This is one of those stories that when you read it you just go “Whaaa???”

Last Tuesday, a 375-pound black bear found himself in a world of trouble when it took a plunge into the Gulf of Mexico after scavenging through garbage cans in the small beach front community of Alligator Point in the Florida Panhandle. Wildlife officials had been alerted that the bear was hiding under a home and tried to tranquilize it with a dart. Unfortunately, the tranquilizer worked slower than expected, leaving the bear just enough time to make a run for it and end up in deep water.

So what do you do when you see a huge bear slowly drowning in front of you? If you’re biologist Adam Warwick (a.k.a. the bravest man on the planet), you jump in and play lifeguard.

According to Warwick, the original idea was to prevent the bear from swimming further out to deeper waters but after a few minutes it lost motor control and started sinking. On the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website, he explains what happened next:

“At that point I knew I had to keep the bear from drowning,” he said. “After a few seconds the bear popped his head up out of the water and thrashed around a bit, but could obviously no longer keep his head above water.”

Warwick kept one arm underneath the bear and the other gripping the scruff of its neck to keep the bear’s head above water. Warwick said he walked barefoot over concrete blocks crusted with barnacles in the 4-foot-deep water as he tried to guide and use the water to help float the bear back to shore.

Putting your own life on the line to save an animal big enough to eat you for a morning snack from drowning. Now that’s what I consider to be true heroism.

You can read the whole incredible story and reevaluate the useage of the term “hero” here.

Here’s something to give you a chuckle (especially if you’re at work) on a Friday afternoon. Do you know what it really means to give something 100% or more than 100%? Well, someone’s figured it out mathematically! Here’s a treat from Blogvaria entitled “Simple Math”:

If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

It is obvious that H-A-R-D W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

While B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

Finally, and most effectively A-S-S K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 127%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top!

Whether or not we can slow down global warming or curtail its devastating effects, I think planning for a worst case scenario is probably not a bad idea. You’ve all heard or read about the eventual rise in ocean levels that will lead to the disappearance of not just cities but entire countries, displacing tens of millions of people globally. So what’s the most logical solution? Live on water of course! According to 31-year-old award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, by the year 2100, a large population of ecological refugees will live in amphibious cities like his latest creation: the Lilypad. This amphibian half aquatic and half terrestrial city will be able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and its fauna and flora will thrive around an artificial central lagoon.

Click on to see more of this fully sustainable, zero emission ecopolis! Read the rest of this entry »

An artist by the name of Benjamin Verdonck has built a man-sized swallow nest and hung it on the side of the Weena Tower in Rotterdam, Holland (aka The Netherlands). From his perch high above the city, he is behaving like a bird and staring longingly at a giant ‘lost’ egg he has placed on the sidewalk below. Based on the reactions from the people in this video, I’d say they think Mr. Verdonck is just moments away from the cuckoo’s nest.

A while ago I watched a mildly amusing ad for a job listings website called The Ladders. The ad showed a tennis match where the crowd mobs the court because they all want to play. The idea is that The Ladders only features $100K+ jobs for $100K+ job applicants:

Then today I watched an ad for French bank BNP Paribas. The ad showed a tennis match where the crowd mobs the court because they all want to play. Sound familiar? Well, judging from the production one could ask if the two companies didn’t just use the same idea but the same advertising agency:

Both ads are currently running on CNN. I guess the real question is who is going to sue whom for stealing the idea.

With today’s consumer-grade technologies advancing to such an extent as to rival their high-end (i.e. unaffordable) professional equivalents, we average Joes and Janes have the capability to produce pretty much any media we want. Digital cameras, with their automatic face detection, motion capturing, red-eye reducing, colour correcting functions can make anyone’s snapshot into an award winning photo. Ok, that’s a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. Software likewise is enabling the average consumer to Photoshop and video edit like a pro (or to think so anyway).

It should therefore come as no surprise that you can even publish your own bookstore-quality softcover! With $12.95, you can build a truly jaw-dropping coffee table book that will make your party guests do a double take when they can’t believe they see your name printed on its cover. We’re talking about stylized, well layed out, customizable works of art here people. That’s what you can do on Blurb.com. A couple of friends sent me this link (thanks Marina & Angela!) and it just blew me away. Imagine surprising your mother with a breathtaking art book of her paintings…or building a slick and glossy photo book of your two-year old tyrants that will knock their grandparents’ teeth out…or the ultimate wedding book that would put Martha Stewart’s scrapbooks to shame. Think business books, portfolios, children’s books…oh, the possibilities.

And it’s simple to boot! You just download the FREE Blurb BookSmart bookmaking software (works on both Mac and PC), follow the instructions to add photos, artwork, and text…and when you’re satisfied with your creative output, just place the order for the book online. You even have the option of putting your book in the Blurb Bookstore for sale to anyone willing to pay your assigned price (yes, you keep 100% of the markup and no, if you don’t make your book public, no one will have access to it or its contents – your book is copyrighted and that copyright belongs to you). Read the rest of this entry »

At the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco lives a Penguin named Pierre who has a bit of a problem: At the ripe old age of 25, he’s going bald! And although for us humans this can be an embarrassment, for an African Penguin it would usually be a death sentence unless you happen to have some friends at Oceanic Worldwide, a diving gear supplier.

You see, penguins rely on their feathers rather than blubber to keep themselves warm as they fly through frigid waters. And when the feathers come off, so does the insulation. As a result, poor old Pierre was left shivering on the side of the pool as his friends basked about. But with the help of his scientist keepers and scuba gear friends, he was outfitted with a sleek and warm wet suit that would keep him nice and warm. And after wearing the new outfit for some time, Pierre’s feathers are now growing back and he is slowly learning to take the plunge in the buff as he did back in the day.

The idea of outfitting penguins with clothes to keep them warm actually isn’t all that new. On several occasions, knitting drives have been started to make sweaters for penguins caught in oil spills. When the oil soils their feathers, they start picking at them and end up growing bald. In addition, they lose the ability to repel water and as a result the penguins get cold and die. So now when you see pictures of penguins with knitted sweaters, you know it’s more than a fashion statement.

When people say “everything can be art” I often just shrug, because even though a pile of garbage or a starving dog can be called art, it isn’t necessarily art in the “wow, that’s an amazing work of art” kind of way. But then something pops up that is so amazing that my faith in modern art is revived.

Case in point: Brian Dettmer and his dissected books. I can’t really tell you much about these amazing creations other than that they are made entirely from old books. It just goes to show that with enough imagination and ingenuity, you can make beautiful art out of even the most mundane everyday objects.

Dettmer’s sculptures will be on display at the Kinz, Tillou + Feigen Gallery in New York from May 3rd to June 14th, 2008. More photos after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the one thing missing from your favourite neighbourhood restaurant? The one thing that would make it really special?

If you ask residents of Taipei and Hong Kong, it’s the opportunity to eat out of toilet bowls and drink from urinals. Yup, you heard me right. The restaurant chain Modern Toilet prides itself on having its patrons sit on toilets while they eat out of miniature toilet bowls and drink from urinals. And if you’re still hungry after that hot potty pot, you can even order some stylishly shaped ice cream severd up in a bidet. If that doesn’t tickle your gag reflex taste buds, I don’t know what will. Yummy!

I just have one thing to say: WTF?! Click on this TheTyee article for an explanation on a bizarre trend that can only come from Japan. And if this isn’t enough, there’s always more at JapaneseBugFights.com