I was directed to the Instagram account of svetlanko69, and was not disappointed. It's nothing but photos and videos of bears (both cubs and full-grown giants) often interacting with humans.
Fake bear/human fight:
Bear cub gardener:
Bear cub adorableness:
Everlasting bear/human friendship:
I challenge you to find a better Instagram account that specializes in Russians and bears. Read the rest
The Chopstick Master costs $195. It makes perfectly tapered chopsticks and puts a diamond-shaped finial on the end. It includes a bottle of "food grade chopstick oil."
Rain Noe of Core 77 says: "If that sounds pricey to you, consider that if you brought it to any kind of fair or festival and set up a make-your-own-chopsticks booth at $10 a pop, I bet you'd pay the thing off in a single day easy." Read the rest
Amazon has a lightning deal on this clip-on tuner. It's just $5.59 for the time being. I bought one. Read the rest
The original art for the cover of R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat 1969 paperback sold at Heritage Auctions for $717,000:
Robert Crumb R. Crumb's Fritz the Cat Cover Original Art (Ballantine, 1969). Fritz gets cozy with girlfriend Charlene in this famous cover image, taken from the oversized collection of stories first published by Ballantine in October, 1969. This book was so popular, it rated a second printing a month later! The image would go on to inspire a popular statue by Randy Bowen and Neil Surges in 2003 that quickly sold out. Fritz himself would go on to star in two feature-length animated movies, Fritz the Cat (1972), and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974). Although later abandoned by the artist, Fritz remains one of R. Crumb's most popular characters, one that dates back to the homemade comics Robert was producing as a teenager in the early sixties. This is perhaps one of the most famous and important single pieces of art by Crumb, one that has been stashed away in a private collection for many years. It's sure to be the centerpiece of any collection of Underground Comix art. It's in ink on Bristol board, with an approximate image area of 11" x 12.5", and matted to an overall size of 16" x 20". There is minor outer border handling and edge wear, but the image remains in Excellent condition.
Crumb hated the Ralph Bakshi movie adaptations so much that he drew a story in which Fritz was stabbed to death by his ex-girlfriend. Read the rest
Let me clean my bike in this shallow pond.
What's worse than a dirty bike? Not having a bike. Read the rest
It's hard to tell what's going on here with all the shouting, but a passenger was posting live updates about an irate gent's antics on this United flight from Shanghai:
Read the restAlready delayed an hour coming out of Shanghai to EWR when an older man in my row with a "Make America Great Again" hat decides to make a ruckus and delay everybody else. He insists that, because he couldn't get an upgrade, he's entitled to all three seats next to him even though they're assigned to somebody else.
Captain, crew, and airport staff come over. Man threatens that they'll have to drag him off the plane.
He finally relents, but not before berating some female passengers and crew, calling one passenger "Hillary" (lol) and "lesbian".
Props to the United 87 crew for handling it professionally.
update: Still haven't left yet. Everybody is standing, calling him an asshole, and urging him to leave.
update 2: Police have arrived to applause
update 3: Crowd is really giving it to him.
In English and in Chinese. Some people are really funny
Been asked to deplane
Update 4: Haven't reboaded, but he is finally escorted off the plane. Crowd is pissed and chanting "Lock him up"
Update 5: Finally reboarding and will get there 7 hours late, but we'll get there.
Probably thinking that I'm hungry, the older Chinese lady (who can't speak any English) sitting next to me offered me a cookie.
Update 6: Landed at SFO. waiting for a crew change and to get turned around to EWR.
Every scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is great, except the one where Charlie's mother sings a bittersweet song about Charlie. It comes out of nowhere and is very boring. I have always hated it and I love that others think so, too.
This happened every time I would watch Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory Read the rest
Amazon is selling certified refurbished Echo Dots for $38. That's a great price for a gadget that plays podcasts, audiobooks, music, NPR updates, tells you the weather, and settles arguments about whether or not Nixon-era Secretaries of State are still alive. I use my Dot many times a day. It has a decent built-in speaker and the microphones (it has 7) can pick up and recognize what I'm saying with amazing accuracy even when I'm across the room. Read the rest
There's lots of juicy, behind-the-scenes details in this New York Times expose about the Fyre Festival - a promised lavish music event in the Bahamas that was cancelled after people who paid thousand of dollars arrived by plane and discovered crappy tents on a gravely beach with little food or security and no performers. Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland, 25, is accused of not paying workers and contractors. McFarland and his partner, Ja Rule, are blaming others for the calamity. Aggrieved parties are serving lawsuits by the dozen. And federal authorities are "looking into possible mail, wire and securities fraud," according to the Times.
