You probably remember the beautiful roof of Floating Umbrellas that covered the streets in Agueda, Portugal last year - seeing how much everybody loved the idea, Sextafeira Produções set up this installation this year again! And just like last year, photographer Patricia Almeida was one of the first ones to capture and share this beauty with the rest of the world together on flickr. Covering some of the shopping streets in the municipality of Agueda, this vibrant installation is part of the local Agitagueda art festival. The umbrellas will be up throughout July, do don’t miss it!
Photos: Patricia Almeida, Pedro Nascimento
Image credits: Patricia Almeida
Image credits: Patricia Almeida
Image credits: Patricia Almeida
Image credits: Patricia Almeida
Image credits: Patricia Almeida
Image credits: Pedro Nascimento
Image credits: Pedro Nascimento
Related posts:
A Colorful Canopy of Umbrellas Is Back to the Streets in Portugal originally appeared on DeMilked on July 9, 2013.
This is a video of motorcyclist Bossaucey cruising around in Utah (and wearing a helmet-cam) when he spots a SUV with a coffee mug on it's bumper. So what does he do? What any aspiring daredevil would: speeds up, picks it up, then returns it to its owner. I like how when he hands it to the lady she tries to blame her daughter for leaving the mug on the bumper. Get real lady, we all know it was you.
Hit the jump for the next addition to my annual neighborhood stunt spectacular.
She gets to the mound and.. wait.. what?!
"Before the Doosan Bears/Samsung Lions game at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on July 5th, former South Korean national team rhythmic gymnast Shin Soo-ji (신수지) threw out the first pitch."
Read on to watch the entire video.
Now you can get some much-needed R&R during your kids playtime thanks to these awesome playmat t-shirts by Etsy seller Becky. They’re basic tees at first glance, but there’s a colorful railroad printed at the back that can double as a playmat for your kids. Just break out the toy box, pass around the toy cars, trucks, and action figures, and lie face down on a soft and comfortable surface. Preferably your bed.
The cars or trains going around the tracks on the playmat-slash-shirt will give you a gentle massage, and hopefully, it’s enough to keep your kids pre-occupied until dinner time.
They’re available online for $22 each.
[ Product Page ] VIA [ Werd ]
Manchester-based, safe-taught photographer Lee Jeffries captures the portraits and the life stories of people we usually pretend we don’t see – the homeless. Accountant by profession, Lee started his black and white portrait series after one incident in London, where he attempted to photograph a young homeless woman, and was told off harshly by her. “I was incredibly embarrassed and was faced with a decision – walk away, or go and apologize. I chose the latter and her story and subsequent images I took of her changed my approach to street photography forever.” Check out these powerful portraits!
Website: leejeffries.500px, flickr
Related posts:
Black and White Portraits of Homeless People by Lee Jeffries originally appeared on DeMilked on July 4, 2013.
PE teacher Dale Irby from Richardson, USA, is known in the Prestonwood Elementary school for his 40-year-long yearbook photo sequence, where he poses wearing the exact same clothes every year. The first picture with Dale in his polyester shirt and coffee-colored sweater was taken back in 1973, and next year, without realizing it, he chose the same outfit again. “I was so embarrassed when I got the school pictures back that second year and realized I had worn the very same thing as the first year,” said Dale. His wife Cathy, however, dared him to do it again next year, and so it continued. Let’s see if the legendary outfit becomes a school mascot one day!
Via: dallasnews.com
Related posts:
Teacher Wears Same Outfit In His Yearbook Photo Every Year For 40 Years originally appeared on DeMilked on July 5, 2013.
The fact that something is improbable, doesn’t necessarily make it impossible – and Italian artist Giuseppe Colarusso has a whole portfolio, titled Improbability, to prove this notion. Switzerland-born artist takes ordinary items and turns them into something nonexistent and completely useless – which at the same time looks really eye-catching and puzzling as a piece of art. “With these images I try to smile and think,” says Colarusso about his optical illusions, which look like a collection of great think-outside-the-box exercises for any artist!
Website: giuseppecolarusso.it
Related posts:
Everyday Objects Made Unusable by Giuseppe Colarusso originally appeared on DeMilked on July 3, 2013.
