Buckminster Fuller, the architect most famous for inventing the geodesic dome, once proposed building giant floating cities shaped like tetrahedrons. In his book Critical Path, Fuller explains why this structure would have been ideal:

In the early 1960s I was commissioned by a Japanese patron to design one of my tetrahedronal floating cities for Tokyo Bay.

Three-quarters of our planet Earth is covered with water, most of which may float organic cities.

Floating cities pay no rent to landlords. They are situated on water, which they desalinate and recirculate in many useful and nonpolluting ways. They are ships with all an ocean ship’s technical autonomy, but they are also ships that will always be anchored. They don’t have to go anywhere. Their shape and its human-life accommodations are not compromised, as must be the shape of the living quarters of ships whose hull shapes are constructed so that they may slip, fishlike, at high speed through water and high seas with maximum economy. […]

The tetrahedron has the most surface with the least volume of all polyhedra. As such it provides the most “outside” living. Its sloping external surface is adequate for all its occupants to enjoy their own private, outside, tiered-terracing, garden homes. These are most economically serviced from the common, omni-nearest-possible center of volume of all polyhedra. […]

All the shopping centers and other communal service facilities are inside the structure; tennis courts and other athletic facilities are on the top deck.

The tetrahedronal city in Tokyo Bay was never built. Fuller attributes that reesult on the death of his patron in 1966. So he took his idea to the United States and refined his design. It was to be almost 2 miles wide and float in San Francisco Bay. Robert Kronenburg describes it in Architecture in Motion: The History and Development of Portable Building:

This earthquake-proof building had 20,000 apartments gathered in the wall of a giant tetrahedron. In 1968, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development financed a detailed study for Triton City, a series of neighborhood-sized floating communities between 3,500 and 6,500 persons. The structures would also be self-sufficient by the use of wave power and solar energy.

Would you want to live in one of these floating cities?

-via American Digest | Image: unknown

Snakes . . . why did it have to be snakes? Because they're cute and funny. These snakes aren't really, but Bill Flowers's paintings of them are. He calls himself the Snake Artist.

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And he deserves that name. He likes to get terrifyingly close to extremely dangeorus animals in order to sketch them. These include Australia's most venomous snakes, crocodiles, and Komodo dragons. You can tell from this video that he gets too close because is regularly attacked by his subjects.

I have no idea how he is still alive.

So I would prefer to get closer to Flowers's lovely paintings instead of their models. He adds them to famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh's Starry Night, and Dali's Persistence of Memory. You can see more of them at Bored Panda.

-via Lost at E Minor

(Photo: Oliver's Travels)

Oliver's Travels is a travel company that specializes in providing family vacation villas. It now offers a new luxury service to guests who want a unique beach vacation experience: sandcastle butlers. At selected locations, Oliver's Travels hires sandcastle artists to compose their crafts exactly as their guests want them. The Daily Mail reports:

Blueprints will be drawn-up so the exact structure is brought to life. 

Then it will be down to the butlers to select the best quality sand, and the safest spot on the beach for the precious creation. 

Youngsters will even be able to assist the butler in creating their sandcastle. 

-via Marginal Revolution

(Photo: Steve Parsons/PA)

Lorna Johnson of Luton, Bedfordshire, UK, passed away. She loved dressing up in costume for Halloween. So her many friends and family members who attended her funeral dressed in costume for her it on Wednesday. They came as Beetlejuice, the Tasmanian Devil, witches, and other characters.

Brett Houghton, the funeral director, led the procession to her service in the garb of Darth Vader. Her son, Neil Johnson, told The Guardian:

“My mum’s always said you need to celebrate, you need to have a party. So we’re not going to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. My mum wouldn’t want that.”

Johnson, who has three sons aged nine, eight and six, said his mother would have loved the idea of a fancy-dress funeral.

“She’d love it. She’d say: ‘That’s it, that’s exactly what you should have done,’” he said.

-via Huffington Post

Scorpio

Pisces

Trina Merry is a body painting artist in New York City. Human bodies are the canvases on which she expresses incredibly realistic and imaginative designs. In the past, we’ve seen her paintings that blend into the background of New York City. More recently, she’s depicted the 12 signs of the zodiac. In the series she makes highly effective use of black paint to conceal unnecessary elements. You can see the rest of her paintings here as well as a video that shows how she made them (content warning: artistic nudity).

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Alexis Taylor’s 8-year old daughter loves Fifth Harmony’s song “Worth It.” It makes her move to the music. And it’s worth it to make the little girl's 97-year old great-grandmother rock out, too. She asks, “You want me to do my thing?” And then she unleashes the moves of a much younger dancer.

