Eminem

Eminem or Marshall Bruce Mathers III has since 1997, been a household rap icon. If you go through his lyrics and music you will realize how Eminem uses his music to vent his frustrations about his past, his life and the point of it all. Before the release of his single “The Real Slim Shady”, Eminem attempted to take his life with an overdose of Tylenol. He was distraught over his then girlfriend Kim leaving him and preventing him from seeing his daughter. Eminem had a history of emotional trauma with abandonment by both his parents and this act proved as the last straw. Luckily he survived the near lethal dosage and we got to experience his talent.

Elton John

The legendary British pop star whose work is celebrated wherever music is; Elton John attempted suicide in his youth distraught over a lost lover and his sexuality. Bernie Taupin, a friend and a famous lyricist found Elton John with his head in a gas stove in his apartment. He was at the time engaged to a woman Linda Woodrow. The frustration of keeping his sexuality a secret was proving to be too much for the now 60-year-old openly gay singer. Sir Elton John today proclaims that god is a gay man and is in a civil partnership with David Furnish.

Robert McFarlane

One of the most famous celebrity suicide attempt was the result of the infamous Iran-Contra scandal. Robert McFarlane, the National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan attempted to take his life after his involvement in the affair was made public. He was severely distraught over his public humiliation and later told that it was an error of judgment that led him to the decision of exchanging arms for hostages. He was pardoned by George H. W. Bush but his career never recovered. Public Humiliation can even move seasoned public dealers like Politicians to the brink of suicide.

Britney Spears

The princess, who ruled the pop scene for almost a decade with the megahit “…Baby One More Time” and a legion of dedicated fans has certainly fallen from grace. The failure of her marriage, the infamous beaver shots and shocking behavior has left her career and family life in the dumps. This taxing ordeal has taken its toll on Britney and she has reportedly attempted suicide twice now. We hope that this young lady finds the help she and her two boys deserve in life before its too late.

Clark Gable

Considered the epitome of male beauty and grace in Hollywood, Clark Gable was devastated after his wife passed away. His mother had died when he was just seven months old and the iconic actor succumbed to depression after the death of his wife Carol Lombard in a plan crash. The actor sought to end his life with a high-speed motorbike rampage but was unsuccessful. He later went on to star in many more movies and eventually remarried.

Judy Garland

Another Hollywood legend Judy Garland was wreaked with depression all through her life and career. Before she succumbed to an overdose of prescription drugs at age 47, she had attempted suicide several times. Her first attempt came at a tumultuous time in her life when she was placed in a private sanitarium after suffering from a nervous breakdown during the filming of “The Pirate” in 1947. She slit her wrists but was discovered in time and put in a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. Even after extensive care and institutionalization, the workaholic Judy Garland never completely recovered from depression.

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Considered a musical genius, the beloved crooner Sammy Davis Jr. suffered constant jibes about his race, religion and his physical appearance. The singer attempted to end his life and his pain through suicide on the night of his wedding to Loray White. He put a gun to his head but was saved when it was wrestled out of his hand. It was later revealed that Sammy was secretly in love with Kim Novak, an actress, but could not be with her because of threats over their interracial match.

Diana, Princess of Wales

According to a biography of Princess Dianna published in ’92, the author Andrew Morton discloses that the “people’s princess” suffered from Bulimia Nervosa and had attempted suicide five times in her short life. She once revealed in an interview that she tried to end her life by falling down the stairs when she was pregnant with her first son, William. Though the suicide attempts have not been confirmed by the Royal family but her depressive plight was plain for all to see. Diana’s suicidal tendencies were cries for help and it is still sad to think that a humanitarian that touched so many lives could have been so unhappy with her own life.

Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Taylor, often considered the most beautiful woman of her time has had her fair share of ups and downs. After the death of some close friends and aides, she started abusing prescription drugs and alcohol. In the early 1960’s, she was involved in an adulterous relationship with Richard Burton for which they were both heavily criticized. When he called off their relationship, she attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Later however, both Burton and Taylor divorced their partners and married each other.

Halle Berry

After the end of her marriage to David Justice, Halle Berry, the Oscar winning actress and a symbol of feminist strength admitted trying to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The depressed actress only quit when she thought of her mother finding her dead body. In the end she overcome her suicidal tendencies, vowed to never get married again and has been happily single since.

Opposites attract

Although we've been told for years that opposites attract, the opposite, ironically, is true. Psychologists do admit that we look for others who are like us, as we prefer similarity over difference in our mates. Although we aren't looking for an identical twin, we aren't searching for our polar opposite, either. Humans tend to seek out like personalities to complement their own.

Reading in dim light damages your eyesight

While reading in dim light might make you squint or make reading more difficult, ophthalmologists stress that it has no real bearing on your eyesight. Your eyesight won't get worse if you tend to read in poor lighting often; however, it might damage your self-image, as you might find more crows' feet in the skin around your eyes from squinting. So can we say that reading in dim light ages you prematurely? Perhaps.

You lose most of your body heat through your head

Remember when your mother or grandmother used to tell you, as a child, to cover your head before going outside in the cold? "You'll lose all your body heat if you don't wear a hat," they would say. Well, Mom and Grandma didn't know best on this one. When doctors measure heat lost during cold temperatures, the head isn't any different from any other part of the body in the amount of heat it lets escape. Sure, if your head is uncovered outside on a cold day, you'll lose heat through it, but no more than you would lose through your hands if you went outside in a snowstorm without gloves.

It takes seven years for chewing gum to pass through your digestive system

Mom might have told us this one, too, as a small child, simply to prevent us from swallowing our chewing gum. Maybe she even believed it herself. But it, too, is a myth. While gum is difficult to pass and will remain in a mass while in the body, doctors say that it will eventually pass through your intestines and leave the body "whole," not in pieces - and it won't take seven years. Gum passes through the system at the same rate other foods do. Chewing gum won't stick your insides together, either, no matter what you might have been told as a child.

We only use 10% of our brains

While some of us may feel this way at times (and others might act this way all of the time), it is, in fact, a myth that we only use 10% of our brains at any given time. Scientists say there is absolutely no proof that we only use a small portion of our brains. Even while sleeping, we're using more than one-tenth of our brains. This myth begs the question, if it were to be true, which part of your brain do you use (or which part don't you use?)

You should drink at least 8 glasses of water per day

We've all been told this one. Yes, it's true that our bodies are mostly made up of water. But, doctors say, there is no medical evidence to make them believe that we need to drink 64 ounces of water each day. Fluid is important, but doctors say we get fluid from other beverages we drink, plus fruits and vegetables. Drinking this much water won't necessarily hurt you, but it won't make you any healthier on its own.

Animals can predict natural disasters

This myth is perpetuated any time there's a tornado, earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami. Afterward, witnesses recall animals running away or acting a bit strange just before the event. The sad truth is, natural disasters kill just as many animals as they do people. Chicken Little notwithstanding, while animals may have keener, more developed senses of smell, hearing, and sight, unfortunately, they don't possess a "sixth sense" that warns them when the sky is about to fall.

If you drop a penny from the top of a tall building, it can kill a pedestrian on the ground.

Who knows how this myth got started? Scientists say that even if a penny was dropped from a height of 1250 feet (such as from the top of the Empire State Building), it would travel fast but would do no more than sting any pedestrian it hit on the ground. Contrary to popular belief, pennies don't magically become aerodynamic weapons just because they're dropped from exorbitant heights.

A dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's mouth

This is another myth that is a real head-scratcher. A dog's mouth is filled with just as many bacteria as a human's mouth. It is true that bacteria is specific to each species, so bacteria found in a dog's mouth would be different than those found inside a human's mouth. When you take into account that a dog licks itself in places that (most) humans don't, it only stands to reason that a dog's mouth would be fairly filthy at most times.

Lightning never strikes the same place twice

Lightning actually likes some places more than others - that is, higher locations - so this one is absolutely false. For example, the Empire State Building is struck by lightning an estimated 25 times each year. So if you're standing under Aunt Edna's tree in the back yard during a thunderstorm and happen to get struck by lightning, don't make that same mistake again when the next storm rolls around.

It’s the cultural center of the United States, and arguably of modern Western civilization. As one of the primary entry points for new immigrants, New York City is an incubator for all sorts of new artistic and commercial influences. And, on the big screen, it’s been annihilated dozens of times. Even when they don’t depict the city’s wipeout, the best action flicks, film noirs, and dark comedies set in the Rotten Apple have a certain grit in matching the city’s hardscrabble rep. Here are a few of our favorites.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

The devil is not a man with horns and a tail. In fact, as this psychological thriller illustrates, sometimes the personification of pure, ice-cold human evil appears as harmless as Kevin Spacey. The tale of an ill-fated criminal gang is told in flashbacks from Roger “Verbal” Klint (Spacey)’s police interrogation. Despite hinging on a surprise plot twist, the movie holds up to repeated viewings as a study of a sociopath.

