On 8 January, this South American Tapir was born at Parque Zoológico Botánico Bararida in Venezuela, South America. This is the fourth offspring of parents Ezekiel and Shama. The baby is male and as of yet unnamed. This is the Zoo’s first birth of the new year — via ZooBorns
The astounding list of lost-and-found items has been compiled by the budget hotel chain after amused staff gathered up the abandoned treasures.
Among the quirkier items left behind include a life-size Mr Blobby costume, a case full of 100 Duchess of Cambridge masks, and an urn containing the ashes of a guest’s late wife.
One careless visitor left a box contained £50,000 worth of watches and a newlywed bride nearly lost her Vera Wang wedding gown when her husband forgot to pack it.
Staff at Nuneaton Travelodge were even treated to a Christmas surprise when a couple left an entire Santa’s grotto is their room.
They appear to have held their own early celebrations, and left a whole Christmas tree with decorations, lights, a model reindeer, a Father Christmas outfit and a turkey dinner behind.
An 18-month-old boy was accidentally left behind in a Winchester Travelodge, after his busy parents each thought the other had placed him in his car seat.
They drove away to attend a wedding, before realising their toddler son was not in the back of their car moments later.
An energetic Roborovski hamster was also found in his cage in Knutsford, after his forgetful owner drove back to Bristol without him — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Apple has launched a recycling scheme that could help you make money from your old iPhone, iPad, Mac or even Windows PC.
The Reuse and Recycling Programme will be operated by Dataserv GmbH and will give you the chance to get rid of old or unwanted technology — via redwolf.newsvine.com
11 x 14 on Scratchboard — via deviantART
Personal banking information and other data from perhaps tens of thousands of students, faculty and administrators at City College of San Francisco have been stolen in what is being called an infestation
of computer viruses with origins in criminal networks in Russia, China and other countries, The Chronicle has learned.
At work for more than a decade, the viruses were detected a few days after Thanksgiving, when the college’s data security monitoring service detected an unusual pattern of computer traffic, flagging trouble — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This year Fortis marks its 100th anniversary and to celebrate, the brand is issuing a limited re-edition of the Marinemaster. First distributed at the beginning of the 1940s, that model became one of the brand’s most popular watches. Over the years, the look of the watch was updated, and the 100th anniversary re-edition is inspired by the model produced during the 1970s.
The Marinemaster Vintage LE is a 40mm automatic chronograph in polished stainless steel on leather strap, available with orange or blue dial highlights. A total of 500 of each version will be produced — via Watch Time
MONTBLANC SKELETONS-2, originally uploaded by MONTBLANC PEN LOVER -ma0ca-.
Brisbane vet Michael O’Donoghue has seen too many people have to give up, or put down, their pets because they could not find a rental property that welcomed animals.
It’s very heart-breaking, people euthanising their beloved pet because they can’t find accommodation,
he said.
The People and Pets veterinarian is pushing for more pet-friendly rental properties to be made available to encourage more families to adopt animals and stop the displacement of loved family members.
According to the RSPCA, 30 per cent of pets surrendered to the organisation are from owners who cannot find adequate accommodation — via redwolf.newsvine.com
I have some wonderful new tattoos on my ass by the incredible Cris Cleen, who I love, and I posted a picture of them on Twitter, which got many favourable comments — but there were two negative ones, and I blew a fucking gasket. I screamed out loud and tracked the perps down and blocked them, but not before really ramming it to them in the strongest language I could use. It was over the top and really kind of ridiculous, but I cannot help myself.
Some outside Facebook observer said that my language
was too much and told me that I had lost a fan
because she couldn’t condone my language
. I am sorry for that, as I love my fans, and it sucks to lose one, but obviously she doesn’t understand that when you grow up the way that I did, with kids at school throwing rocks at my face because they hated it because it was so ugly to them and they wanted the blood from my wounds to cover it so it wouldn’t have to be seen and at summer camps stuffed dog shit in my sleeping bag because I was told time and again that I looked like shit — and that I had to empty myself in the dark forest and still sleep in smelling that shit all that night and for weeks after because my family was too poor to afford a new one — my language
is on the strong side. I apologise for offending the former fan, but I am only myself. That is all I can be, and if I must apologise for that, I don’t mind. All I am trying to say is that no young girl should be told she is ugly. If she is, you kill her spirit, and she may grow up like me, and lose a fan — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Aviator is a Russian brand owned by the Volmax Corporation, along with Buran and Sturmanskie). The Aviator Classic 2614/1225830 features a 24 hour time scale on the dial — via Wrist Watch Review
The backlash against 24-hour connectivity is gathering pace around the world.
Workers who find themselves answering work emails on their smartphones after the end of their shifts in Brazil can now qualify for overtime under a new law.
The new legislation was approved by President Dilma Rousseff last month.
