Extraordinary Watches | Antique Clocks

"Time does not exist. Clocks exist." - wall graffiti

Today we look at various clocks, watches and means to tell the time, a fleeting continuum that is otherwise invisible and even irrelevant, especially when considered as a disappearing line between absolute concepts of "past" and "future".


The Horological Machine - info - called pure watchporn. We agree.

Somebody said that a "miracle" is nothing but a time compressed - a fast forward, or even skip button around the normal flow of things. Even without considering miracles, we seem obsessed with measuring time (perhaps to reassure ourselves in the world's normality?) - as it swirls around us in glittering fractal spirals, constantly teetering on the brink of eternity, yet never quite falling into it.


design by: Dale Mathis)

"Time Considered as a Helix of Semiprecious Stones" (S. Delany)

They are thousands of clocks online, sites that compete in their Flash-infused glory to show you the current hours and minutes; this site, however, has rather more sublime design and animation -


click to launch LeoGeo clock

Very strange Digimech clock, designed by Duncan Shotton, with strips of alien code slowly moving through... time:



(design by Duncan Shotton)

Or this clock, that takes the idea of time as continuum literally - it tells the time in a continuous sentence, something like "It's about six o'clock" or "it's almost seven now". In other words, poetry in motion -


(image via, order it here)

Read time differently! These geek clocks need some time to figure out... check out the answers here -


(designs by DCIGift and EagleApex)



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A lot more "nerdy" and hard-to-read clocks are shown on this excellent page.

Designer Buro Vormkrijgers presents the "Orbit Clock" - info - and Ross McBride came up with a minimalist "Extra-Normal" clock - info:



"The Explosion of Time", design by Niels van Eijk & Miriam van der Lubbe and "The Water Clock", via

Behold the thing of beauty... Lisa Boyer's wooden gear clock plans, inspired perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, would transform any room into a baroque "workshop". They are "swoopy", kinetic, some even include calendar, and some are sophisticated enough to be called "Masochist's Corner" - to see the whole gorgeous lineup click here -


(image credit: Lisa Boyer)

Clock "sculptures" may require a separate page, see for example, the "grandfather clock" made from old bicycle parts - some videos here

For the ultimate wall clock piece you'll have to pay more than a million dollars, but it's creepy and perhaps even evil deep down inside. The Corpus Clock looks like one of H.R. Giger's haunting designs, uses grasshopper escapement, guarded by the sinister Chronophage insect on top... "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next." (clock's creator John C. Taylor) -


(image credit: Andrew Stawarz)


Alarm clocks that can not be denied

More creative ways to yank you from blissful slumber into a jarring noise and bustle of the world:

Alarm-clock Ring for the couple: let's say you need to wake up at a different time from your spouse - you let the ring charge and put it on when going to sleep. The rings will start vibrating at a certain time, waking you up. (more info)


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More alarm-clock violence: retro-styled "Bomba" (on the right) and the Alarm Grenade, that is impossible to shut off, unless you smash it against the wall! -


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Combine it with a Danger Bomb alarm clock, that requires your full concentration:


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Is alarm on the left is very easy to shut off - just smash it! The whole clock is one big button.... satisfying. If you dislike such violence, there is a "Glo Pillow" that will simulate sunrise to gently wake you up - more info


(designs by Matthias Lange and Eoin McNally & Ian Walton)


LED clock design by Jonas Damon and the Puzzle Alarm Clock

Alarm clock carpet... and probably the most unforgiving alarm clock of all: "Three minutes after it goes off without having you turn it off, it will start to make random phone calls from your cell phone." -


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With all these alarm-clock options, no wonder the simple retro-styled ones look unhappy:


(original unknown)


Clocks in your house that are impossible to ignore

Put this thing on the wall and let it "ruin" it. One-Hour Circle from EverLab - on the right - and the The Receipt Clock on the left; both have dubious practicality, but who knows...


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Make a huge one on your garage door (pretty old concept, actually) - or enjoy a giant LED clock as a book shelf (more info)


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If you want the ultimate freedom in wall clocks, well, try this one - the numbers can be arranged on the wall however you like (designed by Progetti Srl, Italy) -


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Check out the Watch Table from Lee J. Rowland Design:



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or the executive desk, with moving gears - made by Dale Mathis:


(image credit: Dale Mathis)

Combine measuring tape and kitchen timer, and you'll get this:


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The fastest clock in the world can be seen here, which aptly demonstrated the idea how swiftly the time moves - "on a scale millions of time smaller than most of us perceive".


