Top 10 Unusual Uses of a Camera

Top 10 Unusual Uses of a Camera

From recording events to damaging careers, cameras have made a huge impact on society. It sums up a whole story in a single image or a video. It serves as a preserver of memories and as a communications tool. This list gives you ten unorthodox yet fascinating things cameras have been used for.

10 Document Your Eating Habits


Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu is a Japanese inventor who claims to hold the world record for the number of inventions, the most notable being the technology for floppy disks, the digital watch, Cinemascope and the taxicab meter. He is quite well-known, appearing in several American shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and Late Night with David Letterman. What puts him on this list is the fact that he won the 2005 Ig Nobel prize (an annual award that honors achievements that ‘first make people laugh, and then think’) for Nutrition. What did he do that made him one? For 34 straight years (and counting), he managed to photograph every meal he’s ever eaten, and after that, he analyses the nutrition content of his past meals. According to him, his goal is to live 144 years.


9 Capture a Slice of Life


Every Day is an ongoing visual project created by U.S. Artist Karl Baden. It involves him taking a photograph of his face on a daily basis. It started on February 23, 1987, and is still continuing today. According to Baden, the inspiration for this project ‘originates in the vectors of curiosity and distress tied to four factors’ that affected his life. These factors are mortal, incremental change, obsession (in relation to the psyche and art-making) and the difference between perfection and ‘being human.’
As for the method of capturing this ‘slice of life,’ the same setup was used for all the portraits taken: a single camera, with a tripod, strobe lighting and a white backdrop. The portraits have been almost always the same, his face in the center, under the same lighting conditions, with minimal expression and distinct indicators of mood and/or personality.

Many times during the course of the project, Baden takes a series of his photographs and creates an installation with it. One example is 10x10x10, a series of eleven framed photos taken 10 months apart, beginning October 10, 1987, which was displayed in tandem with a book. It was displayed at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York from September 7 up until October 31, 1995. Also, during May 2007, he exhibited 7,305 contact prints of the photographs he had taken on himself to mark the 20th year of the project.


8 Serve as a Memory Aid


Ever had those annoying senior moments when you forgot where you put your car keys, or the remote control? With the Cyber Goggles, that will be a thing of the past. Designed by scientists at the University of Tokyo, the Cyber Goggles consists of a small compact camera and LCD screen connected to the goggles . These are connected to a small but ‘intelligent’ computer strapped to your back. To use it, focus the camera on an important object you want to find later, such as car keys, and say the name of the object. The computer records the image and connects it to the object’s name. When you want to find the object, just state its name and the computer will search its database, finding the right image to show, and then display it on the screen.
Although the goggles have technical flaws, the technology shows great promise in advancing the field of robotics. The image recognition technology that the goggles uses could help in the development of more human-like robots. It will not be available in your nearest tech store yet, but it is an interesting use of innovative technology.


7 Make Yourself ‘Invisible’


Speaking of the University of Tokyo, 3 professors from there demonstrated in 2003 that invisibility can be achieved. Well, sort of. Using a surprisingly complicated setup called that uses optical camouflage technology, Susumu Tachi, Masahiko Inami and Naoki Kawakami managed to create the illusion of invisibility. It involves the use of a video camera, a computer connected to a projector, and a special coat made of reflective material. What happens is, the camera, placed behind the coat, records the scenery behind whoever is wearing the coat, feeds it to a computer, and projects the scenery to the front of the coat wearer, making it seem that you can see through the coat-wearer. Voila, instant ‘invisibility’! Well, sort of.


6 Monitor your Cat


Cats are born wanderers. So naturally, the owners can sometimes get curious about their whereabouts. That happened to Jurgen Perthold and his pet tomcat, Mr. Lee. To fix the problem, Perthold came up with the CatCam, a 2-1/2 oz. A camera attached to Mr. Lee’s collar, to help him record Mr Lee’s escapades. The camera, which takes photos every minute for a total of two days, has shown Mr. Lee with other cats, exploring the neighborhood, hiding under cars, walking down various gardens, and even meeting a snake. The photos of Mr. Lee’s ‘adventures’ soon attracted worldwide attention through Perthold’s website and started a fad, as other cat-owners started attaching their own CatCams to their pets.



5 Light over the Brooklyn Bridge


Improv Everywhere, a comedic performance art collective based in New York City, specializes in creating ‘scenes of chaos and joy in public places.’ They execute pranks, called missions, in various places in New York. Some examples are frozen in place in Grand Central Station, riding on the New York subway with no pants, swarming a Best Buy department store wearing Best Buy employee shirts, and many more.