Wall Street (1987)

The message of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street is: “in the ’80s, mega-capitalism and banking industry greed were out of control.” But what many people seem to have taken from it is, “Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas’s proudly corrupt banker) is awesome.” I guess dark comedy is open to interpretation. Gekko is certainly the most troublesome sort of badass, and it’s nice to be reminded that risky, flagrant immaturity is nothing new in the financial sector.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Bustin’ still makes us feel good. Ghostbusters opened to record box office numbers and continues to endure as a comedy classic, despite its eccentric premise and gleefully convoluted plot. While obviously absurdist, the movie reflects co-writer and star Dan Aykroyd’s very real, very weird fascination with all things paranormal. (Insider tip: With its mix of childhood nostalgia value and constant sexual innuendo, Ghostbusters is the greatest stay-at-home date flick of all time.)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Today, violent, moralistic social outcast Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) might find companionship in the online anti-government movement. But, in ‘70s New York, he’s left to his own devices, taking classy ladies on dates to porno theaters, playing Captain Save-a-Hoe for underage hookers, and ranting to himself. The film takes on urban alienation and the strange dynamics of heroism. But it’s mostly about the sinister atmosphere developing in the city during the endless bummer of the mid ‘70s.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

In the “dog days” of August, New York City gets unbearably hot and humid. This is when amateur criminal Sonny (Al Pacino) and his more seasoned accomplice, Sal (John Cazale) decide to jack a Manhattan bank branch. Almost every facet of their plan goes horribly awry, and it eventually turns into an intensely suspenseful police standoff. Cazale was one of the last guys who looked cool with a mullet.

Superfly (1972)

Considered a classic of the then-nascent “blaxpolitation” subgenre, Superfly stars Ron O’Neal as Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer trying to scrape his way out of the business. O’Neal’s steely lead is arguably outclassed by his customized Cadillac Eldorado, his coke-spoon necklace, and Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack, which out-grossed the movie. But it drew early attention to the drug epidemic that would come to define inner city New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And it set the stage for many, many films and soundtracks to come.

The Godfather (1972)

This one modernized the Mob craze (later inherited by The Sopranos and Jay-Z), and was the first major Mafia drama produced by, and starring, ethnic Italians. From the beginning of the notoriously difficult production, director Francis Ford Coppola established that he did not want to shoot a film about organized crime, but about family politics, which gave the film and its sequel a dramatic depth beyond its thrills and shock value. It’s chock full of need-to-know badass quotes and references. Let’s just pretend Godfather III, which launched the cinematic career of Coppola’s daughter Sofia, never happened.

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

The first X-rated feature to win an Oscar, Midnight Cowboy stars Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two hapless drifters in the decadent New York underworld of the ‘60s. After going broke, Voight’s dumbass Texan begins turning tricks for cash, and Hoffman’s grizzled bum helps him establish a degenerate lifestyle. Eventually, they infiltrate a party scene featuring appearances from several regulars at Andy Warhol’s Factory. It’s a colorful, ultimately brutal look at the big-city low life.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Whenever apes get loose in New York, all hell seems to break loose. Set two centuries in the future, the film stars future gun nut Charlton Heston as a scientist held prisoner by a quasi-fascist society of apes who threaten to lobotomize him if he can’t get with their program. He slowly comes to realize that “Ape City” is in fact what remains of the City of Bricks. Apes spawned a massive franchise, including sequels, comic books, animated features, and a 2001 remake.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

According to his autobiography, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Hollywood power-broker Robert Evans convinced lead actress Mia Farrow to leave her then-husband Frank Sinatra to star in this Roman Polanski thriller, which indeed made her a major star. Farrow moves into a creepy NYC apartment building and discovers that she’s pregnant, due in June of ’66. She begins to lose it as evidence mounts that she is, indeed, knocked up with the Antichrist. Shameless publicity hounded Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, who tried to associate himself with the film after the fact, although he apparently had nothing to do with it.

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

This relentlessly nihilistic noir stars Tony Curtis as an asshole press agent and Burt Lancaster as a manipulative newspaper columnist. The main characters abuse their power to destroy the personal lives of those they, for whatever reason, happen to dislike. Stuffed with contrived rumors and false accusations, the movie examines the lower depths of yellow journalism and touches on the Red Scare of the ‘50s. While certainly a product of its paranoid times, Smell differentiates from the film noir pack with its intense acting and cutting dialogue.

The Naked City (1948)

Starting as an early example of the faux-documentary, Jules Dassin’s classic black-and-white cop noir pores over the city’s mid-century landscape, exploring the seediness beneath its elegant façade. A veteran homicide cop and his rookie partner investigate the murder of a declining glamour girl, knocked out with chloroform and drowned in a bathtub. The film dwells as much on the details of police work as it does on action sequences, at least until the intensely gratifying final shootout. Mark Hellinger’s vintage-badass narration is something of a holdover from the age of the radio drama.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Now widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, Citizen Kane, at the time of its release, did not fare well at the box office. A loose biography of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst and a broader look at the dark side of American capitalism and celebrity, Kane broke dramatically with filmmaking and storytelling traditions. Hearst despised the movie, refused to cover or advertise it, and was rumored to have planned personal retaliation against producer, director, and star Orson Welles, who nevertheless became a 20th Century icon in the film’s wake.

King Kong (1933)

The legend began here. An unscrupulous promoter drags the titular giant ape to the big city, hoping to break him into showbiz. The big guy falls in love, escapes, takes his frustration out on the locals, and is eventually brought down while swinging from the Empire State Building. King Kong was remade—once in 1976, and again in 2005 as a full-blown epic—but film buffs still go to the source.

Rust Buster

Coca Cola is an excellent rust buster. If you have a bunch of small objects that need de-rusting, soak them in coke overnight and give them a good scrub in the morning. The properties of coke help to break down the rust particles, making cleaning much easier. You can also apply coke to a chrome finish which is rust spotted – pour some on a rough textured cloth and rub it in a circular motion. Be sure to throw out the used coke when you are done with it or you might be taking a trip to the doctor.

Clean a Window

Like the previous item, the citric acid in Coke makes for an excellent window cleaner. This is especially useful for car windows which can get tough buildups of gunk. Pour over the can of coke and rub the window – then wipe it off with a damp cloth (to ensure the removal of any sticky residue from the sugars in the drink). Think of this like a cheap alternative to the many citrus fruit based cleaners that are sold on TV.

Eat It

Coke can be used for a variety of cooking techniques. You can mix it half and half with BBQ sauce for an excellent marinade, and you can even casserole an entire chicken in it. Here is a tasty recipe for chicken pieces cooked on the stove top with coke – try it, you will be pleasantly surprised. The sugars give a deep glossy coating and caramelized flavor, while the citric acid (found in lemons) gives a nice tang. Coke also makes a great glaze for baked ham.

De-Skunk

For those of you who live in areas where skunk smells can be an issue from time to time, one can of coke added to a bucket of water with detergent really helps to break the odor down. If you have been sprayed, stand in the shower and cover yourself from head to toe with coke – wait for a few minutes, then rinse off. The added bonus is that coke is an excellent hair treatment so you get two tips for the price of one with this item!

Pain Killer

The chemicals in coca cola can be very effective to help neutralize the pain of jellyfish stings. The best thing about this is that while most people at the beach are unlikely to be carrying anti-sting lotions, they are likely to be carrying a bottle of coke. Just pour the coke over the area in which you have been stung and feel the relief. If you don’t happen to have any coke, the other alternative treatment is to pee on the stung part of your body – or to have someone else pee on it for you.

De-blacken Pots

Pots can sometimes get a black film on the bottom which is almost impossible to remove; this is caused by over-cooking or just natural discoloration due to highly acidic foods. To remove the black and restore your pot to new, pour in a can of coke (or as much as you need to cover the blackened area by an inch) and put it on the stove on a low heat. After an hour or so, wash the pot as normal.

Clean Clothes

Grease stains are famously difficult to remove from clothing and stain removers can be very expensive. Here is a cheap solution: empty a can of coke into your wash along with the usual detergent and run it through a normal cycle. This is also quite effective for removing blood and it helps to deodorize smelly clothes.

Kill Bugs

This item also appeared on the beer list – and it works just the same. Pour some cola into a shallow dish and place it in the garden near the problem area. Slugs, snails, and other bugs will go in for a drink and never come out again! This is a very good first line of attack in your garden and it can obviously save you an enormous amount of money by reducing the need for pesticides. You can pour the left over coke (minus the bugs) onto plants that like acidic soil like azaleas and gardenias.

Heal Yourself

Coca cola is useful for a variety of ailments. The most common is for soothing upset stomachs. Just slowly sip a glass of flat coke and it should help to alleviate nausea. It is also good for people suffering from diarrhea or a sore throat. I would say that it can also cure hiccups but, frankly, a glass of water should do the same thing, as the chemicals in coke don’t offer any special “anti-hiccup” magic.

Make an Explosion

Most people who have been around on the Internet for at least a few years will be familiar with the diet-coke-Mentos volcano. The idea is that you drop a Mentos into a bottle of coke and the chemical reaction causes the coke to spurt for miles (not literally of course). The video clip above shows a great example of this fun use for coke. Why not buy a bunch of bottles this weekend and see if you can do better than the efforts shown above?

Ostriches

Although this girl seems to be doing just fine riding this ostrich, ostriches are known to be rather aggressive and their powerful kicks have been deadly. They're also fast runners, which doesn't help if you're getting chased.

Kinkajou

Looking like a cross between a monkey and a ferret, when provoked, this "honey bear" can aggressively scratch and bite. They're also a bit clinging. Baby Luv, Paris Hilton's kinkajou, bit and scratched her to the point where she had to go to the emergency room -- twice, in 2005 and then in 2006.

Constrictor Snakes

From Burmese pythons (pictured here) to boa constrictors, constrictor snakes can grow to be quite large and can kill adults easily by constricting them. They're also powerful biters. Finally, constrictors are excellent at escaping, so be wary of calling these snakes pets.

