A Welsh View

Game: The Booze Test - Name That Alcohol

How well do you know your booze? I scored 86% which is either good or bad.

Soldiers Hide Behind One Car

Twenty soldiers take cover behind one car as they wait to end an attempted coup in the Philippines. Shortly afterwards they stormed a five-star hotel in the Manila, Philippines that had been seized by rebel army officers.

The renegades took over the building in capital Manilla after walking out of their trial for a failed 2003 coup. They then demanded that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resign. But her security forces smashed their way in and rearrested the rebels.

iDesktop YouTube Viewer

iDesktop.tv (previously YouTubeDesktop) is an ajax interface onto YouTube videos with a few more features added such as the ability to resize the videos, add them to playlists and share them with friends.

The best feature is the ability to download the videos in a variety of formats – AVI, MP4, 3GP, 3GP2, MOV, WMV, FLV, EXE or ZIP. This makes it much easier to transfer videos to you mobile phone or iPod and doesn't require you visiting another website or using an extension. [via]

Jennifer Love Hewitt Bikini Pics

Jennifer Love Hewitt has been getting a slating on celebrity blogs for wearing a bikini whilst being a little out of shape. She was photographed on a beach in Hawaii whilst celebrating her engagement to boyfriend Ross McCall.

I say good on her for being comfortable with the way she looks. She may have put on a bit of weight lately but I'm fine with that. Having a thing for her I would say that.

More photos here.

Update: Jennifer Love Hewitt Responds To Bikini Photos

20 Photographs Taken at the Exact Right Angle

More photos.

Drink Away The Art

I'm not a huge fan of art but I'd happily spend a few hours at this installation. Created by Hannes Broecker and installed in Dresden, Germany, Drink Away the Art consists of hanging flat, glass containers filled with a variety of cocktails. Visitors are invited to sample the cocktails using the supplied glasses and can help themselves until they're all empty.

As with most works of art, I have no idea what it means. [via]

Tara Reid To Appear At Hooker's Ball

According to The Sun, "Hollywood A-Lister" and star of "Amercian" (sp) Pie, Tara Reid, is to appear at this Sunday's Hooker Ball in Australia. She is apparently going to dress up as a prostitute and judge a wet T-shirt contest at the event at Darwin's Discovery nightclub. A normal night out for her then.

The New K.I.T.T. Car

Autoblog is reporting that the car in the upcoming Knight Rider TV series is going to be a Shelby GT500KR.

K.I.T.T.'s trademark running red light bar has been relocated up and into two nostrils that sit atop the GT500KR's hood. It's a natural fit, though we have to question the silver stripes that, while a trademark of the GT500KR, are totally harshing on K.I.T.T.'s blacked-out super stealth persona.

Stir-Fried Wikipedia

A restaurant in Beijing, China is serving a rather delicious dish of stir-fried wikipedia (also available - steam eggs with wikipedia). Curious to know what it looks like. Here's a picture. [via]

Video: World's Smallest Fire Breathing Woman

Meet Firefly, probably the smallest fire breathing woman in the world. [via]

60 Sources of Inspiration for Photography

Photopreneur's comprehensive list of 60 sources of inspiration for photography. I'll be spending some time going through the list.

Video: Cherry Chocolate Rain

Tay Zonday reworks Chocolate Rain for Dr Pepper's new Cherry Chocolate drink. [via]

Video: Four-Person Pedal Car Pulled Over By Police

At least they managed to have a bit of fun.

Urban River

Installed in April 2007 in Drachten, The Netherlands, the Blue Road project features 1,000 metres of road painted blue and the phrase "Water is Life" written in eight-metre-high letters across it, the Blue Road is reminiscent of the waterway that used to be where the road is now.

The installation cost 75,000 Euros and used 4,000 litres of paint. There are lots more photos here including a car sinking in the 'urban river'.

Video: The Well of Death

Stuntmen perform on their motorbikes and car on the walls of the "Well of Death" at a fair on the outskirts of Jammu November 28, 2007. The stuntmen earn their livelihood by performing dare-devil stunts by driving their bikes and cars on the walls of the "Well of Death" and attracting a large number of spectators from all walks of life.

Here's a video of the Well of Death. It's crazy when the cars start driving around it.

Typewriter Robot

A robot made from just the parts of an old typewriter. [via]

New Google Maps For Mobile Shows Your Location Without GPS

Google has released an upgrade to Google Maps for Mobile, which in addition to GPS support, can now show users without GPS their location. As Google notes, it doesn’t have the accuracy of GPS, but it’s free, and it’s likely to be good enough to be useful in many cases.

Google says the application will put you somewhere in the 500- to 5,000-metre range of where you really are, depending on the cell tower density. I tried it and showed my location only a few streets away (possibly a few hundred metres as the crow flies). I have GPS on my E90 but this is a fast way of getting a rough location.

Point your mobile browser to http://www.google.com/gmm or go here to download it. [via]

XP Beats Vista In Performance Tests

In performance tests, Windows XP Service Pack 3 has out performed Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

A benchmarking exercise conducted by Florida-based software development company Devil Mountain Software showed that any improvements that Vista offered were more than outclassed by the venerable XP.

