Archive for September, 2009

Wisconsin Tourism Federation Changes Name After Internet Jokes. WTF?!

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation has changed its name, after being made aware that it’s acronym WTF had become crude internet slang.

The federation, which was set up to attract more visitors to the state, will now be called the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin (TFW), in an attempt to put a stop to the jokes.

Unknowingly however, the Wisconsin Tourism Federation probably attracted more visitors due to it’s unfortunate acronym, than any other marketing strategy that they had in place. I say the TFW should forever been known as the WTF…even if it means it will be joked about on thousands of internet sites.

But seriously, I can’t believe they only just realized their name was one huge internet joke. I mean WTF?!!!

Link

eBay Bans Schoolgirl From Selling Her Grandmother

Internet auction site eBay has banned a 10-year-old girl from selling her grandmother, claiming it breeched regulations on human trafficking.

Zoe Pemberton, from England, advertised her grandmother, 61, as ”annoying” but ”cuddly” in her joke listing, but it was removed by eBay.

”Obviously we have rules about the selling of people,” said an eBay spokeswoman.

”We had to take it down but it was quite amusing and there were a number of offers.

”The little girl had described her grandmother as ‘annoying’ but had gone on to say she liked crosswords and was ‘cuddly’ and there were quite a few offers.”

The spokeswoman added: ”The advert was obviously light-hearted and had been done with the full knowledge of grandma – we do get these kind of things from time to time.”

Link

Cell Phone Monster

Cell phones usually make us mad at some stage, but whatever you do, don’t put yours in the microwave – they get ANGRY! Great effects – Just some fun for geeks.

Link

Bacon Shoes

These bacon shoes look good enough to eat, and I’m sure you’d be getting a fair share of dogs (and people) wanting to do just that.

Nothin’ tastier in the morning then to slip on a nice pair of bacon shoes and go about your day. As someone who loves the meaty stuff, this is the perfect way to avoid all that grease and and keep your feet looking crisp and scrumptious all day. I have bacon bandages, bacon scarves, designer bacon everything, but the printing is so cheap on most of it it just looks like pink and red wavy stripes. But on these Keds it actually looks like the real thing.

Link

85-Year-Old Grandaddy Gunman Fights Parking Ticket

85-year-old, Peter J. Reilly from Chicago planned to use fire power to fight a $250 traffic ticket.

He strolled into his local police station to dispute it with the officer at the front desk.

The officer said Reilly pulled a gun from his hat and pointed it at him. After refusing repeated orders drop it, officers came to the lobby and took the gun away from Reilly.

Now parking tickets are annoying, and I can’t blame grandaddy-o for protesting, but since when do cops decide to revoke parking tickets because you point guns at them? Not in my experience anyway…

That’s when police discovered the handgun was … a BB gun. Oh, and the ticket Reilly was contesting? Using an expired permit to park in a handicapped parking space!

Link

200 Starlings Caught In Passenger Jet Engine On Take-Off

Take a look at this picture which shows the moment 200 starlings were sucked into a Germania airlines flight to Kosovo as it took off from Dusseldorf airport with 80 on board.

The birds flew right into the path of the airliner, “like a scene from the Hitchcock movie”, one onlooker described it as.

Despite their small stature, these birds could have easily brought the plane crashing down in seconds, however once airborne, the pilot reported engine damage and circled for almost 45 minutes before landing safely.

Link

Human Tetris On The Streets

Watch as this groovy crew of 36 freeborders take over a street in San Fransisco with glowing Tetris shapes, to create a real life video game.

Gross Mechanical Tumor is a Computer Peripheral

Whoever designed this computer peripheral may need to seek help immediately. I mean why would you want to design a “mechanical” tumor that connects to your computer to measure your CPU?

Okay, aside from the geek bashing, the way this thing works is actually pretty cool. The flesh of this organic-looking material beats like a pulse as your computer processes data. The emphasis of the expansions and contractions depend on the amount of stress your computer is experiencing.

Equipped with a series of motors and pneumatic actuators, the mechanical tumor pulsates gently when the CPU load is low. When the CPU load is high, the tumor’s air compressor is activated, causing the lump of flesh to inflate.

Here it is in action:

One can only imagine the outcome if your computer goes into overload, crashes or decides to blow up…

Link

Geek Tattoos Are All The Fashion

The days of celtic design and British bulldogs appear to be coming to an end, with the tattoo trend now moving towards ‘geek’ design.

A new generation of computer whizz kids and nerds are opting to be inked with images of their laptops or print from a text book, rather than the ‘hard man’ traditional designs.

A USB computer cable, the equation for Pi, machine code made up of 0’s and 1’s, the Apple trademark, and even a symbol for the old Commodore 64, are among the bizarre tattoos chosen by the new generation of body art wearers.

World’s Biggest Online Choir

This is the world’s biggest online choir. Interested in joining? Check out amplichoir.com for more details on how to submit your song.

I’d like to see this group become huge. A bit more work on the syncing and it could be great.

100 Greatest Youtube Hits In 4 Minutes

I’ve literally seen 90% of those videos. I spend way too much time surfing – the net, that is. How many do you recognize?

Ohio – A Piano In Disguise

If I were to tell you that Ohio is a piano, you’d probably slap me in the face, however there’s more to Ohio than meets the eye.

Andy Woodruff, from CartoGrammar, noticed that Ohio has 88 counties, which is the same as the number of keys on a piano. So then the obvious thing to do, was to turn the state of Ohio into a huge piano.

Andy made a flash application, so that we can play the counties in Ohio, just like we’d play a piano.

How the keys are mapped to the counties depends on a specified data attribute: the notes and counties are ordered by that attribute and then linked to one another. For example, if the chosen attribute is population, the county with the lowest population is assigned the lowest-frequency piano key, the county with the highest population is assigned the highest-frequency piano key, and so on. The data I have here are a little out of date, but that doesn’t matter for demonstrating the idea.

