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If you've ever wondered how animals view the world, this video should satisfy your curiosity. It shows how five different animals—cats, dogs, rats, hawks and bees—see the world.

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Valve

PC gamers who are champing at the bit to build their very own "Steam Machines" won't have to wait long to start tinkering, as Valve has revealed that its recently announced SteamOS will be available this Friday.

The announcement comes alongside word from Valve that its prototype Steam Machines, along with the companion Steam Controller, will be shipped out to 300 randomly selected US beta testers on Friday. Valve plans to notify the lucky testers via e-mail at 2pm Pacific today, and beta participants will get a special badge on their Steam accounts so journalists and fellow players can start bugging them for their impressions incessantly.

If you're not part of that lucky group of 300, though, you're probably more interested in the fact that "SteamOS will be made available when the prototype hardware ships... downloadable by individual users and commercial OEMs." More information about that release is coming soon, the company says, but Valve is already warning that "unless you’re an intrepid Linux hacker already, we’re going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out."

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There are typically two main problems when it comes to building pillow forts: structural integrity, and a lack of building materials. And both of those issues are solved with these wonderful engineered cushions called Squishy Forts, which use super-strong magnets to ensure they stay standing for longer than ten minutes.

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Chicago-based Raise.com, a marketplace where consumers can buy and sell gift cards for cash, has raised $18.1 million in funding, according to a new SEC filing. The company declined to comment on who invested in the latest round, but has raised $4.5 million in earlier seed and angel rounds, we’re told.

The filing doesn’t reveal the investor lineup, listing only Raise.com founder George Bousis and board members Jason Pritzker (Yapmo founder) and Jeff Cantalupo (Listen.co founder and CEO). AngelList shows a few of Raise.com’s seed rounds, and reveals that Lon Chow of Apex Venture Partners is a prior investor.

Raise.com is one of the fastest-growing startups in the Chicago region. While we were able to reach founder George Bousis today to confirm the raise, the company prefers to keep a low profile when it comes to disclosing its funding details, and instead wants to focus only on growing its – what we hear to be – profitable business.

Raise.com itself is a spinoff from Chicago-based CouponTrade, a couponing and deals site founded in 2010 by Bousis and co-founder Bradley Wasz. In February of this year, the gift card side of that business became what’s now known as Raise.com, a domain name it took the company months to secure.

“It became a challenge from a consumer standpoint, to understand how gift cards, coupons and deals went together,” says Bousis. “We pretty much decided that because our motto was ‘Give Yourself a Raise,’ that the best natural name for the new gift card-only focused company would be ‘Raise,’ itself,” he says.

The company started in Bousis’ living room, tethering off his iPhone for the first six months, around two and half years ago. Today, it has grown to over 50 full-time employees, and is now aggressively hiring.

In its sights is the massive ($115 billion) gift card industry in the U.S., where roughly 20% of gift cards’ value sits unused every year. In addition, there’s some $200 billion in merchandise credit from store returns, which is another currency Raise.com can buy and sell.

How Raise.com Works

Today, the company offers a peer-to-peer marketplace for discounted gift cards, e-gift cards and store credit, ranging from everyday retailers like Walmart, Target, or Whole Foods to high-end brands like Louis Vuitton, Neiman Marcus or Gucci. The site offers discounts on over 500 stores at the moment. 

“People can expect to save anywhere from 5% to 40% or more on everyday purchases across a variety of brands,” says Bousis. “We want people to think of shopping on Raise before they spend money at any store. Emotionally, we want them to always feel like they got a raise when they use our website,” he adds.

On the website, users can buy gift cards, or sell those they already have for cash, including physical cards, e-gift cards and merchandise credit with a minimum balance of $10. The cards can even be partially used and do not need to have an even balance to be listed. 

To begin, verified sellers simply create an account, enter the required info like retailer, serial number, and PIN. For each sale, Raise.com takes a flat 15% commission, and they charge an extra $1 per physical gift card sale. Physical gift cards account for around 10% of the company’s sales. The site will cover shipping and handling fees, and provides prepaid shipping labels as needed. Sellers are then paid by check or PayPal, as specified. Buyers and sellers are protected by a 100% money back guarantee.

