Games that become â??cultâ?? have usually missed out on massive mainstream success, instead earning themselves an ardent following that grows more slowly over the years.
They can sometimes be hard to spot when Call of Duty and FIFA make so much noise: here are 10 of the best from the past decade or so.
1. Beyond Good and Evil (2003)
Journalist, Jade explores an exotic world in an effort to discover the truth about an alien invasion. She uses stealth, martial arts, a nifty hovercraft and photography combined in a unique, high-quality game that also manages to be deeply moving. A classic example of a game that offered so much yet â?? bafflingly â?? failed to become a big hit. By popular demand, an HD revamp was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011.
2. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002)
This rather special survival horror title is a tale of ancient gods and freaky forces that’s steeped in all things HP Lovecraft. It has a novel feature that involves your character losing his or her grip on sanity, and you losing your grip on your character (you play twelve in total, from different points in history). Eternal Darkness is genuinely scary and far, far more inventive than some bestselling horror games we could mention.
3. Ico (2001)
A beautiful, emotionally involving experience, Ico isnâ??t just a game, it’s a work of art and an unequivocal high point in the history of video games. In a mysterious world, a young boy, Ico, is entombed in an eerie fortress. Escaping, he meets a girl, Yorda, and together they try to escape, all the while harried by shadow monsters who try to seize Yorda. It’s spare, haunting and gorgeous â?? a story played out with puzzles that rely on a remarkable bond between Ico and Yorda. Simply wonderful.
4. LocoRoco (2006)
This is a borderline cult game as it actually sold reasonably well, spawning sequels and spin-offs, as well as influencing iPhone hit, Rolando. However, it’s just so quirky and cute it needed to be included here. In a world of cartoony visuals, you navigate a jelly-like creature past dangers by rolling, bouncing, splitting and reforming. Straightforward concept, memorable game.
5. Okami (2006)
Another beautiful game with unusual graphics, resembling Japanese woodcuts and watercolours. Hand drawing plays a key role in the game, too â?? you can call up a canvas and use a “Celestial Brush” for puzzle-solving and combat. Gorgeous, award-winning and not played by nearly enough people.
6. Psychonauts (2006)
Here you explore not just the game’s “real” world, but also get to dive into the minds of its characters. This allowed legendary designer of eccentric games Tim Schafer and his team to let rip with colourful environments, weird creatures and plenty of dubious puns. Fun and very funny.
7. Rez (2002)
Originally released on the Dreamcast then the PlayStation 2, but later revamped for Xbox 360, Rez is a game that truly stimulates the mind and the senses. It’s essentially an on-rails shooter but what makes it distinct is its techno-psychedelic environment and how your targeting and destruction of enemies shapes the game’s groovy electronic soundtrack. It’s like Tron, played out in your own private rave.
8. Shenmue (1999)
Way ahead of its time for the seriousness of its storytelling and the detailed expanse of its open world, Shenmue has you playing a young man on the trail of the killers of his father in Yokosuka, Japan. You explore the neighbourhoods, talk to people, practise your martial arts, and even play classic arcade games within the game. Remarkable – and costly. Too costly in fact. The planned trilogy of games was never finished, leaving the 2001 sequel open-ended.
9. Vib Ribbon (1999)
A rhythm-based game, wherein you can utilise your own music collection to generate the levels, realised in distinctive white vectors on a black background. You guide a rabbit, ri, along a line, or , generated by the music. Failure to navigate the obstacles successfully will devolve ri. A string of successes will evolve her again â?? to the point, eventually of becoming a fairy princess. Aww.
10. We Love Katamari (2006)
The year 2004 saw the emergence of a brand new cult gaming phenomenon: Katamari Damacy. Except it was never released in Europe. Hmph. At least we got the sequels, starting with We Love Katamari (or indeed We Y Katamari). The Katamari games simply involve rolling up stuff â?? from paperclips to mountains â?? to the accompaniment of compellingly irritating music. Joyous.
Daniel Etherington is co-founder of The Truth About Games. He also wrote a weekly games column for BBC Collective for several years and has contributed to the estimable Eurogamer. He’s currently working on a novel called ‘Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Saving the World I Learned From Videogames’.
With 1.2 billion users around the world, it’s no surprise that there have been a few ingenious and unique uses pioneered for the mobile phone.
From the weird and wonderful to the illegal and dangerous, ingenuity has created several new devices out of this versatile communication tool. While your smartphone is certainly best suited for phone calls and texts, it has a number of capabilities that you might not be aware of. Please use the following information responsibly.
Mobiles can quickly and very easily be turned into detonation devices for bombs. Using only a screw driver, it takes mere minutes to set a detonator up. Since phones are so prevalent, and because the internal systems of all of them are so similar, they have become the most popular type of detonator used today. Of course, the online tutorials are helping them gain momentum, as well: Thank you, search enginesâ??not.
If you love the sensation of vibrating sex toys but are too shy to head to the adult entertainment store, you can download a number of applications that turn your mobile into a vibrator. These apps cause your phone to vibrate until you manually close the program out. This discreet and innovative use for a mobile can be utilized nearly anywhere, without the threat of embarrassing yourself if someone should see your personal massager fall out of your bags. Pack your â??toysâ? with you on a business trip, visit to the in-laws or a short holiday away. A number of plug-in attachments are on the market for more adventurous mobile users, as well.
