Juniper the fox lives with humans, but understands the importance of maintaining his professional skills should he ever again need outside income. He knows how to dive into thick snow to capture mice and other small animals that hide beneath it.
Something is wrong here, though. This snow is broken. It's warm and so thick that he can't dig through it!
-via 22 Words
Landscape gardener Jason Hodges loves to nap a grassy lawn, but one isn't always convenient. So he built a garden box in the shape of a bed and topped it with grass. Now he can sleep on a living, outdoor bed.
Hodges planned the space in a concrete courtyard. He built a wood frame for the turf, then filled it in with soil. The headboard has hebe plants to provide shade. The grass is soft leaf buffalo, which is the grass equivalent of 1000-thread count sheets. Hodges finished it off with a few outdoor pillows. You can watch his complete video tutorial here.
-via Lost at E Minor
(Photo: @finalggg1)
These kittens look so cute that you could just eat them right up! And, thankfully, you can without people reporting you to the police. Rocket News 24 tells us that a cafe in Kyoto, Japan is drawing in customers with its delicious and adorable parfaits that look like cats. It's set inside a restored old townhouse decorated in a traditional style that customers find attractive. Once inside, they nibble at these cat parfaits, sip coffee, and read books that are spread throughout the establishment.
(Photo: Stuff)
Forget the stairs or the escalator. This shopping mall in Shanghai has a great new way to travel from the top floor to the bottom. It's a winding slide decorated to look like a dragon. The trip through his gullet takes 16 seconds. It's free, although you do have to be at least 3 years old and 3 and 1/2 feet tall. It's open for transport on the Lantern Fesitival, which is on February 22. Shanghai Daily reports:
The slide attracted big crowds taking photos at the Pujian outlet of Printemps Department Store this afternoon.
"It looks fun and my son was too curious," said Yao Jin, who brought her five year old son to the store.
"My son was excited and very interested to have a try, but I still have some concerns on its safety," said Yao, who lives near the store.
Another visitor, Jack Shen in his 20s, said he will not take a ride.
"It is a stunt of the department store, and the slide seems to be very dangerous," he said.
That's fine. Then he won't take up space in the queue.
-via Stuff (auto-start video)
(Photo: Kaleigh Johnson-Cover)
Because that's how you can escape financial regulators.
The Chinese government limits its citizens to moving $50,000 per year overseas. But as the Chinese economy is shaky, many investors would like to smuggle their money out of the country to more secure locations.
The Wall Street Journal reports on a clever new way that Chinese capital managers are trying to do precisely that. First, set up a shell company overseas. Then have that company sue you. Settle the lawsuit and pay the company, thus moving your money to the shell company, beyond the reach of Chinese government regulators:
In a post published on Sunday on Seattle-headquartered law firm Harris & Moure’s China Law Blog, Mr. Harris detailed his conversation with an adviser to a Chinese company. The adviser had called him essentially to ask Harris & Moure to help the Chinese company deliberately lose a lawsuit for a phony breach of contract that would result in a payout of $3.5 million, which the Chinese company would then send to the U.S.
The money, as it turns out, would be paid to entities in the U.S. controlled by the Chinese company itself.
Mr. Harris told China Real Time that the company, a privately-held Chinese manufacturer, wanted to pursue such a fake arbitration, rather than fake a simple legal settlement for the same amount of money, because it was concerned about convincing government regulators who have been closely scrutinizing offshore remittances.
“They wanted it to look really official,” he said in a phone interview. “Arbitration also moves quickly, so they could conceivably do it within three months.”
-via Marginal Revolution
(Photo: Reilly Flaherty)
Reilly Flaherty went to a Wilco concert in Brooklyn, then took an Uber car home. At some point in that adventure, he lost his wallet. An anonymous person mailed back to him his driver's license and credit cards, but kept everything else. The thief included a sorry-not-sorry letter. It reads as follows:
Dear Reilly Flaherty
I found your wallet and your drivers license had your address so here's your credit cards and other important stuff. I kept the cash because I needed weed, the metrocard because the fare's $2.75 now, and the wallet cause it's kinda cool. enjoy the rest of your day
Toodles
Anonymous
Flaherty sees a bit of humor in the situation, but is also upset. He tells the New York Post:
He said in another lifetime, the two might have been pals.
“I would say, ‘Man, we would’ve gotten along — we’re both into Wilco — but you turned out to be super selfish,’ ” he said. “It speaks to the New York mentality: I’m going to be nice but there’s going to be an asterisk.” […]
Flaherty declined to say how much cash was taken, insisting, “It’s not really about the money.”
“Whether it was a dollar or a thousand, [this person] is a pot-smoking, modern-day version of Robin Hood,” he quipped.
-via Letters of Note
Mike Stinnett of Canyon City, Oregon is an artist who composes paintings, makes jewelry, and most impressively, carves canes that look just like living snakes. The level of realism in his work is incredible:
Stinnett records on video his creative process. Like all great artists, he makes it look easy. He uses grinders, chisels, and files to shape the wood. He he has a novel use for a spent ammunition cartridge casing and burns the imprint of scales using what looks like a custom bit.
