What you’re seeing isn’t a single structure, but ordinary buttons hanging from wires spaced just right so that they present the image of a piano. It’s a medium in which Miami-based artist Augusto Esquivel works — Neatorama
Tommaso, a four-year-old, one-time stray from Rome, is thought to have become the world’s richest cat.
Since the death of his 94-year-old mistress last month, he has become a property magnate — or perhaps mognate — with flats and houses worth an estimated €10m scattered from Milan in the north to Calabria in the south.
In a handwritten will, signed on 26 November, 2009, Tommaso’s mistress — the childless widow of a successful builder — gave her lawyers the task of identifying the animal welfare body or association to which to leave the inheritance and the task of looking after the cat Tommaso
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Full-blown project management demands dedicated software, but for simpler tasks a spreadsheet can do the job. Microsoft presentations and spreadsheet expert Glenna Shaw is sharing a project plan template which lets you plan your project and track milestones.
As well as letting you define project parameters, the spreadsheet is designed for easy integration with PowerPoint so you can easily produce update presentations on your progress. One detail to watch for: the spreadsheet calculates holiday dates for the US, so follow the instructions in Glenna’s post for deleting those (and adding Australian ones if you wish) — via Lifehacker
One of the most complete collections of Swatch watches in the world sold for HK$51,707,500 or nearly $6,650,000 in Hong Kong recently. Swiss businessman Peter Blum and his wife Linda assembled the collection over a period of years. The collection’s 4363 pieces includes a large number of prototypes, hybrids and production variants never brought to market — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Just one injection could be enough to mean people with haemophilia B no longer need medication, according to an early study in the UK and the US.
Six patients were given a virus that infects the body with the blueprints needed to produce blood-clotting proteins. Four of them could then stop taking their drugs.
Doctors said the gene therapy was potentially life-changing
Influenced by the film Highlander — via RedBubble
Empathy lets us feel another person’s pain and drives us to help ease it. But is empathy a uniquely human trait? For decades researchers have debated whether non-human animals possess this attribute. Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress. The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people — via Slashdot
— via Youtube
There’s no better way to show ever-lasting love than with 16 arms and buttons eyes — via Etsy
A new ad campaign for the College for Creative Studies by Team Detroit lightheartedly gives its academic programs the DARE treatment. Stay off the art, kids — via Breaking Copy
Chisel and Mouse offer an interesting product — they make detailed plaster models of distinctive buildings, such as the model of Deco-style Hoover Building No.7 which is pictured above.
The range of this Sussex-based company also includes models of both Bankside and Battersea Power stations, as well as another 1930s icon, Broadcasting House. These models are larger than you might expect — to give an idea of scale, the Hoover Building stands at 18cm high.
The models vary in price, going from £59 up to £95, which is the price of the Hoover model — via Retro To Go
The first Domesday book was published on vellum in the 11th century. 900 years later when the BBC wanted to mark the anniversary of Britain’s oldest surviving dataset, they gathered a whole new clutch of information about Britain in photos, videos and text, and because it was 1986 saved it all on laser discs.
Unfortunately the laser discs of the BBC’s Domesday project have kept less well than William the Conqueror’s dried calfskins. Few machines can read the discs any more, so BBC have just refreshed how they store the cache of maps, pictures, stories, videos and comments taken from over a million people. They’ve set up a giant 52″ touch screen in the computer museum at Bletchley Park and loaded all “Domesday Reloaded” information on it in an app.
Unveiled today, the Domesday Touchtable will let four users at a time browse through the 50GB of info including 25,000 photographs. There are two Domesday Touchtables in the country – the second is in the BBC’s Manchester MediaCity campus — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Walktopus – In Progress – Clay- 5 feet tall, originally uploaded by Late Fauna.
If you’re a fan of 1980s superbikes, the closest thing you can buy today is the Yamaha XJR1300. It’s a throwback muscle bike, with an air-cooled DOHC parallel four motor that pumps out a smidge under 100 hp and a whopping 108 Nm of torque. It’s not sophisticated and it won’t lay waste to a 600 sport bike, but it packs a solid dose of old-school cool. So I’m surprised we haven’t seen more café racers based on the XJR1300, like this one from RF-Biketech. They’re a Kawasaki dealer based in the small Bavarian town of Nüdlingen, but turn out a steady stream of customs and café racers. This bike is called Nothing Else Matters
— via Bike EXIF
Actor Harry Morgan, best known for playing Colonel Sherman Potter in US TV show Mash, has died aged 96.
The star died at his Los Angeles home after suffering from pneumonia, his family confirmed.
Mike Farrell, who played BJ Hunnicutt in the military series, said of Morgan: There was not an un-adorable bone in the man’s body
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
A cast iron cannonball rocketed through two homes and landed inside a minivan Tuesday when a Mythbusters
TV experiment went wrong.
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage are hosts of the scientific experimentation show, which airs on The Discovery Channel. The pair was reportedly trying to figure out how fast a cannonball would travel, when it misfired and shot hundreds of feet in the air.
This cannonball was supposed to go through several barrels of water and through a cinder block, and then ultimately into the side of the hill,
said JD Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.
Instead the cannonball flew over the foothills surrounding Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, before spiralling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile — via redwolf.newsvine.com
— via deviantART
This 1962 Ducati 48 Sport — which was known as the Falcon in the US. And despite its diminutive capacity, this two-stroke was capable of a healthy 50 mph. Radical Ducati has listed the Sportiva as a show bike
, so it’s not suitable for road or track, but it’s eye candy of the highest grade. The engine is stock, sitting in a modified frame. It can be in your living room or garage for just $4,000 — via Bike EXIF
The idea that your smart phone could make you vulnerable to a thief has triggered a strong reaction.
Earlier this week I highlighted this problem and readers asked why the cell phone’s serial number couldn’t be used to block stolen phones, rendering them useless.
I assumed that idea was simplistic. Surely there was a good reason why it wouldn’t work.
There isn’t.
Randal Markey of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association explained that not only is it possible for carriers to block the use of stolen phones, Australian phone carriers have done it for nearly 10 years.
What it means is stealing a phone is a complete waste of time,
Markey said. Although the thief could probably use it as a paperweight.
But American phone companies aren’t doing that. When asked why, representatives from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T instead touted their apps to locate a lost phone or wipe out a SIM card. But that’s not the issue. Petty thieves ditch the SIM card immediately. That doesn’t shut down the phone — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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