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Taken by the TSA: 13 Strange Items Confiscated at Airports

14 Jul

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

TSA Confiscated items main

If you think you can smuggle a sword cleverly concealed inside a cane, a lipstick that’s actually a taser, pigeons wrapped in newspaper or nylon bags full of snakes onto an airplane, think again. The Transportation Security Administration has truly seen and confiscated it all, as documented on both their blog and their Instagram. Here are 13 of the weirdest and most disturbing items that the TSA has discovered during the security screening process.

Snakes on a Plane

TSA Confiscated Snakes on a Plane

TSA screeners monitoring a body scanner at the Miami International Airport in 2011 were puzzled by what looked like bulbous growths attached to a man’s legs. Pulling him aside, they discovered that the man’s pants were full of snakes and tortoises wrapped in nylon bags. Had they not caught him, he would have walked onto the plane with seven snakes and three tortoises, likely bound for the illegal pet trade.

A Chastity Belt

TSA Confiscated Chastity Belt

Says the TSA of this unusual discovery, “And while it isn’t prohibited, a passenger wearing a chastity belt alarmed the body scanner at one of our checkpoints. I’m sure you can imagine where an undergarment such as this might be a problem at a security checkpoint. Especially if there is no key.”

Daggers Disguised as Hairbrushes & Combs

TSA Confiscated Dagger Hairbrush TSA Confiscated Comb Dagger

Do some quick internet browsing and you can find knives and other weapons disguised as all sorts of clever things. That doesn’t mean you should try to take them on a flight. Screeners don’t take it lightly when they find hairbrushes, combs and other everyday items concealing potentially deadly daggers.

Mickey Mouse Full of Guns

TSA Confiscated Mickey Mouse Guns

Would it ever occur to you that a stuffed Mickey Mouse clutched in someone’s arms was filled with firearms? Maybe that depends on who’s holding it. Mickey is just one of many stuffed animals that have been used to smuggle guns and ammunition at the airport.

A Bag of Eels & A Whole Lot of Fish

TSA Confiscated Bag of Eels

Referring to the incident as a “nomadic aquarium for people on the go,” the TSA pulled aside a passenger who was attempting to transport 163 tropical fish, 12 ‘red sliders,’ 22 invertebrates, 24 live coral species, 8 pieces of Scleactinina with mushroom polyps and 8 pieces of soft coral from Miami to Maracaibo. “We’re not in the business of looking for marine life, but you can probably imagine how odd this looked on our monitor.”

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Bizarre Cities: 7 More Strange Urban Wonders of the World

26 Jun

[ By Steph in 7 Wonders Series & Travel. ]

Strangest Cities

A retirement community for circus freaks, a village of Chinese dwarves and a gated community for people who claim to speak to the dead are among the world’s weirdest settlements. Going beyond mere unlikely locations for human habitation, these towns are intentional communities devoted to the strange and unusual.

Dwarf City: Mountain Home for Little People Only

Strangest Cities Dwarf Village 1
Strangest Cities Dwarf Village 2

Is an amusement park full of little people dressed up to amuse paying visitors exploitative? Maybe. But the nearly 100 people who reside at Dwarf Empire have come from all over China for guaranteed housing and, reportedly, fair wages. They live and work in tiny castles, dress up as fairies and medieval soldiers and put on shows for hundreds of guests each day, and receive dance training and English lessons. The park owners hope that many more little people – who often have difficulty finding work in China, and end up living on the streets – will help the village expand to 800-1,000 residents in the near future.

Lily Dale: Gated Community for Spiritualists

Strangest Cities Lily Dale 1

Strangest Cities Lily Dale 2

A group of spiritual mediums came together at the height of the spiritualist movement in the late 19th century to found their very own village, where only people who can read minds and communicate with spirits (and their families) could reside. Established in 1879 on the shady banks of a New York lake, the town of Lily Dale has been the setting for seances, ‘automatic messages’ that appeared on chalkboards and other such phenomena ever since. Visitors still flock to Lily Dale to talk to dead relatives or marvel at the gated-off ‘Inspiration Stump’ where mediums once called upon spirits to show themselves. Mediums who want to work in the town must pass three 30-minute test readings evaluated by officials of the Lily Dale Assembly.

