JAPAN — Amidst one of Ginza’s many backstreets lies an L-shaped plot of land. This plot of land, which remained vacant for 3 years and hidden by the shadows of the tall buildings surrounding it, is only 2.7 meters wide (around 9 feet). Eventually, a developer stepped in.

The developer teamed up with So Teruuchi of SO&CO to create one of the district’s most skinniest buildings. Due to the nature of the property, the architect was faced with several constraints: not only did they have to leave enough room for scaffolding but they couldn’t fit any heavy machinery into the plot. So everything had to be done by hand.

But the result is a surprisingly minimal and elegant 4-story building. Unlike many people’s perception of a high-end and ritzy Ginza, the majority of backstreets are filled with drab, nondescript office buildings. This structure stands out like a gem. Titled “Ginza Tenant Building,” it was completed in early 2019.

Check out the interior of the building over at Spoon & Tamago.

(Image Credit: Takumi Ota/ SO&CO)

We usually use Google Maps to view the places we’ve been to before. These places can be our childhood neighborhood, or any place that have been memorable to us and have been a part of us at some point in our lives. But Google Maps isn’t limited to that; it has many more uses we might not realize. Gizmodo lists 9 ways we can use the Google Maps Street View.

One of these uses is checking out tricky intersections:

This is one we do all the time—checking out the layout of tricky city intersections before a road trip, to be sure we know where we’re going. Even with the best mapping technology on your phone, it can be all too easy to get lost driving across multiple lanes and multiple intersections when you’re in a strange city, and even more so abroad. Check out the intersection on Street View first, and you at least know what’s coming your way.

Check out the others over at the site.

(Image Credit: Tumisu/ Pixabay)

You may have heard (and probably have seen) the viral memes about storming Nevada’s famed Area 51, which aim to discover the secrets that lurk inside the facility. 

The US Air Force has already warned the general public that it will defend the area at all costs, and has discouraged people from storming the place.

For decades, the American imagination has run wild conjuring up all sorts of conspiracy theories about what is really going on at the site.

Is it a place where the US government is hiding UFOs and aliens? Or is it just a boring military base? And if it’s just a boring military base, why is the US government so obsessed with keeping everything about it a secret?

To get some answers to the questions about Area 51, without risking himself from getting shot at by the US military, Alex Ward of Vox called up Annie Jacobsen, author of the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base.

To write the book, Jacobsen interviewed over 70 people who had first-hand knowledge of the secret facility, including 32 who lived and worked at Area 51. The result is basically the most comprehensive account of the history of Area 51 you can get without a super-high-level security clearance.

If anyone had answers for me, it was her. And boy did she. But she also left me with new mysteries I hadn’t even known to ask about.

Check out the interview over at the site.

(Image Credit: MartinStr/ Pixabay)

As part of its McDelivery Night In promotion, fast food company McDonald’s enters the fast fashion world “with a line of free swag,'' which include Yoga pants covered with Big Macs and french fries, joggers striped with the Mcdonald’s color scheme, and a hoodie. Where’s the irony?

To get your hands on the limited-edition swag, place a delivery order from McDonald’s through Uber Eats on September 19 starting at 5 p.m. Order at least $10 worth of Big Macs, Filet O Fish, Quarter Pounders, or french fries (or whatever) from one of the many, many participating locations. (The map is here.)

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: McDonald’s)

Two boys have discovered something extremely fun- a pedal-activated trash can! I first saw this at reddit, where the comment thread has countless stories of dumb and/or dangerous things little boys did for fun, fondly remembered by the survivors. -via Bored Panda

Let's be clear: the semen is not manufactured at the facility; the bulls do that. This is where bull semen is cryogenically preserved until it is needed. A fire early Wednesday morning at Yarram Herd Services in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, included an explosion of frozen semen supplies.  

Country Fire Authority Gippsland commander Chris Loeschenkohl said the crew had to be wary of "projectiles" coming at them while they tackled the blaze.

"The liquid inside the cylinders was rapidly expanding and essentially the lids of the cryogenic cylinders were just popping off the top and projectiles were being thrown from the building," he told ABC.

Ten fire crews responded to the fire and extinguished the fire in about two hours. The facility lost around 100 cylinders of semen worth hundreds of dollars each, and some equipment. This will be a blow to local farmers who are approaching spring insemination season. However, it was a gift to the internet, as the jokes just wrote themselves. The Daily Dot has a rundown of them, which contains plenty of NSFW text.  

One day in 2013, Jimmy Griffin, the owner of Griffin's Bakery in Galway, Ireland, was scuba diving. He was suddenly bitten in the face by a conger eel. This vicious predator can reach six feet long and has a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

Those teeth hurt Griffin badly. As he recovered, he thought of a way to get back at the eel. So he decided to bake a sourdough bread loaf the same size as the eel. He does that every morning and sells it by the slice throughout the day. Atlas Obscura explains:

In addition to 20 stitches and plastic surgery, Griffin healed another way: by baking. He started making a loaf of sourdough that had the same dimensions as the six-foot eel that bit him. Today, the bakery makes at least one loaf of the bread every day. Visitors who want to see the loaf in its entirety should arrive early, since fresh slices are sold off or added to the bakery’s sandwiches.

