In Japan, where palm reading remains one of the most popular means of fortune-telling, some people have figured out a way to change their fate. It’s a simple idea: change your palm, change the reading, and change your future. All you need is a competent plastic surgeon with an electric scalpel who has a basic knowledge of palmistry. […]

From January 2011 to May 2013, 37 palm plastic surgeries have been performed at the Shonan Beauty Clinic alone. Several other clinics in Japan offer the surgery, but almost none of them advertise it.

{ The Daily Beast | Continue reading }

photo { Brendan Baker }

Holograms of human figures are appearing increasingly often in airports as virtual assistants. And they may also be introduced in various commercial activities. […]

The woman was two-dimensional, a projection on a human-shaped glass sheet. […] She is a product by Tensator®, a “queue control and management solutions” brand. Installed in June of last year, an aviation trade publication reported she cost the airport only 26,000 dollars. The avatar runs 24 hours a day and is portable so she can be moved to other areas of the terminal. […] You will find similar holographic announcers or “airport virtual assistants” in Dubai, Washington Dulles, Macau, Istanbul Ataturk and Long Beach, among other locations. […] The next step will be to install more interactive virtual assistants, which might answer basic questions from travellers about things like flight times, gates or rental car locations. Their plan is to provide models with a touch-screen interface next to the avatar rather than Siri-style speech technology. Voice recognition, while available in the more expensive models (roughly 100,000 dollars) isn’t recommended for airports due to the likelihood of interference from background noise. […]

Musion is better known for their less practical work: reviving dead celebrity singers. Their most famous project was the digital resurrection of Tupac Shakur at last year’s Coachella Festival. The company also recreated Frank Sinatra to perform at Simon Cowell’s 50th birthday party. […] Copyright permissions and objections from various estates, in addition to the high costs, have so far prevented “resurrections” from becoming a more widespread trend.

{ Domus | Continue reading }

art { Wayne White }

In January 1986, 11 men went to bed in Moscow - and didn’t get up for the next 370 days. […]

Spanish neurologist Jose Delgado from Yale University used a remote control to telecommand a bull during a bull fight. […]

What happens if you bring three men together who all think they are Jesus? […]

In Summer 1978 a man approached women on the campus of Florida State University saying: “I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be very attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?” Some days later a woman went around with the same question for men. [PDF] […]

On Good Friday 1962 researcher Walter Pahnke administered 10 theology mind altering drugs before the church service. Some test subjects became priests.

{ Weird Experiments | Continue reading }

Couple Plans To Deliver Baby In Dolphin-Assisted Birth.

A person named “John Titor” started posting on the Internet one day, claiming to be from the future and predicting the end of the world. Then he suddenly disappeared, never to be heard from again. […]

He claimed he was a soldier sent from 2036, the year the computer virus wiped the world. […]

Titor responded to every question other posters had, describing future events in poetically-phrased ways, always submitted with a general disclaimer that alternate realities do exist, so his reality may not be our own.

{ Pacific Standard | Continue reading | johntitor.com }

{ The guy on the roof… why is he hiding behind such heavy pixelation? }

unrelated { Is gratitude always good? No. }

{ Rockets with plastic golf balls, replace driver clubs, as they fly to the green no matter how far. Shawn Kelly, golf pro, will compete against Doug Frost, the inventor of Rocketry Golf, who has built and flown Rockets since 1957 and has won over a dozen awards at 15 national rocket contests. | Rocketry | PRWeb }

The telepathy experiment was conducted under the following conditions;

There were 6 people in the laboratory; 2 engineers from the factory that makes thermography (they both are graduates of Tokyo Denki University), 2 students assistants, myself and Mr. Geller.

Under no circumstances, Mr. Geller could have seen my drawing before the experiment was all over. Only after Mr. Geller drew the image he received, my drawing was revealed.

{ Prof. Yoshio Machi/Tokyo Denki University | Continue reading }

The defendant in the deadly Colorado theater shooting could be given “truth serum” under a court order issued Monday to help determine whether he is insane if he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. […]

A narcoanalylitic interview is a decades-old process in which patients are given drugs to lower their inhibition. Academic studies have shown that the technique has involved the use of sodium amytal and pentothal, sometimes called truth serum.

