Hair tattoos are the brainchild of Ian Watson. When Watson was in his mid-twenties, he lost his brother and developed alopecia due to the resulting stress. Worried about his hair loss and desperate to do something about it, he asked his brother’s widow, Ranbir Rai-Watson to draw dots on his scalp using a fine pen. He hoped that the dots would produce the effect of a cropped haircut. When she was finished, the duo knew their silly idea was actually worth something.
Ian is now 42 years old and Ranbir, 41. After several years of intense research, training and working with make-up artists and hair loss experts, they perfected their skill of camouflaging baldness with ink. The treatment is called the MHT (Micro Hair Technique) Scalp Pigmentation. As a part of the treatment, different shades of pigment are applied to the scalp so that the size, density and shape of short hairs are replicated.

BEFORE
Ian and Ranbir went on to become the founders of HIS Hair Clinics (Hair-Ink-Skin) in the UK and US, where MHT is provided. Their latest clinic was opened in Manchester by celebrity hairdresser Adee Phelan, who has had the procedure done himself. He says that he started losing hair when he was 24, but baldness doesn’t really bother him a lot. He got MHT done because he knew it looked good. According to Phelan, the treatment is great because not everyone can afford about £25,000 ($40,000) on hair transplants. At £2,000 ($3,000) MHT is definitely more affordable.

AFTER
The scalp being as sensitive as it is, having a needle pierce several dots on it must really hurt. But the end result looks a lot like a ‘buzzed’ hairstyle and certainly seems worth the pain.

This unusual work of art shows over 50 floating heads, displaying many different emotions. There were many reasons I found this display so appealing. I think the initial reason was that it stood out so much in the traditional setting of the rest of the building. The heads are not particularly detailed – they are completely white – but the expressions they bear, which would otherwise be hidden, are highlighted with a faint blue light. The heads have a slightly eerie life-like quality. The expressions they display are some that we see on a daily basis in our society, ranging from laughter to sadness. This display is hung over the foyer and so it one of the first things your eye goes to. It was clear from the other visitors reactions that I was not the only person fascinated by this piece!

Mechanic who was in it consists of the 547 pieces parts that make it look very detailed and beautiful on one side. Celsius X VI II will be sale at a price of 200,000 Euros. and will go on sale next week. Things I need to do in life before I can purchase an over $300,000 luxury mobile phone: have a man servant, enjoy caviar on the moon, have human flesh offered to me (and politely refuse it), take my pet panda to the panda groomer, have eyeglasses made out of platinum for the hell of it, refuse beautiful woman for the night because night is already occupied with too many beautiful women, and have private helicopter pick me up from supermarket outing. Yup, that pretty much sums up the list of things required before a phone like this makes sense to me, but it does exist, and people do intend on buying them. Boy, I really haven’t lived have I?

Here is some hands on treatment with what is probably the most expensive luxury phone on the market. In fact, the Celsius X VI II LeDIX is not quite get for sale yet, but will be soon. I originally thought the name of the phone was “Papillon.” As that “butterfly” name is actually on the phone and all over their website. Press materials actually have the name of the mobile phone as “LeDIX.” That is right, “LeDIX.” Pretty much going to suggest that they stick with “Celsius phone” for the name, for all intents and purposes. In a nutshell, it is a clam-shell style mobile phone that has a flying tourbillon based mechanical watch movement in the lid portion where the screen is. The tourbillon is located at the tip near where the ear speaker is (I bet you hear it moving while you are on the phone). The movement has the time, and a power reserve indicator. The crown for operating the movement is located near the  folding point of the phone. The LeDIX has a clever way of winding the movement. Each time you open and close the phone, the watch movement gets three hours worth of power wound in to the mainspring. The movement has a total power reserve of 120 hours.

The manner in which the movement was designed and implemented is pretty cool. Celsius wanted to make sure that using the phone in some manner worked with the mechanical movement – so the opening and closing part goes to that desire. The tourbillon and the watch movement is supposed to have some manner of shock absorption to protect it from the inevitable roughing around that it will experience. At the same time though, this is a phone you need to be much more careful with. Drop it and the watch movement part of it will likely be kaput. This is the same with all delicate mechanical watches.The movement has sapphire crystal over it and is in a water resistant enclosure.

The LeDIX phone itself is quite heavy at 245 grams. It feels solid and is made from mostly grade 5 titanium (with lots of nice polishing). It also has ebony inserts. There is also going to be a limited edition (of 28 phones) model that is in black PVD titanium with carbon fiber inserts. The phone has about 600 mechanical parts – 330 of which are part of the watch movement. The rest of them are for cool little flaps and hinges. The battery compartment has a type of ejection system for the battery, and most of the ports are covered and opened via little buttons or levers. Celsius didn’t want there to be exposed plastic or alike on the phone. It is pretty cool to play with the little hatches and alike on the phone – none of them are ultra necessary, but neither is the phone itself. It goes with the uber-luxury gadget theme of this mobile phone.
How is one supposed to carry such a heavy and delicate phone? In a holster of course. I snapped an image of a Celsius representative showing off his holster, one of a few accessories that come with the phone. Try going through airport security and explaining that. The LeDIX will also come with a charging/docking station, and a hands-free talking device. The charger uses a proprietary design – I would have liked for them to just use USB. Oh well.