The mobile phone makes an excellent one-time-use weapon. While you probably won’t be able to use any of its features after you’re done, you can turn your smartphone into a powerful projectile. Mobile injuries have opened wounds needing up to eleven stitches. A mobile phone clenched in your fist can help you break a nose, blacken an eye, or knock out a few teeth. The serious rumbler should probably keep his old phones on hand, as this could be one of the most expensive self defense options in the world.
Are you always losing your remote? Do you have to use several remotes with which to operate your entertainment system? Take back control of your electronics with one of several applications designed to streamline your many buttons onto one easy-to-operate screen. From the baby monitor to the garage door, you can operate everything in your world with a single Bluetooth widget. Most applications in this genre, including AVShadow for Blackberry, allow you to control up to 16 devices.
Turn your phone into a wireless modem and enjoy the Internet wherever you might be. Internet tethering, as this practice is commonly called, costs money with some wireless carriers; however many third-party applications can help users avoid incurring costs for occasional use. Connection from phone to laptop or desktop can be transmitted through Bluetooth or USB cable. Your phone will send any calls you receive while tethering directly to voice mail, so avoid tethering if you are expecting a ring.
Chloe Parker, the author of this article, is the chief editor of MobilePhones.org.uk. Click here to see all the phones that MobilePhones.org.uk has to offer!
There are more than half a million apps in the iTunes App Store, and you can find an app for just about anything.
Lots of apps are practical (alarm clock, anyone?); lots are helpful (the dictionary on-call); and lots enrich our lives and social connections in many different ways (Pandora, Instagram). And others are just plain… silly.
Some apps struggle to get any downloads, and others explode into global app stardom. Which apps sell like crazy? Theyâ??re often the silliest ones that leave us scratching our heads and asking, â??Why?!?â? Here are four of those apps.
The Moron Test
With a name like â??The Moron Test,â? you know this app is bound to be either incredibly silly, or incredibly stupid. Luckily for us, itâ??s silly, and despite the name, itâ??s genius. The Moron Test became a huge hit when it was released in 2009, and it spent weeks at the top of the iTunes charts. Since then, itâ??s remained consistently popular and is 11th best-selling app of all time. The Moron Test (99 cents) consists of several mini-tests that are seemingly simple, but their simplicity doesnâ??t mean theyâ??re easy. Youâ??d never think you would answer obvious questions like, â??Touch the orange apple,â? and â??Touch the smallest square,â? incorrectly you try this app. Itâ??s is quite the brain teaser, and the challenge of it is addicting – you wonâ??t be able to put it down until youâ??ve passed.
iFart Mobile
This app conjures up images of teenage boys laughing hysterically while making fart noises in the back of class as the teacher futilely attempts to teach Shakespearean sonnets. The silliness of immaturity, however, apparently makes for an incredibly high-selling app. For 99 cents, you can purchase an app that makes fart noises like, â??the burrito maximo,â? or â??the brown mosquito,â? with the press of a button. In 2011, for 21 days straight this app was the number one seller in the iTunes store, which at the time made it the 12th highest-selling app ever.
FatBooth
If youâ??ve ever wondered what you or your friends would look like after gaining 200 pounds, now you can find out. FatBooth is one of the silliest apps in the iTunes store, but itâ??s also one of the most popular of all time. Earlier this year, Apple released the list of the top 25 apps of all time. FatBooth was number 17 on the list of most popular paid apps. For 99 cents, you can turn any close-up photo of a face into the very fat twin of the person whoâ??s pictured. The app does nothing else, but millions of people were curious and silly enough to make this app a huge success anyway.
Angry Birds
On the topic of silly apps selling like crazy, Angry Birds is the definition of the subject. People all over the world have developed an obsession for this game, and itâ??s crazy how far the fanaticism has gone for such a silly app. Angry Birds is the most popular app in the iTunes store, period. It holds the position of number one in sales and downloads, and spin-off games Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Seasons made it into the top ten. For 99 cents each, these apps can entertain for hours, as you try to defeat the â??greedy pigsâ? who have stolen the eggs of the Angry Birds (if you donâ??t defeat them, God forbid, the Angry Birds will become extinct). With the precision of a slingshot, youâ??ll fling the Angry Birds into the air to topple the greedy pigsâ?? defenses.
This article was prepared with the help of the SEOmap team, a group of SEO consultants with a heart for mobile technology. You can learn more about their work here.
Throughout my life Iâ??ve always heard the term of working smarter not harder. Iâ??ll be honest with you; I didnâ??t really know what that meant up until a few weeks ago.
Thereâ??s many ways that you can improve your life, and the first begins with your body. You should always get enough sleep, exercise, balanced diet, and me time.
I knew that this was the formula to feeling great, but in the past this just wasnâ??t possible for me. There was never enough time. I was always working more, and it seemed like my days would be perfect if they were 28 hours long instead of 24.
So the first thing I started doing was hacking my brain to sleep less. Polyphasic sleep is a different approach to sleeping, as opposed to monophasic. Basically instead of sleeping one long 8-10 hour block during the night, you sleep less, and make it up through nap(s) during the day. For me this translated into sleeping 5-6 hours at night and napping 20 minutes when I got home from school. With the extra time I was also able to continue exercising twice a day like I did during the summer. I functioned as good with 5 hours and twenty minutes of sleep, as I used to with 8.5-10 hours a night.
