In this weekly column, filmmaker Danish Aslam will be your purveyor of the finest quality random facts, useless trivia and other esoterica from the world wide web. He lives mostly behind a keyboard and may or may not be a wizened old green man who speaks in grammatically incorrect aphorisms. You can find more on his home page http://pictually.me/dontpanic

Somebodies That I Used To Know

Wait! Before you react violently to that name with a furious tirade along the lines of, "not another m**f**g Gotye cover! When are these #$%@ people going to get $%#^ tired of that %#@$ song, for #$@'s sake?"

This may be the last version of the Song-That-Came-From-Outer-Space-To-Infiltrate-Our-Minds that you need to listen to. And for a change, it's a cover put together by the original artist himself. Seeing how there are probably thousands of videos online of people covering this song (overplayed much?), Gotye decided to crowdsource a remix using all of these versions into one master cover version. In his words, "reluctant as I am to add to the mountain of interpretations of Somebody That I Used To Know seemingly taking over their own area of the internet, I couldn't resist the massive remixability that such a large, varied yet connected bundle of source material offered."  Watch it. And then never hear the song again. Or hum it. Or break out a guitar at parties and sing it.

Day/Night Photography

Photographer Stephen Wilkes has taken the simple concept of time-lapse photography and made a series of digital composites that beg the question: "How could nobody have thought of this before?" Basically, he shoots a particular cityscape from the same spot for about 15 hours and then blends the best 30 to 50 images into one final image that transitions from day to night. He made the first image in 2009 and has been making them ever since, at sizes going up to 48" x 60". Check out his gallery for some of the most beautiful cityscapes I've ever seen.

Three Songs That Sum Up Your Favourite Band

Reddit user JohnTheRev has compiled a playlist based on a previous post about '3 Songs That Sum Up Your Favourite Band' that got about 14,000 replies. And the songs on the playlist have been very helpfully posted on Grooveshark for easy access and listening. There are 400 songs on this playlist. Need I say more?

45 drugs. 45 Days. 45 Self-Portaits.

Disclaimer: I do not publicly condone the consumption of drugs. However, taking 45 different drugs in alphabetical order over 45 days and making a self-portrait every day while under the influence: a whole different story! It takes a rare and exceptionally adventurous man to attempt such feats. And artist Bryan Lewis Saunders is such a man. The results are insightful and, if you've had experience with any of the listed drugs, they’re likely to elicit an "ahhhh, yes. I can see that" response. For your sake, I hope that doesn't happen too many times.

30 Indispensable Writing Tips From Famous Authors

This is another one of those posts that seems like a million other email forwards that one instinctively deletes. But stay your trigger-finger and you may be rewarded. Here's a sample: "don't tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on the broken glass." Intrigued? Click away.

Words > Prints

Apparently, for Danny Fein, a picture literally IS worth a thousand words. The founder of the website Lithographs, he creates artistic prints out of books. Or rather the words in those books. The images are iconic and generally representative of the work and the text, amazingly, is still easily readable and legible. And they put out two new prints every week. Yet another contender for that last spot on the wall that's not already covered in prints? Most definitely.

Dummy Extras

The funeral scene in Attenborough's Gandhi used around 300,000 extras, a record at that time. If only they'd heard of The Inflatable Crowd Company, they might have had an easier time with crowd control. This innovative venture, created in 2002 for Seabiscuit, now works with most Hollywood productions and provides (surprise) inflatable crowds! The dummies all wear real clothing, have individual 3D faces and cannot be distinguished from the real thing in any movie they've been used in. And if you don't believe me, check out the list of movies that have utilised their services. Moral of the story: fancy VFX and giant robots are all very good but when it comes down to it, nothing beats a good dummy.