Retirement Community for Carnies
Strangest Cities Gibsonton 1

Strangest Cities

Where do carnival workers go when they’re not on the road? Many live in ordinary houses in ordinary towns just like anyone else, but in the mid-20th century, some sought a refuge where they could get away from the civilians who gawk at the unusual physical features that drew them to become a part of the carnival life. Gibsonton, Florida was a small town of fishermen and lumber workers before carnival legends like Al “The Giant” Tomiani (who was 7’11″ tall) and his wife Jeanie “The Half-Woman” (2’6″ tall) bought property there. The town ultimately drew many more so-called ‘circus freaks,’ including Grady Stiles Jr., known as Lobster Boy for his claw-like hands, whose infamy was enhanced by the fact that he murdered his daughter’s fiance on the night before their wedding and was subsequently murdered in a hit taken out by his ex-wife and stepson. The town has a museum-like meeting hall with old photos of the carnivals and their stars, and features its own retirement village.

No Laws, No Utilities: Slab City, CA
Strangest Cities Slab 1

Strangest Cities Slab 2

An unforgiving stretch of the Colorado Desert near an active bombing range in southeastern California is the unlikely location for a lawless ‘alternative living community’. Slab City started as Camp Dunlop, a World War II training ground preparing United States Marines for combat duty. The camp was abandoned after the war, but a handful of chemical company workers set up trailers there in the early 1960s, and when Riverside County ordered people to leave a camping area at nearby Painted Canyon, the community grew. Today, it’s half squatter haven, half off-grid experiment, taking up some 600 acres. Home to RVs, trailers, vans, campers and shacks, the “Last Free Place in America” is home to anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand people depending on the time of year (only the hardiest can withstand the summers.) The state of California generally turns a blind eye to the community despite issues with trash and human waste. Slab City’s entrance is marked by ‘Salvation Mountain,’ a colorful hill covered in bible quotes.

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Strange Photography Classes You’ve Never Considered

07 Dec

Sure, you know all about f-stops and composition. You’ve taken classes on lighting and landscape photography. But there’s a lot you don’t know — and a long list of photography classes and workshops that you’ve never even considered.

Here are a bunch of them.

Photograph Ghosts, Ghoulies and Things That Go Bump in the Night

You might have taken a photography class that taught you how to shoot a still life but how about a workshop that will show how to shoot dead things — or at least create photographs that appear to contain dead things?

Night photographer Lance Keimig runs three-night workshops among the historic monuments of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Participants have both classroom and field instruction where they learn how to shoot tombstones and mausoleums by moonlight. Ichabod Crane’s headless horseman is also expected to make an appearance and strike a pose. Just don’t ask him for a headshot.

Slightly less scary are Vintage Vixens’ Halloween-themed workshops. Instead of creeping around a graveyard in the middle of the night, you’ll be standing around a stately home in Baltimore, photographing models dressed in Gothic Halloween costumes.

And if that still sounds a little creepy, you can always fake it.

The Spirit Photography Workshop at George Eastman House will teach you the basics of making wet collodion tintypes. With that knowledge under your belt you’ll be able to create the kind of spooky ghost imagery that had 19th-century viewers reaching for their Ouija boards.

Beware of the Bears

Wildlife photography workshops are a dime a dozen (or, more accurately, several hundred bucks a session) but if you’re looking to focus on one kind of wildlife in particular, you can do worse than shoot bears.

The American Bear Association combines lessons in the natural history of the American Black Bear with an opportunity to photograph the animals in their natural environment. The Black Bear Photo Workshops are held at the 360 acre Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary in Minnesota. The workshop lasts for three days, and provides an opportunity to photograph the 50 bears known to frequent the park — as well as other wildlife, including whitetail deer, wolves, chipmunks, butterflies and birds.