Ever since I started doing this Iâ??ve been feeling better than ever. The best way I can describe it, is that I feel like superman. Iâ??m never tired anymore and I wake up without an alarm, every day. I go to bed 2 hours later than I used to last year, and I wake up an hour earlier; still feeling great. As for the diet Iâ??m not really focusing too much on it, because thereâ??s not much I can change. Exercising is also pretty relaxing, so luckily for me it counts as my me-time as well.
So if you want to start doing more, your first step is putting your body into optimal condition. You canâ??t work smarter if youâ??re tired or lethargic.
Productivity and Goals
Being productive and setting goals is something everyone can relate to. Itâ??s also something that most of us are bad at. There are many different techniques that you can use to improve productivity, such as:
Personally, I suck at setting long term goals and canâ??t think of even one long term goal I’ve ever accomplished. My only advice on setting goals and being productive isnâ??t just working to finish your tasks. When youâ??re done with your work feel free to pause and take a look at it. Admire your work and be proud of the things that youâ??ve accomplished, because if you arenâ??t, chances are you wonâ??t be motivated enough to do it again.
After all you spend a lot of time and effort working on different goals/tasks, you should be happy with your results instead of just mindlessly moving on to the next thing.
Learning New Things
When studying new topics that you must learn, it can be pretty daunting. Luckily for you thereâ??s a better way to do this. As opposed to using a site such as http://quizlet.com/ to learn from flashcards, you should use a program called Anki.
Anki
Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard program. It focuses on teaching you the material you donâ??t know, as opposed to wasting your time with the stuff that you already have learned. So when you are presented with a question, you think about the answer, after you see the answer you can decide whether you are feeling 1-4 on that question. If you choose 1 the question will be repeated soon, if 2 it will be repeated the next day, if you are a 3 the question will be repeated in a couple of days, and if you pick 4 it will be repeated in a week or two. So through this method you learn the stuff that you need to learn, but also get a chance to review other terms when you may forget them in the future. Anki is available on PC, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Working Smarter, Not Harder
I canâ??t really tell you how to integrate smarter solutions into your life. Thereâ??s so many different areas that you can improve, you just have to find what works for you. For example: the past few years if my homework problems were be too hard, I would just skip them. Now I found a free website called Slader, which has the answers/solutions to every single Math/Chemistry textbook ever made. By using Slader I am able to actively learn during my homework, rather than completely give up. For me that is a win, because Iâ??m learning, and in that sense Iâ??m working smarter not harder.
Another example is that I recently (past few years actually) started using Khan Academy. It is a website that has videos on anything from history, to basic addition, and calculus/trig. By using that website Iâ??m able to learn more efficiently and thus work smarter, not harder.
Also I realized that exercising twice a day may be a bit too much. I used to run twice a day and then workout at the gym once a day. The reason I was doing this was to be active, and also because I was trying to cut down on my mile time. I realized that if I run every other day Iâ??ll have more energy for working more at the gym, and Iâ??ll also have more energy to run faster miles every other day. By cutting down on running to only once a day, every other day, I was able to work smarter on my running goals and also at the gym.
Hopefully I was able to give you some ideas on improving your life. If you have any other techniques/ideas please feel free to share them in the comments.
When you buy a new smartphone or a new laptop this often isn’t a negligible expense by any means.
A new smartphone if you’re not on contract can cost as much as $800 or more even, and even if you decide to buy on contract you’re still essentially locking yourself into a highly expensive contract that will cost you hundreds of dollars over the year.
If you break your device then you will be losing a huge amount of money potentially, while at the same time being very disheartened to have what was probably and very exciting new device taken from you right away.
So the question is, should you insure it to avoid this happening? Here we will look at whether this is a good precaution.
Alternatives
When you buy your new device from Comet or wherever else, often the salesperson will try to convince you to spend more money on insurance and will act as though this is the only sensible option. Of course they say this partly because they will get commission on the insurance you take out â?? and it’s important to remember that there are other options for protecting your device.
One of these options is to look for insurance elsewhere â?? it may be that you can insure individual items like this more cheaply if you look online rather than using the in-store insurance. At the same time you should also look into household insurance â?? and depending on the nature of the device your item may even still be covered. If it’s a PC for instance and you drop tea on it, then this will probably be covered by your household insurance. Only devices that you are going to take out of the home such as phones and laptops need extra insurance then in many cases. Do your research and before you go into store so that you’re armed with knowledge.
Different Items
Weâ??ve already discussed that your desktop computers are probably insured by your household insurance, but there are other things you need to consider too. First of all think about the cost of the device. For me personally if my device is under $200 then I am often willing to just risk the cost of getting it repaired or replaced â?? or even looking to buy another one second hand when the time comes. Of course here you need to weigh up the cost of the insurance being offered versus the cost of the device.
Likewise you need to think about the durability of your device, as well as the cost of getting repairs. If you have an item that has gorilla glass in the screen and where replacement parts are easily and cheaply available online, then you might want to forego the insurance in this case.
Other Measures
Finally should also think about how else you can protect your device. Even if you do take out some form of insurance then you won’t want your item to break as you’ll still pay excess and you’ll still have to wait without your device while it gets repaired. For instance then it’s worth investing in a good protective case if you have a phone, and a lanyard if you have a camera, and you might want to choose your device as well based on how likely it is to get damaged.
Kat Edwards is a professional freelancer specializing in writing articles about technology and gadgets. In her leisure, she author articles about online caravan insurance comparison. Go ahead and follow her on Twitter!
