The largest city of the Istrian Peninsula and an ancient Roman port, Croatia’s Pula takes tourists back to the days when Romans ruled the lands.

During the Antiquity festival, at the start of summer’s traveling season, people gather in the Forum and Small Roman theater, demanding “bread and games”. This year, on My 23rd, the members of the Hungarian Collegium Cladiatorium fighting club were only happy to oblige. They entertained the crowds just like the gladiators of old used to…minus the hurting and killing each other, of course.

Photos by Xianhua/Reuters

via big5.cri.cn

You know what the best thing about this mean-machine is? IT CAN BE YOURS!

That’s right, created by artist Jake Hildebrandt, for the release of Damnation (a video-game from Codemasters), this Steampunk PC is now the prize of a competition initiated by Destructoid. All you have to do is show your love for Steampunk design. The most original comment gets to take home this cool rig. Unfortunately the contest is only available to people in Canada and the US. You have until June 19 to enter.

The Damnation Steampunk PC sports an Intel Core i7 965 processor, 12 gigabytes of DD3 RAM, an X57 chipset motherboard, dual Radeon 4870X2 graphics-card and 1 terabyte of hard-drive. So it’s not just a “pretty face”, this baby can handle just about anything you throw at it.

I like Datamancer’s Steampunk Laptop a bit more, but Jake Hildebrandt’s work of art isn’t bad either.

photos via Jack of All Trades on Flickr

The World Beard and Mustache Competition was held in Anchorage, Alaska, and crowned its winner from one of the locals.

Contestants from as far as Turkey or Switzerland traveled to Alaska to compete for the title of hairiest man…sorry, for having the most beautiful facial hair. That doesn’t sound very nice either, but you know what I mean. There were 300 facial-hair enthusiasts, from eleven countries, fighting for this coveted title.

David Traver, a local boy, won the competition with his 20-inch beard, grown for a period of two and a half years, before being braided into the shape of a snowshoe.

Photos by AP and

via Daily Mail

Charlie is a lucky British drake who had one of his wings amputated, but managed to recover and is now looking forward to a peaceful life.

The drake was found near the Download Open Air Museum, in West Essex, after he had been shot while swimming peacefully on a pond. His injuries were to severe and one of his wings had to be amputated. If he were a wild drake he wouldn’t have been able to survive, but lucky Charlie has fuly recovered and will go on to live a happy life.

via Daily Mail

I know what you’re thinking, but no, these are not stils from Starship Troopers, these giant crabs live right here, on Earth.

The Coconut Crab is the largest land-crab in the world, with a diameter of around three feet and weight of over nine lbs. As you might have guessed, this giant crustacean loves coconuts. It climbs coconut-trees, crushes their fruit with its powerful pinchers and scrap out the inside.

They are sold as pets in markets like Tokyo, but I find it hard to believe people would want such a creature in their houses. It’s not only their appearance and size, but also their strength. If you’re not careful, a Coconut Crab could easily crush one of your limbs. Just think, if it can crush a coconut, what could it do to your arm.

Coconut Crabs live on the islands of the Indo-Pacific region, but, unfortunately, their numbers are declining, due to loss of habitat and poaching. They are considered a delicacy by some people and it is said their flesh resembles the taste of lobsters.

via Scienceray

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Having a goat as a member of the Royal Army might seem funny to most people, but it has been a British tradition for more than 200 years.

Lance Corporal William Windsor has served in the army for the last eight years, traveling overseas, meeting royalty and leading military parades. His comrades from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Welsh said goodbye to their loyal colleague as he walked by to the trailer that took him to the zoo, where he will spend his retirement.

Billy the Goat is a Kashmir goat and was offered as a gift to the Royal Army, by the Queen herself. Billy’s replacement will be announced in June, when another kid goat will be picked from a heard in Great Orme, North Wales.

Photos by PA and REUTERS

via Daily Mail

Animation can have a weird effect on people. For example, this guy built a custom Wall-E pc case after watching the famous animation movie.

This Russian fellow spent 18 days building this awesome pc case mod from scratch, after watching Wall-E. He just fely had to have Wall-E hold his computer components and because there was no such case on the market, he decided to build it himself. I have to say the result is nothing less than mind-blowing, and watching the entire building process on Casemods.ru, made me admire his work even more.

I’m sure many of you would kill to have such a thing of beauty sitting on your desk, and, to be honest, I would too.

This dude would make a great escape artist. I bet he could break out of a pair of handcuffs with ease.

Sure, he’s no Rubberboy, but I tried bending my fingers like that, and I almost broke one of them. Looking at some of the photos, I thought to myself ‘this doesn’t look too difficult’, but turns out I was seriously wrong. Either that or I have the stiffest hands on Earth.

Take a look at mister flexible here and let me know if you can pull of his hand-tricks. Don’t over-do it though, I take no personal responsibility for your injuries.

via DooDoo

CompuLab has just introduced its new PC. It’s fast, quiet and most importantly, it’s tiny.

Designed around the Intel Atom Z530 1.6 Ghz processor, the smallish Fit-pc2 is a real power-saver too. It manages to run Microsoft Windows or Ubuntu Linux, using just 6W and can render full HD 1080p videos with just 7W.

