Need to get around easily from home, work and shopping? Pascal Rüdinger built the Trelicopter--a good vehicular choice for modern times. He's a member of Wasteland Warriors, a German art production company that specializes in post-apocalyptic, steampunk and dieselpunk styles.
(Photos: Christoph Künne)
The imagined conversation goes like this.
Sea Otter: Look at me! I'm swimming in the water, and you aren't allowed to come in!
Australian Cattle Dog: Hmm, hmm, hmm. And you better stay there, too!
-via Tastefully Offensive
It's a crime solved ... by a fart! When a policeman kept on farting in a police car, his colleagues were forced to roll down the window to escape the smell. But instead of fresh air, the waft of marijuana drifted in.
Metro has the story:
‘All three officers’ suspicions were raised and they left the car to get some fresh air and find the cause of the cannabis smell.
‘Imagine the surprise on the faces of the occupants of the house further along the road when the officers, following their noses, found a cannabis factory with a crop worth £12,000.’
Seven people at the property in Leicester were arrested.
Oh, and the cop who kept on farting? Metro explains:
The officer with the wind problem had been on a high-protein diet after taking up body building.
Boston Dynamics unveils ATLAS, the latest incarnation of a humanoid robot they are building for DARPA. Atlas is the next step beyond PETMAN, complete with a Terminator physique, a Robocop walk, and Johnny Five's eyes. We can only hope that will be programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Some little piggie might have gone to the market, but this little piggie is who I want to hang out with on a hot summer day. He knows how to relax on a hot summer day, complete with a nice ice cream cone.
If cats can be more doglike, then maybe I could be too. After all, who doesn't want the opportunity to run and play like our favorite four-legged friends?
Via Cute Overload
Do certain objects remind you of your loved ones? Italian photographer Camilla Catrambone decided to create portraits of her family using only objects that they've owned:
'I‘ve always been fascinated by objects, and I think somehow every person is represented by their personal objects, the objects they choose, the ones they are attached to, and the way they use them tells you a story,'
'When I started doing this project, I felt that the objects belonged to my relatives, starting from the ones of my beloved grandparents, were still full of energy and were capable of reminding me moments I shared with them. I started to feel the need to use them to go back to a precise memory. In order to do that I started to reorganize these objects, to recall a specific image I had of that person.
Modern digital artists have millions of colors available, and modern painters have almost as many synthetic paints at their fingertips. But in the past, painters used pigments made from chemicals the natural world offered -and many of those are no longer used because they were dangerous, expensive, or made from sources no longer available -like endangered species. For example, the bygone pigment called Mummy Brown:
The pigment, a favored shade of the Pre-Raphaelites, was first made with Egyptian mummies, both cat and human, that were ground up and mixed with white pitch and myrrh. It had a great fleshy color, but due to the actual fleshy components it would crack over time. Martin Drölling, who painted the work shown above, reportedly used the mummies of French kings dug up from Saint-Denis in Paris. According to a 1964 Time story, the Mummy Brown pigment didn’t last due to a shortage of its name defining ingredient.
You might be surprised at what's on those masterpieces in museums! Allison Meier at Hyperallergic tells the stories of some of those pigments of yore, in two posts because the first was so popular.
Link to part one.
Link to part two. -via Metafilter
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.
Ever heard of North Sentinel Island? Probably not …even thought's one of the most unusual places on Earth. What makes it so odd? The people -they've been there a long time, completely cut off from the rest of the world.
MAROONED
Late on the night of August 2, 1981, a Hong Kong freighter navigating the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal ran aground on a submerged coral reef. The ship, called the Primrose, was hopelessly stuck. But there was no danger of it sinking, so after radioing for assistance, the captain and crew settled in for a few days' wait until help arrived.
The following morning, as it became light, the sailors saw an island a few hundred yards beyond the reef. It was uninhabited, as far as anyone could tell: There were no buildings, roads, or other signs of civilization there -just a pristine, sandy beach and behind it, dense jungle. The beach must have seemed like an ideal spot to wait for a rescue, but the captain ordered the crew to remain aboard the Primrose. It was monsoon season, and he may have concerned about lowering the men into the rough sea in tiny lifeboats. Or perhaps he'd figured out just which tiny island lay beyond the reef: It was North Sentinel -the deadliest of the 200 islands in the Andaman Island chain.
SOME WELCOME
A few days later, a lookout aboard the Primrose spotted a group of dark-skinned men emerging from the jungle, making their way toward the ship. Was it the rescue party? It seemed possible …until the men came a little closer and the lookout could see that every one of them was naked.
Naked …and armed, but not with guns. Each man carried either a spear, a bow and arrows, or some other primitive weapon. The captain made another radio distress call, this one much more urgent: "Wild men! Estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons, are making two or three wooden boats. Worrying they will board us at sunset."