Anyone that thinks about Africa and the many different dangerous animals there are, a majority of the people will tell you that the most deadly animal is the lion. However, believe it or not they are wrong.
That is right the lion is not the deadliest animal in Africa although some may say otherwise. Surprisingly the deadliest animal in Africa is the hippo.
The hippo is an extremely aggressive animal by nature. A lot of the time the larger hippos use different postures and positions to ward off other animals from approaching them. In fact if you are out in the wild with them a lot of the time you will even notice some cuts and gashes in their skin from frights earlier on in the day.
But the one thing that most people do not know is that the animals are not the only ones that have to watch the hippo when it is in surrounding. Humans actually have to watch them when in the same area. The hippo attacks people as well. You would not think that is possible but it is. There are numerous amounts of documented hippo attacks in Africa. What most people do not know is that they are extremely territorial and will attack anything that they find as a threat. So that is why in some parts in Africa they may have signs while on a tour that will say ‘stay in the jeep’. There is a good reason for that unless you want to become the next statistic for when a hippo attacks.
The female hippo a lot of the time will stay in the river taking care of the young, they are the more laid back of the sexes, unless the male is not in the area. That is when the mother hippo will actually charge at anything to make sure her young are safe, and who could blame them as any parent hippo or human would do the same thing if their child were in danger.. The hippo is known to have canines that can be up to 70 cms long, with only 30 cms exposed and are capable of running a whopping 20 miles an hour. Now that is fast for something so big. No one would want to be on the receiving end when a hippo comes charging at you.
So, if you know anyone that is going on an African safari make sure that you remind them to keep their distance from the hippo, as they could end up in some realy serious danger if the hippo feels threatened. Once you remind them that hippo attacks are more common in Africa than having a lion attack they should have no problem keeping that in mind while listening to the tour guide while on their trip.
Just knowing these few simple but lifesaving facts could mean that you stay alive a little longer on your trip through Africa, and that is why the hippo is considered the most dangerous animal in Africa. Now what are your thoughts?
A list of interesting and quirky facts about animals
1) Although cats meow with people, cats rarely meow at each other. It seems that the ‘meow’ is mostly reserved for us humans.
2) The old belief that bulls become agitated if they see the colour red is nonsense. Bulls are in fact colour blind.
3) Turkey has been associated with the traditional Christmas dinner for a long time now, but did you know that in the middle ages it was not uncommon to find a swan or a peacock on your plate.
4) When you think of the most dangerous animal in Africa; lions, crocodiles, rhinos and tigers come to mind. However, surprisingly, hippopotamuses kill the most people, by running them over and trampling their victim to death.
5) Litter in the form of plastic, such as discarded plastic bags kills 100,000 birds and marine animals every year.
6) A cow performs on average 40,000 jaw movements per day. That’s even more than a London cab driver would perform in the course of one taxi journey!
7) Don’t ever be afraid of a toad jumping at you. Yes, they can hop, but they can’t jump like a frog can.
8 ) If you are ever unlucky enough to get snapped up by a saltwater crocodile; whilst you are being twisted and thrashed around in the water to the tune of breaking ribs, spare a thought on how to escape. Apparently, you should poke your thumbs into the croc’s eyes and twist your thumbs around. Easier said than done I suspect.
9) The hydra, which is a close relative of the jellyfish can perform a neat trick. If you cut it in half, within a few days it will grow again to it’s normal size.
10) Cats can be either right-pawed or left-pawed, so next time you attempt to play a game of darts with your cat, please keep this in mind.
11) The poor old swordfish has shrunk! :0 In the North Atlantic the size of a freshly caught swordfish is just a third of the size of the impressive whoppers caught back in the 1960s.
12) Whereas a human being would store fat around the belly area, or around the thighs for women, the Tasmanian Devil stores body fat within its tail. So if you happen to see one with a very thin tail, the chances are that its unhealthy, so you’d be doing a good deed by throwing it a few scraps of food.
13) If you thought that the domesticated cat was sleepy, spare a thought for desert snails, who sometimes sleep for up to four years.
14) What animal drinks salt water? The answer is the humble seagull, because its glands are dedicated to filtering out the sodium.
15) Cockroaches will eat practically anything, even Marmite. But there is one food that it won’t eat, which funnily enough is the same food my greedy Labrador won’t eat too, and that  food is . . . the cucumber.
16) Who says that dogs don’t get a ticket to heaven. Dogs are mentioned in the Bible fourteen times in total.
17) What animals walked on tippy-toes? Well, you may be surprised to know that most dinosaurs walked on their toes.
18 ) Most tropical fish keepers in North America may be surprised to hear that around 95% of the tropical fish they buy actually come from Florida.
19) Which is the fastest moving snake that you’d have to put on some speed to avoid? It’s the Black Mamba, which can slither along at a respectable seven MPH.
20) I think you’ll agree that birds seem to be pretty busy all the time foraging for food. This is because on average, a bird must eat half its own weight of food per day. Those flapping wings must burn some serious calories, so the niche is open for someone to develop a flapping arms diet for humans.
21) If you have more than one cat, it may help to bear in mind that cats that are of the opposite sex generally get along much better than if you have several cats of the same sex.
22) What is the world’s smallest mammal? The answer can be found in Thailand. It is the Thai bumblebee bat which weighs less than a penny.