The company encourages sellers to discount their cards by at least 5%, but the actual price is up to the seller, as long as it’s not more than the gift card’s value. In the works is a gift card pricing tool which will calculate the best price, as well as a way to access your purchased gift cards through a scannable barcode you could show the cashier via your smartphone.

Since there’s no sales tax, shipping costs, or processing fees associated with buying these gift cards, for savvy shoppers, buying a card on Raise.com is like getting free money. This has made the site popular with a number of coupon bloggers, like the well-known Southern Savers and Hip2Save, for example, which have touted the site in recent months.

The company will use the additional funding for growth, marketing and advertising, and hiring – it’s adding around three people per week right now. But Raise.com is not yet ready to go international, as it wants to secure the U.S. market first.

[Image credits: Raise.com; flickr]

What is the place of the video store in modern society?

For decades, video stores were our sole way of accessing thousands of movies, from the newest releases to foreign classics. If you were lucky, you lived near a video store with a great selection and knowledgeable clerks. Driving to the video store, wandering through the aisles, evaluating the box art, and reading plot descriptions became its own experience, perhaps even a communal one. But Blockbuster and Hollywood Video drove the mom-and-pop stores out of business, only to see its own business upended by the internet and by the convenience of supermarket kiosks. Now the few brick-and-mortar shops that have outlasted the big chains are fighting to stay alive.

Seattle is famous for its incredible film scene. Aside from the superlative Seattle International Film Festival, one amazing film resource we have here is Scarecrow Video, which is probably the largest independent video store on the planet. With over 117,000 video titles, Scarecrow is revered and admired, counting filmmakers like Bernardo Bertolucci and Quentin Tarantino as previous visitors. This past weekend, I took a peak inside Scarecrow Video to see how they’re adapting to the changing economic environment. I filmed my tour there using a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera. Check out Scarecrow’s awe-inspiring video selection after the jump.

Special thanks to Sam Kelly, Eva Chung, Matt Lynch, and yesper for their help in making this video possible!

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Five surprising “benefits” of smog. Courtesy of Chinese state media. Subtext: if the Party caused it, it can’t be bad so there must be something good to say about it! Sorta like the MSM and Obamacare, eh?

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GECKOS has released the Limited BDRip of film “Hell Baby”. It is an American independent horror-comedy film written and directed by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. The film stars Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Keegan Michael Key, Riki Lindhome, Paul Scheer, and Rob Huebel.

Plot: HELL BABY, a comedy scripted by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant (Night at The Museum, Reno 911!: Miami) marks their co-directing debut. Jack (Rob Corddry) and Vanessa (Leslie Bibb) are an expectant couple that moves into the most haunted fixer-upper in New Orleans — a house with a deadly demonic curse. Things soon spiral out of control for Jack and Vanessa, as well as their-not-so-helpful neighbor F’Resnel (Keegan-Michael Key), Vanessa’s friendly psychiatrist (Michael Ian Black), Vanessa’s.

Genre: Comedy | Horror
iMDB Rating: 4.8/10 from 2,687 users
Directors: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon
Stars: Rob Corddry, Leslie Bibb, Alex Berg

Release Name: Hell.Baby.2013.LIMITED.BDRip.X264-GECKOS
Size: 683 MB
Video: x264, 720×406
Audio: English , AAC
Runtime: 98 min

Links: iMDB – RT – Official Site – Trailer
Subs: Here
NFO: Here

Download: Google Search

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Magic Transistor is an excellent online radio station with a cool photo Tumblr, which is where I saw this picture of The Joker posing with a custom surfboard. Why isn't he laughing hysterically?

dalehan:

How I imagine the Scout if he was an animal.

swirecraft:

Forgot to post this photo, too!

New York-based photographer Sean Lynch was in Nepal in September and captured these surreal, infrared photographs of Nepal. The photos were taken in the Annapurna Himalayan Range but their unique, reddish quality makes them look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Cat in the Hat fall out of the sky with a loud “Bump.” You can see the entire set over on his tumblr site dorialusium.