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2011/10/13

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The 10 Weirdest Things You Can Do With Your Ashes

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 05:08 AM PDT

The only certain things in life are death and taxes, and since taxes will never be fun, you might as well try to make your death into something a little entertaining. While most people are laid to rest in a coffin, buried in an urn, or scattered somewhere memorable, there are plenty of other options for your remains. Here are a few of the most unique things you can choose to do with your ashes.

Incorporate Them Into Bullets

A true hunter shouldn't let death stop them from killing more animals. Fortunately, a new company named Holy Smoke is making efforts to ensure the last remnants of your physical remains can still be used to hunt down your favorite prey by incorporating your ashes into hollow-point bullets or shotgun shells. While it's not among the suggested uses, you could also hire a hitman to use these bullets to take out your most-hated enemy, ensuring even death can't stop you from exacting your revenge.

Image Via celest343 [Flickr]

Press Them Into Your Favorite Record

For those people who live and breathe music, there's no better way to be remembered than to actually become part of their favorite album. And Vinyl will allow you to press your ashes into any record you want, including your own original album. They'll even write a song for you for an additional fee. As a bonus, you can also have your ashes incorporated into a painting that will be used as the album cover. Now that's a rocking way to go.

Tattoo Them Into Someone's Skin


Granted, there have not been any long-term studies about the potential risks of tattoos incorporating ashes, but plenty of people have these memorials without any side effects and ashes are generally sterile, so it's too much of a hazard as far as we know. Even so, if you're going to ask a loved one to get a tattoo memorializing you, you might want to make sure they're ok with the idea first, and, of course, make sure you can find a legitimate tattoo artist that is willing to work with ashes, since many are not.

Image Via Spy On Pea [Flickr]

Melt Them Into a Diamond

If you or your spouse loves bling, then why not make plans to turn yourself into a sparkly fashion accessory after your death? This is also a good way to ensure that your spouse won't get remarried for a long time –after all, it's a little weird to go on a date while wearing the remains of your loved one.

Create Art With Them

Be honest, it's a little creepy when someone has a giant portrait of a long-deceased relative in their home, but if you really want to take the feeling of unease to another level, try incorporating the ashes of the person into their memorial portrait. Of course, if your family isn't the type to line hallways with portraits of dead family members, you're likely to end up decorating the attic.

While there are a number of companies that offer this service, such as Memories From Ashes who did the work above, they seem to go out of business on a regular basis, so you might want to talk to some local artists if you really want to get this done.

Melt and Cut Them Into Stained Glass Designs

If you like the idea of diamonds and artwork made from ashes, but wish there was an option that was slightly less creepy, then a stained glass memorial might be the way to go. This way you can be in the home of your loved one, shining light on them, but not staring down at them or tagging along wherever they go. You'll be still pretty, but a lot more subtle.

Shoot Them Into Space

Is your favorite song "Rocket Man" by Elton John? Then you might just be the ideal customer for Celestis, a space burial company. For only $2,500, your remains can orbit around Earth. At $10,000, you can ensure they achieve lunar orbit, but if you want to go all out, be sure to save up for the deep space package that will run you $12,500. Wondering who else will share your resting place? Well, LSD advocate Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry have both has their ashes scattered in the night sky.

Burry Them In A Pringles Can

To be fair, this is a pretty strange idea for even the most hardcore junk food addict, but it was certainly an appropriate move for the inventor of the Pringles can. Fredric J Baur first created the prototype for the design in 1966 and in 2008, he was laid to rest inside an empty, original-flavor can, per his dying wish.

Image Via Roadsidepictures [Flickr]

Incorporate Them Into A Frisbee

Baur isn't the only person to request that his final resting place incorporate his life's work. While Edward Headrick wasn't the inventor of the Frisbee, he was the person most responsible for the toy's success. As a manager at Wham-O, Headrick made a number of improvements to the design and he also invented disc golf.

