In 2011, Illinois-based ArLynn Leiber Presser made a New Year’s resolution to visit with all 335 of her Facebook friends to help her overcome her anxiety disorder, agoraphobia. Her journey, the Face to Facebook project, took her to 51 cities in 13 countries and the whole time, she kept great stats and journaled stories on her blog. Now, a documentary film titled Face to Facebook is being made of her adventures by filmmaker Benjamin Gonzales. The film’s trailer is available to view online and the film is due out later this year.

This incredible and inspiring story of one woman on a quest to conquer her fears is not only a tale of travel and self discovery , it is also an examination of the nature of anxiety and panic disorders. It raises questions about how social media like Facebook affects people suffering from these disorders as well as the population at large. It’s a personal story of determination and taking control of one’s life and one’s fears as well as an examination of how our culture and society are rapidly changing with our increasing online presence.

via Brand Flakes For Breakfast, Oddity Central and The Vancouver Sun

TLC’s television show My Strange Addiction documents the odd addictions of folks, like Kailyn, who habitually eats plastic. In this clip, we learn Kailyn has eaten plastic every day for eleven years.

via Viral Viral Videos

“Taxi!” is a beautiful data visualization of 10,000 taxi trips occurring over the course of one day in Manhattan. The visualization was a collaboration between Tom McKeogh, Eliza Montgomery and Juan Francisco Saldarriaga.

Taxi! is an analytical model that maps the trip data for 10,000 taxi rides over the course of 24 hours. Geographic location data for the origin and destination of each ride is combined with waypoint data collected from the Google Maps API in order to generate a geographically accurate representation of the trip. We used data from taxi rides originating or ending in the neighborhoods of Lincoln center or Bryant Park. The visualization recreates a ‘breathing’ map of Manhattan based on the migration of vehicles across the city over a period of 24 hours, displaying periods of intensity, density and decreased activity.

via FlowingData & Digital Urban

“The Scale of the Universe 2″ is an interactive visualization that shows the relative size of different things, from quantum foam (very small) to the observable universe (very large). The visualization was created by Cary and Michael Huang. We previously wrote about the original version of the visualization back in 2010.

via Dangerous Minds

Canada-based Naked & Famous Denim coated denim fabric with mini microcapsules that when scratched release the candy-like smell of raspberries for their new mens’ scratch-n-sniff raspberry scented denim jeans. The raspberry scent lasts up to five wash cycles “depending on how you care for them and how often you wear ‘em.” The jeans are available to purchase online from Tate + Yoko.

Yes! These jeans really do scratch-n-sniff with a fun candy-like raspberry scent! Try them out!

via Time NewsFeed

Match Sprint is a form of track bicycle racing in which the competitors move very slowly and even stop completely in order to gain a tactical advantage over their rivals (video). Because of the aerodynamic concept of drafting, the lead cyclist must expend more energy than the trailing cyclist, so the competitors try to avoid taking the lead until the last possible moment.

via Now I Know

video via Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Now in its third year, The Creators Project is hosting its first Bay Area event on March 17 and 18, 2012 at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California. This large-scale technology and arts festival is part of an ongoing global initiative formed by VICE and Intel that supports “visionary artists, musicians, and filmmakers who are using technology to push the bounds of creative expression.” The two-day event will feature “towering multimedia art installations, live music performances, film screenings, and interactive panels.”

We’ll be exhibiting the best of The Creators Project including United Visual Artists’ striking 40-foot by 40-foot audiovisual installation Origin, scored by electronic composer Scanner, Meditation by Minha Yang, Strata #4 by Quayola, Six-Forty by Four-Eighty by Zigelbaum + Coelho, and several new works from our Creators.

On Saturday we’ll be hosting an array of live music performances, and throughout the weekend we’ll be screening films and hosting creative workshops and panel discussions.

Musical comedy show The Key of Awesome has created a humorous parody song and video of Walk Off The Earth’s cover of Gotye’s hit song, Somebody That I Used To Know.

WOTE is getting tired of sharing one guitar!

Here’s the original video by Walk Off The Earth that The Key of Awesome is lampooning:

Also, here’s the behind-the-scenes footage which includes a puppet version of the parody song:

LINX is a simple construction toy consisting of modular connectors that work with ordinary drinking straws. LINX creator Patrick Martinez is raising funds for the project on Kickstarter.

LINX were created because I wanted a construction game that was cheap, flexible and light. With LINX you can build everything from ambitious room-sized structures to intricate table-top sculptures, all using LINX connectors and standard drinking straws.

Angelique Clark of The Onion‘s show Star Fix interviews puppeteer Glen Soziak who has “enchanted audiences for the last 30 years playing the delightfully wacky, oversized puppet of Nicolas Cage.”

