What do you know about Holland (or the Netherlands as its official name is)? Flowers, windmills, canals, cheese, wooden shoes, master painters from the Golden Age, bicycles. You're probably familiar with these. A new marketing campaign called 'Holland. The Original Cool' shows what's really cool about Holland.
YouTube link
(thanks Cora)
Friday, 17 May 2013
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
The meerschaum pipes carved in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century are among the most bizarre and improbable concoctions in decorative art. Some feature bowls made from the heads of historical figures like Napoleon while others sport the likenesses of literary characters such as Sir Dagonet, King Arthur’s much-abused jester.
Meerschaum is a relatively new material to pipe making, appearing no earlier than the 18th century. Found primarily in and around the city of Eskişehir in western Turkey, meerschaum is a porous mineral that's soft enough to be carved but hard enough to be polished, revealing the carver's artistry.
(thanks Ben)
500 Years Of Rare Science Illustrations
Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library brings together an extraordinary collection of works from the Rare Book Room and Rare Book Collections of the American Museum of Natural History's Research Library, spanning five centuries of anthropology, astronomy, earth science, paleontology, and zoology representing all seven continents.
Each highlighted work is accompanied by a short essay exploring its significance, what makes it rare - scarcity, uniqueness, age, binding type, size, value, or nature of the illustrations - and its place in natural history. 500 Years of Rare Science Illustrations.
Clever Water Stop Sign Prevents Tunnel Crashes In Australia
Faced with truck drivers not heeding warnings when their tractor trailers were too tall to enter the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, officials turned to a company called Laservision to put an end to these costly crashes that were not only closing the tunnel for weeks at a time, but also put other drivers on the road in considerable danger.
Laservision's Softstop system projects a familiar bright red stop sign, seemingly in mid-air, at the tunnel's entrance if a vehicle too large to enter is detected. In fact, the stop sign does not float in mid-air, but rather is projected onto a water screen that, should a vehicle not heed its command, would cause no damage from being driven through.
(thanks Cora)
Beat The Cheat
Nicholas Johnson is an Australian magician and comedian. He figured out how to cheat at every board game in the world in this mind bending video. The video was shot in one take with one hour of rehearsal including 20 people and 50 different computer and board game references.
YouTube link
Nicholas Johnson's website.
YouTube link
Nicholas Johnson's website.
How Many Tribbles Will Fit In Your House?
'The Trouble With Tribbles' is an episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Tribbles are depicted as small, soft, and gentle, and produce a soothing purring sound. These traits are said to endear them to most sentient races which encounter them.
Here's a fun calculator that tells you how many Tribbles would fit inside your home as well as how long it would take to fill your home up with these mulitplying trouble makers.
(thanks Sally)
Friday Cartoon By Mark Anderson
Mark Anderson is a professional cartoonist from the Chicago area. His cartoons have been published in Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Woman's World and the Saturday Evening Post, to mention just a few. Among his clients are GM, General Electric, FedEx, Microsoft, and IBM.
UFP: Starfleet Academy
Almost a year ago I posted about Facebook Starfleet Academy, a Star Trek story-telling project. It's a social internet series set in the year 2374, that allows page fans to experience the Dominion War as well as other Star Trek events - in real time.
In the past year, that story project has grown immensely, and is now followed on a daily basis by nearly 2,500 Star Trek fans from around the world. The project has, in many ways, become a unique and very popular fan-produced Star Trek internet series.
(via Jon Baas)
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Work It Kitty
Work It Kitty is an aerobics promo for Temptations cat treats. The music is by Alex Gaudino ft. Taboo 'I Don't Wanna Dance' from Ultra Music.
YouTube link
(via Everlasting Blort
YouTube link
(via Everlasting Blort
10 Terrifying Planets You Don't Want To Visit
Space exploration is a grand adventure. Its mystery has always captivated us and the inevitable discoveries to come will add to the many cosmological insights we already have. But let this list serve as a warning for any weary inter-solar travelers. The universe can be a very frightening place. I hope no one should ever find themselves stuck in one of these ten worlds.
Photos Of Mesmerizing Sun Halo
Last Tuesday, residents of New York and the surrounding area were privy to a really amazing celestial treat; it's called a Sun Halo, and one spent some time today hovering over The Big Apple and making people wonder if Martians were finally invading.
