World First! Bike Flip on a Moving Train: “Red Bull makes you crazy” is the subtext for me.
9/23/2024
4/19/2024
Fishermen saved by ‘Help’ message on same tiny island where ‘SOS’ saved three others: palm fronds, good to know.
4/16/2024
That self-appendectomy: you’re the only doctor on station in the Antarctic and your appendix bursts, what do you do? Click through if you want to see for yourself.
4/12/2024
meow.camera: watch Chinese cats eating. For some reason. {via}
3/28/2024
Barbaras Rhababerbar: I think this is a comedy song about a villager named Barbara and her famous rhubarb cake. {via}
11/27/2023
Tenochtitlan: I am a sucker for architectural reconstructions of the past. It’s easy to forget that the Aztec Empire was huge and developed completely independent of the Greco-European civilization with which we’re more familiar.
10/25/2023
Venice’s streets and their strangeness: the general term for these sorts of constructions is “defensive architecture.”
9/13/2023
AskHistorians – What does McCain’s monument in Hanoi say?: I’ve seen American politicians repeatedly go there to pay homage—Biden most recently—but they should not.
3/12/2021
Mercedes-Benz Museum: this really gives a sense of the space—though it’s far too rapid to replace a visit—and I look forward to this becoming a thing that happens regularly. {via}
3/11/2021
Sweden Solar System: neat, seemingly organic representation of celestial bodies.
2/5/2021
Delightful Acapella Versions of Familiar Jingles: this is some acapella that doesn’t annoy me.
[UPDATE: Brand new one today!]
8/23/2020
The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife: the same guy who did The Wave also painted this in 1814.
3/10/2020
CAR vs. WORLD’S STRONGEST TRAMPOLINE- 150ft (45m) drop: it’s 10 seconds of footage expanded out to fifteen plus minutes but that 10 seconds is totally worth it! {via}
6/7/2018
A Russian Oligarch’s $500 Million Yacht Is in the Middle of Britain’s Costliest Divorce: that is a nice ship. The crew is always the one that suffers in a divorce.
6/1/2018
Injuries at annual cheese-rolling contest in UK: this is such a ludicrous event—and it’s apparently been going on for centuries. Google Street View goes to the top of Cooper’s Hill.
5/26/2018
Gravity Industries: lots of questions about the jet suit specifications but this is damn impressive nonetheless!
5/10/2018
; DROP TABLE “COMPANIES”;– LTD – Overview: classic joke, excellent IT consultancy name.
5/7/2018
EUC contest 2016: very impressive! {via}
4/10/2018
Items Found During #WeaponSweep: look at all the rope that can’t get cut now thanks to the London police. Phew! (In other news: if you may have committed a crime, manage to escape, and are close enough, they can now spray you so they can maybe find you later.)
4/4/2018
Stockholm family wraps home in greenhouse to warm up weather: not a bad idea if you live in a very cold climate, I’d say. (I don’t.)
4/2/2018
In Ethiopia, A New Ban On Foreign Adoptions Is About National Pride: this is quite troubling. Who cares if the children are condemned to a life of orphanages or abandonment, they must stay put.
3/27/2018
Toronto restaurant shocks vegans protesting meat: you want to avoid meat, fine. You want to force me to avoid meat, we’ve got problems. (Frankly, why not throw animal blood—or paint—on them like they would always do to fur wearers.)
3/23/2018
It’s a JOKE!: excellent take on the British travesty. (Lots of warranted cursing.) {via}
Exchange students in Italy set fire by cooking pasta without water: 20-years old is an adult. How do you go through life that long without knowing that pasta is cooked in a microwave?! Geesh. {via}
2/20/2018
China wages war on funeral strippers: that’s just weird. Imagine the first family that did this, before it caught on. Awkward!
Plyscraper city – Tokyo to build 350m tower made of wood: I don’t get the impetus behind this at all. What’s wrong with steel?
2/12/2018
‘Super blue blood moon’ leaves Venetian gondolas stranded on dried-up canal banks: it looks so eerie. Poor Venetians have to walk like those Florentine suckers.
2/9/2018
English Sports: that pretty much nails their inscrutability to me. {via}
2/6/2018
Britain’s Giant Airship: I’ve read his book and it is wonderful. The writing is so compelling.
