Epic cute overload

Best surprised kitteh ever!

The DMC Factory

The Hundreds took a visit to the DeLorean factory in Houston Texas.

The Pale Blue Dot

The Pale Blue Dot - by Carl Sagan.

Such a beautiful song

Neil Young + Fresh Prince = awesome.

Hooray for censorship!

On the left, you will find a Google image search for 'Tiananmen Square protest' using Google within China - awww don't all those pretty pictures look nice and tourism-inspiring?

On the right, the same image search done from outside China. Ooooh hang on, that all looks a bit nasty. Must be those capitalist dogs at it again. Just walk away...

via BuzzFeed

Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free.

I love David Thorne.

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design

Hello David,

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon


From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.

Regards, David.

Read more

Ask the former Director-General of the WTO a question

Here's an interesting use of the web to connect questions with answers. Mike Moore, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand & Director-General of the WTO, recorded a youtube video introducing himself to Reddit. People are asking him all kinds of questions this week & he'll be recording a video response on the weekend.

Mr Moore was a Member of the NZ Parliament from 1978 til 1999. His time in New Zealand parliament spans his time in opposition during the Muldoon years, then as a part of government through the Lange years (including the anti-nuclear movement, and Rogernomics), and leader of the Labour Party until challenged by Helen Clark. Moore went on to lead the World Trade Organisation from 1999 to 2002. His term coincided with momentous changes in the global economy and multilateral trading system. He is one of the world's leading voices in support of globalization, in fact he has just released a book - Saving Globalization: Why Globalization and Democracy Offer The Best Hope for Progress, Peace and Development.

Mike Moore led the World Trade Organization through the controversial WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, and the WTO Ministerial Conference of 2001 where China joined the WTO, and where the Doha Development Round began.

Here is Mike Moore's intro on Youtube:

"Gidday Reddit, my name is Michael Moore.
I'm not that Michael Moore, I'm the New Zealand one. I was a former Prime Minister and Director General of the World Trade Organization. I've written a book called Saving Globalization.

Here's the deal.

We've created more wealth in the last 60 years than all of history put together. The last 10 years except for the last 12 months, have been the most sustained period of economic growth in human history.
Those countries that have done well are the most globalized. The unpleasant, dangerous and poor places to live are the least globalized.

If you are opposed to globalization you therefore must be for de-globalization, and de-globalization is what happens when you have a recession or a depression. That's when dangerous things happen. The Great Depression gave legs to the twin tyrannies of last century - Fascism and Marxism.

So my argument is that globalization is not a policy - it's a process. And ever since man stood upright and looked beyond the horizon, we have been trading, we have been moving and we have been thinking. And it's a process and not a policy. Therefore it can't be stopped, but it can be slowed. We saw that in August 1914. We saw that in the Great Depression.

I am a Former Director General of the World Trade Organisation, AMA."

So go on, GreensBlog readers - ask Mr Moore some questions here and we'll see how his response goes over the weekend.

Found via BoingBoing, first published on GreensBlog

My latest submission to Totally Looks Like

BTTF video game

I wish. This is a hack of Time Crisis to allow you to drive a tricked-out DeLorean back and forth through time. Nice details - even the extreme cold after going through.

Please will some developer notice this and make the game. On the Playstation2 - I can't be arsed buying a new console.

Thanks Trav

Nesting time

There is a nice little bird nest directly outside my bedroom window. Awwww...

Turkeys are weird anyway

This ad from PETA was banned from being aired on NBC during the US Super Bowl.

via BuzzFeed

BoozeCats

Love this one - BoozeCats is a site devoted to Photoshopping out pictures of alcohol and replacing them with kitties.

This one will truly sit in the hall of fame alongside other genius feline related websites Stuff On My Cat, Pussy Be Wet, Cats That Look Like Hitler and Cats in Sinks.

I concur

via GraphJam

Muppets do Queen

Awesome - the Muppets do Queen!

It's raining polar bears

Jesus. I know all about the true carbon impact of using air travel, and sure, I self justify the fact that I fly around the country far too much.

But this ad kinda goes that little bit too far.

I even resisted the urge to make a 'Hallelujah' joke here...

The Design Police

Oooh I want some of these on sticker paper. I'd have so much fun, particularly on bus stops.

Of course, they'd be better if they were the size of a bus. Those giant billboards all over the city so deserve witty, bitter criticism.

Door handle fail

Go on... open the door.

What could be more hygienic than a soccer player's knob?

via Photoshop Disasters

WANT!

via Neatorama

Going to hell 101

via b3ta

Live for Jesus! LIVE!

I am so goddamn scared right now.

via Everything is Terrible

Cats for Gold!

Tired of living with all those old cats hanging around? Want to trade them in for something better? How about some nice shiny GOLD!

Cats for Gold!

WANT!

This one is called 'It came out of nowhere.' Love it.

Fluffy roof

Thanks to the Federal Stimulus Package, we now have actual insulation in our roof.

Hopefully will make a difference this coming summer.

And yes, I did climb up to check that the installation guys hadn't just swooshed a vacuum cleaner around in the roof.

