In this (surely) shamelessly faked viral video, four Finnish Intel employees recreate the company’s famous five-note jingle with some giant bells, some cannons, and their heads. Don’t try it at home (we’re pretty sure they didn’t, either) tinyurl.com/ybcco2k Volcano a go-go Wired has some stunning video – the first of its kind – of a deep sea volcano erupting. Courtesy of a robotic rover funded by the US National Science Foundation and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency Now you CCTV it Thanks to Boing Boing for posting this fantastic YouTube mashup of all those preposterous moments in movies and TV when a blurry bit of CCTV footage is magically enhanced thanks to some spurious computer geekery Dogg's dinner Snoop Dogg appeared on domestic goddess (and ex-con) Martha Stewart’s show last week – a strange mix, though it’s not his first appearance. But it’s probably the first time the two of them have baked brownies and made jokes about marijuana tinyurl.com/yavxouz

To commemorate a film career that has seen Morgan Freeman play all sorts of authority figures and men in uniform, someone has designed a rather brilliant “Morgan Freeman Chain of Command”, with God (from Bruce Almighty) at the top. And at the bottom…?
imgur.com/wJG6J

A life writ large
Jack Beers is a remarkable 94-year-old New Yorker whose life as a construction worker, actor, professional strongman and more is the subject of an award-winning documentary, Holes In My Shoes. This trailer is an effective thumbnail sketch of a man who clearly deserves a lengthy portrait


Sleeve it out Vintage books commissioned a set of special covers for their Vladimir Nabokov backlist, made with origami and butterfly boxes to reflect the author’s hobby of collecting butterflies. Here’s a gallery where you can vote on your favourite design.
tinyurl.com/yau2em3

Quite a clip
Gawker TV has compiled the definitive list of 2009’s 100 top viral videos, edited to fit into a 3 minute clip. There are links to each individual viral, just in case you missed any (or all) of them.
tinyurl.com/y8odpwb

The first trailer for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, has hit the web, and it looks predictably spectacular – including a pulled focus shot of Crowe about to fire an arrow that bears a thrilling resemblance to that greatest of all Hoods, Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
tinyurl.com/yee3fle

How to bow out
Facebook’s new privacy settings have angered the folks at Valleywag, who claim the social networking site has “turned evil” (tinyurl.com/y9wmmo4). Luckily, Wired’s how-to section has a helpful guide to de-Facebooking yourself
howto.wired.com/wiki/Un-Facebook_Yourself

Santa-nav system
If you want to see just how Santa manages to cover all that ground between each child’s chimney every Christmas eve, you can now track his journey on Google Earth courtesy of NORAD. (We’re pretty sure it’s not really NORAD)
www.noradsanta.org

To go boldly
The release of a new DVD of the original Star Trek series brings with it at least one remarkable extra: this never-broadcast original pilot, featuring a different, split-infinitive-less opening monologue from Captain Kirk. Sci-Fi Wire has the story and a clip
tinyurl.com/ygpy4mn

Gawker Media’s car blog Jalopnik has posted a list of the ten most optimistic car names of all time, among them the Suzuki Swift, the Triumph Acclaim and Lifebrowser’s favourite, the Studebaker Dictator – apparently named in the early 30s when everyone still thought Mussolini was a cool guy
tinyurl.com/yadp83m

Criminal fashion
If you’re planning to go out for a drive while under the influence, at least have the presence of mind not to wear your “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunk – alcoholics go to meetings”. Might be a bit embarrassing when it comes to your police mugshot, as this gallery of mugs proves
www.uberpix.net/7413/what-not-to-wear

Cool crossover
A nice bit of hipster crossover advertising from Google and highbrow indie rockers The National: an ad for Google search that shows a user finding a gig, then recording it for YouTube. Music blog Stereogum has the story of the ad’s genesis



It's a long shot
Film blogger Mike Harvkey has compiled an interesting list of what he considers the 10 best long tracking shots ever filmed, by directors as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Thomas Anderson and John Woo
tinyurl.com/yjm2va7

Beck has added an interesting new section to his website. “Colorspace” is a showcase for emerging visual artists, the first of whom is Swiss-born Olaf Bruenning, who apparently takes a lot of his inspiration from music
beck.com/colorspace

Video stars
Mashable.com, the guide to social media, has chosen its top 10 viral ads of 2009, including “Piano Stairs” and “United Breaks Guitars”. Though there are some glaring omissions (What, no “Megawhoosh”?), it’s interesting that many of the entries are user-generated
mashable.com/2009/12/07/viral-video-ads

Whopper shockers
The American Deep South’s veteran television fishing instructor Bill Dance would make for amusing late night viewing even if he hit all his marks, so this collection of his silliest bloopers is a blast



The best man won
A Twitter feed from an anonymous best man playing a risque prank on the happy couple went viral last week. Lifebrowser just hopes it’s real and not an elaborate advertisement for office furniture/home electronics
twitter.com/newlywedsontjob

The law of the internet dictates that at least once a month a cute cat will claw its way to the top of the viral video chart. The minute kitten in this must-watch, miniclip looks set to become one of the genre’s biggest stars.