The report shows that Vista, both with and without SP1, was slower than XP with SP3. It took more than 80 seconds to complete the test, compared to XP's 35 seconds.

SP1 made little difference to Vista where as the beta SP3 back for XP made it 10 per cent faster.

I'm hardly surprised. We use Vista Business at Ozum and it's god awful. Applications constantly freeze/crash, I've had numerous BSODs, frequently peripherals such as the mouse and keyboard won't work after coming out of hibernation and it takes an age to transfer files between the PC and a thumb drive.

150,000 Watch North Korean Factory Boss Executed For 'Making International Calls'

A North Korean factory boss has been executed by a firing squad in front of 150,000. His crime? Making international phone calls!

The manager was gunned down in a sports stadium in South Pyongan province after authorities claimed he'd installed 13 in a basement to reach the outside world, the Good Friends aid agency revealed.

And six people were also crushed to death and 34 others injured in an apparent stampede as they left after the execution, it was claimed.

The factory chief's death last month came as executions in the communist dictatorship began increasing after a seven-year decline in the number of people publicly killed.

North Korea had faced a barrage of international criticism over claims it has executed many innocent people.

Its citizens are banned from communicating with the outside world, part of the regime's authoritarian policies seeking to prevent any challenge to the iron-fisted rule of Kim Jong Il.

The North has carried out four other similar public executions by firing squad against regional officials and heads of factories in recent months, Good Friends revealed.

Video: Is Europe A Country?

Miss South Carolina can breathe a sigh a relief. This woman is even stupider than her. Maybe it's because I know a bit about geography but surely everyone knows that Europe is not a country and France is.

'Facebook' Bound In Priest's Skin For Sale

A 400-year-old book covered in a sheet of wrinkled human skin is going under the hammer in a bizarre auction. It is thought the skin was cut from the corpse of Father Henry Garnet, one of Guy Fawkes' fellow conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Garnet's involvement in the plot by Catholics to kill King James I and most of the Protestant aristocracy by blowing up the Houses of Parliament has long been debated.

The priest claimed that, although he was not involved in the plot, he heard details of the plot during confessions, which bound him to confidentiality.

Despite his admonitions, the plotters went ahead.

Despite his lack of active involvement, Garnet was found guilty of treason and executed in May 1606.

According to legend, a piece of bloodstained straw at the scene of his execution started to develop an exact image of the priest's face, which auctioneers suggest has happened to the book.

Link

Related: Model Ship Made From Bones and Human Hair Goes To Auction [via]

Want A Job At I Can Has Cheezburger?

Only people that rank 0.00012 or higher on the Chuck Norris scale need apply.

Related: lolcat translator

Threadless $10 Holiday T-Shirt Sale

It's sale time at Threadless again. They have a ton of t-shirts, including new designs, for $10. I've bought way too many t-shirts from them but there's always room for a few more.

Disclaimer: This is not a paid post, I'm only posting this as I'm a fan of Threadless t-shirts. Plus, if people buy t-shirts using the link above I earn points which gives me a discount :o)

Beowulf 3D

Whilst in London last weekend, I managed to catch a showing of Beowulf 3D in the IMAX cinema. I was blown away. I didn't know much about the movie before going and whilst I knew that there was CGI in the movie I didn't realise that it was entirely CGI. The CGI was unreal and probably the best that I had seen in a movie - the characters were extremely lifelike. And unlike Transformers, which was also a CGI fest, Beowulf had a story to it, one that helped compliment the visuals.

I think watching the movie at an IMAX cinema added so much extra to the movie. The huge screen and excellent sound gave the movie more depth and helped immerse you into it. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you see it in 3D to appreciate it fully and if possible at an IMAX.

Video: 20,000 Teddy Bears Onto Ice Hockey Rink

Portland Winter Hawks fans threw what was reportedly a world record 20,372 stuffed animals on the ice after what they thought was their team's first ice hockey goal of the season -- a goal which officials later disallowed. [via]

Boy's Best Friend Is A 4.8m Long Python

A young Cambodian boy loves nothing more than curling up with his 4.8m long python and refuses to go to sleep without it.

In the village of Sit Tbow, 50 kilometres east of Phnom Penh, Sambath Uon, seven, reportedly refuses to go to sleep without the company of his pet, Chamreun, or Lucky, in Khmer.

The snake slithered into town in 2000, when Sambath was just a few months old.

While the boy's father tried to return the snake to the forest three times, the Burmese python loyally returned to her young master and has earned the acceptance of villagers, who think she brings good fortune.
Sambat and Lucky

Young Sambath said of his faithful companion: "I love the python like my sister."

The affection appears to be mutual, despite the fact that pythons are typically afraid of people and avoid humans if at all possible.

View a video here.

Strictly No Photography

Strictly no photography is a photo-sharing site for photographs taken where you are not allowed to take them. From the inside of the Kremlin to Kensington palace, from art galleries to war zones, Strictly no photography aims to show you everything you've ever wanted to see that you're not supposed to.

