3d illusion arts: Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Young Entrepreneur Auctions Off His Last Name for 2013 to the Highest Bidder
Mind-Blowing Portrait Made by Hand with 2.1 Million Dots Hides an Amazing Story
Remarkable Chinese Girl Can Write with Both Hands at the Same Time, in Different Languages

Young Entrepreneur Auctions Off His Last Name for 2013 to the Highest Bidder

Posted: 14 Dec 2012 04:56 AM PST

Jacksonville-based entrepreneur Jason Sadler has come up with an ingenious way to raise some money- he has offered to legally change his last name for the whole of 2013 to the name of the company who offers hims the most money. The online auction ended yesterday, and starting January 1st, Sadler will be known as Jason HeadsetsDotCom.

The soon-to-be-called Jason HeadsetsDotCom is known for his weird ideas of making money. His original business, IWearYourShirt.com, was launched in 2009 and required Sadler to wear a sponsored T-shirt featuring a company’s logo for a full day or an entire week, for a generous fee, of course. During the first year since the company’s inception, Jason wore a different T-shirt every day, and leveraged the power of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to get the word out about his clients. ”I wore a different T-shirt for 800 days straight. No day off,” he told CNN Money. ”I’d make online videos wearing the T-shirts, just going about my daily life.” He also tweeted about the brands, posted about them on Facebook and made a one-hour live video show on Ustream, where he talked about clients. Believe it or not, by 2011, Sadler had hired five people and was earning $250,000 a year in revenue, promoting important companies like Starbucks, Nissan or Zappos. How’s that for an original way of making serious dough?

But his latest idea is even crazier. In need of funds to back his startup, Jason Sadler decided to auction off his last name for 2013 to the highest bidder. He organized an online auction on BuyMyLastName.com and invited brands to take advantage of this unique promotion opportunity. He will legally change his name to the name of the winning brand, for the whole year 2013, meaning it will show up on his driver’s license, passport and other forms of ID, not to mention his social media profiles. ”Tons of people have told me I’m an idiot for trying to sell my last name,” Sadler says. “I think I’m willing to push the envelope further than most and willing to see it through. More companies could benefit from doing the same, instead of adding to the noise.” he also mentioned that before he decided on this unusual business plan, he considered even wackier ideas: ”I thought about doing IWearYourHat, IWearYourPants, etc. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, it felt like a really stupid idea.”

The auction for Jason Sadler’s name ended on December 12, and starting January 1st 2013, he will be known as Jason HeadsetsDotCom. The price Headsets.com paid for this crazy advertising opportunity? $45,500. PawnUp.com, JLabAudio, WiggityBangGames and LewisHowes.com, in that exact order, were the runners up in Sadler’s online auction. In order to avoid sporting a name he wasn’t comfortable with, the young Florida entrepreneur consulted a lawyer and put some restrictions in place – no pornographic name, religious names, political names allowed.

Regardless of what you may think about Jason’s idea, you have to admit it’s better than just tattooing website names on your face and body for money.

Source: AdWeek

Young Entrepreneur Auctions Off His Last Name for 2013 to the Highest Bidder was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Mind-Blowing Portrait Made by Hand with 2.1 Million Dots Hides an Amazing Story

Posted: 14 Dec 2012 03:09 AM PST

The portrait below was painstakingly done by hand, in 138 hours, using a technique called stippling, which required the artist, Miguel Endara to “draw” it with around 2.1 million ink dots. As amazing as that may be, it’s the story behind this incredible work of art that’s really mind-blowing.

The man whose face Endara recreated with millions of dots is Benjaman Kyle. You probably don’t know who he is, and believe it or not, neither does he. Back in 2004, he was left unconscious behind a dumpster at a restaurant in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He had no belongings, no ID, suffered from severe sunburns and was almost blind from cataracts. The hospital he was taken to already had a Jon Doe, so they named him Benjaman Kyle, using the initials of the fast-food restaurant where he was found. Benjaman had no idea who he was, and didn’t really remember anything about his life before the incident. After months of medical evaluation, he was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia. Authorities coudn’t find out who he really was, so Benjaman Kyle became the only missing person in America whose whereabouts were actually known. Worse still, without a social security number and a valid ID, his life was about to become even more complicated.