Pocket- and Wristwatch Oddities

Even without featuring bizarre "Tokyo Flash" watches, you can load up on a slew of super-geeky time pieces, for example on ThinkGeek site: Binary LED clock, "Rotating Rings" clock, and even "Stonehenge" pocket-watch for predicting solstices (more info) -


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Electronic Ink Watch from SEIKO is perhaps the most elegant time-telling device in history. Cartier, eat your heart out. It's ultra-thin, open to all sorts of styles, can be worn as a wrist bracelet or bangle design, can be any size, including very very small - more info


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If you don't like numbers, time can be told in phrases - check out the "Tubular Time" word-clock - order it here:


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It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad watch world - a smorgasbord of ideas:






Designer "Ruby Slice" watch, and other unknown designs, via


designs by Denis Guidone

Cassette tape watch? Sure, buy it here - and retro-phone watch by Zihotch:



"Richard Mille RM 01200", "Richard Mille 1" and "Harry Winston Tourbillon Glissiere" were one of many sophisticated unusual movement watches shown at Geneva Watch Fair:



Vintage Awesomeness with Hands and Gears (mostly)

The RetroGrade Pocket-watch (circa 1900) is a definition of steampunk - it's gorgeous, cryptic and full of its own mad movement:



"Blued steel hands that traverse the arc of the dial and then snap back." - see it being sold for $3,750 here. Quite lot more of modern retrograde watches are featured at Watchismo:



Speaking of steampunk watches, master Haruo Suekichi has been making them for 12 years - pretty much every single day! That makes 7,000 unique time-pieces, and still counting!


(image credit: Haruo Suekichi)

Cabestan's "Winch Tourbillon Vertical" watches are in a league of their own. Nothing comes close to their sophistication, and sheer audacity of style:



Chain-driven movements! 1,352 components all working together! Only four watches a month made! Priced aprrox. $400,000... Nothing even comes close.


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A whole collection of "2001: A Space Odyssey" watches also can be seen at a wonderful "Watchismo" site. Did Stanley Kubrick himself contribute to their design?


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Very cool vintage calculator watches: 1975 Calcron Calculator Watch, 1976 Uranus Calculator Watch -



An elegant 1977 Hewlett Packard HP-01, and totally ridiculous 1976-78 Hughes Aircraft Calculator Watch -


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You might remember our series about Vintage Spy Guns and miniature spy cameras. Here is a 1886 Victorian Lancaster watch camera that predates better-known spy camera watches from 1907 - more info


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More modern "spy-watch" tech - wristwatch with hidden USB drive; buy it here


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Clocks made from computer hard drives

SRK Consulting makes them in various styles, all having good old retro-computing look (were hard drives so huge and bulky just few years ago?)


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But if you want a whole light show from a spinning LED-illuminated hard drive, here is a video demonstration (and a DIY project page) -

WATCH VIDEO FROM HERE


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Tags: Extraordinary Watches, Antique, Clocks

Oldest mummy

Show oldest mummy in the world exhibition More than 6,500 years ago in Peru, this tiny baby's brief battle for life finally came to an end.oldest mummy ever found who is the oldest mummy in the world and how old

The child, no more than 10 months old, had a serious heart defect and suffered from growth problems.

After contracting pneumonia and then suffering circulation failure the sick child died and was wrapped in linen and buried with an amulet hung around its neck.

Now the baby's mummified corpse, known as the Detmold child, is to go on display in the biggest exhibition of mummies in the world.

'Mummies of the World' will display 45 mummies and 95 artifacts from 15 museums in seven countries in a show that opens today at the California Science Centre.

The Detmold Child itself is on loan from the Lippisches Landes museum in Detmold, Germany.

Another set, the Orlovits family, was with a group of mummies found in 1994 in a forgotten church crypt in Vac, Hungary.

And another on display is a 17th-century nobleman, Baron von Holz, who apparently died during the Thirty Years' War in Sommersdorf, Germany.

The mummies also include a South American woman with a tattoo on each breast and one on her face, a woman who had tuberculosis, a child who had a heart condition and a youngster with a facial tumor.