Take a look at the Ohio piano here.

The World’s Tallest Horse

What you see before you is (unofficially) the tallest horse in the world. Poe the Clydesdale has been measured by his owner, Shereen Thompson, at 20.2 hands (80.8 inches), and now she wants the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm it.

It is believed that Poe, who is 10-years-old and lives on a farm in a farm in Tupperville, Ontario, will beat the previous record of Remington, from Princeton in Texas who measures a mere 80 inches.

Poe weighs 3000lb (1.5 tons), stands 10 feet tall with head raised, and consumes two bales of hay, 10lb of grain and 75 gallons of water each day.

The huge Clydesdale used to work as a dray horse in London, Ontario, pulling a cart filled with crates of beer. Now Miss Thompson displays the equine giant to amazed onlookers.
She said: “We take him to fairs across Lambton County.

“He is extremely popular, but his size always means people keep a cautious distance from him – although they shoudn’t, as he is a real puppy.

“But he does sometime forget his strength and drags me along if he wants to play or go chasing something that has caught his attention.”

Visualizing What the Burj Dubai Would Look Like in Midtown Manhattan

This is what the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, would look like if it was placed slap bang in the middle of New York City. Also, take a look at this illustration, putting some of the tallest buildings on earth into perspective.

Link

This Is How Geeks Express Romance

“You are the CSS to my HTML”. Probably the best geek love button ever!

Blood Energy Drink

Okay, so it’s not actually blood, just a liquid that looks like it.

New from the makers of Mana and Health Energy Potion comes Blood Energy Potion: the world’s first synthetic blood beverage. The fruit punch flavor packs 4 hours of energy along with iron, protein, and electrolytes. Not only does Blood Energy Potion have a similar nutritional makeup to real blood, but it has the same color, look, and consistency of blood. Get real blood nutrients without that real blood taste! The re-sealable transfusion bag style pouch provides the convenient delivery of fluids for vampires and humans alike! Contains no real blood, just synthetic!

Release your inner vampire…Well, sort of.

Barack Obama’s Amazingly Consistent Smile

Barack Obama has a great smile – it’s wide, bright and welcoming, but have you noticed how unbelievably consistent it always is?

Ladies and gentlemen, your President is a robot. Or a wax sculpture. Maybe a cardboard cutout. All I know is no human being has a photo smile this amazingly consistent.

On Wednesday, the Obamas hosted a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, during which they stood for 130 photographs with visiting foreign dignitaries in town for the UN meeting. The President has exactly the same smile in every single shot. See for yourself — the pictures are up on the State Department’s flickr. And, of course, compressed into 20 seconds for your viewing pleasure.

“Did you know?” – Some Crazy Technology Facts You Probably Didn’t Know [VIDEO]

This Did You Know video focuses on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

It’s Ask A Stupid Question Day

Today is Ask A Stupid Question Day. It’s an event which began in America in the 1980’s which gives students the opportunity ask their teachers the daftest questions their brains can conjure up.

To mark the event, the Telegraph have compiled a list of the silliest questions as asked by users of the Any Questions Answered (AQA) text service.

Q: What’s the opposite of a camel?
A: The opposite of a camel is a soap dish: it has dimples instead of humps and lives in a mostly moist area.

Q: How long would it take to roast a fully grown Indian elephant?
A: An Indian elephant, average weight 5000kg, would take 2916 hours and 40 minutes to roast to perfection (based on 35 minutes a kilogram). You would need an extremely large serving dish.

Q: In Mars Bars, how much taller is Jeremy Clarkson than Tom Cruise?
A: A Mars bar is four inches long. Jeremy Clarkson measures 19.25 Mars Bars (six feet five), while Tom Cruise is 16.75 Mars bars high (five feet seven). That’s a 2.5 Mars bar difference.

Q: How long would it take a snail to slide around the world?
A: 34,519 days at 0.7 miles a day or 0.03 miles per hour, the average speed for a garden snail.

Q: What’s the funniest word in the world?
A: The funniest word in the English language is fartlek (an athletic training regime); other funny words include furphy, pratfall, parp and firkin.

Q: What is the best type of biscuit to make a mattress from?
A: The best type of biscuits to make a mattress from would be fig rolls or strawberry Newtons. They would be soft, but still provide some back support.

Q: I want to write a film script which makes me millions: what should it be about?
A: Based on the top-grossing films, your script should be about a young wizard and a robot looking for a ring on a pirate ship which sinks. Good luck.

Q: In an average lifetime, how much gas will a human expel?
A: The average adult has 14 occurrences of flatulence per day. Total expulsion is about 538ml, making approximately 14,727 litres of gas expelled in a life time.

Q: How long is a piece of string?
A: A piece of string is twice as long as half its length. It is usually shorter than the amount you need to wrap a parcel, but always long enough to tangle.

Q: When will I die?
A: You will die in a freak parachuting accident aged 98. Your memorial service, attended by more than 1,000 of your closest friends, will be at Wembley.

What’s the most stupid question you’ve ever been asked, or want to ask someone? As for me, I’ve always wondered how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Leave a comment telling us below.

Link

Fastest Time To Recite All 50 U.S. States Whilst Being Hit On The Head With Wooden Spoons

Aside from having one of the longest titles in the history of this website, this is also one of the strangest things that I have ever seen.

Everyone wants to be a world record holder, and these guys have got the right idea about how to get one. That’s right, you think up the most weird task that nobody has every tried before and voila – new (unofficial) world record.

Brian Pierce & Kellie Michaels set world record for Fastest Time reciting the United States in Alphabetical order while being hit on the head with wooden spoons. 21.204 seconds.

Randomness FTW!