Dalek Made From An Egg - Eggsterminate!

How cool is this?  A Dalek made out of an egg – looks like a brilliant homemade present for a friend or a member of the family who just can’t get enough of the Science Fiction TV show Doctor Who.  But just how do you make one?  We just know you want one, right?

Image Credit Flickr User PugnoM

Here is a step by step guide, from egg carton right back to the egg carton - courtesy of Flickr User PugnoM.  Yes, you too can create your own species of Daleks from the original race, the Kal-eggs (ouch).  You won't even need a sonic screwdriver.

Surf City Surf Dogs Catch the Waves

Wipeout! Now in its fifth year the Surf City Surf Dog event, held in Huntington Beach, California brings together over forty surf fans together with their human companions who are there to ensure that all the fun is safe for the surfer dogs.  This fund-raising event helps to raise awareness of various dog related causes, including animal rescue and medical care.  The Ark in Space has a feature on these surfing canines accompanied by some fantastic photos.

Image Credit San Diego Shooter

Chester - Learn about Europe's 5th Prettiest City (according to Readers of USA Today)

A decade or so ago, the readers of USA today voted the city of Chester in England as Europe’s fifth prettiest city.

While this may have come as a surprise to many (it beat Prague, Budapest and Venice for starters), for those acquainted with this historic city, founded by Roman invaders almost 2,000 years ago, it came as a long overdue recognition of one of the UK’s best kept secrets.

While Oxford, Cambridge, Bath and York hog the spotlight as England's premier historic towns, Chester is sometimes overlooked.  As someone born and brought up there I believe I can help explain why this city came so surprisingly high in the USA Today poll.

Image Credit Flickr User Shya

Image Credit Flickr User Tania Ho

Chester is tucked away about twenty miles under Liverpool on the map of England and it is true that it is often overshadowed by its larger, more famous neighbor. It is difficult to compete with The Beatles, after all. However, Chester has charms that are all its own so I would like to invite you to a short tour of the city.

Birdboy

A terrible industrial accident changes little Dinki’s life forever.  Now Dinki’s fate may ride on the wings of her eccentric friend, Birdboy, a misfit who hides in the dead forest lost in his own fantasies.

This is very grown up, allegorical animation and was written and directed by Pedro Rivero and Alberto Vázquez. Birdboy is strange, more than a little morose but quite compulsive - I am sure you will feel the need to see what happens to Dinki and Birdboy. It is a film basically about decisions.  Can you identify with a character who dreams about learning how to fly rather than actually doing it? Perhaps, and so can many film festival goers who have given this film numerous awards.  In fact after winning the Foyle Film Festival in Ireland last year it made the Academy Award short list.

Birdboy is based on a comic entitled Psiconautas written by Alberto Vázquez and published by Bilbao publishing house Astiberri.

I'll Hold

Come on, admit it. You’ve done it yourself. You have been put on hold and when you overcome the initial mild irritation you find that you’re listening to something that makes you want to slip in to the groove.  So it is with Daniel who finds that a blast from the past proves irresistible.  I’ll Hold was written, directed and danced by Daniel Cloud Campos (and if there was any more polymathy on display we would probably have to order a hit instead of a pizza…)

Time is Nothing: Around The World Time Lapse

Ten years ago Kien Lam (left) from San Francisco quit his job, packed his bag and grabbed his camera and then jumped on a plane to London with a one way ticket.  Over the next 343 days he would visit 17 countries and take 6237 photographs.  On his return to his home and family he put together this remarkable souvenir of his travels.

You will see many places here that we have featured on Kuriositas – and we are so very jealous of Kien that he saw them all one after the other. Anyway – sit back and enjoy – and if you want to see more of Kien’s amazing journey then visit his website where he elaborates in a more stately fashion about his global sojourn. The music is provided by William Lam (who is a very talented composer and who just happens to be Kien’s younger brother).

Awesome Air Traffic Control Towers Across the World

Air Traffic Control Tower lovers of the world unite. Here is a selection of ten of the best and more unusual in the world, including the one at Los Angeles above. Whether your own favorite is listed here, these structures have functionality and are designed to fit their own particular environment but also have a strange beauty all their own.

Image Credit Flickr User m-louis

Air Traffic Control Towers are not as ubiquitous as you may think. Most people when asked would say that every airport has one, but this is simply because their height and shape had wormed its way in to the general consciousness, due not least to the plethora of disaster movies centered on airports. It is only the busiest of airports that have towers, such as the one above at Haneda airport which serves the Tokyo metropolis.

Teddy Bears are for Lovers

Collin is something of a serial Casanova and, just when his girlfriends’ thoughts turn to love he heads off the issue with a gift – a teddy bear.  This has gone on for some time but one evening when Collin is in bed, the teddy bears come back to exact their revenge on him.  Directed by Almog Avidan Antonir, this short film features some of the most murderously cute teddy bears you will see this week.

Stellar Moves: The Story of Pluto

The hottest dance group in the universe, The Planets, has eight members but they might begrudgingly allow another entry in to the team if they can be suitably impressed.  A competition is held to find the missing planet so that eight might become nine. At home, young Pluto does not think he has what it takes, but receives encouragement from his best friend, one of his satellites you might say! 

Charmingly made by the creative team of Millivette Gonzalez, Tabia Lees and Valerie Sattazahn this will have you rooting for the little guy of the solar system all over again. Stellar Moves is – and you may not believe this such is the high standard of animation - their senior thesis short film. It was produced at Ringling College of Art and Design (if you want to study computer animation in the USA, then this is always in the top three places to go). No doubt they will be inviting the trio back to give talks to their undergraduates in a few years.

