Unusual Search Results

The Great Bicycle Hoist: No More Lugging Up the Stairs!

We are not clear whether this DIY invention is ingenious or simply obvious. Spending $50 on plumbing pipe equipment, and diligently documenting this invention for posterity strikes me as unusual. However, it is undeniably a useful product. After all, who enjoys carrrying a bicycle up several flights of stairs?

News: Walking trees !!!!!

Some say: the so-called walking palm tree(Socratea exorrhiza) found in Latin America. Many people believe it can literally walk around (more or less). This is because of its unusual root system; while most trees have one trunk, the palm splits into many smaller roots a few feet off the ground, giving it the appearance of many little legs. Anyway Trees, as we all know, are pretty stationary: they stay more or less where you plant them, and no one worries about finding a tree wandering around a...

Breakfast Interrupted: Tangled Food Captured Midair at 1,000 FPS

They're not the fastest in the world, but Vision Research's line of Phantom high-speed cameras produce some of the best slow motion effects on the web. They can turn violent punches into a chaotic scene of distorted skin and repulsive sweat, or make a night's stay in a hotel room more exciting. Now breakfast gets the Phantom treatment in Breakfast Interrupted, where America's favorite meal gets captured in midair at 1,000 frames per second.

RECIPE: Pumpkin Pie Made with Vodka

Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite desserts and of great mystery to me. I've made it with fresh pumpkin and homemade crust. I've made it with canned pumpkin and frozen crust. They came out nearly identical. Yet I've had fluffy, perfect to-die-for pumpkin pie at Los Angeles' widely popular Urth Cafe (which I haven't been able to replicate at home). What's the secret recipe to truly out of the box pumpkin pie?

iPad Fingerpainting: Museum Worthy?

Representational painting requires great skill and practice. The best examples aptly capture light, breathing life into the work. Accurate proportion and perspective is an asset. Matching what you perceive as the correct color to what actually is the correct color requires a highly trained eye.

News: Draw With Fire

Tobias Kipp and Timo Pitkämö have taken the art of pyrography into the streets. The two German artists practice street portraiture with an unusual twist. Swapping a pencil or paintbrush for a sparkler, they draw portraits with fire in the amount of time it takes the sparkler to burn (84 seconds).

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (04/11 - 04/17)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.

How To: Kill Twitter's New "Weekly Digest" Email

You may have noticed an unusual email from Twitter over the last couple of days that showed recent stories and tweets from those you follow. This is a new initiative from Twitter that gives you "the best of Twitter in your inbox". It's basically just a weekly summary of the most recent and relevant stories and tweets from your connections.

How To: Download Your Data with Google Takeout

While we're waiting for Google to sort out the mess over suspended Google+ accounts, it's a good reminder that you have the option to download much of your Google+ data with Google Takeout. Google Takeout, created by an internal Google engineering team marketed as the Data Liberation Front, is a free service that provides a handy and easy way to download data from your Google+ stream, your contacts and circles, and other information in a zip file.

News: Monsters in My Pocket

A few friends and I were recently sitting around and talking about old action figures we had when we were kids. We talked about Visionaries, Super Naturals, Battle Beasts, and others. Finally, we got around to talking about Monster in My Pocket. As a confirmed monster fanatic, Monster in My Pocket was obviously a favorite of mine, and it's the first place I ever heard of several monsters, including the Baba Yaga, who I was later to get to know much better via Hellboy.

SUGARBUILT: If you give a artist a cookie...

New Mexico native Amelia Coulter grew up amongst the rich creative community and natural beauty of Santa Fe. After attending SUNY Purchase as a sculpture major, Amelia settled in Brooklyn and decided to merge her love of patterns, architecture and design with her passion for food. Thus SUGARBUILT was born. Amelia seeks out the best ingredients available to create wonderful and unusual recipes. Starting with the basics of a tasty sugar cookie dough and royal icing, she transforms the classic c...

News: Anal-Retentive Miniscule Pencil Tip Carvings

Dalton Ghetti has been carving teeny, tiny pencil tip sculptures for 25 years. Mr. Ghetti, who owns about as many possessions as a monk, is aware how unusual his craft is. He started carving tree bark when he was a child and experimented with everything from soap to chalk before settling on graphite. It's second nature now, and for 90 percent of his work, all he needs is a sewing needle, a razor blade and a carpenter's or No. 2 pencil.