So the phone is heavy and high quality with an expensive watch movement. What about using it as a phone? It should suffice for that task. The unlocked device is a tri-band GSM phone developed with Sagem Wireless. The OS is pretty basic. Celsius sees the LeDIX as a companion or weekend phone. It is not supposed to replace your Blackberry. As such, they intend for the LeDIX to be used for calling, basic messaging, contacts, and the 3.2 megapixel auto-zoom with flash camera. Though the phone does have basic multi-media features such as a media player, and a web browser. The screen is a nice to look at 2.2 inch OLED. The phone is not a 3G device, and it really doesn’t’ need to be given what Celsius expects its owners to use it for. Battery life is about 3.5 hours of talk time.
Pretty much all the accessories are going to be specially made for the LeDIX phone. Lots of high grade metal, leather, and a feeling that you are better than others. Serious, in a world of such fast changing technology, why is more opulent and decadent that a several hundred thousand dollar mobile phone? And not a diamond to be found (though I am sure that is coming). The phone sits in an odd place in the ecosystem of mechanical devices. It isn’t particularly high tech, nor does it have the most modern of styles. It is really a unique hybrid device that attempts to merge the worlds of luxury mechanical watches with mobile phones such a bit closer than they have ever been before.

Burrows, who works as the Assistant Imaging Director for 96.5 Jack-FM here at CBS Radio in Seattle, as well as troops as a 501st Legion member in the Titan Garrison under the designation TK-757, decided to change his middle name to Megatron for a variety of reasons, all stemming from a conversation about tomatoes as he explains below.
Why did you decide to change your middle name from Michael to Megatron?
The decision to change my name came after a long discussion that a few of my friends and I had about middle names, Burrows explains. “My ex-girlfriend’s brother changed his middle name from Bernard to Tomato when he was in high school. Bernard was a family name that he really didn’t care for, and he had been called Tomato on his high school sports teams for years, so he asked his mom for permission and made it happen.
After that conversation, we all talked about what I could change my middle name to, since Michael was so “ordinary”. With all the excitement that my friends and I had about the Transformers movie coming out and Megatron being my favorite character from that universe, it was an easy choice. I also liked the fact that my middle initial wouldn’t change, so my banking and financial paperwork could stay the same. I can still maintain the “professional” Jason M. Burrows, while having the fun of a totally unique name. At first, the whole thing was all theoretical, but after researching the cost and process, I decided to go for it.
What was the legal process like?
The legal process was surprisingly easy. The hardest part about it was gathering the $100 for all the court fees. I didn’t have the extra hundred laying around, so my friend Adam suggested that I ask for donations. On a whim, I posted the story on my Livejournal page with a PayPal donate button, and my friends answered the call! My friend Deven donated the initial $20, then suggested that I have people sponsor a letter after that, so each letter of Megatron is “owned” by a different friend!
Once I had the cash in hand, I chose to go to the court July 2 since the movie was opening at 8pm that evening. I filled out the paperwork, turned it in with the filing fees to the clerk and was told to be back at the courthouse at 1:30pm to go before the judge. I agreed and showed up to Judge Eilleen Kato’s courtroom. She came in and said that she’d be hearing name changes first. The first lady got up and changed her last name to honor her birth family. Next, a family went up, and the mom and dad both said that their daughter would like her name changed to Jessica, so the judge signed that order. I was third on the list. I walked to the front, where she had me raise my right hand to swear that I would tell the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. She asked if my name change was to defraud creditors, I said no. She asked if it would be detrimental to anyone else, I said no. She then asked if I was indeed changing my middle name to that of my childhood hero, I smiled and said, ‘”Yes Ma’am.” She said, ‘Then I do order and decree that your name be changed from Jason Michael Burrows to Jason Megatron Burrows” with a huge grin. There were quite a few chuckles from the courtroom. I was handed the paperwork and headed back to work.

Did you face opposition from your family?
I actually haven’t told my parents about the change yet! My sister thinks I’m nuts, but she’s getting a kick out of how much fun I’m having with it. She’s due with her second kid in September and I’ve been sending her a bunch of name ideas. After I informed her of the name change, she told me not to bother sending Transformer names.
Did you friends and family think it was pretty cool?
Most of my friends’love the fact that I changed my name. I’ve only received a few weird looks, but for the most part everyone thinks it’s pretty cool.
How do you think the name change will affect how people see you?
I don’t believe it will affect how people view me. I think that most people won’t ever know, since I don’t regularly use my middle name. The people that are close to me know and they like it, so that’s good enough for me. A few people have said that they’d be interested to see what future employers think when they look at my resume, but I figure if you don’t have a big enough sense of humor to find the fun in my name, I probably don’t want to work for you anyway.
Do you feel more powerful now?
That’s a good question. I think I’d have to say yes, I do feel more powerful. Now, once I install the fusion cannon on my arm, I’ll be set. *laugh*
Gun, Tank, T-Rex or Jet – which is the best Megatron and why?
The Generation 1 version of Megatron will always be my favorite. The gun all the way. One of my favorite memories as a kid was flying into Reno with my grandparents after returning from the Philippines. I had my original G1 Megatron in the gun form in my carry-on bag and got stopped by security. I ended up having to put him in a cardboard box and check him as luggage.
If there was a Transformers-Star Wars crossover, how well would Megs work with the Empire?
Ooh, Transformers-Star Wars crossover that’s tricky. I think that the Decepticons would work well with the Empire to start, but the power struggle between Vader and Megatron would end up working against them, leading to the Rebel/Autobot victory – unfortunately.
Any advice to fans who want to go about legally changing their name to their favorite character?
My advice to fans who want to change your name would be – if you really want to do it, put on your Internet flame-retardant armor and go for it. And ignore what people say on forums. I-ve been called a lot of names since people found out, but in the end I’m happy with my decision and that’s much more important to me than what other people think.

