Taras Lesko is an incredibly talented designer who likes to create beautiful things both on his computer and with his own two hands. Though his graphic designs are nothing short of impressive, it’s his paper craft creations that really caught my eye.

Taras spends months working on his paper craft models, drawing up the parts, cutting them out and putting them together. Now that doesn’t sound like anything special, but wait until you see what this guy make out of paper.

The Freedom Gundam is, in my opinion, the coolest paper craft model in his personal portfolio. Inspired by the famous Gundam anime movie, Taras spent two months working on the 4-foot paper-craft Fredom Gundam. He ended up using 175 paper sheets and 500 individual parts.

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Designer Alexander Gedda has spent several months making a replica of the famous Porsche 911 supercar, out of thousands of toy building blocks.

The 14-foot-long wooden replica was commissioned for the historic archive of a Porsche dealer in Milan and is made out of toy building blocks and a giant zipper, down the middle. The designer used over 6,500 wooden blocks, which, if placed end-to-end, make 1,500 meters of wood.

If you’re wondering what the role of the zipper is in all this, well it’s actually the only way to enter the “vehicle”. Inside you’ll find pretty much nothing, but if you’ve ever dreamed of being inside a wooden Porsche 911, you’ll have to use the zipper.

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Most likely, the only pyramids you learned about in school were the “Great” ones in Egypt. If you were lucky, you maybe heard that there were some in Central America, but mostly the education was all about Giza and the buried Pharaohs. However, pyramids were built as sacred architecture all over the world, from Chichen Itza (Mexico) to Indonesia; from China to the Canary Islands. If you’re traveling because you’re interested in cultures that you may not have known about before, then you have to check out these epic pyramids of the world.

1) Pyramids of Guimar (Tenerife) – Tenerife is one of the most well-traveled locales in the Canary Islands. There are plenty of hotels and cheap flights to Tenerife; this makes the Pyramids of Guimar a great first “Pyramid That’s Not In Egypt” to see. Built out of volcanic rock and fitted together without mortar, these pyramids are mysterious in that a) they’re comparable in size to all the major pyramids of the world, yet b) no one knows who built them. There are all kinds of stories involving Gnostic Christians, Freemasons, or even Aztec traders before the first millennium, but no one knows for sure. That’s why they’re so interesting.

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Yes, believe it or not, just 2 years and a half ago, this man looked like your average 30-year old, living  and working in the Big Apple.

I got these photos by email, the other day, and was stunned to see how much a person can change in just two years, if they get carried away. The email didn’t mention a name, but apparently the dude in the photos is a 32-year-old piercing and tattoo enthusiast, from New York, who got a ton of tattoos and piercings, but nothing that couldn’t be covered by pants and sleeves. He had a 9-to-5 office job and a pretty much normal life, when he decided to move closer to Manhattan and live how he always wanted.

Our hero started working as a tattoo apprentice, and that’s when things started getting out of hand. He started out small, with a few tattoos on the top of his shaved head, but got carried away and covered his entire head with ink. There’s really no room left and you could swear he’s a different person now.

Thanks a lot for the pics, Daegan!

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That’s right there are people out there who gladly cash out on reenacting the dramatic sinking of the Titanic, in a totally fun way.

An even more surprising is the fact that people actually pay to to go down with the Titanic. I mean COME ON, didn’t you see those tragic scenes from James Cameron’s film where people were hanging on for their lives, while the ship was sinking? Why would you want to go through that, even if it’s in a totally harmless manner?

In the Swiss town of Ibach, the inflatable Titanic slide was pretty popular with the visitors at the local fair, but it ended up being banned, following complaints from Switzerland’s Titanic Club. Spokesman Gunter Babler said “Is it ethical to let kids slide down the decks of a blow up Titanic? Hundreds of people died sliding down those decks.” And a visitor thought “It’s pretty sick. It’s like having a bouncy graveyard. No-one could forget that scene from the Titanic movie with all the people sliding down the decks to their deaths. It’s very insensitive.”

Still, the fair organizer believes “The tragic Titanic accident happened years ago and those emotions have been dealt with long ago. Now people are having fun on the slide and enjoying themselves.” Oh, that makes sense. Hey, I know, how about making an inflatable Auschwitz replica, getting people inside and “gassing” them with laughing gas? That sounds fun, and it’s been so long since the Holocaust there’s no reason why people shouldn’t have fun remembering it…

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I know, I know, the title makes no sense, but neither does this delicious chocolate cake shaped as a creepy human skull.