Top red top teaser
Perhaps the smartest of the ads to mark 40 years of The Sun, this Apple parody introduces newspapers as the “must have handheld accessory of 2009” with a “panoramic CMYK full-colour display” and “inbuilt games with pen-touch interface”.



Squirm donor BBC
A carpet of carnivorous sea stars and three-foot worms prowl the Atlantic in this extraordinary, sped-up footage from Monday’s episode of Life. Surely some of the BBC’s finest work.
tinyurl.com/ydad3so

Dreams in Cinders
Canadian photographer Dina Goldstein places Disney princesses in contemporary settings – Snow White with three kids, Rapunzel having chemotherapy – in this striking subversion of the ‘happily-ever-after’ scenario.
fallenprincesses.com

A spoof tech article written as if in the 1870s asks if, with the telephone - a "device which emits sound and is not filled with bees" - Alexander Graham Bell has invented a "telegraph killer".
tinyurl.com/yzb554w

Spider man 2
David Thorne, the web satirist whose attempt to pay a bill with a drawing of a spider went viral last year, strikes gold again with this uproarious exchange with an optimistic web designer seeking free labour.
27bslash6.com/p2p.html

Sarah's friends
More "Palintology" here, with a revealing (mildly disturbing) series of dig-your-own-hole interviews with fans of Sarah Palin at a recent Columbus, Ohio book signing attended by the would-be Presidential nominee.



Literature lives
Mesmerising viral ad for the New Zealand Book Council in which a work by Auckland writer Maurice Gee is quite literally brought to life. Captivating narration accompanies the book's pages, which are ingeniously animated using a scalpel.

Current TV’s new series “Embedded”will take viewers behind the scenes with some of their favourite music acts, including the Decemberists, Common and Silversun Pickups. Here’s a preview of Mos Def rapping on the streets of Osaka. The show starts on 11 December
current.com/embedded

All in a good cause
The Music Beats Mines campaign by the Mines Advisory Group is holding an eBay auction of signed music memorabilia from the likes of Radiohead, Elbow and the Stone Roses. The auction continues until 6 December and the money raised goes towards clearing landmines and helping affected communities
tinyurl.com/jcnka

She's O so stylish
While Google is busy fending off controversy after allowing doctored racist images of Michelle Obama to appear in its search results, the blog “Mrs O” is celebrating the First Lady’s style by reporting everything she wears and the designers who made it
mrs-o.org

The history boys
Wired has put together a gallery crucial historical moments, recreated in Lego – from the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to the creation of the iPhone, numerous amateurs have rendered the past in plastic
tinyurl.com/yaxbtlk

Bromantic comedy star Jason Segel took to the stage at a gig by the Swell Season – aka Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, the stars of Once – after they invited him to write and perform a song of his own. The results are as funny or funnier than Forgetting Sarah Marshall



A lyrical tragedy
R Kelly has always had an interesting take on male/female relationships. One hopes that his latest track “Pregnant” featuring The-Dream, Tyrese and Robin Thicke, is meant at least semi-ironically. Choice lyrics include “Girl you make me wanna get you pregnant” and “She’s more than a mistress, bout to handle my business and put that girl in my kitchen”
tinyurl.com/y8gckob

Map reading
Cartography blog “Strange Maps” has a map of the British Isles, with the names of locations translated into modern English. Thus Dublin becomes Blackpool, and Brighton becomes “Bright Helmets Town”. And so on
tinyurl.com/y9l8wf6

Fraggle rock
A Muppets version of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” has deservedly landed at the very top of the viral video charts. Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Miss Piggy and Kermit all feature with a formidable supporting cast. Christmas number one?

