Thursday, May 15, 2008
Stupidest Things
Stupid is as stupid does.
This guy though he could take his plywood home this way. The only reason it didn't work is because his back tires exploded and his rear shocks popped out of the floor, all because of the 3000 pounds of concrete and the stack of plywood on the back of the car.
Some people act so stupid today.
Either because they drink or take drugs.
Most of the crime these days is because of drugs.
The huge amount of crimes in courts these days are 98% drug and drinking related.
So if people stopped being druggies or drinkers, most crime would have stopped.
So please don't do drugs, it is unhealthy and will most likely get you to prison.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Floating Ball Illusion
There is a simple trick about this optical illusion, but first take a look these two images below and see what they look like to you. Do those balls appear to be on the ground on the first and up on the second image? They sure do if you orientate by the shadow below the balls. We can't mistrust the shadow, or can we? Yes we can. Now look at the shadow position on the first and the second image and you'll see that balls stand on exactly the same place they did on the first image, but the shadow is moved. isn't it?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
14 Hot Designer Cat Beds Where Rich Cats Sleep
Does this photograph remind you of anything in your home? Me either. But designs like this are really inspiring. The artists who created the cat beds featured here use their talents to pay tribute to the natural elegance and variable nature of the cat. Even if they are out of your price range, they're not too expensive to admire!
World-renowned furniture designer, Elizabeth Paige Smith, takes her cat furniture seriously. The Prrrounge, like her other cat beds, is a sleeper and a scratching surface, made of triple-walled corrugated cardboard. Her designs are right at home in any modern or rustic environment and are all environmentally friendly.
Another seductive sculptured cat bed from Ms. Smith's shop. If I were to purchase one of her works, it would be difficult to decide on which one.
The best-known kitty bed of Elizabeth Paige Smith is the Kittypod, for which her studio is named. The Kittypod incorporates the corrugated cardboard scratching surface and other parts are made mostly of recycled wood materials. The big bowl accommodates all size cats and, of course, provides a scratching surface for them also.
Another very instinctive cat furniture designer, Kattbank, here works with glass to create a purr-fect place for kitty to hide and still be seen. This masterpiece, by J. Parker of esque, complements another glass sculpture rom Kattbank I featured in an earlier column (see Vaso by Kattbank at Where Rich Cats Poop). Because Solo is custom made and hand blown, sizes are approximate: Length: 22-25 inch. Width: 11-16 inch. Height: 9-12 inch
Glass artist A..Kovel of esque designed this rich glass cat bed for Kattbank. The Ciambella bed has a walnut stand and measures approximately 19-22 inch diameter by 6-8 inch height
Another environment saver, corrugated cardboard is the material used to create the Cat Cacoon sculpture by One Form Design. This cat bed is multi-functional, providing a resting place, a scratching surface, a toy and an interesting sculpture (especially if there's fur sticking out of the holes)
Gloria Baumann of Kittie Krafts,makes everything she sells for cats. And the furniture designs are exact replicas of human furniture. She will make her Kliners, Kouches, Loveseats and Klounges for you with your own material, if you wish, so that they match your own furniture. Doesn't the Kliner look just like a human recliner? Purr-fect for your cat to stretch out and watch the Planet's Funniest Animals
The Klounge Kittie Krafts has many couch and chair designs, but do take a look at Ms. Baumann's custom work .
Love That Cat carries neat cat sofas in different styles and fabrics that allow you to match your interior design and your cat's personality. The fancy sofa above comes in four styles and fabrics
Friday, April 11, 2008
Transparent Frog
The see through skin of an inch-long glass frog her eggs.Native to Venezula,the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams.Tadpoles hatch,then tumble into the current to be swept away.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
1. Get to the point.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
Awesome human-shaped fleece flower root
The root, attached to a Chinese fleece flower,plant - favourite dietary supplement in Asia, shows a naked man and woman in all their glory with even the most intimate details in all the right places.
It appears just as it was when the plant was pulled from the ground, according to the man who spotted it on a vegetable stall in a town in China's eastern Shandong province.
The man, named Fan, was so taken with his find he is said to have paid 600 yuan, more than £40, to buy it.
Curious visitors now travel from miles around to see the foot-long veggie couple on display at his home.
Minas Tirith Matchstick Model
Patrick Acton is an artist from Iowa who uses wooden matchsticks to create his incredible works of art. His works has been featured on ABC’s Extreme, Makeouver, Home Edition, Home and Garden TV as well as magazines such as Highlights for Children, Reminisce, AAA Travel Wood, The Iowan and others. This is one of his upcoming project which is to be completed by 2009 where a model of Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings will be built.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Rare Two Headed Snake
This is a rare two headed snake found by a farmer in a village in Alicante, Spain. The snake seems to be able to use both of its heads at the same time and Spanish scientists are still studying if the snake has two separate digestive tracts and if a head dominate the other. The chances of a two headed snake surviving in the wild is very slim as both would often fight over which head will swallow the prey as well as difficulty in deciding which direction to go.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Animal Comedy Club, in Full Swing
You'll see the cute, the ugly and the hilarious ones - all pictures taken in that special moment when animal expressions are the most natural and full of meaning. Also watch for the unique interactions between animals, and animals with humans - often source for a pure comedy gold.
Traditionally, we start with cutest ones
Traditionally, we start with cutest ones
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