The Bitter Teeth cake was created by Chloe Bird, who followed an original t-shirt design by Threadless. She cast a silicone mold of a human skull, and used it to create the face and jaw of her cake out of delicious milk chocolate. The back of the skull was made from baked sponge cake and clued to the front of the skull with even more milk chocolate. Before covering the whole thing in molten chocolate, Chloe carved the details of the skull using dental equipment. The creepy teeth were painted with dark chocolate.

As you may imagine, its creepy look didn’t save the Bitter Teeth cake from the hungry mouths of Chloe’s work mates, who were all over it the moment she unveiled it.

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Flickr user Pepa Quinn, an avid fan of Futurama, has finally completed his amazing LEGO replica of the World of Tomorrow.

Pepa Quinn has been working on this LEGO masterpiece for over six months, regularly posting photos of his progress, but now he has finally completed his project. LEGO World of Tomorrow is a worthy replica of the world presented in Futurama, boasting famous landmarks like Planet Express, Robot Arms Apts, Madison Cube Garden and the sewers of New New York.

Pepa Quinn’s geeky LEGO metropolis has already been featured on popular websites like Comedy Central Insider, earning him the recognition he deserves. Well done!

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Haw Par Villa, also known as the Tiger Balm Gardens has to be one of the weirdest tourist spots you can find in Southeast Asia, and the weirdest in Singapore.

Aw Boob Haw and Aw Boon Par, the two brothers behind the famous Tiger Balm, built the Haw Par Villa in 1937. It featured over 1,000 statues and 150 dioramas inspired from Chinese folklore, history and mythology, and quickly became an attraction for people who appreciated Chinese culture. Although it was a huge place, Haw Par Villa was always full of people taking pictures of its weird-looking exhibits and kids running around holding balloons. That was 20 years ago, because now Singapore’s weird theme park is almost deserted.

But just because this place lost its glow doesn’t mean it’s not worth a visit, especially if you’re into offbeat attractions. I mean this place will really blow your mind, with statues like a woman breastfeeding her father in law, armed monkeys, or the human faced giant crab. Now these apparently do make some sense if you’ve read up on Chinese mythology, but to an uneducated guy like me they just look freaky.

Not to mention the Ten Stages of Hell exhibit, a place that will creep the hell out of a grownup, let alone a child. According to Chinese mythology, a soul must pass through ten courts of judgment, before being allowed into heaven, and Haw Par Villa has very detailed representations of these trials. As you’re about to see, they are not pretty.

All in all, Haw Par Villa is still considered a must-see attraction for people fond of Chinese culture, and efforts are being made to restore it to its former glory. If you want my opinion, don’t take your kids with you, unless you enjoy explaining why an old man is sucking on a woman’s breast… Read More »

Women of the Apatani Tribe, in India’s Apatani plateau, are famous for the bizarre nose plugs they’ve been wearing since times long passed.

The Apatani, or Tani, are a tribal group of about 60,000 members, often praised for their extremely efficient agriculture, performed without animals or machinery. They have no written record of their history, and traditions are passed down orally, from generation to generation.

One tradition that is quickly fading into the mist of time is the traditional Apatani nose plugs, worn by most of the elder women in the tribe. There was once a time when every woman had to wear these bizarre accessories, but since the middle of the 20th century, the custom began to die. According to the Apatani, the nose plug was born as a way of protecting the women of the tribe. Apparently, Apatani women have always been considered the most beautiful among the Arunachal tribes, their villages were constantly raided by neighboring tribes, and the women kidnapped.

To make themselves unattractive to the other tribes, Apatani women began wearing these hideous nose plugs and tattooing their faces with a horizontal line from the forehead to the tip of the nose, and five lines on their chins. Let’s face it, that turns off any raider in search of beautiful women to have his way with.

But the tradition of the Apatani nose plug hasn’t been practiced by any woman born after 1970, and as time passes, this custom will probably soon be forgotten. Well, at least we still have the Ethiopian lip plug.

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Constructed in1896, and used to store the gas that supplied Vienna, these four giant gasometers are now used as modern and original living spaces.

