The European Union (EU) wants to have a single standard charging port for all smartphones. Whether it’s an iPhone,  Samsung, or any type or brand of smartphone, the EU wants the hassle of finding the right charger for your phone gone. This goal is reducing electronic waste, and providing better consumer experience, as Interesting Engineering details: 

"More than 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste per year," happen because of old chargers being thrown out, stated the E.U.'s assessment. This may be reason enough to jump on the E.U.'s bandwagon for a standard charger. 

On top of that, the E.U. believes this would also improve the lives of consumers who would no longer have to go out and buy a new charger every time they upgrade their phone. 

It's not the first time we hear of the E.U. asking for such a change. Back in 2009 the European Commission had asked for harmonized charging systems. And 2014 saw the European Parliament create a new directive for single charger use. 

image via wikimedia commons

Wood is now seen as the material to replace steel and concrete, as it is said to reduce waste and create a more aesthetically-pleasing environment. The hype around replacing commonly-used building materials with wood is all thanks to structural timber (also known as massive timber). It involves sticking pieces of soft wood together like putting lego blocks together, as Vox detailed: 

Mass timber is a generic term that encompasses products of various sizes and functions, like glue-laminated (glulam) beams, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), nail-laminated timber (NLT), and dowel-laminated timber (DLT). But the most common and most familiar form of mass timber, the one that has opened up the most new architectural possibilities, is cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Slabs of wood this large can match or exceed the performance of concrete and steel. CLT can be used to make floors, walls, ceilings — entire buildings. The world’s tallest mass timber structure, at 18 stories and over 280 feet, was recently built in Norway; there’s an 80-story wooden tower proposed for Chicago.

image via Vox

A photographer posted a photo of himself to Instagram 300 times. Janick Entremont did this to see what the platform’s compression algorithms will do the the image. And as his reupload count increases, the more blurry and pixelated his face looked like once it was posted on the social media platform. Entremont shared that the quality of the picture was lost, as PetaPixel detailed: 

“Quality loss and alienation of the picture are consequences of an algorithmic compression,” Entremont writes. “What will last from your digital data? Not existing faces are created – instead, some that already exist are arranged to fit. Being altered and changing becomes one. Until nothing is the same anymore.”

“For me, the project is relevant on many levels: The handling of our digital data, online or offline, and the flood of images,” Entremont tells PetaPixel. “How improper use of social media changes our well-being and our appearance (regarding trends). Up to the constant surveillance and face recognition as it is common in China.”

image via PetaPixel

Dunkin’, the chain previously known as Dunkin’ Donuts, has tapped in with Snoop Dogg for their product, Beyond Sausage Sandwich. He even appeared in the product’s promotional stunt as an employee for the day. While the Beyond Sausage Sandwich has been offered in stores, Dunkin’ will release a special version of it for their collaboration with the rapper, called Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich. To know whether the sandwich is worth your money, check The Washington Post’s review of the sandwich. 

image via The Washington Post

Once Spotify found out through its survey that pet owners play music for their pets, they curated a special playlist for the adorable companions. Spotify created an algorithm that generates a custom playlist depending on your pet’s characteristics, in addition to a special podcast, as Reuters detailed: 

The Swedish audio-streaming business company said it has launched a podcast featuring soothing music, “dog-directed praise”, stories, and messages of affirmation and reassurance narrated by actors to alleviate stress for dogs who are home alone.

Spotify said it found in a survey that one in four pet-owners play music for their pets to listen to for company when they are away from home, with 42% of owners saying their pets have a favorite type of music.

