Emanuele Magini, a furniture designer and scenographer in Italy, calls this chair the Lazy Basketball. It suggests a helpful distraction for the workplace or a possible prank to play on unsuspecting users just looking for a place to sit.

-via Toxel

自分の居る宿屋の宣伝です。
日本で3台しかないスキーシミュレーターがあります。（スノボも出来る）
雪欠乏症の皆さんはバーチャル体験で上手になって次シーズン迎えてみませんか？夏遊び、テレワークも出来ます。先日のぴったんこカンカンで役者さんも乗ってましたね。 pic.twitter.com/Sceaaw3ctY

— ido monta (@IdoMonta) May 10, 2021

Sora News 24 brings us news of this amazing machine at the Sachinoyu Hotel in the mountains of central Japan. If you want to go snowboarding, you'll need training. That's why the hotel has an advanced snowboarding simulator what whips you around on a tilting snowboard as a screen displays your movements in a virtual environment:

As shown in the above video, the machine can simulate both skiing and snowboarding, and a display provides detailed biomechanical feedback by measuring data such as the angle of the skis/snowboard and the amount of weight the rider is placing on different points. By configuring parameters to simulate different qualities of snow and other conditions, the session can be adjusted to match the user’s skill level, making it a fun and educational experience for beginners and advanced skiers/snowboarders, as well as adults and kids alike.

John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, which was fitting, as he was a towering giant of Twentieth Century American literature. Among other novels, he wrote Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. These works, and others by Steinbeck, are widely read and studied. What is not widely read is his unpublished 1930 werewolf novel Murder at Full Moon.

That's because the Steinbeck literary estate has kept it hidden in the archives of University of Texas. Dr. Gavin Jones of Stanford University described this novel and argues for its publication in The Guardian:

Set in a fictional Californian coastal town, Murder at Full Moon tells the story of a community gripped by fear after a series of gruesome murders takes place under a full moon. Investigators fear that a supernatural monster has emerged from the nearby marshes. Its characters include a cub reporter, a mysterious man who runs a local gun club and an eccentric amateur sleuth who sets out to solve the crime using techniques based on his obsession with pulp detective fiction.

The typescript even has two illustrations by Steinbeck. They depict the floorplan of the building where the murders took place, including the victims’ bodies. In the book, these are drawings made by one of the characters trying to solve the murders.

Jones described it as a world away from Steinbeck’s realist representations of the Great Depression, which may explain why he wrote this one under a pen name, Peter Pym. “Even though it is very different from Steinbeck’s other work, in a totally different genre, it actually relates to his interest in violent human transformation – the kind of human-animal connection that you find all over his work; his interest in mob violence and how humans are capable of other states of being, including particularly violent murderers.

-via Slate | Photo: Sonya Noskowiack

Finished another zoetrope. This time I wanted to make a tribute to one of the greatest animators, Hayao Miyazaki. #StudioGhibli #totoro #catbus #stopmotionanimation #vfx pic.twitter.com/viMGhFVsEZ

— marvelous media engine (@EngineMarvelous) May 19, 2021

Twitter user Marvelous Media Engine made this astonishing zoetrope that shows the Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro. When activated, it shows a vividly lit Catbus dashing through the fields at night.

Some people in the Twitter thread insist that this video is fake--that this is CGI, not a physical zoetrope. I'm not sure.

-via Super Punch

(Chris Hallbeck/Maximumble)

I remember when I had to explain this phenomenon to my kids, as well as that, once upon a time, you couldn't watch movies on your phone.

Now TV shows are often written with the assumption that they will be binged all at once, which greatly changes their narrative structures.

And there are practical considerations, too. Broadcast television doesn't have a pause button.

The pig just wants to get some sleep, but local humans insist on running the noise making machine, which serves no apparent purpose aside from making noise. It's necessary to disable it. If the humans don't learn, it may be necessary to disable the machine permanently.

-via Born in Space

Star Trek introduced us to three-dimensional chess, which is actually playable in some variants. There are other ways to play chess, often increasing the complexity of the game. But game designer Doctor Popular went in the other direction by placing all of the pieces on a single strip of sixteen spaces.