The Fit-pc2 is fan and blower free, managing to stay cool thanks to its smart aluminum casing that dissipates heat. It may be just 4”x4.5”x1.05” (smaller that a CD), but it’s a pretty mean machine for its size. Here’s what u can find inside:
* 1.6GHz x86 CPU
* 1GB RAM
* SATA hard disk
* DVI with graphics acceleration
* High definition audio
* LAN and WLAN
* 6 USB ports

via fit-pc2.com

Cats are great climbers, that’s not a big secret, but a cat climbing up a 13-foot dry wall? Now that’s something you don’t see every day.

Charlie is a very special seven-year-old cat from Falkirk, Britain, who has the very special skill of climbing buildings. As you’ve probably guessed, this is the talent that got him the very cool nick-name Spider-cat.

Charlie began climbing up to his owner’s flat, on the first floor of an apartment-building, after he got bored of waiting for someone to open the front door of the building, after his daily walk around the bloc. One day he just went to the back of his owner’s home, took a long look at the obstacle in front of him and just jumped up the wall. Using his front paws for grip and his behind paws for leverage, he made it up to the first floor and started miaowing until someone opened the door for him. Since that faithful day, Charlie the Spider-cat has been climbing up the dry-wall on a regular basis.

Check out the incredible video of Charlie doing what he does best, after the photos.

Photos by PA

via Daily Mail

Australian vet performs life-saving operation on a frog.

A female tree frog had been nearly sliced in half by a lawnmower, but a talented vet, with a soft spot for frogs, managed to fix her back to life. Stephen Cutter spent 30 minutes in surgery, stitching the skin on the frog’s back, after it had been ripped by the blades of a lawnmower.

The procedure was very delicate, considering frogs are very sensitive to chemicals used to clean wounds on humans and other animals. But the good doctor managed to rescue the brave amphibian who fought for her life, and is now almost fully recovered.

This is not the first time doctor Cutter has saved a frog, as he confessed he has also operated and saved frogs hit by cars. Victoria, named after the Victa lawnmower that injured her, is now set to be released on the outskirts of Litchfield National Park, and has every chance of living a normal, healthy life. That’s if she doesn’t get in front of a lawnmower again.

Photos by Barcroft Media Read More »

Smelly-dog-owners around the world, rejoice! The Dog-o-Matic washing machine has arrived.

Invented by Romain Jarry, a 31-year-old Frenchman, the Dog-o-Matic is a pet washing machine that turns your pooch from filthy to fluffy in just 30 minutes. Jarry says his machine proved a real success in his home town of St Max, and he’s now thinking of introducing it to the rest of France, and soon Britain.

He claims the Dog-o-Matic isn’t harmful to animals, as they just sit inside waiting to be washed and dried. I reckon that depends on how used the animals are to water, the puppy in the photos doesn’t seem very calm and comfortable. All the pet-owner has to do is put the dog/cat inside the Dog-o-Matic, set the wash cycle and select the animal’s size.

I have a feeling the Dog-o-Matic will be in a world of trouble once PETA hears about it, those guys don’t joke around when animal cruelty is mentioned

via Daily Mail

Primates and dogs don’t normally get along too well, but Suryia the orangutan and Roscoe, a Blue Tick hound have become best friends.

Their beautiful friendship began when Roscoe followed some of the caretakers at a South Caroline animal shelter through the gates. As soon as she saw him, Suryia ran to him and started playing. Since that day, there’s nothing the two love more than swimming and rolling around together. The friendly orangutan even takes her buddy on his daily walks and occasionally feeds him some of her monkey biscuits. When bored, the two take a ride on Bubbles, a 27-years-old African elephant.

Word of their bizarre but beautiful relationship reached the media and now Suryia and Roscoe will be featured on one of Oprah‘s special shows, called Amazing Animal Friendship. National Geographic also paid them a visit.

Their bond might seem incredible, but if tigers and pigs can be friends, then anything is possible.

Photos by Barry Bland/Barcroft Media

via Daily Mail

These lovely old ladies have spent a long time knitting their classic British village of Mersham.

It all started 23 years ago when the 12 women were reading an article in Women’s Weekly about another group of women who had accomplished a similar feat. They said to themselves ‘we should give it a whirl’, but had no idea it would become such an important part of their lives.

These knitted masterpieces might not look like much to the untrained eye, but all the buildings are knitted to scale and took thousand of hours to complete. When it was finished, the knitted village was presented at craft fairs and raised 10,000 pounds for the Mersham village hall fund. This Saturday, it will be up for sale in the Mersham Hall. With the media coverage this fabric work of art has received so far, I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of buyers present in the Kent village.

I dare say the knitted village looks even better than the very original knitted bike

via Daily Mail

And I thought pregnant Trash Talkin’ Turleen was disgusting.

The pregnant doll and the models of human fetuses in different stages of development, were very popular items in 19th century Japan. They were part of educational and entertaining sideshows in Edo (present day Tokyo). The pregnant doll was originally created to teach midwives about giving birth, but the sideshows also attracted other people, curious about the human body.

In 1877, a hospital doctor showed off an elaborate set of models depicting various stages of fetal development. It was a big hit.

Source: Geijutsu Shincho Magazine via Pink tentacle

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