Before he died, Headrick requested that his kids have his ashes mixed in with a batch of Frisbees and that the proceeds from the special edition discs would be used to establish a disc golf museum. No word yet on the museum, but the Frisbees themselves became quite a popular collector's item. These days, the two-disc collector's set costs $200 on Amazon.

Use Them In Comic Book Ink

While plenty of comic book fans might love to have their ashes incorporated into the ink of their favorite titles, so far only one person (that we know of) has been lucky enough to have this wish made into a reality. Of course, it helped that Mark Gruenwald was an editor for Marvel Comics for a long time before he made the strange request. The reprinted version of his 1985 comic Squadron Supreme was printed in 1997 complete with ink featuring trace amounts of its creator.

If you could do anything with your ashes, what would you do? Would you pick any of the items on this list?

18 Cool Exampes Of Long-Exposure Photography

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 02:03 AM PDT

I don’t know about you guys, but I love photos that incorporate long exposure techniques, although I don’t have nearly enough patience to ever try them on my own. That being said, WebUrbanist has an awesome collection of some seriously stunning long exposure images that are definitely worth a click.

Link

Star Wars Alphabet

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 01:57 AM PDT

Have you ever wished you could write a letter using your favorite Star Wars characters? Well, thanks to the artwork of Fabian Gonzalez you can. Now if only someone could make this a font that could be used on your computer.

Link Via Laughing Squid

5 Safety Measures That Don' Make You Safer

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 01:53 AM PDT

Helmets, anti-lock breaks, sunscreen -they all seem like they should make us so much safer and healthier, but as it turns out, they can actually put us in more danger, largely because we take our safety for granted once we have these protection measures in place. Read about these and other safety precautions that actually make you less safe in this great Cracked article.

Link

Eyeliner Skull Costume

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 01:46 AM PDT

Don’t have a lot of money but still want to have a fearsome Halloween costume? If you have the art skills you can always try making your own skull face painting like this one by Redditor Fakeproject.

Link Via BoingBoing

Angry Birds In Real Life

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 01:29 AM PDT

Admit it, we’ve all wondered what kind of birds the angry birds actually are. Finally, someone has caught pictures of the animals in their wild habitats where it is a lot easier to tell their actual species.

Link Via Laughing Squid

Beautiful Photos of Animals’ Eyes

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 10:13 PM PDT

Suren Manvelyan, Nylus Crocodile, 2011

A couple of years ago, Armenian photographer Suren Manvelyan was a bit of an Internet sensation… even if only behind-the-scenes. His macro photo collection, “Your Beautiful Eyes,” was shared nearly everywhere online and published in Daily Mail, The Independent, the Telegraph, La Reppublica, and Liberation. Now Manvelyan is back with a slightly different focus, this time shooting animal eyes. The variation in these extreme closeups reveals not only the varying pupil shapes you’d expect in different animals, but also the differing complexity of the creatures’ ocular evolution. It’s a beautiful gallery, which we hope he’ll be expanding soon. Link | via Flavorwire

Cross-Legged Chair

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 08:21 PM PDT

The Cross-Legged Chair by Vladimir Tsesler sure has nice legs! Via Design Milk

Double Waterfall Flaming Cocktail

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 06:18 PM PDT


(Video Link)

I don’t care what it tastes like. I just want to see this bartender in action! This video shows a man setting a Mexican coffee (a type of cocktail) on fire and then pouring the flaming liquid in and out of serving dishes.

-via reddit

Stitched Head Necklace

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 06:06 PM PDT

You’d lose your head if it wasn’t stitched on. Thankfully, Kerri McAlprin has solved that problem with this clever necklace.

Link -via The Mary Sue

Can a Venus Flytrap Digest Human Flesh?

