Rosie Pig calls herself "50% pig. 50% chihuahua. 100% party." But she can be a serious pig/dog, too. When moving day arrived, she dutifully rolled up in bubble wrap, then unwrapped upon arriving in her new home.
-via Drew Olanoff
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(Photo: Rev. Joey Talley)
This is Joey Talley, a witch of the Wicca faith. She works in the tech industry of the San Francisco Bay area. Or, rather, she works for the tech industry. Computer programmers, software designers, and engineers call upon her to ensure that their businesses and equipment are safe from dark, mystical forces:
"Most people want me to protect their computers from viruses and hacks," she says, "so I'll make charms for them. I like to use flora."
Jet, a black gemstone energy-blocker, is ideal for debugging office hardware, Talley says; bigger or more vulnerable computer networks often require "a rainbow of colors to divert excess energy." If all else fails, she can cast a protection spell on the entire company, office supplies included.
Talley's foray into tech is still fresh enough that she sometimes calls it the "techno industry." That hasn't dissuaded savvy clients in the market for spiritual counseling, hypnosis, dream therapy, moon rituals, house clearings, potion-brewing, and other niche services. Her speciality? "I really like dealing with demons," she says.
She recounts a recent episode involving a startup whose office alarm was infected by an "invasive species." After multiple electricians failed to rout whatever poltergeist was causing the alarm to shrill at odd intervals, the company contacted Reverend Talley.
"I don't know anything about electronics, but I got the spirit out," she says. It's hard to tell whether she's boasting or apologizing.
This is a selection from a longform article by Jeremy Lybarger in San Francisco Weekly. It examines the incredible popularity of occult mysticism in Silicon Valley. Psychics, mediums, fortune tellers, and witches are thriving as tech companies consult them for clairvoyance and spiritual warfare.
-via Dave Barry
This heroic little boy cosplayed as #Batman and rescued a trapped baby from a car http://t.co/B8sDo1vUJ5 pic.twitter.com/fbzmKf9FAR
— UPROXX (@UPROXX) July 18, 2015
Zavi Ahmed, 5, of Uckfield, Sussex, UK went shopping with his mother. He wanted to be a superhero that day, so he dressed as Batman. His 2-year old brother dressed as Superman. This turned out to be a very appropriate decision.
While in the parking lot of a Tesco, Zavi and his mother learned that a woman had accidentally locked her infant granddaughter inside a car. It was a hot day, so the baby was in great danger. When police arrived, they smashed the rear window. Zavi then crawled inside the car and unlocked the door. The Daily Mail quotes the grandmother:
‘We called the police and they tried everything and eventually smashed the back window. They couldn’t reach the door because it’s quite small. We needed to get the keys from the dashboard.
‘Then these two little boys turned up - one was dressed as Batman and the other as Superman. They had the whole outfits and were so sweet.
‘A policeman put his jumper down on the window to protect from the glass and Batman crawled in to fetch the keys. I was so proud. He was a true superhero and I’m so grateful to him.
‘If it was a hotter day we would’ve smashed the window much sooner. Iris is so happy to be saved by Batman - if she gets married that will definitely be told at her wedding.’
-via Uproxx
(Image: Disney)
It's a visual trope that you often see in cartoons. When someone has a spark of inspiration and thinks of a solution to a problem, a light bulb appears and lights up.
This common symbol developed for a reason: the incandescent light bulb--and electric lighting generally--radically changed the way that people live their lives. In Collectors Weekly, Hunter Oatman-Stanford traces the history of the light bulb and the impact it had on the human experience. He quotes Alan Makkos, an antique electric hardware dealer:
But significantly, it was the public yearning for modern lighting that brought electricity to the masses, causing seismic shifts in our daily lives. Widespread electrification created the 24-hour workday, extending production hours into the darkness of night. Evening entertainment and social outings became routine rather than the exception. Sporting events could happen after dark, and people could invite friends over to drink cocktails and listen to phonograph records. […]
“I believe the light bulb was a turning point for humanity—as much as the printing press,” Makkos adds. “Technologically speaking, mankind has advanced more in the last hundred years than the thousand before that. Without the invention of the light bulb, there would be no modern computer as we know it today.”
-via The Presurfer
Lesia Pettijohn and her husband Jonathan of Lake Jackson, Texas, were expecting a baby. When it was time for the baby to be born last Monday, they drove toward the Bay Area Birth Center. But the little boy traveled faster. About 45 minutes into the car ride, he insisted on being born immediately, even as the car was still moving. Jonathan caught it all on his GoPro camera.
Josiah weighs 10 pounds and 3 ounces and is healthy. He is the couple's third child.
The father's reactions throughout the video are . . . interesting. His final line is "So I wonder if we still have to pay for using the birth center."
Content warning: graphic childbirth.
-via BuzzFeed
The original Ronald McDonald sure has changed! In this cosplay version by LenLENko, he looks like Japanese vocaloid Hatsune Miku. She's one of many original takes on the clown face of the McDonald's corporation. Let's look at how Ronald McDonald has inspired other cosplayers.
(Image: Son of Alan)
Renzo Piano is the architect who designed London's famous Shard. His children range in age from 16 to 50, so he's been building sandcastles for a long, long time. He's put his skills to work to build sandcastles that are simple in outer form, but structurally ideal. In The Guardian, Piano explains what you need to do to build a professional grade sandcastle:
2 Start to dig a ditch where the waves have made the sand wet. Use your hands. Build the sand up to create the mass of the castle, which is really a little mountain with an incline of, ideally, 45°. You don’t need the ditch to be more than 30cm deep and 45cm wide, and the castle should be about 60cm tall.