The mummies are both natural and intentional and they often come with as many questions as answers, said Heather Gill-Frerking, an anthropologist and forensic archaeologist.

Some curators agreed to contribute to the exhibition so that scientific tests could be conducted on remains, said Diane Perlov, senior vice president for exhibits at the science centre.

One mummy is that of an Egyptian woman, her arms crossed over her chest like royalty and her fists closed. Noninvasive tests revealed that in each clenched fist, she clutched the tiny tooth of a child. It was not immediately known why.

Another mummy, also from Egypt, was found to have a number of teeth stuffed in a head cavity. 'One theory is that in order to reach the afterlife, you have to be a complete body. These may have been his teeth and they needed to be reacquainted with the body.

Many of the tests - CT scans, X-rays, radio carbon dating, MRI, mass spectrometry, isotope analysis and DNA tests - were conducted as the mummies were being readied for shipment.

The exhibit is based on the work of the German Mummy Project, a group of experts from 15 European institutions based at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim, Germany.

Beside human mummies, there is a mummified bog dog, lizard, fish, rat, hyaena, cat, squirrel, falcon and a howler monkey from Argentina.

Mystery, history and curiosity will lure what Corwin expects will be record-breaking crowds.

People are naturally curious and they often ask questions you don't anticipate, Gill-Frerking said. 'Did kids go to school 5,000 years ago? Maybe. Possibly. Probably not in the way we think about it,' Gill-Frerking said.

People also have come to expect a lot out of DNA, she said. 'Ancient DNA questions come up a lot. It works brilliantly on 'CSI,' but it doesn't always work on mummies. First of all, it can be destructive. And it doesn't always give us answers.'

Because the exhibit is playing to a sophisticated audience, 'Mummies of the World' has ramped up its multimedia displays, allowing people to learn what a mummy feels like, view a mummified tooth under a microscope and look at a photo of a 3-D body scan, among other things.

No matter how many tests are invented, there are going to be answers that went to the grave with some mummies - such as the woman tattooed with ovals containing small circles.

'It's clearly got some kind of meaning and it had a purpose - I'm willing to bet,' said Gill-Frerking.

The show will embark on a three-year tour across the U.S.










Source:- AFP.Google

How To Make Brain Cupcakes

So you’re preparing your ultimate zombie-themed dinner party, and you’re stuck for a dessert. Or you’re entertaining a zombie who’s recently gone vegetarian, and is jonesing for those good old days of gray matter and the delicious taste of human brains. Whatever your reasons, you need a brainy treat that puts the “sweet” back into “sweetmeats.”

These delicious desserts were created by Jennifer at Cups and Cakes Bakery, in San Francisco, California, and she was kind enough to let us come in and record the entire process. Here’s how you, too, can create delicious bite-sized brains for you and your victi…er, guests. First up, a quick instructional video, followed by a detailed recipe.

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Lizzie Velasquez

Lizzie Velasquez She eats every 15 minutes to stay alive‎ weighs just four stone and has almost zero per cent body fat but she'll be the first to tell you she's not anorexic.

University student, 21, eats every 15mins but weighs the same as an eight-year-old from Austin, Texas, actually eats every 15 minutes just to stay healthy.

The Texas State University student has a condition that is so rare, there are only three known cases in the world. It prevents her from gaining weight even though she eats up to 60 small meals a day.

She consumes between 5,000 and 8,000 calories a day but her weight has never tipped over 4.3 stone.

'I weigh myself regularly and if I gain even one pound I get really excited,' 5ft 2ins Lizzie said.

'I eat small portions of crisps, sweets, chocolate, pizza, chicken, cake, doughnuts, ice cream, noodles and pop tarts all day long, so I get pretty upset when people accuse me of being anorexic.'

Lizzie was born four weeks prematurely weighing just 2lb 10oz. Doctors found there was minimal amniotic fluid protecting her in the womb.

'They told us they had no idea how she could have survived,' said Lizzie's mother Rita, 45, a church secretary.

'We had to buy dolls' clothes from the toy store because baby clothes were too big.'

Doctors could not make a diagnosis so they prepared Lizzie's parents for the worst.

'They told us she would never be able to walk, talk or have a normal life,' said Rita who has two other children with Lizzie's father Lupe, 44. Lizzie's siblings Chris, 12, and Marina, 15, are both of average height and weight.