Yes, that's real ramen. He even used the flavor packets to create a broth-like tint to the body. YouTube user ArtMayer sculpted this amazing and completely functional work of art using 36 ramen bricks and 5 pounds of polyester resin. It looks and sounds delicious! I've never seen a more elegant use of cheap ramen.

You can see more of his custom guitars on Instagram.

-via Technabob

Holly Lentz, an artist in Florida, specializes in metal sculptures of the human torso, such as this lovely piece made of carefully polished and welded washers. She makes others from ammunition cartridge casings. I'm especially enamored of her sculptures that bear angelic wings.

A cake is a great treat. A luxury for some, a daily treat for others. Besides its delicate flavours and elaborative decorations, an Italian pastry chef turns his cakes into miniature worlds. Matteo Stucchi’s culinary creations feature tiny figurines cleverly located among his cake to resemble something that can be seen in real life. His cakes appear as if being explored by miniature humans, My Modern Met details: 

His portfolio of pastry art includes a cheesecake topped with tiny bricklayers who appear to be smoothing out the chocolate “cement.” In another creation, tiny climbers attempt to ascend a sugar-dusted “Mount Pavlova,” and Stucchi has even created an ocean scene atop of a blue mirror-glazed cake, complete with a tiny sailboat.

image credit: via idolcidigulliver

School festivals are usually the highlight of a Japanese student’s school year. Alternatively called the bunkasai (culture festival), this annual event is where students come together to showcase displays, booths, and performances for the entire school. From cosplay cafes to arcade games, it seems that one group of students’ event for the bunkasai took the cake for the most unique (and most viral). A video of students building a wooden roller coaster inside the school is went viral, as SoraNews 24 details: 

The video starts with two students pushing another one in a cart, the three of them perched high above the ground on a stack of school desks. As the cart rolls down the roller coaster, screams ring out as the ride gathers speed, turning a number of corners that have been so cleverly designed the cart even goes backwards at one point, before safely coming to a stop on the ground below.

While the design is ingenious, we can’t deny that it looks frightening, due to the fact that it’s constructed on stacks of school desks. Some people couldn’t help but wonder if the ride was structurally sound, prompting the video’s uploader to leave some follow-up tweets to alleviate everyone’s concerns about student safety.

“This was a trial run during summer vacation so we increased its strength to about five times more than this.”

image credit: via SoraNews 24

Star Trek Dilithium Crystal Mints

Warp speed ahead to minty fresh breath with The Star Trek Dilithium Crystal Mints from the NeatoShop. This handy little tin, featuring your favorite engineer, is there to make sure you don't have any tribble talking closely with your co-workers. They may not be able to help you change the laws of physics, but they can help you be a wee bit more confident about the enterprise you are about to undertake. Be sure to take them on your next voyage through the final frontier. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Mints & Candies. New items arriving all the time. 

Don't forget to stop by the store to see our large selection 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 Star Trek loving people come in every size. 

I hope this is something librarians don't see every day. Librarian Amanda Mae recently posted a picture of a book that had a whole, folded soft taco inside the book. She noted that it was an “actual photo of an actual book found in the book drop at my library in Indiana a few years back.”

According to to the Twitter Thread and Food & Wine website, Twitter user, @AnSotello11, even claimed to have hunted down the book, saying she believed it was Nonsense Songs and Stories by Edward Lear. Assuming that’s true, it adds an extra wrinkle to the whole thing: As you may know, Edward Lear was a famous writer, probably best known for his absurdist limericks, who often derived humor through nonsense. Though I don’t believe he ever wrote a limerick about a taco bookmark, it wouldn’t be entirely out of place in his canon.

I wonder how large of a fine was incurred for this mess.

Shop for TACOS LOVE by Perfect Designers and other taco themed t-shirts at the NeatoShop.

In a constantly fluctuating world, one can never be sure of what's going to happen tomorrow or the day after that. There will always be risks. The only thing we can do is to take opportunities that would suit our needs and circumstances, and prepare to face every possible contingency that might come our way.

Executives in emerging markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are facing pressure to innovate at a time of mounting trade tensions and a great deal of uncertainty.

“Risk is the only certainty we have,” said Adrian Tanase, chief executive of the Bucharest Stock Exchange and one of the top-ranked CEOs in Institutional Investor’s 2019 Emerging EMEA Executive Team.

(Image credit: Hunters Race/Unsplash)

People say that benefits can be reaped from taking medical marijuana but there are still reservations on whether it is actually safe as regards one's cognitive performance, mental stability, and psychological functioning.

Harvard associate professor of psychiatry Staci Gruber shares some insights on what constitutes marijuana and how these components affect our brain. Listen to the podcast here.

(Image credit: 7raysmarketing/Pixabay)