Ok. So that title was purely a reference to a Tenessee Williams play. But this is pretty funny. This Google Streetview car misjudged the height of a bridge. And submitted the photos anyway.
Category: Curiosities
Sickening toys
Is there a hypochondriac in your life? Do you think they’d enjoy visualising the germs on their children’s toys? Perhaps this new line of bacterial toys is just the ticket.
Here’s Chlamydia, Mad Cow and Black Death – but there are plenty more where they came from.
Unleavened cake?
Apparently this is how people who celebrate passover do it – with an Old Testament inspired cakefest.
Tree story – it happened to a friend of a friend of mine…
Well not really – perhaps subscribing to the six degrees of separation theory they’re a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. This children is why you shouldn’t eat (or breathe) seeds. This is a 5cm plant growing inside somebody’s lung. True story.
Zapper mystery zapped
I’ve always wondered how the Nintendo Zapper worked. I was a big fan of Duck Hunt as a child.
We are living in the era of the wii – remotes with in built motion sensors with signals picked up by special peripherals near the TV. But in 1984 (the actual year – not the Orwellian future) these were the things dreams were made of – the 1984 type of dreams (the Orwellian future – not the actual year). 1984 was the year Duck Hunt was released.
Anyway, the Zapper apparently worked like this:
When you shot at one of the ducks in Duck Hunt, the screen would flash for a split second, and the duck would either plummet to Earth like a fallen angel, or continue flying around, oblivious to your vain attempts to destroy it. I always just assumed that the flash was for dramatic effect, but it turns out that it was the key to the Nintendo Zapper’s closely guarded secrets.
Instead of emitting an infrared blast every time the trigger is pulled, the Zapper housed a small sensor that could pick up the flashing screen. If you watched closely you would see that, every time the screen flashed, the duck(s) would be surrounded by a box that was a different color than the background. If the Zapper was pointed at one of the ducks when the trigger was pulled, it would register that the color was different, and thus score a hit. All of this would take place so quickly that, unless you knew what to look for, you would never notice.
Card carrying professionals
Business cards are one of the unsung heroes of the economy – for networking to bear fruit the people you meet have to keep and remember your business card – so it’s worth making them memorable. Here are 10 Business of my favourite business card designs from around the web. TrendHunter has a list of 26 but their design is clunky and requires a lot of clicking around. Others come from this Toxel collection.
- Pop Up Business Cards
These will make you stand out from the pack. Literally. They’re from a graphic design studio.
- Cardapult – a business card that converts into a catapult – from a mechanical engineer. There’s a video of it in action here. And instructions for how to make your own here.
- Minifig yourself – I’ve posted this one before – but it’s worthy of a rerun – if you work for Lego you get your own lego figurine business cards, they even customise them to look like you.
- The lock pick kit – perfect for locksmiths – produced for a “hacker” – this little card contains a working lock pick set.
- Google Me card – I’ve featured this one before too – from Ji Lee – it’s for the techno savvy entrepreneur who religiously maintains their web reputation – you would have to check pretty regularly that you haven’t been superseded by a triathlete, singer, criminal or football player.
- The auto dialing business card – Tom Ward created a business card that uses electronic signals to cause your phone to dial his number. Sound clever? Want to find out how he did it? Here you go (or as a PDF).
- Money – A significantly devalued currency opens up the possibility of using money to make money – a Zimbabwean hunter did just that – using bank notes as business cards. Talk about a silver lining. But there’s a cloud too – he had to pay a fine or serve a jail term for defacing currency.
- Smashed plates – if you run a traditional Greek restaurant and want to put your smashed plates to good use – try this:
- Or if you’re a debt collector with a penchant for breaking limbs… you could try this:
- Encourage a growing business – this designer wanted to leave an impression so went out on a limb to produce this growth model:
Twistered towel
Admit it – you’ve always wanted to play twister at the beach. Sand is the perfect surface for contortion induced falls.
Now you can engage in your favourite floor game with these functional game mats that double as a comfy towel.
They’re not so good for 3D twister – because beaches don’t have walls. For those not in the know – 3D Twister involves 3 mats in the corner of a room with two fixed to the walls. It’s a whole new dimension of Twister fun.
Biscuitsicles
That heading is not a typo. It is a reference to possibly the newest, greatest, craze about to be launched on the culinary world – biscuits on a stick. Made possible by this great little invention.
Busy beaver
I didn’t do much posting over the weekend. I was busy. As busy as a beaver. But not as busy “posting” as this guy. Who takes the beaver thing a bit literally for my liking. Found here.
A bunch of links – April 12, 2009
- Yard Sale Treasure Map Plots Out Your Weekend Plundering [Sales]
- Top 10 Must-Have Firefox Extensions, 2009 Edition [Lifehacker Top 10]
Hallelujah – what Craig and I have been doing manually for years has now been beautifully automated. brbrAwesomeness.
Get in the game
With these wall stickers priced at $74.99 you’ll be racing around the house picking up all the lose change as quickly as you can. Just don’t bash your head against bricks or lights in the process – and make sure flowers aren’t poisonous before ingesting.
Please take one
Celebrating ads in bus shelters is easy – but what about ads that people put up illegally on walls and legally on notice boards? The tear off ad is time honoured, and tried and true.
Here are two that I like.
From Flickr.