It says company emails to workers are equivalent to orders given directly to the employee — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Celebrate how awesome your Dad is by giving him a personalised kit of useful things to keep in the glove box of his car. I’ve created a small case that makes it easy to see the contents and puts that one thing we all hope we have in the car somewhere, a flash light, right in the centre — via Holidash News
When historians come to write about the digital transformation currently engulfing the book-publishing world, they will almost certainly refer to Amanda Hocking, writer of paranormal fiction who in the past 18 months has emerged from obscurity to bestselling status entirely under her own self-published steam. What the historians may omit to mention is the crucial role played in her rise by those furry wide-mouthed friends, the Muppets.
To understand the vital Muppet connection we have to go back to April 2010. We find Hocking sitting in her tiny, sparsely furnished apartment in Austin, Minnesota. She is penniless and frustrated, having spent years fruitlessly trying to interest traditional publishers in her work. To make matters worse, she has just heard that an exhibition about Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, is coming to Chicago later that year and she can’t afford to make the trip. As a huge Muppets fan, she is more than willing to drive eight hours but has no money for petrol, let alone a hotel for the night. What is she to do?
Then it comes to her. She can take one of the many novels she has written over the previous nine years, all of which have been rejected by umpteen book agents and publishing houses, and slap them up on Amazon and other digital ebook sites. Surely, she can sell a few copies to her family and friends? All she needs for the journey to Chicago is $300 (£195), and with six months to go before the Muppets exhibition opens, she’s bound to make it.
I’m going to sell books on Amazon,
she announces to her housemate, Eric.
To which Eric replies: Yeah. Okay. I’ll believe that when it happens.
Let’s jump to October 2010. In those six months, Hocking has raised not only the $300 she needed, but an additional $20,000 selling 150,000 copies of her books. Over the past 20 months Hocking has sold 1.5m books and made $2.5m. All by her lonesome self. Not a single book agent or publishing house or sales force or marketing manager or bookshop anywhere in sight.
So let the historians take note: Amanda Hocking does get to Chicago to see the Muppets. And along the way she helps to foment a revolution in global publishing — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Security firms often warn users about scareware
: malicious software that performs fake antivirus scans and then demands the user pay for a cleanup. Now a lawsuit claims that the world’s top antivirus firm, Symantec, is itself a scareware scammer.
James Gross, a resident of Washington State, filed what he intends to be a class action lawsuit against Symantec in a Northern District California court Tuesday. Gross claims that Symantec defrauds consumers by running fake scans on their machines, with results designed to bully users into upgrading to a paid version of the company’s software — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The tropical forest in Papua New Guinea is a noisy place at night, filled with the calls from all sorts of living things: frogs, birds and insects, including especially loud cicadas. One particular call –— a high-pitched, cricketlike tink-tink-tink
— caught the attention of herpetologist Christopher Austin and his graduate student Eric Rittmeyer.
Together, they tried to locate the noisemaker, which they assumed was an insect. Four times, they attempted to hone in on the source of the calls, but each time they failed to find the creature in leaf litter on the forest floor. On the fifth try, they grabbed the dead leaves and dropped them in a clear plastic bag. Then, back at camp, they went through and began checking each of the hundreds of leaves they had picked up.
A tiny animal hopped off one of the leaves. This miniature frog, now dubbed Paedophryne amanuensis, has taken over the title of smallest vertebrate, an animal with a backbone. Though they discovered the frog in 2009, only now have they described their finding in a scientific journal — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This ring features a mini green octopus with crystal eyes. The band is adjustable. Cute, spooky and colourful — via Etsy
This recipe is super simple. The only hang up I ran across was getting the honey to mix completely into the coconut oil. And beeswax takes a lot longer to melt than I had anticipated. Otherwise it was a really fun afternoon project. I am left only to kick myself for spending so much money on drugstore lip balms all these years — via The Art of Homemaking
I thought that making a stuffed Hobbes doll would be a great gift for one of my sons (whose name coincidentally, is Calvin). However, I knew that the artist, Bill Watterson, famously refused to allow his characters to be licensed and sold as dolls and such, feeling that doing so would undermine the integrity of the strip.
So I was kind of hesitant to make this and offer a pattern and instructions for it online, out of respect for Mr Watterson. I concluded that it shouldn’t be an issue as long as the pattern is available free, for personal, non-commercial use. I’m not selling the pattern or the doll, and you shouldn’t either — via instructables
You’ll never receive a letter from Andy Warhol, Ray Charles, Albert Einstein or Harry Houdini, but you can still get a peek at what their letterhead looks like — and the designs can be quite revealing. These 17 letterhead designers from architects, musicians, artists, performers, inventors and other public figures range from the humble and minimalistic to the boastful and colourful — via WebUrbanist
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