(Photos: The Independent)
This is Master Lolo and, yes, he insists that he has no other name. He has a second-degree black belt in karate and knows how to use those nunchucks. He works outside of high-end nightclubs and bars in Cape Town, South Africa. For a fee, he'll make sure that no one steals your car.
The seal plays it cool. He knows that he's awesome. After all, not just anyone can surf on a whale. So he's chill in front of the humans, as though this is something that he does every day.
This video is from a whale watching expedition off the coast of Baja California. Strangely, there is not a whale surfing business anywhere in the world -- at least as far as I can tell. I would think that there would be a market for one.
-via Tastefully Offensive
(Photo: Sam Bald)
Cataracts can slowly rob people of their sight. But they may someday be a thing of past.
First, what precisely is a cataract? Scientific American explains:
Cataracts are caused by damaged crystallin proteins in the eye lens. These proteins start off soluble and transparent, but they are never replaced and can become mis-folded over time forming opaque, insoluble clumps that are highly stable.
So the task of cataract treatment--short of surgical removal--is to dissolve these opaque proteins. Researchers led by Jason Gestwicki of the University of California at San Francisco may have found a way to do precisely that. They've discovered that certain drugs can partially dissolve those proteins:
Their screen identified a handful of molecules – mostly sterols—that were able to decrease the melting temperature of the crystallins. The most promising—5-cholesten-3b,25-diol—could decrease it by 2°C. Further tests, including NMR experiments, revealed that it was binding to the interface between α- and β-crystallin where the two proteins formed a dimer. This, the team suggested, may stabilise the proteins and not only prevent the formation of mis-folded, insoluble forms, but actually reverse the process.
-via reddit
Boom! Headshot!
YouTube user Chris Bell shows an amazing trick with a swimming cap filled with water. He says that it was the first attempt, of which I am just a bit skeptical.
-via Gifsboom
Lina Wassong is a fashion designer who specializes in wearable technology. While attending Burning Man one year, it occurred to her that LEDs could be incorporated into everyday clothing. She's done that with this skirt, but gone much further. Wassong's skirt hears music and plays different sequences of colored LEDs in response to the particular musical notes being played.
Her Arduino-controlled sytem has a microphone, a battery power supply, and a strip of flexible RGB LEDs woven up one thigh. This would be a fun outfit to wear to a nightclub, a party, or--if you're in a daring mood--church.
Confused by comic strips? That's not unreasonable and is nothing to be ashamed of. If you didn't grow up with the medium, then you might not understand how sequential art works, especially the nuances of the classic 3-panel horizontal narrative.
Cartoonist Justin Duvall explains while commenting:
seriously, who keeps a bomb in a safe anymore? what is this, Rocky & Bullwinkle?
That's what I do, but I'm a bit old-fashioned.
-via Tastefully Offensive
In 1928, Walt Disney released one of his first films: Sleigh Bells. This 6-minute short featured Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a prototype for Mickey Mouse. Embedded above is a short clip from it.
Although other Oswald films survived, Sleigh Bells vanished from film holdings. There were records of the film, but no surviving copies until a researcher found it in the archives of the British Film Institute. Disney has taken possession of this copy and is preserving and duplicating it.
-via Nag on the Lake
(Photo: Denine Davies)
Mason has never had a complete haircut. It's a very difficult experience for him because he has autism. But when Mason came with his mom into a barber shop in West Glamorgan, UK, barber Jim Williams found a solution. Mason wanted to lie on the floor instead of sit in the chair. So Jim got down on the floor with him. ABC News reports:
Then, on Nov. 3, Williams said he was finally able to give Mason the "perfect haircut" by distracting Mason with an iPhone and letting the little boy lay down as he worked.
"He allowed me to cut around his neck and his ears," Williams said. "Obviously his mother was glowing because something happened there. He allowed me to give him his first proper haircut and that was a great achievement."
Mason's mother, Denine Davies, said she is grateful for Williams' patience and kindness.
"I think Jim is fantastic with Mason," Davies told ABC News. "He always takes the time to chat to Mason, gives him a high five each time we visit and always puts 'SpongeBob SquarePants' on for him in the salon. Williams has gone above and beyond the call of a regular hairdresser."
-via Sesame Street
(Photo: Linda Bahnson)
Years ago, David Bahnson, a retired orthopedic surgeon in Vermont, wanted to share his enjoyment of kayaking with his dogs. So he placed his dog, Susie, in the luggage compartment. After getting a second dog, Ginger, he cut another hole in his boat for her.
Those dogs have passed on and now Bahnson has two more dogs. They, like their predacessors, love to go kayaking. The Dodo quotes Bahnson:
"They are trained to get in the kayak themselves on command. They sit down, and off we go. When we come ashore, they'll stay seated until I tell them it's OK to get out. They never hopped out into the water, actually," he said, adding that the dogs are strong swimmers regardless.
