You can tell by the pixels: The Russian Orthodox Church is accused of Photoshopping a photo on their website of Patriarch Kirill I to "disappear" a $30,000 watch. The church leader has previously said that the watch does not exist.

Where a Breguet timepiece once existed, the 'shoop extended his black sleeve, but the sloppy 'shooper failed to address the reflection of the watch on the table. The church dismissed the discrepancy as a “technical mistake,” and has since published a version of the photo which includes the Swiss timepiece. The Patriarchate vowed to investigate the image manipulation, and said "the guilty ones will be punished severely".

Cropped details of both versions are shown above.

Patriarch Kirill still insists he never wore the watch, and that the photo which shows him wearing it was altered. Of course!

More in the New York Times, BBC News, and the Associated Press. Russian bloggers are creating image macros and artful remixes, including this one, below, in which everything but that tell-tale watch reflection is gone.

The moral of this story: $30K will buy you a lot of high-quality Photoshop. Skip the bling, and hire a more competent photo retoucher to absolve your worldly sins.

]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/04/06/this-church-scandal-in-russia.html/feed 68 http://boingboing.net/2011/12/12/keypad-watch-looks-like-a-chu.html http://boingboing.net/2011/12/12/keypad-watch-looks-like-a-chu.html#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:50:12 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=133946 Click Watches. Animated blinkenlights on each of the chunky keypad buttons tell the time in a fashion that is delightfully impractical.]]>
Watchismo's badass new multicolored Keypad watches are the followup to the equally badass (and be-dipswitched) Click Watches. Animated blinkenlights on each of the chunky keypad buttons tell the time in a fashion that is delightfully impractical.

Click Keypad ]]> http://boingboing.net/2011/12/12/keypad-watch-looks-like-a-chu.html/feed 9 http://boingboing.net/2011/09/20/retro-electro-watches-use-dip.html http://boingboing.net/2011/09/20/retro-electro-watches-use-dip.html#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:41:14 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=118516 These new watches are reaching back into the glory days of electronics for their inaugural Dip Switch and Turn Switch timepiece collections.]]> Watchismo's acquired distribution rights for Click Watches, mouth-wateringly dorky watches that you set with dip-switches and mechanical dial-selectors.

These new watches are reaching back into the glory days of electronics for their inaugural Dip Switch and Turn Switch timepiece collections. If you look at the circuit boards of any 80's arcade game or electronic device, you'd find these switches. Designed to be used on a printed circuit board along with other electronic components and are commonly used to customize the behavior of an electronic device for specific situations.

Click Watches have ingeniously re-appropriated these 'retro-tronics' into an entirely new way to show digital watch functions. Each switch activates a different function of the watch as seen in the diagram below. Functions ranging from bar graph metered time display, 12 hour and 24 hour digital time display, month, date, day of week and backlight. Stainless steel casing 42mm x 35mm.

Syvwlch's work on a printable clock has been one of the most exciting ongoing projects on Thingiverse. He's just upload what might be a final version of his work. This version includes the escapement, pendulum, gears for the seconds, minutes, and hours, and a set of nested concentric gears to provide the corresponding second, minute, and hour movement. And, let's not forget he's made this entire clock parametric in OpenSCAD - in case you need to print up a grandfather clock or a teeny-tiny watch.

Motos feitas de peças de relógios/Small motorcycles-watch parts ]]> http://boingboing.net/2011/04/19/more-watch-part-moto.html/feed 9 http://boingboing.net/2011/04/18/motorcycles-made-fro.html http://boingboing.net/2011/04/18/motorcycles-made-fro.html#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 06:43:14 +0000 Cory Doctorow Motorcycles out of watch parts (via Neatorama)

The hours are affixed around the outside of the case in normal clockwise fashion. The cat himself is segmented into 5 minute intervals, the grin, appearing first, is 5 minutes, his head is the 10 minute mark, and each stripe is five minutes. The singular minutes are four dots affixed just below and between the 12 and 1 hour markers.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

TSOVET AT76 All Black

Manufacture Royale Opera Time-Piece Watch (Thanks, Ariel!)

Kisai Traffic

Reading the time couldn't be easier. Touch the button and a shattering animation will light up the display. The outer ring of blocks represent hours in the same position as hours on a clock face. The inner ring of blocks represents five minute intervals in the same position as minutes on a clock face. Four single minutes are shown in the center.

The thing is, coprolites just aren't that valuable. Dinosaurs left behind a lot of crap. This site sells coprolite at $8 per pound (it makes a wicked gift!).

Swiss luxury watch made of fossilized dinosaur feces, toad skin costs $11,290 (Photo) (Thanks, Jonathan!)

Man, I can't wait until I can print one of these on my desktop.

Thomas Prescher's Mysterious Automatic Double Axis Tourbillon

$250 isn't insane for a really nice watch, and this is, indeed, a really nice watch. If I hadn't just filled my second watch-box (to the horror of my wife), I'd be seriously tempted.

DZ1318 Bad Ass Gunmetal Compass -Diesel (Thanks, Mitch!)