{ AP/Mercury News | Continue reading }

For the last six months, Cody Wilson and his non-profit group Defense Distributed have worked towards a controversial goal: To make as many firearm components as possible into 3D-printable, downloadable files. Now they’re seeking to make those files searchable, too–and to make a profit while they’re at it.

In a talk at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas Monday afternoon, Wilson plans to announce a new, for-profit spinoff of his gun-printing project that will serve as both a repository and search engine for CAD files aimed at allowing anyone to 3D-print gun parts in their own garage.

{ Forbes | Continue reading }

related links posted between april 2012 and today in every day, the same, again:

The world’s first 3D-printed gun.

Airbus designer hopes to see planes roll out of hangar-sized 3D printers by 2050.

MIT students reveal PopFab, a 3D printer that fits inside a briefcase.

Japanese company will 3D print your fetus for $1,275.

PayPal Founder Backs Synthetic Meat Printing Company.

3D print glove is a wearable mobile phone.

Ever wanted a life-like miniature of yourself or loved ones? Now’s your chance, thanks to Omote 3D, which will soon be opening a 3D printing photo booth in Harajuku, Japan.

In October, 3D-printing startup Shapeways opened its New York production facility in Long Island City, Queens, the biggest consumer-focused 3D printing factory in the world.

The Pirate Bay launches crazy Physibles category for printing 3D objects.

Which 3D printers should you buy?

In many ways, today’s 3D printing community resembles the personal computing community of the early 1990s.

China’s first 3D printing museum opens.

“3D pen” can write in the air.

An Artificial Ear Built By a 3D Printer and Living Cartilage Cells.

Alien abduction insurance is an insurance policy issued against alien abduction.

The insurance policy is redeemed if the insured person is abducted by aliens.

The very first company to offer UFO abduction insurance was the St. Lawrence Agency in Altamonte Springs, Florida. The company says that it has paid out at least two claims.

The company pays the claimant $1 per year until their death or for 1 million years, whichever comes first. Over 20,000 people have purchased the insurance.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Cruentation was one of the medieval methods of finding proof against a suspected murderer. The common belief was that the body of the victim would spontaneously bleed in the presence of the murderer.

Cruentation was part of the Germanic Laws, and it was used in Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Scotland and the North-Americans colonies. In Germany it was used as a method to find proof of guilt until the middle of the 18th. century.

The accused was brought before the corpse of the murder victim and was made to put his or her hands on it. If the wounds of the corpse then began to bleed, or if other unusual visual signs appeared, that was regarded as God’s verdict (judicium Dei) announcing that the accused was guilty.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

{ A cephalophore is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head. }

{ To truly understand the technique you have to have firsthand experience, so CBS 5 brought along one of its interns, Allie, to take on the new service. }

In the 1990s, Thomas Quick confessed to more than 30 murders, making him Sweden’s most notorious serial killer. Then, he changed his name and revealed his confessions were all faked. […]

There were no DNA traces, no murder weapons, no eyewitnesses – nothing apart from his confessions, many of which had been given when he was under the influence of narcotic-strength drugs.

{ Guardian | full story }

image { Marina Abramović, Rhythm 10, 1973 }

A single mysterious computer program that placed orders — and then subsequently canceled them — made up 4 percent of all quote traffic in the U.S. stock market last week, according to the top tracker of high-frequency trading activity. The motive of the algorithm is still unclear.

The program placed orders in 25-millisecond bursts involving about 500 stocks, according to Nanex, a market data firm. The algorithm never executed a single trade, and it abruptly ended at about 10:30 a.m. ET Friday.

{ CNBC | Continue reading }

{ How leading anatomical experts predict our descendants will differ physically from us in 1,000 years from now | The Sun | full story }

Devising marking systems (signs & etc.) which can be easily understood by anyone, anywhere, and in any language, is never going to be an easy task. Now imagine that on top of this, the systems have to remain intact and effective for the next 10,000 years. Specifically to discourage inadvertent intruders at a large-scale nuclear waste repository.

Just such a daunting task was evaluated by two teams co-ordinated by the US Sandia National Laboratories in 1992. They produced a 351-page report detailing their findings: Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant [PDF | 20MB].

{ Improbable Research | Continue reading }

oil on canvas { Johannes Kahrs, Untitled (four men with table), 2008 }