Maria Nina Vaclavek, a Czech fashion designer, made these blocky shoes while she was a student at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic. They're a modern-looking design, but Vaclavek's inspiration was actually the earliest shoes worn by humans. In 2014, she told Dezeen that she wrapped leather around a form, as Stone Age humans did when they invented shoes:
"The caveman hunted down an animal, skinned it and wrapped the leather – still raw and warm – around his foot where he tightened it with bast," she continued. "The leather adapts the shape of the user's foot. I found this technology very interesting and decided to work with it further."
Adapting this method, Vaclavek wrapped a piece of wet vegetable-tanned leather around a platform and a shoemaker's last. When it dried, the leather became rigid and formed the solid shape of the shoes.
If you want to survive, you must immediately take off your socks and pee on them. No, right now!
As we've noted in the past, urine can be used to fuel tiny electrical generators called microbial fuel cells. This can be useful in an emergency when you don't have a battery handy, but you did drink way too much coffee before the crisis began.
Now researchers at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK have put that design concept into practical use. They've developed socks that, when soaked in human urine, provide electricity. Simply walking around in the urine-soaked socks provides the necessary pumping action. After two minutes of walking, the very smelly user has enough electricity to juice up a radio transmitter. The New Scientist explains how it works:
Aiming to make a self-sufficient, wearable device that works anywhere without additional power, the team created a manual foot pump inspired by how fish use involuntary muscles to circulate blood around their bodies.
Instead of muscle, the pump uses flexible silicone tubes, which wrap under the heels and connect to bendy MFCs near the ankles. Each step taken squeezes and releases the tubes to pump the urine around.
When people in Indonesia want to watch television programs from the United States, their top pick is the 1989 cartoon The Karate Kid. In Argentina, it's The Simpsons. Romanians prefer Game of Thrones and South Africans want Modern Family.
The entertainment magazine Vulture looked through the TV ratings for 18 countries to find what are the 10 most popular shows of American origin in each. You can find the entire list here. Some, particularly Indonesia, are quite surprising.
The Victorian era is generally regarded to be the years of Queen Victoria's reign, from 1837 to 1901. Shown here are a few selections from a fascinating collection of photographs of Christmas in the Victorian years. Artificial Christmas trees didn't yet exist, thus the trees had an imperfect, usually shorter shape than we're used to seeing today. Christmas lights strung on the tree? Negative. Beautiful handmade ornaments? Practically guaranteed.
The Batman television series that ran from 1966-1968 was so lovable, with its combination of kitsch, over-the-top music and sound effects and sixties glam. Now a Twitter account called "Batman 66 Labels" is bringing the sixties Bat back with its collection of labels for Bat "weaponry."
Anything that followed a line like "quick Robin, access the" is fair game. The bag of tricks with which B and R used to fight crime was vast, and often amusingly labeled. Whether the moniker is obvious or oblivious to its hilarity, it's something everyone who's seen episodes of the classic series can enjoy.
We often assume that actors are nothing but famous faces who memorize lines and look good on camera, but many actors are multifaceted individuals who enjoy doing a lot more than basking in the limelight.
Ex-NFL player turned actor/Old Spice spokesmaniac Terry Crews clearly enjoys hitting the gym when he's not on camera, but lifting weights isn't exactly a talent. However, painting photo realistic portraits is pure talent, one most people don't expect a muscle-bound ex-jock to possess.
Sometimes celebs get to show off their hidden talents in a project they're starring in, thereby secretly revealing their skills to the world.
Neil Patrick Harris got to do just that when he starred as the murderous magician Chester Creb in American Horror Story: Freak Show.
Santa Claus is the symbol of Christmas, the larger-than-life bearded guy with two lists that keep kids in line and a team of magical flying reindeer who help him deliver presents to kids around the world in one night.
He was based on a real guy once upon a time, but his legend has become as bloated as his belly to the point where the only people who still believe all those Santa stories are really young children and the two Santa fans in this video.