Since the earliest known cave drawings people tried to replicate the things they saw, but only the best artist could come close to replicating the real world. Even the invention of photography in the nineteenth century didn’t stop the artists, on the contrary, the photographs helped to gather visual information and achieve even greater photo-realism. How far did they get? Here is a list of 40 stunning artworks that you won’t believe aren’t photographs.
Related posts:
40 Hyper Realistic Artworks You Won’t Believe Are Not Photographs originally appeared on DeMilked on June 26, 2013.
In cooler bullet news than yesterday, here's a series of cross-sectioned ammunition photographed by Sabine Pearlman. Pretty neat, but I've always wanted to see what a cannonball looks like on the inside. "Stop being stupid." It's not something you can just turn on and off like a light switch you know. Also, that one on the right would make for a pretty unfortunate shaped penis. NOT THAT MINE IS LIKE THAT OR ANYTHING. *shaking fist at the heavens*
Hit the jump for more.Remember Dutch freelance artist Ramon Bruin and his stunning 3D pencil drawings? The 31-year-old mostly self-taught artist kept improving his skills, and has recently presented some new works! To get 3D effect, Ramon applies the anamorphic technique: he draws a detailed yet distorted image which comes together only when photographed from the correct angle.
Ramon also runs the JJK Airbrush company and experiments with other art mediums as well, such as water paint, charcoal, oil, acrylic, paint pens and graphite. Be sure to visit his website for more!
Website: jjkairbrush.nl, facebook
Related posts:
New 3D Pencil Drawings By Ramon Bruin originally appeared on DeMilked on June 25, 2013.
Alexey Papulovskiy collected flight data from Plane Finder for a month, which essentially gives you a bunch of points in space over time. Then he mapped the data in Contrailz.
Turns out, besides Flight Levels (FL) (which are indicated on my map by dots' color: red ones stand for lower altitudes and blue — for higher) planes have pretty specific "roads" and "highways" as well as "intersections" and "junctions". You can see this for yourself by taking a look at the Russian part of the map: it's less "crowded", so the picture is as clear as it gets. The sky above Moscow area looks particularly interesting: civil flights are allowed there only since March 2013 and only with an altitude of 27.000 ft or higher.
Aaron Koblin's Flight Patterns always comes to mind immediately when I see flight data, and Contrailz of course looks similar, but the latter brings in European flight patterns, too, which makes it worth a gander.
By the way, you should also check out Plane Finder if you haven't seen that yet. It shows planes currently in flight, and there's a lot of them. [Thanks, Alexey]
What if we had a planet instead of a Moon? Photographer, space artist, illustrator and former art director for the National Air & Space Museum’s Albert Einstein Planetarium, Ron Miller, created a series of very cool images that visualize how the rest of the planets in our solar system would appear if they orbited Earth at the same distance as the Moon.
I’ve posted a number of different data visualizations and infographics that help visualize the sizes of the different planets, and this is a very cool approach that might make the relative sizes more relevant and understandable to a bigger audience that is already used to seeing the Moon in our sky. For comparison, here is the original photo of the Moon:
From Ron’s description:
At a distance of about 240,000 miles, the Moon occupies a space in the night sky about half a degree wide. By sheer coincidence, this is almost exactly the same size the sun appears, which is why we occasionally get total solar eclipses.
But it’s interesting to imagine what the night sky might look like if one of the Solar System’s planets were to replace our moon. (We’d have to ignore things like tides and gravitation, but that’s the advantage of doing things in the mind’s eye.) Saturn would be an astonishing sight. Almost 35 times larger than the Moon, this golden globe would cover nearly 18 degrees of the sky. We’d be a little further away from Saturn than its satellite Dione. In fact, we’d be more likely to be a satellite of Saturn ourselves than the other way around. The rings would stretch nearly from horizon to horizon.
Of course, the gas giant Jupiter is downright scary!
View all of the full size images in Ron’s post on io9!
