These are the voyages of the office building NetDragon. Or, rather the flagship offices for the Chinese gaming company NetDragon Websoft. Liu DeJian, the chairman of the company, is allegedly a die-hard Trekkie who got an official license from CBS to design this building to look like the Enterprise. It includes automatic sliding glass doors that hopefully do this:
-via Nerd Approved | Images: Hacktron, CBS
(Photo: Canal & River Trust)
Life along the Regents Canal in London is a delightful experience. You can ride bikes or jog along rows of galleries and cafes. Tourists are fond of seeing it while riding on boats.
Humans enjoy it, but so do ducks. Yet the little birds are a bit more vulnerable to collisions with people and bicycles. So the Canal & River Trust has set aside the inner stretch of pavement along the canal as a designated zone for ducks. They’re marked it with painted silhouettes of ducks. Cassie Werber writes for Quartz:
It’s unlikely, of course, that ducks will stick to the lanes, which serve a largely symbolic function. They’re a visual reminder that we’re all on this path together, and to get pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists to chill out and slow down.
The Canal & River Trust says it is “calling for the reintroduction of old-fashioned manners to preserve the peace.”
-via Lustik
It’s a story about a man and his dog. They share a special life together. It carries on.
It’s not clear until the end what this Argentinian public service announcement wishes to express. But by the end, it does so powerfully. Keep tissues handy as you watch it.
-via TYWKIWDBI
The Japanese publishing house Hakayawa commissioned artist Norko Meguro to design cover images for George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The resulting style is immediately recognizable for anime and manga fans. The covers offer fresh takes on characters that fans of both the novels and TV show have grown to love and hate. Pictured above is the Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen.
Kuma Films calls them the "Dynamic Diabolic Duo." They're a pair of yoyo masters in Taipei who have amazing control over their instruments. The yoyos fly through the air flawlessly, moving exactly where these men want them to.
(Photo: Madeline Marshall/Wall Street Journal)
Early on the morning of December 7, 1941, Seaman First Class Alan Sanford, 18, was on board the destroyer USS Ward. That ship guarded the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Lookouts spotted a strange, cylindrical object in the water. It was a Japanese mini-submarine.
The captain, woken from sleep, ordered the ship to speed and prepare to ram the sub. Seaman Sanford was among a gun crew getting ready to fire at the object.
On the opening day of the war, 75 minutes before Japanese warplanes swarmed over the anchored fleet at Pearl Harbor, Seaman Sanford and his colleagues opened fire at the submarine. These were the first American shots of the war. The Wall Street Journal describes the encounter:
Mr. Sanford and the other crewmen on the bow gun fired at a range of about 100 yards. He watched the round leave the barrel and barely miss the conning tower. “I thought if it had another coat of paint on the sub, it might have activated the graze fuze,” which detonates when a shell suddenly slows down, Mr. Sanford said in the park service interview. “That’s how close I think we came.”
A second gun crew on the Ward fired next, punching a four-inch hole in the starboard side of the conning tower as the destroyer steamed past the sub at a range of about 50 yards. The destroyer followed up with four depth charges. Sea water poured in through the shell hole, the submarine rolled to starboard, and sank in 1,200 feet of water, according to the captain’s report and historians.
The captain of the Ward reported the battle to his superiors via radio, but nothing came of it. Researchers found the sunken mini-sub in 2002.
Seaman Sanford served through the end of the war. Then he studied mechanical engineering and later worked on the Apollo space program. He died in January at the age of 91 and was buried on Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery.
-via Jonah Goldberg
It was 1919. The aeronautical technologies developed in war would be put to peaceful use in commercial aviation. London needed a proper airport as a central hub for air traffic. The October 18 issue of the Illustrated London News suggested this wacky design: a curved ring resting on top of the skyscrapers of the city.
What could possibly go wrong?
In this case: nothing, because it was never built. This ring was one of many early design concepts for airports. You can see more eccentric designs at Ptak Science Books.
-via Core77
Nevermind population or GDP. Those metrics aren't important. This map by Jody Sieradzki of Dadaviz Research shows what matters in political geography: the hair colors of the heads of government around the world.
Blondes thrive in northern Europe and baldness prospers in Africa. There's a sweep of grey hair around the middle of the world. Sadly, no leader has hair dyed in a non-natural color. It would be nice to add some pastels to the map.
-via Hopes & Fears
As a modern person, you must regularly update your social media following by taking pictures of yourself. A minimum of once an hour is necessary in order to be a functional adult.
Selfie sticks may seem like a great way to add creativity to this tiresome chore. But they're actually dangerous. This satirical PSA is a commercial from Pizza Hut that describes the psychological damage that selfie sticks inflict on you and the physiological damage they inflict on people around you.
Please selfie responsibly.
-via Laughing Squid
Artist Cassie Graus specializes in cats, which is about as optimal a choice as an artist can make. Everything is better with cats, including your favorite movies and television shows. That’s why she created posters that show the characters of Game of Thrones, Mad Max: Fury Road, Parks and Recreation, and Broad City as cats.
The Arya and Joffrey are particularly effective illustrations. Adopt the cat of your choice. Conveniently, Theon is already fixed, so you won’t have to make an extra trip to the vet.
This cat needed a quiet spot to take a nap. He chose the front door of a McDonalds’s during lunch hour.
Was it a bad choice? The cat doesn’t care. People can walk by or over him. They are no threat or use to him.
-via Tastefully Offensive
(Image: ABC News)
Captain Steve Voglezon, US Army, was in Chatham County, North Carolina on Sunday when he saw a horrible head-on car collision. The cars caught on fire while two people remained inside, trapped and unable to escape.
Most people run away from fires, but Captain Voglezon ran toward the burning cars. He didn’t have a vibranium shield, or even a firefighter’s protective clothing—just a Captain America shirt. He used a fire extinguisher to smash open a car window, then dragged the two occupants to safety.
You can see the dramatic rescue in this video.
I would like to see a Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America, wearing a Captain Voglezon shirt.
-via Lyndsey Fifield
(Photo: unknown)
(Photo: Averagekody)
It’s time to graduate from high school! That’s a crazy time of our lives. Some schools take special photos of graduating seniors and publish them in yearbooks. Normal people take formal photos that reflect a sober entry into adulthood.
It’s no fun being normal.
22 Words rounded up 40 of the weirdest photos that graduating seniors took with the help of professional photographers. They are everything that youth should be.
(Image: Nikon)
Heartography is a new camera design by Nikon. It fits onto a dog’s chest with a harness. There’s a built-in heart monitor. When the dog becomes excited and his heart rate jumps, the camera takes a picture. This sets it apart from other dog-mounted cameras in that it is responsive to the dog’s stimuli.
The obvious next step would be to create a program that would automatically uploads the photos to Instagram and Facebook with appropriate captions and commentary. Your dog deserves a following on social media.
-via Dave Barry
(Photo: Christian Lukhaup/ZooKeeys)
This is the Cherax pulcher. The latter term is related to the Latin adjective for “beautiful.” And indeed it is!
This delicious-looking crawfish has been only recently classified. A German scientist named Christian Lukhaup found it in Hoa Creek, West Papua, Indonesia. It grows up to 12 centimeters long and is noted for its coat of many colors, including shades of blue and purple. There are at least 19 known Cherax species. This one has shown up at local markets since about the year 2000.
I’ll take 5 pounds—extra spicy, please.
-via The Soul Is Bone