A halo is a type of optical phenomenon that can happen around the sun or moon. It's also referred to as a 22-degree halo because it forms a ring exactly 22-degrees from the sun. In order for a Sun halo to happen, a thin veil of high-level clouds has to put some hexagonal ice crystals at exactly right spot.
An Illustrated History Of Gas Masks
The gas mask has a history that dates back thousands of years, though it wasn't until World War I that it became nightmare fodder for Doctor Who and countless other stories. Here is a sometimes terrifying history of the gas mask, from its beginnings through the present day.
The Final Straw
A film by Ricky Renna. A scarecrow gets more than he bargains for when a stubborn crow invades his farmland.
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
3D Printed Mobiles
These 3D printed mobiles are the first fully 3D printed ones in the world and the result of a collaboration between Marco Mahler from Portland, Oregon, USA, a kinetic sculptor specializing in mobiles, and Henry Segerman, a research fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
The mobiles come out of a 3D-printer completely assembled. The balance points for these mobiles were calculated to 1/1000th of a millimeter (1/25360th of an inch). The models for some of these mobiles were drawn up 'by hand,' others were created utilizing scripts.
Why Your Ears Pop (And What To Do If They Don't)
Ear popping - also called ear clearing - is any of various maneuvers to equalize the pressure in the middle ear with the outside pressure, by letting air enter along the Eustachian tubes, as this does not always happen automatically when the pressure in the middle ear is lower than the outside pressure.
This need can arise in scuba diving, skydiving, fast descent in an aircraft, and being put into pressure in a caisson or similar pressure-bearing structure, or sometimes even simply travelling at fast speeds in an automobile. When that happens, learn how to fix it.
Stunning Photos Of Super-Dense Hong Kong Apartments
Will humans eventually turn into a hive mind? Will our tightly packed urban population centers eventually become so networked that we think together? It's hard not to wonder, staring at these photos of super-dense Hong Kong buildings.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
The Flying Monkeys Of Burlington
Even though Burlington is the largest city in the US state of Vermont, its population numbers just over 40,000 souls. Yet every place needs its guardians and protectors and Burlington has its very own to defend and preserve the population.
The fact that they are winged monkeys conceivably raises few eyebrows in the town: for visitors these primates with plumage are a source of surprise and delight.
The Glory Of Early Aviation (1900s-1960s
)Let's look back to the days when flying was an event, and airlines treated it accordingly, infusing boundless style and luxury into their 'Stratocruisers' and 'Super Constellations.'
The Golden Age of Air Travel.
Harley-Davidson - Real Test Ride
How do you transmit the spirit and values of Harley-Davidson for somebody who still doesn't haven't a motorcycle? By giving him a test ride. A real test ride.
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
Vimeo link
(thanks Cora)
How To Take A Bath And Other Vintage Visual Guides From The Early 1900s
The history of health is peppered with gorgeous anatomical flap-ups, strange medical art, and vibrant vintage illustrations, with a side of beautifully illustrated pseudoscience. But few come close to these vintage gems from the early 1900s, found in a French edition of Friedrich Eduard Bilz's 1888 naturopathic medicine guide 'Das Neue Naturheilverfahren' (The New Natural Healing).
Charmingly illustrated in the familiar style of early twentieth-century medical art, they offer visual directions to various methods of curing disease, from steam baths to massage to swimming.
10 Awesome Vine 6-Second Videos
Vine is a mobile app, owned by Twitter, that lets users create extremely short videos (6 seconds) from their smartphones and tablets and it's quickly becoming this year's biggest trend. Check out some of the best Vine videos so far.
(thanks Nahum)
Ghost Town Comes Up For Air After 25 Years Under Water
A strange ghost town that spent a quarter century under water is coming up for air again in the Argentine farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires. Villa Epecuén was once a tourist village. At its height, Villa Epecuén had the capacity to accommodate 5,000 visitors, while unofficial accommodations allowed for 2000 more.
On November 10, 1985, a seiche caused by a rare weather pattern broke a nearby dam first, then the dike protecting the town. Rapidly made uninhabitable, Villa Epecuén saw the waters rise progressively, reaching up to 10 metres (33 ft) at its maximum. The village was never rebuilt. Now the water has mostly receded, exposing what looks like a scene from a movie about the end of the world.
More photos over at The Atlantic.
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