Environmental campaigners Plane Stupid have (with the help of the creatives at Mother) produced a spectacularly shocking anti-aviation ad. An average European flight produces over 400kg of greenhouse gas per passenger – the weight of a polar bear. The visuals speak for themselves



Up, up and away
president Obama has added yet another official gallery of photographs to the White House online album. This time it’s an intimate inside look at life on board Air Force One, with an all-star cast including Barack, Michelle, Hillary, Reggie Love and David Axelrod
topcultured.com/inside-air-force-one-with-president-obama

Good Charlotte
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest single, a collaboration with Beck, is the brilliant “Heaven Can Wait”. And when two such eccentric artists get together, you can count on a wonderfully surreal video, too. This is it
charlottegainsbourg.com/video55.php

Noah's latest
Noah Baumbach is the indie writer-director behind the fantastic “The Squid and the Whale”. A trailer for his new film “Greenberg”, starring Ben Stiller, debuted online this week
apple.com/trailers/focus_features/greenberg

Plenty of commentators seem to think that if Sarah Palin were elected President in 2012, it would spell the end of the world. Saturday Night Live took the idea to the only logical conclusion (via Gawker TV)
tinyurl.com/yaedmpn

Dolly rockers
Vampire Weekend’s latest video for their new single, “Cousins” is a perfect match for their exuberant style. Best explicit use of a dolly in recent memory



Oprah shout outs
The Oprah Winfrey Show has been on air since 1986 and Oprah has been bellowing the names of her celebrity guests ever since, as this mildly unflattering YouTube compilation/celebration demonstrates
tinyurl.com/ye8ncvj

Mobile music
Music streaming service Spotify has announced it is now available on the Symbian mobile phone operating system, meaning that you can now use Spotify on Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung phones
tinyurl.com/yl2ytou

Thierry Henry has inspired plenty of anger in the past few days, but who knew he’d also inspire a web game? See how many goals you can put past Ireland with the hand of the va-va-voomer
www.jeu-de-main.com

Peaches likes like
Peaches Geldof is a master of the English language, and her favourite word is, like, like. Or so this video, helpfully complied by TV presenter and hilarious video blogger Matt Edmondson would suggest



IT go Vhrome
Google’s new online operating system, Chrome OS, could be the start of a computing revolution. the video explaining its properties is at the top of the viral video chart (tinyurl.com/yjph3wb) and here’s the TechCrunch guide to downloading and using it yourself
tinyurl.com/yc4na8z

Bride and doom
This video of an overenthusiastic wedding guest literally bringing down the house (well, the marquee anyway) is probably much funnier for the millions who are watching it on YouTube than the people in it
avclub.com/videocracy/12512

A helpful YouTube user has cobbled together the 100 very best quotes from all five seasons of The Wire, just to remind us to keep dropping them unnecessarily into conversation for another year or two



Worth repeating
Continuing on a similar theme, another helpful YouTube user has cobbled together close to 100 examples of a single quote – Michael Scott (Steve Carell) of the US version of The Office and his favourite bad quip: “That’s what she said!”



Misery memoirs
“The Hope Chest” blog collects “bad news from the past” for our present enjoyment. Cuttings from old newspapers contain such eccentric headline gems as “Mince Pie Alarm Clocks” and “A Negro Attempts Suicide During the Watermelon Season”
mrparallel.wordpress.com

Vanity project
Twitter and Google both have new offices, which more than live up to the start-up stereotypes. Thanks to TechCrunch and Business Insider, we can take a look inside. Why, Twits, is there a full-length mirror in your khazi?
tinyurl.com/yz9dc5z

Presumably you, like us, have wondered what mashed up trance remixes of the Terminator and Beverly Hills Cop soundtracks would sound like. This YouTube crossfader allows you to find out and record the results. Noisy and possibly NSFW
www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com

Armchair theatre
Toshiba’s ad agency has made one of the talking point TV commercials of the year. For “Space Chair” they sent an armchair to the edge of space, with eight of their HD cameras attached. See the commerical and the “making of” explanation here
tinyurl.com/yhzpjuu

Screen break
Here’s another YouTube ad to make your jaw drop, for Re_Accione, which appears to be a Spanish renewable energy company. Make sure you watch all the way to the end
youtube.com/experiencere

Keep it local
While we’re having what seems to be a mini Lifebrowser ads special, it’d be appostie to mention internet comedy duo Rhett and Link, who have started an initiative to make charming local commercials for free for small businesses across America
ilovelocalcommercials.com

Black and WTF is a great, newish Tumblr blog collecting eccentric old photographs from the days of black and white film
blackandwtf.tumblr.com

Pigeon posted
Animator Lucas Martell has a viral hit on his hands with his wonderful CG short, Pigeon: Impossible. The video is at his YouTube channel, along with some other clips charting its creation and explaining the CG animation process in detail
youtube.com/user/LucasMartell

Sacre bleu!
An exchange between the Irish Government and the French Embassy in Dublin about President Sarkozy’s seating arrangements for the weekend’s world cup qualifier took a turn for the un-PC, if you believe these widely emailed letters are real (we don’t)
irishsoccerinsider.wordpress.com

A panoramic view
Kozyndan (Kozy and Dan) are a pair of LA-based illustrators who make mesmerising 360-degree panoramic paintings. Their latest work – the surreal “Nakano in Spring” – can be viewed in an interactive format here
tinyurl.com/yzgv8sz

Starting with a coffee bean and working down to a carbon atom, via a human egg and various viruses, a beautiful zooming interface reveals just how mind-blowingly miniscule stuff is. Compulsory browsing.
tinyurl.com/mac6zv

MITily impressive
Jaw-dropping demonstration by an MIT team of “sixth sense” technology. A wearable camera/projector hooked up to a smartphone brings the “Minority Report” model of computer interaction via hand gestures a step closer.



