The Satisfying Art of Hand-Sculpting Ice Cubes With a Knife

Who knew watching and listening to a bartender chop block of ice into translucent jewels with a santoku knife could be so satisfying?

A Tokyo bartender recently got his five minutes of online fame after a video of him carefully turning blocks of ice into beautiful jewels went viral on Twitter, getting over one million views. It doesn’t sound like anything remotely interesting, but I spent close to an hour today just watching him slice the ice into almost perfects cubes and then cut the corners and sharp edges to create these crystal-like cubes for his patrons.

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Bugatti Now Sells Self-Leveling Pool Tables for $300,000

Bugatti, a company known for its exclusive sport cars, recently unveiled a $300,000 luxury pool table that relies on highly advanced gyroscopic technology to remain perfectly level in any conditions, making it usable on yachts.

There are a few things in this world that money can’t buy, and until now, playing pool at sea was one of them. Try as they might, engineers could not design a table to negate the rocking of the boat and remain level. Until now, that is, because Bugatti apparently managed to create a self-leveling pool table that will allow the rich and powerful to enjoy a game of billiards on their expensive yachts.

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Man Sells Permanent Advertising Space on His Neck

Egor Onopko, an up-and-coming blogger from Vladivostok, Russia, managed to attract a lot of media attention and make some nice pocket money by turning the right side of his neck into advertising space for interested individuals and businesses. No one really believed Onopko, who goes by “onokonda” on social media, would go through with the idea when he first announced it on Instagram, but last week, he posted visual proof that he had gone through with it, adding that he made around 1 million rubbles ($13,500) from the 10 sold advertising spots.

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Woman Declared Missing in Canyon 6 Months Ago Found Living in Tent on Diet of Grass and Moss

A 47-year-old woman who went missing almost half a year ago in a canyon in Utah was recently found living in a small tent, surviving mostly on a diet of grass and moss.

The woman, whose name has not been released, was declared missing last November after her car and camping equipment were found in a parking lot near Spanish Fork Canyon, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. Utah County Sheriff’s Office searched the area, but could not locate her, and attempts to contact her relatives proved unsuccessful. In the end, authorities impounded the car and held her equipment, assuming that she had crossed into Colorado. Still, search and rescue teams continues to scour the area both on foot and from the air, and last weekend they finally found her.

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Company Develops AI-Controlled Shoes That Help the Blind Avoid Obstacles

Austrian company Tec-Innovation recently unveiled smart shoes that use ultrasonic sensors to help people suffering from blindness of vision impairment to detect obstacles up to four meters away.

Known as InnoMake, the smart shoe aims to become a modern alternative to the decades-old walking stick that millions of people around the world depend on to get around as safely as possible. The currently available model relies on sensors to detect obstacles and warns the wearer via vibration and an audible alert sounded on a Bluetooth-linked smartphone. That sounds impressive enough, but the company is already working on a much more advanced version that incorporates cameras and artificial intelligence to not only detect obstacles but also their nature.

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Thousands of Cockroaches Released in Restaurant to Settle Debt Dispute

Patrons at a restaurant in Taipei, were recently shocked to see cockroaches crawling all over the place after thousands of them were released on the premises by two masked men.

On May 4th, two masked men entered the G House Taipei restaurant holding large bags filled with over 1,000 cockroaches, which they simply released at the reception desk on the second floor of the establishment, before fleeing the scene. Roaches started crawling on the floor, walls and furniture, and it wasn’t long before patrons enjoying their meals there started noticing them as well. Among the diners were policemen Taipei Police Department who were attending a banquet there, and they immediately created a task force to catch the perpetrators.

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The Unique Cast Iron Church of Istanbul

The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church in Istanbul, Turkey, has the detailed ornaments of an Orthodox stone church, but it’s actually made of prefabricated cast iron elements.

Sometimes referred to as ‘The Iron Church’, St. Stephen Church is considered the largest prefabricated cast iron building in the world. It consists of thousands of prefabricated pieces of cast iron, from large walls, to small, intricate decorations, all of which weigh over 500 tons. As almost the entire structure and its exquisite décor are cast out of iron, a close inspection reveals the heads of the large screws holding it together everywhere you look.

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Filipino Man Has the Largest Collection of Fast Food Toys in the World

Percival Lugue, a graphic artist from the Philippines, has been collecting toys from various fast food chains since he was just 5-year-old. Now, at age 50, he holds the Guinness Record for the most fast food toys in the world, over 20,000 of them.

Lugue has held the record for the largest collection of fast food toys since 2014, when his tally stood at around 10,000 unique items, but he has been busy consolidating his record ever since, and now he has more than 20,000 toys. Like any child, he always liked playing with the toys he got with his fast food meals, but he always took care of them, so he was able to start his epic collection pretty early. Over the years, he has collected new items from various fast food chains, like McDonald’s, Burger King and even the Philippines’ favorite brand, Jollibee, and compares the excitement of adding a new toy to his collection to experiencing Christmas morning as a kid.

