Guy surfs behind great white shark caught with fishing pole!

Posted on YouTube by Notorious415, via Neatorama

Submitted by Wayne Zebzda:

Knock Knock, who’s there? Is this company really home? Gizmodo readers

went to all the physical addresses that appeared on Psystar’s site. They found no evidence any such company had ever existed at any of the locations. One was a residence and one was a packing supply company that knew nothing of Psystar.

Recent announcements about this Apple knockoff company that will run the Leopard OS raised some interesting legal questions, hoax or not. Many wonder if Apple will sue or even issue a statement but then again, where would they send the subpoena? 

Apple doesn’t really have to do anything to defend its honor, when it has such a loyal armchair detective customer base. Here’s an article from C/NET, followed by an article from Forbes that will walk you through the whole mess.

Send in the Mac clones
C/NET News.com
April 18, 2008

Psystar suddenly appeared on the tech scene when it began to sell a white box PC that it says will come with Apple’s Mac OS X operating system pre-installed, the first Mac clone since CEO Steve Jobs banished them 11 years ago.

Psystar is selling a PC called the Open Computer which comes with a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2 memory, integrated Intel 950 graphics, and a 250GB 7200RPM drive.

Psystar says it achieved Mac OS X compatibility in its Open Computer by using an EFI emulator based on OSx86 software. The Open Computer costs $399 without an operating system but it can be ordered with Apple’s Leopard operating system pre-installed for an additional $155, according to the Psystar Web site. The lowest-cost Mac is the Mac mini which starts at $599.

Credit: Psystar

Rotten Apples?
Meet The Mac-Clone Mystery Man
by Brian Caulfield
March 18, 2008

Burlingame, Calif. - How’s this for a deal. At a fraction of the cost of a comparably equipped machine from Apple, a Web-based company dubbed Psystar is offering a computer you can have loaded up with just about any operating system you choose, including Apple’s OS X Leopard.

That would not be news if, like thousands of mom-and-pop computer builders around the country, Psystar were offering any other operating system. But that Psystar is allowing users to order what is essentially a cut-price Mac violates Apple’s licensing terms, which forbids users from jamming its software onto non-Apple hardware. The novelty generated a storm of press coverage–and when the company stopped being able to take orders and switched locations — accusations from bloggers that the start-up business is a scam. (more…)

Submitted by Rose Foster:

Yale student claims to make art from her induced miscarriages–but it’s a hoax [Editor’s note: see updates at the end in which she claims it is not a hoax]

Aliza Shvarts ‘Abortion Art’ Project a ‘Creative Fiction,’ Yale Says
by David Emery
About.com: Urban Legends
April 17, 2008

Yale art student Aliza Shvarts delivered a one-two punch to the media on Thursday, beginning with the announcement of her senior project: an exhibition chronicling a nine-month period during which she impregnated herself “as often as possible” with semen from voluntary donors then videotaped herself inducing miscarriages and preserving the bloody byproducts thereof. “I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts was quoted as saying in the Yale Daily News. She got her wish in spades. The announcement sent shock waves through the blogosphere, eliciting disgust and outrage from every quarter, expressed via headlines on the order of “The Art of Murder” and “Aliza Shvarts Is a Monster.”

Hours later came an announcement from the Yale University Office of Public Affairs stating that the art project was just that — art. “The entire project is … a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body,” read the statement by Yale spokesperson Helaine Klasky. “She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages.” (more…)

Branson’s Mars Mission: Prankster Or Pathfinder?
by Jim Goldman
CNBC
April 1, 2008

Is he or isn’t he, that is the question. I’m talking about Sir Richard Branson and his lofty (extraterrestrial?) goal of a manned mission to Mars, in partnership with Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google.

Needless to say, the news captured a lot of attention–and the imagination — of so many who read those headlines. But then, as quickly as the news broke, reporters, including our own Jane Wells, broke the news that all this was an April Fools hoax, bursting the Mars bubble shortly after that one small step onto the internet.