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 05:35 PM PDT

At some point in our lives, each of us has wondered if a sufficiently large venus flytrap could eat us. Also, is there one lurking nearby? Can they fly or teleport at will? Barry White, a scientist (specifically, an astronomer), devised an experiment to partially resolve the first issue. Can a venus flytrap digest a portion of human flesh? Due to a case of athlete’s foot, he had some to spare and fed it to the plant:

After a week, the traps opened. I had predicted the skin chunks would be relatively inert and unaffected. After all, these were hard, crusty chunks of skin from the sole of my diseased feet. Surely the Venus flytraps would have no effect upon them.

Was I ever wrong! The skin chunks were almost completely digested. Worse, what was left no longer had much cohesion, but was gooey and slimy, like little boogers. Uck! Uck! Uck! And what is with the weird hue shift to bacon color?? Uck! Uck! Uck! Iä! Iä!

You can see pictures of his semi-digested human flesh at the link. Because, you know, you want to. Admit it.

Link -via io9 | Photo: Flickr user sophitikittenlin

Voltron Fan Film Justifies Immediate Reboot of the Series Using All of Hollywood's Resources

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 05:26 PM PDT


(Video Link)

Yes.

Let it be done.

It is time for Voltron, the Defender of the Far Universe, to return to the screen. Hollywood: our supply of romantic comedies is quite adequate, thank you very much. Now devote your efforts to this noble cause. Spare no expense.

-via blastr

When You Need to Get Out Right Now, Use the Ejection Seat Office Chair

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 04:43 PM PDT

Your TPS reports are overdue, and you’ve got eight different bosses giving you contradictory instructions and telling you how much you’ve screwed up. It’s time to get out, fast! This office chair, made from a real ejection seat from a Royal Navy strike aircraft, is just what you need.

Link -via Nerdcore | Photo: When It’s Gone, It’s Gone

Pikachu Sunrise

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 04:20 PM PDT


Photo: Luis Argerich - via Buzzfeed

First it was Sunsquatch, now Pikachu sunrise! Argentinian photographer Luis Argerich took this photo of an unusual sunrise over Rio de La Plata.

APOD explains that it's just low level clouds but just you wait till it attacks with the Volt Tackle!

There's an Appified Fridge For That!

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 02:19 PM PDT

If NeatoShop's zany selection of refrigerator magnets is too low-tech of a way to leave notes for your loved ones, there's an app for that!

Behold the Samsung's Appified Refrigerators that not only keep your groceries cold, but let you browse Twitter, too: Link

Amazing Paintings On Feathers

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 02:11 PM PDT

Face it, most of us would sooner throw away bird feathers before we ever considered using them for an art project. Fortunately, artist Ian Davey is not like the rest of us and he has taken to using swan feathers as canvases for his lovely paintings. The results are simply stunning, as you can see by exploring the gallery at the link.

Link

Street Fighter: The Shoe

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 02:05 PM PDT

Projects like this make me wish I was a better artist, but alas, I think the best hand-painted design I’d be able to come up with would be a smiley face. Oh well, at least us non-artist types can still appreciate looking at these awesome hand-painted Street Fighter shoes.

Link

Songs That Have Been Ruined By Movie Montages

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:58 PM PDT

There was a time when you couldn’t make a Hollywood film without some sort of montage that moved the action along, covered the passage of time in a couple of minutes, and featured a song the producers hoped will become a hit for the film soundtrack. Some were re-releases of existing songs; others were first heard in the movie.

Whether you love or hate seeing montages in movies, there's no denying that they are an effective story telling tool – even if they were way overused throughout the '80s. Regardless of how you feel about montages though, it's hard to deny that they can easily ruin an otherwise good song by creating a scene so memorable that you can't think of anything else but the movie whenever you listen to the track. Here are a few songs that are impossible to listen to without getting montages stuck in your head.

