Update from Joshua Darrah, July 16, 2012: The video below is a replacement for the original :30 video posted January 19, 2012. It’s now 6:24.

Submitted by Joshua Darrah January 19, 2012: Here’s a prank I pulled on my friends and family recently:

STEP 1: Secretly shave off your two year long hair.
STEP 2: Glue it into a wig.
STEP 3: pull it off to freak your friends. 40 of them.

I had been growing my hair for a couple of years, and wanted to go back to a shaved head, but I wanted to make it a surprise to my brother that i was suddenly shaving my head. I have NO IDEA where the idea came to me from, but i wondered if I would be able to cut off my long hair, keep it, then hot glue it into a wig. I would then wear that wig of my own hair (yes this is slightly serial killerish i know!) and while hanging with my brother, suddenly pull off my ‘hair’ and be shaved headed in a split second.

I told him I was filming a video project, that way I could film his reaction. And man it went down a treat! I then realised I could wear my wig to every visit with friends and family over the coming 2 months, I eventually pranked over 40 of my close friends and family. (more…)

From Marcy LaViollette as seen on Lists of Note:

“Count” Victor Lustig was a con man of considerable note. Born in 1890, by the 1930s he was wanted by approximately 45 law enforcement agencies worldwide. He had 25 known aliases and spoke 5 languages. He cunningly gained $5k from Al Capone. Better still, in 1925, Lustig posed as a government official in Paris, took five businessmen on a tour of the Eiffel Tower, and then “sold” it to one of them as 7300 tonnes of scrap metal; the con went so well, he tried it again soon after.

He also wrote the following list of commandments for aspiring con men.

(more…)

Proud art of prank calling still worth mastering
by Adrian Lahola-Chomiak
The Gateway
March 28, 2011

These days, with the invention of caller ID and text messaging, it seems that prank calls have more or less fallen by the wayside. But I’m not ready to surrender this classic joke just yet; too many hours in my life have been spent trying to decide who to call and which prank to pull. So for all you wide-eyed, greenhorn, wannabe pranksters out there, here are a few tips on how to transform yourself from a refrigerator runner to a master.

First, let’s review the tools of the trade. There’s the phone, and, well, that’s pretty much it — but you do have to worry about how you use it. You’ll want to mask your voice with a modulator app, like Funny Call from iOKi. This will make you sound like anything from Rebecca Black to a chipmunk. Now that your voice is anonymous — and hilarious — you’ll need to know three simple rules before you call. (more…)

On the art of the April Fool’s prank
by Diego Vasquez
Media Life Magazine
March 29, 2011

It has to be far-fetched enough to raise doubts

If you didn’t happen to remember that the news was coming out on April Fool’s Day, it sounded plausible. On April 1, 2010, Starbucks announced two new sizes called the plenta and the micra, joining such existing sizes as the grande and venti. The plenta, Starbucks said, would hold 128 ounces of coffee, or roughly six times its biggest size at the time, while the micra would hold 2 ounces. Social networking sites were abuzz over the news, while hundreds voiced their approval or disapproval on the Starbucks web site until they realized the whole thing was a joke. Like the best April Fool’s stunts, it was just realistic enough to be possible, but just ridiculous enough to be questioned. In this case, most people laughed it off as a clever marketing stunt, but not all April Fool’s stunts are as well received. In some cases, it can do damage to an advertiser’s brand. Three days before April 1 arrives, Grant Powell, founder and chief executive officer at the digital agency Pomegranate, talks to Media Life about how advertisers can pull off a smart stunt, which ones have worked in the past, and which ones didn’t.

How can advertisers walk the fine line between showing a sense of humor on April Fool’s Day and not alienating their customers?

There is indeed a very fine line between a well-received prank and one that will leave customers upset. (more…)

Video: How To Hack Video Screens In Times Square
The Gothamist
March 14, 2011

This YouTube video claims to reveal a simple, ingenious method for overriding video screens broadcasting ads in Times Square and elsewhere. Is it real? Well, it certainly looks that way, so if this is fake you’ve got to them credit for verisimilitude. According to the video, all you need to hijack the Times Square ad phantasmagoria is an iPhone, a video transmitter, and a video repeater “which takes any signal coming out of the iPhone and boosts it and enhances it.” This gadget overrides any video screen that it’s being held next to, if the YouTube is to be believed:

So is this for real? One YouTube commenter calls bullshit: “The dongle can’t get enough power through the headphone jack to transmit a video in such good quality 20 meters or more through the air and the massive electro smog on Times Square—just for example. lets don’t talk about the controllers of the screens.” But another expert writes, “I do some motiontracking and I don’t think its fake. The balloon is translucent and interacts with the video source.”

What do you think: viral ad for the newest iPhone, CNN, and NYC tourism; or an exciting new development in the world of culture jamming? Tune in later week, when YouTube user BITcrash44 promises to explain how he made the prototype.

Submitted by Julian Tippins: Upload an animated gif to google search’s background features to mess with your friends.

Google Demo Slam: Animated Gif Background
by Julian Tippins and Richard Langhorne

Check out Ray Villafane’s tutorial for making outrageous pumpkins

If you have yet to try and carve a pumpkin in a 3-D manner you need to. Its fun and everybody enjoys a cool pumpkin. Unfortunately they begin to rot less than a week after carving so be sure to take plenty of pictures. You can experiment with ways of preserving them but I find nothing works better than a nice photo. Some chefs that I have carved for put lemon juice on the faces to help slow down the natural molding process that will occur. Read more…

Click here for more photos

thanks Tony

As seen on Laughing Squid, posted by Aaron Muszalski on April 6, 2010:

Matthew Weathers, a Mathematics and Computer Science Professor at Biola University in Southern California, has a charming talent for surprising his students with clever video projector pranks.

For a tutorial on how Matthew Weathers creates these video projector pranks, click here.

An amazing magic trick performed on CCTV for Chinese New Year 2010:

Liu Qian – Magic Show on 2010 Chinese New Year

Within hours, the trick was exposed online. So much for the keeping the magic of the mystery!

thanks Linda

From Randy Sarafan at Instructables.com:

Tweet When You Toot: The Twittering Office Chair

The Twittering office chair “tweets” (posts a Twitter update) upon the detection of natural gas such as that produced by human flatulence. This is part of my commitment to accurately document and share my life as it happens.

For more in depth theory, please see the next step entitled Theory [This link takes you to the tutorial].

See the results of the toots of your labor on Twitter.



More fun with Twitter:

From Gigafide of http://www.tinkernut.com/:

From Public Ad Campaign, posted by Jordan Seiler:

This instructional video teaches you what you need to break into a phone booth, and how to do it. Remember it is illegal to tamper with private property even when it’s in your public environment, assaulting your senses with messages you couldn’t care less about for things you don’t need.

From Gamezine.co.uk, August 13, 2009:

K-Mart PS3 Slim Ad proven fake in 6 steps – Neogaf forum plays prank

Cheeky Neogaf does it again, but we don’t think we’ve ever fallen for their pesky pranks.

First they created concept art for the PS3 Slim, which is now the media’s standard image for Sony’s presumed console, and now the Neogaf gaming forums have created the ads to promote it. All they have to do now is actually build it and sell it in the shops…

Today Gizmodo reported on a K-Mart promotional ad featuring a 120GB PS3 Slim, priced at $299.99. Sure, the website noted that they thought it was “shenanigans,” but now we can prove the ad is false, with Neogaf’s chubigans as the cheeky culprit. He explains his methodology (with images after this link): (more…)

Man steals people’s banking information Video

via Walkinc1, thanks Lea

From TutCast Design Training:

Breast Enhancement

thanks Roger