23) How do you stop your cat from scratching your furniture to sharpen its claws? The answer is by spraying distilled vinegar over your furniture items. The drawback however is that your house will smell of vinegar.
24) Sandpaper was once made from shark skin, as a shark’s skin is made up of tiny teeth.
25) Cats need taurine which is not present in dog food. So before you consider feeding your cat and dog from the same bag for convenience
26) Alligators, as well having reflexes that are 4 times faster than a human can also climb trees and outrun a human too.
27) What can help the humble cow produce more milk than average? The answer, surprisingly, is classical music.
28 ) Bats when exiting a cave will always exit to the left. And there are no traffic lights involved.
29) Ever had a bird hit your window? I think most people have seen this at least once in their lifetime. The fact is that around a thousand birds per year come a cropper and float up to bird heaven by hitting windows too hard.
30) Swans are owned in England by the Queen.
31) What snake has the longest fangs in the world? The answer is the Gaboon Viper. This snake has fangs that can be as long as two inches long.
32) Starfish are lacking one thing that is hard to imagine not having, and that is a brain.
33) Most people view a black cat crossing your path as bad luck. However, in certain parts of Japan this is actually seen as very good luck.
34) The ancient Greeks are often seen as an advanced race that came up with many innovations. There is however room for error in everything, as they believed that a zebra was the result of a random passionate encounter between a horse and a tiger.
35) A hippopotamus’s sweat is actually pink in colour when secreted during hot weather.
36) What would be the biggest ever animal witnessed alive in the world? The answer is a 113.5 foot long one hundred and seventy ton female blue whale.
37) A mole is an industrious little digger as it can dig a tunnel up to three hundred feet long in just a single night.
38 ) Has an animal ever been hanged for murder? The answer is ‘yes’, in Erwin Tennessee. It’s a good job elephant serial killers are not common.
39) A dog’s hearing is impressive, but a cat’s hearing is even more effective. Certainly more effective than a human’s hearing too.
40) Don’t stress your duck out in attempt to encourage it to lay an egg for you, as ducks will only lay eggs in the morning.
41) You won’t often find a Koala drinking water. Imagine the time it would take in addition to eating all day? The fluids for the koala are taken from the eucalyptus leaves that they are so fond of.
42) A hermit crab may outlive some humans, as it can live for up to seventy five years.
43) Any single person eager to meet their soulmate should spare a thought for the female ferret who is undoubtably under more pressure, as if she does not find a mate when she goes into heat it can cause her death.
44) Cats purr when they are contented, but also when they are in pain or deeply distressed.
45) The king cobra, as everyone knows is deadly. I personally once met a man whose friend cut off his thumb after being bitten by a King Cobra on the tip of his thumb. To further underline the severity of a King Cobra’s bite, it can kill an elephant in under four hours.
46) If your cat rolls over and exposes its belly for you. This is a sign that your cat trusts you, not that it is planking for a Facebook photo.
47) In Lop Buri, Thailand, which is known for its large population of wild, city dwelling monkeys, there was once a problem of monkeys swiping slurpees from 7-Eleven customers.
48 ) Mosquito repellents don’t actually repel mosquitos. Instead, the spray acts to block out the sensors of the mosquito that it has so it doesn’t realise you are there.
49) Baby sharks are independent with a capital ‘I’, for as soon as they are born, they swim away from their mothers immediately.
50) Flamingoes can live up to an impressive 80 years old. So pay respect to the worldly wise flamingo, as it may be older than your grandparents.
I hope you enjoyed this list and if you have any more interesting facts about animals please leave a comment 🙂
What follows are my top 20 favourite bizarre or interesting websites that I have ever stumbled upon.
This is a website which has been featured on TV. Cats that look like Adolf Hitler! Who is Hitler? He could well be drinking milk in your kitchen . . .
Who is Hitler? Maybe it’s your cat. On this website you can view cats from all over the world that are possible reincarnations of Hitler. Has your cat ever raised its paw when you come home from work? Does your cat have a moustache? Your cat could be secretly planning a mass invasion of the dog kennels. What I like about this site is that it’s based on a simple concept and is massively popular.
Can you imagine telling your friends that you are going to create a website about dogs that look like Winston Churchill? They would laugh their heads off right? I’d imagine the creators of this website got some flak before the creation of the site with cats that look like Adolf Hitler, but now they are laughing because it is a big hit.
So when you get the question ‘Who is Hitler’ or someone interested in what exactly happened to Adolf Hitler, give them a link to this strange website.
HubbleSite is an excellent website for viewing images caught by the Hubble telescope. If you want to explore space from the comfort of your chair, then you can’t go wrong checking out this link.
Here you can check out and download free images caught by the Hubble telescope. The site is well put together and easy to navigate around. You can learn more about astronomy, view a gallery of images and learn more about the Hubble telescope itself.
Included in the site is a news centre with the latest discoveries and a tab where you can find out the best museums. Hubble images are open for everyone to see and enables you to travel through space and view the beauty of different planets, suns and far off galaxies, whilst being mesmorised by the mysterious aspects of space, such as black holes and dark matter.
There are more suns than there are grains of sand on every beach of this planet, and many of those suns have planets orbiting the suns. Is there life on other planets? Well, mathematically, it would be surprising if there weren’t. I doubt if the aliens will be like aliens featured in movies though, probably completely different to what we could even imagine. Could we communicate with aliens? I doubt it, unless they are more advanced than us as we can’t even communicate with dolphins. Check out this fascinating journey into the real unknown with the Hubble telescope. . .