-via Tastefully Offensive

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The Makizume Robo Ingrown Toenail Fixer is a simple device. It consist of two clamps and a threaded press. Slip the clamps around the edges of a toenail--preferably someone else’s--then turn the center press until it forces the edges of the toenail to spring up. Soak the foot in water for a long time, then dry. It’s the perfect party game!

-via BuzzFeed

Rebecca Millar’s daughter asked for a Black Widow doll. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find one locally and the cost of shipping one to her home in Australia was prohibitively high, so she made one. The doll was a huge hit, so she made more for her kid and others.

Millar has made them for a wide variety of fandoms, including DC, Marvel, and Star Trek. Pictured above are Uhura, Janeway, Dax, and Seven of Nine, all of whom, Millar sees as excellent role models for her daughter. You can see more of her dolls at her Facebook page.

-via Nerd Bastards

Hannah of the food blog Bitter Sweet came upon some very high-grade baking chocolate and decided to put it to good use in this novel experiment. These inverted mint patties have a mixture of chocolate and corn syrup in the center with cocoa butter, sugar, and peppermint oil on the outside. She waited for the centers to harden, then dipped them in the coating twice to create this unusual and eye-catching treat.

-via Tasteologie

(Photo: unknown)

Rocket News 24 reports that Japanese twitter users are going bonkers over the Jorunna parva, a member of the nudibranch family. They come in different colors, but they all look like fat little rabbits! 

(Photo: unknown)

They even have fluffy bunny tails!

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This video captured by a diver in the Pacific shows one crawling along the ocean floor, presumably looking for sea carrots and sea lettuces, all while avoiding sea foxes.

(Photos: Sorrida)

This is Restraunt M. It’s a special restaurant in Tokyo that will be open for only one day. On that one day, you can get fairly standard food from the McDonald's menu. But it will be offered to you fine china, ornate silverware, and bleached linens. The table service will, of course, be far superior from that which you can find at your local burger joint. You can see more photos at Kotaku. Unfortunately, it’s unclear what toy comes with the Happy Meal.

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If I saw a great white shark trapped on the beach, I might have several responses, but none of them would involve picking it up and dragging back into the water. Fortunately for this shark, more daring and caring people were present at the beach on Chatham, Massachusetts on Monday. They found a 7 and ½ foot juvenile shark that had beached and was unable to return to the waters off Cape Cod.

Harbormaster Stuart Smith took over the rescue effort upon his arrival. He and his colleagues tied a rope to the shark and pulled it into the water. It was still sluggish, so they towed it out into deeper water. Greg Skomal, a biologist, put a tracking device on the shark before the rescuers released it. Animal wildlife officials will use it to monitor the shark's location.

-via 22 Words

(Photo: Joel Maxwell)

This is the Ogo, an electric wheelchair. What sets it apart from other wheelchairs is that it's not controlled with a joystick, buttons, or pedals. It's controlled with body direction, like a Segway. This means that users who lack hand movement ability can steer it.

Kevin Halsall, the inventor, built it for a friend, Marcus Thompson, who is a paraplegic. When Halsall used a Segway for the first time, he realized that its directional system offered a great option to people who use wheelchairs. Joel Maxwell writes in Stuff:

The moving seat made the acceleration and braking more responsive to movements from the rider's core muscles, he said.

His mate Thompson used the device to mow his lawns, and trialled it at his work as a teacher at Otaki College.

Halsall said the doing things like picking up items and moving round while holding them, and mowing lawns, sounded mundane to most people.

"But when you're in a wheelchair you just can't do it."

Thompson got a buzz out of mowing his lawns, Halsall said, because as a paraplegic he previously relied on others to do work like that.

-via Damn Geeky

Thieves of Tower is the creative duo of Houston Patton and Dagny Fox. Together, they make innovative tattoos that spread across both legs of their subjects. This is really thoughtful because it uses the body as not just a surface for inking, but also as a form to contribute to the design. Together, the paired legs form complete scenes.

The images themselves are reminiscent of woodcuts and would be impressive on any part of the body or even just paper. You can view more at My Modern Met as well as additional non-tattoo art at their Instagram page.

(Photos: Kristina Bakrevski)

Theirs was a love built on not just passion, but true relationship compatibility. Sure, you can embrace each other for an evening. But if you want a lifelong companion, then you have to fit together. David Sikorski and his burrito, a carne asada from Taqueria La Cumbre, are truly made for each other.

That's the official story. But the truth is that Sikorski saw his Facebook friends posting relationship milestones and grew anxious. When was his special someone going to come along? His solution was to ask Kristina Bakrevski, a friend and professional photographer, to show Sikorski and his favorite burrito in tender, romantic moments. You can see more images from there series here.

-via Pleated Jeans