Remnants of the industrial age, gasometers all over the world have been demolished, or simply abandoned and left at the mercy of the elements. But the people of Vienna thought it would be a shame to just wipe these once useful structures off the face of the earth, and came up with a way to give them new meaning.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna’s gasometers were the largest in the world, each 70 meters tall and 60 meters across. Now, they are some of the city’s most coveted living and office spaces. After natural gas started being used to power Vienna, the interior of the gasometers was completely removed, leaving only their brick shells The idea of transforming them into living quarters appeared as the result of a design contest, calling for new ideas on how to reuse old structures. Now, the gasometer apartment buildings incorporate the ideas of four architects, including the translucent roofs, the interior garden and the eco-friendly terraced structure.

There are currently 1,500 people living in this gas tank city within a city. They are known as the Gasometer community.

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Li Xiaofeng is one of China’s most original artists, using broken porcelain shards to create unique wearable costumes.

Li Xiaofeng began his artistic career as a muralist, but quickly turned his attention to sculpture, in order to explore the concept of Chinese landscapes. Instead of the materials usually used in this art form (marble, wood or glass), Li decided to use something completely new, but ancient at the same time – porcelain shards from archeological sites. He cleans them shapes them, drills small holes into them and then binds them together with silver wire to create unique costumes he calls “rearranged landscapes”. Theoretically, his porcelain clothes are wearable, although they are just as heavy as a suit of armor (not so durable, though).

Recently, Lacoste asked Li Xiaofeng to create a porcelain polo shirt, for the company’s 2010 Holiday Collector’s Series. Because China forbids the export of ancient artifacts, including old porcelain shards. This posed a new challenge for the Chinese artist who decided to create his own porcelain bowls, drew custom motifs on them (including the Lacoste crocodile logo), broke them into pieces and tied them into the shape of a polo shirt.

Li Xiaofeng’s one-of-a-kind porcelain shirt will be the most expensive and most exclusive Lacoste polo ever created.

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Inspired by the works of Stan Herd and the famous Nazca Lines of Peru, American artist Daniel Dancer creates unique paintings made of latex paint and a lot of people.

66-year-old Daniel Dancer has spent the last ten years of his life traveling the world over and creating unique artworks, choreographed and immortalized from way up in the sky. Upon discovering the mysterious Nazca Lines, in South America, he wanted to create his own artistry, so he bought some paint, gathered 800 school children and made a giant salmon, in Oregon.

So far, the Kansas-based artist has created hundreds of human paintings and has convinced thousands of people to participate in his Art of the Sky project. His artworks include a bald eagle made with the help of 1,400 people and a portrait of Barrack Obama.

To properly choreograph the participants in the Art of the Sky project, Daniel Dancer climbs in hot air balloons or large cranes. When everyone is in place, he asks the people to lie on their hands and knees, so the largest amount of color is exposed.

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The Everglades is home to many unique plant and animal species, mostly because it’s the farthest-north tropical environment in the world. It is the only true tropical forest in the northern hemisphere. The flora and fauna found in the Everglades are without peer.

Fauna

Florida Panther & Florida Black Bear – This entry gets two, since you’re not likely to see either of them. Both species are critically endangered, so count yourself lucky if you see the slight frame and tan fur of the Florida Panther, or hear the inquisitive snuffling of the Florida Black Bear. Well, count yourself lucky, back away slowly, and hope the animal isn’t hungry.

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Vitalich and Jirka are a young couple who decided to have their very own special wedding, as zombies. I guess not even death can split-up these two.

Believe it or not, this is the couple’s third wedding so far. Every time they married each other. It sounds strange, I know, but they have reasonably good explanation. Their very first wedding was pretty much what you’d expect a normal wedding to be like. They did it to please their families, but felt they needed to have a new ceremony just for them

The problem was in order to legally get married again, they had to divorce each other. And so they did. Thei second wedding was Goth-themed and their most recent one was all about zombies. They got some real cool make-up on, dyed their clothes and asked the same thing of their friends. They consider themselves normal people who just love getting married in the most unique ways. Read More »

An ambitious chef from the Philippines has created the world’s most expensive sushi, wrapped in sheets of gold and small African diamonds.

Angelito Araneta Jr., a young chef from Manila, managed to create yet another delicious treat for snobs the rich and famous. The ingredients used in his serving of sushi are not much different than what you’d expect to find in any other pieces of sushi you’ve had before, except for some thin sheets of 24 carat gold and a bunch of .20 carat African diamonds.

The five pieces of gold and diamond sushi cost around $2750 and can be found in a restaurant in Manila. You might think no one buys this incredibly expensive dish, but according to Angelito Araneta Jr, his unique sushi is often used in marriage proposals and during courtship.

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