During one week's time, Norweigan photographer Terje Sørgjerd shot the northern lights (aurora borealis) in Kirkenes, Norway and Pasvik National Park, close to the border of Russia. He then produced this awe-inspiring time lapse:
I have previously posted Terje's time lapse shot in Spain showing a Sahara sandstorm.
The route Needles Highway is part of the South Dakota Highway 87, which is running through the Black Hills of South Dakota, U.S. Traveling Needles Highway, you have to drive through some very narrow granite tunnels, the Iron Creek and the Needles Eye Tunnel.
During a vacation with his family, this man, a bus driver himself, filmed the difficult task of maneuvering a charter bus through the Needles Eye Tunnel, and was quite surprised to see that this was even possible.
And here is the view from inside the tunnel, filmed by Dick Gibson on a different occasion:
Hear Dr. Gloria Gilbere talk to Lyle Hurd, editor and publisher at Total Health Magazine, about the harmful effects of drinking soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi. Several years ago, I watched a documentary about the danger of artificial sweeteners like aspartame, so I consider information like this crucial. Thankfully more and more products contain the sweetener Stevia, or they simply have no added sugar att all but fruit sugar. Currently, I enjoy jam and ketchup at home, that contains only fruit sugar. And when my wife bakes, she often uses Stevia, dried coconut, figs, dates, cranberries, honey and so on.
And here is a nice infographic by and from The Renegade Pharmacist's post (with a larger image) about the effects of drinking Coke. The information is built upon the work of Wade Meredith.
And hear Dr. Josh Axe talk about the health risks of using artificial sweeteners, what you should be looking out for, and which safe alternatives you can use instead:
For more, watch the very honest Coca-Cola ad, and read about the experiment "10 Cokes a Day".
This is a neat little watermelon hack by Dave Hax. I myself, cut the melon a bit differently, and discard the green rind before serving, but this technique presents the fruit really well. Perfect for parties!
I use the following technique, but with some minor changes. I cut the watermelon from one side to the other in the middle, before cutting it on the sides to get smaller cubes, and finish the whole thing off by seperating the rind.
Or, you can do it like this chef:
Family man Avit hasn't been clean shaven for 14 years. See his family's reactions when he get rid of the beard, in the short film "My New Face" by Israeli agency BBR Saatchi & Saatchi, for their client Super-Pharm's razor blades.
In the short film "Wonder Mark" by creative director Ivan Olita, we meet acclaimed tattoo artist Mark Mahoney, owner of Hollywood located tattoo studio The Shamrock Social Club. I really appreciate the film's photography, so good.
Via Devour.
A conversation between blogger and designer Jason Kottke and the CTO of BuzzFeed, Mark Wilkie, about the internet company's early days, during this year's Internet Week New York.
In the Vanity Fair, an article about Sonia Jones, the wife of hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, finding the healing power of Ashtanga yoga, her work of bringing yoga to the masses, how Ashtanga yoga came to the West, and how the Ashtanga community in large has starting to evolve.
Through Paul’s friendship with self-help master Tony Robbins, the Joneses met Pete Egoscue, who is basically the guru of back pain. Pete’s wife, Troi, practiced yoga in Encinitas, California, with one of Pattabhi Jois’s best-known students, Tim Miller. Troi told Sonia that to get well she too had to practice the kind of yoga Jois taught, which is widely known as Ashtanga. In today’s yoga-mad America, Ashtanga can be a rubric for a lot of things, but Troi insisted that Sonia had to practice in the very specific manner Jois taught, and with a teacher he had approved. After the Egoscues interviewed teachers on her behalf, Sonia began working with an ashtangi named Maria Rubinate. “It was a huge turning point in my life,” recalls Sonia.
In the article, the documentary "Ashtanga, NY – A Yoga Documentary" (2003) by Caroline Laskow and Mary Wigmore, is mentioned. Here is the first part of the documentary:
And here's the second part:
It's also on Netflix.
Featured image: K. Pattabhi Jois, founder of Ashtanga yoga, via Michelle May.