Fingerprints, DNA tests, appearances on national and international news or popular shows like Dr Phil, none of these could help Benjaman find out who he really was. As time passed and no result was reached, everyone gave up on his case, and without a social security number, Mr. Kyle couldn’t get a job, or even get accepted at a homeless shelter. And because they assumed he already had a social security number, authorities refused to issue him a new one. In 2010, three years after his appearance on Dr. Phil, Florida State University Film School student John Wikstrom learned about Benjaman’s story online, and tracked him down in Jacksonville, Florida. He was sleeping in a park and didn’t really have any hope for the future. But with the help of this young filmmaker, who created a touching short documentary, he was able to send a message to the world about his plight. Then things started happening…

He was back on the news, and thanks to the efforts of a certain Florida news anchor, his story even reached senators and representatives in the US Congress, who said the Government has got to respond, and solve his identity crisis. He was issued a Florida Legacy ID, still lacking a social security number, which established his new identity at state level. A kind-hearted restaurant owner offered Benjaman a job, and someone offered him an air-conditioned shed to sleep in, so he wouldn’t have to live in a park. Benjaman Kyle’s life changed completely, because of John Wikstrom and his documentary, but there is still one thing left unresolved – he still needs that social security number, and you can help him get it.

There’s an online petition that needs 25,000 signatures to insure the White House responds. Right now, there are over 10,000 signatures, and with only 11 days until the December 25 deadline, time is running out. If you want to help Benjaman Kyle get a new life, sign the petition and check out Finding Benjaman.com, for more information about his unique situation.

After watching a screening of the Finding Benjaman documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, artist Miguel Endara decided to use his skills to draw some attention to this incredible story, and raise money to fuel Benjaman’s quest to get that needed SSN. So he spent 138 hours painstakingly creating his portrait out of 2 million dots, with an ink pen. That’s an average of 4.25 dots per second, and the completed artwork is simply awe-inspiring. Now, he’s selling prints of this on-of-a-kind Benjaman Kyle portrait for $90, with half the proceeds going to help his subject. Miguel went to great lengths to help Benjaman, but all you have to do is sign the petition…

via This Is Colossal

Mind-Blowing Portrait Made by Hand with 2.1 Million Dots Hides an Amazing Story was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Remarkable Chinese Girl Can Write with Both Hands at the Same Time, in Different Languages

Posted: 14 Dec 2012 01:21 AM PST

Chen Siyuan, a young translator from Handan, China’s Hebei province, has the incredibly ability to write with both hands at the same time. Even more impressive is that fact that she can write vertically with one hand and horizontally with the other, or in two different languages.

In this age of technology, writing with both hands is not as valuable a skill as it once was, but that doesn’t make 24-year-old Chen Siyuan’s ability any less remarkable. This young English translator has been wowing onlookers with her amazing talent of writing with both hands simultaneously, in two different languages (Chinese and English). You’d be tempted to think this kind of unique capacity requires years of practice, but Chen says she discovered her ability completely by accident, during her high-school years. She was overwhelmed by the quantities of English homework, but found that she could complete respective tasks much faster by writing with both hands at the same time. ”When I was in high school, I unconsciously wrote with both hands while trying to finish my homework in a hurry,” Chen told People’s Daily Online. ”My classmates were curious and tried to imitate me, but none of them succeeded.”

Photo: Kanzhongghuo

Chen Siyuan says the first reaction of people who hear about her talent is disbelief. Then, once they actually see her doing it, they want to try it for themselves. The third reaction is always disappointment, as they realize it’s impossible for them to imitate her. In a time when most of us are starting to forget how to write with one hand, this remarkable girl can effortlessly do it with both. Apart from her ability to write in two languages, she can write consecutive poetry verses on sentences in different directions (vertical or horizontal). “If you are writing just one Chinese character, perhaps it depends on your memory, but if you are writing a full article, or different articles, for instance simultaniously writing English and Chinese, I think it’s a matter of two-way thinking,” Chen told the BBC.