Venomous Snakes

Even snake handlers get bit, so why should you risk owning one of these? The black mamba (pictured here), is the most venomous snake in the world and is responsible for a large number of human deaths a year. Before an anti-venom was established, their bites were capable of killing a human in 20 minutes. Skip the ego-boost of owning "the world's deadliest snake," since it could actually kill you.

Tiger (or any other big cat)

Although big cats can appear to not be overtly aggressive, they are natural-born predators, so it's hard to completely train that behavior out of them. From the
man in harlem, New York who thought he could own a pet tiger to even trained professions like Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy, big cats have been known to attack -- so they're just not meant to be pets.

Alligators, Crocodiles, and/or Caimans

Have you seen their teeth? They're carnivores that can exceed six feet in size.

Baby Turtles

Yes, they may look cute. But, they can be carriers of salmonella. A reported quarter million cases of samonellosis occurred annually during the 1970s -- when there was a baby turtle pet craze. Children were the most affected by such outbreaks.

Deadly Spiders

While tarantula (pictured here) bites are usually not deadly to humans (unless you're fatally allergic), their hairs cause intense itching, so they're not meant to be petted or regularly handled. Poisonous spiders include: the Redback Spider, Tree-Dwelling Funnel-Web Spider, Brazilian Wandering Spider, Brown Recluse Spider, and the Black Widow.

Let’s take a look at 15 of the most famous conspiracies that just might be closer to the truth than we think.

Chemtrails

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists believe that some contrails, which consist of ice crystals or water vapor condensed behind aircraft, actually result from chemicals or biological agents being deliberately sprayed at high altitude for some undisclosed purpose. The staple of right-wing radio shows in the US, there is fevered speculation that the chemicals being sprayed are part of a wider plot that involves the so-called New World Order and is being directed by shadowy forces within the government. The existence of chemtrails has been repeatedly denied by federal agencies and scientists.

The Aids virus was created in a laboratory

Based on the theories of Dr William Campbell Douglass, many believe that that HIV was genetically engineered in 1974 by the World Health Organisation. Dr Douglass believed that it was a cold-blooded attempt to create a killer virus which was then used in a successful experiment in Africa. Others have claimed that it was created by the CIA or the KGB as a means to reduce world population.

Global warming is a hoax

Some climate change doubters believe that man-made global warming is a conspiracy designed to soften up the world’s population to higher taxation, controls on lifestyle and more authoritarian government. These skeptics cite a fall in global temperatures since last year and a levelling off in the rise in temperature since 1998 as evidence.

Plastic coffins and concentration camps

Just outside Atlanta, Georgia, beside a major road are approximately 500,000 plastic coffins. Stacked neatly and in full view, the coffins are allegedly owned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). Conspiracy theorists believe that Fema has also set up several concentration camps in the US in preparation for the imposition of a state of martial law and the killing of millions of Americans. They suggest that the financial crisis will be used to justify the imposition of a police state.

Fluoridation

Fluoride is commonly added to drinking water as a way to reduce tooth decay. However, there has been some evidence that there could be some harmful side effects from fluoride and conspiracy theorists believe that this information is known and recognised by those responsible for adding the fluoride, but that they continue the practice regardless. Drug companies have been targeted as possible beneficiaries, as they will profit from a population with ill-health. Another motive is that fluoride lowers mental abilities thereby “dumbing down” the entire population.

Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen

Theorists believe that President Franklin Roosevelt provoked the Japanese attack on the US naval base in Hawaii in December 1941, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn his fleet commanders.

He apparently needed the attack to provoke Hitler into declaring war on the US because the American public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe.

Theorists believe that the US was warned by the governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, Korea and the Soviet Union that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and that, furthermore, the Americans had intercepted and broken all the important Japanese codes in the run up to the attack.

Peak oil

Peak oil (a theory in itself) is the supposed peak of oil production during and after which demand for oil outstrips supply sending prices through the roof. The peak oil conspiracy theorists believe that peak oil is a fraud concocted by the oil industries to increase prices amid concerns about future supplies. The oil industry is aware of vast reserves of untapped oil, but does not utilise them in order to maintain the illusion of scarcity, they claim.

July 7, 2005 London Tube bombings

One of the supposed mysteries surrounding the 7/7 attacks is this image, used by several news outlets, of the bombers entering Luton station on their way to London at around 7.20am on July 7. Theorists claim this image is fake because the man in the white hat – believed to be Mohammed Sidique Khan – has been electronically placed on the picture after it was taken. They claim that it shows his arm behind a railing while the rest of his body is in front and that the bar behind his head goes across and in front of his face. Theorists postulate, among other things, that the bombs which went off on the Tube trains were actually under the floors of the vehicles and not in the alleged plotters’ back packs.

Elvis Presley faked his own death

A persistent belief is that “the King” did not die in 1977. Many fans persist in claiming he is still alive, that he went into hiding for various reasons. This claim is allegedly backed up by thousands of so-called sightings.

The main reason given in support of the belief that Presley faked his death is that, on his grave, his middle name Aron is spelt as Aaron. But “Aaron” is actually the genuine middle name for Presley. Apparently, either Presley or his parents tried to change the name to “Aron” to make it more similar to Presley’s stillborn twin, Jesse Garon Presley.

Two tabloid newspapers ran articles covering the continuing “life” of Presley after his death, in great detail, including a broken leg from a motorcycle accident, all the way up to his purported “real death” in the mid 1990s.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered

Despite an official inquiry that found no evidence of a plot by MI6 or any other entity to murder the princess and Dodi Fayed in 1997, fevered speculation continues.

The theory is that rogue elements in the British secret service decided that Diana’s relationship with Fayed was a threat to the monarchy and, therefore, to the British state.

A plot was hatched in which a white Fiat Uno carrying agents was sent to blind and disorientate driver Henri Paul as he sped through the Paris underpass pursued by photographers. Later, Paul’s blood was switched with a sample of somebody who had drunk a lot of alcohol.

The Illuminati and the New World Order

A conspiracy in which powerful and secretive groups (the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group and other shadowy cabals) are plotting to rule mankind with a single world government. Many historical events are said to have been engineered by these groups with one goal – the New World Order (NWO).

The groups use political finance, social engineering, mind control, and fear-based propaganda to achieve their aims. Signs of the NWO are said to be the pyramid on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, inset, strange and disturbing murals at Denver International Airport, pictured, and pentagrams in city plans.

International organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the European Union, the United Nations, and Nato are listed as founding organisations of the New World Order.

Nasa faked the moon landings

People who think that the Apollo moon landings were not all that they seemed at the time believe that Nasa faked some or all of the landings.

Some of the theories surrounding this subject are that the Apollo astronauts did not land on the Moon; Nasa and possibly others intentionally deceived the public into believing the landings did occur by manufacturing, destroying, or tampering with evidence, including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, and rock samples; and that Nasa and possibly others continue to actively participate in the conspiracy to this day.

Those who think that Nasa faked some or all of the landings base their theories on photographs from the lunar surface which they claim show camera crosshairs partially behind rocks, a flag planted by Buzz Aldrin moving in a strange way, the lack of stars over the lunar landscape and shadows falling in different direction. Many commentators have published detailed rebuttals to the hoax claims, and these theories have been generally discounted but belief in them – particularly on the web – persists.

A flying saucer crashed at Roswell in 1947

The event that kick-started more than a half century of conspiracy theories surrounding unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Something did crash at Roswell, New Mexico, sometime before July 7, 1947 and – at first – the US authorities stated explicitly that this was a flying saucer or disk – as shown by the splash story on that day’s Roswell Daily Record, pictured.

Numerous witnesses reported seeing metallic debris scattered over a wide area and at least one reported seeing a blazing craft crossing the sky shortly before it crashed. In recent years, witnesses have added significant new details, including claims of a large military operation dedicated to recovering alien craft and aliens themselves, at as many as 11 crash sites, and alleged witness intimidation. In 1989, former mortician Glenn Dennis claimed that he was involved in alien autopsies which were carried out at the Roswell air force base.

The conspiracy theory has been fanned by the US military repeatedly changing its story. Within hours of the army telling reporters that it had recovered a crashed saucer, senior officers insisted that the only thing that had fallen from the sky had been a weather balloon.

A report by the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force released in 1995, concluded that the reported recovered material in 1947 was likely debris from a secret government program called Project Mogul, which involved high altitude balloons meant to detect sound waves generated by Soviet atom bomb tests and ballistic missiles. A second report, released in 1997, concluded that reports of alien bodies were likely a combination of innocently transformed memories of military accidents involving injured or killed personnel, and the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs like Project High Dive conducted in the 1950s.

Since the late 1990s the debate about Roswell has polarised with several former pro-UFO researchers concluding that the craft was, indeed, part of a US military project and that it was, most likely, some sort of weather balloon. But further evidence has emerged – notably a signed affidavit by Walter Haut, the Roswell Army Air Field public affairs officer who had drafted the initial press release on July 8, 1947. Haut says in the affidavit -signed in 2002 – that he saw alien corpses and a craft and that he had been involved in a military cover up. Haut died in 2005.

9/11 Attacks

Thanks to the power of the web and live broadcasts on television, the conspiracy theories surrounding the events of September 11, 2001 – when terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Despite repeated claims by al-Qaeda that it planned, organised and orchestrated the attacks, several official and unofficial investigations into the collapse of the Twin Towers which concluded that structural failure was responsible and footage of the events themselves, the conspiracy theories continue to grow in strength.