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Man Eats Rotisserie Chicken, Preserves Skeleton as Museum Exhibit

A Japanese skeleton enthusiast recently got his five minutes of online fame after posting photos of an impressive chicken skeleton he managed to put together out of the bones of a rotisserie chicken he ate.

Mr. Kudo, a Japanese man who dreams of transforming his home into a museum-of-sorts filled with all sorts of animal skeletons, managed to wow millions of Twitter users with his latest creation – an almost perfect chicken skeleton assembled out of the bones of a rotisserie he himself gorged on. On April 28th, he took to Twitter to post before and after photos of a roasted chicken he had bought at a discount from a supermarket in Akita, Kanagawa Prefecture, a few weeks prior. The preserved chicken skeleton, showcased on the same disposable platter that came with the roasted dish, blew everyone away, and for good reason, it looked better than the specimens you see in most museums.

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Woman Spends Over $150,000 on Two Footbridges to Make Sure Her Son Gets to School Safely

A loving mother in China’s Henan province spent more than a million yuan ($154,000) building two metal footbridges in front of her son’s school, to make sure he and the other kids cross the road safely.

The woman, identified only by her surname, Meng, recently told Henan Television Station that the road outside her son’s school was always congested when parents dropped off or picked up their kids, and with no traffic lights installed in the proximity, crossing the road was a dangerous affair for both students and teachers. Another reason why she spent money out of her own pocket to build the footbridges over the road was that the school was located on lower ground and the puddles that constantly formed on the road caused her son to always come home with his feet soaking wet.

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China’s Rich Paying Big Money on Learning How to Recognize Fake Luxury Goods

With counterfeit luxury goods getting harder and harder to spot, China’s rich are paying thousands of dollars for  specialized courses on how to tell apart authentic luxury products from fakes.

China’s domestic luxury market is currently valued at approximately 4 trillion yuan ($617.7 billion) and that’s not even taking into account the second-hand luxury goods trade, but this boom has also given rise to sophisticated counterfeiting. Stories of bargain hunters being conned into parting with their money in exchange for hard-to-spot fake luxury products are very common on Chinese social media, so much so that there are now companies offering specialized courses on how to tell authentic luxury goods like Louis Vuitton or Chanel bags from counterfeit ones.

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Yin and Yang Fish – A Controversial Dish That’s Both Dead and Alive

Yin and Yang Fish is a controversial dish where the body of a fish is cooked, while the head is kept fresh so that it moves its mouth and eyes while it is being eaten.

From fish that smells like a public toilet, to a cheese as hard as rock and even a fish-head-stuffed pie, the world is full of weird foods, but few dishes can be described as truly disturbing. Well, the dish you’re about to discover is one such rarity. Reportedly invented in the early 2000s, by a restauranteur in Chiayi City, Taiwan, Yin and Yang fish, also known as “dead and alive fish”, is definitely not a dish for the faint of heart. It consist of a whole fish, usually carp, whose body has been cooked and covered in sauce, but whose head is maintained raw so that its mouth and eyes are still moving while it is being eaten.

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Thursday the Dating App Only Works One Day a Week, Can You Guess Which?

New dating app ‘Thursday’ is trying to make online dating fun and exciting again by only letting users access it on just one day of the week (yeah, you guessed it).

It’s hard to believe that a dating app that isn’t even active six days a week can have any success, let alone challenge big players like Tinder or Bumble, but George Rawlings and Matt McNeill Love, the two entrepreneurs behind Thursday, are very confident in their product. And judging by the interest Thursday has spurred – over 110,000 pre-registered singles around London and New York alone – they may be proven correct when the app finally launches this Thursday, May 6th.

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This Arizona McDonald’s Is the Only One in the World With Blue “Golden Arches” Logo

The “Golden Arches” McDonald’s logo is one of the most recognized commercial symbols in the world, but there is one place where the arches are actually blue instead of yellow.

On the inside, the McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in Sedona, Arizona, looks just like the thousands of other McDonald’s eateries around the United States, but step outside and you’ll notice something odd. The iconic Golden Arches logo is blue instead of yellow. It’s actually the only McDonald’s in the world that doesn’t have a yellow logo, and it’s all because of the stunning natural beauty, particularly the red rock formations that surround Sedona.

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Want to Take Your Pet Fish for a Walk? There’s a Bag for That!

A Japanese company is working on a quirky container-like bag for live fish, suitable both for pet owners wanting to take their favorite fish on walks, and fans of super-fresh sashimi…

Known as “katsugyo bag” this portable fish tank is shaped like a long tube with a transparent middle section, a handle and a gauge, which, if I had to guess, monitors the oxygen saturation of the water. It is being developed by “Ma Corporation”, and aims to become a more elegant, efficient and environmentally-friendly alternative to the old water-filled plastic bag.

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