One of their more interesting missions is the Camera Flash experiment. A week before the 125th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge in May 2008, 700 Improv Everywhere agents lined up the length of the bridge, and flashed their cameras at the same time, creating an amazing wave of light that traversed the bridge. Although it was raining at that time, the mission was a success, although not many people get to see the flash up close.



4 Create Performance Art

Li Wei, a Chinese contemporary artist from Beijing, combines performance art and photography in his stunning works of art, such as his series of photos that depict him in death-defying situations. For example, he made a series of photos of himself supposedly pushed off a skyscraper and free falling . He also made a startling series of photographs showing him landing headfirst on various surfaces such as sidewalks, windshields, and water. In fact, most of his photographs depict him (and other various models) defying gravity in some way. Most of Li Wei’s illusions were achieved with the use of invisible steel wires, a special mirror and Wei’s own acrobatic skills.


3 Cover an Entire Van


Harrod Blank is an American ‘art car’ artist, and is one of the people responsible for starting the so-called ‘art car’ movement in America. ‘Art cars,’ by the way, are cars whose appearances had been altered for artistic purposes. To combine his love for art cars and photography, Blank covered a 1972 Dodge van with 2,000 cameras, hiding ten working cameras around it that can be operated on the dashboard, and paraded it around the streets of New York City in 1995, while capturing over 5,000 pictures for a photography exhibit entitled ‘I’ve Got A Vision.’



2 Create Living Pictures


Arthur Mole, an English commercial artist, became famous for his series of ‘living pictures’ of thousands of soldiers forming various American patriotic symbols. Made during World War I, these live compositions were captured using a regular camera from an 80-foot tower. The mole would usually spend around a week planning and organizing each picture, with his partner John Thomas. He would direct the various troops to form an image according to a picture drawn on the camera lenses. After that, assistants would trace the outline of the image using long pieces of lace to approximate how many soldiers would he need for the photograph.
Mole’s, most famous photographs were the Human U.S. Shield, made with 30,000 men, The Human Liberty Bell, made with 25,000 men, Human Statue of Liberty, with 18,00 troops, and a portrait of then-president Woodrow Wilson made with 21,000 soldiers.


1 Capture Masses of Naked Bodies


American artist Spencer Tunick tops the list for his work in ‘documenting the live nude figure in public.’ He is best known for his installations that depict large masses of nude people in various artistic positions in equally diverse public settings. His unique interest first began in New York in 1992, starting on single individual nodes or a small nude group. In 1994, he began documenting large groups in various temporary sites in the U.S. And abroad.

Since then his installations have travelled around the world, especially around Europe and South America. His largest installation involved photographing 18,000 nudes posed in Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo, on May 6, 2007, which is more than double his previous record of 7,000 people in Barcelona. He is also often commissioned by various organizations to do special installations, such as Tunick’s installation of 600 nudes forming a living sculpture on the Aletsch Glacier in collaboration with Greenpeace, in an effort to draw attention to the effects of global warming, on glaciers on August 18, 2007.

10 More Terrifying Killer Fish

             10 More Terrifying Killer Fish



This shocking list is the sequel to the popular list 10 Terrifying Killer Fish. While that list explored the lesser known terrors of the deep including man-eating European Catfish and Giant Gars, this new list takes the fear factor to an entirely new level with even stranger and more terrifying killers. Dangers of the most unexpected, yet worst kind lurk in the lakes, rivers and coastlines across this watery planet. Prepare to never again enter the water as we look at the 23 foot long Giant Sawfish, Vampire Characins, Snakehead and the horrific pace.


10 Pacu


We are familiar with the horror stories of shark attacks, but there are far more terrifying and bizarre ways to be killed by a fish. The pace is a three foot, 55 pound fish with a horrifying set of strangely human like teeth that may be put to truly horrifying uses. Pacu originally prowled the waters of the Amazon, but have now shown up in North America and Asia after being introduced for sport fishing. In 1994, two New Guinean fishermen were killed in two separate attacks when a mysterious creature in the lake bit of their most vulnerable anatomy, causing them to bleed to death. The attacks prompted the world famous extreme angler Jeremy Wade, to travel to the lake to catch the culprits, which he identified as giant killer Pacu. This is certainly the creepiest fish in existence.


