Aquarium Fence in Turkey

Maras Gundem

Mehmet Ali Gökçeoğlu built a 165 foot long aquarium fence—filled with hundreds of fish and octopuses from the Aegean Sea—in front of his seaside villa in Çeşme, Turkey.

Drinking Sewage | Endless Supply & It’s Local

A water fountain at San Francisco’s Exploratorium challenges people’s assumptions about where their water comes from.
Photo: Windell Oskay

iON has long advocated drinking sewage. Some communites in California already drink recycled sewage and one of the USA’s most prosperous areas, Silicon Valley, is planning to.

Video: California plant turning raw sewage into drinking water

KQED

This fall, Santa Clara county residents will get a new source of water. This water is local and pristine. In fact, it’s cleaner than almost anything coming out of taps today. There’s also an endless supply. But – for now at least – no one will drink it.



Instead, water from the $68 million Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center will flow into segregated, purple pipes to irrigate lawns and cool power plants.

That’s because the water is recycled from wastewater – sewage – from a wastewater treatment plant across the street. Engineers say it's possible to purify sewage water until it’s cleaner than much of what residents drink today. The bigger challenge, they say, is convincing people to drink it.

A few years ago Brent Haddad, an environmental engineer at UC Santa Cruz, noticed that he kept finding himself at industry meetings listening to water managers complaining about an “irrational” public unwilling to accept perfectly clean, recycled water.

“It is quite difficult to get the cognitive sewage out of the water, even after the real sewage is gone,” says psychologist Carol Nemeroff.

For now at least, you definitely do not want to use the phrase ‘Toilet to Tap.’


Audio below: ‘Toilet to Tap’ Planned for Orange County Water, National Public Radio




Audio below: Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds, National Public Radio

iON | Vestal Goodman

Payday

Bob Dobbs’ private session 239, 21 January 2010.

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Video below: A Tribute to Howard and Vestal Goodman.

Honda Mean Mower | 130 Miles Per Hour

Honda

Turn lawn mowing into an extreme sport with the Mean Mower, a modified Honda HF260 Lawn Tractor that goes 0-60 in 4 seconds (that’s fast) and 130 mph while a Scorpion exhaust system lets your neighbors know your presence.

High Heel Surfing

If you’ve ever had an issue staying upright on a surfboard on top of a wave or maintaining your equilibrium in high heels on uneven surfaces, imagine combining the two. These fashionably attired Russian ladies do and manage to make it look effortless. So men, are you up to the challenge?

PBS Off Book | The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

59Fifty Baseball Caps? Yes.

59Fifty refers to the flagship baseball cap model by the company New Era. 59Fifty caps are old school in that they are fitted according to skull size. New Era has been making caps since 1920, and the 59Fifty model has been around for almost 60 years. The 59Fifty is the official on-field baseball cap worn by Major League Baseball players (it is also the official sideline cap worn by NFL players).

Wait, there is a backstory here. First, I am almost positive that I owned a 59Fifty cap many years ago without actually realizing it at the time. I recall owning a fitted cap back in the day - size 7 1/8 - but don't remember the design, team, or style. I assume that it was a New Era 59Fifty, which has been the most popular fitted cap for ages.

More backstory: I used to have a collection of NBA team caps, but they were not made by New Era. They were adjustable caps (aka "snapback" caps), and I had one for every team. I rarely wore those hats, and eventually got rid of them. So, caps and I have a little bit of history . . . but I've never really been interested in 59Fifty caps per se. Until recently. Seriously, there is a lot to learn about these caps! This is fascinating stuff, and could be the beginning of a new acquisition disorder around these parts.

OK, so the frontstory goes like this: I was at the mall recently and saw a kiosk selling a bunch of caps. At the time, I was looking for a Lakers cap (even though the NBA season is over and the Lakers suck these days). I wasn't looking for a 59Fifty cap in particular, I just wanted anything that fit. I tried on a few and ultimately settled on this one:

The salesperson (she was very persuasive) convinced me to buy a cap for my son, too. He wanted a Detroit Tigers cap and we found one that fit him fairly well. We didn't know it at the time of acquisition, but the Tigers cap is an authentic and official on-field 59Fifty cap:

The return policy of the kiosk said something like: "OK to exchange within a week, but don't wear it, don't bend the bill, and keep it in as-new condition. In fact, don't even look at it." So I told my son to keep the stickers on his cap until he was certain that it fit well and he wanted it as a keeper. At this point, the sight of my kid rockin' his new cap with the stickers on them made me wonder why many people (young and old) wear baseball caps without removing the tags and stickers. I was also curious about the "flat bill" phenomena (see golfer Rickie Fowler) that has really caught on.

It didn't take much online research for me to realize that there is a baseball cap subculture (which includes baseball fans, hat collectors, 59Fifty collectors, etc.). I found a New Era fan forum, and several baseball cap blogs such as this one. I now know that there are certain techniques and protocols related to breaking in a cap, shrinking a cap, stretching a cap that is too snug, altering the shape of the crown, restoring the shape of a cap, brushing the silky smooth fabric of a cap, storing caps, etc. I've also seen videos, forum posts, and articles related to Sticker Syndrome and, to be honest, it all seems quite silly to me. The only rationale that makes a little sense to me is this one: "leave the hologram sticker under the bill of the cap because it proves authenticity if you are ever questioned by Squad 59Fifty of the New Era Police Department."

