Gergely Bogányi, a Hungarian pianist, spent 10 years developing what Kelcee Griffis of My Modern Met calls "the piano of the future." It's a beautiful form, but the Bogányi piano is more than just a thing of beauty. Internally, it's a rethinking of the machine that produces sounds different from modern pianos. Marton Dunai writes for Reuters:

Nearly all 18,000 components were rethought. The two wide, curved legs double as sound deflectors. Thanks to an intricate mechanism, the strings apply minimal pressure on the sound board, made of over 20 carbon composite layers. The cast-iron frame boasts an all-new design. […]

Karoly Reisinger, CEO of the New York piano repair shop Klavierhaus, was "mesmerized" at a sound he said brought lyrical qualities back to the piano after a century of power-focused development.

"In this design you will be able to hear the 1850-1860 era qualities, lyrical, bell-like, precise – and also the modern instrument that our time is used to, which is clarity," he said.

Four-time Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Gerald Clayton felt he had played a slick new type of instrument.

"The sound almost feels as if you're in a bubble, it's so clear," he said. "It's a new sensation."

-via Inventor Spot

(Photos: Core77)

Saunas are a big deal in Finland. In fact, the word sauna is of Finnish origin. So for Finns, luxury accommodations must include a hot steambath. Skybox 408 at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki offers guests a bar, gourmet food, and a 20-person sauna.

Guests can strip down and watch hockey from the privacy of one-way glass windows. Renting it costs €2,500 per night, which is about $2,822 USD.

Derek Klingenberg is a farmer and YouTube celebrity in Kansas. When we last saw him, he was summoning his cattle by playing Lorde's "Royals" on a trombone. But Klingenberg is a Renaissance man--he's not limited to one form of art. He knows both music and the visual arts. He demonstrates his talent for the latter by herding his cattle in such a way that they form a smiley face. An aerial drone captured his impressive craftsmanship.

(Video Link)

-via Tastefully Offensive

For more than three decades, Fred Rogers was our neighbor. Through his television programs, he was a special friend who helped children grow up healthy. If you were a child during his era, you got to visit his neighborhood through the screen. Now you can do so in real life. The Heinz History Center in Rogers’s own city of Pittsburgh has several items from his set on public display.

(Photos: Senator John Heinz History Center)

Among them is King Friday’s castle, the Great Oak Tree, Mister Rogers’ living room, and several of his puppets.

-via Daily of the Day

P.S. A few months ago, I read Many Ways to Say I Love You: Wisdom for Parents and Children from Mister Rogers. I highly recommend it. This book helped me clarify who I want to be as a father.

(Photo: Inami Wood Carving Collective)

The Inami style of wood carving dates back to Eighteenth Century Japan. The master craftsmen there make the finest sculptures and other implements rendered in wood. In addition to more traditional uses for their craft, the artisans also make bodies for electric guitars. They are breathtakingly beautiful, especially the guitar bodies shaped like dragons. You can view more of them at Rocket News 24.

I grew up watching television—really more than I should have. Back then, to watch a new episode, you had to wait until it aired the next week. If you missed it because you had other plans . . . well, too bad. You missed it.

Now, it’s normal to watch an entire season of a show and only that show for a while. The television watching experience is very different. Tony Wilson of Dorkly summarized it in 5 cartoons. You can view the rest here.

At a fancy hotel like the Hotel Indigo along San Antonio’s Riverwalk, the concierge staff is there to ensure that your special (but legal) needs are tended to. Imgur member FreePsychicReadings decided to put them to the test. She asked a concierge to place on her bed a framed photo of actor Nicholas Cage as he appeared in the movie Con Air.

Ramon the concierge was prompt, efficient, and accurate.

But the test wasn’t over. The guest wanted more Nicholas Cage pictures—and specific ones—placed in particular areas of her room. You can view more photos and screenshots from their exchange here.

-via 22 Words

What does it mean to be a beautiful woman? This is a subjective question. The answer varies from culture to culture. BuzzFeed offers this video highlighting feminine beauty standards in different countries and periods of history, including ancient Egypt, China during the Han Dynasty, Victorian Britain, and 1960s America.

(Video Link)

(Photo: Tampa Humane Society)

Someone in Tampa, Florida hit Bart the cat with a car. He was lying, apparently lifeless, in a pool of his own blood in the road when his owner, Ellis Hutson, found him. Hutson dug a hole and buried Bart. He and his family mourned the loss of Bart.

But Bart wasn't done yet. He had unfinished business.

5 days after he had been buried, Bart returned home, hungry, bloody, and dehydrated. Bart lost an eye, has deep lacerations, and a broken jaw. But he's alive.

