[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHH-6ZQktRQ&hl=en&fs=1]
Today's fixies are all well and good, but fifties fixies are where it (was) at.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX8HRWv4U94&hl=en&fs=1]
(best watched on the YouTube page where it's bigger)
The contents of Neverland Ranch are finally heading to the auction block this April. Julien's Auctions will be auctioning off more than 2,000 of Michael Jackson's possessions April 22-25 in an eight-part mega-auction in Beverly Hills. Jackson decamped from Neverland a while ago and it has quietly been renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch. This is the first sale of his property that Michael Jackson has sanctioned. The Guardian reports that when Darren Julien and his team of auctioneers went in to assess the ranch's goods they were astounded by both the number and style of the objects they discovered. Many items are made of bronze or marble with elaborate gilding. Pieces include suits of armor, a throne, a cape, a portrait of Michael Jackson in Elizabethan dress, rhinestone gloves and socks, costumes, awards, even his Rolls Royce limo is up for sale for an estimated $140,000 - $160,000.
The Guardian has a photo gallery which shows some of the pieces for sale. Jackson has to be one of the wealthiest and most ego-driven packrats in the world. His childlike acquisitiveness manifests in his collection of video game machines, Disney art and Peter Pan memorabilia and much of it bears his image in his prime. It's an astonishing display of wealth without restraint. There's something in nearly every price point, from small rhinestone brooches to elaborate pieces of art and statuary. Given the sheer amount of objects up for grabs Jackson could stand to make quite a tidy haul. Even the signed and numbered five-volume catalog sells for $500.
(from Luxist.com)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XccWmHnDbF8&hl=en&fs=1]
Still one of my favourite duets ever.
Listen to it here.
ANYONE ELSE BUT YOU,
You're a part time lover and a full time friend
The monkey on you're back is the latest trend
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
I kiss you on the brain in the shadow of a train
I kiss you all starry eyed, my body's swinging from side to side
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Here is the church and here is the steeple
We sure are cute for two ugly people
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
The pebbles forgive me, the trees forgive me
So why can't, you forgive me?
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
I will find my nitch in your car
With my mp3 DVD rumple-packed guitar
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Du du du du du du dudu
Du du du du du du dudu
Du du du du du du dudu du
Up up down down left right left right B A start
Just because we use cheats doesn't mean we're not smart
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
You are always trying to keep it real
I'm in love with how you feel
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
We both have shiny happy fits of rage
You want more fans, I want more stage
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Don Quixote was a steel driving man
My name is Adam I'm your biggest fan
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Squinched up your face and did a dance
You shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants
I don't see what anyone can see, in anyone else
But you
Du du du du du du dudu
Du du du du du du dudu
Du du du du du du dudu du
But you
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFff-FekFWU&hl=en&fs=1]
Web urbanist has this terrific collection of radiators (ones that cook things, one that warm cats, ones that are coiled like hoses, you name it) and says:
Radiators seem designed for the background. They line walls and prop up corners, and everyone looks past them because, after all, they are only radiators. But even this seemingly ignoble collection of valves, pipes and ribs can become an urban designer’s dream canvas. Here are 20 examples of how modern radiators could really turn up the heat in your dream home.
The full article is here. WELL WORTH READING, mmmkay?
A fun, weird little experiment by director Victor Solomon. "I've been chopping away at it for a year, here and there between other jobs," he explains.
I was laughing for the first 30 seconds, then kinda hypnotized, then just creeped out, and still couldn't stop watching. Simple and brilliant.
"For those of you watching The Sopranos on A&E, here’s what you’re missing," he says. "This is every single curse, from every single episode of the sopranos, ever."
Thankingyew BoingBoing .
Nihon TV recently aired dramatic footage of “Rollerman” Jean-Yves Blondeau in his BuggyRollin suit, racing Japanese celebrity biker George Takahashi down a mountain road. (See who wins.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBDkVI0Cn4&hl=en&fs=1]
Studded with dozens of wheels, the full-body BuggyRollin suit transforms the wearer into a human luge that can reach speeds of up to 116 kph (70 mph) on steep slopes.
Lifted from the BBC (apologies but it was too good not to pinch). There are some terrific no-brainers though, I mean, whatever professor came up with the observation that a 42-foot snake "would have had to eat a lot" deserves a prize. Anyway, thats by-the-by, read on and discover the world's largest snake:
The discovery of fossilised remains belonging to the world's largest snake has been reported in Nature journal.
Titanoboa was 13m (42ft) long - about the length of a bus - and lived in the rainforest of north-east Colombia 58-60 million years ago.
The snake was so wide it would have reached up to a person's hips, say researchers, who have estimated that it weighed more than a tonne.
Green anacondas - the world's heaviest snakes - reach a mere 250kg (550lbs).
Reticulated pythons - the world's longest snakes - can reach up to 10m (32ft).
The team of researchers led by Jason Head, from the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Canada, used a known mathematical relationship between the size of vertebrae and the length of the body in living snakes to estimate the size of the ancient animal.
Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the beast's 13m-long body and 1,140kg (2,500lb) weight make it the largest snake on record.
"At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips. The size is pretty amazing," said co-author P David Polly, from Indiana University in Bloomington, US. 
Researchers discovered fossilised bones belonging to the super-sized slitherers and their possible prey at Cerrejon, one of the world's largest open-pit coal mines. The animal is a relative of modern boa constrictors.