9 Giant Sawfish



When we fear the attacks of deadly killer fish, we imagine being bitten, swallowed or dragged to the depths. However, the Giant Sawfish is capable of reducing a human intruder to minced meat in an entirely different manner. Growing up to 23 feet in length, the Giant Sawfish is armed with an enormous saw measuring over 8 feet in length, studded with enormous cutting blades. Sawfish do not deliberately hunt humans according to current knowledge, but the combination of extremely poor eyesight and strong territorial defenses is a deadly combination of humans. Intruders are treated in the same manner as prey and may be slashed apart by the enormous saw blade. Even worse, sawfish may remain invisible until it is too late. The largest sawfish species may appear in rivers as well as lakes, adding a dimension of unimaginable terror. Unfortunately, human interference has led to this dinosaur age sea monster becoming threatened with extinction.



8 Flathead catfish



Reaching lengths over 5 feet and weighing up to 120 pounds, the Flathead Catfish is North America’s largest catfish, and a fearsome predator capable of taking on other fish, mammals and water birds. The Flathead lurks in dark crevices in the Missouri river and other major waterways across the continent, and bursts forward with lightning speed to capture prey in its rubber-like grip. If one of these giant fish were to seize a human foot, persuading it to let go could prove highly difficult. Aggressive Flathead Catfish may plausibly be considered as a culprit behind the unexplained drownings of swimmers and fisherman in American waters. Even more disturbing is the fact that fish may continue to grow throughout much of their lives, meaning larger, potentially man eating specimens may exist.



7 Payara (Vampire Characin)



There are creatures on this Earth so horrific that they strain the boundaries of human imagination. The Payara is so unearthly and shocking that it might be explained as Count Dracula in fish form, or an aquatic saber toothed tiger. Growing up to 4 feet in length and weighing up to 30 pounds, the little known Payara or “Vampire Characin” possesses fangs up to 6 inches in length which it sinks into aquatic animals in ferocious lunging attacks, sensing the location of internal organs as it precisely drives in the fangs. Humans swimming in the Amazon River could potentially be stabbed through the heart or suffer a collapsed lung in a Payara attack. Payara are becoming popular sport fish, partially due to the danger presented by the unimaginable fangs, and were nicknamed “Cannibal Piranha” due to their habit of preying on closely related Piranha.



6 Wallago Attu Catfish


The Wallago Attu is a fish straight from a nightmare. Inhabiting the waterways of Southern Asia, India and Afghanistan, this “Shark Catfish” is an 8 foot long stalk and lunge predator with a mouth filled with massive, recurved teeth. With its extremely sleek body and powerful fins, the Wallago lunges from the shadows of rivers and lake shores and consumes whatever prey happens to be close by. The Wallago Attu has become greatly feared by villagers due to its reputation for consuming children who venture close to the water. Due to the ferocious, predatory nature and incredible speed of this monster catfish, Wallago Attu have become known by the alternative name “Lake Shark”.



5 Atlantic Goosefish


Possessing a truly ghastly appearance, the monstrous Atlantic Goosefish grows up to 6 feet in length and weighs over 70 pounds. Lying camouflaged among the rocks, goosefish lunge forward to seize prey in their caverns, tooth lined mouth set with jaws capable of engulfing a football. A swimmer would have great difficulty escaping the grasp of a Goosefish, but the real danger lies in the potential to be swallowed. Goose Fish have a stomach nearly the size of their body. Three foot individuals have been found with prey items only several inches shorter than their body length. Specimens only slightly larger than the six foot monsters found to date may be capable of simply swallowing a human who ventures too close.



4 Goliath Grouper


While many of the fish on this list are bizarre in some way, the Goliath Grouper inspires terror merely by its huge size and voracious ability to swallow almost anything it desires. Weighing up to 1,000 pounds, possessing an enormous round mouth and measuring up to an incredible 16 feet in length, this aggressive, giant relative of Bass and Cichlids has no problem preying on humans. In several cases, divers have been stalked and charged by the gigantic fish, and one diver reportedly found himself in the mouth of the sea monster before he burst through its enormous gill opening. Apart from the Great White Shark and Giant Catfish, the Goliath Grouper is the most capable of any fish on this planet of simply eating a human in a few gulps.



3 Giant Snakehead


The Giant Snakehead has drawn attention worldwide following its introduction into temperate waters, sparking fear of a dangerous plague. Growing up to 4 feet in length and weighing up to 50 pounds, Giant Snakeheads are ferocious predators capable of destroying almost any medium sized animal they encounter. Armed with razor sharp teeth and extreme muscle bound bodies, Giant Snakeheads have caused serious injuries to rice paddy workers, swimmers and fishermen who invade the fish’s territory. Aggression is most extreme when the parents are protecting their young. Ferocious ramming and biting attacks have resulted in drownings, while attempts to capture the fish have proved fatal to anglers who were badly beaten and speared by their fishing rods when the aggressive fish turned to ram them. Tragically, children have reportedly been killed in predatory attacks by these “demonic” creatures.