How is Bart still alive? Hutson's neighbor, Dusty Albritton, has no idea:

“I saw him with my own eyes. I know he was dead. He was cold and stiff,” Albritton told ABC News. […]

“Now my kids believe their cat will also rise from the dead," she said with a chuckle. "But I told them I don't think so."

When she discovered the resurrected Bart, she said he acted “like he’s in no pain whatsoever.”

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Admit it: you would do this, too.

Monday was Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, one of the more under-appreciated holidays on the American cultural calendar. Rarely will employers give workers a day off on this most hallowed of occasions (I’m looking at you, Alex).

(Video Link)

But the five men behind the YouTube channel Dude Perfect celebrated the correct way. They took a pilgrimage to the headquarters of the Sealed Air Corporation in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is that wondrous place where bubble wrap is born. There, like in the Olympics of old, the five dudes undertook athletic competitions in honor of bubble wrap.

-via Huffington Post

(Photo via Mitteldeutsche Zeitung)

Being a romantic sort, Christian Breier found the perfect way to propose to his girlfriend. He drove over the speed limit past a traffic speed monitoring camera near his home in Leipzig, Germany. While doing so, he held up a sign saying (in German), “Will you marry me?”

A police computer issued him a ticket and mailed it to him, along with a photo of his car speeding past the camera. When Breier’s girlfriend opened up the ticket, she found his marriage proposal. Justin Huggler describes the challenges of this proposal in the Daily Telegraph:

That meant it was a delicate operation, and Mr Breier said it took him five attempts at driving past the cameras holding the sign up before he went fast enough to trigger the camera.

Far from being offended at Mr Breier’s flouting of the law and abuse of their speed camera, local officials in the small town of Merseburg seem to have decided to play along when they discovered Mr Breier’s ruse, because they took the unusual step of sending a print of the speed camera photo blown up to A4 size.

Mr Breier’s 29-year-old girlfriend, who gave her name only as Anja, told reporters: “We had spoken about marriage before. And I told him he’d have to think of a cool way of proposing.”

Mr Breier’s response to the challenge cost him a €15 fine, but as far as he was concerned, it was worth it: she said yes.

(Photo: Scott Davidson)

There are degrees of stolenness. Something can be just a smidgen stolen. Something else can be fairly well stolen. Or, in more extreme cases, an item can be very stolen or even profoundly stolen. The gradations can be subtle, but they are not invisible.

Alas, for this woman in Sandestin, Florida, police did not accept her argument that the truck she was in was not as stolen as they believed. The Daily News reports:

When officers pointed out that she knew the vehicle had been stolen, she replied, “I didn’t think it was that stolen,” according to the report.

She is charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle.

-via VA Viper

Tez Gilmir’s son loves LEGO. He’s obsessed with it and his father wants to promote this creative hobby. So he built this large, portable kit that folds and unfolds as needed. There’s even a built-in stool! The cabinet is made out of plywood with 3D printed lettering. The bins are labeled for easy sorting. They all lock in place when it’s folded up. You can read and download copies of the plans here.

(Photo: Patrick Peterson)

I have never taken a selfie, so I am very, very far behind Patrick Peterson, a cornerback on the Arizona Cardinals football team. He’s a fast actor with both a football and a cellphone. On Tuesday, Peterson secured a Guinness World Record by taking 1,449 selfies with a cellphone in just one hour. That’s one every 2.48 seconds.

Peterson performed the feat at Deer Valley High School in Glendale, Arizona. His attempt blew away the old record of 657 established by Lee Goodfellow in Glasgow, Scotland last year.

-via Guinness World Records

(Photo: Portland State University)

Italy plans to send an espresso machine to the International Space Station later this year, which has prompted this innovative cup design. Astronauts usually suck liquids out of containers with tubes. But that’s a terrible way to drink fine Italian coffee. Espresso should be sipped from an espresso cup. This cup developed by researchers at Portland State University can permit precisely that, even in very low gravity. Liz Stinson writes for Wired:

The cup’s shape is odd—a little like a plastic baby boot—and was determined by mathematical models. Every curve and geometric shape is designed to encourage the controlled movement of liquid. You’ll notice a pointed corner in the center of the cup; this strange bit of design is what makes it possible to drink liquids in low gravity. The corner essentially acts like a wick, using surface tension to guide liquid toward your mouth. As soon as an astronaut touches her mouth to the lip of the cup, a capillary connection is formed and the liquid travels up the vessel and forms sippable balls of coffee.

It sounds simple enough, but designing a cup for space requires a deep understanding of how fluids move in low gravity. “We’re geeks, and we make spacecraft fluid systems,” says Mark Weislogel, a professor of mechanical and mechanical engineering who is leading the research. “It’s like space plumbing.