referring, of course, to Chinese Watermelon Art.
Remember the whining locally when a company allowed for searching of listed and unlisted people’s phone numbers? The loudest whining came from all the local celebrities who discovered that their data was now available for all to see. Well, there’s an equivalent online engine in the US, which is beginning to make waves. Before it’s shut down, go hunt for the friends or celebrities you want to stalk, at Free People Search.
In another online tasteless moment of note, Bill Cosby is struggling to extricate himself from a rape charge, with increasing numbers of women coming forward to testify that Cosby hasn’t kept it in his pants, despite his decades-long reign as TV’s Mr Clean. Play the Bill Cosby Fun Game.
For those of you with toilet fetishes, or perhaps those of you who just like the idea of having a good meal while sitting on a toilet, try to restrain yourself at a Taiwan restaurant with a toilet theme. Its name? The Toilet Bowl!
Or how about the clear-thinking teacher who demonstrated how to cook crystal meth correctly, in front of an interested class of students? Read In-Class Meth Demo Angers Parents.
The stupid Star Wars nerds queuing for the next George Lucas film have been immortalised — browse through The Lego Version of Queuing Star Wars Nerds.
The triumphant return of “things to make you go ‘awwwww'”. Try these Baby Cheetahs. Or perhaps you’d prefer Photographs of Japanese Babies.
Snap, crackle and hisssss moment. A moment that every imaginative five-year-old fears came true for one little kid recently, when he opened his breakfast cereal package and found a snake. Hehehehehe. Read the news item Boy Finds Snake in Cereal Packet.
Until the next time, if Telkom doesn’t get me.