Ripley's Believe it or Not - We Own Weird. Accept No Substitutes

Have you ever thought about creating a digital back up of yourself?  Watch as New York Times reporter Amy Harmon interviews Bina48, a robot who has been embedded with the memories and thoughts of a real woman named Bina Rothblatt.

Created by the Terasem Movement, who also offers the CyBeRev Project.  A website where you can preserve your identity for eternity.  You upload photos, video, audio of yourself, as well as complete tests all in an effort to preserve your being.  Sounds very Total Recall to me. Did you catch her say “conspiring to take over the world”. Scary!

via: The Daily What

This is Chilli, a 6 foot. 6 inch, 1 ton steer.  He is the size of a small elephant…something you just have to see to believe.

Chilli lives at the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard, Somerset, England.

Spring-loaded popsicle sticks, that is, and not German hand grenades.

I got an e-mail recently from Tim Fort, the current Guinness record holder for the longest stick bomb.

He’s interested in the art of movement.  A few years back, he put stick bombs, dominoes, and other moving pieces together to create a 6 minute-long chain of falling, flying and unwinding objects.  Check it out if you’ve got the time.

His newest, and possibly his best, is a 4:30 piece called Frenetic Kinetics.

We have some wild optical illusions in our Ripley museums … so I could not pass up this short but amazing video with truly unbelievable illusions. (more…)

A couple in Japan recently wed with the help if the i-Fairy, a robot that can marry you!  Here is some of the wedding footage:

The Bride, Inoue works for Kokoro Ltd., the company that manufactures the i-Fairy robot.  Her new husband, Shibata was a client of the company, which is how they met.  This robot normally functions as a museum guide. 

Source: Mashable

Some of my favorites in the Ripley collection of exhibits are the miniatures.  We have mini tea sets…this one is nestled neatly inside a jewelry locket.

We have mini pool tables…it works too!

Lots and lots of mini items…so when I saw this vid, I had to post.  This is an actual working mini-cannon.  Watch it in action:

I gotta go check our warehouse for one of these…you never know what you will find in that place!

I almost feel bad posting this clip of some dudes using an iPad as a skateboard…but I had to know…Will It Shred?  Believe It or Not!  Built To Shred host Jeff King and pro skater Chad Knight put it to the test.

 Steffest has created a new kind of guitar using an iTouch, 2 Android Phones and  2Windows Mobile phones.  Here is his version of Cracklin Rosie:

Source

Mathias Schlitte is a championship arm wrestler who has an arm up on the competition.  Look at his massive arm!

He was born with a genetic bone disorder that caused one of his arms to be 2 times larger than the other.  Instead of looking at the glass half empty, he used it to his advantage and became an arm wrestler.

Source

Check out Tillman, the fastest skateboarding dog, as he takes on the streets of Vancouver. I guess my dogs are way behind the curve in the trick department.