In an old yet charming video filmed during the 1990s, a king penguin can be seen trotting his way home to the fish market. This is LaLa, who left the cold regions of his home and ventured to a hot and humid town in Japan where he became a companion of a local resident. LaLa, as captured in the video, can be seen venturing to the local fish market with his penguin-shaped backpack every day:
So, how did LaLa find himself in Japan? As the story goes, he was found trapped in a fishing net with an injured beak and wing. A fisherman discovered LaLa and kept him on the boat with him. When the man returned, he brought the bird to the Nishimoto family. They took care of his injuries and nursed him back to health. LaLa never left his caregivers, and so they built a refrigerated room for him under their house.
Years after the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, players still find some things that are fairly new or unknown to the player base. Reddit user RogueRequest2 has stumbled onto a quest they’ve never encountered before. For the record, RogueRequest2 has put over 600 hours into the RPG. Upon sharing their discovery with the Internet, the player base responded with complete surprise:
"600+ hours, never encountered this troll before," wrote RogueRequest2 (viaWeGotThisCovered). As you can see below, the meeting in question involves Geralt and a troll who likes to cook with various body parts.
It's hard to understand everything the troll is saying without subtitles, but I think the main takeaway is that he enjoys juicy elf heads in the same way you or I might chomp down on a fresh tomato. Lovely.
While this encounter is clearly super rare, there are a few players who've stumbled across it. It's called Harassing A Troll, and is an unmarked secondary quest tucked away in a corner of Velen. It's easy for players to miss, given that it doesn't show up on the map at all.
"I guess I never explored over there for some reason," RogueRequest2 said. "I just keep finding stuff and it's pretty awesome."
Mexican photographer and art director Felix Hernandez was commissioned by Audi Middle East to shoot images of their $40,000 Q2 crossover for Audi magazine. Hernandez, instead of shooting with the actual car, created a small-scale desert, roadway, and a 1/43 scale model of the Q2. This artistic choice does not come as a surprise, as the photographer is known for his miniature photography:
Felix normally works with 1/18 scale models. This was the first time he was using a 1/43 model and he claims to have “learned a lot in the process.” A smaller model meant that he needed to make the car look full-sized against realistic-looking backdrops and sets. He used foam core, LEDs and sand paper to build the indoor roadway. For the desert, Felix used polvo fino powder mixed with water and moulded into miniature sand dunes.
Japan created special kimonos to celebrate the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Through its Kimono Project,the county paid tribute to every country who competed in the recently-finished event. Every country was represented by a unique kimono and obi, so that means that Japan created 213 kimonos-- that’s a lot! The Kimono Project took six years to complete, and was led by designer and founder of Imagine One World (the organization who launched the project) Yoshimasa Takakura:
Also included are "countries that Japan has diplomatic relations but without Olympic committees, including Niue and Vatican City," says Kimono Project spokeswoman Orie Shimizu.
The kimonos and obis are not on public display, as was initially planned, due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, they will be shown during Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.
Shimizu confirmed that the full set for each country cost around ¥2 million ($18,300), consisting of the kimono, obi, and smaller accessories. They have all been handmade with traditional methods, each taking between one and two years to craft.
"We wanted to show that Japanese elaborate dyeing and weaving techniques are not just ancient art forms, but a living art that we still have today, with many artisans active throughout Japan," Shimizu says.
Speedrunners love to beat the clock. And because they are always striving for the fastest possible time, speedrunners will look in every nook and cranny of a certain game to look for shortcuts and glitches that can save even the tiniest fraction of time. Thanks to the internet, speedrunners can share the glitches they discovered with other speedrunners. But sometimes, glitches can be discovered by people who just play to have fun, but speedrunners can still learn from them.
In Metal Gear Solid, you eventually reach a section where you need to go up and down some communication towers, fighting a helicopter, climbing a bunch of stairs, and even rappelling down a rope. It’s a lot. During this section, Boba was running from guards and reached a locked door, so she turned around to fight the swarm of angry armed goons. As she did so, she was shot multiple times, getting pushed back enough that Snake’s model clipped through the door and seemingly activated a trigger, letting Boba skip the stairs and enter the outside area early.
Players have already replicated the bug successfully, and they have also investigated if the strategy could be applied elsewhere in the game. Gamers are already calling this strategy the “Boba Skip.”
Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or Tinder, the best thing you can do if you’re looking for a date online is to put your best foot forward by posting your most attractive pictures. But if you don’t know how to pose for pictures like a model, then it’s your lucky day! These animal photos over at Sad and Useless will teach you how.
Wolves gather in groups and hunt large prey such as moose and deer in the winter. Throughout the spring season, however, they become more solitary predators as their pups are born. We know these things thanks to decades of research dedicated to studying the lives of wolves. However, our knowledge about how wolves live in the summer is very limited. We only know that they hunt small prey like beavers, but they are very elusive. It is difficult for scientists to observe these animals in this season because of the dense vegetation. Thanks to modern technology, we now have filled this knowledge gap.