Rue The Day has seven such songs, plus a bonus song that’s about movie montages. Link

Ninja

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:51 PM PDT


(vimeo link)

Olivier Trudeau produced this stop-motion ninja duel on his kitchen table using action figures in his spare time. I love the cinematic sound effects! -via One Large Prawn

A Lannister Always Spays His Pets

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:46 PM PDT

Jeff Wysaski printed up a public service announcement based on the HBO series Game of Thrones. It was posted at a veterinary office. Look how healthy his dire wolf is! See it full size at Pleated Jeans. Link

Posters For The Arrested Development Movie

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:37 PM PDT

Now that the Arrested Development movie is official, it’s time to start thinking of a poster design. While they could go with some serious designs, I think these funny ones on BuzzFeed would be a lot more appropriate.

Link

Chihuahua Vs. English Mastiff

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:32 PM PDT

(Video Link)

You’d think the mastiff would fair better, but sometimes being big is both a blessing and a curse.

Via BuzzFeed

Adorable, Inspiring Images of Disabled Pets

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 01:20 PM PDT

A lot of people shy away from adopting special needs animals, but these pets can often provide a whole new level of companionship that most people will never experience. Photographer Carli Davidson knows just how special these animals are, which is why her images portray them in such a loveable light.

Link

Pedestrian Signals From Around The World

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 12:58 PM PDT

This week Der Spiegel has an article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the introduction of pedestrian Don’t Walk/Walk signals to East Germany.

The hat became the trademark of East German pedestrian crossings. It made them unique. Nowhere else in the world had traffic figures ever worn hats. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), at least when it came to this, was in the lead… and today, 50 years after their birth, Peglau’s traffic light men are not only used as traffic signals, but can be seen on T-shirts of Hollywood stars like Dennis Quaid.

The link provides background history of the East German icons, and a photo gallery shows examples from countries around the world, some of which are frankly bizarre.

Link. Photo gallery (27 images).

Human Hair Embroidery

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 12:19 PM PDT

Well, why let cats have all the fun? Colombian artist Zaira Pulido creates her embroidery art using long strands of human hair:

Bogota-based Zaira Pulido has been asking every one of her friends and people she’s into for strands of their hair to use in a series of embroidered artworks. She uses the human hair instead of the usual thread and creates various works, like embroidered portraits of her friends (each made with their own hair), an embroidered comb or a replica of her bra.

See more at Oddity Central: Link | Zaira's Flickr Photoset

Kraken or Krakpot?

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 09:08 AM PDT

Of all invertebrates, the octopus is considered the most intelligent, and sadly, rather underrated. They’ve been caught on video wrestling sharks to death like sea-dwelling honey badgers, using tools and opening twist-cap bottles. And according to at least one paleontologist, their ancestors may have been bigger, smarter, scarier and perhaps even a bit artistic.

The Triassic World

During the Triassic Period, a creature we call Ichthyosaur swam the seas, chowing down on whatever it wanted–it was the size of a school bus and had a mouthful of jagged teeth, and until Monday, paleontologists assumed it sat at the top of its watery food chain. But a stash of nine interestingly arranged, fossilized icthyosaur bodies discovered in Nevada have long confounded researchers, who haven’t been able to determine how they died. Formerly, it was believed the seas were shallow in that location and the giant proto-whales fell victim to an algae bloom. But evidence from the surrounding rocks indicate the seas were still deep at the time of their demise, leaving science with something of a mystery.

That’s where Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin comes in. "Charles Camp puzzled over these fossils in the 1950s," said McMenamin. "In his papers he keeps referring to how peculiar this site is. We agree, it is peculiar.” See, the bones of these ichthyosaurs are etched differently from one another, indicating that they didn’t die at the same time. But since they’re all buried together, something interesting had to have happened. And McMenamin thinks that “something” is the work of kraken.

Deliberate Burial

McMenamin believes that the midden-building and predation behaviors observed in modern octopuses–specifically that of the famous Shark vs. Octopus video, wherein an unassuming dog shark gets totally pwned by a seemingly mild-mannered cephalopod–support the theory that gargantuan prehistoric kraken were terrorizing the ichthyosaur population, “either drowning them or breaking their necks." Suspiciously twisted necks and many broken ribs from the ichthyosaur dig seem to support the idea, as fantastical as it is. But weirdest of all is how the bones came to be buried together, and why their arrangement seems bizarre: "I think that these things were captured by the kraken and taken to the midden and the cephalopod would take them apart,” and rearrange them into what McMenamin believes is “the earliest known self portrait.”