H/t James Altucher.
Hendo was first out with a hoverboard, and now Lexus is launching their own board named Slide on August 5th. Wired has written a longer piece about the mechanics behind the board:
According to Lexus, its hoverboard relies on superconductors and magnets, which combine to repel the force of gravity and lift an object—like, say, a fancy skateboard and its rider—above the ground.
That may sound familiar to anyone who recalls the Hendo hoverboard, which debuted as a Kickstarter last fall. You can read about the physics behind the Hendo in great depth here, but the key difference between it and the Lexus project is that Lexus opted for a superconductor—which creates a different kind of magnetic field—instead of a plain ol’ conductor.
Watch the teaser:
"Climb Dance" (1989) is a short film directed by Jean Louis Mourey, which captures Finnish rally driver Ari Vatanen's drive up to the summit of Pikes Peak during the 1988 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, USA.
I have only seen this film in low quality before, except for one time when it was broadcast on TV, but thanks to Peugeot who remasterded it in celebration of their participation in the 2013 contest with French driver Sébastien Loeb, it's now available in HD.
With captivating images, the project Daily Overview explores our Earth from high above, letting us ponder the impact we have on our Earth and its magnificence.
Our project was inspired, and derives its name, from an idea known as the Overview Effect. This term refers to the sensation astronauts have when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole. They have the chance to appreciate our home in its entirety, to reflect on its beauty and its fragility all at once. That's the cognitive shift that we hope to inspire.
From our line of sight on the earth's surface, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet. We believe that beholding these forces as they shape our Earth is necessary to make progress in understanding who we are as a species, and what is needed to sustain a safe and healthy planet.
Uranium mine in Arlit, Niger:
Olive tree plantation in Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain:
Spreckels Sugar Company in Brawley, California:
Port of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium:
Hutt Lagoon in Western Australia:
35-year-old Ultra Romance works as a guide and fisherman, and sells bicycle parts on Ebay, but he only works a total of six months a year, enough to make a living. The rest of the year, he travels with his bike and do whatever he feels like.
"The more you learn about human history, it reveals that in a hunter-gatherer society, say in New England 400 years ago, it took nine hours a week to procure everything you needed to live for that week, and the rest was all leisure time. This is what's natural to us. We've only been living the way we are now since the Industrial Revolution, and it's not for me."
…
"I like to romanticize the ideals of being out on your own and that ultimate freedom of not having any ties. I understand that you need to have some ties — we can't go directly back to that. At this point we've gone too far. And I'm not one to get held up in a mountain like a hermit. I like my internet and I love Instagram and all that stuff — I love Whole Foods. There are plenty of modern conveniences that I love."
For more, read Ian Dille's longer piece about his meeting and re-encounter with Ultra Romance.
I met the man who is also known as Poppi, Bolty, J.B., and a variety of other names (but who, for the purpose of telling this story and out of respect for what he says are "tax reasons," we'll refer to as Benedict) in Austin in 2006. He was a bike messenger and a Cat 5 road racer with the persona of a vain Euro pro: his bike accented with gold parts, his muscular body rippling under white spandex. Despite holding a license that classified him as belonging to the lowest, most inexperienced level of amateur bike racing, he regularly dropped everyone, including me (a former pro), on the weekend hammer ride. He was dating a female bike racer from San Antonio, a woman with soft green eyes and long dark hair, and the words Fuck and Y'all tattooed on the back of either thigh. They fell in love and moved to Benedict's boyhood home on the mouth of the Connecticut River, and I never heard much about him after that, never really thought about him except during those occasional times some of us would swap stories about the characters who'd passed through our local cycling scene.
Photo credit: Via Ultra Romance's Instagram account.
Via Metro (SE).
Earlier today, Devour posted footage showing a cyclist lifting a car, which is blocking the bike lane. That instantly reminded me about a scene from the bodybuilding documentary "Pumping Iron" (1977), when Franco Columbu does the same thing with a car caught in its parking spot.