This beautiful, fanciful skyscraper is a proposal by architect, professor and Assistant Dean at the Yale School of Architecture Mark Foster Gage. The design proposal, intended for 41 W. 57th Street, would certainly be a standout in the midtown Manhattan skyline.
The 102-story residential building, a nod to art deco architecture like the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings, is overflowing with elaborate embellishments that look like jewelry draped over the building.
“Each unit has its own unique figurally carved facade and balconies that frame particular features of the surrounding urban and natural landscapes.”
Whether this is just an exercise in how to revolutionize midtown’sBillionaires’ Row or a true contender as future midtown real estate remains to be seen.
Ornaments in Glossy Pantone Colors | Image: BRIT.CO
For people who put up a tree every year, ornaments can be the perfect gift. So varied are their styles that one can always find an ornament to fit the personality of the receiver. Unlike socks. we tend to remember who gave us any ornaments we didn't select ourselves, thus the gift can create memories. Also, most ornaments are affordable for people on a budget.
It was an unusual form of mummification. It ended in 1949, but 14 of the bodies preserved this way prior to then are still out in the open and remarkably well-preserved. Ian Lloyd Neubauer, a journalist with the BBC, journeyed into the remote Aseki District of Papua New Guinea to learn more about the practice. He talked to a local man named Dickson:
Most of what’s known about the mummies is based on hearsay, exaggeration or flights of the imagination. Even the locals I spoke to – Dickson, a pastor named Loland and a schoolteacher named Nimas – seemed to offer different stories about the ritual’s past.
The first documented report on the smoked corpses was by British explorer Charles Higginson in 1907 – seven years prior to the start of WWI. Yet according to Dickson, the mummying practice began during WWI, when the Anga attacked the first group of missionaries to arrive in Aseki. His great-grandfather, one of the corpses we saw under the cliff, was shot dead by the missionaries in self-defence.
Dickson said the event sparked a series of payback killings that came to an end when the missionaries gifted the natives salt, with which they began embalming their dead. The practice only lasted for a generation, he added, since a second round of missionaries successfully converted the Anga to Christianity.
Loland and Nimas confirmed that the smoke corpse ritual ended in 1949, when missionaries took firm root in Aseki. But unlike Dickson, Loland and Nimas said mummification had been practiced by the Anga for centuries. The bodies were not cured using salt, they explained, but smoked over months in a “spirit haus”. They were then covered in red clay to maintain their structural integrity and placed in shrines in the jungle.
Sean Fallon of Fashionably Geek refers to these hairstyles "unicorn braids." That's a great name! Shelley Gregory of Square Salon in Las Vegas is responsible for giving these women enchanted braids look like they emerged from fairy tales.
Windspeed says that the designs should be completely safe in many planes, from wide-body jetliners to executive transports. The bubble is made with the same material as supersonic fighter jet canopies, so it's safe against air hazards at lower speeds, such as bird strikes.
Star Wars fans in Sydney, Australia gathered for a huge party to celebrate the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Darth Vader (or a cosplayer--it can be hard to tell) attended in a suit perfect for local conquest. The national flag forms his cape and breastplate. He's eschewed a lightsaber for a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age: a boomerang. You can see more photos of the cosplayers in Sydney at BuzzFeed.
P.S. What kind of beer is attached to Lord Vader's utility belt? I can't make out the logo.
Hokusai (c.1760-1849) was a famous artist in the Edo period of Japan. Among other works, he created extraordinarily vivid woodblock prints of the sea, most famously The Great Wave off Kanagawa (below).
These prints are so expressive that they almost seem to leap off the paper. So they've inspired Alena Akhmadulina, a Russian fashion designer, to produce a line of dresses that look like Hokusai's prints. You can see more at Rocket News 24.
Dumptruck and Porkchop are best friends, but they're ruthless competitors when they get on the agility course. April Campbell and her father demonstrate this in their video showing the pair navigate a scaled-down agility course at high speed. Dumptruck and Porkchop have to get over the hurdles and the seesaw, then through the hoops, past the hamster walk, and through the weaving poles.
Shon Simpkins, who sounds a lot like Morgan Freeman, provides the sports commentary throughout this thrilling race.