Engrish.com is a site with photos of hilarious misspelling of words from around the world.
Let’s face it, if English is a foreign language it’s hardly surprising if there aren’t a few mistakes here and there. This site doesn’t make fun of this, but looks at the light side by selecting the funniest misspellings.
This site has many categories for misspelling of  words from around the world, such as on buildings, T-shirts and cups. An example is of a shopping centre named ‘Creamy Prison’, a restaurant named ‘Cut Heads’ and even a ‘Pasta Hose’.
On the website they’ve misspelt some words deliberately, such as ‘Brog’ instead of ‘Blog’.
This is a hilarious and light hearted misspelling of words website where if you are looking for a few laughs is a good site to surf around on a coffee break.
The Motley Fool Site is a free site where you can learn about stock shares dealing by creating a virtual portfolio.
Motley Fool is an ideal way to dabble in stock shares for free, or as a training tool to hone your skills before parting with real world money. The  site has information on how to invest, forums for discussing the latest tips and hunches and even tips for investing for retirement.
Here you can research stocks and view other peoples ratings of those stocks. Will you become a long term trader or a day trader? Be sure to have time on your hands if you want to start day trading for real, as the people I have met who do this are constantly checking their smart phones and spend upwards of 2 hours per day doing research.
Will you invest in blue chip companies or take high risk investments by swimming up stream like a salmon against popular advice? Choose your stock shares strategy . . . And above all, have fun 🙂
‘Dumb Laws’ is a collection of the most stupid laws from around the world.
You can search US stupid laws or international stupid laws that are bizarre and fun to view. For instance, in Switzerland it is against the law to flush a toilet after 10 pm. You are also not allowed to relieve yourself whilst standing up after 10 pm. If you leave the car keys inside your car when the car door is open you will be punished by law. Clothes may not be hung up to dry on a Sunday in Switzerland too. So Sundays and anytime after 10 pm in Switzerland is a potentially tricky time!
Some of these laws are so ridiculous that you have to wonder why countries don’t terminate these stupid laws which are clearly outdated. They spend ages preparing the laws and submitting them, but for some reason it’s difficult to take them down. Maybe there’s too much red tape? Who knows?
Ever wanted to sit on the banks of Loch Ness and search for Nessie? Well you can do this from the comfort of your own chair in front of your PC.
The Lock Ness Webcam site has a live 24 hour web cam where you can keep an eye out for Nessie in the comfort of your own home. This site give you the evidence to support the legend of Nessie as well as information about the most well known Nessie hunters.
There is even a gift shop and the chance to order Nessie postcards. You have to have a lot of time on your hands though as Nessie does not surface often. You can read the latest Nessie news as well as being able to read the search for Nessie diary.
Make sure your computer screen is clean before sitting fixated on watching the live cam feed, as if your eyes begin to get tired, you may get excited about a possible Nessie sighting in loch ness, only to realise that it was an insect or a piece of dust on your screen.
The BBC has a very useful site for learning a language for free.
This website is completely free and gives you free lessons in learning a language such as Spanish and German. This is an excellent resource site for people beginning or thinking of taking up learning another language.
Yes, paying a TV license in Great Britain is a laughing point for people living in other countries. TV detector vans seem like a tale from a bizarre comedy and even British people can’t work out why they are still paying a TV license when there are so many other channels that contain adverts. It would seem then that the TV license is only good for the BBC which doesn’t have adverts. This is annoying obviously, but when it comes to quality programmes and resources such as this website, it doesn’t sting so much to pay it because there is quality work produced.
Beard tax and window tax from the recent past is another matter, as well as the recently considered ‘view tax’ and ‘computer tax’.
And hey, if you live in America or another country you can glean some of the BBC’s quality resources for learning a language for absolutely free without looking through your window trembling at the thought of a TV detector van pulling up 🙂
Most blogs saying how to get Pond 5 free video clips footage are referring to low quality test downloads. Here is a link to Pond 5’s weekly free full HD footage.
Pond 5 is arguably the best and most well known resource for free video clip footage, including full HD footage. With this link you can check every week for free footage.
Why is completely free video footage being put up on a site where you usually have to pay for the footage? Well, one reason is that it helps to advertise Pond 5 and another reason is that people who put up some free footage can advertise their pool of video resources.
Most of the time the footage will be completely unrelated to the project that you are looking to put together, but there are times when the footage matches and can be worked into a project. Sometimes the free video clips footage quality is okay, then other times the quality is excellent. Check out this week’s free Pond 5 video footage.
‘Latest Free Apps’ is an excellent site to check out the latest top free apps that have gone free.
There are also quality app reviews for some of the best top free apps out there. Apps are rated on a rating system of one to five, with five being the highest rated apps. Sometimes the apps have gone free and sometimes they are free for a limited time only.
The latest price drops are also featured on the site. You can request a write up on any game that you particularly find interesting. This website is good to check every week. There are so many top free apps and price drops on this site that it wil make your head spin. You may never have to pay for an app again . . .
This link to PrizeFinder is to one of the best competition sites for free stuff in the UK that you’ll ever find.
The site is well maintained and features almost all competitions for free stuff kicking around in the UK. There are tiebreaker competitions and easy to enter contests as well as email entry competitions divided into multiple categories.
