Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce) has a new video lecture series called RSA Animate that adds a layer of clever hand-drawn animation to their most compelling talks…if all my college lectures were animated like this, my GPA would have taken me out for a drink to thank me.

This talk, by Professor Philip Zimbardo, is titled “The Secret Powers of Time” – he explains how shared time perspectives can characterize a nation. For example, in Sicilian dialect, future tense verbs (like ‘will be’) simply don’t exist – Zimbardo says this is because Sicilians are more focused on traditions of the past instead of the future.

I think I’m a “Present Hedonist” – so I want to watch this video NOW, and I’ll be ANGRY if I have to wait more than 5 secs for it to load.

-Check out more RSA Animate talks here. (via Unique Daily)

Humans associate the color black with ‘evil’, and red with ‘passion’, no matter where in the world their culture exists. But things aren’t always so unanimous…click on this infographic by designer David McCandless and explore some of the differences.

Some observations:
-Re: ‘death’, Western/American cultures think of black, Hindu and Asian cultures think of white, Muslims relate to silver, and South Americans see green.
-Some cultures associate green with ‘luck’, while others think of red.
-Muslim and African cultures link silver to a ‘truce’, while the rest of the world thinks of ‘white’ (ie, a flag of surrender)
-Other concepts like ‘love’, ‘peace’, and ‘mourning’ have completely different color associations around the world.

-via Information Is Beautiful (via Neatorama)

The mayor of a small town in Romania recently got pissed off that so many drunk people were getting hit by cars, so he did what any responsible civil servant would do…he installed several of these road signs around town.  Translation:  ”Warning – Drunks!”

I especially love that they chose the always-PC word “drunks”.  If I was still 19, I know where I’d be going for Spring Break this year – seems like the ultimate party town…

-Telegraph via Buzzfeed

Somewhere…over the moonbow.  A moonbow is a rainbow created by the moon instead of the sun.  From Wikipedia – “moonbows are most easily viewed when the moon is near to full (when it is brightest).  The moon must be low in the sky and the sky must be dark. And of course there must be rain falling opposite the moon. This combination of requirements makes moonbows much more rare than rainbows produced by the sun.”

This stunning image was taken by photographer Garry Schlatter at 1am on Fraser Island off the coast of Australia.   Wow.

-Flickr via @EnviroGraffiti

Instant Shift has compiled a list of 80 boundary-pushing buildings that take architecture and art to a whole other level.  These are my favorites:

“Device to Root Out Evil” – Vancouver, Canada

-source

“The Crooked House” – Sopot, Poland

-source

“Basket Building” (Lonaberger Headquarters) – Ohio, USA

-source

“Stone House” – Guimaraes, Portugal

-source

“Kansas City Public Library” – Missouri, USA

-source

“Fuji Television Building” – Tokyo, Japan

-source

“Blur Building” – Yverdon-les-Bainz, Switzerland

-source

“Air Force Academy Chapel” – Colorado, USA

-source

“Turning Torso” – Malmo, Sweden

-source

“Atomium” – Brussels, Belgium

-source

“Pabellon de Aragon” – Zaragoza

-source

“National Architects Union Headquarters” – Romania

-source

“Edificio Mirador” – Madrid, Spain

-source

-Link via Neatorama

When American films are released in other countries, their titles are sometimes changed and adapted so local audiences can understand them. Makes sense, right? Not always. The Huffington Post has found some of the more hilarious titles that are lost in translation. Actually, I guess they do make sense…these are my favorites:

In China: “His Great Device Makes Him Famous”

In Germany: “Urban Neurotic”

In Argentina: “Vaseline”

In Italy: “If You Leave Me, I Delete You”

In Czech Republic: “Warm Shots”

In Hong Kong: “American Virgin Man”

The blog NerdAbout rolled up their sleeves and dug through Flickr to find the coolest statues on the planet.  Some of them are way out there – these are my favorites.

-Shark Crash, Oxford:

-Frustrated Businessman, LA:

-Pointy Finger, Stockholm:

-Melting Cow Popsicle, Budapest:

Sometimes I’m so proud of my roots. Naples, the wild Italian city known for it’s passionate locals, stunning architecture, and organized crime syndicate the Camorra, has started a program sponsored by the European Union called “Esco-Dentro”, or Exit-Inside. It helps put ex-cons back to legitimate work throughout the city. The guys (there are hardly any women in the program) can be assigned several types of jobs, including sanitation, street cleaning, and most interestingly, tour guides!

Si, on your next trip to Naples, look out for the guys wearing bright yellow vests, screaming loudly, and waving their arms furiously – they’re not dangerous – those are tour guides to help you find your way. What better group to give tourists the inside scoop on a city than the guys who know how it truly works?

The spokesman for the program, Pietro Ioia, is also a proud member. He touts it as a huge success and is worried about the EU funding drying up at the end of the year. He says, “I have 700 people waiting in line outside my office who don’t want to go back to crime and we need to give them an answer. Because if they get a job, that means 700 less in the hands of Camorra, and that would be outstanding”. Keep it up Signore Ioia…(unfortunately, a few weeks after he was interviewed for the article on Global Post, an older crime finally caught up with him and he was sent back to prison. Mamma Mia.)

-Via Global Post

I never fail to impress myself at how neurotic I can be in the week leading up to a planned beach vacation.  I compulsively check (and check and recheck and check again) the weather forecast for my destination (on Wunderground, Weather.com, and Accuweather).  And to make me even more crazy, the forecasts constantly change.  One minute it looks like a heavenly paradise…the next minute, a tsunami from hell.

Lufthansa’s new policy might not be able to help me predict the weather and sleep easier, but it will at least make me feel slightly better if my beach vacation turns into a nightmare from Mother Nature.  The German airline recently announced that it will start paying customers if their trip is washed out.  The details:  you’ll get $29 for every day that it rains at least 0.2 inches (up to a maximum of $283).  There are 36 destinations included in the program, including Barcelona, Rome, and New York (!!!).

That’s bold, considering the apocalyptic summer weather we’ve been having in New York…nice one Lufthansa.  It’s about time we start actually getting something BACK from airlines.

(I’m sure this announcement has nothing to do with the fact that Lufthansa just announced dismal financial results and a 5% drop in passengers compared to last year – but that’s another story)