Neatorama has posted about the wacky inventions developed to protect one from being buried alive. There's no evidence that any of them worked, or ever needed to, but there was a time when the fear of premature burial was understandable, because it happened occasionally. Newspapers.com has a list of six such stories, with links to the full newspaper accounts from as far back as 1729. Of course, just because something was printed in a newspaper doesn't make it factual, even more so in the 19th century. However, it does make them part of the historical record. -via Strange Company
The three-bedroom apartment pictured above is for sale for approximately $940. Sounds like a bargain, and the only catch is that it's in Vorkuta, Russia, which has the distinction of being "the fourth largest city north of the Arctic Circle and the easternmost town in Europe." The name Vorkuta in the original language means "the abundance of bears." The town was founded as part of the Soviet Gulag system. The real estate listing is here. Read more about this bargain, including an exterior picture, at Boing Boing.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, Johnny Cheung Shun-yee sold his four parking spaces at The Center, a 73-story office tower. The final space was sold for HK$7.6 million (US$969,000). That works out to $7,205 per square foot in US dollars. The unnamed buyer is someone who has an office in the building.
You could buy over a thousand apartments in Vorkuta for the price of one parking space in Hong Kong.
If you insist on stopping every few miles to Instagram yourself into a scenic background, this is bound to happen. That's the price of being an influencer. But in this case, blame the scientists who didn't anticipate that the birds to which they had attached GPS tracking devices might fly into areas without network coverage. The BBC reports:
Russian scientists tracking migrating eagles ran out of money after some of the birds flew to Iran and Pakistan and their SMS transmitters drew huge data roaming charges. [...]
The birds left from southern Russia and Kazakhstan.
The journey of one steppe eagle, called Min, was particularly expensive, as it flew to Iran from Kazakhstan.
Min accumulated SMS messages to send during the summer in Kazakhstan, but it was out of range of the mobile network. Unexpectedly the eagle flew straight to Iran, where it sent the huge backlog of messages.
The price per SMS in Kazakhstan was about 15 roubles (18p; 30 US cents), but each SMS from Iran cost 49 roubles. Min used up the entire tracking budget meant for all the eagles.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: Imran Shah
Mariyan Atanasov, a Bulgarian graphic designer, photographer and retoucher showcased her genius and vision in a unique urban exploration project titled ‘Urban Tetris’. Atanasov transformed Sofia’s architecture in the abstract shapes similar to the blocks in Tetris. The project is quite a sight to see indeed, and might give you the urge to get your controllers and try to piece the buildings back together, in true Tetris fashion.
(via Trendland)
image credit: via Trendland
Korean artist Sung Yeonju created these amazing dresses out of vegetables and fruits as part of her ongoing series Wearable Foods. The artist combines different edible materials with digital editing to form different kinds of clothes, such cocktail dresses, shorts, and blazers. The scallions, striped banana peels, the well cut and placed tomato pieces all became unique fabrics suited for a special occasion, or a night out. Surely enough, Sung’s dresses are tasteful indeed.
(via Colossal)
image credit : via Colossal
Luna Lovegood Spectrespecs Lightweight Scarf
Harry Potter fans rejoice. Now you can add a little drifty dreaminess to your wardrobe with the Luna Lovegood Spectrespecs Lightweight Scarf from the NeatoShop.
This fanciful piece of winterwear features a spectrespecs pattern. While it may not be of any help in keeping those pesky wrackspurts at bay, it is sure to help keep the winter chill away.
The holidays are coming. The Luna Lovegood Spectrespecs Lightweight Scarf also makes the perfect gift for those who cherish their subscription to the Quibbler.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Apparel & Accessories. New items arriving all the time.
Don't forget to stop by the store to check out our large collection of customizable apparel and bags. We specialize in curvy and Big and Tall sizes. We carry baby 6 months all the way to adult 10 XL shirts. We know that fun, fabulous, and Harry Potter loving people come in every size.