Nonetheless, it's not simplistic like a game of tic-tac-toe. You can download the rules and a gameboard for free here.

Is your visual processor glitching? Maybe, but it's more likely that you're just looking at someone wearing new jeans from Leje, a fashion house in Paris. This company is all about contrasts:

Straight-Curve, Oriental-Western, Decomposition-Conjunction, Masculine-Feminine, Subculture-Luxury, etc.

The brand demonstrates the charming “disparities” between these elements and the harmony hidden within the contrast.

Hence the pants that are cut and resewn at jarring angles. For a mere $528, you can have pants like these!

-via Dave Barry

To you, the puppy above is cute. To the bald eagle, it's a snack. That's a problem because bald eagle populations have surged in recent years due to conversation efforts, as well the generalized awesomeness of the country that the bald eagle represents. To improve their dogs' chances of staying safe from hungry bald eagles, some owners dress their dogs in armored vests, such as the CoyoteVest pictured above. The Wall Street Journal (sorry, it's paywalled) reports:

"Eagles are strong enough to carry a 12-pound salmon, so a four-pound dog is nothing," says Mark Robokoff, owner of AK Bark pet shop in Anchorage. His shop sells CoyoteVest, a protective jacket covered in Kevlar and spikes, intended to protect small pets from coyotes. Mr. Robokoff immediately recognized its potential in a state with an estimated 30,000 bald eagles. The vest is topped with bright red nylon whiskers that he says scare off the birds from above.

-via Super Punch | Photo: CoyoteVest

Kevin Kohler, known on the internet as The Backyard Scientist, thinks that kids these days have become too soft in part because toys have become far less dangerous. They're also so boring! So Kohler gathered his friends and modified the toys to explode or reach dangerously high speeds.

Although Kohler doesn't attach razor blades so the snapping alligator game as the YouTube thumbnail implies, he does give the toy the snapping power of a spring-loaded rat trap. He and his friends also start fires inside a garage, which you should not try at home if you've been hoarding gasoline lately.

-via The Awesomer

A Red-winged Blackbird looking like it's getting a free ride on an Osprey's broomstick. The Blackbird was focused on driving the Osprey away from the marsh, while the Osprey was focused on bringing back a good stick for the nest. pic.twitter.com/vGxbSkKQ32

— Jocelyn Anderson Photography (@JocAPhotography) May 11, 2021

Have you ever seen a skateboarder grab the back of a tractor trailer? That's something akin to what this blackbird is doing in this amazing shot by wildlife photographer Jocelyn Anderson.

-via Super Punch

Golsa Goldchini, an artist born in Tehran and now living in Milan, depicts miniature, watery worlds on ordinary objects, such as discarded pieces of cardboard or a mound of acrylic paint. I'm especially delighted by her works executed on her own left hand. Goldchini's use of shadows and realistic depiction of her subjects make these ephemeral stories especially striking.

Redditor clairanic made a prom dress and matching parasol from small Doritos bags that she and her friends collected of the course of the school year. She made it as an art piece, though, and didn't actually wear it to the prom. It was too fragile and, she says, "I like to dance too much."

The dress is beautiful, but there is one drawback: noise.

-via Born in Space

Nine lives for a cat that jumped from fire at 65th and Lowe. Cat hit grass bounced and walked away! pic.twitter.com/LRBsjMta2Z

— Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) May 13, 2021

The ability of cats to drop astonishing distances, land on their feet, and survive, is well-known. Still, it's amazing to watch it in action. A fire in a Chicago apartment building trapped a cat in a fifth-story unit with only one way to survive: jump. It did without apparent injury.

-via Nag on the Lake

Oh, you want to show off your climbing skills? Johnny Dawes says "hold my cup of tea."

This British rock climber first experimented with no-hands climbing after a hand injury. In this promotional video for a specialty shoe designed for climbers, he demonstrates his mastery of nearly vertical ascents conducted with only his feet.

I know that halflings get a +2 to Dexterity during character creation, but Dawes has to have at least a +4 to that ability score.

-via Laughing Squid