3 Make an entrance in the ditch for the sea to enter. The magic moment is when the waves come and the ditch becomes a moat. If the castle is in a good position, you can watch the water ebbing and flowing for 10 or 15 minutes. To capture the image in your memory quickly, close your eyes when the water comes in.
-via Fast Co Design
Cyrus Kabiru is an artist in Nairobi, Kenya. When he was a child, he liked the look of glasses, but his father forbade him to get them. Now he roots through trash, recovering pieces that turn into imaginative facial decorations.
This is my favorite piece from his online portfolio. The round and square forms nicely compliment each other in this nearly symmetrical piece.
-via Colossal
Go to Google and type in two foods with "vs" in between them. You'll see a nutritional comparison.
And that's only the beginning! I learned a lot from reading this BuzzFeed article describing 18 things you can do with Google. For example, you can draw by hand Japanese and Chinese characters and have them transliterated and then translated into English. You can also build with LEGO and calculate tips.
Her name is Riley Dashwood. She lives in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of only 6, she's already become a master trick shot artist. She can toss an object--any object--exactly where she wants to. Yes, she has to practice, but she's also developed techniques that make her remarkably precise in her tosses. Her father explained to the Daily Mail:
When Mr Dashwood, a designer and filmmaker, and Riley began filming her throwing attempts, they described it as being 'random,' but Riley soon came up with her own process to ace the shots.
'Because she couldn't look, towards the end when we were trying more difficult ones, she'd focus on a point in front of her and try and aim her arm,' he said.
'I was so surprised, one shot would hit me and the next one would be in.'
Riley's adorable joy at landing the shots is clear in the video as amazement crosses her face after every success.
-via Gifsboom
As the chain pours out of the jar, link by link, it rises several inches. It appears to be working against gravity. Why?
In this video, James Gorman of the New York Times explains. Chains consist of connected rods. once they've fallen, the links straighten. The force of the straightened chains pushes back against the falling chain, causing it to fountain up.
-via Nag on the Lake
Hilde Krohn Huse is an artist in London. She's in her final year of study at the University for the Creative Arts. Her work has impressed critics so much that she is one of 37 artists selected from thousands of applicants for the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition.
To prepare for this exhibition, she decided to journey back to her native Norway. In the woods, she would briefly hang naked, upside down, from a tree limb. This artistic event would be recorded on camera, then displayed to the critical luminaries who attended the exhibition.
Huse needed only a few seconds of footage of herself hanging from a tree naked. But there was a problem: once she got the scene recorded, she found that she couldn't get out of the tree!
Huse hung from that tree for 3 and 1/2 hours before someone heard her screams and rescued her.
This has not deterred Huse, who has turned the footage into a new film called Hanging in the Woods. She explains its meaning:
In the film ‘Hanging in the Woods’ the viewer can witness the breakdown between performance and reality as the indented performance goes wrong and the performer is stuck hanging from the tree without being able to free herself or any visible means of help or escape.
It's very deep. You can watch it here. Content warning: artistic nudity.
Lance Curran has a large collection of mugs decorated with faces of superheroes, villains, and cartoon characters. In the morning, when he gives his kids breakfast, he likes to photograph his coffee mug in front of his kids' faces and upload the photos onto Instagram. The results are super cute!
(Curran has a notably well-decorated home. In the background of the top photo is Matthew Skiff's print of He-Man, Orko, and Skeletor sharing a pizza.)
(Photo: Stranger20824)
The Oise-Anise American Cemetery in Seringes-et-Nesles, France contains 6,021 graves, almost all of whom are American soldiers who died in the line of duty during World War I. The United States and France honor these fallen heroes to this day. The cemetery is well-tended and open for anyone who wishes to pay their respects.
Except for Plot E.
It's a small section in the 36.5 acre cemetery, hidden behind bushes. It does not exist on official maps of the cemetery and is accessible only through a door in the superintendent's office. Plot E has tiny marker stones, but there are no names on them--only numbers. The colors of the United States are expressly forbidden there.
And for good reason. These graves without honor are for American soldiers who were executed for crimes during World War II. Atlas Obscura explains:
The soldiers eventually interred in Plot E were tried for rape, murder, and in one case, desertion (although the remains of the deserter, Eddie Slovik, the only American executed for desertion in WWII, were returned to the states in 1987). After being convicted in U.S. courts martial held in Europe, the men were dishonorably discharged and executed via hanging or firing squad. In many cases, the men who were buried in Plot E were initially buried close to the site of their execution. Those bodies were later exhumed and moved to Oise Aisne in 1949 when the plot of shame was established.
Plot E has been referred to as an anti-memorial. No US flag is permitted to fly over the plot and the graves themselves, small in-ground stones the size of index cards, have no names; they are only differentiated by numbers. Even underground they are set apart with each body buried in Plot E positioned with its back to the main cemetery. The site does not exist on maps of the cemetery, and is not mentioned on their website.
-via Ace of Spades HQ
(Photo: AP)
It looks a lot like bacon . . . and it tastes like it, too! Researchers at the Oregon State University have bred a strain of a seaweed called dulse that tastes strongly of bacon. Dulse is very nutritious and is a popular if expensive health food. But now its appeal can spread even further. Live Science quotes lead researcher Chris Langdon:
"In Europe, they add the powder to smoothies, or add flakes onto food," Langdon said. "There hasn't been a lot of interest in using it in a fresh form. But this stuff is pretty amazing. When you fry it, which I have done, it tastes like bacon, not seaweed. And it's a pretty strong bacon flavor."
-via Foodiggity
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