More…

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David Blaine broke the Guinness world record for breath-holding today by staying underwater for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on “The Oprah Winfrey Program.”

It was quite a feat, particularly considering what “Oprah” did to his heart. When I watched him train in a swimming pool on Grand Cayman Island by doing a 16:09 breath hold, his heart rate went down to 46 beats per minute right away and then stayed fairly low (sometimes up to the 60s) throughout. But he told me was concerned he’d have a tougher time slowing his heart on television, and sure enough, he did.
After he filled his lungs with pure oxygen, his heart rate remained at 130 during the second minute of the breath-hold and then stayed above 100 for much of the time. It was 124 in the 15th minute. The higher the heart rate, the more quickly oxygen is consumed, and the more painful the carbon dioxide buildup. But apparently his CO2 tolerance training (repeated breath holds every morning) was just enough to compensate. In the last minute his heart rate became erratic and he got concerned enough to start rising from the bottom of the water-filled sphere, but he kept his head underwater more than a half minute longer than the old record of 16:32.

“I really thought I was not going to make it,” he told me afterwards. “At minute 12 I felt the pain coming, and by minute 14 it was overwhelming. This was a whole other level of pain. I still feel as if somebody hit me in the stomach with the hardest punch they could.”

Besides the pressure of performing on television, he explained, there were a couple of other unexpected distractions working in the sphere: A heart-rate monitor happened to be close enough to his ear so that he heard its beeping, and he had to keep his feet locked in holds at the bottom of the sphere — instead of just floating freely, as he’d done in the pool on Grand Cayman. Back then he’d said he was so relaxed he “wasn’t even there” during most of the breath-hold. But when he emerged from the sphere today, he told Ms. Winfrey, “I was pretty much here the whole time.”

When she asked him what he’d been thinking about, he replied, “You.” Mr. Blaine asked me to send his thanks to the Lab readers who encouraged him. And before today’s breath-hold, he offered an answer to readers’ questions about how and why he set out to break the world record:.

I have been fascinated by the idea of long breath-holds since I was just 5 years old. Houdini claiming to be so tough underwater and living up to his claim inspired me as well. As a boy on the YMCA swim team in Park Slope in Brooklyn at age 5, I would win by not breathing across the length of the pool. At age 11 I was up to 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Back then I would fight to hold my breath for so long. It wasn’t until I met Kirk Krack, my freediving coach, that taught me to relax into it. The stillness changes everything. It is much easier to go further when the condition is accepted instead of opposed. My next challenge was to control the heart rate. I found out that by doing good cardio training and not eating foods for the sake of indulgence but rather for the nutritional value the body functions like a well maintained machine. I also use breathing techniques to control feelings, but the absence is the exact opposite. In order to go without breathing for extended periods, it is important to remove all thought as much as possible. That feeling cannot be described very well, other than I try to imagine going into the abyss of the ocean as I begin the breath hold and then everything fades slowly away.
Well, that wasn’t so easy to do today, but Mr. Blaine said he was more than satisfied with the results: “It’s better when you have to fight, anyway.”

Lady Gaga — née Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — returned the compliment, stating, “I am honored to be wearing Armani this evening. The series of pieces Mr Armani created for me are truly iconic; they represent not only beautiful fashion, but my spirit and essence as an artist.”

Thanks for Fresh Pics

When the 15 months were up, Josh Le took his “contaminated” pair of jeans to one of his teachers’ laboratory, to be tested for bacteria. Professor Rachel McQueen took samples, then washed the jeans and asked Josh to wear them for another two weeks, then tested for bacteria again. Amazingly, the results of the two samples were very similar – five types of skin bacteria, and between 8,500 and 10,000 bacterial units, mostly in the crotch area. McQueen concluded that people could in fact wash their jeans less often in order to protect the environment, without fear of hazardous bacterial contamination.
However, Josh Le admitted he did have some problems with the odour of the jeans, which started smelling funny after only a few months. He solved the problem by triple bagging them and putting them in the freezer.

