Bio break

Be patient as you start watching (notes on) biology, a fairly masterful piece of work that sorta resembles a flip-book on digital meth. Takes a minute to get going but well worth the runway.

Some doodling options for your inner child... coloring books for grownups.

And how many of the books in this consensus cloud have you read?


"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

Meet me at the corner of Death and Tragedy

China recently released a brutal video of traffic accidents as part of a public safety campaign, and surprisingly it went viral, registering millions of views in just one day. (Seems like viral in China would mean billions of views, no?) If you're one to not be able to turn away from this stuff, be prepared to spend a few minutes agape and aghast. [Gizmodo]

So if you can't not look at an accident, it's equally true that you can't be enthused at the sight of a whole lotta brake lights looming in the distance. Why does it happen...? Check out this infographic on the Science of Traffic Jams.

And finally, a very cool rendition of the famous car chase from "Bullitt", miniaturized. [New York Times]




"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." - African proverb
 

Dogboarding

Dogboarding. When I first saw this, I thought it was some clandestine activity going on at Gitmo. Turns out it's something else entirely. Realistically well-executed vid. [Gizmodo]

And this might just be the world's smallest aquarium, about the size of a thumb print and holding a mere coupla teaspoons of water.

And finally, a little penguin makes a daring leap of faith, though I don't see him entering the Animalympics anytime soon.




"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." - Thomas Jefferson

 

The human condition

This trailer for the BBC series "Human Planet" truly is as jaw-dropping as claimed. Watching in full-screen HD highly recommended. (Thanks Bomser)

Explore the socioeconomic changes over the last 30 years that have shaped the 12 States of America in this interactive cartograph.

And some geographic fun with currency in these money maps.


"I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely." - Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

 

The Moth joke

Norm MacDonald conducts a clinic in comedy delivery on Conan O'Brien's show.

Put on your thinking cap and make up your mind about what consciousness is.

And like the old game of "Telephone", things slowly go awry when 500 people trace a sequence of lines.[Boing Boing]




"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." - Kurt Vonnegut

 

Thumbs up

Can you imagine what would happen if cats had opposable thumbs?

Or if everyday tasks were approached using Wile E. Coyote logic?

Or if there was such thing as a taxi ram for cats?




"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." - John Steinbeck

 

I wouldn't feed that to myself

Two demanding patrons at a "restaurant" suffer a run of poor service before woofing down their meals. Hilariously excellent visual. (Thanks Gordon)

And a century of meat graphed out in this timeline of American flesh consumption, courtesy of the New York Times. (Notice the change not only in what we eat, but in how much we eat.)

Finally, for the sure of stomach... if you think you can handle a 50 lb. burger or a half-mile wide pizza, check this treasure trove of places to step up to the task and win your dinner.


"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice." - Wayne Dyer

 

When it paints it pours

Interest technique, this kaleidoscope painting. Not quite like Pollock, but with a lot less splatter and mess.

The human brain tends to see familiar things, especially faces, when we look at inanimate objects -- for instance, Rock People.

And liquid joy in other forms, FlowingData illustrates the cost per gallon of everyday things that are more expensive than gasoline.


"Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do." - Michel de Montaigne

 

Rube Goldberg eat your heart out

An extensive, wild, and colorful Rube Goldberg-esque contraption featured in This Too Shall Pass, video from the innovative minds of OK Go. (Thanks GMB)

And likewise for the precision-obsessed, the OCD Chef Cutting Board.

Also in alignment... a ray of light.


"The shortest distance between two points is under construction." - Noelie Altito

 

Yeah, I'm the sax man

Amusing roll of a saxogram player humorously terrorizing innocent shoppers with George Michael's "Careless Whisper", including authentic 80s leather and mullet.

And a outlet that might come in handy for occasional venting, Dear Blank, Please Blank is an amusing site if you want a generous helping of user-generated snark.