-via TYWKIWDBI
Albert the dog is a scientist, which is why his website is called Dog Scientist. In his video series, he uses his advanced scientific knowledge to eat treats that have been locked away by his humans in various containers.
For this experiment, Albert attempted to get at chicken soup poured into a cylindrical container. His tongue can't reach the soup, so Albert puts balls in the container. This displaces the soup, raising the level of the liquid in accordance with the famous principle of Archimedes of Syracuse. He continues to add balls as the surface of the liquid sinks. What a clever dog!
Despite the popular I Have No Idea What I'm Doing meme, I'm inclined to think that Albert understands what he's trying to do: eat.
How did the stars of Episode VII: The Force Awakens break into the big screen? For John Boyega (Finn), it was as a street gang member in Attack the Block. For Daisy Ridley (Rey), it was as a kidnapping victim in the short film Blue Season. Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) was a gas station attendant in the 1920s in J. Edgar. Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) was a hapless shooting victim in All about the Benjamins. You can see them all here, thanks to this compilation video by Movie Munchies.
Kids these days don't understand how good they've got it. You see, when I was a lad, we didn't have these augmented reality girlfriends, interactive DVD girlfriends, hugging robots, or kissing simulators. But in the intervening years, Japanese engineers have taken the artificial girlfriend concept out of science fiction and are fast turning it into science fact.
Ai Shinozaki is an actual girl. So, no, you can't date her. But she's worked with virtual reality developers to create a highly realistic and interactive program. You can tour her apartment and talk to her. And, unlike a real girl, she'll actually talk back to you!
The staff of Rocket News 24 tried her out at a recent exhibition in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. Reporter Seiji strapped on the VR headset. He said, "If there was a home version of this, I wouldn’t need a real girlfriend!"
The future is going to be awesome.
Homer loves you, his fans. He wants to answer your pressing questions and will do so in an upcoming segment on The Simpsons. Actor Dan Castellaneta will, as always, provide the voice of Homer immediately. The segment will be animated live, on the spot.
How? The Hollywood Reporter explains that the show will use motion-capture technology to automatically create an appropriate image of Homer interacting with his audience:
Showrunner Al Jean told THR that the series — which spends months prepping its animation — will use a motion capture technology in which Homer's voice and motions will be depicted in an animated scene talking about things he "could only be saying live on that day."
"As far as I know, this is the first time that's been done by any animated show," Jean said, noting the live bit works with the theme of the episode, which explores improv comedy. "And Dan is a great improviser."
-via io9
(Photo: Jeremybrooks)
It's not a water slide or a snow slide, unfortunately. The Devil's Slide is an unusual rock formation east of Ogden, Utah. The limestone ridges are 12 meters high, 4.5 meters apart, and a very long 245 meters long, straight up the mountain.
It's the site of a ghost town of the same name, which is sad because Devil's Slide sounds like a totally awesome town name. I'd consider moving there for the sole purpose of claiming that as a home address.
-via Atlas Obscura
Tony Potter, a magician, used his skills at optical illusion (and presumably sorcery) to design this wine rack called the Pinetti. Each one is carefully crafted with red oak, stained with Danish Oil, then magically enchanted. Like a bad house guest, it can make your wine disappear. All you have to do is view the rack from the right angle.
-via Laughing Squid
I'm struggling to figure out the physics here.
This novel teapot of Chinese orgin has two chambers. You can see that when you look down the spout:
So put regular tea in one chamber and poisoned tea in the other. Pour as needed.
Each chamber has a small hole hidden on the other side. Covering one hole prevents liquid from leaving its chamber. But how? Redditor AjBlue7 explains:
Yes the reason why water flows through a spout is because there is a second hole in the back where air can come in and push the water out of the container. If there are no external forces but gravity working on a liquid there is a high chance that the molecular bonds will be able to resist the gravity trying to pull it out of a spout. Also it is important that air can't get past the liquid through the main spout. So this teapots spout has the equivalent of 2 straws branching out from the main hole, and the spouts much maintain a thin strawlike tunnel all the way down to the base of each reservoir. The connection of the straw and reservoir happens at the bottom of each to decrease the possibility of air being able to get past the water in the straws. Air is lighter than liquid so any air trapped in the back of the reservoir before putting your finger over the hole will always stay separated and not force the water out of the container.
This is one of the main principles at work in diving bells, where they trapped air underwater in a big metal bell. To fill the bells with more water they had heavy barrels with a hole on the bottom to let water in, as the barrel sank water would trap the air in the barrel compressing it naturally as it sank. On the top of the barrel there was a hose that hung on the outside, as long as the end of the hose was lower than the barrels hole that let water in, the air would remain trapped. Then they would raise the hose up and into the diving bell allowing for the barrels compressed air to transfer into the diving bell. Oh and they also had a valve on the top of the diving bell to release "hot" air, aka the CO2 byproduct from the divers breathing.
I'm struggling to wrap my brain around this explanation. Fortunately, I've spent the past few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.
-via Nag on the Lake
Ninja the cat needs no human assistance. He can get his own sled started, then jump on and ride down the hill. He's ready for winter fun!
-via Tastefully Offensive
