Curiosities

Solar-Powered Glowing Bicycle Path In Netherlands Inspired By Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Dutch artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde has created a beautiful and innovative glowing bike path that, when illuminated at night by glowing pebbles and LEDs, looks like Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting.
The kilometer-long bike path, which was created using both glow-in-the-dark technology and solar-powered LEDs, is located in Brabant, the Dutch county where Van Gogh was born and raised. The swirling, glowing forms on the path’s surface will help bicyclists stay on track when they ride at night.

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Google glitch prompts some sites to temporarily go ad-less

An unknown Google ad server glitch caused major websites, including those of the BBC, CNBC and the Financial Times to load slowly, prompting some to temporarily remove ads from their sites Wednesday morning.

Google acknowledged the issue to CNBC, stating “Our engineers are already on this, and will be providing an update ASAP.” Google representatives could not be reached for further comment.

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What Cities Would Look Like if Lit Only by the Stars

Carl Sagan once said anything shining in the night sky does so because of distant nuclear fusion. The physics involved are awesome, and so too are the billions and billions of stars seen from here on Earth. But with every passing day, increasing light and air pollution from growing cities diminishes our ability to observe the cosmos.

French artist Thierry Cohen draws attention to this creeping loss in his series Villes éteintes (Darkened Cities), which imagines the world’s largest cities under clear night skies. His photographs are as impossible as they are beautiful. The dark urban landscapes and vibrant constellations are composites of two images—one of the city and one of the sky.

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Artist Kat O’Sullivan Transforms a Dull Shack Into a Psychedelic Rainbow House

The artist Kat O’ Sullivan has been creating upcycled sweaters and clothing for over 20 years. “It seems like anything within my grasp ends up painted a million colors,” she says. And this statement certainly held true when the artist decided to purchase a home in upstate New York that had been built in 1840. “I just thought it was cute,” explains Sullivan, but “it was the kind of house you would drive by and never notice.”

But once in the hands of the artist and her “creative mayhem” the home quickly began to change. After a trip to the local paint shop – “give me one of everything!” – Sullivan spent countless hours painting and renovating until the home looked like a psychedelic rainbow complete with oddly shaped windows, eyes and a big mouth. But “Calico,” as Sullivan calls her home, is an eternal work in progress. “It will only get weirder.”

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Tidy Cats Gives Stressed Out People Some Serious Kitten Therapy

Stress is a serious thing that affects everyone’s life. There are a rainbow of organic and pharmaceutical treatments. Drugs, exercise, and artistic pursuits are used as outlets to relieve stress. But Purina’s Tidy Cats brand knows that there’s another thing that can help. Kittens. Lots of kittens.

The brand, with Rainn Wilson’s media shop Soul Pancake, plopped a glass box in a Los Angeles park and invited people to step in to attend a free guided meditation session. Then behold, The Kittening.

Read more here.

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