"I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry." - Cat Stevens

 

Quick "Inception"

A Cliff Notes-like interpretation, Inception - Done in 60 seconds, using a sort of Victorian woodcut style of animation. Given the nature of the movie, I'm not sure whether this could be considered a "spoiler" if you haven't seen it.

A humorous uncovering of the hidden subjects of Dr. Seuss books -- what they really were about.

And holy commode, Jesus flushes.


"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs - jolted by every pebble in the road." - Henry Ward Beecher

 

Man-machine interface

Your body is a machine. Or so drew Fritz Kahn back in the early twentieth. This animation of his drawing "Der Mensch als Industriepalast" brings the man-as-machine spirit to life. [Boing Boing]

And a perfect gift for someone with a big backyard, Ikea Stonehenge.


"When the spirit wanes the form appears." - Charles Bukowski


 

Parliamentary, my dear Gibson

Well-executed video catching a Member of Parliament rip some riffs, air guitarishly, whilst listening to an apparently none-too-riveting speech in recent session.

And among the untold masses of aspiring musicians, don't count out these 12 Animals Playing Instruments (Or Trying).


"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music." - Gustav Mahler


And of absolutely no sequitur, an art installation featuring a homeless robot begging for energy. [via Boing Boing]

 

Forming a memory

Artist Adam Chapman takes the simple building blocks of lines and shapes and uses them to create portraits that self-construct. Only downside is that you know how the story is going to end. [Design Milk]

And using less flexible shapes, some classic album covers recreated as Lego cover art.

Finally, in making something more out of whatever you've got to work with, why not say it with logs and build a creative wood pile.


"But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?" - Albert Camus

 

Soccermation

If the game of soccer was this artistic and only a coupla minutes long, I might have a different opinion.

After you check out Part 1, featuring 20 of Liu Bolin's earlier efforts in self-camouflage art, get an eyeful of the even more incredible work in Part 2. This guy does indeed keep getting more invisible.


"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." - Erma Bombeck

 

Wile E.-way the hours

"Wile E. Coyote 127 Hours" -- a convincingly animated short parody of the original movie -- casts the cartoon character as the mountain climber Aron Ralston who escaped after five days of being pinned by a boulder.

And some novel web artistry here... just take two photos one after the other and flip between them to create something like these quasi-3D animated GIFs.


"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road." - Stephen Hawking

 

Book boogie

Nice job on this stop-motion animation called "Organizing the Bookcase" about books with a sense of order, rhythm, and style.

And a surreal video of a real-life "Up!" house taking off and floating into the great above, courtesy of 300 helium-filled weather balloons at Gizmodo.


"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it. - Robert A. Heinlein

 

Call of the wild

Enjoy an alternate call of the wild in the rhythmic stylings of Animal Beatbox, a Tropfest 2011 Winner. Creative certainly, but...?


And Nat Geo brings you this Tropical Island Infinite Photo where you can click, drill and explore a mosaic of hundreds of pictures of wildlife species found on the South Pacific island of Mo‘orea.


"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word." - Dave Barry

 

Alt universes

Expert videographer and editor Tom Guilmette locked himself in a hotel room with a Phantom Flex to show us an alternate universe where, shooting at 2,564 frames per second, everything is slowed down more than 100 times. [Full story at Mashable]

See the art within art of the extremely detailed drawings of Japanese artist Sagaki Keita.

And also from other worlds of a sort, some true stories from space that might make you want to rethink that trip you had your sights on in the sc-fi near-future. (Mouse-over each photo to show the accompanying text.) (Thanks Gordon)


"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist." - Oscar Wilde

 

Cats and dogs

A couple of felines getting pissy with each other over computer peripherals in what seems a sequel to the righteous earlier work.




And other animal antics, a small pack of dogs bands together to form a Conga line in an apparent attempt to avoid going back to the pound.




Finally, an infographic depicting animal life spans, proving once again that slow and steady wins the race.


