46-year-old Swiss stuntman Freddy Nock is a bigger bad-ass than you are. And he proved it by tight-rope walking. He scaled Germany’s highest mountain — the Zugspitze, which stands 2962 metres above sea level — by walking along its kilometer-long cable car cable. Without a balancing pole.
They made a robot seagull. It flies by flapping its robot seagull wings. I mean yes this is a huge breakthrough in terms of flight engineering, but even if that’s not your jam, you’re going to want to take a look at the awesome two-metre wide flying robot on display at TEDGlobal.
You’ve probably wondered about this yourself. What would happen if you had access to a backhoe, and a swimming pool, and weren’t constrained by issues like the law, or those stupid labels saying ‘do not operate heavy machinery while intoxicated’? Well you don’t have to wonder anymore; these Hungarian folks have the answer.
Melissa, a Brazilian footwear brand, is doing it right. They created this giant time-lapse video on the side of a building in SãoPaolo using Post-it notes as analog pixels. I’m not totally clear on why this would make me want to buy shoes, but whatever it looks amazing.
You’re going to want to watch this. OK Go have put out a new experimental music video for their new track, All Is Not Lost. You remember that one video with the treadmills? Or with the Rube Goldberg machine? Yeah, this is better than that.
You guys remember that VW commercial that ran during the Superbowl with a tiny Darth Vader? Well, Greenpeace does. And they’ve made a spoof follow-up in an effort to call attention to the automaker’s environmental record. Liberal media sentiments aside, it’s cute – click through for a tiny Vader and a Message About The Environment.
Believe me, many things can be said about Tom Cruise and his weird ways. But the oke does have a knack for pulling off some really interesting movie roles. He is currently filming a rock version of “Mamma Mia”, called “Rock of Ages” – and yes, he’ll sing in it as well! Check out the first image of Tom as rocker Stacee Jaxx inside.
Australian TV presenter, Karl Stefanovich found himself interviewing the Dalai Lama, as one does, and decided that the best thing to do would be to try that “the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop” joke. Take a look and see how well that worked out for him.
I need a cooler hobby. Over the weekend, Zane Whitmore, a 34-year-old from Seattle, attached himself to a hot air balloon with four piercings across his shoulder blades, and took to the air for a little more than an hour, cruising at just under 3 000 metres. No, I don’t know why either, look at the video.
Perspective-based art is usually a little lame – ‘look, guys, I’m holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa!’ – but this dude pulls it off. Erik Johannson, Stockholm street artist, set up this bottomless pit illusion called ‘Mind Your Step’ in Sergels torg, and let passers-by play around with it. It’s cool.
moonage3, who uploaded this advert by Hahn Brewery, called it the ‘Most EPIC beer commercial EVER.’ Now, the word ‘epic’ is getting a little stale, and nobody likes too many letters in upper case, but just this once I’m in agreement with moonage3. Please. Let Hahn Brewery show you how they put awesome in a bottle.
You guys remember photographer Sacha Goldberger and his depressed grandmother, right? He took photos of her dressed as a superhero to cure her depression. And it seemed to work! Which is why Goldberger and Mamika have released another round of pretty rad faux-superhero photographs. There’s a superdog now, too.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has released a report stating that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed. Like Dame Judi Dench and Sting, the 19-member panel – which includes Sir Richard Branson, Kofi Annan and former leaders of Brazil and Mexico – is urging for the decriminalization of drugs. The USA is not amused.
Hell. Yes. Filmmaker Jon Gustafsson caught footage of the Grimsvötn eruption – the one that closed all those Icelandic airports and grounded all those planes – from the apparent safey of an Icelandic military helicopter. It looks pretty cool. And I’m very excited to have written that sentence.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, the commercial spaceflight vehicle, recently had its seventh test flight, dropped from a height of 15km to see if it could adjust speed and bearing with various wing configurations. Which sounds technically fancy, but really just looks insanely cool.
Ananias Rodrigues da Silva, the Brazilian Barack Obama lookalike, stopped by São Paulo to pay a visit to Francisco Fernandes – a bar owner who has been repeatedly harassed for his resemblance to Osama bin Laden. The two had a couple of shots and posed for photographs. It’s pretty great.
Yesterday, Virgin America held an opening ceremony for their new Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport; press were ushered onto a waiting aircraft, and told to keep an eye out for Virgin-Galactic-related-things after takeoff. After about 20 minutes they were asked to look out of their windows, because White Knight 2 and Spaceship 2 were doing fly-byes.
A group of skaters armed with handheld cameras take a run through Christchurch in the aftermath of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake in February. As earthquake-stricken citizens go, they seem pretty optimistic! And the video is very cool-looking too. Take a look.
In support of Equal Payday, which seeks to address the disparity between male and female salaries around the world, Benny Benassi has remade the sexy-construction-outfits video for ‘Satisfaction’ to mark International Women’s Day. It’s a little bit amazing. Satisfaction came out in 2002, by the way.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I’d want a robot clone too, it’s just not totally clear why Henrik Scharfe, professor at Aalborg University, actually got one assembled by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute in Japan. It’s ostensibly the first android with a beard, though, so yay science.
You guys remember all that hoo-ha over Gervais’ Golden Globes bit? It was pretty great. In all likelihood, that’s why the Oscars are being hosted by similarly scathing comedians, Anne Hathaway and James Franco. Sweetheart that he is, Gervais has offered them some free material, “in case they have a few minutes to fill.”
Ha. Last night, someone in control of the Red Cross Twitter feed accidentally posted “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd. ” Then the internet found out & made a meme of it, resulting in a flood of Red Cross blood donations.
An attempted smash-and-grab at a Northampton jeweler was prevented when a red coated woman started walloping the six armed gang members with her handbag. The would-be-thieves attempted to escape on their scooters, but fell over. And got hit with a handbag again. I’ve seen this movie before.
At an undisclosed location in Hawaii, this guy called Devin Graham – who is known for doing odd things in interesting places, and placing videos on the internet – took an abandoned water reservoir turned it into the world’s most coolest Slip ‘n Slide.