If you’re looking for something a little more adventurous than Black Bears though, you could take a trip with the Aperture Academy to Norway to photograph polar bears. The academy is runs by master photographer Stephen W. Oachs who takes photographers out to the Svalbard archipelago of northern Norway. Home to about 3,000 polar bears, the archipelago contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of very dangerous, giant-clawed bears.

You’ll be cruising the fjords, shooting in 24-hour sunlight and in addition to photographing very strong and very hungry carnivores, you’ll also have a chance to capture some more sedate glaciers, walruses, reindeer, arctic foxes, whales, seals, puffins and fulmars. Dress warm but try not to look like a seal.

P-P-P Picture a Penguin

Photographing both Black Bears and Polar Bears would be one way to produce some interesting black and white photography. But when you’re finished in the Arctic, you could head to the other side of the world and put both colors in one picture by photographing penguins.

They’re not as savage as polar bears and their teeth aren’t quite as sharp but they are picturesque and they come in more varieties. The trip to the Falkland Islands, which includes a couple of days in Chile, provides an opportunity to photograph Rockhopper, Magellanic, King, Gentoo and perhaps Macaroni penguins too. The trip is timed to coincide with the breeding season so there should be lots of chicks to shoot, as well as striated caracara, skua, pied oystercatchers, upland geese, kelp geese, Falklands flightless steamer ducks, black-crowned night herons, and dolphin gulls.

At $ 4,795 a head (with a $ 200 single supplement) the nine-day January trip isn’t cheap but the next outing is already nearly fully booked.

Capture a Speeding Car

Penguins aren’t known for their speed so if you’re looking for something with a bit more adrenaline, you could go for one of the many car racing workshops.

David Allio’s career as a  professional motorsports photographer spans four decades. He has been the official track photographer for at least ten different racetracks and the official series photographer for the NASCAR Winston Racing Series. He takes photographers out to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Neon Garage to learn how to shoot Superspeedway races and drag races. He also runs trips to various sites to run short track oval auto racing sessions.

Classroom topics during the two-day program include: working safely in a high speed environment, lens selection from fisheye to super telephoto, workflow and software, copyright and licensing, preparing photographs for publication, high speed action in low light, establishing your own personal style, and editorial responsibility.

A visit to a Vegas race track is unlikely to be relaxing but Michael Chinnici’s 24 Hours of Le Mans workshop not only lasts nine days but manages to combine high-octane subjects with more sedate wine-filled touring. In addition to photographing the Porsches, Audis, Ferraris, Peugeots, Aston Martins, Bentleys, BMWs, Maseratis, and Corvettes that take part in the 24 hour road race, participants will have an opportunity to photograph the streets of the old city, visit Mont St Michel Castle and take part in Loire Valley wine tours. It’s not Vegas, but that might be a good thing.

Old Folk Get to Preserve Their Memories

Although most of these workshops are aimed at reasonably experienced photographers who want to improve their skills and shoot something different, it’s not too hard to find classes aimed at young beginners just beginning their photographic journeys.

Finding a workshop for old beginners starting their photographic journeys is a little harder.

But that’s what Singapore’s Housing and Development Board offers. In addition to the regular sessions on parents and children, and seven steps to better photography, the board also offers 2.5 hour classes on “Silver Photography for Seniors.”

The seminar introduces basic concepts in photography such as camera handling, how to scene functions and composing pictures. The jargon is kept to a minimum and the memories are preserved forever.


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Chindogu: 14 Hilarious and Strange Japanese Inventions

26 Jun

[ By Steph in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

Chindogu Bizarre Inventions Main

The first rule of Chindogu is, Chindogu inventions are essentially useless. The Japanese art of creating bizarre and funny tools for everyday life aims to solve basic problems in ways that are as impractical as possible. To qualify as Chindogu, these inventions can never be patented or sold, but they must exist in physical form, and, as rule #2 states, the creator must be able to hold them in his or her hand and think “I can actually imagine someone using this. Almost.”

Train Nap Cap

Chindogu Train Nap Cap

No need to worry about slumping over and drooling on a stranger if you fall asleep on the train or subway. The Train Nap Cap uses a suction cup attached to a hat to hold your head upright.