Ehang’s passenger-carrying drones look insanely impressive in first test flights: I really thought this was vaporware when it was announced at CES two years ago. The problem—at this point—is much simpler than autonomous cars, but will face a very real coordination problem at scale.
2/4/2018
Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle: this was presaged by the events in The Lost City of the Monkey God. Far from being a dead field, archaeology is going to have a boom soon just to deal with excavating the findings from LIDAR.
1/30/2018
Fast rail – watch 1,500 Chinese workers build train station track in 9 hours: I’m a sucker for these time-lapse videos of Chinese construction. It almost makes you forget the perils of an authoritarian regime.
After Building New AU Headquarters, China Spies on Addis Ababa Facility: if you’re not paying for something, then you’re the product being sold. {via}
1/26/2018
Nutella ‘riots’ spread across French supermarkets: looks like the desire for a good deal isn’t limited to ugly, fat Americans, eh?
1/24/2018
TrapAdventure 2: makes Flappy Bird look easy by comparison. More details here. {via}
1/23/2018
Dutch police to ‘undress’ youths wearing clothes deemed too expensive for them: heaven forbid you store a cookie when visiting a Web site without consent. Europe. {via}
Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service=: sometimes you just need a good reminder of technology’s utility, especially if you’re a fan of Black Mirror. {via}
1/19/2018
Omoshiro Block – A Memo Pad That Excavates Objects as it Gets Used: so very clever. {via}
1/17/2018
Kazakhstan Cheers New Alphabet, Except for All Those Apostrophes: Turkish does seem the obvious route to pursue, but for the stubborn opinion of a doddering dictator. {via}
Hubble just spotted something massive coming out of Uranus: and the news continues. {via}
1/16/2018
Swiss town denies passport to Dutch vegan because she is ‘too annoying’: she’s married to a Swiss citizen so she’s not going anywhere. {via}
1/15/2018
Queen Elizabeth’s Life in Banknotes: neat watching a life encapsulated in 20 seconds. If you’d rather read about it, the Washington Post has the text version. {via}
1/9/2018
3 football player vs 100 kids player in Japan: it sure took them awhile to score. Geesh. {via}
12/15/2017
Death of Man in Skyscraper Fall in China Puts a Spotlight on ‘Rooftopping’: it’s unfortunate but inevitable. I hope people stop doing this.
11/7/2016
Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen/PIKO-TARO: 80 million views. 80 million.
3/2/2016
Wintergatan – Marble Machine: whoa. Just wow. {via}
2/22/2016
Ancient Rome: HBO’s Rome brought ancient Rome to life more, for me. But this is very captivating still. {via}
2/17/2016
China’s Enormous Derelict Shopping Mall Does Not Bode Well For Humanity’s Future: wow, that’s such a waste.
12/21/2015
The World’s First Underwater Tennis Court Could Cost $2.5 Billion: no amount of assurances would convince me to be a spectator there.
11/9/2015
Caminito del Rey: holy crap. And I thought that trail in China was death-defying! As scary as it is (boy howdy is it scary!), the sobering thought is that people built this in the first place.
10/14/2015
Scarfolk Council: blog about a fictional dystopian town trapped in the 1970s. I don’t understand one bit, but it’s well done.
9/9/2015
Battle Sports Inc: Canadians have sublimated anger?
9/4/2015
Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit: absolutely sickening. {via}
8/25/2015
Dismaland: I feel like they’ve really captured its essence.
8/23/2015
Ridiculous Sky Pool Lets People Swim Between Buildings: ridiculous is right but, man, that first time would be great.
8/20/2015
Banksy Dismaland show revealed at Weston’s Tropicana: go visit nihilism-land and hate yourself!
8/14/2015
Researcher makes himself into a GOAT with prosthetics to follow herd in the Alps: species is a social construction. “Funded by the government.” You don’t say! {via}
9/6/2014
Jack the Ripper unmasked: what a wanker (literally).
8/29/2014
On the Roofs: holy, holy crap. Someday, these will be the evidence for a posthumous Darwin Award.
7/31/2014
Sentinelese people: residents of North Sentinel Island of whom very little is known. The number of contacts over the last two hundred years can be counted on two hands, maybe.
7/8/2014
This is Shanghai: what an incredible video!
5/27/2014
20 Amazing Hotels You Need To Visit Before You Die: linkbait taken. These are stunning.
4/9/2014
Kim Jong-un executes security minister by FLAME THROWER: bloodthirsty dictators need to get creative to stay engaged. Mortar round? Come on, that’s the province of the bored.