Facebook and Twitter competitions are now included on this site as well as competitions that are closing soon. You can also view competitions by frequency, as in daily, weekly and monthly.
New to the site is a blog and also advice on how to win competitions to further tip your odds of winning free stuff. Some big prizes pop up on contests on this site every now and again, in amongst the competitions for TVs, laptops, plane tickets and holidays. A great site to bookmark and check weekly.
Create your own avatar for absolutely free at ‘Create My Avatar’. Ideal for Facebook or Google accounts, as well as a host of other uses.
You can customise your avatar on this website to your heart’s content. You can modify such features as skin, hair colour and eyes. You can cartoonify yourself and the avatar for fun or to use as a personal icon on your favourite forums.
You can even add accessories such as earrings or a pair of glasses. This would be an ideal surprise for a friend too if you have their profile picture. The avatar that you’d otherwise have to pay for or draw to be made up is easy to make on this website. An easy to use interface and lots of fun!
I guarantee you’ll not find many sites much stranger than this site, where the object is to unroll a toilet paper roll, endlessly.
Yes, that’s it!?! Perhaps you’ve had a hard day at work and need some relaxation as you scroll your mouse over this virtual toilet roll to unroll it at a length to your heart’s content. No wasting a toilet paper roll here, it’s all virtual.
So, harness the toilet paper roll meditation opportunity and reach nirvana in your imagined toilet cubicle. One idea is to sit feeling the texture of a real toilet paper roll as you unroll the virtual one with your mouse. Who needs 4D cinema after going on this website?
Cows cows cows is what you get on this site. Cows dancing in a strange fashion.
If you check out this website called cowdancer.com for cows cows cows and more cows you can watch cows square dance, mooing in the rain or even doing the can can.
There are cows cows cows and even more cows doing the dizzy dragon dance and dancing to the spirit in the sky. You might not be on this website for long, after all if you spend more than ten minutes watching cows cows cows and tons more cows dancing you might need medical help. Either that or you might need to re-examine your social life and boredom levels.
How do you make coffee look interesting after it’s come out of the coffee machine into your coffee cup? Add some coffee art of course . . .
Ease of the lever of the coffee machine and what do you have? A cup of coffee obviously, but it will lack the personal touch. Coffee houses have been harnessing and training their staff in the practise of coffee art. This website looks at the best submitted coffee art designs around. Art In My Coffee provide coffee art pictures for you to peruse and ponder upon.
Included on the site are coffee dragon creations are teddy bears and interesting leaf designs. Give your coffee maker some personality with ideas from coffee art.
If I told you that there was once a war between rival ice cream vans in Glasgow, would you believe me?
Check out Wikipedia to read about this real event . . .
There was a lot of violence between competing ice cream vans during the 1980s in the East End of Glasgow. There were even shotguns used to fire at the windscreens of the vans and stolen goods being sold by the vendors along the regular routes. Sounds rough.
There were deaths resulting from the ice cream van feuds and it got out of hand. Still don’t believe me? Check out the link to the write up.
Do you get an overwhelming sense of pleasure when something is neat. So how can you define neat? Chaos can be organised.
The website Things Organized Neatly does a good job to define neat. There are neatly laid out bits of straw, pebbles and household items.
Perhaps you’d like to neaten up that tool shed or lay out your stuff in a neat and logical manner for the world to admire. This is the website that will enable you to do this bizarre ritual.
Anything that can define neat is included on this website and you can even submit a photograph of something that will define neat too. A very neat idea.
The pencil is a useful tool and might hold my fascination for a few seconds when breaking out a new pencil from it’s pack. But what if I told you that there was a whole underground pencil loving society out there?
Hard to believe right? But at Pencil Grinder’s Weblog you’ll find write ups on the latest pencils to hit the market as well as in depth pencil tests. There’s even a forum where you can argue whether 2B is better than a B pencil for drawing.
This website goes into detail and even refer to giving the pencil ‘a test drive’ before a write up and analysis is carried out. Fascinating stuff as there is a lot more to the humble pencil than meets the eye.
Beware, you will maybe get addicted to this niche cult of pencil collecting and find yourself hunting around for rare packs around the globe.
On this website called ‘Would I Survive A Nuke’ you can find out if you would survive a nuclear attack or not.
Just click on this link:Â Would I Survive A Nuke and scroll across the map to enter your location and select a target for a nuke of your choosing to strike. You can select a nuke that is of different strengths to see how you would fare in WW3. Such as a Tsar Bomba 50 megaton warhead.
I escaped with head to toe 3 degree burns when I tried it, but there was one drawback as it said I’d be dead within a day. I think I’d feel safer if I was right at the centre of a nuke strike personally. I wouldn’t like to go through all the after effects of radiation poisoning.
So, select a nuke and rain it down on your chosen target to see what your chances of survival would be. Happy thoughts 🙂
Fancy something completely different to hearing news about football and global warming? Check out this collection of weird news stories.
Weird news and interesting bizarre discoveries from National Geographic. On this site there is a chameleon that fits on the head of a matchstick, fossilised turtles in the act of mating, a white killer whale and even rare footage of Scott’s ill fated expedition 100 years ago. Some of the weirdest factual news is here from around the world.
The zombie ants that are being controlled my mind controlling fungi are quite scary looking.