The kopek is 1/100th of a Ruble, the Russian equivalent of a cent. Babin began collecting them in 1998, following wide scale Russian bank defaults that caused the kopek to become practically worthless. Instead of trying to get rid of them, this Russian version of Mr. Scrooge decided to put together a huge collection of coins. He would pick them off the street and ask vendors to change his currency in coins of the lowest denomination.
The “kopek millionaire”, as locals know Yuri Babin, now has a fortune of around five million coins, which weighs over 7.5 tonnes, but is worth just 50,000 rubles ($1,500). But it was never about the value for Mr. Babin, he just loves bathing in his impressive fortune, and has even used a few kopeks to make his wardrobe shine.

VIA Oddity Central

Via Mad 4 Red

“We will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats,” said Veselin Gatalo of the youth group Urban Movement Mostar. “But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.” Lee, who died in 1973 at the age of 32, was born in the US but moved to Hong Kong as a child. The statue there will be unveiled on what would have been the Enter the Dragon star’s 65th birthday.

BBC

Walking around 2,200 miles across 23 states is quite a challenge for any 48-year-old, but Mr Bendl decided to make it even tougher by rolling a 36-kg-heavy inflatable globe, everywhere he goes. It may sound useless and stupid, but it’s actually for a good cause – raising awareness about diabetes and the complications it causes.

World Guy lost his 54-year-old mother to diabetes, in 1987,and always wanted to do something memorable in her honor. In the late 1990s, he took the giant canvas globe he and his son used to play with and embarked on a 160-miles-long journey across Kentucky, for the American Diabetes Association, and also began walking in parades around the state. In 2007, after he and his wife got divorced, Erik Bendl set out on his first major trek across America, a 430-mile walk from Louisville to Pittsburgh.
Now, he’s halfway through his fifth long walk, talking to people he encounters and posting their stories on his blog, via the Blackberry smartphone hanging around his neck. He is accompanied by his dog, Nice, who loyally follows him on his daily 10-mile walks. When he completes his daily trek, he returns to his van, drives it to the spot he ended his walk, sleeps and does it all again the next day.

Via Oddity Central

Take a test drive and you quickly understand that this is something completely different. The elegance and maneuverability of dynamic stabilization combined with proven battery, sensing, and controls technologies come together to solve real transportation challenges. This prototype represents only the first step of what’s possible in a technology collaboration between Segway and General Motors.

]]> http://www.bored-face.com/wtf/crazy-hair-style-ideas/feed/ 0 http://www.bored-face.com/interesting/new-york-apartment-is-decorated-with-25000-ping-pong-balls/ http://www.bored-face.com/interesting/new-york-apartment-is-decorated-with-25000-ping-pong-balls/#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:07:48 +0000 admin http://www.bored-face.com/?p=939 Known as the “Box Box Project”, this 90-square-meter apartment designed by Snarkitecture is decorated with 25,000 ping pong balls.
Daniel Arsham’s apartment in Brooklyn is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The first time you walk through the door, its walls look like large gray pixelated screens that fade to white towards the ceiling, but as you approach them, you see thew are actually covered with ping pong balls, 25,000 of them, to be exact.
The rest of the apartment is decorated in minimalist  style, featuring only a bed, a few shelves and s built-in dresser, but that just means the ping pong balls get center stage in this decor. Attached to the offices of Snarkitecture, the Box Box apartment can be accessed by climbing a ladder  in the office’s employee bathroom.
This one-of-a-kind loft took two months to complete, at a cost of less than $100 per square foot, almost $50 cheaper than an average apartment. Cheaper is better, of course, but considering ping pong balls are among the most flammable objects on Earth, I hope the residents are non-smoking.

Via Oddity Central

With high gloss mahogany inlays on the fore deck and all-glass atrium covering the cockpit, the Strand Craft 122′ Express offers a true Open experience with all the comforts of being fully enclosed.
The most stunning feature of the SC122 is a specially handcrafted supercar (or tender, in this case). It is a completely one-off design closely resembling the genetic form and fashion of the mothership. Slightly retro with a swoopy silhouette much like momma, it will be handcrafted in Italy.

A hydraulic garage door raises upwards and deploys a retractable passarelle to become a dockside driveway. The passarelle will be hinged, allowing up to 2-meters of travel for low tides. There are two sets of stairs leading from bridge deck to the swim platform, which can be lowered for swimming and launching of the 272 hp HSR-Benelli rib tender.
A closer look at the SC122′s supercar reveals a rear mounted, 880hp twin-turbo V12 engine with an estimated 375 kmh top speed. Built from carbon fiber and weighing in at just 2600 lbs., it has a projected 0-60 mph time of 3.2 seconds, but a head-snapping WTH time measuring in the milliseconds.

Featuring an all-glass cockpit, at the helm and up above, it will have 3 digital displays for systems monitoring, plus a thermal vision camera for night ops. The stats call for radar and sat domes to deploy from the roof, but this is one of those ‘believe it when you see it’ things. Overall, the bridge deck is a very clean, minimalistic approach to Med life. There are three large sofas to seat 15 players, while aft is a large sun bed for 4 faux-femmes.
The resplendent salon is entered via individual sweeping staircases to port and starboard. Here, you feel is if you have entered the Waldorf Astoria in the 1920′s. Aft of the stairway is a galley with a cozy bar. To starboard is a club dining area. The entire salon can be transformed to a luxury disco with a sophisticated surround sound system from Bang & Olufsen.
Forward, there are 4 double cabins, each with stunning seaviews from elliptical bullet-proof windows that stretch halfway across the hull. At the forepeak are two crew cabins. Greek marble is used throughout the boat with Hexacon lightweight paneling to offset the increased weight of high-end fixtures.