Sweep Shoes

Chindogu Sweep Shoes

Need to clean up a small mess? Slip on a special pair of ‘sweep shoes‘, with broom and dust pan attached. The logical next step (if logic can be applied to Chindogu) would be to take the dustpan shoe off the dump its contents, but it’s more fun to imagine the wearer contorting in ballet-like movements to empty it into the trash.

Butter Stick

Chindogu Butter Stick

To smear butter on a piece of toast, you could simply peel back the wrapper a little bit, and voila. You’ve got a butter stick. Or, you could put it in a totally unnecessary plastic tube that pushes the butter up like lip balm.

Toilet Roll Hat

Chindogu Toilet Paper Roll Hat

Isn’t it annoying when you’ve got a drippy nose, and you have to constantly wipe it? The Toilet Roll Hat takes care of that problem, keeping wipes right where you need them. For those times when you’re so sick, you don’t care that you’ve got a roll of toilet paper on your head.

Baby Mop

Chindogu Baby Mop

What do babies do, anyway? They just lay around and get bodily fluids all over every surface in the house. Make them earn their keep with the Baby Mop. Maybe they’ll at least clean up their own messes while they’re crawling around looking for things to destroy.

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Small Worlds: Strange & Shocking Miniature City Scenes

17 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

surreal model architecture

There is no unifying theme to these surreal depictions of urban architecture and landscapes, save perhaps their imaginative improbability and singular creator, Frank Kunert, a German photographer and his bemused sense of wonder.

surreal crafted city scenes

Each is at once clearly a model yet quite lifelike, lovingly crafted, painted and photographed. Some show impossibilities seemingly for shock value alone, while others contain a subtle message – some commentary on politics, religion, television or other aspects of everyday life.

surreal architecture model images

The resulting scenes question function, accessibility and the role of architecture, exterior and interior design in shaping both public and private experience.

surreal structural montage scapes

It is also worth noting, too, that none of them are post-edited – they are created sans Photoshop and shot with an analog camera. The process and product are closely related, and each creative choice is made carefully by hand.

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Different Strokes: Strange Paintbrushes Promote Creativity

06 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

paint brush alternatives

When something evolves to have such a long history as the art of painting, it falls on out-of-the-box thinkers to question the most basic elements of creation: tools.

paint brush design series

The designers at Culdesac compares the process to “genetic mutations” which “give birth to imaginative instruments: the brush compass, pendulum or whip give us a clue to the behavior of paint through sketches and through history.”

paintbrush redesigned wall ceiling

Extending the choice of paint-and-brush pairings (different colors and sizes), these alternative instruments yield unusual (and in some cases unpredictable) results when putting tool to canvas.

paintbrush geometric shape creators

Artists can use them to do anything from painting on a ceiling (using an inflatable balloon brush), to pausing between strokes (thanks to a handy stand built into the handle) to creating circles, squares and triangles (and derivations thereof!).

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BoB – “Strange Clouds” captured in The Live Room

22 Oct

BoB performs his song “Strange Clouds” in an exclusive recording session live at Tree Sound Studios in Atlanta, GA for The Live Room on The Warner Sound. Executive Producer Phil Botti Director Michael Thelin Director of Photography Mikko Timonen Mixed by Brett Eliason Recording Engineer Miguel Scott Recorded live at Tree Sound Studios Atlanta, GA The Live Room with BoB was captured exclusively with Nikon D4 HD-SLRs camera and NIKKOR lenses. The Live Room is an exclusive Warner Sound original series that captures today’s most innovative artists performing live recording sessions in the most iconic recording studios across America. Subscribe to The Warner Sound: goo.gl The Warner Sound on the Web: youtube.com thewarnersound.com http twitter.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

In this video, we take a look at one of Nikon’s most popular lenses: the Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G. With that focal range it makes a perfect walk-around lens. But is it good glass? Pricing Reference: www.digitalrev.com

 
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Tomoyasu Hotei – Strange Voice 3D

11 Oct

You can watch 3D images with anaglyph glasses.
Video Rating: 5 / 5

 
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