2 Greenland shark


We normally imagine shark infested waters as tropical locations, and enjoy a sense of relative safety in the temperate waters of the North. However, even diving in Arctic waters is no guarantee you will avoid a shark attack. The Greenland Shark grows to over 20 feet in length, and feeds as a stalk and lunge predator. In one case, this giant of the North was found with a young polar bear in its stomach, and others contained Reindeer. Although recent fatalities have not occurred due to the remote locations of the habitat and the icy water, Inuit Legends refer to times when kayaker hunters were tipped out of their Kayaks and consumed by the icy predator. Although not confirmed, a human leg was reportedly found in the stomach of a Greenland Shark in 1859 in Canada. We feel that the existence of such a creature is sufficient to destroy any sense of safety, wherever there is water.



1 Surgeonfish


The roughly 100 species of Surgeon Fish inhabit shallow coral reefs worldwide, and some types are among the most beautiful tropical fish. However, a diver would be well advised to steer clear of these two foot beauties. For concealed in their tail is a naturally evolved switchblade, which the surgeonfish will not hesitate to use as it “operates” on intruders into its territory. A human who foolishly reaches for the fish or invades its section of the coral reef may suddenly be slashed by the blades, leading to amputation, or severing of tendons or arteries. The blood loss could possibly be fatal to the unfortunate swimmer in of itself, but even worse, the wounds could attract an even more deadly reef shark.

Top 10 Biggest Explosions

10There is something very fascinating about watching the destructive beauty of things blowing up. It seems that every decent action movie has to have some kind of spectacular explosion. However, in real life there have been many kinds of explosions, and many are greater than the big ones in movies. Here is a brief list of the biggest explosions known to mankind.




10 FOAB



Type: Largest explosion created by a non-nuclear weapon

FOAB (Father of all Bombs) is a Russian tactical weapon, designed to detonate in midair and deliver an incinerating Shockwave to the target area below it. The bomb yields the equivalent of 44 Tons of TNT, making it about as powerful as the smallest nuclear weapons in existence. However, FOAB does not generate the radioactive fallout that nuclear weapons do. FOAB is part of a “miniature arms race” between the United States and Russia. In 2003, the United States developed MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb) which is a similar device with a yield of 11 tons of TNT. MOAB was quickly termed the “Mother of all Bombs” in accordance with its acronym. In an apparent response, Russia developed its “Father of all Bombs”, in 2007, which it claims is four times as powerful and slightly lighter in weight. However, the United States Military is dubious of these claims, and says that it is very possible that the film that Russia released on the test was doctored, and that several of the “facts” about the bomb were exaggerated for propaganda purposes.



9 Minor Scale



Type: Largest man-made conventional explosion

Minor Scale was a test performed by the United States, on June 27, 1985. The United States Defense Nuclear agency detonated almost 5,000 tons of ammonium nitrate fuel oil, to simulate the effect of a nuclear weapon. The main purpose was to see how a small nuclear weapon would affect military hardware. In the photograph, an F-4 Phantom can be seen in the wake of the explosion. An interesting fact: There is a dispute about whether or not this was, in fact, the largest conventional explosion. The Heligoland explosion was carried out by Great Britain when the Royal Navy detonated 6,700 tons of leftover arsenal from WWII. While the Guinness Book of Records records Heligoland as being larger, the yield of Minor Scale was greater by about half a kiloton of TNT.



8 Tunguska Event



Type: Largest impact of recorded history

On June 30, 1908, there was a large explosion above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in Russia. The explosion created an estimated yield of 10-15 megatons of TNT, or about 1,000 times the yield of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. While there are a good number of conspiracy theories as to what caused the explosion, the majority of the scientific community agrees that it was caused by a meteoroid exploding in midair. Even though the meteoroid exploded in midair, the event is still considered an impact. The explosion is believed to have occurred in midair because, even though there have been several searches for it, no one has ever been able to find the crater. However, there was an area of about 2,150 square km where trees were bent away from the epicenter of the blast.



7 Tsar Bomba



Type: Largest man-made explosion

Tsar Bomba was a hydrogen bomb developed by the Soviet Union, and tested on October 30, 1961. With a yield of 57 megatons, it was the most powerful man-made explosion ever. The bomb was actually originally intended to be more around 100 megatons, but the fallout of such a device would have been too problematic. Even though Tsar Bomba was detonated in the very remote location of the Novaya Zemlya island chain, north of the Russian mainland, it still caused a great deal of collateral damage. A village 55 km from the test site was completely leveled. Damage to buildings occurred as far away as Norway and Finland. The explosion created a mushroom cloud 64 km high, and a Shockwave that was still detectable on its third passage around the earth.



