This is a screenshot from Sightsmap, a new heat map made by Google. It merges Google Maps with Panoramio, Google's photo hosting site with geographic markers. The map ranks the 15,000 most photographed locations on earth. The brighter the color, the more photographed it is.
You can find it here. As you click on locations, you'll see Panoramio and Street View photos from that area as well as links to information.
-via Swiss Miss
I'm currently building a wooden cabinet that looks like Pinkie Pie. It has a lot of curves and tight angles, so I looked at bandsaws a few months ago. They were all too expensive. I've made do with a jigsaw instead.
But none of the bandsaws at the hardware store looked like anything like this! Core77 has the rundown on this amazing power tool from MD Dario, an Italian company that specializes in bandsaws for wood and marble.
It can cut through large blocks of wood and/or fingers from just about any angle you want. So it overcomes all of the space limitations of table-mounted bandsaws. It also has a template function so that you can trace the blade movement along a pre-existing model.
I'm so proud of my grandaughter Dani. She puts out good merchandise @ Shopllap .com. Keeps me busy signing. Have a look. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 15, 2014Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Spock on Star Trek, mentioned his granddaughter on Twitter. Then he offered to adopt as his honorary grandchild anyone who is interested. The responses flooded in.
Any here want to make me their honorary grandfather consider it done. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 15, 2014I am honored to have so many honorary grandchildren. Blessings on all. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 15, 2014Wonderful. So many "honoraries". I'm the proudest Grandpa' !! LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 16, 2014Not too late . Offer still stands. I'll be your "honorary" grandfather. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 16, 2014I am grandfather, grandpa, grandpapa,gramps, Zayde and more. Family is growing. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) January 16, 2014If you've claimed Mr. Nimoy as your grandfather, you've made a highly logical choice.
LLAP, by the way, stands for "Live long and prosper." Mr. Nimoy always closes his tweets with that salute.
Toddlewood, a photo studio in New York City, has come up with an ingenious way to promote itself. Photographer Tricia Messeroux dressed children to look like celebrities who attended the Golden Globes Awards ceremony a few days ago.
They're very realistic! Pictured above (right) are Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sari Mercer. Ejiofor starred in the movie 12 Years a Slave. Mercer is his girlfriend.
Get it? Loafers! You know, made of bread! Ha!
Okay, I'll stop. But first, some details: these loaves were made by Josey, a baker in San Francisco. He makes a lot of special and unusual breads at his shop known as The Mill. Did he sell these gently-used shoes after wearing them?
-via American Digest
This is the Seaspan Harvester. It's a log barge that operates off the western coast of Canada. When it's time to offload its cargo of logs, the crew shifts the ballast inside. The ship tilts 30º and the logs slide off. Here's a video showing it in action.
The Seaspan Harvester is a barge. It doesn't have an engine, so tugs move it as needed.
-via Jalopnik
This car isn't moving. It has two only wheels. You can enter and exit easily without it falling over. It's the Schilovski Gyrocar--an incredible car design that was never mass-produced.
Count Peter P. Schilovski of Russia was fascinated with gyroscopes. He designed one that he believed would keep a car upright. He took his idea to the Wolseley Tool and Motorcar Company in the UK, where engineers there built it with a 188 cubic inch, 4-cylinder engine and transmission brakes.
It worked. In the spring of 1914, Schilovski and the British engineers took it out on public roads. People jumped on and off without disturbing the balance of the car at all. It seemed to have a bright future.
But something else happened in 1914. Schilovski returned to Russia to help in the war effort. The Wolseley engineers likewise turned their attention toward the war. They buried the gyroscopic car underground, excavating it in 1938.
They partially restored the car and placed it in a museum. Then, in 1948, they inexplicably broke it up for scrap metal.
The Gyrocar wasn't Schilovski's only use of the gyroscope. In the early 1920s, he also designed a gyroscopically-balanced monorail. His project laid 7 miles of track for this purpose before it was shut down.
(Images via Douglas Self)
-via Retronaut
(Photo: Bmdvall)
In Litchfield National Park near Batchelor, Northern Territory, Australia, you can find two unusual species of termites. Amitermes meridionalis and Amitermes laurensis colonies build their mounds in elongated wedge-shaped forms. Usually these mounds are aligned along a magnetic north-south axis.
Why? To find out, one researcher nudged a few with his off-road vehicle. This tilted the mound out of alignment. The interior temperature of mound rose significantly.
So by building their mounds on a north-south axis, the termites increased the amount of surface area directly exposed to the sunlight as the sun travels from east to west across the sky and thus increased the rate of heat loss. Aligning their construction in this fashion keeps their mounds cooler.
-via Amusing Planet
(Unrelated photo via Iain Watson)
Back at the Red Door one day, I asked the manager what was going on. Why all the toast? “Tip of the hipster spear,” he said.