At the milder end of the spectrum are the theorists who believe that the US government had prior warning of the attacks but did not do enough to stop them. Others believe that the Bush administration deliberately turned a blind eye to those warnings because it wanted a pretext to launch wars in the Middle East to usher in another century of American hegemony. A large group of people – collectively called the 9/11 Truth Movement – cite evidence that an airliner did not hit the Pentagon and that the World Trade Centre could not have been brought down by airliner impacts and burning aviation fuel alone. This final group points to video evidence which they claim shows puffs of smoke – so-called demoliton squibs – emerging from the Twin Towers at levels far below the aircraft impact zones and prior to the collapses. They also believe that, on the day itself, the US air force was deliberately stood down or sent on exercises to prevent intervention that could have saved the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

Many witnesses – including firemen, policemen and people who were inside the towers at the time – claim to have heard explosions below the aircraft impacts (including in basement levels) and before both the collapses and the attacks themselves. As with the assassination of JFK, the official inquiry into the events – the 9/11 Commission Report – is widely derided by the conspiracy community and held up as further evidence that 9/11 was a the work of the US government. Scientific journals have consistently rejected these hypotheses.

The assassination of John F Kennedy

The 35th President of the United States was shot on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas at 12.30pm . He was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife – Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy – in a motorcade. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963 to 1964, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976 to 1979, and other government investigations concluded that the President had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald – who was himself shot dead by Jack Ruby while in police custody.

But doubts about the official explanation and the conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman firing from the Texas Book Depository overlooking Dealey Plaza where Kennedy was hit surfaced soon after the commission report. Footage of the motorcade taken by Abraham Zapruder on 8mm film supported the growing belief that at least four shots were fired – not the three that the Warren Commission claimed. The moments of impact recorded on the film also suggested that at least one of the shots came from a completely different direction to those supposedly fired by Oswald – evidence backed up by testimony of several eye witnesses. Many believed that several shots were fired by gunmen hiding behind a picket fence on a grassy knoll overlooking the plaza.

The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, though none of these has been proven. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. The HSCA also concluded that there were at least four shots fired and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed. However, later studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, have called into question the accuracy of the evidence used by the HSCA to support its finding of four shots.

So here they are—in the world of construction vehicles, these are the five biggest and baddest:

Krupp Bagger 288: World’s Largest Trencher

To put it lightly, the Bagger 288 is a bucket-wheel excavator. But there’s nothing light about a 13,500-ton mobile strip miner. The German creation is 721 feet long, 315 feet high, and can clear an area the size of a football field three stories deep—in just one day.

Armored Caterpillar D9R

Its nickname is Doobi (Hebrew for teddy bear) but this heavily armored bulldozer is anything but soft and cuddly. With 15 tons of Israeli-engineered armor protecting the entire machine and bulletproof windows sealing in the cabin, this monster machine is equipped for construction, rescue, demolition, and even defending itself with custom-fitted grenade launchers and machine guns.

Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1

The Liebherr LTM 11200-9.1 telescopic crane is ridiculous. It can lift up to 1,200 tons. It’s boom extends to 100 meters long with up to 126 meters of additional lattice. Rolling along on a nine-axle suspension, this bad boy can handle any job. Disc brakes come standard.

LeTourneau L-2350 Front End Loader

The world’s largest rubber-tire front loading vehicle of its kind, the L-2350’s bucket is roughly the size of a studio apartment. It has a 2,300 horsepower engine capable of lifting up to 160,000 lbs. The operator stands two stories off the ground, and the mammoth bucket extends to a maximum height of nearly 44 feet.

Rusch Triple 34-25 with Genesis 2500 Demolition Shear

Quite possibly the largest demolition shear in the world, the Genesis 2500 wields devastating power, especially mounted on the Rusch excavator. It is a destruction machine with Godzilla-like force.

Typhoon Tip

Pacific typhoons are generally more powerful than Atlantic hurricanes, because the former have much more water over which they can gather strength.

On October 12, 1979, Tip made history with the lowest air pressure ever recorded at sea level on Earth: 870 mbars. Standard sea level air pressure is 1,013.25 mbars. Hurricane Andrew only made it to 922 mbars.

Tip had one 1 minute sustained winds of 190 mph. It killed 99 people, a low number compared to some of the others on this list, but this must be placed in the perspective of a long warning before the typhoon strikes.

44 of the fatalities were fishermen in the open Pacific. Tip sank or grounded 8 ships. One of these was a giant freighter that the storm broke in half. Not only was it the strongest cyclone, it was also the largest ever recorded, half the size of the United States, excluding Alaska.

The Lake Nyos Limnic Eruption

Limnic eruptions are one of the most bizarre natural disasters known. The criteria required for one to occur make them very rare. Lake Nyos is in a very remote area of the Cameroonian jungle. It is not very large, only 1.2 miles by 0.75 miles, but it is quite deep, 682 feet. Under the bed, a magma chamber is leaking carbon dioxide into the water. This changes the water into carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is 1.5 times denser than air, which is why it will not rise from the bottom of a lake, unless shoved up by another force. There are only three such lakes known on Earth.

On August 21, 1986, the carbon dioxide at the bottom of the lake suddenly erupted all at once, 1.6 million tons of it, and released a cloud of carbon dioxide from the lake. This cloud, being heavier than air, hugged the ground contours, and blew out of the lake at 60 mph, went downhill throughout the area at up to 30 mph, and displaced all the oxygen in several small villages, suffocating between 1,700 and 1,800 people, not counting all their livestock.

The force of the gas expulsion also blew out the lake water itself, in an 80 ft high tsunami that stripped the trees, shrubs, and soil off one side of the shore.

The 1960 Chile Earthquake

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, Chile on May 22, 1960, at 2:11 PM local time. As many as 6,000 people were killed. Many more would have been, had it not been for Chile’s preparedness for earthquakes, and the remote location of the epicenter.

Eyewitnesses reported that the entire world appeared as if God had seized one end of it like a rope, and slung it as hard as he could. 40% of the houses in Valdivia were razed to the ground. Cordon Caulle, a nearby active volcano, was ripped open and forced to erupt.

The quake measured 9.5 in magnitude, and 35 foot high waves were recorded 6,000 miles away. Of all the seismic energy of the 20th Century, including the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, 25% was concentrated in the 1960 Chile quake.

It caused 82 foot high waves to travel down the Chilean coast. Hilo, Hawaii was destroyed. The quake possessed twice the surface energy yield the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, and equalled 178 billion tons of TNT. This would have powered the entire United States, at 2005 energy consumption levels, for 740 years.

The 2003 European Heat Wave

Europe is not accustomed to hot summers. Give them a break, hot summers almost never happen there. But in 2003, they got hit with one that would make the southeastern United States, or the Australian outback sit back and marvel.

This lister is from North Carolina, where hot summers are expected and prepared for. In Europe, most of the homes built within the last 50 years before 2003 were not equipped with air conditioners, because none had ever been needed. Now, well over half of them have equipped themselves for the future.

There were at least 14,802 deaths from the heat in France alone, most of them old people in nursing homes, or in single family homes without the ability to cool off. The heat dried up most of Europe, and severe forest fires broke out in Portugal. Some 2,000 people died there from the heat.

About 300 died in Germany, where the weather is usually very cold to delightfully mild; 141 in Spain, where the temperature actually gets into the 90s Fahrenheit once in a great while; 1,500 in the Netherlands. Multiple temperature records, having lasted since the 1700s, were broken, then broken again a week later: 106.7 Fahrenheit in Brono, Switzerland. This melted a lot of Alpine glaciers into flash floods. 104.7 in Bavaria, Germany. 103 in Paris. The new record in Edinburgh, Scotland is now 91.2, which is unheard of there.

The wine harvest came a month early to save the grapes. 75% of Ukraine’s wheat crops were parched to death.

The Storm of the Century

From March 12 to 13, 1993, a cyclonic storm formed off the east coats of the United States, so vast in size that it caused a unique hodgepodge of severe weather.

Rarely does a single storm system cause blizzards from the Canada/U. S. border all the way down to Birmingham, Alabama, but this one did, and Birmingham received 12 to 16 inches of snowfall in one day and night. This was accompanied everywhere with hurricane-force wind gusts of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The Florida panhandle received up to 4 inches, and the strange thing is that 5 people were killed by tornadoes, in the middle of this blizzard.

The Appalachians of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia received as much as 3.5 feet of snow, with drifts up to 35 feet. 300 people froze to death throughout the eastern half of the country when the electrical power was knocked out by falling trees. 100 mph wind gusts reached all the way to Havana, Cuba.

The Great Flood of 1931

The deadliest natural disaster ever recorded occurred through the winter, spring, and summer of 1931 in central China. There are three major rivers draining this area, the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Huai. All three flooded catastrophically, because the winter snowstorms were particularly heavy in the mountains around the river basins, and when spring began, all this snow melted and flowed into the rivers.

Then the spring brought particularly heavy rains. Then the cyclone season, which usually brings only 2 storms per year, brought 10, 7 of them in July. All this water swelled the three major rivers, especially the Yellow River, and because they drain a very large, very flat area of China, somewhere between 3.7 and 4 million people were drowned or starved.

Nanjing City, China’s capital at the time, became an island surrounded by over 100,000 square kilometers of water, more area than the state of Indiana, or all of Portugal.

The Tunguska Explosion

On June 30, 1908, at about 7:14 AM local time, an asteroid or comet plummeted over the lower Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a remote area of Siberia, and detonated at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles.