See the full "Pumping Iron" here (video link).
Honking, jumping and skidding, all done by this semi-truck crowd pleaser. Watch Gregg Godfrey jump record-breaking 166 feet during the Evel Knievel Days in Butte, Montana.
Via Devour.
As the headline states, "True Detective" and "Starsky and Hutch" mixed together with a touch of the 70's.
Jon Favreau's film "Chef" (2014), in which he plays an creatively inhibited top chef who ditches his job and instead get himself a foodtruck, is one of the best films I've seen recently. With great acting (and actors), colorful cinematography, and one heck of a great soundtrack, this is a must see.
Trailer:
The soundtrack on Spotify:
After Peter Giacobbi had found a handmade aluminum body of his dream car, the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, the complex work of putting it all together began to build an exact replica of the original model. There are only five original parts sitting in the original car, each one costing a small fortune, so Peter's car consists of a mix of original Ferrari parts and modified ones, all carefully copied and crafted to look like the originals.
A true labour of love by a man, who once in the 70's together with his friend, challenged Ferrari with building a supercar by the name Giacobbi Sinthesis 2000.
The Giacobbi Sinthesis 2000:
Via Devour.
Rolling Stone Magazine's piece about hobbyist and frequent air traveler Ben Schlappig, is a fascinating read about being able to fly all over the world at no cost. Ever since Ben Schlappig gave up his Seattle apartment one year ago, he's been living on airplanes and in hotels, flying all over the world, spending an average of six hours everyday up in the air. Airtravel has been a long passion of his since the early teens, and for years he's been part of a community that engages in the art of travel hacking, something known as the Hobby, which involves taking advantage of a airline's reward program and its loopholes.
"I'm very fortunate in that I do what I love," says Schlappig, stretching out in an ergonomic armchair as we reach 30,000 feet and just before the mushroom consommé arrives. In the past year, since ditching the Seattle apartment he shared with his ex-boyfriend, he's flown more than 400,000 miles, enough to circumnavigate the globe 16 times. It's been 43 exhausting weeks since he slept in a bed that wasn't in a hotel, and he spends an average of six hours daily in the sky. He has a freewheeling itinerary, often planning his next destination upon hitting the airport. Just last week, he rocketed through Dallas, Dubai, Oman, Barcelona and Frankfurt. Yet for all his travel, it would be a mistake to call Schlappig a nomad. The moment that he whiffs the airless ambience of a pressurized cabin, he's home.
"An airplane is my bedroom," he says, stretching to reach his complimentary slippers. "It's my office, and it's my playroom." The privilege of reclining in this personal suite costs around $15,000. Schlappig typically makes this trip when he's bored on the weekend. He pays for it like he pays for everything: with a sliver of his gargantuan cache of frequent-flyer miles that grows only bigger by the day. Hong Kong, he says, is his favorite hub, and "the only city I could ever live in." The 16-hour trip has become so routine that it's begun to feel like a pajama-clad blur of champagne and caviar — or, in Schlappig's terminology, a "two-hangover flight."
Photo credit: Photography by Bryan Derballa.
The life and teachings of Indian yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic "Autobiography of a Yogi" (1946), is depicted in the documentary "Awake: The Life of Yogananda" (2014). It will be released on DVD in September this year, but screenings are currently available throghout the United States.
For her project "Tiny PMS Match" (Pantone Matching System), designer Inka Mathew takes everyday objects and match them with their Pantone color counterpart. Currently, her PMS site isn't updated with any new images since she's having a book coming out in Spring 2016. Must be the perfect companion for designers, who more easily want to translate beautiful everyday colors into print.
Pantone 5753 C – A plastic turtle:
Pantone 7568 C – Cadbury milk chocolate:
Pantone 439 C – A mini Oreo cookie:
Pantone 393 C – Tiny plastic duckies:
At the end of the day, in most workplaces, our efficiency and productivity levels tend to drop. Nothing unusual about this, we're only humans and we get tired. So, I think it's a bit strange that a 32-hour workweek (or 6-hour workday) still seems a bit controversial and odd.
