Move over Baskin-Robbins! That American chain will have to step up its game if it wants to compete with Musashi, an ice cream shop in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. This little ice cream joint offers not 31, but 165 flavors of ice cream.
Some of those flavors are, by American standards, very unusual. Rocket News 24 reports that customers can buy ramen-flavored ice cream (with actual ramen in it) and fish-flavored (with a whole fish in the cone).
The most extraordinary ice cream treat there is flavored like soft-shelled turtle and viper. It apparently tastes like iron.
It is a cat and, yet, it is also not a cat. The creature hangs in midair, floating above an uncanny valley between living creature and non-living object. The husky investigates.
Carl McCoid, 43, of Hull, UK, enjoys the music of pop singer Miley Cyrus. So, naturally, he got a tattoo referencing her. Then 28 others. Some of them are in private parts of his body. Others are in full public view.
Surprisingly, some women find his vast collection of Miley Cyrus tattoos not only not attractive, but downright unattractive. So he's begun the long process of getting them covered up with other tattoos. The Hull Daily Mail reports:
The Bridlington man got his first tattoo in 2010 and has since covered his body in portraits, song lyrics and initials of the pop star he was once "obsessed" with. He said: "People can't seem to see past the tattoos and it was having a very negative effect on my life where I felt trapped by them. I've just gone off her."
Cyrus herself will probably not take offense at the change. Last year, she referred to McCoid's tattoos as "ugly" and "creepy." But perhaps McCoid will be able to find love once Cyrus sees his body without the tats.
It looks like Treebeard from The Lord of the Rings!
Deyan Kossev saw it while hiking deep in a forest in Bulgaria. The 65-foot beech appears to have legs, arms, and a head. It looks like it's frozen in mid-stride, as though struck down with an enchantment while on its journey.
Think of Google Cardboard as the poor man's Oculus Rift. It's a virtual reality interface made of cardboard and plastic lenses. Slip an iPhone with a compatible VR app inside and you can experience a seemingly 3-dimensional world that moves in any direction you turn.
Recently, Caleb Kraft of Make magazine was in staff meeting during which one person mentioned the need to build an editable VR interface. Another person misheard, thinking that he had said edible.
Somewhere in this picture of dozens of mostly humanoid figures is the late pop artist Andy Warhol. In the future, everyone will be able to find him after 15 minutes of searching. Catherine Ingram wrote and Andrew Rae illustrated this Where's Waldo? parody filled with pictures inspired by modern art and popular culture. There's a little Andy Warhol inside each one of them--somewhere. You can see more sample images at Hyperallergic.
This clever ape at the Twycross Zoo in the UK reasons that if he stretches a cloth between two overhead lines, he can climb in and enjoy a bed. A colleague at Ape Research & Development then discovers that this bed will swing easily with a nudge.
The mechanism becomes unstable and collapses. But this is, after all, just the proof of concept phase. They'll have a working prototype soon enough.
(Left: the correct child. Right: the incorrect child. WIST 10 News)
Joseph Fuller of Orangeburg County, South Carolina went to his grandson's elementary school to pick him up. He saw a child who was close enough, hugged him, signed him out in the school office, and took him home.
There was just one problem: it was the wrong kid. KPLC 7 News reports:
The report said the grandfather approached the boy, gave him a hug, and said he was there to pick him up early. He asked the boy, who he thought was his grandson, if he was ready to go and the little boy said "yes." A teacher's assistant told deputies that she asked the student, "Was this your granddad?" and the student said "yes."
At that point, the report said, the student and the man went to the front office so the boy could be signed out. According to the school, the grandfather was on the approved list of people who can pick up students.
The report goes on to say the grandfather put the child in his car and his wife, without turning around in the car, handed the boy a Happy Meal.
When they got back to the grandfather's home, the resident grandmother noted that the little boy was not theirs:
"He had a tooth missing in the front, and I know my grandson did not have a tooth missing in the front," Fuller said. "Immediately, I brought him back to school, and I am very sorry."
Leonardo da Vinci sketched an aeshetic concept which suggested that the ideal human proportions are particular fractions that can fit within a square lying over a circle. This was in keeping with design principles established by the Roman architect Vitruvius. Hence Leonardo's famous image is called Virtruvian Man.
Rocket News 24 reports that Figma, the Japanese toymaker which previously brought us action figures shaped like the Venus de Milo and Michelangelo's David, now offers Leonardo's Vitruvian Man as an action figure.
Are you in a foul mood? Perhaps you're just hungry or, to use the new slang term, hangry. And Mars, the owner of the Snickers candy bar brand, wants to help. Its new ad campaign measures the level of anger on the internet by assessing the relative use of certain key words. It adjusts the price of Snickers bars in 7-Eleven stores in real time accordingly. The angrier people are, the lower the price drops--as low as 82% of the baseline price.
These young padawans (note that they're dressed as Jedi) at the Ecole de l’Harmonie in Quebec demonstrate their mastery of the force by using miniature lightsabers instead of bows to play music from Star Wars. In this excellent performance of the Luke Skywalker theme, they demonstrate their readiness to become knights.
How did artist Rachel Lee acquire a human skull in good condition for this project? She doesn't explain and I'm not inclined to press her on the subject.
For $2,200, you can own this skull, into which Lee has carved beautiful patterns. It would make a lovely conversation piece for, say, the reception area of an office or an enticing bachelor pad. It's one of many carved skulls that she sells, most of which belong to cattle. You can view them on her Instagram feed.
Ursula Goff is a hair colorist with a detailed knowledge of art history. In the past, she's colored her hair to resemble the schemes of famous paintings, as well as provided explanations for the significance of those images. They're vivid works that demonstrate great skill.
Say it with flowers? No, if you love someone, express your passion with that eternal symbol of affection: the donut. The Doughnut Plant, a donut shop chain in New York City, offers elegant bouquets of donuts that are perfect for a tabletop display.
Champion skateboarders Tony Hawk and Aaron "Jaws" Homoki went for a ride in a reduced-gravity aircraft operated by Zero G. They experienced the equivalent of Martian and Lunar gravity before going to zero gravity. Although they appear to defy gravity in their terrestrial stunts, here they got to experience the real thing.