A quarter of pet owners said they have even seen their pets dancing to music.

image screenshot via Spotify

Gus is an English Bulldog that hangs around The Foundation, a fitness center owned by his humans, Alexis and Matt Karstetter. Gus will plop on the treadmill or greet customers as he goes around the center. He is also the official mascot of the center! In addition to his usual rounds, he also joins in on workouts, as Popsugar details: 

"No matter what I'm doing, he is either sitting in between my legs or staring at me sitting next to me (I swear he's judging me or correcting my form in his head lol)," Alexis wrote to POPSUGAR via email. "He LOVES self-propelled treadmills and will start running without any coaxing. He is also slightly obsessed with medicine balls and BOSU balls." If you browse through Gus's Instagram account, which has amassed over 28,000 followers, you'll see that he has a knack for sneaking up into Alexis's space mid-sweat session (one viral video ahead shows him going up under her sweatshirt during a plank hold!).

image via Popsugar

Modder Mastaklo from kakarotmods.com has created a hilarious mod for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, a game on the PS4, Xbox, and PC. The mod injects the goose from the well-known Nintendo Switch game, The Untitled Goose Game into the action. Watch the three-minute gameplay from IGN as the goose hits a good combo attack against Piccolo. The goose is truly powerful! 

Simon Beck is a 61-year-old British artist who trudged across a frozen reservoir the west of Denver to create a massive geometric artwork on fresh snow. After a dozen hours of labour in extreme temperatures, a spectacular spiral pattern was created. The artwork spanned the length of about two soccer fields. Beck’s background as a cartographer and an orienteer, along with a handful of volunteers have made the process bear fruit, as AP News detailed: 

“I hope it makes people more aware of the snow and the environment and the beauty of it and how we need snow,” Beck said after completing the drawing. “And I think it’s a really beautiful and unique art form.”

Beck finished his day with high fives from his volunteers and congratulations from people who gathered on a nearby hillside to watch his progress.

But it hasn’t always gone this smoothly. It’s never clear how many workers will show up. And if bad weather rolls in, an intricate piece of art can quickly disappear.

“It’s very frustrating when you plod around for hours and hours and hours and then the wind blows it away before you’ve finished it,” he said.

image via AP News

Dan Hill visited a 24-Hour Fitness gym for a late night workout. Just as he finished swimming laps in the pool after midnight, he was alone in the building and its doors were locked. Shocked at the situation, he turned to Facebook for advice on what to do. While his wife suggested that he find a comfortable place to sleep, he called 911 and reported his emergency, as UPI detailed: 

"So, I called dispatch and the guy pauses for like 10 seconds and says 'You're where?'" Hill told KTVX-TV. "And I said, 'I'm in 24 Hour Fitness, and there's an alarm system here and I don't want to get busted for breaking and entering.'"

Hill took his Facebook friends on a tour of the gym while waiting for police to arrive. Officers showed up to let him out of the building just before 1 a.m.

The manager of the gym said the hours changed in December from 24 hours to 4 a.m.-midnight.

"We clearly did not do a good job of our closing procedures for this club on Saturday night and will reinforce our club procedures so that this incident doesn't occur in the future," the company said in a statement. "We continue to be committed to providing our members and guests with the best possible fitness experience at a great value."

image via Dan Hill

You read that correctly. McDonald’s Japan released the “Otona no Cream Pie”, which translates to “Adult Cream Pie” in English. While English speakers have raised their eyebrows at the unintentional (or not, who knows) double meaning of the new pie’s translated name, the Otona no Cream Pie is aimed at more refined adult palates, true to its name. SoraNews24 has the details: 

However, the difference in nuance has been lost in translation now that the word has been combined with “cream pie”, which evokes some X-rated imagery for English speakers.

Whether the double meaning was innocent or intentional, it’s a stroke of marketing genius that has a lot of people interested in the new product. So when the dessert went on sale today, we were one of the first in line to find out what an Adult Cream Pie tastes like.

We have to admit, it sounded odd when we asked for two flavours of “Otona no Cream Pie” at the counter, but staff were all smiles as they packed them up in a McDonald’s-branded brown paper bag for us.