6 Mount Tambora Eruption



Type: Largest Earthbound explosion recorded by humans

On April 5, 1815, Mt. Tambora erupted in Sambawa, Indonesia, creating the most powerful explosion ever witnessed by humans in historic times. The Tambora eruption is estimated to have unleashed the equivalent of 800 megatons of TNT, making it about 14 times more powerful than Tsar Bomba. The eruption was heard as far away as Sumatra, which is 2,600 km away. Before the eruption, Mt. Tambora was 4.3 cm tall, but after it was only 2.85 cm tall. The volcano created an ash column 43 km high, and dispersed ash into the stratosphere and around the globe. This ash blocked out the Sun and caused the year 1816 to be the second coldest year in recorded history. Crop failures and famines occurred all over Europe and North America. It is estimated that about 10,000 people died directly from the eruption, and that about 70,000 died from the resulting climate change.


5 Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event



Type: Largest known Earthbound explosion

About 65 million years ago, an event known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary Event caused the extinction of many organisms, but is most famous for causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Many scientists believe that this was caused by an asteroid impact that created the Chicxulub Crater located off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. It is estimated that the explosive force of this impact would have been the equivalent of 96 teratons of TNT, or about 1.7 million Tsar Bombas. This would make the impact the greatest explosion to ever occur on earth, for which there is sufficient geological evidence. The impact would have caused climate change, much like Mt. Tambora but much more drastic, and this climate change is believed to be what ultimately killed the dinosaurs.



4 GRB 080319B



Type: Largest explosion ever directly witnessed by humans

Gamma-ray bursts are among the most violent known events in the universe. The exact cause of Gamma-ray bursts is not fully understood, although most astronomers hold that they are linked to extremely large supernovae. Gamma-ray bursts usually last 20 to 40 seconds and shine gamma-rays (hence the name) in a relatively narrow direction. Gamma-ray bursts are extremely rare, with one occurring every few hundred thousand years in each galaxy. On March 19, 2008, a gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B occurred, and was visible to the naked eye for about 30 seconds. The explosion took place 7.5 billion light-years away, making the most distant object viewable without a telescope. The explosion is estimated to have generated the equivalent of 2×1034 tons of TNT, or about the equivalent of 10,000 times the Sun’s weight in TNT detonating all at once.



3 SN2006gy



Type: Largest known supernova

On September 16, 2006, the largest known supernova, SN2006gy, was discovered. Supernovae occur when stars run out of fuel, collapse on themselves, and then explode. Extremely large supernovae, or hypernovae, is among the most violent events in the universe, and are believed by many to be the source of gamma-ray bursts. SN2006gy occurred 230 million light years away, when a star about 150 times as massive as the Sun collapsed on itself. The amount of energy output by this Hypernova is estimated to be approximately equivalent to 2.5×1035 tons of TNT, which is roughly the same amount of energy put out by all the stars in the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies in one minute. An interesting fact: Because Hypernova are usually caused by very large stars, there is usually enough remaining material from the star to continue collapsing after the explosion. This remaining material will sometimes collapse until its volume reaches zero. This means that many Hypernova form black holes.


2 GRB 080916C



Type: Largest true explosion ever

The universe is a big place. Astronomically large objects are difficult to comprehend, and the largest known explosion, GRB 080916C is no different. GRB 080916C was a gamma-ray burst that was first recorded on September 16, 2008. The burst occurred about 12.2 billion light-years away and lasted 23 minutes, which is a very long duration of a gamma-ray burst. For those 23 minutes, the gamma-ray burst was putting out more energy than most galaxy superclusters. It is estimated that the blast had the equivalent amount of energy of 2×1038 tons of TNT. That’s the same as a trillion Tsar Bombs going off every second for 110 billion years, or about 7,000 times the amount of energy that the Sun is expected to put out in its lifetime.


1 Big Bang

 
Type: Largest “explosion” ever

It’s only appropriate that the Big Bang be number one. However, the Big Bang was technically not an explosion. An explosion occurs when matter moves through space from a high pressure point to a low pressure point, and does so very, very rapidly. However, the Big Bang involved space itself expanding rapidly, not matter expanding through space. In fact, because the universe is still expanding, one could argue that the Big Bang is still occurring. Another misconception about the Big Bang Theory is that it does not explain how the universe began, or how matter and energy first came to be. It only explains how space rapidly expanded about 5.4×10-44 seconds after the universe began.

