3d illusion arts: Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Face Yoga Finally Gives You an Excuse to Look Silly
Surveillance Camera Man Highlights Privacy Issues by Filming People without Permission
Indonesian Villages Use Piles of Sand Instead of Mattresses

Face Yoga Finally Gives You an Excuse to Look Silly

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 05:04 AM PST

If the years are starting to take their toll on your once flawless visage, there may yet be a way to turn back the clock, before turning to Botox injections and other cosmetic procedures. It’s called face yoga and is apparently allows practitioners to control the way their face ages.

Face yoga was developed by Annelise Hagen, who calls is the ultimate face-lift. The New York yoga instructor says her technique is meant to be a natural alternative to Botox and cosmetic procedures, which cost Americans billions of dollars every year. She started working on her unique set of facial exercises after she learned her students, most of them well-educated professionals, were practicing yoga, but also getting Botox shots during their lunch breaks to hide their wrinkles. Hagen just didn’t feel that was in the spirit of yoga, so she decided to create a proper alternative. Based on the premise that, like any other muscles in the human body, facial muscles need exercise to stay toned, face yoga offers a range of exercises to help people looking younger for longer. And the best part, face yoga poses, like Smiling Fish (purse your lips and smile slightly), the Marilyn (blow kisses while keeping your forehead smooth) and the Satchmo (puff out your face and transfer air from cheek to cheek), also give you a chance to act silly and release accumulated tension.

But while face yoga may look as simple as making funny faces, Annelise Hagen says there’s actually a technique to it. "If you just made weird squirmy faces randomly you'd get more wrinkles," she said in an interview with Good Morning America. "We're trying to tone and lift the muscles of the face. It's been scientifically proven that the muscular activity helps to prolong the production of collagen and elastin, which makes your face firm and springy." Through repetition and resistance, face yoga practitioners can be proactive when it comes to aging and thus won’t have to worry about damage control in the future. There’s no need for Botox, according to Hagen, as this unique type of yoga gives people better results.

But face yoga does have its critics. Some yoga experts, like Rodney Yee, claim that while relaxing your face is an important part of yoga, saying it’s the same as a face lift is just commercialism. "That is the antithesis of yoga, pretending to be something that you're not," Yee told Gayam Life, back in 2007. "There is a beauty in becoming older." Dermatologists also warn that good form is required to practice face yoga. Although it tones facial muscles, if someone unprepared would do some weird face contortions, they could spasm and even do permanent damage.

Whether it makes people look younger or not, it’s clear to see why everyone enjoys it so much. "You make a lot of funny faces at your neighbor or at yourself in the mirror. And we have a good time." yoga instructor Jan O”Connell said, and Annelise Hagen adds that “it’s kind of cathartic for people to be in a room making ridiculous faces and laughing.” So even if it doesn’t smooth out all your wrinkles, at least it will make you feel like a kid again.

If you’re into offbeat yoga, you might want to take a look at Star Wars Yoga, Laughter Yoga or the controversial Baby Yoga

Face Yoga Finally Gives You an Excuse to Look Silly was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Surveillance Camera Man Highlights Privacy Issues by Filming People without Permission

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 03:43 AM PST

An anonymous person known only as “Surveillance Camera Man” is sparking controversy by filming people in public and private spaces without asking for their permission. Clever way of highlighting privacy issues or just intentionally provoking people?

Why is it that hardly anyone minds being on camera wherever they go, but whenever there’s a face attached to the camera, everyone becomes agitated. Whether we’re walking on the street, going into a bank or at school, there are all these cameras watching our every move, and yet we choose to ignore them. But if an actual person is holding the camera, we feel like they’re violating our privacy. This is what Surveillance Camera Man, an anonymous man from Seattle has been proving with his series of videos posted on YouTube. Granted, sometimes he’s actually doing his filming on private property, but even when he’s filming people in parking lots or on the street without saying a word to them, you can see it’s making them very uncomfortable. Most claim he’s violating their privacy, forgetting they’re in public places, and some even lash out at the camera or call the police. However you feel about Surveillance Camera Man and his approach, you have to admit it’s darn interesting project.

Although no one knows his real identity, going by the locations in the videos, he’s from Seattle. His in-your-face experiments have already sparked debates on social media platforms like Reddit and Metafilter, with some people even thinking of doing the same thing in their cities, to address the issue of privacy. Some are saying people in the videos feel targeted, unlike when they’re watched by CCTV cameras, while combat the argument saying facial recognition technology is nearly perfected, allowing the state to target you whenever they want. Just that it’s some guy in an office miles away watching your every move, instead of standing five feet from you.

via Laughing Squid

Surveillance Camera Man Highlights Privacy Issues by Filming People without Permission was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Indonesian Villages Use Piles of Sand Instead of Mattresses

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 02:46 AM PST

The residents of three small fishing villages in the Batang region of Indonesia prefer to sleep on piles of sand than on modern mattresses. This ancient tradition that’s still practiced today for its supposed health benefits.

Taking a nap on a sandy beach is pretty relaxing, but can you imagine going to sleep on a pile of sand every night? For the people of Batang-Batang, there’s really no comparing mattresses to their amazing sand beaches. As the only thing they have in abundance, sand plays a crucial role in the life of these coastal communities. It’s everywhere around their homes, cooling their feet on hot summer days, and keeping them warm during the night, and it even enters their houses as comfortable beds. Even the richest of residents prefer sleeping on sand than on mattresses, and even if some own conventional beds, they are mostly for decorative purposes. The villagers, most of them fishermen, believe the sand brought in from nearby beaches has medicinal properties that can help with a variety of conditions, from rheumatism to itches, although there’s no scientific proof of this. However, it’s a known fact that the sand in the area is highly adaptive to air temperature. When the air is hot, the sand offers a nice cooling retreat, and on cold nights, it keeps the villagers warm.

Photo: Dewo Ringgish

The Sand beds on Indonesia’s Batang region were a controversial subject during the 70s and 80s, when it was revealed women also use them to give birth, with only the most difficult cases being taken to local health centers. But despite public scrutiny, women carried on their tradition. Villagers say only the cleanest and finest sand is used for beds.

Although most locals still prefer sand to conventional beds, this old tradition of dying out with the young population moving to the big city, in search of job opportunities.