"There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face." - Ben Williams


 

Toddlers & Tiaras with Tom Hanks

A clip from "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in which Tom Hanks shares a parody of what appears to be a real TV show called "Toddlers & Tiaras". I have a feeling the parody makes the actual show look good.

And you might get a little something from a Hanks production in this guessing game where you identify famous objects from classic movies.


Friday bonus: Avenge the human indignity suffered in the Jeopardy! loss to Watson by kicking the computer's ass in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Fairly enjoyable for a minute diversion. And also check out this amusing rant on that topic.

"All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Carlin Step

A video remix called Carlin Step pays acceptable tribute to the late George Carlin doing his thing.

And after three months of design and five months of building, artist Michael Kalish is set to unveil a unique installation he calls "reALIze" that uses 1,300 punching bags, five miles of steel and two miles of aluminum tubing to depict Muhammad Ali. [More of the story at Yahoo! Sports]


"What good are fans? You can't eat applause for breakfast. You can't sleep with it." - Bob Dylan

 

Camera Capture

Ever try to figure out what all those settings and modes on your digital camera are for? Consider yourself warned.

Who knows whether these really are gallery-ready Google Street View images or some nifty Photoshop work? Pretty good stuff, though.

And composites of hundreds of layered tourist photos creates a beautiful and eerie effect.


"A person must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere." - Charles Kettering

 

Better art through explosives

There's something provocative about creating something by blowing something up. The novelty of the technique might put Pollock et al. to shame. [Gizmodo]

And check out some of what goes on during the Minnesota winter... for instance this guy builds humongous (like 85' X 65') ice castles in his backyard. [Gizmodo]


"By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity." - Robert A. Heinlein

 

Tour de fence

Insane lunatic riding a bike through -- or down, actually -- an urban (in Chile) race course, naturally with helmet-cam. As close to Strange Days as I'll probably get for awhile. You can see another good one from last year's race here. [Gizmodo]

And a quite well-done John Lennon vs. Van-Halen mash-up, "Imagine a Jump", with the offspring possibly ending up better than the parents.


"Be like a duck, calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." - Michael Caine

 

Beatles juice

Amazing that they uncovered this rare recording of "Smack My Bitch Up" performed by The Beatles.

And music by the actual artists... a historic sampling of hits, Five Seconds Of Every #1 Pop Single ever, Part 1 and Part 2. [Boing Boing]


"It's like obituaries; when you die they finally give you good reviews." - Roger Maris

 

Taking a bite of Apple

Conan O'Brien spoofs the recently-debuted iPad 2, claiming that Apple is getting just a little bit cocky. In good fiction lies a measure of truth. [Mashable]


And an all-too-true commentary on trends in society and electronics, Then & Now. [Tastefully Offensive]

"Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy." - Joseph Campbell


 

Winning

Because too much is not enough... Jimmy Fallon does a masterful impersonation, spoofing Charlie Sheen in a fake commercial for a cologne called "Winning", clipped from his late night show. [Mashable]

And other creatures running amok, Streetview Zombie Apocalypse lets you enter a location and run from zombies inside Google Street View, courtesy of [Wonder Tonic].


"The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." - Samuel Johnson

 

Pilot episode

Airline pilots amusingly fight cockpit boredom in this "How to Irritate People" sketch from an erstwhile John Cleese show.

And from worldwide beer imports to happiest countries to insomnia cases, FedEx delivers...interactive cartograms.


"Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience." - Randolph Bourne

 

Riverdale

Check out the live-action but fake yet still amusing trailer for the Archie movie, Riverdale.

And likewise related to real-but-not really environs, what if U.S. cities had kept their original names?

"A man that doesn't believe in destiny doesn't need to know what his destiny is." - Laura Moncur

 

Leggo my eggo

Nice public display of civility at Denny's, captured in this pancake cat-fight over maple syrup.

Atlas networked: And in case you want to meet fellow egoists, the Atlasphere is a social network for Ayn Rand devotees.


"Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly." - M.F.K. Fisher