The GPS-collars have helped reveal not only what wolves are eating, but also where they are killing prey and the locations of den sites. This research has revealed new aspects of wolf hunting behavior and has shown just how variable a wolf’s diet is during the summer. It's also given insight into the complex and fascinating lives of wolves in northern Minnesota.
The team has compiled hours of footage in this video which shows the wildlife in this game trail in Voyageurs National Park. Some wolves can be seen in this video.
Mammoths may not have recorded their adventures on Earth in stone, but they have something else that documents their journeys: their tusks. This particular tusk, however, is very special, as it belonged to a mammoth that covered a distance enough to circle the planet twice.
Published in the journal Science, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks looked at the isotopes inside a 1.7-meter-long (5.6-foot) tusk from a woolly mammoth that lived in present-day Alaska just over 17,000 years ago.
[...]
“It’s not clear-cut if it was a seasonal migrator, but it covered some serious ground,” added Matthew Wooller, senior and co-lead author of the paper from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “It visited many parts of Alaska at some point during its lifetime, which is pretty amazing when you think about how big that area is.”
Learn more about this mammoth over at IFL Science.
That’s a lot of steps!
(Image Credit: JR Ancheta, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
The San Diego Zoo is home to different animals like lions, koalas, and giraffes. They also have a YouTube channel where they show how these animals live inside the zoo. In this video, the Zoo shares with us footage of how flamingos eat. Watch as these pink animals poke their heads in and through the water and suck in water and mud through the front of their bills, and pump them at the side. Thanks to the filters found in their mouths which trap tiny shrimp and small critters, the flamingos can have a decent meal as they scan the waters.
Niall Reid (@reidyr560) shows us how a truck can brew a proper cuppa tea. Pretty impressive, huh? Okay Niall, try doing that from the left side! -via Everlasting Blort
Love Jurassic Park? Flavia Cordula and Gabriela Queiroz of Florida-based design firm Own Place Interiors spared no expense to create the ultimate dinosaur-themed game room.
Paul Taylor is crossing Britain on a moped in a quest to raise funds for the Institute of Cancer Research in honor of his friend Alexis Leventis, who died of cancer. What is extraordinary about his tour are the places he is going. To draw attention, Taylor is stopping in as many places with rude names as he can manage.
The expedition will take place in August 2021 and starts in Shitterton in Dorset on the 18th and winds its way through salubriously named places such as Happy Bottom Nature Reserve, Ass Hill, Crazies Hill, Pishill, The Knob, Titty-Ho, Willey, Butthole Lane, Pensitone, Netherthong, Slack Bottom Road, Bedlam, Crackpot (I think I may have lived there in a past life) , Booze (there too), Pity Me (by this point you really should), Cocksburnspath, Wallyford, Brawl (and many others) before we arrive at the charmingly titled Twatt in the Orkney Isles.
The return journey includes delights such as Dull, Cockermouth and Cow Ark before our final destination , the aptly named Bell End.
At the turn of the 20th century, steamships had fairly well replaced sailing ships. Copper baron Thomas W. Lawson was still a fan of sailing ships, and have one commissioned for the purpose of showing how magnificent and useful they could still be. It was certainly large, the largest ever, magnificent, too, and it was dubbed the Thomas W. Lawson.
Launched on July 10, 1902, Thomas W. Lawson was 475 feet long and contained seven masts of nearly two hundred feet tall each, carrying 25 sails with a cumulative canvas area of 43,000 square feet. She measured 5,218 gross register tons, boasted a carrying capacity of 11,000 tons, and was operated by a crew of only 18, when a similar-sized steamer would have required anything up to fifty. This was possible because the work of the sailors was facilitated by various mechanisms. The schooner, while it did not have an engine, was equipped with a steam steering engine, steam winches, an electrical system and even a telephone network.
When fully loaded, the Thomas W. Lawson's draft was 9 meters. Curiously, at that time there was only one port in the United States capable of receiving such deep-seated vessels—the Newport News, in Virginia. As a result, her capacity was reduced to 7,400 tons in order to accommodate her into more ports. Even with reduced cargo, Thomas W. Lawson was so large that she was difficult to maneuver and sluggish. She tended to yaw and needed a strong wind to be held on course. Sailors likened her to a bath tub or a beached whale.
Ddangerous Ddave loves hard rides on his Norco Sight C7. Here he is on a forested mountain trail, going at high speeds through bone-breaking obstacles. He never falls, but he does have the sense to look at one jump and say, "That's not solo ride material." Yet, at another, seemingly more challenging jump, he takes his bike airborne.
Watch it all, if for nothing more than hearing his joyful laughter.
