When you enter the Louisville Mega Cavern in Kentucky, it’s hard not to gape at your surroundings. At 100 feet below the ground, the thick limestone walls are imposing, and the enormous space seems to go on forever — 17 miles, to be exact. Back in the 1930s, this was the Louisville Crushed Stone Mine, which was quarried for rock. Now it’s an underground adult playground, equipped with a zip-line course over glowing rocks, a rope course and a tram that takes visitors on a historical ride through the cavern.
But the latest addition, which opened last month, is a massive bike park — 320,000 square feet — with more than 45 trails, including a dual slalom and jump track, tunnels, wooden jumps and a skills area. “I didn’t know what a bike park was nine months ago,” Mega Cavern co-owner Jim Lowry tells OZY. But then someone asked him about renting space to make one. Lowry hired the enquirer, and they began to explore if it would work, then teamed up with Joe Prisel, designer of the Burlington Bike Park, a 40,000-square-foot indoor bike park in Washington state, to create an outline for the cavern. Construction took about three months. Read more…
Red Velvet Corn Dogs . Loaded Chili Cheese Carrot F**k Fries. Ice Cream Cookie Tacos. Poutine Sushi. Whiskey Pickled Eggs.
Yes, this is actually food. These odd concoctions are the work of Kyle Marcoux, 28, who runs the Vulgar Chef blog. He operates on shock value, and his recipes are stuffed with profanities. Seriously. The instructions for his mac ’n’ cheese say: “Start tossing in cheese and spices and cook the tits off. Cook on low/med until that shit is creamy as fuck.” He’s crude, but strangely appealing at the same time, an antidote to the ultra sanitized, Pinterest-fueled world of twee chefs like Julia Child and Paula Deen.
Marcoux recognizes this, and references it in the introduction of his Eat Like ShitCookbook, self-published in September. “This isn’t your typical Rachael fuckin’ Ray cookbook, this shit is way more legit. It’s so legit that a lot of the recipes don’t even have measurements,” he wrote.This openness had made him an antihero in the cooking world, and gained him nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram . Marcoux doesn’t pretend he’s a trained chef. In his own words, he’s just a dude getting drunk and cooking in his parents’ basement: “more like a rebel cook with a potty mouth who loves artery-clogging cooking,” he said to OZY. He uses his friends as lab rats, testing new recipes on them. “I know what they’ll like and what they’ll puke on,” he said. Read more…
People love their dogs a LOT . We know this to such an extent that we don’t even need to qualify the statement anymore. But when does dog love turn into needing to let your pet live in a replica of a British double decker Red Bus? Chinese company, Hong Kong Tesla Technology Limited (HKTTL) thinks this is just where your pooch wants to stay, and it’s not a simple red bus, it’s a smartbus codenamed the T-Pai that we’re talking about.
Not only does your BFF get to live a’la Queen Liz (on her day off when she’s slumming it) but every single need your dog might have is automated. An automatic feeder releases food and water at set times and can be controlled remotely via cellphone. The T-Pai has enough space for a weeks worth of food; so if you go walkies, they don’t go hungry.
All their toilet needs are taken care of as well. The T-Pai has an “Auto toilet” which emits a scent that makes dogs want to go, and when they poop, this is what happens: “When the system detects excrement, it will flush and sterilize automatically.” Hands/Paws free. Nice. Read more…
I find mermaids really fascinating. It’s the combination of tail, secrecy and myth that draw me to stories around mermaids, and the history of sea sirens is long and varied. No matter what culture you look at, there will be a mention of some form of water nymph, whether it’s the 1001 Nights lass, or the Hindu Suvannamaccha.
Sure, the Little Mermaid played a big role in getting this focused in the minds of women today, but there’s more than that. The Little Mermaid may have been bold and bright and curios, but she was also willing to sacrifice her self for a man, and to forgo what she loved to achieve a fantasy. Half admirable, half horrifying.
The modern day mermaids of today are women and men who have chosen to dedicate their life to mermaid-dom. For a segment I co-produced with Ingrid Rojas for Fusion TV, I met with two mermaids – Barbra Wynss from Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida, and mermaid for hire, Trina Mason (and also spoke to dozens more) to learn what being a mermaid really means. and how you go about your life.
