Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Alexander Khokhlov

Russian photographer Alexander Khokhlov and makeup artist Valeriya Kutsan use the faces of female models as a canvas. I particularly like the photos in which they purposely try to turn the models faces into 2d images.




























Friday, November 22, 2013

Perhaps the worst attempt at a music video ever

This is definitely in the category of so bad it is funny. It has everything; terrible writing, terrible singing and terrible choreography. Just hilarious.


Monday, November 11, 2013

The Touching Story Behind These Unique Headstones


The graves of a Catholic woman and her Protestant husband who, due to the segregation of the period, were not allowed to be buried together.



In the 19th century, the Dutch lived with a form of segregation known as pillarisation. The two primary pillars were the Catholic and the Protestant. Each pillar had there own separate schools, newspapers, banks, hospitals, trade unions, political parties, ect. This often led to a situation were people of one pillar had little to no contact with people from another.

In 1842, J.W.C. van Gorkum, a colonel of the Dutch Calvary, married  J.C.P.H van Aefferden. The marriage was no doubt scandalous as van Gorkum was Protestant and van Aefferden a Catholic. Despite this, the two remained married until the passing of van Gorkum in 1880. Eight years later van Aefferden passed away. Though the couple wished to be buried together, the pillarisation of the period would not allow it. As a work around, arraignments were made for each to be laid to rest near the wall which separated the Catholic side of the cemetery from the Protestant side. The tomb stones rise above the wall with two hands reaching over the top clasped together.

Headstone of J.W.C. van Gorkum


Headstone of J.C.P.H van Aefferden


The cemetery near the chapel in't Zand

Pillarisation

Boing Boing: Segregated headstones reach over the cemetery wall


Monday, November 4, 2013

Nanny State: Watch Where You Point That Thing!

I guess zero tolerance also means zero brains. According to this local news story, eight year old Jordan Bennett (pictured bellow) was suspended from Harmony Community School in Osceola County Florida after fashioning his hand into a gun during a game of cops and robbers.

The boy's mother, Bonnie Bennett, stated "There was nothing in his hand. He used his thumb and index finger. It was a game. He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone. No words were said.” 

Using way too much common sense for the school to handle, Bennett said that she would have been fine with the school giving him a warning or even a lighter punishment but feels the suspension goes too far.  “They took a child that has never been in trouble before and went to the extreme...A child that has no history of violence is now classified as a violent offender.”

The school won't comment specifically on the incident due to confidentiality but says that after reviewing the incident, the boy's actions violated the code of conduct. 

I personally think that there must be other considerations which we are not privy to. For instance, what sort of gun was it that he fashioned his hand into? Did this gun have a high capacity magazine? Did it hold illegal hollow-point bullets? 

We need tougher regulation over the use of the thumbs up. There is ample
evidence to demonstrate how easy it is to convert such a gesture into a 
handgun by simply extending the index finger.



Perspective Illusions In Honda Commercial

Very clever Honda commercial using some of my favorite perspective illusions.