It exploded with the energy of the largest thermonuclear bomb the United States has ever tested, the Castle Bravo bomb, 10-15 megatons. This is one-third the power of the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba. The airburst toppled about 80 million trees over 772 square miles of Siberian taiga, and would have registered at 5.0 on the Richter Scale.

Thankfully, no one was killed, because the nearest eyewitnesses were about 40 miles away from ground zero. They reported seeing a bright blue column of light streak across the sky, almost as bright as the sun, then a flash, and a report like artillery fire right beside them.

For one hundred miles around the epicenter, people were blown off their feet by the shockwave, their clothes were scorched off, windows were shattered, and trees seared to death and blown over. Iron locks were snapped off barn doors.

This detonation was more than sufficient to incinerate the entire population of Japan, the Sao Paolo metropolitan area, the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, or the entire United States’s New England megalopolis from Boston to Washington, D. C.

The 1999 Bridge Creek F5 Tornado

On May 3, 1999, a tornado outbreak lasting for 3 days, began with a bang, when an F5 formed at about 7:12 PM local time. This tornado was the most powerful windstorm ever recorded on Earth, at 318 mph. It killed 36 people, and traveled northeast from Amber, OK, through Bridge Creek and Moore. Moore is a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, and had the tornado veered north into the city, it would have probably caused more deaths than any other tornado in history, and become the costliest.

8,000 houses were obliterated. It shredded large vehicles with debris, and then wrapped them around telephone poles, threw them completely through warehouses, whipped 2x4s through wheel hubs, and pine straw all the way through 8-inch-thick pine trees.

This was the first time that the local weather stations reported over radio that if residents were not securely underground, they would be killed. Hiding under mattresses in bathtubs, in ditches, or under overpasses was insufficient.

The 1815 Tambora Eruption

Mt. Tambora is on Sumbawa Island, in south Indonesia. It erupted from April 6 to 11, 1815, but the worst of this was at the end, from 10 to 11 April. The power is rated as 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, making this eruption the most powerful in recorded history, four times more powerful than the 1883 Krakatoa eruption.

This means that the Tambora eruption was 52,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima Bomb. All the vegetation on Sumbawa was incinerated or uprooted, mixed with ash, and washed out to sea. The trees formed rafts 3 miles across. Pumice ash does not mix well with water, and one of these rafts of ash and wood drifted all the way to Calcutta, India.

92,000 people were killed, most by starvation, the largest loss of life caused by a volcanic eruption in recorded history.

The finer ash remained in the atmosphere for 3 years and covered the entire planet, causing brilliant sunsets, and the famous “Year without a Summer,” in both North America and Europe. The ash disrupted the weather, and caused global temperatures to decrease as much as 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit on average, an enormous drop.

1816 was the coldest year of the 1810s, and the 1810s was the coldest decade of the century because of the eruption. 12 inches of snow fell in Quebec City from 6 to 10 June, 1816. Crops in the entire Northern Hemisphere were severely damaged.

The 1958 Lituya Bay Megatsunami

Megatsunamis were only theorized until July 9, 1958, when, in Lituya Bay, a very narrow fjord of the Alaskan panhandle, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook 90 million tons of rock and glacial ice off the mountainside at the head of the bay. It dropped off all at once, almost vertically, and landed as a monolith into the bay’s deep headwaters.

This generated the highest wave ever recorded on Earth, 1,720 feet. That’s 470 feet taller than the tip of the Empire State Building’s antenna. It is, in fact, taller than all but the five tallest skyscrapers on Earth today, and most scientists agree that it had sufficient power to rip these buildings from their foundations.

The wave traveled from the head of the bay out toward the open ocean, and because the bay is so narrow, the wave was funneled up the mountainsides. It snapped all the trees off at 3 to 6 feet above the ground, everywhere up to 1,720 feet high around the bay. Most of these were 6-foot-thick spruce trees.

There were a total of 3 fishing boats in the bay, near the mouth, and the wave sank one, killing the two on board. The other two were lucky to ride this wave up the mountainsides and then slosh with it back into the bay.

One of them was anchored, and the 3-foot-thick iron anchor chain was snapped like thread when the wave lifted the boat. One of the survivors estimated the length of time between the wave’s overtopping of the island in the bay to its arrival at his boat as 2 seconds. If this is true, the wave was traveling 600 mph.

It stripped away all the trees, grass, and soil down to the bedrock, and then dissipated in the open ocean.

Mutter Museum of Medical History, Philadelphia

Mutter Museum of Medical History in Philadelphia is the museum of pathologies, old medical equipment and biological exhibit items. The museum is most famous for its giant collection of skulls.

Truk Lagoon, Micronesia

Much of Japanese Navy forces are now lying at the bottom of shallow Truk Lagoon in Micronesia, southwest of Hawaii. These Blue depths are full with wrecks of battleships and aircraft carriers, sunk in the year 1944 and is now open for divers.

Sonora Witchcraft Market in Mexico City, Mexico

Sonora market is opened everyday to pilgrims from Mexico City and tourists from far beyond who come here for fortune predictions and promises of better life. This is the place where the local population buys “supernatural” stuff like some blood of rattlesnake or dried hummingbirds for taming the luck.

Easter Island, Chile

One of the most mysterious places on earth is Easter Island, with huge, cut out stone figures of giants, ingrown in the soil under the weight of millenniums. Statues are staring in the skies, as if they were guilty of some mystical crimes.

Manchac Swamps, Louisiana

Boats with tourists, floating through the swamps in the torchlight are surrounded by old cypresses and long threads of moss hanging down from the branches of cypresses. Manchac Swaps are also called “ghost swaps”.

Paris Catacombs, France

Bones and skulls are packed on both sides of the corridor like goods in the warehouse. The air here is dry and bears only a slight hint of decomposition. Here are also some letterings, in general dating from the French Revolution, which are flagging king and noblemen. They stretch for about 187 kilometers under the whole city and only insignificant part of them is opened to public.

Winchester House, San Jose, California

It is said that ghosts of madness for a girl name Sarah live in 160 rooms of the house. Since the house was opened to public, there are ceaseless complaints about weird happenings. Even if tourists do not believe in ghosts, the place shocks by its immensity.

Mary King’s dead-end, Edinburgh

Several streets with dark past hidden under the medieval Old Town in Edinburgh. The place, where in the XVII-th century the plague victims were closed up and left to die, is famous for its poltergeists. Recently it was opened for tourists, who were attracted by the stories about its supernatural spirits.

Occult Abbey of Thelema, Sicily

Aleister Crowley – is perhaps one of most odious occultists in the world, and this stone farm house filled with dark pagan wall-paintings, once was the cosmopolis of satanic orgies. At least, it was considered to be such in 1920-s. Crowley is known because of his fans, such as Marilyn Manson. Tourists, apt to esotericism can wander there and thrill themselves.

Chernobyl, Ukraine

Tourists, coming to Ukraine, in the abandoned city of Pripyat, find themselves in the exclusion zone. Here, all the stuff is left in hurry in that horrible 1986, when Chernobyl NPP accident made thousands of people leave their homes forever.

Some may be surprised to see what is considered a lesser known invention to my list, but consider the impact Eli Whitney’s little invention had on this country: until then, slavery was only morally wrong. With his cotton-picking machine capable of producing twenty bails of cotton for every one produced by slave labor, he made slavery economically unfeasible as well. Of course, in demonstrating to southern plantation owners they no longer needed slaves to harvest their crop, he also hastened the advent of the Civil War, but then no important advance in the human condition is ever without its price.

2. Photography

‘Up to the 1840s, one could pay a portrait artist handsomely to make themselves appear less ugly and more heroic than they were in real life; with the introduction of photography, however, all that went out the window. Suddenly people could be photographed as they really appeared: dour, unsmiling, grainy, and not at all happy to find themselves stuck living in the nineteenth century. Plus, by the 1890s the first motion picture cameras had been introduced, showing people as they looked when they moved about in the cheerless century as well. I guess that’s progress…of a sort.’

3. Electricity/light bulb

Where would we be without electricity—or the light bulb? Probably sitting in the soft glow of our kerosene lantern wondering why the toaster isn’t working. Clearly, the advent of electricity in the waning years of the nineteenth century had an enormous impact on society, for it not only reduced the fire danger by replacing gas-fed street lamps with non flammable electric light bulbs, but paved the way for everything from the television and the radio to the refrigerator and the curling iron. Of course, it also brought us the electric chair, but that’s another story.

4. Ironclad ships

Along with steam and breech-loading guns came the biggest revolution in shipping in thousands of years: the replacement of sail and wooden ships with great behemoths belching smoke and wrought in riveted iron. So swift and complete was this transformation that by the end of the century sail was considered a quant anachronism while even the smallest freighters were being built out of metal and powered by massive steam-engines. Its impact on warfare was even more immense, with Trafalgar-like battles between scores of ships of the line spewing cannon balls at each other from a few hundred feet apart being replaced by metal monsters hurtling shaped charges at each other from miles away. Not quite as romantic as in Nelson’s day, but spectacular none-the-less.

5. The rifle

Though the trusty old musket and front-loading cannon had been around for centuries, it wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that the firearm really came into its own to become the epitome of cutting edge technology for its era. First was the advent of rifling, which improved both accuracy and range; then it was the invention of the cartridge, which did away with powder and flints and made it possible to increase the rate of fire exponentially; and finally it was the advent of breech loading, which made it possible to load a rifle or cannon from the back rather than from the front. Put them all together and you’ve got carnage on a large scale, which was to be, in many ways, the scourge of the twentieth century.