"I love my dogs. I love training them, the companionship. We've gone miles and miles of paddling with our dogs," said Bahnson. "They just really enjoy going places."
-via Laughing Squid
(Photo: G1)
Jaine Ferreira Figueira of Mostardas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil allowed her 17-month old son, Lorenzo, in her garden. She found him with a dead snake in his mouth. She rushed him to the hospital to receive treatment for a bite from the venomous jararaca snake, a species of pit viper.
But he hadn't been bitten. On the contrary, Lorenzo had likely gone on the offensive, grabbed the snake, then bitten it in the head. The International Business Times reports:
The child was taken to a local hospital, along with the snake in a jar so that he could receive the proper antivenom, where the doctor informed the parents that it was probably Lorenzo who had killed the snake. "He bit the young jararaca close to its head, which immobilized it and prevented it from biting him," the doctor added. "The boy was very shaken up — I think it was a self-defence instinct that kicked in, or he thought it was a toy."
Icebreakers are hardly known as glamorous ships. They're specially-designed workhorses of the shipping world. But the Damen Group, a Dutch shipbuilding company, is changing that image. It has designed the SeaXplorer, a luxurious super yacht that will be able to take wealthy guests to otherwise inaccessible polar regions while maintaining a high lifestyle.
The Damen Group will display design concept images of 3 models under development, ranging in length from 213 to 328 feet long. Owners will be able to enjoy custom berthing facilities from the finest materials and built to their exact specifications. The Daily Mail reports:
While on extreme polar or tropical adventures at sea, passengers can enjoy up to 40 days of full luxury service without port call, with the ship having room for submarines, up to two helicopters, and diving and expedition boats to see sharks, whales or other marine life up close.
With a top speed of 16 knots (18mph), the largest yacht can accommodate 30 guests and 50 crew members.
Benjamin Maltby, from MatrixLLoyd, a leading authority on superyacht purchases, said an owner could easily spend upwards of £100million on a 328ft superyacht such as SeaXplorer.
He added: ‘This is a fantastic design, which allows the owner to explore Arctic and Antarctic waters, which are inaccessible to most superyachts.
‘Imagine whale-watching while sitting in the most comfortable and stylish surroundings. It'd be an experience which would stay with you for life.’
-via The Presurfer
T.J. Browne, Jr. celebrated National Cat Day by feeding his many, many cats while wearing a startlingly realistic cat mask.
They were less than pleased that the human had become one of them. You can watch the full video here (content warning: foul language).
-via Gifsboom
French artist Travis Durden loves two things: modern pop culture and ancient art. He’s combined them brilliantly in highly realistic 3d models that look like ancient Greco-Roman marble statues . . . of Star Wars characters!
The theme makes a lot of sense, as Star Was did occur not in the future, but a long time ago. So Yoda fits as Cupid, Boba Fett as a dying Gaul, and Darth Vader as a Roman patrician.
-via The Mary Sue
(Error t-shirt on sale at the NeatoShop)
Christopher Null of Wired has a problem. Or, rather, computers have a problem with his last name:
But there’s a dark side to being a Null, and you coders out there are way ahead of me on this. For those of you unwise in the ways of programming, the problem is that “null” is one of those famously “reserved” text strings in many programming languages. Making matters worse is that software programs frequently use “null” specifically to ensure that a data field is not empty, so it’s often rejected as input in a web form.
So Null’s name alone often induces computer errors:
Sometimes, my name leads to harmless hilarity, particularly when mailing lists don’t know what to do with the word. American Express is probably the biggest perpetrator, regularly sending junk mail to my house addressed to my business—but dropping the “Null” from the name. The company called “Media LLC” is often helmed by a mysterious gentleman who is addressed only as “Mr.”
He’s had to unofficially change his name in small ways to get it to register in some systems:
Turning my last name into a combination of my middle name and last name, or middle initial and last name, sometimes works, but only if the website doesn’t choke on multi-word last names. My usual trick is to simply add a period to my name: “Null.” This not only gets around many “null” error blocks, it also adds a sense of finality to my birthright.
We used to have a problem like this at my library. An application that we used required patron last names to be at least 3 letters long. But some last names of Vietnamese origin have only 2 letters. This caused the system to reject their name entries.
-via Kevin D. Williamson
It’s as comfortable as comfort food. Surely there could be nothing as relaxing as putting yourself in a position in which you take on the appearance of food. So it’s good that the NOBU Corporation sells a zaisu (a floor chair) that looks like a folded slice of bread. I’d like mine with bacon, peanut butter, and bananas, please.
-via Dude I Want That
