Unconventional World Records

… and I am not talking about equipment only available to NASA, to be put on the Hubble telescope to photograph distant galaxies or stuff like that. I am talking about stuff anybody can buy and carry around, if they have the resources of course.

In the course of upgrading one’s photography equipments, there might come a time where the usual elements of rivalry and “my stuff is bigger than yours” is taken to extremes, and showing off of the following gadgets or similar could take place.

First up, the ultimate telezoom lenses for your DSLR. The zoom range of 200-500mm is not extraordinary, but the maximum aperture of f/2.8 throughout the focal range is. Perhaps the wow factor is worth the task of lugging this 15.7 kg monster around. And yes, be careful, it might be mistaken for a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launcher!

While a lot of tele lenses have a distinct cannon barrel look, Sigma have apparently done all they can to enhance that trait, giving the lens a leafy green finish. The end result is an extremely fast tele zoom lens that could easily be confused with a surface-to-air missile launcher.

If you think possession of the above makes you the king of the photography world, think again. Next up, a truly extraordinary lens, the Carl Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 1700 mm F4, apparently the only one ever made 2 years ago for a Qatari. Don’t even think of lugging this around: it weighs 256 kg, that’s even heavier than The Big Show. It’s a 1,700mm f/4 lens medium format (equals 750mm in 35mm SLR format). It’s reputed to be the largest non-military tele lens in the world. You can guess that the price paid was in the region of several million Euros. Interestingly, the intended use for the lens is reportedly “antelope photography”.

The small blob on the right would be your camera

Next up is the world’s ultimate point-and-shoot digital camera. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the USD42,000, 5kg humongousity that is the Seitz 6×17”. It is unique in that it basically scans the view through the lens. End result: 160MB images in a panoramic format. It’s incredibly quick: a full-sized frame of 21,250 x 7,500 pixels is done in a mere 2 seconds.

Don’t you think you’d look rather silly bringing this around?

How about the world’s top DSLR camera? People usually rave about Canons and Nikons, but how about Hasselblads? Usually extreme high end products bear brands that most people never hear about; Hasselblad’s flagship camera is the Click here to read more

Luis Eslava designed the Maria USB stick / thumb drive with a rallying marketing cry of “is there anyone who hasn’t sometimes wished for holy backup to protect their most precious data? It’s finally available in the form of the Maria USB!”

Capable of holding 512MB, it sells for a quite costly 69 euros.

Perhaps this is the first time religion and data backup are so visibly intertwined.

Her LED “heart” even “beats” all the time, slowly when in passively connected, and quicker while data transfer is in progress. Even her halo has a prayer engraved: “Oh Maria, keep my data safe!”

The designer Luis Eslava, 31 of Spain.

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KitchenAid makes high end dishwashers that do not need the usual, tiresome procedures needed for lesser dishwashers. Yes, that means no more pre-rinsing, no more pre-soaking and definitely no more pre-scrubbing, ever!

You just need to plonk anything: plates, pots, pans into one of their dishwashers, even the greasiest ones you can find, switch it on, and it will do everything.

The secret to this is the proprietary ProScrub™ cleaning technology, where concentrated, powerful bursts of water will get rid of any unwanted mess.

Logically, all this should make an almighty racket, but incredibly, their dishwashers are amazingly quiet. I have even checked at epinions.com, and reviewers concur. This is due to another proprietary technology they’ve developed called the Whisper Quiet® sound reduction system, which basically provides noise insulation.

So, if you’re in the market for the coolest-looking, quietest dishwasher available anywhere, you might want to consider
KitchenAid Dishwashers.

Flight attendants (also known as stewardesses) in Hong Kong went ballistic on 27th April 2007 over an advertisement that appeared on the front page of the South China Morning Post.

The ad was for the Swiss-made IWC Schaffhausen Big Pilot’s Watch, a luxury watch designed for pilots which carries a USD12,500 price tag.

Well, with taglines like these I suppose you’re courting trouble:

Often seen on stewardesses’ bedside tables.

Its seven-day power reserve “means you can afford to stay in bed that little bit longer than usual.”

Copies of SCMP are carried on board Cathay Pacific and Dragonair flights and given free to passengers. No wonder lah!

A flight attendant said summed it up: “…seems to make out that flight attendants are loose women who sleep with pilots just because they’ve got a nice watch.”

Interestingly, John Findlay, the general secretary of the Aircrew Officers Association, which represents Hong Kong pilots said no pilots in the association wore such a watch.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem find a copy of the advertisement anywhere. Anybody can help?
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How would you like lightning captured in a glass block as a paperweight?

But what is it? According to wikipedia:

Lichtenberg Figures are branching electric discharges that sometimes appear on the surface or the interior of insulating materials. They are named after the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who originally discovered and studied them. When they were first discovered, it was thought that their characteristic shapes might help to reveal the nature of positive and negative electric “fluids”. In 1777, Lichtenberg built a large Electrophorus in order to generate high voltage static electricity through induction. By discharging a high voltage point to the surface of an insulator, he was able to record the resulting radial patterns in fixed dust. By then pressing blank sheets of paper onto these pattens, Lichtenberg was able to transfer and record these images, thereby discovering the basic principle of modern Xerography. This discovery was also the forerunner of modern day Plasma Physics. Although Lichtenberg only studied 2-dimensional (2D) figures, modern high voltage researchers study 2D and 3D figures (electrical trees) on, and within, insulating materials. Lichtenberg figures are now known to be examples of fractals.

The specimen in the picture above was created via double irradiation:

This specimen was irradiated on the left side, rotated 180 degrees, and irradiated again on the right side, creating two independent internal charge layers. The right side was then manually discharged, causing a 3-D “lightning storm” inside the rightmost layer, which then spread into another series of discharges between layers. The specimen is lit from below by blue LED’s. Unlike low detail laser crystal art, each Lichtenberg specimen has a unique and incredibly detailed fractal discharge pattern. As they branch, the discharge channels become increasingly finer, becoming hairlike as they finally disappear. The smallest discharges may ultimately go to the molecular level.

Here’s a video of a Lichtenberg Figure being created, where:

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Let’s go retro! If grunge was the answer to hair metal, then this phone would be the answer to Motorola Razr.

This is a tiny mobile phone that will ever only do voice. (more…)

To qualify, this gadget must be able to do “everything” and small enough to slide casually into a back pocket:

• smartphone,
• shoot and store photos,
• surf the Web,
• check e-mails,
• listen to music files (more…)

Prospective customers are welcome to try it out on their chickens.

Tags: poultry, poultry killer

Not content with autoraising and heated seat, the Japanese has come up with an extra feature - a toilet set that comes with an SD slot and an mp3 player.

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Tags: japan, japanese, toilet, mp3. music

In July 2006, Popular Science magazine did an article on this creation of 2 Germans. They aim is to create a personal vehicle capable of performing the tasks of a dirt bike, snowmobile and a four-wheeler — the ultimate in tackling nearly any terrain with a single vehicle.

Now for some reality check: at the moment, the Hyanide is only a concept model. Worse still, its designers don’t have any plans to bring one to the consumer market.

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Tags: hyanide, all-terrain, all-terrain vehicle