Nick Reeve, a graphic designer, got married in May. He met, Jen, his wife, 3 years ago. They've spent a lot of time sending text messages back and forth. In reflection of their long courtship, Reeve decided to weave their online conversations into his wedding jacket. He typeset all of their messages into 9 point font with special selected moments in larger text. These were printed on silk forming the lining, which was then sewn into the suit. You can see more photos of it at the Creative Review.
With all the grittiness and depth of the original source comes Okilly Dokilly, a metal band inspired by Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. The name comes from Flanders's trademark catchphrase. The band, which is based in Phoenix, consists of vocalist Head Ned with Red Ned on the synthesizer, Thread Ned on the bass, Stead Ned on the guitar, and Bled Ned on the drums. You can listen to 4 of their songs here, all of which tap into the Ned Flanders within all of us. Just be careful, neighbor-enoo, or you may find yourself unable to contain the emotions they release.
The current flag of New Zealand is the British Union Flag in a corner with four stars on a blue field. These symbols represent the nation's origin as a British colony and the constellation of the Southern Cross.
This unfurling pikopiko koru is about vibrancy and energy contained in a small space. By using the Māori spiral design and applying the colours of the 1902 New Zealand flag, it honours both the indigenous and colonial cultures.
Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku tells us that on the Buddhist holiday of Obon in August, many Japanese people create figures out of eggplants and cucumbers in order to welcome visitation by the spirits of the dead. Cucumbers represent horses and eggplants represent cows. The spirits arrive quickly on cucumbers, but leave slowly on eggplants.
So it logically follows that twitter user @sativa_high would recreate the vehicles used by the War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road with these two vegetables.
Who do you call when an earthquake traps you on Mount Everest? You can Global Rescue. If you are their client, they will get you out . . .
. . . for a price.
This is the emerging world of private search and rescue operations. Global Rescue is one of several firms of ex-special forces and top-end medical professionals that will find you and bring you home alive. This service appeals to adventure travelers, who are willing to pay the several hundred dollar annual subscription fee. Wired reports on the industry and Global Rescue founder Dan Richards:
He saw a niche that needed filling. At the time, companies like International SOS provided risk assessments to big corporations sending employees overseas, while travel insurance companies allowed customers to file for reimbursement for services like evacuation or lost luggage. Groups like MedjetAssist, meanwhile, provided evacuation services from international hospitals. But there wasn’t a company with the capability to quickly dispatch both helicopters and security personnel to hard-to-reach places—something Richards realized while researching investment opportunities in the crisis-response industry. “When you call the cavalry, you expect the cavalry to show up,” he says.
Richards soon hired five paramedics with military experience, negotiated a partnership with the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine to provide clients with remote medical consultations, and started reaching out to helicopter companies and current and former military personnel around the globe that he could hire on a contract basis. He began to sign up corporate clients that paid hefty annual fees for memberships that included evacuation privileges. The State Department, NASA, and Uber soon signed up for similar deals.
Yep. It’s the morning. You have to get up. You don’t want to. None of us want to. But we all have to.
Have you ever slept through an alarm clock going off? One common solution is to set a second alarm clock further away from your bed. This forces you to get up to turn it off. French comedian DaniiL Le Russe takes the idea just a step further to make sure that he doesn’t sleep in and miss work.
Is your cat getting in between you and your computer? Don’t just prod him away. Give him a computer of his own! This is the Cat Scratch Laptop, a toy computer for your feline companions. It has a customizable wallpaper that slides in and out. The keyboard consists of a scratching surface. A mouse plugs in on the left (sorry, it’s not wireless). There are no details about memory or processing speed, so you’re taking a chance there. Presumably they’re upgrade-able, though.
Twitter user @Belcorno has made a name for himself as an accomplished latte artist. He can create almost any image on the surface of a cup of coffee, such as these colorful renderings of Anna and Elsa from Frozen. Most commonly, he uses anime characters as his subjects.
Lately, Belcorno has been experimenting with pancakes, presenting our favorite characters in sweet pancake batter. Pictured above is a Colossal Titan from the series Attack on Titan. If Belcorno can add eggs or bacon, he can present full anime breakfasts!
It has either 10 or 12 strings. With them, it’s possible to play a broader range than either the standard guitar or bass can do individually. Author Dave Hunter says that Emmett Chapman invented it in the 1970s to offer jazz players more options:
Its range runs the gamut from the bass’ low to the guitar’s high. Traditional tuning, if you can call it that, goes low E, A, D, G, C, although the bass strings progress upward—that is, the reverse of those on a standard bass guitar, from highest pitched string at the top to the lowest pitched at the middle of the tapboard; the treble strings run conventionally downward, tuned F#, B, E, A, D.
Süreyya Noyan, an artist in Turkey, has lately been experimenting with painting on eggshells. She cracks them open, cleans them, then turns the delicate interior surfaces into amazingly precise copies of famous works of art, such as Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave at Kanagawa.
Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku informs us that Kentucky Fried Chicken locations in China are now offering chicken-like meat burger semi-food objects that feature bright pink buns. Why? And what makes them pink? You ask too many questions. Begin eating immediately.
It’s a combination of elite hair styling and classic Americana. HairStream NYC is a hair and nail salon run by internationally famous stylists Ric Pipino and Gil Haziza. Together they and their colleagues serve discerning clients in a classic Airstream trailer converted into a top-end salon. This summer, they’re touring the Hamptons, offering haircuts and styling services ranging from $70 to $450.
Desmond Doss was drafted into the US Army in 1942. He was a pacifist and so wouldn’t take up arms. He was also a Seventh-Day Adventist and so wouldn’t work on Saturdays. So he took up work as a combat medic, concluding that he could work on Saturdays because “Christ healed on the Sabbath.”
PFC Doss served with the 77th Infantry Division during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. During that long battle, he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to tend to fallen comrades and retrieve them from the battlefield. For this, he would be awarded the Medal of Honor. The citation for that commendation is remarkably long due to staggering scale of his badassery. This is merely a selection:
On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and 2 days later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within 8 yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire. On 21 May, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited 5 hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter; and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of 1 arm.
A precise number remains unknown, but it’s estimated that Doss personally rescued 50 to 100 of his fellow soldiers from death.
Doss never fully recovered from the wounds he received on Okinawa. He went home, married, had children, and devoted the rest of his life to religious work. He died in 2006 at the age of 87. You can find his obituary here.
The metal flows so smoothly and perfectly over the surface. This is not just the work of a tradesman, but also an artist. The precisely rendered results of great technical skill are beautiful to behold. Scott Raabe, a professional welder in Texas, has this kind of skill.
After graduating from Texas State Technical College 7 years ago, Raabe has been working in both industrial and artistic settings. He can make delicate flowers, vibrant animals, and eye-popping signs. But there is something especially enchanting about the connections that he welds in places people will never see. They look like rainbows of steel. You can see more of these at Imgur.