Software engineer Akiva Leffert designed a set of tarot cards inspired by Ikea’s infamous flatpack instructions. The deck of handmade cards contains the four suits of the minor arcana, but Leffert replaced wands, coins, swords, and chalices with sofas, lamps, dowels, and alien keys. In addition, the back of the cards resemble the famous Swedish company’s blue and yellow company colors. Leffert is selling the cards on etsy, if you’re interested in predicting your future with these Ikea-themed tarot cards.
image credit: Akiva Leffert
Gust’eaux is a restaurant in Kuurne, Belgium, that isn’t connected to the city sewage. The solution to that problem came in a five-step purification system for their toilet water. Now, the restaurant has started serving clear, tasteless, and odorless water. You wouldn’t even know that it was from a toilet! The recycled water gets to be used in different ways, from ice cubes to service water, as Oddee detailed:
The restaurant offers the water to costumers in many forms, and it’s free! You can have it by its self, as ice cubes and even in coffee. It’s also occasionally used for brewing beer. According to Sudinfo, the same water system is used to provide water in isolated communities, but the experience is unheard of in Europe, so this is new for them. Their process was approved by Vlakwa, the Flemish center for knowledge on water, and was proven that it was healthier than most tap water.
image credit: via wikimedia commons
Blues guitarist Robert Johnson recorded only 29 songs in his life, then died in 1938 at the age of 27. His legend has only grown over time. The most famous story about Johnson is that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroad in Mississippi, which gained him the talent to play guitar like no one else. That tale only arose years after he died, linked to the song “Cross Road Blues,” because a black man from Mississippi couldn't possibly have the talent or practiced enough to play like Johnson did. But that's not the only myth that persists about him.
Some decades later, a new yarn was spun—not about Johnson’s life, but his afterlife. No one seemed to know exactly where his mortal remains were buried, and the idea took hold that there were at least three possible gravesites. Though the actual mystery has been cleared up over the years, the myth rolls on. The New York Times boosted it in September 2019, the National Park Service still provides an outdated account, and the rumor continues to travel easily among tourists and blues pilgrims. It just seems to fit: Robert Johnson, that perfectly unknowable spirit of the blues, can’t find eternal rest.
However, plenty of people who knew Johnson knew the real story, and all it took was connecting the dots to locate his actual burial spot. Read about the myth and the reality of Robert Johnson's grave at Atlas Obscura.
Researchers from the Bristol Interaction Group has designed a “touch-sensitive” phone case that reportedly looks and feels like human flesh. Before you call it gross or absurd, this human flesh-like phone case actually has features in addition to being a protective cover. Claimed to enhance certain gesture-related capabilities of cellphones, the flesh case responds to commands such as pressing or tickling, as Paper detailed:
The faux-flesh, which claims to add a "personal touch," responds to commands such as pressing, pressure, tickling, stroking, grabbing, and stretching.
But how does that work? The material is created to relate the gestures with certain emotional responses. Stroking is associated with comfort, for instance, while pressure relates with anger. The skin will also help convert the gestures into functions like being able to add a laugh emoji to your text by tickling.
So the question remains, would anyone actually buy it? Luckily customers have some time to ruminate, since there's no mention of the product going on sale yet.
image credit: via Marc Teyssier
The said moment was captured via a dashcam. The unfortunate officer can be seen falling face first as he flipped over his handlebars and dove into the ground in a rather spectacular fashion.
Thank God he had a helmet, but I’m sure it hurt a lot.
As he picks himself up from the ground, the red-faced PCSO can be seen motioning to his colleague, instructing him to chase after the suspect who pedalled off into a car park.
The owner of the dashcam footage, who wishes to remain anonymous, today revealed it made her laugh so much she 'watched it over and over again'.
(Image Credit: Solent News & Photo Agency/ Daily Mail)
Ten-year-old Anthony Alfano has a reputation to uphold. Anthony has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. His parents, Tony and Deanna Alfano, use their imaginations to make him shine on Halloween by coming up with amazing costumes that incorporate his wheels. For Halloween 2018, they made this elaborate wheelchair costume perfectly reproducing a scene from the movie Beetlejuice. It was another in a long line of clever costumes.
Continue reading for more of Anthony's Halloween wheelchair costumes, including this year's.
Kelly Bachman, 27, knew she had to speak up. She went onstage with her heart pounding.
“I’m a comic,” she said to open up her routine. “It’s our job to name the elephant in the room. Does anybody know what that is?”