In the fossil bed, some of the shonisaur vertebral disks are arranged in curious linear patterns with almost geometric regularity, McMenamin explained.The proposed Triassic kraken, which could have been the most intelligent invertebrate ever, arranged the vertebral discs in double line patterns, with individual pieces nesting in a fitted fashion as if they were part of a puzzle.

To illustrate, the bones are arranged like this:

That’s not even a little bit creepy.

Or is it Pareidolia?

Soft-bodied animals, by virtue of definition, have nothing to leave in the fossil layer, so McMenamin’s tentacled beast will likely never turn up even if it did exist. And this presents something of a problem for the theory, since many researchers are “highly skeptical” of his “evidence.” Roger Hanlon, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, says,”There’s nothing in the scientific literature that suggests that modern-day cephalopods do anything like this.” And according to Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Nevada site “essentially represents a mass burial ground for ichthyosaurs in a shallow sea.” Speaking to Christian Science Monitor, Dr. Thomas Holtz Jr. of the University of Maryland declares that McMenamin’s approach to understanding the ichthyosaur peculiarities “is too many steps away from the evidence to call it science.”

But that doesn’t mean that McMenamin is universally scorned: science writers and kraken enthusiasts are rooting for McMenamin and his Triassic tentacled leviathan. Rebecca Boyle of PopSci is sympathetic, hypothesizing that “the hypothetical kraken was just lonely, and, unable to clone itself [as some modern jellyfish can], it made an artistic rendering of an imaginary friend? It seems possible, although maybe less possible [than] the imagined kraken.” But if moral support is what McMenamin needs, Cyriaque Lamar at io9 has got it in spades: ”[T]he possibility of finding that which is essentially a gargantuan mollusk’s macaroni illustration? That’s the kind of glorious crazy you hope is reality.”

What do you think, guys? Is McMenamin’s idea a little too crack-pot to hold water, or is there maybe something to this whole self-expressive kraken thing?

Sources:

Image 1 | Image 2

Messy Handwriting Foils Bank Robbery

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 08:55 AM PDT

Here’s one person who wishes now that he’d practiced his handwriting like his elementary teachers wanted him to. Thomas J. Love went to a bank in New Castle, Delaware, with a plan to rob it. He handed the clerk a note written on a deposit slip.

The teller, unable to decipher what was on the deposit slip, handed it back to Love to rewrite. Empty handed, he then fled the bank on foot.

After a description was provided, a New Castle County police officer located Love in the area of New Castle Avenue and Rodney Drive and took him into custody.

Love is being held on a $2,000 bond for attempted robbery. Link -via Arbroath

50/50 Savings Bank

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 08:16 AM PDT

50/50 Savings Bank – $19.95

Are you having trouble deciding how much to save for something responsible versus something fun? You need the 50/50 Savings Bank from the NeatoShop. Life is so much more fun when you let fate decide.

The 50/50 Savings Bank is a pachinko-style coin bank with 2 separate coin compartments. It comes with a handy dandy dry erase marker so you can customize and personalize your bank.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Money Banks & Storage options.

Link – Thanks for the suggestion John!

Marge Simpson in Banana

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 07:33 AM PDT

Doesn’t Marge look lovely? Japanese artist y_yamaden carved her likeness in a banana. Link -via Laughing Squid

The Bug Circus Generator

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 07:23 AM PDT


(YouTube link)

This ad shows how efficient Snapdragon processors are by inferring that they can be powered by insects. And if you care about cruelty to bugs, you should know that the actual circus acts are special effects, a well-done combination of CGI and image collage. Which is less expensive than actually procuring bugs this big! -Thanks, Dustin Willson!

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