The Bicheno Blowhole: Geology at its Most Playful

Nature may often be cruel but from time to time it can also be almost sublimely daft.  Close to the small town of Bicheno on the east coast of the Australian island of Tasmania, a rare geological feature known as a blowhole provides endless hours of fun for visitors. Each time the blowhole ‘erupts’ you never quite know what you are going to get in terms of the shape and size of the water.  One thing is for sure, though: you are going to get wet.
Image Credit Flickr User  ScottWeatherson

A blowhole is a sea cave which grows inwards and up, resulting in a perpendicular shaft open at the surface. They occur when there is a weak joint in the rock and as the waves pound and erode the rock just above the waterline a cave is slowly but surely formed.

This can get to quite a length but if, as it develops, it hits a vertical weakness in the rock then it will head upwards – until it breaks the surface and hits daylight.

Why Do Cats Like Boxes So Much?

One question which gets asked time and time again is what, exactly, is the fascination that cats have with boxes?  Until they learn to talk we may never know the answer but we can have a few educated guesses.  Over at our sibling site, the Ark in Space, is a photo-packed feature on this most vexing of issues.  OK, it’s an excuse for a cute-fest but, honestly, do you care?

Image Credit Paul Hyde

Captain Spaceman – The Lost Episode

If you remember the 1980s then you may well remember the pilot episode for a science fiction series that never was.  Captain Spaceman shone brightly for a single episode but was never, ever shown again.  It seems that it was considered not quite appropriate for its target audience.

Yet so many people fell in love with the eponymous lead character and his trusty sidekicks Ecang and T.3D that this first episode was forever seared in to their memories, despite the refusal of any channel to ever, ever broadcast it again.

Now, thanks to a little serendipity, the lost episode has been discovered on an old VHS tape, hidden away in a box in an attic in a house in a street for decades.  So, sit back and enjoy an unashamed nostalgia fest as you can final relive your childhood with Captain Spaceman – the lost episode, written and directed by sci-fi visionary Dontae Carter.

Summer Fun on Days Long Gone

Have you ever felt that dread when, on their return from some far flung place, your friend threatens to show you their summer holiday photos? You may have to sit through that particular agony.  In the meantime, here is a collection of photographs spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth century which show summer in all its glory.  Times and social mores may have changed, but these may still be the type of pictures you wish your friend had taken.

Image Credit Florida Memory
A group of young women make fun of a sign demanding that they wear full bathing costumes while on Florida’s Miami beach.  Come on, this is 1934, after all!  Sure enough, there were a number of women arrested that year for wearing two piece bathing suits.

Image Credit Florida Memory

You can be fairly certain the young women above didn't stay here.

Know Your Art? Then Try Our Horribly Difficult 20 Question "Who Painted This?" Quiz!

Do you know your Dali from your Dürer, your Goya from your Gauguin? Then try these 20 multiple choice questions.  You will take a back and forth whistle-stop tour through almost a thousand years of art history.  Yet which painters were responsible for the 20 masterpieces you are about to see?

Don’t worry if you don’t get all 20 – you won’t necessarily see the most famous work by each artist in this quiz. However, why not pass this on to your friends by sharing it? Watching them get a miniscule score will inevitably make you feel better.  Have fun with the schadenfreude!

If the answer you choose goes GREEN, then you got it right.  If it goes RED then you got it wrong.  You will also see how many others chose the different answers (in terms of a percentage).



Image Credits
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

If you want to check out the answers as a single list, click here.

Pasteurized

When you are a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough then you need isolation, quiet and, above all, no pesky felines arriving on your doorstep without a by your leave.  However, life for this scientist is not ideal by any means and made worse by an unexpected visitor whose arrival will change everything.  Written and directed by Nicolás P. Villarreal, Pasteurized has won a number of awards.  Watch and find out why!

The Shot

I am not including The Shot on Kuriositas because it tells a profound tale which will change your life. Rather, I am doing so because I found the performance of its young star, Samuel Belbin (pictured), very, very funny indeed. It’s not often that I have laugh out loud moments online (he said sadly, bless the poor old bugger) but this provided me with two over the space of its three and a bit minutes.

So, what provoked such mirth? The Shot tells the story of a kid left alone in the car by his mother while she pops in to a shop. In the few minutes that she is away he does something that he cannot quite believe himself. Produced and directed by Chris Thomas and written by Richard Standen, The Shot will, I hope, put a smile on even the most cynical of faces!

Dogs on Ice

Dogs like nothing better than when something a little out of the ordinary happens. So, when the world has turned white one morning and the water has gone hard and slippery, you can’t blame a dog for getting a little excited, can you? After all, when the going gets cold, the dog gets going. Our sibling site, the Ark in Space has a great collection of dogs on ice pictures for you today…

Image Credit linuskenstam

Sunday Short Movie: Table 7

A young couple are on the verge of breaking up.  They have dinner in their favorite restaurant but even then they just cannot seem to agree about anything.

They are unaware, however, that their every word is being closely monitored. Yet not all is as it seems.  This wonderful short film was written and directed by Marko Slavnic and stars Ray Rosales and Stephanie Lozos.

Wind Up Bots

Imagine a world where all the wind up robots of your childhood suddenly came to supersize life. Well, no need really when you have this fun video from Fernando Livschitz of Black Sheep Films.  This is great fun – and gave me a number of nostalgic moments.  Plus it’s all beautifully wrapped up in a summertime feel and when you add the perfectly chosen soundtrack it is quite enough to chase away those winter blues…

850 Meters

A not-so-brave knight is on a quest for Fame and Fortune - legend says rescuing a princess is the way to go. And in those same fairy tales, there's only one way to slay the dragon that holds the fair lady captive: find the invincible sword. To reach his goal, the knight is ready to go far. Maybe even as far as 850 meters. This marvelous animated short was created by Thuristar.