They had fascinating stories (which you can watch above) and I completely connected to their fascination and obsession with the water world.
3D Printed heads created from DNA sampling in NYC. Artist Dewey- Hagborg working with Russian Police to solve crimes.
Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s 3D portraits are unnerving. They were made using DNA samples she extracted from discarded cigarette butts and chewing gum. She collected these samples from public spaces in New York City. Basically, that means that any of her portraits could be YOU, as collecting DNA from public spaces is currently 100% legal.
So, what’s the process- how exactly does one go from trash to these realistic 3D portraits?
Dewey-Hagborg uses her background in science to extract DNA from the samples she collects in Brooklyn’s GenSpace lab. She then uses genetic markers (taken from single nucleotide polymorphisms) to map out physical attributes such as eye color and skintone. Once she has the results back, she maps out the face with 3D modelling software, and then sends that to get printed on a 3D printer.
There are currently no laws around public usage of DNA collected from a communal area.
“It is not likely be legislated for twenty years,” said lawyer Philippa Loengard, Assistant Director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts. “This area is so avant-garde. However, if a drivers license was in the public garbage no one has a right to open credit cards with it, and this analogy could be used for collecting DNA from cigarettes in the trash.” Read more…
Say what you will about Barbie, but that girl knows how to market herself. Sure, I could bash the notion of a pink themed house filled with physically disproportionate plastic dolls wearing skimpy size -Zero clothing, but you guys are smart, and I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. Instead, I’m looking at the giant pink behemoth that is the Dream House (a European version in Berlin and another one in Florida) and getting a big case of pink-eye. Modelled on Barbie’s Malibu Dream House (would have been interested to see the architects blueprints) the Berlin DreamHouse opened May 16th, 2013 and features 2,500 metres squared of pink frothy stuff you can touch, taste and obviously. buy. Well, Mattel isn’t a charity right? The Florida DreamHouse (opened May 8th, 2013) is pretty similar to its European cousin. Both offer ‘life size’ rooms (well, it’s a house) decorated with everything a Toys-R-Us child is familiar with, on an adult scale.
What I think is pretty cool about this is the RFID pink wristband all visitors receive on check in. The DreamHouse offers interactive experiences at the ‘Dream Stations’, allowing a semi-custom adventure. By this I mean that you input details such as name, gender and language and then the bracelet will interact with you AND the LED touch screens around the house.
A video game to help kids beat cancer – what’s not to like?
Re-Mission 2 is a video-game for cancer patients and their families. It’s an interactive way to kick cancer nasties, score some points and basically demonstrate that joysticks do have a therapeutic benefit. It consists of six games, all which let you tackle different types of cancer, using familiar gaming tools such as bombs, guns and um, healthy blood cells. Available for MAC, PC and iPad, they’re free to play online, download and share.
A lot of data backs up the theory behind the games, a key emphasis being the idea that positive motivation helps kids stick to a treatment regimen, as positivity lights up different parts of their brain (hey, they did brain imaging to prove this). There is even an argument that game players had higher levels of chemotherapy in the blood stream, suggesting a physiological as well as mental improvement.
The sincerity behind the premise of the game can’t be questioned. Re-Mission 2 is unreservedly pro-recovery, pro information and pro-control. I like the idea for many reasons. It’s great to make cancer patients- especially children- deal with their disease in a light hearted way, and the overpowering message here is that it just takes perseverance, time and aiming practice to beat it.
Problem is, not all cancers ARE curable and I’m a little concerned that this gives false hope to some who are living with a terminal cancer. It also – and I say this as a former cancer patient- feels slightly simplistic in some ways, as it’s cool to get to level 2 by killing the evil cells, but the reality was far more painful and needle heavy. I totally get they want to encourage people, but it’s hard to play an animated game and feel it doesn’t trivialize the pain in some way. Yes, I realize it’s easy to say this without offering an alternative, but sometimes in the back slapping and ‘it’s so good they made this’ moment we forget that it’s not always the perfect fit. Read more…