A few nodded in affirmation, while most of the crowd was dead silent.
“It’s a Freddy Krueger in the room, if you will,” she said. “I didn’t know we had to bring our own mace and rape whistles.” At that point, a handful of people in the back of the room started booing her. One yelled, “Shut up!”
But Bachman didn’t need to say more for the crowd to notice who she was talking about: Sitting in a green velvet booth was Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul accused of sexually abusing or harassing more than 80 women.
More details about this news over at The Washington Post.
(Video Credit: Kelly Bachman/ Instagram)
Erica Lugo was driving to work one October morning last year. Suddenly, she began to sweat profusely and the color drained from her face. When she spotted a parking lot, she immediately decided to pull into it. Suddenly, she couldn’t hear and she started seeing in “tunnel vision”. Recalling her story, Lugo said that she felt three big bumps as she drifted out of consciousness, and, moments later, a man pulled her from her wrecked car.
“I am so thankful for that stranger,” Lugo, 32, told TODAY.
Lugo recalled that at the hospital, the doctors were puzzled as to why a 31-year-old athletic girl would pass out while driving.
After an MRI, they found a lump deep in the right side of her neck. A month later, a biopsy revealed that Lugo had stage 2 papillary thyroid cancer and she was told she needed to have her thyroid and 33 lymph nodes removed, plus radiation treatment.
She had just signed a lease for a new gym space in Dayton, Ohio, to grow her athletic training business. She was also a single mom. The news left her stunned.
“You think that everything is over,” she said. “No one could prepare you to hear you have stage 2 anything.”
In January of this year, Lugo had her thyroid and lymph node removed. Doctors warned her that most people gain weight afterwards, but Lugo was determined not to let that happen again.
Lugo weighed 322 pounds six years ago. After she began to exercise four days a week, that’s where she began to lose weight.
Now with her thyroid removed, she states that she still wanted to continue. Things, however, were not the same as before. Before, she can do her high intensity interval training all the time. Now, she can do it at least twice, or at max, thrice, a week.
She is one of the newest trainers on USA’s Biggest Loser, and Lugo says that she uses the lessons she learned from her weight loss experience, and cancer experience.
(Image Credit: ericafitlove/ Instagram)
Kaitlyn Tiffany was greeted with an email from Influencer Intelligence last Tuesday morning. Influencer Intelligence is an analytics company that works with people who desire to hire influencers and celebrities to advertise things.
“Authenticity is the most critical attribute to building influence,” the company’s website reads. The email was about, as emails often are, a recently compiled report about the business of selling things on Instagram, which promised to “tackle the concept of what authenticity really means today.” The PDF’s cover was an image of a beautiful white woman wearing pink eye shadow and putting her hand to her mouth—which was, needless to say, open.
Inside, Kaitlyn found advice on how to determine the authenticity of an influencer.
Request Google Analytics information from her (to prove that her numbers “add up”), ask for quantitative results of previous “brand campaigns,” map her audience demographics—all told, fairly standard stuff. The report also suggested the use of “soft metrics,” which apparently entails looking at a person’s Instagram profile and taking note of the tone and frequency of her responses to her “audience,” judging how “natural and authentic the content feels,” and deciding whether the influencer really “lives and breathes what they are presenting.”
For Kaitlyn, it’s a weird question to ask a person if she’s authentically living and breathing what she’s presenting. After all, what she’s presenting is herself. “That’s literally how our body works.” But then again, what she’s presenting is not herself, and “that’s literally how Instagram works.”
Coincidentally, this email arrived the same day as a new essay collection by the New York fashion and culture writer Natasha Stagg, Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019, from Semiotext(e). Stagg is best known for her fashion work—particularly as an editor at V magazine—but Sleeveless also touches on her brief tech career. She remembers working on an app that could “recommend all the ways to become beautiful,” then an app that took “mood selfies.”
But the most interesting thing, at least perhaps for Kaitlyn, is that Stagg zones in on the question of what the modern “It Girl” is like.
But why is loneliness “the hottest trend in Instagram”? Find out over at The Atlantic.
(Image Credit: ijmaki/ Pixabay)
