If you've ever tried to sell something on eBay/craigslist and been flooded with idiotic scams you know how this guys felt. He tried to sell a Mac Power Book, and after getting contacted by a "buyer" in London he did some scheming and sent him a taped up 3-ring binder with keys glued on.

The counter-scam? He insured it for $2200 so the guy would have to pay 27% the duty in order to accept delivery.

The store is a bit long but worth the read.

List of the top 6 "accidents" that lead to modern day video games. There's some good research in this article that is definitely required for a high nerd-cred score.

A sweet melding of historic photographs with today.

"The past sticks around in more ways than people usually think. Three amazing photographers have made the connection from past to present clear through their photography. Jason Powell, Sergey Larenkov, and Irina Werning bridge the time barrier captivatingly."

A geological statistician in Canada figured out algorithm flaws in the 'random' way scratcher lotto tickets are designed. Spending as little as a few hours (sometimes up to a day) with a few scratched-off tickets, this guy was able to spot correlations between the visible and hidden parts of the tickets. This allows you to tell which will be winners and which will be losers with a statistically higher average than just guessing.

The guy proved it on a few games in Canada and in the states. But the scratcher games are designed by private companies; when he contacted them they did not want to acknowledge the issue. Doesn't mean the problems does exist!

There have been a few studies of lotto winnings that showed that a very few people have won the bulk of the money. The lotto may also provide a way to launder dirty money with a fairly high rate of return.

Nice examples that people took using long exposure methods. Some of them look very surreal.

Awesome blend of steam punk, the matrix and Entomology.

Those familiar with the affronted feathered vertebrates might be pleased to learn they have made peace with the nasty swine that they have been locked in battle with for these many long days. Or have they...

(Embedded in extended)

This song appeared in a recent episode of Futurama and I found it hilarious. Probably one of the best Futurama episodes ever, and this was probably the best part.... Oh & sorry I couldn't find the video clip of it but if you get a chance watch it! The song is a remake of 'In the year 2525' by Zager & Evans.

An anti-Google privacy group bought some jumbo-tron time in Time Square to show this really creepy video. Their goal is to have legislation create a 'do not track me' list to allow people to opt-out of data tracking/mining.

I don't know, should we fear what Google knows?

Video by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot in which 40 wild birds (finches maybe?) play an electric guitar.

Ignore the terrible article. It's only included because the BBC website doesn't seem to provide a way to embed videos.

Your fingerprints aren't just for looks and convenient biometric identification!

... fingerprints act like signal processors, conditioning the mechanical vibrations so that the Pacinian corpuscles can best interpret them. It's this optimisation process that allows us to sense textures with a spatial resolution far smaller than the distance between Pacinian corpuscles in the skin.

Ulrich Haarbürste has written the definitive set of stories about wrapping Roy Orbison in cling film. This has been kicking around the 'net forever but it's never made it to the Pig before.

If you like short stories about wrapping Roy Orbison in plastic then this link will not disappoint. Otherwise it probably will.

Story 2 is my favorite.

When the US landed a man on the moon the Ruskies apparently shelved their own manned lunar mission and pretended it never happened. Here's a set of pictures taken (apparently surreptitiously) in a back room at the Moscow Aviation Institute where the remains of that program are stored.

Awesome music video by a band I had never heard of.

Bright, comedic, sunny world of the Simpson's turns into a dystopian prison fueled by consumerism.

"Apparently, vats of toxic waste, chipped furry critters and an abused unicorn all help keep the Simpsons entertainment factory chugging in the show’s 22nd season."

Mike Judge is back at MTV making new episodes of Beavis and Butthead.

I have seen the top of the mountain. And it is good.

Animated MRI scans of fruit. Thumb is from pineapple.

I didn't even know this existed until right now. The song is not particularly special but the video is crazy great.

Since I haven't posted anything in a while and since Carl won't post this until at least 2015... here's a link to some old and rare HST articles Carl sent me a while ago. There's some good stuff here, I particularly enjoyed the two on Big Sur and the one about L.A.

A nice collection of user-submitted pictures that never should have been taken. The guy also made a book of of these pics that is available for those who want a hard-copy of what not to do when taking pictures.

More hand-selected pic's in extended.

Music video for a song by a guy called Reggie Watts. It entertained me for a minute today.

Joke responses to craigslist ads, most of which are pretty hilarious!

Now fixed so that I didn't forget the link.

I don't know if this will actually work but I guess it's worth a shot, right? Someone came up with the idea to use a SQL injection type hack against image/text recognition camera systems used for speed and red-light cameras. If the syntax is correct and the input data not filtered properly, it's possible to actually hack the system running this database query and alter it in some fashion.

Wouldn't want to be the guinea pig on this, but it would be interesting if it worked!

Check out the latest innovation from 3m.

A new take on the classic.

It all began with an unusual discovery in the 100 acre wood...