You knew it, and I knew it. We’ve known it for years. Burgers from fast food places don’t look like their ads, in fact the same could be said for all fast food from all fast food places, and in fact, for all food, from all food places… but in order to document what we already knew this guy took photos of the burgers side by side with the photos used in the ads.
The real pay off was that the guy responsible figured out that the ad burgers couldn’t even fit in their real boxes.
How do you thwart a high-tech security system that analyses your fingerprints. In a school. Because all schools need fingerprint scanners… at least according to a school in New South Wales. You stick gummy bears on your fingers.
Yes. Apparently gummy bears can foil most fingerprint scanners. Exciting, no?
From the scientific study of gummy fingers and biometric security systems:
“We also pointed out that artificial fingers can be made not only of silicone but also of gelatin, and examined 11 types of fingerprint systems whether or not they accept the gummy fingers. Consequently, all of these systems accepted the gummy fingers all in their enrollment procedures and also with the rather higher probability in theirverification procedures. The results are enough for us to see evidence that artificial fingers can be accepted by commercial fingerprint systems. The objection will no doubt be raised that it is very difficult to take an impression of the live finger from a legitimate user without the cooperation of her/him. Therefore, we demonstrated that the gummy fingers made from residual fingerprints can be accepted by all of the 11 systems. “
Cool stuff comes from Sweden, take my friend Mattias for instance. He’s from Sweden. He’s cool. He even likes lakes.
Anyway, this Flux Shop also comes from Sweden, like Ikea, and sells cool stuff for you to put together at home. Also like Ikea.
Like this box. It comes with a bunch of test tubes holding different coloured paints and some paper. And you shake it all about. And you get a painting.
Or this one, where you get a reversed artwork, and 100 questions to figure out what’s behind it in order to get the key. After you’ve bought it.
Their commitment to mixing and matching also led to the creation of this “religious” text, where readers can mix and match between three books, I think one is the Bible, but I can’t tell what the others are…
Just in case you’re a bit lost for words any month of the year (day of the week), just figure out where you are on this chart and go for it.
Via College Humour.
I know Ben has a bit of a thing for posting Peanuts Comics. But there’s no monopoly on ideas in the blogosphere… is there?
And I like this one (found here). I think it explains my fixation with Radiohead.
And this tangentially related piece of street art is also pretty cool and postworthy.
Via this tumblog.
Ok. I’m glad the Wine Barrel guy from Brisbane doesn’t have a monopoly on crazy.
“We have the most revelation of any generation that has walked the planet.”
I can take this “revelation” and leave it… but thanks.
Oh. This explains it.
So, the title of this video on YouTube promises so much, and delivers so little. It ends up being a guy using a Poker motiff and standing in a bar, singing about Jesus while wearing an awful shirt and doing bad Country Music style dancing.
Though, the country style dancing is not as bad as this country style dancing…
And I know what you’re thinking – these videos have been stripped from their original context, where it was probably ok to be dancing like a cowboy and singing about Jesus.
Well, I ask you, were these eyebrows ever ok, in context? The words are ok – but this is a Television commercial for Christianity, and that sort of facial expression has always been synonymous with “crazy”…
At the very least, he didn’t forget the words.
But what you guys really need to inspire you is a Christian boy band (as in kids – as in something like Hanson, but not)…
This is what happens when they grow up. They become a “Christian Crunk Rock Band”… called Family Force Five.
Maybe they didn’t get enough Psalty the Psinging Psalmbook, and his rhythmic dog Blooper.
Maybe we all need some Kerney Thomas, whose seemlessly redubbed televangelist programs are something to rival the Wine Barrel Church in heresy that makes you unsure whether to laugh or cry.
I’m really looking forward to the new Gotye album. Here’s his first song:
Speaking of music. I’m enjoying the Boy and Bear EP With Emperor Antarctica:
And a bit of Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest I suspect many of you will like the former more than the latter…
I heard this song somewhere, and then a friend favourited it on YouTube.
I’d always thought it was by the Postal Service, until I shazammed it (is that a verb?). Turns out I was wrong. And thousands of Internet people have already commented on the similarities.
And if you think the Postal Service sound a lot like Death Cab for Cutie that’s because Ben Gibbard is in both bands.
So there you go, I’m educating you all so that you don’t have to continue listening to the inferior knock off.
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt does cool stuff with food. And he’s just done it again. He set out to debunk a popular myth about McDonalds – the idea that their burgers not decomposing is somehow a damning indictment on their food. How? Well, he cooked some home made burgers and recorded similar results.
Here’s where he describes his experiment, and here are the findings.
His conclusion:
“… the burger doesn’t rot because it’s small size and relatively large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there’s no mold or bacterial growth. Of course, that the meat is pretty much sterile to begin with due to the high cooking temperature helps things along as well. It’s not really surprising. Humans have known about this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, how do you think beef jerky is made?
Now don’t get me wrong—I don’t have a dog in this fight either way. I really couldn’t care less whether or not the McDonald’s burger rotted or didn’t. I don’t often eat their burgers, and will continue to not often eat their burgers. My problem is not with McDonald’s. My problem is with bad science.”
Lest you think the story about a farting boy was the low point of my internet browsing today, think again, there’s a report going round that the off-cuts from circumcision procedures in hospitals around the world (the foreskins – hey, it’s in the Bible so it’s ok to mention here) are being sold for hundreds of dollars a pop to help develop moisturiser. Fancy that? Fancy that! Fancy, that. Three appropriate responses.
The Stir’s Christie Haskell dug deep into the largely hidden industry of baby foreskins. An infant’s foreskin has special cell properties, similar to those found in stem cells. Their versatility means that they can be used to cultivate skin cells.
Because of this, they’re not tossed out with the rest of the medical waste after a birth. Instead, hospitals sell them to companies and institutions for a wide variety of uses. Companies will pay thousands of dollars for a single foreskin.
Some of the strangest purposes they’re put to:
Yeah. From here. Corroborated here (and elsewhere – or it could be some sort of horrible joke)
I think this might be old.
But it doesn’t stop it being a damning indictment on the editorial policies of local branches of Fox News.
Seriously.
“Boy farts on school bus, gets detention” wouldn’t have even been given a run in my school newspaper.