In this geeky fan-made movie trailer, “Jason Statham is a man on a mission…and that mission is to get his hands on a sold out copy of the MMORPG hit World of Warcraft Cataclysm.” Continue reading to watch.

Talking about expensive laptop, here you have a relevant example that might horrify you, so you’d better be careful! Looking at the picture, I surely understand why people are sick and tired of so many gadgets that are aimed at the fairer sex and I couldn’t blame anyone for having such an opinion, which, as a matter of fact, I am sharing with them.

Ok, people are different, which means they like all sorts of things, but this isn’t a justification for the bad taste. And they usually need something luxurious to make them feel different, to make them feel like leaving their mark on the things they use on a regular basis. The Ergo FashionNote mini-notebook is a laptop adorned with approximately 1,444 Swarovski crystals.

‘Spiderman’ Vacuum Gloves Part 1

‘Spiderman’ Vacuum Gloves Part 2

Via Oddity Central

In Lyon, France, lies a magical and glamorous “Disney land” for those petrol heads. A place that you should be in instead, if you’re at E3 looking for some car racing sim games. Its called the i-Way.
Each race cost around #73 (ˆ60), and if you’d like to take part in the race packages like running in a league or tournament, that’s $770 (ˆ630)for 10 races. Surely that place won’t be swarmed with kids running and screaming around with such a grand price. There are 18 6-axis car simulators featuring full-sized versions of Formula 1, rally, touring, and endurance race cars.
If you ever need a pit stop from all the crazy racing, this place is packed! Talk about in-house spa with the GT girls (I made that up), conference rooms for meeting half way during a race, restaurants, lounges, and even office space. That’s a lot of things in a building. No wonder it took 4 years to build.

Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture centered around role play. A broader use of the term cosplay applies it to any costumed role play in venues apart from the stage, regardless of the cultural context.

The eighth annual ChinaJoy (aka China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference), China’s annual gaming conference on a par with E3, opened to the public yesterday at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.
According to show sponsors, the goal of the conference is to “strengthen domestic game supervision, actively regulate the markets of electronics and Internet publications, rigorously fight against piracy in order to encourage and support legal game products, and establish a platform for the comprehensive development of Chinese electronics products… While showing the new products and technologies, the exhibition aims to be the window of presenting industrial policies, accessing to market information, and absorbing global opinions and suggestion in order to play a positive role in the development.”
ChinaJoy regularly attracts digital media and gaming companies from Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The conference, running until Sunday, August 1, is ground zeo for anyone with a gaming interest in China, from the players to the play makers interested in checking out the new future of Chinese gaming — and probably the game girls as well.
Although games are the highlight of the conference, the annual ChinaJoy cosplay competition (short for “costume play”) is also a highlight worth noting.

Via CNNGO

Regional authorities were quick to dismiss this alarming report, stating that the people who collected the data used a particle detector not certified in the Ukraine. Now, that’s hardly a worthy reason, considering Vedminsky and his crew used a US manufactured Geiger counter that detects alfa, beta, gamma and roentgen rays, unlike the ones used by the government, which only indicate one tyoe.
Environmentalists said there are approximately 7 million tons of radioactive materials buried in the abandoned mine, which makes this place dangerous not only to people who keep livestock at the abandoned site, but to everyone living in the surrounding area. It won’t kill anyone instantly, but it all depends on how much time you spend near such a powerful source of radiation. Considering there are no warning signs around the area, the effects could be catastrophic.

Via RIA Novosti

Art doesn’t really need a reason – especially when it’s rad machinery that performs a pointless action over and over. Kristoffer Myskja’s Smoking Machine is the perfect example of a pointless but truly awesome machine. The Smoking Machine does exactly what the name implies: it smokes cigarettes, puffing them until they’re gone and then discarding the spent butts on the ground around it.

Of course, the human action of smoking can be considered just as pointless as the machine’s smoking…so perhaps Myskja meant his machine as a commentary on this very human addiction.

The machine works by doling out one cigarette at a time to a small holder. Once the cigarette is firmly in place, it is lit and then smoked by an electric air valve. The valve takes draws like a human smoker would, slowly turning the stick of tobacco into ashes that fall to the floor. The butt then falls as well, leaving a rather unattractive pile of debris all around the base of the machine.

For all of the death and disease represented by the machine’s repetitive action, it’s actually a beautiful piece of weird technology. And who knows – maybe watching it consume all of those chemicals could help smokers kick the habit once and for all. See it in action at the artist’s site for the full effect.

Yankeyan used the OpenKinect drivers, along with image processing, tracking and rendering by OpenCV to create this great real-time lightsaber effect on his PC. All he has to do is pick up a wooden stick, and the Kinect tracks its position and the image processing software adds the lightsaber effect.
Hopefully, LucasArts will oblige us with the same when their Star Wars Kinect game comes out next year. For now, Yankeyan’s hack will have to tide us over.

