Victor Ribeiro made a simple city builder web toy called Iso City that lets you place streets, buildings, and trees wherever you want by clicking your selection and then clicking on the grid. The neighborhood I constructed in a hurry, shown above, is rather simple. I could have made a canal instead of a pool, and I'm sure with time I could have made a better traffic pattern. But it's fun! -via Kottke

If you truly want to be both economical and environmentally-friendly, the best thing you can do with a car is to drive it forever. That negates the manufacture of a new car somewhere, and avoids car payments for you. If you like your car and want to extend its life, Andrew P. Collins shares some tried-and-true tips for making that happen, like getting into the habit of setting your parking brake before setting your parking gear.  

An off-road pro once told me, in the cab of a late-model Range Rover I was parking on a steep hill, to “hit the parking brake while it’s still in drive, then put it in park.” His explanation was that this way, kinetic energy from the vehicle’s weight gets transferred to the parking brake instead of its transmission.

Is that better? Well, brakes are a lot cheaper than trannies. Any opportunity to move stress from a more expensive component to a lesser one seems prudent, I guess.

In my experience, taking this step eliminates that big clunk you might hear when you shift from P to D on even just a moderate hill. Clunks bad. So, parking brake trick good. And that’s as technical as we’re going to get because I promised superstition here, not science. (I should do that more often.)

That won't help with my '97 Camry, since it doesn't having a parking gear. But there are other tips for promoting a car's longevity that involve vehicle maintenance, behavior in traffic, and even paperwork, at Jalopnik. -via Gizmodo

(Image credit: Bull-Doser)

The world is full of wonders, and that includes some that even scientific research hasn't figured out yet. But curious scientists are working on them. Some are fairly inaccessible and difficult to study, some have been studied but have more than one plausible explanation, and some are just baffling. The picture here seems to show what's at the end of the rainbow, a bubblegum pink lake named Lake Hillier.

This small, saltwater lake on an island off Western Australia is only one-third of a mile long, but its bubblegum-pink color makes it especially striking. The lake was documented in 1802 by British explorer Matthew Flinders, who took a sample of its waters but failed to understand how it got its startling hue. Tourists can visit only by helicopter, though it is safe to swim in the waters.

Scientists today suspect the color is due to the presence of a pink alga, Dunaliella salina, and/or a pink bacterium, Salinibacter ruber. But unlike other pink lakes around the world, such as Lake Retba in Senegal, Lake Hillier’s color doesn’t fluctuate with temperature or sunlight—so the investigation goes on.

That explanation leaves us with another question, though- hasn't anyone taken samples from the lake? Are the helicopter pilots charging too much? Lake Hillier is only one of many geologic mysteries around the globe that scientists haven't yet solved. Read about six more of them at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Kurioziteti123)

Deepfake video technology is scary when applied to news, or the concept of using actors without paying them to act. But it also gives us delights like The Beatles starring in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In this video, Paul McCartney is Frodo, George Harrison is Gandalf, Ringo Starr is Samwise, and John Lennon is Gollum. However, if producer Alex Skorkin had dispensed with the deep fake faces and just gone with the music mix, this still would have been delightful. Also- why didn't he call it Lord of the Ringo? -via Geeks Are Sexy

It's a story of another of the many men who immigrated to America and then made their way to California to make a great fortune in the boom following the Gold Rush. Griffith J. Griffith dealt in real estate, among other ventures, and is best known for his bequest of land that became Griffith Park, sometimes referred to as the Central Park of Los Angeles, but much bigger.

At the entrance to Griffith Park, off Los Feliz Boulevard, stands a 14-foot bronze statue of a proud, portly Victorian gentleman. He is Griffith J. Griffith, who donated 3,015 acres of the former Rancho Los Feliz to Los Angeles in 1896, to be used specifically as a park for the “plain people” of the city. His face, decidedly noble and assured, lords over his “princely gift” to the city, which is no doubt one of L.A.’s greatest public resources. While portraits and photos of Griffith are plentiful, there are hardly any in existence of his wife, Tina — from whom a great part of his fortune and prestige sprang — and none after the year 1903. Because that year, Griffith J. Griffith shot his wife in the face, permanently disfiguring her. 

As you can guess, the prominent city benefactor led a private life that was more complicated than his public persona would lead one to believe. Read the story of Griffith J. Griffith at KCET. -via Metafilter

We all know someone who is going to be late. If it's someone in your family or friend circle, the group will count on their tardiness and plan around it. But what causes someone to be constantly behind schedule? Psychologist Philippa Perry found there can be many reasons people develop a habit of running late.