1/23/2014
Fake London Underground signs: these are hilarious and look like they belong.
2/7/2013
Rudolf Virchow – The Sausage Duel: riskier than, say, pistols?
12/24/2012
Holland vs the Netherlands: what’s the difference? Watch and learn.
11/28/2012
Extremely Scary Ghost Elevator Prank in Brazil: borders on cruel but very good execution.
Jefferson Perez – Would he run ?: pretty elaborate setup to answer that one.
8/14/2012
What is the most remarkable single physical performance in Olympic history?: every answer’s a winner, but I was floored by this gymnastics routine.
6/9/2012
Hidden treat – The Easter Island heads also have BODIES: I had no idea. How has this been known for decades and it’s the first I’d heard of it‽ {via}
5/25/2012
In Seoul, retailer uses 3D QR codes and the sun to deliver discounts only during its quiet times: that is tremendously clever.
5/19/2012
25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English: love these sorts of lists. {via}
3/25/2012
25 Death-Defying Photos by Vadim Mahorov: whoa. Just mother-f’in whoa.
1/24/2012
10 Worlds Most Dangerous Airports: sweet sassy molassey! Worth watching to the end.
11/26/2011
Mieders Alpine Coaster (with no brakes!!): whoa. Just whoa. {via}
9/22/2011
Climbing Red Gates in Moscow: chilling and nauseating.
8/23/2011
Scientists undo evolution to create a chicken with a maniraptora ‘snout’: not allowed “for ethical reasons” to hatch the animal?! Come on, maybe it’s delicious! {via}
How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela: the proper response to a dictator trying to get his inflation hedge as he simultaneously tries to wreck his economy? “The gold stays put.”
6/30/2011
Goodbye to Chuquisaca: look at the hamburger joint sign a little more than halfway down the set of photos.
5/20/2011
An Inland Archipelago: freaking Europeans.
5/5/2011
Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg: awesomeness just got awesomer.
8/20/2010
Valentin Beinroth, Florian Jenett: gun-shaped licorice makes for great photos. {via}
8/17/2010
7/20/2010
“Black parents give birth to white baby”: wow, that is quite a genetic quandary.
Portable Watermelon Cooler: I assume you could use it for keeping other watermelon-shaped items cool when watermelon’s out of season, like hams, severed heads, or jugs of milk. {via}
1/7/2010
Running from Camera: it’s the new phoon, as far as I’m concerned.
12/14/2009
Hardcore Rollerblading: it’s too bad you couldn’t see the reaction of the motorcyclists he’s passing. Also, how does he stop? {via}
12/2/2009
The Taiwanese News CG Reenactment: I have no idea what’s being said but this video says all I need to know about the Tiger Woods accident. {via}
10/14/2009
Sniper Sniper!: uhh, practical jokes don’t generally end with needing to change your underwear.
10/1/2009
Liu Bolin: very well done camouflaging, but I have a problem calling it art.
7/19/2009
Uhh, Weird Asian Photos?: the site is in Russian but the theme is pretty obvious. This collection makes the Japanese (I assume) look both more and less exotic.
6/30/2009
Bare Essentials of Safety: in-flight safety video from Air New Zealand. You’ll quickly notice where it differs from others in this genre. From the “Nothing to Hide” marketing campaign.
2/10/2009
Level Crossing Man: missed it by that much.
2/6/2009
“Zimbabwe revalues currency again”: by fiat, lops off 12 zeroes—that’s a trillion folks. Inflation is unofficially at 658 billion percent; unemployment is at 94%. {via}
1/23/2009
“No Snickering”: okay, Penistone I can believe. But Butt Hole Road? Come on, Britishers.
1/17/2009
Sleeping Chinese: pictures of Shanghai residents sleeping in public, though I have to wonder how some of them are even possible.
11/5/2008
“Vicar hospitalised with potato up his bum”: I thought that only happened in the Appalachian Emergency Room. {via}
10/22/2008
“France to halt games when anthem is booed”: “We cannot tolerate our Marseillaise being jeered.” Oh those surrender monkeys, so quick to offend. {via}
10/16/2008
Unbeatable Banzuke: the craziest Japanese athletic game show I’ve ever seen. There’s plenty of video of it on YouTube. It makes me wish I had G4 still.