2000-2010 wrap-up

Woah. Newsweek's wrap-up of the decade is a bit full-on. Good (albeit a bit USA-centric), but fast!

via Kottke

And dance and kick and twirl and pushup

Everyone seemed so much happier in the 80s. Maybe it was the spandex. Or the overpowering orange lights left over from the 70s. Ultimately, it was probably the music.

So illustrate my point - the 1987 Crystal light National Aerobic Championship.

And yes, that is the dad from the Seaver family at the end.

via BoingBoing

WANT!

Kaneda's bike!

Sure, it's only a 1:6 scale replica, but still... WANT!

via Gizmodo

Governor needs coffee

Nothing brightens up your day like a disturbing animated gif!

Geeky laws

Matt Blum has some pretty good updated geek rules.

My favourite is number ten: The Unified Geek Theory: At present, the President of the United States, the wealthiest person in the United States, and the most trusted newscaster in the United States are all geeks. At the same time, movies based on comic book characters are routinely taking in hundreds of millions of dollars. The only reasonable conclusion is: We’ve won!

Full list - Wired

Dance Russian! Dance!

Domo takes over 7-11

OMG! EPIC WANT!

Domo, the Japanese stop-action character and meme celebrity, is appearing this fall in an elaborate 7-Eleven (USA) storewide promotion, and his toothy brown face is plastered on everything imaginable.


Tons of signage all over, collectible Slurpee cups (and Domo's own custom flavor, Fuji Frost), character straws, coffee cups, and some truly inventive and funny packaging design.


There's even a Domo mini-site including webisodes featuring Domo's quest for a Slurpee and how he gets a brain freeze in the process.


There's Domo schwag like hats, t-shirts, and books. Evan Brody, the marketing manager for Slurpee, told Brandweek that 7-Eleven's consumers "love crazy Japanese shit."


Considering the fact that I worked at a 7-11 for five years when I was a teenager, I am PISSED that I miss out on the chance to get my hands on this stuff for free (I had my free pick of merchandise, freebies etc - from shotglasses, to test cigars, to giant signage of cartoon characters).

Who knows, maybe it won't even reach 7-11s in Australia... we can only hope.



via EatMeDaily

40,000 pills of pure paranoia

Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George’s Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills.

Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent.

The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden.

via Dangerous Minds

Maru - rockin out

Awesome. Maru - the Japanese cat who likes to jump in and out of things - gets his own music video best-of.

Labelling of GM ingredients in food

There is a Food Labelling Review taking place in Australia at the moment and it's looking at GM food labelling. Many people want to be able to choose whether to buy it or not (for various reasons), and at what price. We have some GM labelling, but most GM ingredients slip through loopholes. Currently although up to 70% of processed food contains GM ingredients almost none legally require labelling.

You only have until 20th November to ask the Food Labelling Review Panel to LABEL ALL GM FOOD.

First published on GreensBlog

Flux Capacitor Day

Great Scott! I missed Flux Capacitor Day - November 5th.

To quote Wired directly:

Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown is known for being a member (unverified) of the Manhattan Project, a physics professor at Hill Valley University, and a talented entrepreneur and handyman. But it’s his contribution to the field of temporal physics for which he is best remembered.

According to archival footage, Brown was standing on his toilet seat on the evening of Nov. 5, 1955, attempting to hang a clock in his bathroom, when he slipped and slammed his head on the side of the sink. Upon regaining consciousness Brown reported having “a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head.” A picture which he crudely scrawled down on a piece of paper and subsequently spent 30 years of his life and family fortune to build.

That picture, of course, was the flux capacitor. And as every high school physics student knows, it’s the device that makes time travel possible.

The main hurdle Brown faced with the flux capacitor was delivering enough power to make it function. The capacitor required a staggering 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to generate a time-displacement field. Brown first surmised that meeting the capacitor’s power needs could be accomplished in two ways: either by channeling a nuclear reaction or harnessing a bolt of lightning. Lightning as it turned out, was pretty much out of the question, because it’s impossible to determine when and where a bolt will strike.

Brown decided to go for the nuclear option. He hypothesized that within 30 years, material like plutonium would be easily obtainable — probably available in corner drugstores. It turned out he was dead wrong.

By 1985 Brown had squandered his family fortune and allegedly committed several acts of insurance fraud to finance his time machine. Built from a Delorean DMC-12 (whose stainless steel body had a direct and influential effect on flux dispersal), it was fitted with a working flux capacitor that was powered by a nuclear reactor. Desperate for fuel, Brown duped a group of Libyan terrorists into providing him with weapons-grade plutonium.

At 1:21 a.m Oct. 25, 1985, Brown (with the help of his protege, Martin McFly) was able to successfully — and safely — send his dog forward and then McFly back in time. After a series of setbacks resulting from the first temporal displacement, Brown and McFly would travel to the years 1955, 2015 and 1885.

Unfortunately, because of a railroad accident near Hill Valley’s Eastwood Ravine a day later, Brown’s DeLorean along with its flux capacitor was destroyed. Despite repeated requests from the media and scientific communities, Brown has declined interviews and refuses to share or replicate the flux capacitor’s technology.