6. The internal combustion engine

While steam remained the primary power source throughout the century, by the end of the 1880’s its successor—the internal combustion engine—was making its first appearance, both in the form of the gasoline powered four-stroke engine and the more efficient diesel engine. Though both were not yet developed enough and remained largely underpowered during the waning years of the nineteenth century, they were to lay the foundation not only for the ultimate demise of the steam engine, but for a number of industries people at the time could only imagine: the automobile, the airplane, and even the five-speed, multi-level adjustable lawn mower. Plus, despite all the bad press fossil-fuel powered engines get nowadays, they produced a hundred times less pollutant than coal-fed steam engines.

7. The telegraph

Though under development in Europe for several years, the telegraph was developed independently in the United States by Samuel Morse and his assistant, Alfred Vail, in 1837. (It was actually Vail who invented Morse code, which makes it difficult to understand why it isn’t called Vail Code.) By 1843 Congress—in a rare moment of far-sightedness—appropriated the money to wire the country and the rest is history. How did it change things? Consider that Lincoln got word of the outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg within hours of the guns falling silent and could order his field commanders to new battlefields in a matter of minutes from the telegraph office a few doors down from his office in the White House. Before that, such things would have taken days or even weeks to accomplish.

8. The telephone

The idea that a person’s voice could travel through a wire was considered something akin to witchcraft when it was first proposed, but by the time Alexander Graham Bell patented his “electric telegraph” in March of 1876, it was not only a reality, but was to forever change the country. Now it was possible for people to interrupt other people’s meals or get them out of the bathtub from the comfort of their own parlor. The only question that needs to be asked, however, is who really was the first to design a practical phone? Was it Johann Reis in 1861? Antonio Meucci in 1871? Elisha Gray in 1876? The issue remains hotly debated to this day, though in the end, does it really matter?

9. The locomotive

Of course, for the steam engine to have any practical application, it had to drive something, and that something—at least at first—was the locomotive. First appearing in the United States in 1829 with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Tom Thumb demonstration locomotive, by the middle of the century literally hundreds of engines were operating in the country and by the end of the nineteenth century, the entire nation could be crossed by rail in a matter of days. To appreciate the locomotive’s impact, just try to visualize the nineteenth century without its familiar smoke-belching engines chugging along endless expanses of iron track and see how you do. It could truly be said that in many ways, it was the locomotive that made America what it was and is today.

10. The steam engine

Though steam as a means of power had been first experimented with by the ancient Greeks and Romans thousands of years ago, and the first experimental steam engines had been manufactured as early as the late seventeenth century, it wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that it became the truly practical energy source which was to ignite the industrial revolution. In fact, it is impossible to imagine the nineteenth century without the steam engine, for in many ways it was the driving force behind America’s western expansion, played a major role in the North winning the Civil War, and helped the United States take its first tentative steps towards becoming a regional power. True, it was to be eventually superseded by the more powerful and efficient power plants of the future, but during the nineteenth century steam was king.

1. Seahorses

Perhaps the most famous of all animal fathers are seahorses, which are known for being one of the only male animals in the world to get pregnant. The female deposits her eggs into his brood, then he fertilizes the eggs and carries them to term. As you can see in the image, they can get quite large during the pregnancy period. The number of babies may vary greatly by species, as seahorses can deliver as few as 5 babies or as many as 1,500. On average though, the numbers are around 100-200.

2. Hardhead Catfishes

The hardheaded catfish doesn’t have such a thick skull when it comes to fatherhood. While he doesn’t get pregnant like a seahorse, he does put up to 48 of his fertilized eggs in his mouth and carries them with him for 60 days. If that wasn’t uncomfortable enough, he doesn’t eat for this entire period, making him one dedicated daddy.

3. Marsupial Frogs

As the name suggests, the marsupial frog also carries his babies around in his brood pouch. While there are a few different species of marsupial frogs, perhaps the most impressive fathers are those that guard the eggs laid on the ground. When the eggs hatch, the ground will not provide enough moisture for the tadpoles, so he puts them in his brood pouch until they hop out as baby frogs.

4. Darwin Frogs

Similarly, the Darwin frog also guards its eggs until they hatch, but he takes them into his vocal sac (up to 30 at a time), where they will stay until they grow into young frogs and hop out of his mouth.

5. Mimic Poison Frog

The mimic poison frog has a notable reputation for not only being a great father, but also being a great husband. As a matter of fact, it is the only amphibian to be certifiably monogamous. The female frog lays her eggs on leaves and those that hatch are then moved by the father into a tiny pool of water inside a bromeliad. Because there are not enough nutrients for the tadpoles to survive in these conditions, the male not only guards them, but watches for signs that the baby needs food. When he croaks, the mother comes by and lays an unfertilized egg in the pool of water as a source of nourishment for the baby.

6. Emperor Penguins

Perhaps the next best known fathers in the animal kingdom, emperor penguins not only watch the fertilized eggs, they go for months at a time in the freezing arctic without a meal. The fathers keep the eggs on their feet and covered with their bellies because contact with the sub-freezing ground can result in immediate death of the embryo inside. He stays like this for two months and by this time, he has already gone over 100 days without a meal. The female penguins generally return shortly after the eggs hatch, but until they arrive, the daddy manages to feed the youngsters with a substance produced in his esophagus. Only after the females return and the couple exchanges shifts does the male get to head to sea for a well-deserved meal.

7. Namaqua Sandgrouse

When it comes to care after the chick is born, the Namaqua sandgrouse is one heck of a dad. During the incubation period, he sits on the nest at night and then the mother incubates the eggs during the day. The father really shines after the chicks hatch though and the mother leaves the family to fend for themselves. The birds live in arid desert areas and while the nests are always located around watering holes, the young chicks cannot make it to water, so the dad has to bring it to them. He dips his belly in water every morning and his feathers absorb the water like a sponge, each feather can hold up to eight times its weight in water. He then returns to the nest where the chicks can drink the water straight from his feathers.

8. Greater Hornbills

Ever wonder why a hornbill has such a massive beak? It’s partly so they can break out of their nesting area when they grow up. Greater hornbills build their nests inside hollowed out parts of trees, which are then sealed off with mud and feces so nothing can get in or out without quite a struggle. The mother stays in the inside of this nest and a small slit is left in the plug so the male can pass food to her. For the entire incubation period, he will make up to five trips a day to feed his mate and the chicks once they hatch. When the chicks become large enough to crowd the nest, the mother will break her way out of the nest with her casque and then reseal the barrier, leaving the chicks inside. The mother and father then continue to take turns feeding the chicks for another four or five months until their beaks are developed enough that they can break the seal and fly out.

9. Rheas

Rhea may not be the most loyal mates, with each male courting anywhere between 2 and 12 females, but they are certainly great dads. Each male can incubate 10 and 60 eggs for around 40 days (an average nest contains around 26 eggs from 7 females). When the chicks are born, he is very protective, charging anyone, including female rheas, who approach the babies. He raises the chicks completely on his own and teaches them how to fend for themselves.

10. Jacanas

Like the rheas, jacanas are very active fathers who not only incubate their nests but teach their babies about the basics of life. Known as lily trotters or Jesus birds for their ability to walk on water using plants like the lily pads, these little birds lay their nests on submerged plants and the male protects and incubates the eggs while the female finds more mates. If the eggs start to sink or otherwise become endangered, he will carry them to a new nesting site under his wing. Once they are born, he helps feed and care for the chicks until they can survive on their own. The female will only return if the something happens to the eggs and the male is therefore open to breed again.

11. Giant Water Bugs

Insects aren’t generally considered to be the most active parents in the world, but the male giant water bug is certainly an exception. He totes the entire brood of eggs –often up to 150 at a time– on his back until they hatch. The female simply lays the eggs and then glues them to daddy before she takes off, leaving him to rear the youngsters. During the three weeks he carries the eggs, he protects them and takes time to dry them out of the water so they don’t get moldy.

12. Marmosets

Primates can be good dads too (as evidenced by our celebration of Father’s Day in general), and humans aren’t the only good fathers in our animal order. Enter marmosets. Not only are these little tiny monkeys simply adorable, they are also great parents.

Male marmosets start caring for their young from day one when they groom and lick newborns as the mother recuperates from her ordeal (the babies are generally born as twins and usually make up around 25 percent of her body weight, the equivalent of a human woman giving birth to a baby between 30 and 40 pounds). After thate feeds, carries and grooms the infants. Meanwhile, the mother will often get pregnant again within the next two weeks, leaving daddy to take care of the babies.

Animal astronauts have been instrumental in helping humans succeed in space, so it is to them that this list is dedicated.

1. Dogs

The Soviets preferred to use pairs of stray female dogs for their early space experiments in the 50s and 60s. Most of those flights were successful, and some dogs flew more than once. In 1951, Dezik and Tsygan became the first canines to survive spaceflight. Unfortunately, Dezik perished in a subsequent launch.

The most famous space dog is probably Laika, who became the first living being in orbit when she flew with the Sputnik 2 rocket on November 3, 1957. She didn’t live through the ordeal, though, dying of stress and overheating after only a few hours. It wasn’t until 1960 that animals would return alive from an orbital flight. The Soviet dogs Belka and Strelka (along with a rabbit, a bunch of mice, two rats, and other biological specimens) first accomplished this feat on the Sputnik 5. One of Strelka’s puppies was later given as a present to President Kennedy’s daughter.