Well, of course. You can now buy artisanal ice cubes and hand-sharpened pencils. This is how you separate yourself from the mass-produced rubes and their mass-produced lifestyles. John Gravois of the Pacific Standard went on a journey to investigate the latest popular food trend: artisanal toast. For $3-4, you can have professionally toasted bread at fancy cafes in San Francisco.
You can laugh at people who buy expensive toast. But the article is more interesting than just that obvious gag. Gravois traces artisanal toast back to one café. He tells the story of that café and its founder. Giulietta Carrelli was almost penniless in 2007, but she built up a successful small business from scratch. Starting and running a successful small business is hard. People who can do that—yes, even with fancy toast—are amazing.
-via Dave Barry
Place your bets, gentlemen. Who will win this time? Will it be the Butt Hut 2 or the Big E?
Behold the glorious sport of outhouse racing. Conconully, Washington holds this annual event of athletic and engineering prowess. Here are the official rules for participating vehicles:
Constructed of wood or wood by-products
Mounted on two non-metallic skis
At least 3-sided with a full roof
At least 5' high, including roof peak
At least 2 1/2' by 2 1/2' square
Without motor or steering devices
Equipped with a toilet seat and toilet paper on a hanger
Inspected by race officials prior to racing.
There are several divisions in the race: male, female, teens, families and seniors. There's also an extreme division which features obstacles on the course. Of if you want a serious challenge, enter the bucket division. The pusher must wear a bucket on his/her head while the pilot provides verbal directions.
You can see more photos of the race at Roadtrippers.
Two middle school basketball teams faced off against each other. The score was tied. In the final few seconds of the game, eighth grader Easton Gamoke hurls the ball the full length of the court. While it is in flight, the buzzer rings. The ball neatly slides through the net. The Winona Running Rebels of Winona, Minnesota are victorious.
It was an amazing shot and attracts a lot of local press attention. The next day, a reporter asks Easton to demonstrate how he made the winning throw. He obliges and nails a full court basket again.
-via 22 Words
(Whisper of the Pines by Serkan Çetinkol--Turkey)
(Way to Heaven by Dmitriy Parshin--Russia)
I've just discovered a medium of art previously unknown to me: aquascaping. That's landscaping inside aquariums. It's a highly competitive field. The International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest is an annual event where you can see the finest examples of aquascaping. The Grand Prize winner gets ¥1,000,000. That's about $9,560.
Some participants try to duplicate terrestrial environments--even deserts--under the sea. Others make full use of the water to create elaborate, delicate forms out of living plants. You can view more examples at Colossal.
Emily McKenna Winter is a comedian. She apparently comes from a line of comedically-gifted people. When she was a child, her parents, who were both lawyers, compelled her to sign an affidavit for the Tooth Fairy.
The story goes that one of her teeth fell out. But she lost it in a bowl of cereal, so she couldn't turn it in to the Tooth Fairy for cash. So her parents drafted an affidavit attesting under penalty of perjury that she had indeed lost a tooth and requested that the Tooth Fairy accept the document in lieu of the tooth. If the Tooth Fairy agreed, Emily would not seek further remuneration should she locate the lost tooth.
-via Pleated Jeans
(Photo: Peter Pham)
This week, the city of Irvine, California is celebrating Restaurant Week--a festival of exotic and fancy foods. Brad Lyons, a chef at Slater's 50/50 (a California restaurant chain), designed this compelling hamburger for that event.
A turducken is a chicken stuffed inside a duck which is then stuffed inside a turkey and baked. Some American families have it for Thanksgiving. The Turducken Burger is Chef Lyons's take on that concept. It has half a chicken patty, half a turkey patty and a fried duck egg. It also has bacon gravy with cranberries and sweet potato fries. Yummy!
Here’s a story of remarkably skilled piloting. On Sept. 29, 1940, two Avro Anson training aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force took off from a base near Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. During their flight, they collided. But rather than crashing or even just bouncing off each other, the two planes got stuck together.
Leading Aircraftman Leonard Fuller remained in the top plane while the three other crewmen from his plane and the one below him bailed out. LAC Fuller didn’t want his country to lose the expensive aircraft, so he decided to land them.
It was even crazier than it sounds. Fuller’s aircraft had lost its engine, but he did have control over its ailerons and flaps. The aircraft below him still had its engine, which had been conveniently left running. The Futility Closet describes this amazing stunt:
After the crew of the lower plane had bailed out, along with his own navigator, Fuller flew an additional five miles and made an emergency landing in a paddock, where he slid 200 yards to a safe stop. “I did everything we’ve been told to do in a forced landing,” he told air accident inspector Arthur Murphy. “Land as close as possible to habitation or a farmhouse and, if possible, land into the wind. I did all that. There’s the farmhouse, and I did a couple of circuits and landed into the wind. She was pretty heavy on the controls, though.”
Fuller thus saving his country £40,000 worth of equipment. His own plane was repaired and returned to service.
-via Kaching
