Appreciation for little-known Sydney band The Moles on I Love Music.

Bwahahahahahah!

A high-pitched alarm which cannot be heard by adults has been hijacked by schoolchildren to create ringtones so they can get away with using phones in class.

Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres.

They can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on

The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20.

Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology.

Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.

Teach your children well, don't you know.

Woophy

Woophy = World of Photography. Heavy-on-the-bandwith interactive map-based "accessible, visual, current, democratic and collective work of art comprised of a database picturing our remarkable world."

It's a small world but you wouldn't want to paint it - Stephen Wright. Yes, well, that's why we have cameras.

Via the redoubtable Eyeteeth comes 100X100, a gallery of residents of a Hong Kong public housing complex, each in their 10X10 feet square (and 10 feet high) rooms. A compendium of diversity; very, very cool.

WorldMapper

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

As featured in New Scientist.

Minicab driver accidentally confused for internet expert and interviewed on BBC.

Links to the video.

Edit: OK, he wasn't a minicab driver, he was a job applicant for an IT position, with a similar name to the guy who was supposed to be interviewed.

Via William Gibson.

Looking through the relevant Wikipedia entry after hearing news of the Walmart smiley case, I came across the nanotech smiley, the sad story of Luke Helder, and the Happyface Spider.

Link to blog.

Semi-apologetic reference to tardiness.

Four Second Fury

Rather silly.

Googlehacks

Further uses for Google.

(These two courtesy of Pihus.)

Steamtoys

Steam-powered centipede, anyone?

Etymologic - The Toughest Word Game on the Web

Got five out of ten, but the questions are randomised, so it isn't a contest, even though I then went back and got seven, losers.

Again via Barista.

The 2006 Failed States Index

Australia scores highest on Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines, rather low on Rise of Factionalized Elites (apparently factionalised elites are a bad thing), and zero (which for some reason scores a 1) on a bunch of indicators, including Progressive Deterioration of Public Services which will come as news to the thirty people who were waiting in the queue behind me at the Post Office on Saturday.

Via Chase Me Ladies, I'm In The Cavalry.

Culled entirely from the gigposters.com discussion board, please enjoy the following selection of on-line digests, mostly popular-art-related. Or, you know, just go to the source:

Symbols.com
"Explore a World of Symbols: Symbols.com contains more than 1,600 articles about 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics."

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters
Soviet anti-alcohol posters. Interestingly enough, there are no sites devoted to Australian anti-alcohol posters.

Hell Bank Notes
An article by BigWhiteGuy about Spirit Money in Hong Kong. I have some of these. I wonder if I should throw them away.

Images of Mathematicians on Postage Stamps
Yes, really.

The Map House Gallery of Antique Engravings
Not of maps. Well, actually I suppose some of them might be.

Ad*Access
"The Ad*Access Project... presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955."

X-Rated Movie Posters of the 1960s and 1970s
The movies were X-rated - the posters are more PG. I wouldn't open them at work myself, but then I work for prudes.

Crime Boss
Crime Comic Books of the 40s and 50s cover gallery.

Monster Mags
Another gallery of covers.

Super Marketing
Ads from comic books.

Exploded Blueprints of Hand Guns
I'm not sure what use these are unless you have one you're trying to reassemble and can't. Serves you right for taking it apart in the first place, dumbass! Sorry... Mister Dumbass.

This interesting article on Propaganda at War at media-studies.ca also includes an excellent compendium of links to sites about all sorts of political posters, war, parody, protest and so on.