Punctual people may believe that late people are passive-aggressive and that their time is more valuable than those who wait for them. But reasons for lateness are generally more complex. The reason may be the opposite of arrogance. It could be that they don’t value themselves enough. If this is the case, might they be unable to see how others could possibly mind their non-appearance?

But that's just one explanation. There are others, which you can read at the Guardian. -via Nag on the Lake

Stained glass artists Eugene Koksharov and Anna Dobrunova in Vladivostok, Russia are masters of their craft. The most spectacular piece in their Etsy shop was this 41-inch tall panel showing a female version of the comic book hero Hellboy.

It contains 1,470 individual pieces from a palette of 45 colors, which makes it 21 times more complex than any stained glass panel I have ever made. It's a truly incredible work of precision craftsmanship.

-via Super Awesome

A promotional video made by the Honk Hong Ballet's 40th season. Artistically mesmerizing.

In 1791, 41-year-old Czech composer Frantisek Kotzwara died unexpectedly in London. Was it an accident or murder? The reason behind his death was fairly prurient, and was revealed at the trial.  

Standing trial for murder at the Old Bailey, Susannah Hill explained what happened. Hill was a sex worker, and Kotzwara was a client. On the 2nd of September, they had dinner and drinks together, then she took him back to her room, “where a number of most indecent acts took place.” So far so normal, but Kotzwara had a special request. He wanted Hill to hang him.

Claiming it would add to his pleasure, he asked to be hanged for five minutes, then released. He gave her money and sent her out to get rope, and she came back with two thin cords, placing them around his neck at his request. He hanged himself off her door, but when she cut him down after five minutes as he had told her to do, Kotzwara collapsed and died.

The circumstances of Kotzwara's demise made sensational gossip, but it was only notable because it was so public. There are other historical archives on the practice of erotic asphyxiation, detailed at Dirty Sexy History.  -via Strange Company

This video by  Steve Cutts (previously at Neatorama) takes a look at the state of our planet and asks, what if the shoe were on the other foot?

This monk in Thailand needed to pray for five hours for rites associated with the new year. He needed to focus.

The cat needed rubs.

Thus a spiritual battle began. The cat prevailed after several failed attempts by the monk to deflect it. But he doesn't seem to upset by his defeat.

-via Steve Silberman

Etsy seller Krukru Studio has some amazing designs for luxury bags, including octopodes, angel wings, coffins, cacti, the Eiffel Tower, and a boxing glove. But the one that I found most amusing is this gas can purse. I wouldn't mind too much carrying it as murse if I had to. It still conveys a manly sense of utility.

-via Technabob

The footbridge shown above crosses the river Cam on the campus of Queens' College in Cambridge, England. The Mathematical Bridge was first built in 1749. It has a nice arch, but there are no curves in the design- all the timbers are completely straight.

The Mathematical Bridge is constructed out of interlocking pieces of timber. Each rib of the superstructure are set at tangents to the circle describing the underside of the arch of the bridge. In the arch itself, each member is under compression with little or no lateral force that could cause bending. Where the main members cross, the wood joint transmits the compressive stress from one member to the next, with a bolt serving to hold the joint together laterally, rather than itself carrying any stress. There are also radial members which both support the top rail and lock all the overlapping tangents into a rigid truss. The load bearing deck is supported by horizontal cross-beams attached to the bottom of the radials, close to the junction of two tangents. When a load is applied the vertical forces get distributed along the tangents as compression opposite to the compressive forces from the tangents, thus balancing each other.

The rest of the article on the bridge at Amusing Planet is less technical, and goes into the history of the design, which has been used elsewhere, and may have originated with Leonardo da Vinci.

(Image credit: Flickr user Michael Jefferies)

Sha Wellness Clinic is an elite holistic health center and spa located in Spain. Allure’s Jessica Cha shares her visit inside the world-renowned spa, experiencing private sessions, nutritional consultations, and other wellness packages. Cha tells of her experience of Sha Wellness Clinic’s Discovery program, which allows people to indulge in Sha’s offerings over the course of a few days: 

The next few days are a cornucopia of hourly appointments: a private yoga session, a general health exam, a nutritional consultation, a neurocognitive assessment consultation, an acupuncture session, a deep-tissue massage, a "therapeutic recipes" cooking class. It's Utopia for the wellness set. Every single aspect of your holistic health is measured and considered both quantitatively and qualitatively by medical experts, and then you're prescribed a proper course of action to optimize that facet of your well-being. Though they offer anti-tobacco, weight control, and stress management programs,

image via shawellness (Instagram)

You might recall the harrowing story of Harrison Okene, who was rescued from a sunken ship after being trapped for three days in 2013. Okene has the unwanted title of "accidental aquanaut." In this video,  RealLifeLore explains why Okene's ordeal was so frightening, and his survival so amazing.