Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Liam Kemp, The 3d master


Liam Kemp is great cg artist who makes hiper realistic 3d model girls. He has also a well known short film named ' This Wonderful Life'. just visit the site and check out what you find. Link

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Worms Wrote "Hi" on Woman’s Tomato


Phyllis Smith is waging a war with worms in her tomato garden. She’s clearly losing the battle, as she recently found a "hi" message from the worms on one of her tomatoes:

"We got down and was pruning and got down there and just pulled open those tomato vines," Smith said. "There was a message that that bold bug had left on that tomato, and it said, ‘hi.’ And it just blew our minds. I laughed so hard."
Link

Ground to Ground Lightning Bolt


From Earth Picture of the Day:

The above photo showing a bizarre arc of lightning was captured near in southeastern France, near Menton, on May 10, 2006. Since the ground is charged opposite that of a cloud base, and will not discharge to itself, it’s likely that this picture is showing two cloud-to-ground strokes. Perpsective makes it appear as though a single lightning bolt is arching above the hill top.
Link

Bollywood Thriller



The funniest music video you’ll see today (if you haven’t seen it already! It’s making the rounds on the InterWeb - and deservedly so.) It’s the new King of Pop! (Not sure if it is Bollywood, though) Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

Old Chinese Propaganda Posters

Stefan Landsberger has a massive collection of over 1,700 Chinese propaganda posters made since 1949 till present day. Link

China’s Internet Addicts


The Internet is taking China by storm, and as a result, there is a growing number of internet addicts - and treating these internet addicts is becoming a booming business!

Wang Yiming, 21, is a self-confessed internet addict, one of a growing number in China. He used to spend hours online each day, often going without food or sleep. His face is drawn and sallow.
A month or two after I started surfing the internet, I failed some of my school tests, but I was too afraid to tell my parents. When my father found out, he was very angry.
"But I couldn’t control my addiction. Friends were also telling me that I was on the net too long, but I thought: ‘It’s my life, I can do what I want.’ I became a real loner, was withdrawn, and wouldn’t listen to anyone."
Link

Man Lives in Tree After Fight with Wife


Man skipped doghouse after domestic dispute, opted instead for treehouse.
Kapila Pradhan, 45, a resident of Nagajhara village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, left home after an apparent tiff with his wife.
"My son and daughter-in-law quarrelled constantly after their son was born and their relationship soured day by day," says his mother Sishula. "One morning I found my son had left the house while everybody was still asleep."
A month later, villagers found him deep in the forest living in a tree.
Link

Nepal’s Boy Buddha




Tens of thousands of people have visited the site, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Nepalese Buddha Boy - and a cottage industry selling pictures, CDs, etc. of Ram Bamjan has sprung up around this phenomenon (with proceeds going to rebel Maoist, said gov’t officials).

The screen that was erected to shield him from view has been taken down, but there is still no resolution to the claim that Ram has not eaten or drunk anything since he began his meditation 8 months ago.
(Does this matter? The 16-year old has been meditating for 8 months! I couldn’t sit still for 5 minutes when I was that age)
Nepalese eKantipur website’s got the latest news:

‘The biting cold has had no effect whatsoever on him so far," says priest Prem Lama…
…claims that the news of Bomjon’s "godly power" began to spread after two dumb people started speaking after visiting the meditation site.
Link

Ram Bahadur Bamjan’s friends said that he has been meditating without drinking water for 6 months, and will carry on for another 6 years until he attains enlightments.

"Bamjan has spoken only a few times since he began the meditation, according to Prem Lama.
He said the first time Bamjan spoke was when a snake bit him around a month ago.
Bamjan took the incident as his second test, which he must overcome, Prem Lama said."
This has people calling him Buddha-reincarnate. Now, scientists are gathering to see whether he indeed can meditate for so long without drinking any water.

Scary Viking Teeth

Caroline Arcini of Sweden’s National Heritage Board discovered that:

Viking warriors filed deep grooves in their teeth, and they likely had to smile broadly to show them off, according to new finds in four major Viking Age cemeteries in Sweden.
Link

Wild Men in Schleicherlaufen Festival

"Wild Men" in tree lichen costumes celebrating Schleicherlaufen, a festival of winter’s end, in Telfs, Austria. Link

Pillow Fight Club


The first rule of pillow fight club is, you do talk about pillow fight club…. On Valentine’s Day, a thousand people showed up to pummel each other with pillows. Link

Bride of Chucky Wedding Cake Topper


Why settle for that boring and blah wedding cake topper? Go with these awesome weird wedding cake topper. Link

List of April Fool’s Jokes


Today is the right day to visit Museum of Hoaxes’s famous list of Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.

At no. 1 is 1957 The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, where BBC news show Panorama announced that very mild winter and elimination of the spaghetti weevil had created a bumper crop for Swiss spaghetti tree growers.
A huge number of viewers called in to ask how they can grow their own spaghetti tree - to which the BBC responded "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
Check out the rest of the list: Link

Fantasy Coffins from Ghana


Why be buried in a boring coffin, when you can get handmade coffins that look like a Mercedes Benz, lobster, onion, shoe, beer bottle, even a cigarette?

From the website:

For the Ga tribe in coastal Ghana, funerals are a time of mourning, but also of celebration. The Ga people believe that when their loved ones die, they move on into another life — and the Ga make sure they do so in style. They honor their dead with brightly colored coffins that celebrate the way they lived.
The coffins are designed to represent an aspect of the dead person’s life — such as a car if they were a driver, a fish if their livelihood was the sea — or a sewing machine for a seamstress. They might also symbolize a vice — such as a bottle of beer or a cigarette.

Gil Azouri’s Li River Cormorant Fisherman

See more of Gil’s fantastic photos at: Link

Using cormorant to fish is an ancient practice in Japan and China. In Japan, cormorant fishermen puts a tethered steel ring around the bird’s neck (to prevent them from swallowing the fish). One fisherman usually handles ten to twelve birds at a time.
In China, the cormorants are more like beloved pets to the fisherman - he would train the bird to catch the fish and release it to him instead of swallowing it.

Child Bride of Afghanistan

Stephanie Sinclair / NY Times

From a very interesting NY Times article by Barry Bearak and Stephanie Sinclair:

The drought has since passed, but the poverty remains, as does the widespread custom of early marriage. Some Afghans readily use their daughters to settle debts and assuage disputes. Polygamy is practiced. A man named Mohammed Fazal, 45, told Sinclair that village elders had urged him to take his second wife, 13-year-old Majabin, in lieu of money owed him by the girl’s father. The two men had been gambling at cards while also ingesting opium and hashish. …
On the day she witnessed the engagement party of 11-year-old Ghulam Haider to 40-year-old Faiz Mohammed, Sinclair discreetly took the girl aside. "What are you feeling today?" the photographer asked. "Nothing," the bewildered girl answered. "I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?"

World’s Smallest Teddy Bear


German artist Bettina Kaminski’s "Mini the Pooh," at just 5 mm tall, is the world’s smallest Teddy Bear!