Snip:
Read the restWell into March, the event’s website — which briefly vanished because its designer had not been paid — claimed it would take place on Fyre Cay, a private island that once belonged to the drug lord Pablo Escobar. Ticket packages included the $400,000 “Artist’s Palace,” with four beds, eight V.I.P. tickets and dinner with one festival performer.
But there was no such island or palace. Fyre employees recalled higher-ups inventing extravagant accommodations just to see if people would buy them — and some did, they said.
Mr. McFarland had been scouting sites, taking private planes to the Bahamas with his Fyre entourage and models in tow. But long after tickets had been sold, he was still nailing down a location.
By early April, the festival team finally set up at Roker Point, a largely unbuilt housing development on Great Exuma that borders a Sandals resort.
I didn't know that there was a famous copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. It's called "Prado's version" and has been on display in Madrid's Museo del Prado since 1819. According to Wikipedia, it was "considered for decades a worthless copy. However, after its restoration in 2012, the Prado's Mona Lisa was claimed to be the earliest replica of Leonardo's masterpiece." In fact, "the replica was discovered to be possibly painted simultaneously by a student of Leonardo in the same studio where da Vinci painted his own Mona Lisa." Over at Reddit, where I learned about this, commenters overwhelmingly prefer the Prado version:
...much more pleasing
Her neck is more elegant and the folds in the clothing are incredible
At least Prado managed to capture some eye brows!
...she has an attitude
The one on the left is way better
I like the folds better with the Prado.
I prefer the Prado version, the face is much cuter.
Just toss the DaVinci one away, I say. The one on the left is much nicer.
Looks like the student surpassed the teacher
What do you think? Read the rest
"Would you mind showing me evidence of any negative thing any sea lion has ever done to you?" This girl is one of the lucky few to be able to shut up a sea lion. Read the rest
This spinning mushroom toy is going to kill somebody one of these days.
This is the bomb if you want to clear your backyard for kids... from oddlyweirdRead the rest
I was at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend. One of my favorite things was a collection of simple handmade puzzles sitting on a table under an umbrella, away from the action. A Russian woman named Tatiana Ginzburg told me that the puzzles were part of some kind of mind enlightenment group she started. When I got back home I looked her up and found her website, Global Enlightenment.
I picked up the puzzle shown in the photo here. It's two nails, bent in such a way that the nails are linked. I spent about 15 minutes trying to disentangle them. I bought it for $10 and as I was walking away from the table, accidentally separated them. It took 15 minutes of trial and error to get them linked again. I spent the rest of Maker Faire fiddling with them. Every hour or so I was able to get them apart, but I didn't know how I did it. Last night when I got back home, I stayed up late and finally figured it out. I can get them unlinked in a few seconds. I still haven't figured out how to easily get them back together. I'll work on it tonight. I love this thing.
I don't know where you can buy this exact kind of nail puzzle. This one looks similar, though. Read the rest
I just got back from Maker Faire in San Mateo workshop, where I showed how to make a 1-string diddley bow in 15 minutes. I got back home and found this new video by musician Justin Johnson playing a cool snake-themed 2-string diddley bow. He gets some great sounds out of it. Read the rest
Art beinArt Gallery in Brunswick, Australia is exhibiting Gerard Geer’s “Chimaephera,” which "features mythically inspired creatures constructed from assorted animal bones and a series of diaphonised wet specimens."
This clipper is a great way to cleanly cut off a hangnail. The angled blades make it easy to see what you are doing. I also have the Tweezerman Power Hangnail Clipper. I bought the mini hangnail squeeze and snip nipper for travel ($12 on Amazon) and it's even better. Read the rest
In high school, Mike was drinking 8 cans of Coke a day. He quit cold turkey and suffered from "horrible horrible migraines, dizziness, blind spots and tunnel vision." The video was produced by Dress Code. Read the rest