Or was it? I sat down with the man himself here at the CTIA wireless conference in Las Vegas, and in my exclusive interview with the Virgin empire builder covering all kinds of topics, I had to ask about the prank. No prank, he assured me. It’s a hoax, I said. It’s not, he retorted. (I’m posting the entire interview here, so judge for yourself!) [See video interview on this page]

So I played along, and pressed him on the details. When? Hopefully by 2020, if not sooner, but definitely before he dies. How much capital will he commit? He hemmed, hawed, paused, and then said that he and the Google guys would pony up $15 billion toward the project. (more…)

Update, April 7, 2008: EdgarGonzalez.com interviews David Serero about the success of his Eiffel Tower Design hoax here.

From Marcy LaViollette: Please tell me this is a prank!

[Editor: Right. And next the Statue of Liberty’s torch will be replaced with an umbrella due to global warming…]

From the Serero Architects Web site:

Serero Architects unveils its design for the extension of the Eiffel Tower top floor. The project will extend the top floor plate of the tower by grafting a high performance carbon Kevlar structure on it. The structure will be temporarily bolted to the slab without requiring any modification of the existing structure. It will expand the usable floor area from 280 m2 to 580m2.

Related articles:

Submitted by Barbara Kolo:

via zeemer28

[Editor’s note: Sounds a bit like You’ve Got to be Kidneying from Snopes.com. If you read down to the bottom of that link, you’ll find a hauntingly similar story that was reported in May of 1998. Perhaps it’s been a slow news week in New Delhi.]

Indian Police Probe Transplant Ring
by Sam Dolnick
1010 WINS
January 28, 2008

New Delhi (AP) — Police said they were raiding hospitals and guest houses Monday as part of their investigation into an illegal transplant racket that allegedly removed kidneys from up to 500 poor laborers and sold their organs to wealthy clients.

Police suspect that dozens of doctors were involved in the kidney racket, which had a waiting list of some 40 people hailing from at least five countries.

The scam, centered in Gurgaon - a posh suburb of New Delhi - used luxury cars outfitted with blood-testing machines to test donors on the fly as well as sophisticated surgical equipment hidden inside a residential neighborhood.

The sprawling investigation is ongoing and police are raiding hospitals’ offices and guest houses, Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mohinder Lal told reporters in Gurgaon on Monday.

The primary suspects, who police said have been tied to organ transplant rackets in the past, have apparently fled the country, Lal said.

“We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years,” Lal told reporters last week. (more…)

Empire State Building car zap mystery
by Richard Weir
Daily News
January 27, 2008

Several cars a day get bizarrely stranded in a five-block ‘Bermuda Triangle’ near the Empire State Building.

In the shadow of the Empire State Building lies an “automotive Bermuda Triangle” - a five-block radius where vehicles mysteriously die.

No one is sure what’s causing it, but all roads appear to lead to the looming giant in our midst - specifically, its Art Deco mast and 203-foot-long, antenna-laden spire.

“We get about 10 to 15 cars stuck near there every day,” said Isaac Leviev, manager of Citywide Towing, the AAA’s exclusive roadside assistance provider from 42nd St. to the Battery. “You pull the car four or five blocks to the west or east and the car starts right up.”

Motorists like Russell Valeev, 25, learn about it the hard way.

“The lights work, the horn works, everything. But it won’t start,” Valeev, a driver for Golden Touch Transportation said one recent evening as he sat in his 2005 Ford van with the hood propped open on E. 35th St., between Lexington and Park Aves. “It’s my job. No money.”

(more…)

Dozens in Texas Town Report Seeing UFO
by Angela K. Brown
Associated Press Writer
January 14, 2008

Fourteen percent of Americans polled last year by The Associated Press and Ipsos say they have seen a UFO.

Stephenville, Texas (AP) — In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

Several dozen people - including a pilot, county constable and business owners - insist they have seen a large silent object with bright lights flying low and fast. Some reported seeing fighter jets chasing it.

“People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it’s the end of times,” said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. “It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts.”

While federal officials insist there’s a logical explanation, locals swear that it was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said the object’s lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane. People in several towns who reported seeing it over several weeks have offered similar descriptions of the object. (more…)

From Peter Moosgaard:

The Germans have problems handling their dead. There are too many of them. Especially in Bavaria, cementaries are bursting with old mummies. The reason: the dead just won´t rot in time because of air-tight grounds, high quality coffins and too much groundwater.

Now the Swiss company Mycoproducts offers starter-kits they call “Rapid Rot”, a fungus-kit that stunningly accelerates the disintegration process of coffin and corpse. English version.