Ryan Carson and his company Treehouse prove that you can grow your company, and at the same time cut down working hours. They have done this since 2006 with great results.
In the late 70's, Canadian Telidon was a fully functioning internet protocol, long before the World Wide Web came into existence. Meant primarily for online shopping and banking, it wasn't long before artists started to use this medium in creative ways and create graphics art with it.
Motherboard explores this medium and interviews some of the artists using it in this short documentary:
Via Devour.
How would your life change if you weren't white? That question did Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas ask a group of young white people. See the trailer for the new MTV documentary "White People":
The animal rights organization PETA tries to raise awareness of how quickly the temperature rises inside an enclosed car on a hot day, and why we shouldn't leave, essentially, no living beings trapped in there, not even for a very short time. To demonstrate this, they let NFL player Tyrann Mathieu sit in a warm car and see how long he could last. The results are surprising, especially since Tyrann is in top physical condition. Spread the word.
After mere minutes in the Arizona heat, he starts to breathe heavily and sweat excessively (something that dogs aren’t physically able to do). Even on a mild 78-degree day and with the windows partially rolled down, the temperature inside the shaded car is 90 degrees. And the inside temperature of a car parked in the sun—anywhere—can reach 160 degrees in just minutes.
Via Devour.
The Park Avenue Hotel in Detroit was once recognized as one of the gems in Lew Tuller’s hotel empire in the beginning of the 20th century. In the 50's, the hotel was owned and managed by the Salvation Army, who used it as a home for the elderly, and then as a rehab center for the homeless and drug addicts until 2003. Since then, the hotel has been abandoned, and plans of turning the hotel into condos or apartments didn't come through. And so it happened, in the summer of 2015, the once so grandiose building, was demolished and imploded (see video below).
The Park Avenue Hotel featured 252 rooms and the latest in hotel glitz and glamor: fancy furniture, hide-away wall beds and built-in dressers. Kamper [architect Louis Kamper] outfitted the building’s lobby in the Tudor style and gave it imitation stone walls (ritzy at the time). In the back of the lobby was a lounge room with wooden paneling, English-style furniture and impressive chandeliers. If you kept on walking past the lounge, you’d come across the hotel’s main dining room and two private dining rooms. The hotel also featured many of the mainstays in hotels of the time, including a barbershop, drug store, cleaners and tobacconist.
But ahead of the Great Depression, it became clear that Lew Tuller had overexerted himself. One by one, he would lose his hotels. The Security Trust Co. seized the Park Avenue Hotel from him in 1928. While the hotels would stay in business, they did not offer the same style and service as they did under Tuller’s leadership.
And just as the 1920s through ’40s were kind to Detroit, the 1960s through ’90s were not.
The hotel in the 60's:
Conference room:
A cross:
An executive chair:
Some furniture:
The demolition:
Detroiturbex.com has a nice set of images of the historic hotel as well.
And for more like this, see the work of photographer Kevin Bauman and his project "100 Abandoned Houses".
Photo credit: Image from the 60's via HistoricDetroit.org. Recent images copyrighted by Alanna St. Laurent. See the rest of Anna's Park Avenue Hotel images here.
H/t to Devour.
A new seaweed, which has been created and patented by researchers from Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, tastes just like bacon. Great news for those of us who wants to keep the flavour, but don't want to eat meat.
The bizarre but tasty creation is actually a new strain of red marine algae called dulse that is packed full of minerals and protein and looks like red lettuce.
[…]
“Dulse is a superfood, with twice the nutritional value of kale,” said Chuck Toombs, a faculty member in OSU’s College of Business and a member of the team working to develop the product into a foodstuff. “And OSU had developed this variety that can be farmed, with the potential for a new industry for Oregon.”
[…]
“There hasn’t been a lot of interest in using it in a fresh form. But this stuff is pretty amazing,” said chief researcher Chris Langdon. “When you fry it, which I have done, it tastes like bacon, not seaweed. And it’s a pretty strong bacon flavor.”