OpenKinect is using GitHub!
GitHub is more than just a place to share code. It’s a place to keep tabs on your favorite developers and projects, easily contribute fixes and new features, and visualize what’s going on inside your codebase!

OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision) is a library of programming functions for real time computer vision.

More from Wikipedia

Thanks for McLaren

Graff’s telephone bid for the pink stone beat an estimate of 27 million francs to 38 million francs at Sotheby’s, Geneva.
“It is the most fabulous diamond I’ve seen in my career,” Graff said in a statement issued by Sotheby’s. He named the gem “the Graff Pink,” the auction house said.
The jewelry auction raised a record 103 million francs, Sotheby’s said. Demand for rare gems as a portable form of wealth has pushed up prices.
The 24.78-carat emerald-cut stone was graded “Fancy Intense Pink” by the Gemological Institute of America. It was sold by a private collector and hadn’t been seen on the open market since being bought from Harry Winston about 60 years ago, the New York-based auction house said.
“What makes it so immensely rare is the combination of its exceptional color and purity with the classic emerald-cut,” David Bennett, chairman of Sotheby’s European and the Middle Eastern jewelry departments, said in a statement. “It’s a style of cutting normally associated with white diamonds and one that is so highly sought-after when found in rare colors such as pink and blue.”
Graff previously paid 16.4 million pounds ($24.3 million) for the 35.56-carat grayish-blue “Wittelsbach Diamond” at Christie’s International in London in December 2008, then the highest for a gem at auction.
Geneva Wine Record
Earlier in the day at a Christie’s wine sale, also in Geneva, a 6-liter imperial of Chateau Cheval Blanc’s 1947 vintage sold for 298,500 francs. The price, paid by an unidentified collector, was an auction record for a large-format bottle of wine. An imperial bottle is the size of eight standard bottles.
Described by Christie’s wine specialist, Michael Ganne, as “probably the only known existing ‘imperial’” of the red Bordeaux, it had been estimated to fetch between 150,000 francs and 250,000 francs. Cheval Blanc’s famously port-like 1947 vintage is regarded by some connoisseurs as the greatest wine of the 20th century.
The auction record for a standard-sized 75-centiliter bottle of wine was set at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on Oct. 29 when three bottles of Chateau Lafite’s 1869 vintage each sold for HK$1.8 million ($230,000). All three were bought by the same Asian telephone bidder, said Sotheby’s.

Thanks for BusinessWeek

After seeing Vladimir Putin flying jet planes, shooting Siberian tigers, fishing topless, riding Harley Davidsons and diving to the depths of Lake Baikal, you would think that his PR men might have a bit trouble thinking up new ideas to boost his masculine profile.
The Putin Formula 1 drive reportedly saw the Russian leader putting the pedal to the metal and hitting 150 miles per hour.

Thankfully not starring Bill Paxton or Helen Hunt, this tornado of rock barrels through anything in its path – especially disco. German artist Trimpin created the Guitar Tornado for the Experience Music Project in Seattle. But this tornado has more than form. It has function.

Intermingled within the tornado is guitars connected to robotic musicians which play the guitar on cue, which spectators can enable through touchscreen interfaces. Though each guitar can only play one note at a time, so the installation creates chords by striking the different notes of a chord on multiple guitars.

Thanks for FLICKR

That’s one gigabyte of storage twenty years ago and today.

These sexy ladies are posing in a garage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Why, you ask??? I don’t know, but their Russian so why even bother with the why?

A Ferrari is a red car with a horse! Right daddy?
Father: That’s right, but why do you ask?
Son: I Think there’s one trying to pass as on the right!!!

For Sale in Ebay. Cost 473 Euro.

Bad Brakes or something else? Could this be a suicide or maybe a homicide? Judge For Yourself…

Since the cost of producing the vehicles and playsets for the 12″ dolls was prohibitive, as well as taking up space in living rooms, Takara decided to produce a miniature version of the Henshin Cyborg line which was called Microman.

The first series, Microman Zone, included four figures and several vehicles in kit form that needed to be assembled. Microman Zone proved to be popular and by its second year, the Microman line was spun-off from the “Henshin Cyborg” line.

Unlike other toylines at the time, Microman figures were marketed as being the “actual” size of the real thing. Microman figures were cyborg beings from the planet Micro Earth that disguised themselves as toys. All of the Microman toys used 5 mm connectors and ports, which allowed parts from one toy to be attached to another toy to form new toys.

The monsters in question are red king crabs and, while they’re not likely to put an end to the human race, they’re certainly enough to give it a few nightmares. They have shells covered in evil spikes and chillingly complex, insect-like mouth parts, all blown up to outlandish proportions.
They look like something dreamt up by the special-effects department of a film studio specialising in gratuitously nasty horror B-movies, then rejected by the director as implausibly unpleasant. I have stared deep into their stick-mounted eyes from a distance of six inches, and all I saw there was a dumb, relentless malevolence.
If you’d like to do the same, you need to go to Finnmark, at the very top of Norway. If you look on the map, it’s that spiky mohican haircut of land that fans out way, way above the Arctic Circle. Briefly, this is why the crabs are there: king crabs are native to Kamchatka, 2,500 miles away at the eastern end of Siberia.