The world’s smallest from that is half the size of a coin is also on this site. There is also a cyclops shark with only one central eye and albino penguins. This collection of weird news is interesting as well as surprising.
The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a religion based on the assumption that the world began with a giant spaghetti monster.
The church of the flying spaghetti monster is a tongue in cheek look at the belief that the world came about through a giant spaghetti monster. The members of the religion are called ‘Pastafarians’ and there are members of the church globally.
Members of the church of the flying spaghetti monster are openly fond of drinking beer. The religion is documented as an actual religion. The site is built on satire but has a very good aim . . . to scrutinise negative actions from religions and cults built on ad-hoc reasoning, such as followers of cults or religions being fleeced of their money etc.
The church of the flying spaghetti monster encourages the use of the spaghetti monster for non-commercial use in T-shirt or poster printing and accepts all kinds of people with open arms into the religion.
The creators of this religion are genuinely worried about where this religion will go in the future, as this may actually become an actual belief in time. There are already a few people who actually believe that the spaghetti monster is a fact.
The site boasts a hate mail section, a flying spaghetti monster sightings area and even a church of the flying spaghetti monster store.
History has seen its fair share of brilliant, or even just lucky, military tacticians. These men not only knew how to do well in battle, but knew how to change the world. Each of them has quite literally changed history or even shaped the world as we know it today. Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan was the founder of the most enduring and powerful empire in history. He was the first leader of the Mongols and its lasting figurehead. His military genius and seemingly fearless leadership united the battling factions of northeast Asia and laid the foundations for the spread of his empire even farther after his death. He planned and executed invasion after invasion, turning much of Asia, the Middle East and some of Europe into the Mongolian Empire. Genghis Khan also may have fathered his own army. A group of geneticists believes that roughly 16 million people of today are descendants of Genghis Khan.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great did not come across this sobriquet by accident. A student of Aristotle and a headstrong ruler, Alexander III of Macedon was one of the best generals in history. He became King of Macedonia in 336 BCE. Like Genghis Khan, he quickly began a relentless series of invasions, including one against Persia. He defeated Darius III, claiming the Persian Empire as his own, which is a noteworthy feat in and of itself, as Persia was yet another of the greatest empires of all time. He amassed an empire that spread from the Adriatic to the Indian subcontinent all by the time he was 30 years old.
Hannibal Barca
Hannibal Barca is the man famous for leading an army with elephants over the Alps into Italy. However, this is not his only major success. His enemy was Rome, and this Carthaginian made a massive invasion of Italy to take on his enemy. He went right through the center and straight to the tip of its boot. Unlike the other men on this list, he was no king or emperor. He was a leader of soldiers, not countries, but he was one of the best, even though the Second Punic War was lost to Rome.
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar was a ruler of Rome and one of the men who helped turn it into the Roman Empire. Contrary to popular belief, he was not an emperor of Rome. Once he was elected governor, he set to work expanding Roman holdings. Later, he rather impressively defeated Pompey in a civil war for Rome. It was then that he became ruler of Rome, but still not emperor. His reign was ended in one of the most dramatic assassinations in history. He was stabbed 23 times by senators in the Theater of Pompey.
King Leonidas I
King Leonidas I was the legendary leader of Sparta who planned the Spartan stand at the Battle of Thermopylae. His brilliant tactics led to a very small army putting up a fight against a very big army. There were roughly 7 times more Persians than Greeks at the battle. Those few Greeks included Leonidas and an elite Spartan group of 300 men. Amazingly, they held their own for roughly a week thanks to the King’s strategy of holding them within a narrow, almost unavoidable pass. However, they were betrayed by Ephialtes, who led the Persians behind the Greeks in the pass. Leonidas sent most of the force home before they could be slaughtered, but the Spartans could not leave. They considered it their duty to never retreat or surrender. Thus, after killing untold thousands of Persians, Leonidas and his 300 were killed at the Battle of Thermopylae.
Carl Henson is a military historian and guest author at Military Education, a site with guides and reviews of top-rated military friendly degree programs.
Engrish.com is a site with photos of hilarious misspelling of words from around the world.
‘Dumb Laws’ is a collection of the most stupid laws from around the world.
Ever wanted to sit on the banks of Loch Ness and search for Nessie? Well you can do this from the comfort of your own chair in front of your PC.
The BBC has a very useful site for learning a language for free.
Most blogs saying how to get Pond 5 free video clips footage are referring to low quality test downloads. Here is a link to Pond 5’s weekly free full HD footage.
‘Latest Free Apps’ is an excellent site to check out the latest top free apps that have gone free.
This link to PrizeFinder is to one of the best competition sites for free stuff in the UK that you’ll ever find.
I guarantee you’ll not find many sites much stranger than this site, where the object is to unroll a toilet paper roll, endlessly.
How do you make coffee look interesting after it’s come out of the coffee machine into your coffee cup? Add some coffee art of course . . .
If I told you that there was once a war between rival ice cream vans in Glasgow, would you believe me?
Do you get an overwhelming sense of pleasure when something is neat. So how can you define neat? Chaos can be organised.
The pencil is a useful tool and might hold my fascination for a few seconds when breaking out a new pencil from it’s pack. But what if I told you that there was a whole underground pencil loving society out there?
On this website called ‘Would I Survive A Nuke’ you can find out if you would survive a nuclear attack or not.
Fancy something completely different to hearing news about football and global warming? Check out this collection of weird news stories.
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