10 Unbelievable Technologies that Exist Now

10 Unbelievable Technologies that Exist Now

We have now passed the half way point of the year, and what a great year it is shaping up to be. Let’s take a step back, though, to a time when things were simpler. Friends was the coolest show on TV, Britney Spears was a new, annoying sensation and The Matrix was better than anything that had ever existed. Ever.

Technology was really starting to pick up back then, and the Internet was finally starting to seem like more than a flash in the pan. If only we could go back to those times, even if but for a moment, and see the innocence and naivety in our own eyes as we looked onto a wonderful future of incredible technological advancement.
The state of technology in 1999 was pretty impressive, we thought, and it was hard to imagine things getting much better. We were doing pretty well for ourselves and surely wouldn't see any major technological advancements for decades to come.

Ten years later, the world is a very different place than we never could have imagined, in our wildest of dreams. There has been a surge of revolutionary technologies in the last decade that even Science Fiction couldn't have predicted. Everything from the way we play, to the way we think, has been challenged due to these advancements. Here are just a few.





10 Portable Gaming Devices

Just before the turn of the millennium, portable gaming was booming. Most people that had a portable gaming device sported a Game-boy  and the really lucky ones had a Game-boy Color. There was always that one rich kid at Pizza Hut, too, with the Sega Game-gear that people couldn't stop talking about, and Pokemon was taking the world by storm.
At night, you would fall asleep with images of the Atari Lynx swimming around in your head and hope that one day you could afford one. 10 years later, you’re glad that your parents never sprung for one of them.
Not long after that part of your life, the portable gaming world changed dramatically. With their staunch lead, Nintendo started to be more experimental and it paid off. The Game-boy Advance put quality graphics that were slightly above Super Nintendo, and sound in the palm of your hand, and further still the Nintendo DS (a few years later) managed to squeeze out post-N64 quality gaming with a touch-screen, and opened up a whole new world of gaming possibilities.
What’s more impressive is that, for once, Nintendo had some serious competition in the portable gaming racket. Sony took their powerful juggler naught, the PlayStation 2, and compressed it into a comfortable, handheld console that demanded respect. Graphics and sound quality that Sony was notorious for could now be enjoyed, portable, on a beautiful 4.3″ screen.
If only you knew, back in your room 10 years ago, that things were about to change, and that one day you would forget all about the Atari Lynx… until you read about it in a List verse article.



9 Hybrid Cars

Electric cars have been on the tongues and minds of consumers for decades, and the conspiracies and facts behind their obvious exclusion in the automotive world have raised a lot of questions and frustrations. Electric cars will greatly reduce man-made pollution, make the roads quieter and safer, and take the icky smell out of the air at Quick-e-marts worldwide. They’re an obvious “next step” in technological evolution.

In 1999, however, during a time when much of the world experienced a great deal of prosperity, the electric car was little more than a pipe dream. We all thought it sounded like a neat idea but were reluctant to accept it as a real possibility in the near future.

Well, we were half right.
Hybrid cars have finally clawed their way into the spotlight. Their part-gasoline-part-electric functionality has brought the whole concept of being “carbon sensitive” into the mainstream. Gasoline cars got the job done, but required too much pollution and too low of gas mileage to be acceptable anymore. Electric cars were silent and gave off virtually no pollution, but had to be recharged every 50-100 miles. The hybrid was the perfect answer.
It’s true that we still have a few years (but possibly fewer than we think) until we see every car on the street be Electric Powered, but for now the number of cars that run at least *partially* on electric power would incite quite a bit of skepticism one decade ago.




8 Solid State Data Storage

In 1999, if you had an 8 gigabyte (gb) hard drive, you were the cool kid on the block. “What can you possibly fill that whole thing up with?” your friends would ask you.

Computer games you bought at the store fit on a single CD-ROM, and everyone knew that you had to wait for your hard drive to spin up before each level. Those of us who were especially caring of our expensive, magnetic, spindled drums of data would even run Scan disk and Def rag on them (which would take hours, of course). Things were looking up, too, as hard drive experts predicted that in the year 2000, 30gb hard drives could be as cheap as $200.

Now, imagine yourself waking up in the middle of the night because someone outside your window is throwing pebbles on it. When you open your window, you notice that they look exactly like you, only about 10 years older. They tell you not to worry, because in a single decade hard drives will be ridiculously smaller, lack any moving parts, be practically weightless and can withstand far more brutal environments.

