Driven to tears

Professional rally driver puts his superior skills in play racing through the empty streets of Dubai in this clip from Ford Performance.

And less exhilarating, a visualization of commutes into and out of your county, where pretty colored dots = stress and congestion.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" -- Robert Browning

Extra clean

Odd sort-of-racist commercial for a Chinese laundry detergent that eschews any notion of political correctness (or sense). A strange page out of Mao's little red book.

And something called philographics explains philosophy through basic shapes.

"Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs." -- Christopher Morley

Time warp

Here's an interesting look at Hollywood's attempts to age actors using makeup and prosthetics compared with what they actually look like when they get to be that old. Some of them are close (e.g., Brando in The Godfather), some not so much.

And an interactive timeline lets you go back and listen to the top 5 songs on Billboard's weekly charts since 1956.

"Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art." -- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

New blanket policy

I wonder what happened to the self-making bed in this 4-year old video? Jetsons-esque, if not a little creepy when you see it in action.

And this furniture that flattens into wall "art" would be great for a tiny apartment. Uncomfortable, maybe, but better than sitting on the floor.

"He who makes no mistakes never makes anything." -- English Proverb

Anty maim

Check out this professional idiot repeatedly getting himself bitten by a leafcutter ant to see how sharp those little jaws really are. Sharp enough, it seems. Maybe for his next segment he'll try a lobster or pit bull. [NSFB / not safe for breakfast]

And look how this mass of ants behaves like a fluid to get things done. Pretty fascinating if you can get past the entomophobia.

"No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger." -- Rainer Maria Rilke

Chip off the old block

Not only did this guy create a scale model of Himeji Castle, he created it as a pop-up model made out of LEGO (!). Took him a mere fifteen months to finish. And no glue used anywhere, he says. By the way, this wasn't his first attempt. He also did a pop-up version of the Kinkaku-ji Buddhist temple in Kyoto some time back.

"If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself." -- Albert Einstein

Mad cows

Maybe your next DIY project...? Check out this cheeseball machine gun made from a leaf blower.

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose." -- Billie Holiday

A galaxy far, far out

Guy curiously combines Hitchcock's North By Northwest and a bit of Star Wars to create "Darth By Darthwest", a strange little short film where Cary Grant is visited by R2-D2, runs away from a TIE fighter, and other such anomalies.

"A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake." -- Alfred Hitchcock

Bon appetit

Do you think there's any correlation between the number of rats climbing the pipe in this restaurant when the light is turned on and its Yelp rating?

Also in disgusting animal news, there's a new brush lets otherwise normal (?) humans lick their cats. Go help 'em out on Kickstarter.

"Humor does not diminish the pain -- it makes the space around it get bigger." -- Allen Klein

Turnivore

Ever think what it would be like if meat eaters acted like vegans? (Thanks E)

And also food-related, watch how the American diet has changed over the last 40 years or so.

"He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." Jonathan Swift

Burgle bungle

Watch as two incompetent morons rip off a watch store in a mall in Sweden and can't seem to get a single thing right. As a woeful capper, they make their getaway on a scooter. [bOING bOING]

And someone more skilled, check out the impressive resume on designer and animator Robby Leonardi.

"Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle." -- Robert Anthony

Against the wind

See what it's like to try to walk against a 100+ MPH wind, which apparently is what you get on the observation deck of the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire. [Gizmodo]

"Nature was my kindergarten." -- William Christopher Handy

On the playground

Just a couple of normal guys using a crane as their own personal jungle gym, like it's no big thing.

"If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man." -- James Dean

One day at a time

Man turns more than eight years of daily photos into a timelapse video so you can watch him go from boy to man before your eyes. It's been done before, of course, but this one has its own thing going for it.

"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town." -- George Carlin

Cut to the chase

Guy waiting for his son to come home from school video'd this crazed squirrel stalking the harried screaming woman who tried to get a selfie close-up with it. Or so the story goes...

"Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits." -- Richard M. Nixon

His watch is fast

So this film editor took five movies and sped them up 12x -- something about average shot length, blah blah blah. Judge for yourself which is still at least vaguely comprehensible at that speed, and maybe also why you would do this.

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful." -- Armistead Maupin

Skip the salt

Watch science meet fun as this guy skips a one-pound rock of sodium across a lake. Well, he appears to be having a blast, anyway.

And an absorbing subreddit you might want to check out... trees "eating" things, like signs, bicycles, &c. [bOING bOING]

"Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep." -- Fran Lebowitz

Flippin' machine

This guy "Atky" makes a habit of impressively landing water bottles in precarious public places with patented precision. (And when not doing that, he flips himself, too.)

"Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it's built on catastrophe." -- Sumner Redstone

Berlitz-krieg

Italian tour guide Sergio shows you how to talk with your hands like a real Italian, which turns out to be a (digital) language unto itself.

'I am' is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that 'I do' is the longest sentence? --George Carlin

Above board

Go ahead -- say it with a straight face: "Professional fingerboarder is a real job." And that's what this guy Mike Schneider and thousands of others do.

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools." -- Herbert Spencer

Flip it good

This guy Scott Blake makes flip books of various kinds using various means and themes, including barcodes, hole punches, fire, and other interesting things. Worth a few seconds to check out.

"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

Mothers of invention

Over the more than 25 years that The Simpsons has been on air, it's had more than its share of influence on our culture, including these 10 inventions it (sort of) predicted. Not always first, but quite possibly funniest.

And some stories of the past and future, courtesy of XKCD.

"If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?" -- Milton Berle

Follow through

How'd you like to caddy for this guy? Check out this duffer/inventor swinging the world's longest golf club -- more than 22 feet -- at the risk of pulling muscles in his arms, legs, and back. (All for charity, though.) [Gizmodo]

"It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling." -- Mark Twain

Hazardous duty

This '90s-era workplace safety video makes a lot of horror movies seem tame, with various workers meeting some really brutal fates on the factory floor, with cautionary "victim testimonials" in between the horrific accidents. It really is gory (in a movie-fake sort of way), and not for the squeamish.

And a slightly safer endeavor... meet the Michelangelo of cardboard and the amazing pieces he creates.

"If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." -- Tallulah Bankhead

No phonebooth required

Woman uses paint to transform herself into Superman, the 15-hour process of which she livestreamed on Twitch. (This is the 45-second summary.)

And other metamorphoses... different cartoon avatars of different celebrities at different stages of their career.

"We work to become, not to acquire." -- Elbert Hubbard

Get an earful

Man cracks the proverbial code on how to eat corn on the cob in 10 seconds flat, much to the dismay of dentists (and probably gastroenterologists) everywhere.

"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for." -- Clarence Darrow

Peripheral confusion

All in the name of marketing, Logitech hacked together this giant screen made out of a wall of keyboards that are sync'd up for a pixely 8-bit retro video game experience.

"If you're going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way." -- Jayne Mansfield

All mixed up

Mixing paint + oil + milk + soap brings to life a gorgeous pigment-rich microcosmos from another dimension.

"Either move or be moved." -- Ezra Pound

Beat ya to it

Inventive jazz drummer beautifully conceives and executes a drum solo against the backdrop of Super Smash Brothers video gameplay, calling it "Musical Melee". And if you're more of a DIYer, this HTML-909 Rhythm Composer thing might be worthy of a few minutes spent.

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way." -- Christopher Morley