Video: Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Does 219 MPH

[via]

The Piano PC

This 1904 Chickering Upright Grand Piano has been modded to include a PC complete with 26" widescreen LCD monitor, wireless keyboard, 500GB HD, 2GB RAM, a DVD burner and memory card reader. It has a buy it now price on eBay of $20,000! [via]

Airbus A340 vs Wall

During engine testing in the Airbus facility in Toulouse, France, this Airbus A340-600 jumped the chocks and smashed into a blast wall. The engines worked. More photos. [via]

Real-Life Superheroes

10 people with 'super-human' abilities including Liew Thow Lin from Malaysia who has the ability to make things stick to himself.

He says that he discovered he had the amazing ability to make objects stick "magnetically" to his skin, and now he's added car-pulling to his repertoire. After reading an article about a family in Taiwan who possessed such power, he says he took several iron objects and put them on his abdomen, and to his surprise, all the objects including an iron, stuck on his skin and didn't fall down. Since this "gift'' is also present in three of his sons and two grandchildren, he figures it's hereditary.

Read about the other 9 here (w/ pics and videos).

Amusing Knock-Offs

It was really hard choosing a photo from this great selection of fake goods.

The Dog That's Addicted To Pants

A dog has undergone surgery to remove a pair of underpants from his gut - the 40th pair that he has eaten. 18-month-old Taffy has also eaten 300 socks, 15 pairs of shoes and a Mercedes key fob. The objects usually work their way through but this time he needed a bit of assistance in removing them. Link

Video: Family Guy Gay Alien

Plus...

Family Guy rocks!

The World's Largest Moose

Standing 45m tall and 47m long, this moose which is due to be built on top of Vithatten mountain in northern Sweden, is probably the largest moose in the world.

Construction on the moose, which will hold up to 350 people when completed, is expected to begin before the end of the year. The moose will be used as a concert hall, exhibition space, restaurant and for conferences.

Take a tour around the moose.

The World Continues To Look Away. Don't

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article outlining horrific acts that are currently going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I would call them animals but they are far lower than that.

Attackers are now identifiable by their manner of attack: one group, after raping the woman or girl, inserts the barrel of a gun into her vagina and shoots, thus destroying her vagina, bladder, rectum and causing massive blood loss. Some force males at gunpoint to rape mothers or sisters, often in front of the whole community. A large percentage of the attackers are HIV-positive and knowingly try to infect their victims.

Cute Baby Bats

Generally ugly creatures, these bats actually look quite cute.

Wrapped up in their tiny blankets, the bundles of woe pictured below are surviving on the milk of human kindness.

The orphaned baby fruit bats are being raised at a rescue centre after a plague of poisonous ticks swept through their colony. Used to snuggling up to their mothers, they need to be kept warm and are fed through teats with a sugary liquid full of nutrients.

Link [via]

Someone's Sleeping In My Bed.....

[via]

Video: Cop Car Caught Doing Donuts

With nothing much to do in the Aussie outback, someone (possibly a copper) performs donuts in a police car.

Video: The Man Who Can Parallel Park Anywhere

Reminds me of the scene on Friends when Ross buys a sports car but can't get out of a tight parking space. [via]

Befuddlr- Flickr Puzzle Game

Befuddlr is a puzzle game that takes photos from Flickr, either your own or ones from Flickr groups, and mixes them up so that you can put them back together. [via]

The World`s 10 Most Famous Uncracked Codes

10 famous uncracked codes including Kryptos, a sculpture installed at the CIA in Langley, Virgina that has been unsolved since it was installed in 1990.

Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the encrypted messages it bears. It continues to provide a diversion for employees of the CIA and other cryptanalysts attempting to decrypt the messages. The ciphertext on one half of the main sculpture contains 869 characters in total, however Sanborn released information in April of 2006 stating that an intended letter on the main half of Kryptos was missing. This would bring the total number of characters to 870 on the main portion. The other half of the sculpture comprises a Vigenère encryption tableau, comprised of 869 characters, if spaces are counted.

Desktop Evolution: Windows vs Mac

The evolution of the Windows and Mac desktops between Windows 95 and Windows Vista and Mac OS7 and 10.5. [via]

The 14lb Pearl And Other World Record Gems

The world's largest gems including the 'The Pearl of Allah', a 31,893.5 carat pearl named after Allah because it looks like a turbaned head.

The World's Tallest Fountain

The King Fahd Fountain in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is the largest in the world. The water can reach a maximum height of 1023ft and each of the 3 huge pumps deliver 625 litres of water per second. The water leaves the nozzles at 375kmh. Deputy Dog has more photos and a video of the fountain in action.

Video: Football Time-Lapse

A time-lapse video of a football game from start to finish.

Video: Fan Breaks Off On Jet Engine

What happens when a fan breaks off on a jet engine.

Photopoly

Photopoly allows you to customise Monopoly with your own photos and names. For $30 you get everything you need - just add photos!

Paint Layers

Taken from Belmont Art Park in Los Angeles, this 1cm thick paint fragment shows dozens of layers of paint that have built up over the years.

Video: 721 Claps A Minute

I thought the warm up was fast enough.