The Levee Breaks

Why do your fingers go wrinky in the bath?

Posted on October 5, 2010 by levee

You know how, if you spend a long time in the bath, your fingers go wrinkly? They end up looking like raisins!

Well, if you’ve got kids, they’ll have asked that question of you a million times. Want to know what the answer is?

Well, it’s said that our skin is covered in an oily substance called Sebum. When you’re in the bath for a long period of time, this protective film is washed away, leaving the skin on your fingers (and toes) free to absorb water. As they absorb the water, there’s nowhere else for the fluid to go, so your skin swells and buckles to create the wrinkly finger effect.

The process by which your skin absorbs water in the bath is called “Osmosis“. Water moves through a semi-permeable membrane (in this case, your skin) from one area of higher water concentration (the bath) to another area of lower water concentration (your body), and since there is a higher concentration of water in the bathtub than in your skin, the water will flow into the outermost layer of your skin, causing the cells that make up this layer to swell. In order to compensate for this increase in surface area, your skin wrinkles.

Posted in General | Comments Off

New single from Brandon Flowers: Only The Young

Posted on October 5, 2010 by levee

Check out the latest single from Killer’s frontman Brandon Flowers. The second single release from Flowers’ album Flamingo, Only The Young is an atmospheric synth-laden track with a video to match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiEADQhTtIA&feature=player_embedded

The video was directed by Sophie Muller, last behind the camera for Cheryl Cole’s Promise This video. What’s your take? Are you loving Brandon Flowers’ solo material or does it make you hanker for a new Killers tune?

Posted in Music | Tagged Brandon Flowers, Singles, The Killers, Videos | Comments Off

Hideous edible heads made from bread

Posted on April 19, 2010 by UltimateDad

Om nom nom!!! These pictures look like spare parts from a horror movie, but they’re actually a delicacy from Thailand – bread, shaped to look like decaying flesh. Yummy!

Don’t like the look of yours much

The finishing touches being applied to a breadhead. I want one of these in my image, served up after my funeral. Wouldn’t that be creepy?

Yes, stop by this Thai bakery and you too could be munching on severed head within minutes.

Melted baked faces…mmmmm….

Looks like the prop department for the Saw movies, doesn’t it?

After years of waiting foot fetishist serial cannibals find a crucial gap in the market has been filled.

Posted in Creativity | Tagged Baking, Bodies, Cannibalism, Disgusting, Food | Comments Off

Daisy Dares You – Number One Enemy lyrics

Posted on March 3, 2010 by UltimateDad

Lyrics to Number One Enemy by Daisy Dares You:

Verse 1
You always think you know the better thing to do
But in this case you could be wrong
So you chuck off your shoes with an empty smile on your face
What is the problem with you?
You’re constantly in a mood and you’ve gotta shake it off
Its getting on top of you again
Everything that I say is the icing on the cake and
You’ve gotta laugh at it
And put it behind you, put it behind you

Chorus
Stop, I’m not your number one enemy
I’m not your number one enemy
If you wanna be a part of me
I’m not your number one enemy

Verse 2
So, now you’ve got this far
Do you really want to start again on your own
You say you’re eternally scarred,
But its nothing we cant fix while you’re at home

I’m not your number one enemy
All of you seem to be getting me
A little confused with the way that you’re treating me again
We get along every now and then
We need to tie up the loose ends.
I know that it will be alright,
Lets stay in and talk tonight

Middle eight
I I I I may be the one to blame sometimes
But I want it like it was before
Like it was once before
And you you you you’re stuck
In between what you want and what’s the right thing to do
I want it like it was before
Like it was once before

Rap
Daisy
It’s munk
I like this
Take off, take off, Daisy’s bout to take off
The ones you love the most in life
See you without your make-up
So, put the past behind ya
She don’t want to fight ya
You ain’t hit the ceiling yet, but chill before your times up
Oh, look you must be crazy
For 16 she ain’t your average lady
So you don’t really want to go daring daisy
Now she’s telling me
Best thing is just let it be
Cos all she keeps on tellin me
Is that she ain’t your enemy
She ain’t your enemy
Scarlett! She ain’t your enemy so
Stop!

Chorus
Stop, I’m not your number one enemy
I’m not your number one enemy
If you wanna be a part of me
I’m not your number one enemy
Stop, I’m not your number one enemy
I’m not your number one enemy
If you wanna be a part of me
I’m not your number one enemy
If you wanna be a part of me
I’m not your number one enemy
Number one enemy
Number one enemy
Number one enemy
Number one enemy

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Daisy Dares You, music, Song Lyrics | Comments Off

American Idol judges and presenter wiki pages

Posted on February 5, 2010 by UltimateDad

I’ve been working very hard on Unreality Shout to build a set of biographies for each of the American Idol judges and for presenter Ryan Seacrest.

The biographies tie into a fan group we run for American Idol on that site. We’re looking for fans of the judges to help flesh out their wiki pages on Shout. Here are the pages for each of the judges:

Shout is a site I’ve been working on for a couple of years now, and it’s starting to become a great community blogging site for people who are obsessed by entertainment news.

Posted in News & Media | Tagged American Idol, Ellen DeGeneres, Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson, Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell | Comments Off

How to decompress .gz files in Linux

Posted on February 1, 2010 by UltimateDad

I’ve been struggling this morning with a compressed SQL file – it had been given a .gz file extension, and I was trying to use the tar command to decompress it. Apparently this is stupid – there’s a dedicated utility to decompress a .gz file – gunzip.

It’s as simple as this:

$ gunzip big-database-dump.sql.gz $ ls big-database-dump.sql

(The ls command simply lists the extracted file, by the way)

If you’re using Ubuntu, there’s a very easy way to extract the file using the GUI – simply browse to the .gz file you want, right click on it and choose the Extract here command.

However, the time to use the tar command is when you’re opening up a file like drupal-6.15.tar.gz

tar -zxvf Drupal-6.15.tar.gz

Hope this helps out other Ubuntu/Linux newbies who’ve struggled with file decompression!

Posted in General | Tagged Compression, Linux, Tips, Tutorials, Ubuntu | Comments Off

Kazuki Takamatsu's gouache artworks

Posted on January 26, 2010 by UltimateDad

DesignersCouch are running a fantastic gallery of white-on-black gouache artwork by the artist Kazuki Takamatsu – jaw-droppingly inventive and intricate pieces. I’ve chosen this one because despite the the tonal range, the image remains cheeky and playful and sexy at the same time.

Posted in Creativity | Tagged Art, Creativity, Kazuki Takamatsu | Comments Off

The Metallica logo has changed a lot ove…

Posted on January 21, 2010 by UltimateDad

The Metallica logo has changed a lot over the years – here’s a post I wrote a while back showing how it altered with each successive album. And if you’re a big fan of Metallica, why not contibute to the Metallica wiki page on Unreality Shout?

Posted in status | Tagged Design, Logos, Metallica, music | Comments Off

Inspiration: Gallery of creative CSS navigation

Posted on January 20, 2010 by UltimateDad

1st Web Designer is a great website for web design tutorial and inspiration. They’re running a great gallery piece today of creative CSS navigation ideas. It’s a great post to stop by if you’re looking for something to make your navigation more professional or just that little bit slicker than your competition!

They’ve got 30 brilliant real-world examples of cool CSS navigation in action.

Posted in Creativity | Tagged CSS, Inspiration, Web Design | Comments Off