Authentic 59Fifty!

You can see a portion of the hologram sticker on the bill of my son's Detroit Tigers cap above. He removed it (along with all of the other stickers) after about a week. As the above picture shows, an authentic 59Fifty cap includes a lot of branding and labels on the inside; consequently, stickers are not really necessary as evidence of authenticity. Personally, I don't really care if a person wants to keep one or more stickers or tags on his/her cap. It's a free country, and it's not my cap, so why should it matter?

It matters because it's funny, that's why. Just ask Key & Peele: Dueling Hats (if that link is dead, Google it!).

Monster High Dolls

Monster High

Barbie sales are down but Mattel’s Monster High dolls are up 23%.

Audio: National Public Radio

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The dolls are inspired by monsters like Dracula, the Mummy, Medusa, and Frankenstein’s monster. The brand features a web series, video game, dolls, clothing, stationery, animated videos (like the one below) featuring the dolls and more.

Frankie Stein doll features a light-up skull, ribcage, and neck bolts—and makes electrifying sounds when you press on her stomach!

Young monsters are creating storylines and movies of the Monster Dolls and posting them to YouTube complete with makeup tutorials where you can learn how to turn yourself in a Monster Doll.

The World’s First Central Banker Was Sentenced to Death for Printing Too Much Money

Maybe the New York Fed is trying to tell modern bankers something by reminding them of history.

This article appeared on Fed’s website.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

In 1668, Johan Palmstruch, the head of Stockholm Banco, the precursor to the oldest central bank still operating today—the Swedish Riksbank—was charged and sentenced to death.

At the time, Sweden was one of Europe’s great powers, an empire that stretched across Scandinavia into today’s Baltic nations and parts of Germany, Poland and Russia. The country’s principal currency was enormous copper plates, called dalers. The Swedish King deputized Palmstruch to modernize the country’s finances.

Palmstruch issued Europe’s first paper currency (China’s first version had appeared in 1024) which would be backed by the dalers held in the bank. As the dalers piled up, Palmstruch started making loans. But King Gustav died and Sweden’s ruling council decided to strike new copper plates that were worth less than the old ones.

Swedes began lining up at the Banco to claim their old dalers, whose value had suddenly gone up.

But Palmstruch had lent out too much. His solution: Start printing out even more paper that anyone could redeem at will. But the amount of paper money in the market began to vastly outpace the Banco’s actual daler holdings and the bank failed.

Palmstruch was sentenced to death although he was later pardoned.

Montreal Botanical Gardens | Living Plant Sculptures

TV For Dogs

Elite Daily

Don’t you hate it when there’s nothing for you on TV? Imagine how your dog feels! There is not a single channel for man’s best friend.

That is, until now. DirecTV is set to introduce a new, 24-hour channel strictly for your dog’s entertainment.

DOGTV will keep your pets busy while you’re at work, with all exclusive content that will give them something to do.

You won’t be able to enjoy DOGTV too much, however, as images won’t be clear to humans since dogs perceive the pictures differently than we do. And certain colors will be enhanced to cater to canine vision capabilities. The channel also took out the sounds of dogs barking when they realized it caused anxiety in their viewers.

Chris Reynolds' PayPal Account Credited With $92 Quadrillion

Happy Quadrillionaire Chris Reynolds, Photo: Chris Reynolds

CNN

For a moment Chris Reynolds, who owns a Pennsylvania public-relations firm, became an instant quadrillionaire when PayPal credited his account with $92,233,270,368,547,800.

That would make him more than a million times richer than Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim who's worth $67 billion.

Reynolds discovered his windfall when he opened his monthly statement from the online money-transfer company via email and saw that his ending balance was $92 quadrillion. When he logged on to his account at PayPal to confirm the amount, he discovered that his balance was zero.

Reynolds said he’s been a PayPal customer for about 10 years and uses it to buy and sell items on eBay, including vintage car parts. He said he usually spends no more than $100 a month using PayPal.

“This is obviously an error and we appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understood this was the case,” PayPal said in a statement. No word on why PayPal assumed this was obviously an error. Maybe he really did have guadrillions in his account.

The next notice Mr Reynolds received from the company said he needed to renew the credit card attached to his account.

“So, even though I have 90 quadrillion dollars, they still don’t trust me,” he said.

The Fifth Estate

Julian Assange has called Dreamwork’s The Fifth Estate a “mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks the organization, and the character of my staff.” Assange describes the project as the result of a “war of corrupt media” driven by powerful influencers. The screenplay is based on books by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, onetime WikiLeaks activist turned Assange critic, and Guardian journalist Luke Harding.

Breaking Bad Recap

Breaking Bad returns for the final eight episodes on August 11. Here’s a refresher or Cliff’s Notes to jog your memory of the previous 54 episodes.

JR | INSIDE OUT

INSIDE OUT tracks the evolution of the world’s largest participatory art project. Travel the globe with French artist JR as he motivates communities to define their most important causes by pasting giant portraits in the street, testing the limits of what they thought possible.