Also, take a look at comedian Andy Samberg playing Nicolas Cage while sitting next to Nicolas Cage in Get in the Cage, a skit on Saturday Night Live:

“Know Your Rights” is a musical animation about photographers’ rights by open-collaborative production company hitRECord, featuring music by The Gregory Brothers (of Auto-Tune the News) and actor/hitRECord director Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The animation was created in collaboration with the ACLU—see the ACLU site on photographers’ rights for more information.

via Wired

The trailer has been released for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the thriller/horror movie produced by Tim Burton about the Great Emancipator as a bad-ass ax-twirling vampire slayer. Director Timur Bekmambetov adapted the mashup novel by author Seth Grahame-Smith to create the film’s screenplay. The film opens in theatres on June 22, 2012.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter explores the secret life of our greatest President, and the untold story that shaped our nation. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted) bring a fresh and visceral voice to the blood-thirsty lore of the vampire, imagining Lincoln as history’s greatest hunter of the undead.

via /Film

Cinemagram by Factyle is a new app that converts short iPhone videos into animated photo GIFs known as cinemagraphs.

Create a stunning hybrid between photo and video. Animate small portions of your photo to create a magical image that’s part-photo and part-video. Apply vintage / cross processing filters, and share your masterful creation.

via TechCrunch

photo via Cinemagram

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia star in Kickstarter, a humorous skit in Season 2: Episode 6 where “Jayde from ‘jayde speaks Sevyn’ and director Gahvin Quin make a video plea to help raise money in the name of art.”

What did independent performance art projects, documentaries on obscure rock stars, soon-to-be iconic board games and brilliant cat-oriented straight-to-DVD miniseries do before Kickstarter.com? Luckily we don’t have to imagine a world where true believers in The Adventures of Vampire Kitty and Space Bat can’t micro-finance their favorite comic. The denizens of the world of Portlandia are using Kickstarter, too. In this clip…Carrie Brownstein’s Jayde (you know, from your favorite band “jayde speaks Sevyn”) takes to Kickstarter to help fund her new video. She enlists the help of director Gahvin Quin (Fred Armisen in a delightful wig) to make a video plea to help raise money in the name of art.

Fred Armisen recently spoke with Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler about the skit in this Kickstarter Blog Q&A session.

Dan’l Linehan of Archie Mcphee has created this awesome image of himself as the Laughing Squid logo using Cthulhu Tentacles and some digital magic. Thanks Dan’l!

Also, here he is as Cthulhu:

images via Archie McPhee

Special thanks to David Wahl!

Jeremiah Warren takes a look at The History of Thomas Edison in honor of his 165th birthday.

The first photo that I uploaded to Flickr was from the first WordPress meetup I ever attended, which took place on January 22, 2005 in San Francisco. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg had recently moved to San Francisco and I was looking forward to meeting him since I had just launched the Laughing Squid blog on January 1, 2005 and we had been supporting it through our web hosting services for a while. Along with Matt, the photo includes Ryan King who is now an engineer at Twitter, GigaOm founder Om Malik and Nicole Lee who is currently a a producer on the TWiT Network.

Eclectic Method brilliantly recreated 99 Problems by Jay-Z using clips from various films.

The Him & Her Chairs from Italian designer Fabio Novembre are unique anatomically-shaped chairs that take the waist-down form of a man and a woman. The chairs are produced by Casamania and are available in several colors.

“Him & Her are born directly from the ideas behind the Panton Chair. An evolution of the hermaphroditic original, declined into the harmony of the two sexes. They assume sculpted forms like naked models of seduction…but they feel no shame.”

The chairs have been spotted by Mission Mission at Osha Thai restaurant in San Francisco, California.

via Mission Mission

images via Casamania and Mission Mission

Robert Hales directed the new music video for Look Around by Red Hot Chili Peppers, from their album I’m With You.

via The Awesomer & Flixist

The Super Sexy Dress from Etsy shop LinaSpyroS can be best described, in our opinion, as a butt cleavage dress.

This super sexy dress is made of synthetic fabric. It reveals the most attractive part of the women’s body.

Oh yes it does.

via Hillary Buckholtz and sprywhimsy

The Humane Society of Pagosa Springs (Colorado) has a created a series of bumper stickers that read: “My Child Is A Beggar”, “My Child Eats Bugs” and finally, “My Child Drinks Out Of The Toilet”. Thankfully, the children referenced are pets.

These 3 fun bumper stickers are the perfect little gift to share with a friend. For one low price you will receive three darling bumper stickers.

via Molly Kiely and Gary L. Mackender

At the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, a two person Papier-mâché rhinoceros costume rampaged out of its pen and trampled zookeepers until it was tranquilized. The rhino was part of the yearly safety drill at Tokyo area zoos. Last year, the nearby Tama Zoo was menaced by a man in a tiger mascot costume.

via The Telegraph

“A Muppet Wicker Man” by British artist Paul O’Connell is a Muppet comic version of the cult British horror film The Wicker Man (1973).

via Dangerous Minds

Diesel Sweeties pixelated webcomic creator Richard Stevens has launched Diesel Sweeties eBook-Stravaganza 3000, a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to produce an eBook of his first 3,000 comics. The campaign has been quite successful and Stevens has been adding bonus items for contributors, like the custom Red Robot thumb drive. For a $666 donation, Stevens (a vegetarian) will eat a pound of bacon and for a $10,000 donation, he will give up coffee for one month.

The Baco-Vegetarian: You get the full signed thumb drive package, plus I’ll give up my almost unbroken 2-year stretch of vegetarianism to cook and EAT A POUND OF BACON. I will also make a video, cursing you for how sick this will make me. Bonus: I will hate myself. Double bonus: My ghost will haunt you.