GERMAN POLICE

NETHERLANDS POLICE

Conversely, the intent of camouflage is to disrupt an outline by merging it with the surroundings, making a target harder to spot or hit, or to confuse an observer as to its nature. Different countries have undergone different evolutionary stages towards the development of military camouflage.

Our salon has everything you’d expect plus one special factor…  Our hairdressers are hot… Imagine, a place you can get a cut, style, wash or colour whilst watching a beautiful hairdresser at work with her gorgeous assets out on show.

We’ve already heard about adventure tourism, which typically involves a mountain bike ride, white water raft action, or another adrenaline based sport.  However, danger tourism takes your adventure to the next level. The sketchy mountain side path leads you up the Huashan Mountain near Xi’an, China. China Highlights describes the road, “Huashan Mountian is located some 240 kilometers away from Xi’an, approximately a two and half hours drive. It is one of the five sacred mountains in China. Huashan Mountain is well-known for its sheer cliffs and plunging ravines. It is the most dangerous mountain in China for climbers.”
At the peak of the mountain, you’ll find a number of Buddhism and Daoism temples, buildings and scriptures.

Her story began early in the childhood when, because of the abnormal height ( 6ft 9ins at the age of 13 ) and the wickedness of others , Lindsay began to drink on her own, only making it worse. At the age of 16, during a fight with another girl, Lindsay lifted her off the ground and then threw her into a brick wall. Not long after, she left home and started a career as a model, where we can see that she began to have a good feeling about the way her body looked.

Lindsay Hayward began her professional wrestler career in June 2008, at which point she started to train hard at the gym, eating 5oz of chicken every two hours in order to build muscle and gain strength. Known by the fans as Isis, the 109Kg female signed a contract with WWE ( World Wrestling Entertainment ) in the summer of 2010 under which Lindsay received a new stage name, Aloisia, and she was going to be part of their NXT show. But, with this amazing debut very close to her, on September 15th 2010, Vickie Guerrero announced that the contract between the two parties ( Lindsay Hayward and WWE ) ended. The reason seems to be some pictures taken, according to Lindsay, 5 years ago.

Video games won out over more traditional options in an online poll that residents used to pick their street names, said Antonio Almudi Miranda, president of the Arcosur neighborhood association.
“We are people who grew up living with video games. We know them very well,” he said. “I’m 25. I’m the same age as Mario.”
The government-sponsored Arcosur project aims to build more than 21,000 residences for people ages 20 to 35 who are buying their first homes, he said. Construction began last year.
A dozen of the development’s streets will be named for video games, Almudi said. Names of musical composers and Spanish monuments will grace the neighborhood’s remaining 46 roads.
Super Mario’s street is nearly a kilometer long and will have hundreds of homes on it, Almudi said — and his will be one of them. The English and math teacher said he’s looking forward to living on a street named after someone his students will recognize.
Residents are proud to have Super Mario represented in the neighborhood, he said, and grateful that their street signs will not feature names of war heroes or violent characters.
At Saturday’s festivities, representatives from Nintendo handed out prizes in honor of Super Mario’s 25th anniversary, Almudi said.
But there’s also a serious side to the publicity stunt, he said. Future residents hope increased media attention will pressure the government to finish building the neighborhood on time — by June 2012.
“We wanted to make noise and show that there are a lot of us who are in this neighborhood,” he said. “We want our homes now, because we are many young people and we have been waiting.”
Once it’s constructed, more than 60,000 people are expected to live in the neighborhood, Almudi said.
“The majority of us are lawyers, police officers, engineers, businessmen, teachers and hard workers of all kinds,” he said. “Surely we have a lot of plumbers.”

Via CNN

Kevin Richardson is an animal behaviourist that has bonded so much with wild big cats that he isn’t even afraid to sleep with them in the wild. He’s great friends with lions, cheetahs, leopards or hyenas and they all treat him like he’s one of their own. Former student of child psychology, Kevin decided to switch to animals when he decided he could trust a lion over a human every time. He never uses whips, sticks or leashes, just a lot of patience and most importantly respect for the felines.
Although these photos may seem unbelievable, they are very real and Kevin says he can get close to any big cat under a year old and become friends with it, but he feels most safe and comfortable around animals he has known from birth. He has had one accident when a 4-year-old male lion attacked and started biting him, but something about Kevin’s passive reaction made him stop. ever since then Kevin never engages wild animals if he feels there is something wrong.
Known as the Lion Whisperer by most people, Kevin Richardson is a real-life beast master.

Scott Weaver always dreamed he would build the world’s largest toothpick model and 34 years ago he started working on it. Fast-forward to present day and he still hasn’t fulfilled his dream, but he did create one of the most impressive toothpick sculptures in the world.

“Rolling through the Bay” is a 9 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 2 feet deep toothpick model of san Francisco that features 4 pingpong ball rolling tracks and several entry points. That’s right, it’s the tracks that make this wooden masterpiece so unique. That’s how Mr. Weaver began his adventure in the world of toothpicks, by building abstract models and rolling pingpong balls on them. It just got out of hand at some point and turned into this amazing model.