There's already a Dutch seaweed hamburger that tastes like chicken on the market.
Via Bhanu Bhatnagar.
The film "Kung Fury" opened up a whole new world of Synthwave music to me, a genre heavily influenced by the 80's soundtrack music. Danish artist Søren Brøgger with artist name neros77 (YouTube channel), does a great job mixing this type of music, with short edits of mostly film classics from the 80's and 90's.
Here, footage from "Miracle Mile" (1988) and the track "Nuclear V2" by Lost Years:
"Beach Interlude" by Mitch Murder with footage from "Top Gun" (1986):
And here with footage from "Risky Business" (1983), "The Breakfast Club" (1985), and a bunch of others, accompanied by Mitch Murder's "Remember When":
Featured image: From the "Miracle Mile" (1988).
Thanks to Synthetix.FM.
You're coming to the office, calmly drinking your morning coffee, and all of a sudden you're caught up in something as taken from a "Jurassic Park" movie. Well, if you're participating in a Japanese prank show, that is.
See full segment here (video).
Until the awaited release of the golf documentary "Be the Ball", we can follow it's maker Erik Anders Lang traveling the world of golf, in the web series "Adventures in Golf" for SkratchTV.
I've known for quite some time that Tom Cruise likes to make his own stunts, but this one for "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation" (2015) was a bit over the top:
Great special effects indeed!
Via Devour.
Upon hearing that Carlsberg brewery had created a men's grooming collection named Carlsberg Beer Beauty, I thought it was just another great marketing trick,
but it looks like they actually had a limited set of products up for sale.
[…] Carlsberg Beer Beauty, a line of men's grooming products that includes shampoo, conditioner and body lotion. Crispin Porter + Bogusky Copenhagen took the project from concept to execution. Unlike some brand extensions that merely carry the name of the popular parent company, Carlsberg shampoo really has Carlsberg beer in it: a half-liter of freeze-dried beer in each 250 ml bottle, in fact
Beauty mavens have known for quite some time that the barley and hops in beer—rich in vitamins and proteins—are good for your follicular health. Even the alcohol acts as a cleansing agent. Catherine Zeta-Jones is known to uncap a brewski as part of her grooming ritual.
Carlsberg launched its line as a "humorous take on male grooming," Daniell said [Jim Daniell, Carlsberg's international media director], but nevertheless considers it a serious product. "Studies have shown [beer's] benefits for skin and hair, so this made sense."
Via Lady Danger.
With futuristic footage from the movie "Cyborg" (1989) together with the track "Lightbringers" by Lost Years, this is a perfect match.
Listen to more of Lost Years here.
Watching Stephen Fry visiting Fairfield, Iowa, as part of the television series "Stephen Fry in America", I learned that the city uses the currency Raam Mudra along with dollars. Here, from an article in the Los Angelse Times in 2002:
The currency originally was intended to be used in Vedic City only, but thousands of meditators also live in Fairfield, a town of 8,700 two miles away. They also began to circulate the raam. Vedic City Mayor Bob Wynne asked businesses throughout Jefferson County to consider using the new currency.
[…]
The currency is named for Raam Mudra, the ancient Indian prince whose image appears on the notes. The colorful bills also feature Sanskrit messages of peace and prosperity, a cow and a wish-fulfilling tree.
One raam is worth $10. The one-raam note is green, the five-raam note blue and the 10-raam bill, worth $100, orange-yellow. The notes are printed in the Netherlands by the company that makes the euro.
TM adherent Mark Welch, who runs the Radio Shack in Fairfield, accepts raam. So does meditator Mel Sauerbeck, owner of a Fairfield photo studio. TM-connected stores exchange the bills among themselves in the course of business.
And the Vedic City Hall serves as an exchange service for those who want to change dollars to raam. Rogers Badgett, Vedic City mayor pro tem, said the colorful bills could become collector's items.
Watch the segment from "Stephen Fry in America":
Photo credit: Via Fotki.