Despite the grim prognosis Lizzie's brain, bones and internal organs developed normally but she was always very small.

At the age of two she was still only 15lbs - the same as the average five-month-old baby.

'I was normal but really, really tiny,' said Lizzie, who underwent numerous tests at the St David's Medical Centre in Austin with inconclusive results.

Doctors speculated Lizzie might have the genetic disorder De Barsy syndrome but soon ruled it out as it became clear she did not have learning difficulties.

'They kept on trying to figure out what was wrong with her but we treated her like any other child,' said Rita.

Born with two brown eyes, when Lizzie was four the right began to cloud and change hue. Doctors then discovered she had gone blind in that eye.

'They still don't know why it happened but now I have one blue and one brown eye.'

Lizzie was taken to see genetic experts but they still could not diagnose her.
At the age of six, Lizzie's doctors began encouraging her to eat plenty of fat, carbohydrates and sugar.

'They told me to 'just go for it' with anything I wanted at any time,' said Lizzie, who carries food in her handbag and keeps a big stash under her bed in her flat.

In high school Lizzie made friends and gradually came to accept her appearance.

'I started to think: 'Well this is me, like it or lump it,'' said Lizzie.

'I was always the one at the top of the pyramid during cheerleading,' she added.

Lizzie has a weak immune system and has been in hospital many times after catching numerous illnesses.

At 16 Lizzie almost died when her appendix ruptured and at 19 she had a massive blood transfusion because her blood cells were not multiplying properly and she was critically anaemic.

'I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed,' she said.

'My doctors had no idea how I was still alive. I only had half the normal amount of blood in my body but after my transfusion I felt like a new person, it was great.'

Lizzie's case has fascinated doctors all over the world and she is part of a genetic study run by Professor Abhimanyu Garg, M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Professor Garg and his team now believe Lizzie may have a form of Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome (NPS) which causes accelerated ageing, fat loss from the face and body, and tissue degeneration. People with PRS often have triangular and prematurely aged faces with a pointy nose.

He said: 'I am aware of a small number of people that have similar conditions to Lizzie but each case is slightly different.

'We cannot predict what will happen to Lizzie in the future as the medical community are yet to document older people with NPS.

'However Lizzie is lucky to have healthy teeth, organs and bones so the outlook is good. We will continue to study her case and learn from her.'

Lizzie doesn't take medication but she relies on vitamin supplements and iron to stay healthy. It is thought she should be able to conceive naturally without passing the condition to her children.

She added: 'I do all the things my friends do, shopping, movies and parties.

'But I hate it when people stare, or make comments. When I meet new people I have to say: "Hi, I'm Lizzie and I have this rare syndrome, I am NOT anorexic."'

Currently there is no cure but her doctors predict if Lizzie keeps eating she has a bright future ahead of her.

She insisted: 'I'm happy the way I am and this syndrome has made me the person I am'

Lizzie hopes to become a motivational speaker when she graduates.

'I want to make a positive difference in people's lives and show them that you can get through most hardships if you are strong, positive and have a sense of humour,' she said.

Lizzie has also co-authored a book about her incredible experiences. It is due to be released in late September and will be available on Amazon.Watch Pictures Small Video documentary movies in youtube

how to make bacon from scratch

How to Make Bacon at Home from Scratch: Baked or Smoked Methods You have got to learn how to make bacon from scratch! I recently tried this for the first time and I've got to share it with you because it turned out fantastically! If you are like me, you love bacon. The smokey, rich, salty flavor is delicious either on its own with breakfast or used to wrap grilled foods like scallops, prawns, dates or game birds. You can also cut up chunks of homemade bacon, called lardons, to lard poultry before roasting, to add flavor to stews and soups or even to augment your salads. With store bought bacon, most is thinly sliced and rather lacking in flavor. When making bacon at home from scratch you can cut it into any size or shape you want! Thick country-style slices or lardons are no problem. The uses are endless. And the flavor? Well watch out! This homemade bacon is delicious and much more bold and rich in flavor than all but the very best store brought types. Learn how to make bacon now!

Most people have not made bacon at home and consider the idea of curing meats and learning how to make bacon at home a bit scary. However, making bacon at home is actually not that hard. Here I will teach you a simple method how to make bacon, how to cure bacon and then bake or smoke it. It can then keep for a while in your fridge or even longer in your freezer. Its definitely worth the effort!

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