Oh, and it’s far cheaper, too. You know that 8gb hard drive you just spent $150 on? You can get one that fits in your coin pocket for $15, down the street.




7 Broadband Internet

Remember ISDN? Integrated Service Digital Network? Although it’s possible that you do, it’s far more likely that you don’t. It was the closest thing to broadband in 1999.

No, the vast majority of people accessed the internet from a 56k modem. Those who were not at least in the lower-middle class, however, had to dink around a 14.4 modem, or worse: 2400 baud. It’s enough to make one shudder.
Back then, though, the internet was a much simpler place. Text, images and an occasional embedded MIDI were all that was expected of any given website. Animated GIF’s were the future, and Flash showed some serious potential.
These days, however, the internet is a wonderland of bandwidth-sucking marvels. Streaming video and music, Bit Torrent and Cloud Storage systems are everyday necessities and require almost as much bandwidth as our hard drives do. If you were to try to watch a 10 minute YouTube video back in 1999, it would take 68 minutes to buffer. These days, if it takes more than 15 seconds, we get our ISP on the line.



6 The iPhone

Almost anyone can admit that when they first heard of the iPhone, they thought it was a hoax.

Criticize it, love it, boycott it; it’s undeniably one of the most influential changes to the consumer electronics world in the last 10 years. It has revolutionized how we see and use cell phones and has inspired numerous alternatives. These days, devices that have nothing to do with cell phone technology adopt the most popular features of the iPhone. Touch screens, flick-style scrolling, app-based operating systems (complete with some rendition of an ‘Application Repository/Market’ system), device screens that almost completely cover the system, drawer-style interface elements and mobile internet browsing have all become commonplace since the iPhone, and for good reason. The iPhone did what everyone wanted, but no one had yet accomplished.

Suddenly having the full, non-WAP-based internet at your fingertips was demanded by the masses. Many other devices offering similar features (Google Android, WebOS/PalmPre, etc.) sprung up to offer competition, which is a common sign of extreme influence over an entire industry. And let us not forget the iPhone 4g which is now offering video calling between phones – a dream that many of us thought impossible some twenty or so years ago.
To sit down and describe the iPhone to someone back in 1999 would be the equivalent of describing the Hollyhock to someone today.




5 The Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii has been criticized for its hype, but any way you look at it, it’s a revolutionary system. The graphics aren't as good as the competition and the media capabilities are lacking among its peers, but the number of sales speaks for itself: The Wii is a hit. Why? Well, unless you call your local quarry an apartment complex, you know.

It’s motion-capture technology, among the multitude of other unique interfaces (the Wii Fit board, Nun chuck and numerous attachments to make them seem more like their digital counterparts), have set it above the rest. It’s, arguably, so impressive that most users can forgive its lackluster shortcomings. Even grandma is off the couch, now, and tossing a bowling ball down the lane.
Despite all of the controversies around the Nintendo Wii, remember that, in 1999, the best system on the market was the Dream cast (which was considered ahead of its time). Along with the dream cast was the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. If you were to convince someone to pause Super Mario 64 for a moment and tell them that, in 10 years, there was going to be a system that allowed you to control the game by way of virtually free motion, they would laugh at you and go right back to stomping Goombas.




4 HD TV

As with most technological advancements, we don’t know how good it can be until we see it. Television in 1999 was downright fuzzy by today’s standards. The visual differentiation between DVD and VHS was negligible and live TV was the highest quality it had ever been before.

The video files out there would watch their DVD’s on their computer screens, where it — for some reason — looked much crisper. Of course, the reason why it looked so much clearer was that it was higher resolution.
The average, standard definition television renders at about the equivalent of 640×480 pixel resolution. That was more than enough to see the hairs on Grace’s head, but had you an HD television, you’d be able to see Will’s five-o-clock stubble.
HD television is still not quite as common as standard definition, but if the other advancements on this list are any indication — that is about to change. The prices of consumer-level High Definition televisions is on the decline, and it’s expected that the number of HD TV’s in the United States will increase significantly this holiday season.
Think it’ll take another 10 years for an HD TV to be in the living room of every American Home?




3 iPods

Yes, yes, it’s true that the iPod isn't the only MP3 player on the market, but given the fact that it was the first MP3 player to end up in the average person’s pocket is enough clout to put it on this list.

To understand the influence the iPod has had over music in general, you have to understand how much more it did than put a music player in the pockets of the every man.
The iPod played a pivotal role in the MP3 format. With the ability to have a hard drive’s worth of songs in your pocket came the need to squeeze as many songs into a confined space as possible. The MP3 format, with sound quality that is indistinguishable from CD’s by the average ear, put thousands of songs where only dozens once stood. These days, an album of MP3′s is far more common than the CD, and more people are listening to music now on a daily basis than ever.