Warming world
Probably like an anaconda, it spent a lot of time in the water," said Professor Polly.
Palaeontologist Dr Jonathan Bloch looks through fossils of the giant snake
"It would have needed to eat a lot.
"What its prey was exactly, we don't know. But it probably included alligators, big fish or crocodiles."
The researchers also used the reptile's size to make an estimate of Earth's temperature 58 to 60 million years ago in tropical South America.
Palaeontologists have long known that as temperatures go up and down over geological time, generally speaking, so does the upper size limit of cold-blooded creatures - or poikilotherms.
This is because the metabolism of a poikilotherm is more or less controlled by the average temperature of its environment.
Assuming the Earth today was not particularly unusual, the researchers calculated that a snake of Titanoboa's size would have required an average annual temperature of 30C to 34C (86F to 93F) to survive.
By comparison, the average yearly temperature of today's Cartagena, a Colombian coastal city, is about 28C.
Opportunity knocks
"A snake living in the tropics would have been operating at a much higher metabolic rate," said Professor Polly.
"So snakes had the opportunity to evolve and grow as big as this one did in a way that they probably wouldn't today."
He added that as the Earth warmed up in future, cold-blooded animals could be expected to evolve larger bodies.
Dr Head adds that the find "challenges our understanding of past climates and environments, as well as the biological limitations on the evolution of giant snakes."
However, Dr Matthew Huber, a climatologist from Purdue University in Indiana, who was not connected with the study, questioned whether the link between size and temperature was "generalisable and accurate".
He commented: "Head and colleagues' findings are the result of probably the first study in 'snake palaeothermometry', and as such must be viewed with caution."
Above, a vertebra from an anaconda (l) is dwarfed by one from Titanoboa (r)
Rathergood.com has some great vids showing you how to make all sorts of things.
This video show you how to turn a german gas mask
into a giant, nightmarish kazoo.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuGIj3YIKM&hl=en&fs=1]
Sheer unalloyed genius.
More fantastic origami - fantastically curved - from Polyscene on Flickr.
Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color.
“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design — particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient.
ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron.
From Pink Tentacle
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kyNGVK-hI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Wow.
Докторрр ин дер ролле Fima_Psuchopadt (с) (via Warren Ellis)
From Boingboing
[+]
GIRL: Not yet?
- - - - -
[+]
GIRL: Are they really going to do it?
BOY: I’m telling you, they’ll do it. Watch.
- - - - -
[+]
DOCTOR: So… what seems to be the problem?
- - - - -
[+]
PATIENT: Uh, it’s just some pain in one of my back teeth. Uh…
DOCTOR: Mmm hmm.
- - - - -
[+]
DOCTOR: I see. The root of your pain does not exist in our dimension. Kishikawa-kun, go get the usual stuff.
NURSE: OK.
PATIENT: Huh?
- - - - -
[+]
- - - - -
[+]
DOCTOR: This machine will expand your body into the fifth dimension. Then we’ll get rid of what’s causing your toothache.
PATIENT: Huh?
- - - - -
[+]
- - - - -
[+]
PATIENT: Uh… I think it’s just a cavity. What the hell is this?
NURSE: Please don’t move.
- - - - -
[+]
DOCTOR: Just relax. This is a long lost technique from the Golden Age that I managed to get my hands on. Trust me.
- - - - -
[+]
NURSE: Here we go!
- - - - -
[+]
PATIENT: Naaaa…
- - - - -
[+]
NURSE: Heave-ho! Heave-ho!
DOCTOR: Looking good. Looking good.
PATIENT: Everything’s starting to look distorted.
- - - - -
[+]
PATIENT: I… I can see little people.
DOCTOR: That’s fine.
- - - - -
[+]
DOCTOR: Kishikawa-kun. See the toothache spores sprouting up over there? Cut them off.
NURSE: OK.
PATIENT: Oh, that feels nice.
- - - - -
[+]
NURSE: Doctor. The handle is stuck. It won’t turn back.
DOCTOR: Again? It’s such an old machine.
- - - - -
[+]
NURSE: What should we do?
DOCTOR: Just leave it. It’ll come unstuck eventually.
GIRL: Wow.
BOY: Amazing.
- - - - -
[+]
PATIENT: Doctor!!!
DOCTOR: Don’t worry. Don’t worry.
GIRL: Fifth-dimension treatment!
BOY: Yeah!
[Published in Cannabis Works (2003) // Scans via Digik Gallery]
[got this from Pink Tentacle too]
To demonstrate a new method for fabricating three-dimensional living biological structures, researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) have created a 5-millimeter tall doll composed of living cells.
According to an announcement made on January 22, the researchers created the tiny figurine by cultivating 100,000 cell capsules — 0.1-millimeter balls of collagen, each coated with dozens of skin cells — together inside a doll-shaped mold for one day. After the cell capsules had coalesced to form the doll-shaped mass of tissue, it was placed in a culture solution, where it reportedly survived for more than a day.
The researchers, led by IIS professor Shoji Takeuchi, also successfully tested the biofabrication method with human liver cells. According to Takeuchi, the technique can be used to create bodily organs and tissues with complex cellular structures, which may prove useful in the fields of regenerative medicine and drug development.
“The overall shape can be controlled by changing the mold,” said Takeuchi, who expressed a desire to combine multiple types of cells to create a complex system that functions as a living organism.
[got this on Pink Tentacle, one amazing blog site]