The incidents leading up to the time machine demise also served as the basis for the award-winning documentary, Back to the Future.

The governing principles of hipsterism

1. Thou shalt only wear glasses with a diameter of 10cms, and sourced from a previous decade
2. Thou shalt only wear jeans that cut off circulation
3. Thou shalt be incredibly clear about which giant corporations you hate, and which you slavishly worship
4. Thou shalt only listen to music so 'independent' it has never been heard before or will be heard again
5. Thou shalt only shave thy face/legs with a number two hair clippers - no more, no less
6. Thou shalt wear flannel at all times, except when in southern states of the USA
7. Thou shalt always refer to film directors as 'auteurs'
8. Thou shalt only wear Dunlop volleys or Converse hi-tops (brand new, but with customised designs hand-drawn in sharpie by a fellow hipster who is 'about to break through in tattoo art')
9. Thou shalt know where to find a warehouse party at all times of day or night
10. Thou shalt wear vintage Raybans at all times - no exceptions
11. Thy hair shall require large amounts of hair product to maintain pomp, and under no circumstances be of even length on either side of the head
12. Thou shalt not smile. EVER
13. Thou shalt only smoke Parliaments or cigarillos
14. Thou shalt maintain a large yet thinned moustache, reminiscent of an Asian teenager
15. Thou shalt only engage in activities reminiscent of childhood play (water balloon fights, egg and spoon races, drawing with crayons)
16. Thou shalt worship at an altar made from multiple copies of Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Brave New World and Strunk and White's Elements of Style
17. Thou shalt have at least one fat, single, bearded friend
18. Thou shalt choose from one of the following diets: vegetarian, vegan, freegan or fruititarian. All require regular dumpster-diving
19. Thou shalt only wear ties thinner than one finger, several cravats at once or a keffiyeh
20. Thy transport shall be a single-geared bike, a large-wheeled trike or public transport (this last option can only be utilised late at night, and as a last resort)
21. Thou shalt operate thy own blog, but refer to it as an 'independent publishing venture'
22. Thou shalt only operate out-of-date technology (polaroid cameras, large 80s DJ-style headphones, VHS video cameras) with the exception of the latest Blackberry or iPhone
    

Above all else, remember the overarching principle: it's cool only if it's ironic, and it's no longer ironic when it's cool.

Special moustaches

Check out this gallery in the Times of moustaches.

Like this guy: Fred Macpherson, 22, musician/broadcaster

"I thought a moustache would make me a gent. I was wrong. I went for an Oswald Mosley look, but it went out of control and I feel a little like a sleazy children’s entertainer. People think I am mad or a sex offender."

And yet you seem to have kept it. Yes, I often keep an element of myself even after I acknowledge it makes me look like a sex offender...

via Look at this fucking hipster

Where the dirty hipsters are

This looks way better than the original. I mean... Spike Jonze is so yesterday.

via YesButNoButYes

Be a prick and be better for it.

Yeah! Suck it up you happy freaks! I'm bitter and grumpy, and because of it, I'm better than you!

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly. In contrast to those who operate on a happy basis, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking

Professor Joe Forgas from the University of New South Wales says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies".

"Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style".

And it doesn't stop there - all you happy freaks in Perth, Brisbane or Darwin have been shot down again - Melbourne is making me smarter every dreary day. His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful.

via BBC

Bird bread shuts down LHC

Welcome to the latest news on the black hole of death that will kill us all. No, it's not future versions of the scientists interfering with the project. Well, not this time anyway - now it's a bird that dropped a piece of bread on a section of the accelerator, causing a complete shut down of the whole operation.

The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

via Popular Science

Supreme Master TV

There's a bloody great big banner of this cult at Canberra airport, and it's terrified me every time I land here.

Supreme Master TV is out to make me believe in climate change, and that veganism can save all our souls. But I've never actually seen their television broadcasts.

Until now.



Ok... so aside from the thousands of different language subtitles, the praise for the benevolent President of Uganda and the weird newsreaders... no, it's still way creepy.

Duuuuuude...

This hurts my brain, but I can't stop watching.

Soda Pop Stop

John Neese, owner of Soda Pop Stop store in LA talks about his store, standing up to Pepsi-Cola and his passion for small-scale creators of soft drink.

He's so cute - I love this guy! I also want to go to his store and become very sick by trying every single one of his sodas.

via BoingBoing

We're gonna die as hard as we can

Finding this just made me remember about another awesome song about a movie.

I found this on the special features of the Die Hard 4 DVD (I know, I was bored).

Seriously - watch it. It's awesome. And after listening to this, you don't have to watch any Die Hard movie again.

Halloween

Really, the only reason I'd like to be in America during Halloween would be to see this sight - some truly awesome Where The Wild Things Are costumes on the subway.

On the other hand, this has to be my favourite costume so far:



via Buzzfeed

BTTF in rap form

YES! Finally! I knew if I just held out and waited, someone, somewhere would do a Back to the Future rap!

"I wake up in a room - am I going insane?
A hot slut says 'Hi, my name is Lorraine."