2. Monkeys

In the late 1940s, the United States began catapulting various life forms into the sky on V-2 rockets, starting with fruit flies in 1947 (which, by the way, were recovered alive and well). The Air Force Aeromedical Laboratory “Albert” flights (June 1948 – August 1950) at White Sands, NM were the first experiments to use primates. The first Albert was launched on June 11, 1948. He didn’t survive (actually, he didn’t even make it to space).

On June 14, 1949, Albert II became the first monkey in space when he reached an altitude of 83 miles. Immediately thereafter, he became the first space monkey to die on impact.

As noted above, Yorick and his 11 mice crewmates survived rocket flight on September 20, 1951, although they didn’t make it to space (and Yorick died two hours after recovery). However, on May 28, 1959 two monkeys named Able and Baker blasted to a height of more than 300 miles and were later recovered – which makes them the first monkeys to survive a flight in actual space. Sadly, Able passed away a few days later as doctors were trying to remove an infected electrode.

Many other U.S. monkeys could also be mentioned – for instance, there’s Sam, a rhesus monkey launched from Brooks Air Force Base in Texas (Dec. 4, 1959), Ham, the first chimp in space (Jan. 31, 1961), and Enos, the first chimp to orbit the earth (Nov. 29, 1961).

Other countries had monkey astronauts, too. The Soviet Bion space program used them during the 80s and 90s. One of them (named Dryoma) even became a gift for Fidel Castro after a successful spaceflight on Bion 8. The French sent a couple of pig-tailed macaques to space in 1967, and Argentina shot off two cai monkeys in 1969 and 1970.

3. Spiders

Several different space spiders could be mentioned, but the 1973 Skylab 3 space mission carried the first ones – a couple of European garden spiders named Arabella and Anita. The “spiders in space” experiment was a science project dreamed up by a student named Judy Miles, and the idea was to observe how weightlessness and spaceflight would affect web construction.

Both spiders managed to spin webs, although Arabella finished hers first. The webs took longer than normal to complete, of course, and displayed some variations when compared to normal webs on Earth. Scientists later determined that although the space webs contained differences in thickness, they were of a finer quality overall.

Both spiders died in space – apparently from dehydration – and their bodies are now on display at the Smithsonian.

4. Cats

Once again, our hats must go off to the French. Not happy with just firing the first rat into space, France decided they would also send up the very first space cat in October of 1963. So they found themselves a street cat, named it Felix, strapped it into a Véronique AGI rocket, and hurled it heavenward. And yes, it survived!

One week later, however, they launched a second cat. Let’s just say that one wasn’t quite as lucky…

Note – some sources indicate that Felix ran away at the last minute, and the cat actually launched was a female named Felicette. Either way, France gets the First Cat In Space award.

5. Turtles

If we don’t count Teenage Mutant Ninjas, then the first turtles entered space back in 1968. And it wasn’t just orbital space, either – we’re talking deep space. As in “Let’s Fly To The Moon” space.

On September 15, 1968, the Soviets launched the Zond 5 spacecraft with a biological payload that included two turtles. On September 18, Zond 5 made a loop around the moon and safely returned to earth on the 21st. The turtles had suffered slight weight loss, but hey, that’s a whole lot better than erupting in flames and burning to death during reentry.

The Soviet Soyuz 20 mission (November 17, 1975 – February 16, 1976) kept tortoises in space for 90.5 days, setting a duration record for animals. In addition, Iran’s recent Kavoshgar 3 rocket launch (February 2010) included two turtles, a rat, and some worms.

6. Fish

The first kind of fish in space was a mummichog, a strong little aquatic specimen that is often used for research projects because of its ability to survive extreme conditions. A pair of mummichogs accompanied Skylab 3 (1973) to provide more information about the otolith organ.

Mummichogs were part of later space flights as well. Many other kinds of fish have also been in space – for instance, guppies, zebra danios, carp, swordtails, Japanese killifish, and oyster toadfish, to name a few.

7. Frogs

In 1970, NASA launched something called the Orbiting Frog Otolith program by sending two bullfrogs into orbit (the word otolith refers to an inner-ear mechanism for controlling equilibrium). The OFO experiment was developed so that scientists could determine how the otolith adapted to weightlessness.

The frogs were in space from November 9-15 and the experiment was a success… from the scientists’ point of view, that is. Researchers were able to collect the neurophysiological data they wanted, but the spacecraft wasn’t recovered.

8. Newts

The Bion 7 mission (1985) carried 10 Iberian ribbed newts on board, along with a host of other biological specimens (including two monkeys). In order to provide insight about injuries and regeneration rates in space, the unfortunate newts had portions of their front limbs lopped off and parts of their lenses removed. Researchers observed that the newts were able to regenerate significantly faster while in space.

Newts were taken on other Bion flights as well. They have also been used for experiments on the Columbia (1994), the Foton-M2 mission (2005), Japan’s Space Flyer Unit (1995), and the Mir Space Station.

9. Guinea pigs

The first guinea pig space invader flew with the Soviet Sputnik 9 spacecraft on March 9, 1961, along with a dog named Chernushka, a dummy cosmonaut named Ivan Ivanovich, and an assortment of mice and reptiles. Ivan safely parachuted back to earth (thank God), and the animals made it back to alive.

On October 5, 1990, China launched the biosatellite FSW-1 3 containing a collection of 60 plants and animals that included guinea pigs. After eight days, the biosat was successfully recovered.

10. Mice

Some of the earliest animals in space were mice. On August 31, 1950, the fifth flight of the famous “Albert” Series of V2 launches contained a mouse. Unfortunately, the parachute recovery system failed and the mouse was more or less annihilated on impact.

Eleven mice were on board the 1951 U.S. Aerobee missile flight that carried Yorick, the first monkey recovered alive after a rocket flight. The U.S. also sent mice on three rocket re-entry tests during the 1958 “Mouse In Able” project (all three died). In addition, fourteen more mice perished on a Jupiter rocket after they lifted off from Cape Canaveral in 1959.

Bonus: first rat in space – In February of 1961, France sent a rat named Hector into space. After flying to a height of 93 miles, Hector was successfully recovered.

Erik Sprague is one of the finest examples of going to an extreme in order to get noticed. Erik took the concept of “body modification” to exciting new levels (and when I type “exciting” I, of course, mean “bonkers/goofy”) when he decided to sharpen his teeth, get a full body tattoo of green scales, bifurcate his tongue, green-ink his lips, and place a series of subdermal implants above his eyes. He’s also hoping to get a tail attached – which makes perfect sense – right?

2. Mark David Chapman – Murder

Mark David Chapman’s method of getting noticed is obviously the most extreme on the list. Before he put four bullets into the back of music legend John Lennon, Chapman was a church-going, “Catcher in the Rye”-reading, hard-drinking, relatively unknown weirdo. After Lennon’s death he became “the most hated man in the country.” At his 2006 parole board hearing, when asked if he murdered Lennon to become famous, Chapman said, “The result would be that I would be famous, the result would be that my life would change and I would receive a tremendous amount of attention, which I did receive…”

3. Chris Crocker – Act Foolish on YouTube

Without a doubt, this is currently the easiest, and most practiced method of attempting to get famous. Why exactly is it the most practiced? Simple, it requires nothing. If you have a computer, a camera, and a complete lack of common sense, you too can make sure millions of people know you exist. Fall on your face, lip-synch awkwardly to foreign dance tunes, eat a hamburger off of the floor while drunk, pop an enormous zit – pretty much anything works – even the most mundane of the mundane can help someone edge their way onto the lowest rung of the ladder to fame. Heck, all “crazy” Chris Crocker had to do was openly weep that we should all “leave Britney alone.” Doesn’t get much easier than that.

4. Gardiner, Polley and Willig: The Human Flies – Climb Things That Shouldn’t Be Climbed

Over the years there have been numerous men insane enough to take up the mostly foolish, and totally illegal practice of “buildering” – which is essentially the act of climbing the exteriors of artificial structures. The most famous of them are Harry Gardiner, George Polley, and George Willig, all of which have been given the moniker of “The Human Fly.” Willig’s stunts in particular resulted in appearances on the “The Tonight Show,” “The Merv Griffin Show,” a book deal, and fairly consistent work as a stuntman. Maybe the danger was worth it?

5. An Endless Array of Women – Sleep With Hugh Hefner

Sleeping with someone that’s already famous is a tried and true method of achieving some level of fame, and has been practiced for years. To sit here and try to name everyone that’s given it a go would likely take more time than I have, and leave my over-typed hands a jangled mess of twisted, aching awfulness. If you happen to be blond, chesty (or willing to go under the knife to become a bit more chesty), the quickest route to your own show and access to big bank accounts is to drop your britches and hop into the sack with Hugh Hefner. While this is ridiculous (not to mention more than a little gross), the girls that have passed through Hefner’s revolving bedroom door have all managed to achieve fame on some level.

6. Lee Redmond – Grow Super Long Fingernails

Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and the Guinness Book of World records have long been a bastion for those wanting fame who really have no idea of how to achieve it. Lee Redmond wanted it so bad that she very literally did nothing in order to get it. When her nails needed clipping she simply responded with a, “naw…no thanks.” In late 1978 Redmond stopped cutting her fingernails and eventually they grew to a mind-boggling 34 to 35 inches in length, and the world took note. On February 10 of 2009 however, all of Lee’s nails were shattered in a car accident. She has since claimed that she won’t let them grow out again, saying it took 30 years the first time, and she might not live for another 30. Her nails are currently 4 inches long though.