The cream pie comes in Belgian Chocola and Sweet Fromage.

image via SoraNews24

The University of St. Andrews’ Dr. Sandra Toffolo has uncovered the oldest known depiction of Venice. The drawing is in the collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, Italy. Dr. Toffolo discovered the drawing in May 2019 as part of a travel manuscript by Italian pilgrim Niccolò da Poggibonsi. Poggibonsi traveled to Jerusalem from Italy in 1346-1350. Hyperallergic has more details: 

Dr. Toffolo made the discovery while completing researching for her monograph Describing the City, Describing the State. Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance, which will be published with Brill in early 2020.

“… Venice is one the most-depicted cities in history,” said Dr. Toffolo, in an email interview with Hyperallergic. “From the 14th century onwards people have continuously depicted the city in manuscripts, printed books, paintings, and countless other media. My own research focuses on representations of Venice in the Renaissance.”

Dr. Toffolo’s book provides a detailed analysis of descriptions and visual representations of both the city of Venice and the Venetian mainland state during the Renaissance, when Venice came to stand at the head of a large state on the Italian peninsula.

image via Hyperallergic

Elite the Vanishing Tray is an object that makes objects placed on it disappear with a gesture from the user. Aldo Deli, the designer of this wonder tray wanted to show a little mystery in simple objects and to show what happens when two objects interact with each other. The trick behind Elite’s vanishing function is a scale. The tray’s system works like a scale, as Designboom detailed: 

the system works just like a scale, however, the object is only housed and not weighed. the movement of the top is further highlighted with the different chromatic finish of the inner surface, which frames the objects inside, so the piece constantly changes configuration. the project includes a tray (h 5 cm, ø 40) and a pocket emptier (h 4 cm, ø 20).

the prototype was made using iron, aluminum and plywood. once the iron elements were laser cut, the external tape and the lower plate were welded. the copper tape was then glued inside with silicone and aluminum tubes have been cut to create guides to the springs and the central pin. to obtain their correct positioning and keep the product light, plywood disks were cut inside, which created the slots for the guides, and subsequently glued to the structure. finally, the vanishing tray was completed with three coats of white paint.

image via Designboom

This video of an edible checkerboard might be the next source of your inspiration for a new baked creation. Alternatively, this could just be another video that you can watch and admire because of the sheer effort and creativity that goes into it. Watch Tasty create this checkerboard with cookie dough and some macarons. Maybe if you can obliterate your opponent at chess next time by using this checkerboard (by eating all of his macaron chess pieces)! 

The 21-day rule is used as a basis for forming habits. According to the rule, it takes 21 days to form a habit. Refinery29’s Molly Longman debunks the 21-day rule, claiming it as a myth. According to them, the rule is a misinterpretation of Maxwell Maltz’ work in Psycho-Cybernatics. Matlz noticed that a patient would take 21 days to adjust to a change in their body (whether it was a nose job or amputation). It wasn’t 21 days exactly, but a minimum of 21 days. In addition to the misinterpretation, research also discredits this known rule, as Refinery29 details: 

Research summarily discredits the “21-day rule.” Phillippa Lally, PhD, a senior researcher at University College London, published a study that found it actually takes an average of 66 days — more than two months – to form a habit. Lally also reported that the amount of time before a new behavior feels automatic can range between 18 and 254 days.

“We don't really know what predicts the variation in times,” Lally says. But she does have a hunch: “It’s likely easier to consider that [a habit] feels automatic when it's a simpler behavior," Lally says. Drinking a glass of water in the morning requires less work than starting to exercise regularly, for example; so you may feel as though you're able to incorporate the former into your routine more quickly than the latter.

image via wikimedia commons

Ever since the announcement of a Nintendo theme park at Universal Studios, a lot of people have been waiting for more details and announcements for the park. A new press release from Universal Studios has revealed that the official opening date for Super Nintendo World will be announced after its Global Promotion event. This means that the news for the highly-anticipated theme park opening will be after February 2020. This opening date, as Nintendo Soup clarified, might just be for the Universal Studios Japan. 

(via NintendoSoup)

image via NintendoSoup