Found on My Modern Met and The Daily Mail
Time once more for a look at the animal kingdom and our interactions with the countless species that share our planet. Today's photos include Iranian dog owners under pressure, a bloom of mayflies, Kim Jong-un visiting Breeding Station No. 621, animals fleeing recent fires and floods, and a dachshund receiving acupuncture therapy. These images and many others are part of this roundup of animals in the news from recent weeks, seen from the perspectives of their human observers, companions, captors, and caretakers, part of an ongoing series on animals in the news. [38 photos]
    
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IT REALLY ISN’T like me to go on a guided tour. But for the average adventurer to experience a week in the wildness of the Alaska Panhandle as I recently did, there probably isn’t a better way to go about it.
Southeast Alaska, that sliver of the American state that may as well be part of British Columbia, is riddled with islands; most of the area is inaccessible by road — air and water is the preferred method of transport. As my partner and I descended into Juneau, I was taken aback by the wild landscape and the enormous scale. And I live in the mountains of BC. What struck me the most was the lack of evidence of human activity. I didn’t see clearcuts; I didn’t see logging roads. I just saw hordes and hordes of trees and mountains and valleys. Untouched.
While I was there as a media invite, hosted by Un-Cruise Adventures, I was sort of a secret shopper. Neither the staff nor guests on the boat knew my status, and I was able to experience the trip as everyone else (this cannot be said of most press trips). The way I was treated during meals and activities like hiking, kayaking, standup paddleboarding, and even polar plunging, was how all the other guests were treated. And we had the time of our lives.
We boarded the boat (24 other passengers and I) in Juneau and made our way south, meandering through islands, exploring coves and bays. Skiffs (small motorboats) brought us to shore for hikes and to get closer to glaciers. The staff was always on the lookout for wildlife, pointing out anything of interest and offering knowledge of the area. The guides (one of which has summited Everest) were on-point and gave interpretive talks, explaining the region and the life within it.
Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas, and we explored just a tiny fraction of it. I can’t wait to go back. 
* Carlo was a guest of Un-Cruise Adventures on their Inner Reaches Eastern Coves tour. All photos by author, except where noted.
Instant Platinum (top tier) status in the Accor Hotels loyalty program comes around with some frequency, each time it does the signup link won’t stay active for long — sometimes a couple of days, sometimes just hours.
Here’s a current offer for instant Platinum status. (HT: Loyalty Lobby)
Note that the signup page is just a signup page, no indication on that page that accounts will start at the Platinum level, but indeed it’s currently working as of this writing.
You must open a new account, it cannot be applied to existing accounts. And when you do so you must use an email address that’s not currently on file with them.
Even if you don’t frequently stay at Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, and other related properties frequently, you never know when you might find yourself in one and having top tier status can’t hurt.
Platinum status usually requires 60 nights or 25,000 points earned. It offers double points and at Sofitel, Pullman and MGallery hotels a complimentary drink and welcome gift, and subject to availability and on request 4pm late checkout and an upgrade.
That said, all it meant on my recent stay at the Sofitel London Heathrow was an upgrade from a queen bed room to a king. Still, as my grandfather used to say, “that’s better than a hole in the head.”
Whenever I post these offers I’m asked about status match possibilities, whether you can leverage this status into status in another hotel loyalty program. A status match offer like Best Western generally has can be obtained without demonstrated stay activity attached to the top tier elite account, so this works there. Same with Club Carson and Priority Club. Sometimes Hyatt asks for proof of stays when requesting a 90 day stay challenge in which case this wouldn’t be useful. Marriott doesn’t ask for proof of any kind, so this isn’t necessary in asking for one of their challenges.
Paris-based artist Mademoiselle Maurice (previously here) presented a couple of new origami installations, set in the city of Angers, France, which were created out of more than 30 000 paper folds. The installations are part of the Angers’ annual ARTAQ festival, dedicated to street art. To prepare enough origami folds, the artist organized weekly workshops for the local community, seeking to “deepen the link between individuals who form that human network [to] which we belong and [that] we frequent every day,”. That way the participants also contributed to the final street art pieces. Be sure to visit her site for more!
Website: mademoisellemaurice.com
Related posts:
New Origami Street Art by Mademoiselle Maurice originally appeared on DeMilked on June 21, 2013.