Bland: finale
Slightly disturbing viral ad for Nokia’s latest smartphone in which a group of men discuss its features while being watched through one-way glass. It’s boring until the end, when it all gets rather odd.



Fox hunting
Nobody exposes the absurdities of America’s Fox News network better than John Stewart. The Daily Show front man is on fire in this set-to with Fox’s Sean Hannity over the latter’s “accidental” misuse of library footage.
tinyurl.com/ycyzf4y

Google has launched a global archive of its “Doodles”, the cutesy re-designs of its logo that appear on the search engine’s homepage to mark events or holidays. Browse them at google.com/logos or see highlights here tinyurl.com/yjdmsje.

Trailer glory
The keenest gamers who queued to get their hands on the release of the year probably called in sick yesterday. Check out the official trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to see what all the fuss was about.



Waster of space?
This spoof Facebook profile packs all the worst bits of social networking into page, from dumb-arse ads (“tase the goat and win $5,000) to lame updates (“JennyGurl has become a level 12 elder in Mafia Whores)
tinyurl.com/y9veus3

Flock and awe
Amazing home video from Denmark shows a giant, shape-shifting swarm of starlings. There’s no commentary from Attenborough or close-ups but the grainy footage is no less mesmerising than an clip from the BBC’s Life.
tinyurl.com/ygpf9zx

Hit "fullscreen" and turn the sound up for Ataque de Pánico! a remarkable sci-fi short from a Uruguayan special effects house. It shows giant robots invading Montevideo and combines the low-fi aesthetic of District 9 with a 28 Days Later soundtrack.



Night and clay
Brooklyn four-piece Grizzly Bear’s latest music video, a psychedelic riot of colour and stop-animated Plasticine, is probably best viewed late at night under the influence of something – anything. Ready, Able is here:



The way you wore
In case you missed it when the British Film Institute released this fascinating look at London life circa 1927, BoingBoing has posted the early colour footage. Two things stand out: the grubbiness of buildings and the sheer number of hats.



Trench connection
This rather smart website from Burberry celebrates its famous trench coat with a digital array of photos. Submit your own coat-wearing image or flick through the work of the project’s first contributor, the thesartorialist.com street photographer Scott Schuman. Artofthetrench.com

Tumbling down
US President Ronald Reagan's speech in Berlin on 12 June 1987 was directed as much at Mikhail Gorbachev himself as it was at the German people gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate to hear it. "Mr Gorbachev," he famously implored the Soviet premier, "tear down this



Power players
Episode 23 of CNN's comprehensive documentary history of the Cold War was called "The Wall Comes Down" and featured interviews with the major players of the period, including President George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. It's on Google video, we're not sure how legally... tinyurl.com/yfjerqe

First on the scene
The first broadcaster live on the scene as the Wall opened was Tom Brokaw, from NBC in the US. Its site has a clip of Brokaw's original live report, as well as a page of archival, Wall-related items.
tinyurl.com/ybw554q

Wall or nothing
David Hasselhoff was famously "big in Germany" around the time of reunification, and he has bemoaned his apparent exclusion from the historical record. Here he is singing "Looking for Freedom" on the remains of the Wall on New Year's Eve 1989.

We’ve all been caught with an unopened bottle of wine and no corkscrew. But I doubt many of us was familiar with this solution demonstrated, naturally, by a Frenchman – opening it with a shoe. Maybe try it when you’re less drunk than him, though



Faster than skis
Ken Block, rally driver and co-founder of DC shoes – for whom this appears to be a viral advertisment – races around the snowy slopes of the Utah Rockies in a Subaru Impreza, modified to make it the world’s fastest snow cat vehicle



Ewok this way
The Today Show on NBC in the US obviously decided to go with a Star Wars theme for their Halloween edition. But they probably didn’t count on the children/dwarves in the Ewok suits getting drunk and horny and breaking out the moonwalk
tinyurl.com/ydlfcw6


Blog-iful design
Smashing Magazine has published a showcase of “50 fresh, beautiful, inventive and, hopefully, inspiring blog designs”, from across the world.
tinyurl.com/ylgkozg