Though “Rolling through the Bay” does feature some of the most iconic sights in San Francisco, like the Bay Bridge, Golden State Park, Fisherman’s Wharf, Alamo Square or the Cable Car tour, Scott Weaver says it’s just his view of the city and unlike more traditional models, his has rolling pingpong balls.

The toothpick model of San Fracisco took over 3,000 hours of work to complete and over 1,000,000 toothpicks. Luckily, a pack of 750 toothpicks costs just 99 cents, so Weaver can’t say his hobby is too expensive. Ripley’s Believe It or Not offered Scott $40,000 for his unique model, but he isn’t ready to part with it just yet.

A Russian farmer learned that happy cows are more productive, so he decided to buy some state of the art LED TVs (not sure if they’re HD) so the cows can have something to watch. The TV’s play an endless loop of images taken in the Swiss Alps, showing green pastures, lakes and trees, stretching as far as the eye can see. The reaction of the cows wasn’t as spectacular as you might expect. These are high quality displays, a human would have probably jumped for joy, but the cows simply ignored their expensive gifts. Now the farmer is measuring the results of his investment, by comparing the productivity of these television-watching cows, to a group deprived of television.
I tell you, these cows better step up their game, or they might end up with a hole in their stomachs. And that’s no joke.

]]> http://www.bored-face.com/interesting/gold-to-go-%e2%80%93-an-atm-machine-that-dispenses-real-gold/feed/ 0 http://www.bored-face.com/cool-stuff/skeleton-bar-the-alien-universe/ http://www.bored-face.com/cool-stuff/skeleton-bar-the-alien-universe/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:49:07 +0000 admin http://www.bored-face.com/?p=119 I bet you feel like you’re having a drink in a bar built by the Alien.
And in a way, you kind of are, because this odd-looking establishment was designed by Hans Rudi Giger (HR Giger), who worked as a designer on the Alien movies, receiving multiple awards, including an OSCAR for best special effects. I must say Giger did great work on this museum-bar, you must feel like you’re somewhere in the Alien universe or inside the skeleton of a monster. In any case it’s very original and refreshing, I for one love it!

Yamadashi is translated as “coming out of the mountains” and is the most popular part of the festival. Teams of men have to drag the logs down the mountain, to Suwa Shrine. At some points they encounter steep slopes where they must slide the tree trunks. In a ceremony called Ki-otoshi, brave young men risk their lives by climbing on the trunks and riding the all the way down the muddy slopes. It takes 3 days to move the sacred tree trunks, over 10 kilometers, to the shrine.
Satobiki involves placing the logs at the four corners of the four buildings that make up Suwa Grand Shrine. Using ropes, teams have to pull up the giant tree trunks in a vertical position, with young men sitting on them. Those still on the logs after they are positioned, perform all sort of feats.
On Sunday, during the 2010 edition of Onbashira Festival, a man was crushed to death by a tree trunk, during Satobiki. One of the ropes came loose and hit the 38-year-old man in the head. Several others were injured in the accident.

All Mark Evans needs to create art out of cow hide is a knife, time and inspiration. Days, sometimes weeks, even months go by until his work is completed, but after all the etching and carving, a masterpiece is revealed. As if he he’s painting with a blade, mark is able to create mindblowing tonal pieces.
It all started when he was just seven years old, growing up in the Welsh Mountains. His grandfather gave him a knife and he began carving shapes in tree bark. Later he studied fine art, in London, and although he worked with more conventional materials, he could never get over his passion for playing with knives
Have a look at some of his most important leather paintings and also check out his official site.

Via Mark Evans

Sujet began his boxing career in October of 2008 and since ten has won 5 fights and drew once. He fights against other boxers, who are blindfolded to even the scales. According to his trainers, Sujet Salee has an edge over his opponents, because of his heightened remaining senses. As soon as he makes contact with his opponent he begins attacking, often knocking him down with an elbow hit.

The blind champion’s father was a Muay Thai fighter, and, in spite of his handicap, Sujet wanted to walk in his footsteps. At first, he admits he didn’t think he could handle it, but after years of training, he has become a season fighter, able to fight anyone in a match of blind Thai boxing.

Cherdchai Sangketkij, owner of the boxing camp where Sujet Salee trains, has been blind for 20 years, and understands Sujet’s desire to succeed. He hopes, one day blind, Thai boxing will become a national sport for the blind, and not be perceived as a violation of the rights of the handicapped.

One of the most interesting displays at YAKSCHO will definitely be the shot-up BMW. A local shooters group was asked by the Museum of Modern Art, in Perm, to take part in an unusual, but fun shooting session. Participants were promised a BMW X5 to shoot at, but in the end they were happy to empty their guns into an older model.
Volodymyr Kuznetzov, the man behind this unusual art project, decorated the car with flowers and other ornaments, marked with nail polish crosses, but the shooters, weren’t really able to follow the pattern. Still he was pleased with the final result and believes his shot-up BMW will be a hit when the exhibition opens.