A WORLD APART
(Image credit: Captain Robert Fore)
After a tense standoff lasting a few more days, the crew of the Primrose were evacuated by helicopter to safety. They were lucky to get away: It was their misfortune to have run aground just offshore of one of the strangest islands on Earth, and probably the very last of its kind. Anthropologists believe the men who appeared on the beach that morning in 1981 are members of a hunter-gatherer tribe that has lived on the island for 65,000 years. That's 35,000 years before the last ice age, 55,000 years before the great woolly mammoths disappeared from North America, and 62,000 years before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza. These people are believed to be the direct descendants of the first humans out of Africa.
The outside world has known about North Sentinel Island for centuries, but the islanders have been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world all that time, and they fiercely maintain their isolation to this day. No one knows what language they speak or what they call themselves -they have never allowed anyone to get close enough to find out. The outside world calls them the "Sentineli" or the "Sentinelese," after the island. It's estimated the the 28-square-mile island (slightly larger than Manhattan) is capable of supporting as many as 400 hunter-gatherers, but no one knows how many people live there.
Your pooch might have a sweet, teddy-bearish face, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be cuter than he already is. Just add on Etsy seller sewdoggonecreative's "interpretation of a furry looking creature" and suddenly your little guy looks like a precious little bear-like creature from a popular scifi series.
When one gets attention, they all want attention! From what she says, it appears that they are munching on her hair, too! These kids are from Adamah farm in Connecticut. -via Daily of the Day
According to owner Charles Redden, Lila never learned how to walk up stairs properly and, for some reason, she insists on going up backwards.
Via Laughing Squid
Thirty-four years after the filming of Caddyshack, the AV Club went to see the country club where it was shot. Although the story was set in the midwest, the location was the Rolling Hills Golf Course near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Its now named Grande Oaks Golf Club, and the current staff embraces its fame.
Perhaps fittingly, not much looks the same at Grande Oaks as it did when Caddyshack shot there more than three decades ago. The hotel that hosted some of the most raucous partying in Hollywood history is now a dorm for Nova Southeastern University, which owns Grande Oaks. The clubhouse was leveled when the club was renovated in 2000, and the golf course has been redesigned. The titular caddyshack is long gone, save for some of its foundation.
But Grande Oaks proudly touts its place in cinematic history: Its homepage proclaims it the “Home of Caddyshack,” it named its snack bar after the film, and it naturally has a variety of Caddyshack merchandise in its pro shop. “You hear a quote about every 20 minutes here,” says Joseph Semmler, the club’s membership director. He does it without even realizing he’s doing it. When we were chatting, a plane flew overhead—Grande Oaks lies in the flight path of Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which caused headaches for the production—so we had to pause and wait for it to pass. “No big deal,” Semmler said.
Kyle Ryan talked to Cindy Morgan, who played Lacey Underall in the movie, about the filming. She said the press reports of the partying that went on during the movie were no exaggeration -in fact they were understated. WARNING: article contains auto-start video. Link -via mental_floss
Once again, Shedblog has announced the winner of the Shed of the Year contest. This year's winner belongs to Alex Holland from Machynlleth in mid Wales. It's a shed with a boat for a roof!
The unique and beautifully crafted shed is no ordinary design. It has a recycled upturned boat for a roof and a 20w solar panel to power LED lights. Located at an altitude of 750ft above sea level in the Cambrian Mountain range, mid Wales, the rustically charming shack is made entirely from recycled materials and contains a wood burner, 12v sound system and gas cooker – as well as a refrigerator to store chilled drinks.
Alex Holland comments: “I am absolutely delighted to have won the 2013 Shed of the Year competition sponsored by Cuprinol. The standard and creativity shown by the other entrants has been incredible so I am genuinely surprised to have reached the top spot! With the £1,000 prize from the sponsors Cuprinol I intend to buy a second hand 400w 12v wind turbine to augment the solar panel to give me enough electricity to make ice in the fridge for gin and tonics, and to ensure the cider and beers are always chilled. I’ll then be able to have a proper party to celebrate with those who have supported me in getting so far.”
See more pictures of the shed at Shedblog. Link -via b3ta
Previously: The 2012 and the 2011 Sheds of the Year.
Dogs are employed as sniffers for all sorts of jobs. One specialty is a dog trained to detect disease in honeybees, particularly a nasty-sounding ailment called American foulbrood. Australian beekeeper Josh Kennett trained his Labrador Bazz to detect the disease, but he ran into a problem -bees tend to chase dogs off.
The beekeeper, from Tintinara in South Australia's south-east, says that while there are dogs doing similar work in the United States, the cold temperatures there negate the need for protection.
"Their winters are far colder than ours, with snow over the top of beehives. We don't have that situation here in South Australia.
"So I've tried to develop a suit the dog can wear and hopefully avoid being stung."
Mr Kennett says after a long process of trial and error, he's finally got a working prototype.
The next step is to get Bazz used to working in the suit. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Josh Kennett)
