I just saw this on J-Walk Blog. A picture of a house painted to look like Microsoft Windows (click the thumbnail to enlarge). It would be cute if someone actually did this to their house. But in this particular case, I don't think the house in the picture is real. The compression blurring around the letters and icons is pretty obvious. I'm guessing that the lime-green coloring of the house is also fake. You can't see the license plates on the cars, so it's impossible to know in what country this house is located. But it definitely appears to be in Europe somewhere.
Update: The bottom-right word on the house is 'Modien'. What language is that?

A guy on eBay, inspired by the forehead advertising auction, attempted to sell his will.The winner of the auction would, upon his death, receive everything he owns. Since the seller is a young guy, the winner could be waiting for a while before they get anything. Two other things occurred to me. First, if the guy dies heavily in debt, all you're going to inherit is a bunch of bills. He fails to mention this possibility (and he would have an incentive to die in debt). Second, I'm not sure how you would make this arrangement legally binding. Perhaps it can be done. I'm not sure. But it seems possible that the guy could change his will later and create a difficult situation. I've heard of universities that arrange for people to will their estates to them, and in return the university gives them a certain amount of money until they die. But that seems different from what this eBay guy is proposing (and probably involves better lawyers). Anyway, the auction closed yesterday with no bidders, so I guess it's all a moot point.

Dawn in the UK sent me this curious item that appeared in today's edition of the Daily Express. It's about an orange that shopper Patrick Hurt found inside of an apple.

Mr. Hurt, 36, from Kiveton Park, South Yorks, said: "Apart from what was inside the apple looked perfectly normal. I have no idea how the orange got in there and I have never seen anything like it in my life." Greg Tucker, professor of plant biochemistry at Nottingham University, said: "The effect may have arisen through developmental mutation. It's not unheard of for flowers to become misformed. It is caused by mutations in some key genes. It is conceivable that a similar mutation occurred in this fruit."

Now I could understand if the interior of the apple was simply deformed so that it resembled an orange. That might be developmental mutation. But an actual orange spontaneously growing inside of an apple due to a gene mutation doesn't seem believable. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view of the scanned article.

Yellow Bamboo is a form of white magic/martial art developed in Bali. If you sign up to get the free yellow bamboo training video then "you can learn very powerful methods to protect yourself and others. If you watch the videos you will see that it is possible to knock down attackers without touching them. This is a very powerful form of personal development." Annoyed by these extravagant claims (particularly the one about being able to knock down opponents without touching them), some Jiu-Jitsu practitioners decided to challenge the local Yellow Bamboo masters to a test "to prove once and for all that no-touch or Chi knockouts are, and have always been, complete and utter bullshit." These were the guidelines for the test: "The YB practitioner assumes a stance on the sand and is given time to prepare his Chi in accordance with YB practices. The challenger then runs 20 feet across the sand and attacks the YB practitioner. As the challenger is making his run, the YB practitioner has to effectively disable or deflect him using his chi." Needless to say, the Yellow Bamboo people completely failed the test.
 

The latest celebrity death rumor going around is that Jon Heder, star of Napoleon Dynamite, died in a car accident while driving with a friend to Salem, Oregon. A website making this claim is here. People have also been speculating about this rumor on the IMDB MESSAGE BOARDS. Jon Heder, of course, is not dead (unless that person who looks like him and has been making media appearances is just an imposter). Michael Heaton, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, noted in a recent column that he had heard the 'Heder is Dead' rumor from his daughter. Which prompted him to comment that "It is the zenith of cultural obsession to have false rumors of someone's death spread like goose grease across the land."

The latest rumor spreading around that has people up in arms involves an unusual requirement that exam boards supposedly place upon Religious Education students in Britain (this would involve students in the British equivalent of Junior High School). Apparently "The exam board requires that every time Muhammad is written, the letters "pbuh" in parentheses be placed after it. This is shorthand for "peace be upon him". The writer therefore prays a blessing upon him everytime his name is written, as is the custom of Muslims." This has people upset because it seems bizarre to force people who aren't Muslim to pray a blessing upon Mohammed. It would be like forcing Muslims to make the sign of the cross every time they say the name Christ. This rumor was started by some remarks a British teacher, David Holford, made on his blog. Holford has since removed the remarks (he says people were taking them out of context), but they can still be viewed atLittle Green Footballs. So is there any truth to the rumor? In a word, no. Posters on the usenet group uk.politics.misc have contacted the British exam board to ask them what the official policy is, and the response was:

They [the exam board] say that they customarily put an Arabic colophon meaning 'peace be upon him' after Mohammed's name in course materials relating to Islam, just as they refer to 'G-d' in course materials relating to Judaism. They do this out of respect to the sensibilities of Muslim or Jewish students and teachers but they most certainly don't expect candidates to do the same.

The following has nothing to do with hoaxes. It's a public service announcement:

UC San Diego grad student Jeff Butterworth and his girlfriend A.K. Basenberg are going to be bicycling across America this summer to help spread awareness of retinal diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, Macular Degeneration, and Usher Syndrome. They'll be starting off in Yorktown, Virginia and ending up in Oregon, and they're hoping to use their journey to help raise $15,000 for the Foundation Fighting Blindness . So donate some money to help them reach their goal. All donations go directly to the FFB. Read more about the trip and what inspired it on Jeff's Website (this is also where you'll find the link to donate). It's a good cause so I promised I would do whatever I could to help by plugging it here on my site (and I'll be putting a link to his site in a sidebar). Even if you don't feel like pledging any money, check out his site to learn a little bit about what the FFB does. The FFB also has a brief blurb about Jeff and A.K.'s upcoming trip on its site.