7. Tonya Harding/Shane Stant – Cheat

Tonya Harding needed to win, and she needed the fame that would come with a win. She had one big issue standing in her way though – while she was good, she just wasn’t good enough. Hoping to even the odds, her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard Shawn Eckardt, hired a guy named Shane Stant to break the right leg of her top competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, so she would be unable to skate. What was supposed to be a break ended up being barely a bruise though, and while Kerrigan was injured, she wasn’t out and ended up winning the silver medal at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. Tonya went to court – then to celebrity boxing – then to basic cable.

8. John Hinkley Jr. – Stalk Someone Famous

John Hinkley Jr. is the double-whammy of stupid when it comes to getting famous. Not only did he attempt to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Regan in Washington D.C. on March 30th of 1981, but long before that he spent his time stalking actress Jodie Foster. After failing to develop any meaningful contact with her for years, he apparently came to believe that assassinating the president would in fact make him “a historical figure and her equal.” They would finally be able to date, maybe get married, and even pop out a few crazy kids. His assassination failed, and as luck would have it, Jodi wasn’t exactly “turned on” by his crazy-man grab for fame.

9. Charles Manson – Form a Cult

History has shown us that cult leaders tend to get exactly what they want – a lot of attention. The crazier they are, and the more awful the deeds of their followers, the more famous they often become. None are more closely associated with the words cult, and bat-poop insane than Charles Manson. Charlie was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders, carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders themselves through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy’s object. Despite his heinous actions, he has arguably achieved the fame he sought and his name has reached nearly mythical proportions, very literally becoming a “metaphor for evil.”

10. Jamey Frey – Lie to Oprah

Don’t mess with Oprah – it’s the very definition of stupid. In 2003 James Frey published his memoirs and titled them “A Million Little Pieces.” Thanks in large part to some words of praise from the media juggernaut that is Oprah Winfrey, the book soared onto the bestseller list and made Frey a very wealthy, and very famous man. On January 8th of 2006, the Smoking Gun website published an article titled, “A Million Little Lies: Exposing James Frey’s Fiction Addiction,” in which it was claimed that he was less than truthful about some of the novel’s “facts.” Oprah’s response was to bring Frey onto her show as a guest and completely annihilate him in such a way that she might as well have given him a wedgie on national television.

11. John Wayne Bobbit – Have Your Wife Cut Off Your Penis

While John Wayne Bobbit never set out to become famous, after his wife severed his penis in a fit of rage and tossed it out the window of her car as she drove away, he quickly found himself in the public eye and subsequently attempted to generate some cash from his newfound “fame.” His most memorable wacky idea for making the most out of a bad situation was to try and break into the porn industry. Bobbit made two films, the somewhat subtly titled “John Wayne Bobbit: Uncut,” and the not so subtle “Frankenpenis.” Classy move John.

12. Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman Gutierrez (aka Octomom) – Have a Litter of Children

Like John Bobbit, Nadya Suleman might not have wanted her fame, but that hasn’t stopped her from trying to make the absolute most of it. Known in the media as “Octomom,” Suleman gave birth to octuplets in January of 2009. Just a week later they had already surpassed the worldwide survival rate set by the Chukwu Octuplets in 1998. Not long afterward (so “not long,” in fact, that it’s a little weird), she hired the Kileen Furtney Group to handle her public relations. Appearances on Dr. Phil, The View, Oprah, and attempts to put together a reality show have since followed. She was also offered a part in a porno. Unlike #11 on our list however, she turned it down.

13. Richard Heene and Mayumi Iizuka (aka Balloon Boy’s Parents) – Stage An Elaborate Hoax

On October 15th, 2009, the parents of a six-year old boy named Falcon claimed their son was on board a homemade helium balloon that had floated away in Fort Collins, Colorado. As you can imagine, the media took notice, and when it was revealed that Falcon was “hiding in his garage” the entire time, the world at large collectively sighed in relief. Television appearances immediately followed, and in response to a question about why he was hiding, little Falcon said to his father, “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.” A noticeably flustered Richard tried to cover up his son’s slip of the tongue, but fumbled, and stumbled, and tripped over his words like a drunk after a two-day binge.

Yep, it was all a hoax.

Richard and Mayumi had staged the whole thing hoping for media attention, maybe a reality show, and possibly a bit of fame. As a result they both did some jail time and were ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution.

Having an office gives you the chance to display things you might not get away with (or indeed, want to get away with) at home. From magnificent magnets to clever clocks and wall decals, here’s a choice of ten products that will help you geek-pimp your work space in style.

1. iPhone Icon Coasters

These Meninos coasters are styled after the iPhone’s icons giving Apple fans somewhere cool to stick their cups. Made of medium-density fiberboard (MDF) with a durable vinyl finish and a rubber bottom to stop slips, the anally retentive among you could arrange them on the coffee table as precisely as they appear on the phone’s homescreen, while the rest of us can mix ‘em up as we see fit. Oh, and if the iPhone’s not your thing, then Meninos also offers an Internet-themed set too.

2. Million Dollar Homepage Poster

As well as adding a splash of color to your office walls, this poster will serve as inspiration, reminding you that a small, simple idea can grow into big, fat success. The million dollar home page poster is an exact replica of the original Web page, measuring 60cm x 60cm with a gloss finish. Heck, if you’re feeling flush yourself, you could even frame it.

3. Enter Key Doormat

Let your visitors know that they are entering a geek domain right from the start with this recycled rubber doormat that is modeled after the “Enter” key. Designed by Pieter Woudt, there’s also a “Home” key version if whoever you share a domicile with will let you get away with geeking out your porch.

4. Photoshop Magnets

We can’t think of a better way to stick your team pics to the fridge or filing cabinet than with these Photoshop-themed magnets, another little gem from Meninos. The set comprises 13 magnets which will be very familiar to anyone who has used the photo editing software as they replicate the menus and tool bars found in the popular Adobe product.

5. A Red Swingline Stapler

As any fashion-lover will know, it’s all about the accessories. In this case, the essential office accessory is the Red Swingline Stapler. Launched in 2002 after strong customer demand generated by the stapler’s appearance in geek cult classic Office Space, the desk tool will elicit knowing approval from fans of the film. Just be sure to hide it when Lumberg’s around.

6. Recycled Mac Clocks

What’s the time? It’s geek o’ clock with these recycled Mac clocks offered by Etsy seller Pixelthis. The version pictured ($59) is the side panel of a retired Mac G4, upcycled into a working wall clock. There’s a whole selection over on Pixelthis’ Etsy shop, while commissions and customization of anything you want to send in to get the timepiece treatment are offered too, with price by negotiation.

7. Pantone Mugs

Don’t put up with boring chinaware, or worse still, ugly corporate freebie mugs. These officially licensed mugs from Pantone will delight anyone with an eye for color, or even a passing interest in design. The espresso set offers appropriate shades of coffee brown, whilst the more colorful set provides 10 shades — all marked with their Pantone reference, of course.

8. Google Bean Bag

By all accounts, the Googleplex is a place of wonder. You can emulate a little bit of that magic with the Google Bean Bag — the very same kind gracing the Googleplex. Who knows what kind of gProducts have been thought up while someone’s posterior was placed on one of these things? Inspirational, indeed.

9. Orbiculus from Art Lebedev

The Art Lebedev Studio has transformed “Cancel,” “Play,” “Save,” “OK,” and other commands into real-life objects with a useful function — the thumbtack. You can opt for the mixed set, or if you’re feeling particularly positive, go for the “Everything Is OK” set which is made up, as you might have already guessed, of just the “OK” pins. We simply can’t think of a better way to secure items to a bulletin board.

10. Blik Wall Decals

Blik offers a way to geek up your blank walls that is ideal for the commitment-phobe: Vinyl decals that can be peeled off it you get bored of them, or if your office landlord has a tizzy when he/she sees them. There are a few designs available that will turn your wall into a scene from a Super Marios Bros. game, or the classic Space Invaders. There are some pretty cool robots, too.

10. CES 2010: the Unbreakable Phone

We begin this countdown with the most recent failed demo involving an unbreakable phone and a tank full of water. What could possibly happen?

9. Wii Sports on HSN

Sure, attaching an unofficial piece of plastic to your Wii Remote while swinging it at high velocity towards your HDTV might sound like a bad idea, but…well, ok, that’s actually a horrible idea. But leave it to the pros at HSN to show you how to do it properly!

8. The Honda ASIMO Robot

The major selling point of this technological marvel is the robot’s ability to simulate muscle-like tendencies that us humans take for granted, allowing it to traverse terrain on just two feet. Just watch as ASIMO climbs the stairs in front of a huge audience at a press conference.

7. Windows 98 Plug and Play Demonstration

How great is Windows 98? Watch as this OS installs the necessary drivers automatically with the input of a USB device! I can’t think of a single thing that will go wrong with this.

6. Katana Durability on the Shop at Home Network

These stainless steel katanas will slice anything in their path! And the durability on these things are quite incredible, as the attached lifetime warranty will prove unnecessary to have.

5. Voice Recognition Software Demonstration

Theoretically, the one thing that could go wrong in a voice recognition demo should not happen, because people have spent hours and hours and hours making this software perform near-flawlessly. Right?

4. Bump Key Demo on the News

It’s called a “bump key,” a dangerous product that allows criminals to break into your home easily. So easy, in fact, that this reporter will demonstrate it for us live. I mean, it has to be easy, otherwise what would be the point in making the news report in the first place? That’s probably what the journalist was asking himself as seconds turn to minutes in this painful demo.