2 WiFi

Wireless technology was still relatively immature in 1999. Cell phones were relatively common, but still a luxury (and a bit larger than they are, now). Texting wasn't very popular, and data plans were light years behind where they are now. Beyond that, the only other common access to wireless technology was the radio stations we would play in our car.

The Internet was primarily accessed at home, or more commonly at higher speeds at your local library or your school’s computer lab. The internet was quickly building momentum, and local area networking (LAN) was pretty commonplace for LAN gaming and business communication. Few people were unaware of computer networking.
The problem, however, was wired connections and lack of portability. If you brought your laptop to work, it essentially became a small desktop, tethered forever to the wall for network access. Anyone familiar with the LAN party scene of the late 90′s remember how long it would take to get everyone connected to the network, able to “see” each other and, furthermore, able to communicate properly. No one complained much about the technology at the time, simply because no one realized how much easier it would be in the near future.
If you told someone in 1999 that, in 10 years, they could “beam” a video from a computer in one room to another computer halfway across the house, they would tell you it was science fiction. How could you transmit that amount of bandwidth over the airwaves? The concept was as alien as UFO’s.
What is really strange about the WiFi phenomenon is that it could be considered a nearly silent infiltration of consumer electronics. It seemed like overnight WiFi went from an interesting, speculative article you read in Wired to being advertised on every coffee shop window in town. Now, suddenly, you found yourself charging your laptop twice a day, instead of just leaving it plugged in and connected to the network all day long.


1 The Wiki Reader
In the 2002 movie The Time Machine (and, also, the original masterpiece by H.G. Wells), a character named Vox calls himself, “a compendium of all human knowledge.”

That concept alone (even in 2002) was pretty remarkable. To have a single source, with an easy-to-use interface, for access to all the recorded knowledge that humans have ever achieved was a concept of wonder and awe that the average person could only dream about.
Then Wikipedia came. Now, right off the bat, no doubt many of you are warming up your keyboards to smash out disappointment in Wikipedia being cited as anything but a hacked together Super Blog. It’s true, there is quite a bit of literary vandalism on Wikipedia and a huge portion of the cited resources within the site simply refer to *more* websites. However, the enormous amount of *verifiable* knowledge within is adequate enough to be considered — arguably — the largest collection of human knowledge ever compiled.
That concept alone, as amazing as it is, would likely be believable. A really huge website with a whole lot of text. Sites like that existed even back in 1999.
What would likely *not* be conceivable, is being able to hold all of that information in the palm of your hand, retrievable at any time. Any time that someone asks you about something that you don’t know, or if you find yourself lost for information in a jam or if you simply want to be able to prove someone’s claims as utterly false, that now is possible at a moment’s notice.


“But I can do that with my phone,” you might say. That’s true! Accessing Wikipedia from the data connection of your phone within decent range of a cell phone tower is possible in many populated areas right at this moment. However, once you find yourself with a dead cell phone or in the wilderness, your access to the compendium is lost.
Until now. The Wiki Reader boasts a full year of power off of two AAA batteries and no data access requirements of any kind. It’s Wikipedia in your pocket, no strings attached.
Who would have thought that Vox would exist before flying cars?

Very Unfortunate X-Rays

Top 10 Very Unfortunate X-Rays

X-Ray photography has had an enormous impact on the quality of health-care that we receive in modern days. There is no doubt that it makes surgeries for the removal of foreign objects much easier (in the old days Doctors would have to cut and hope for the best). This list includes 10 of the most unfortunate accidents caught on X-Ray film. Warning: some images are very disturbing.

10 Foot X-Ray

This is a Chinese woman with bound feet. You can read more about bound feet on this list.

9 Smoking Gun

Is that a gun in your vagina or are you just happy to see me? Actually, that’s a gun-shaped lighter and a glass crack pipe.

8 Bottle Butt

60 year old man with a bottle up his butt; it was forcibly inserted by thieves.

7 Nail gun

A rather unfortunate nail gun accident.

6 Butter Knife

This is an eleven year old boy with a butter knife lodged in his head.

5 Army Sergeant

United States Army Sgt.stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad.

4 Car keys

This is a 17 month old baby that fell on a set of car keys.

3 Scissors

A pair of scissors caught in a man’s throat. I don’t even want to begin to imagine how they ended up there.

2 Drill Bit

An 18-inch drill bit pierces a man’s eye…

1

A dog in North Carolina that swallowed a fork