UNUSUAL THINGs

30 Cool and Creative Candle Designs.

Posted by Unknown on 5:57 AM

Before the advent of electricity, candles were used for illumination and it date backs around the first century in Rome where candles were made and used. Though in present times it lost most of the importance attached to it; but there are few occasions and events that aren't complete without candles. Whether its birthday parties, candle light dinners or for creating a cool ambiance or its use in aromatherapy, we still need them. Here are some cool candle designs for you to choose from.
Cactus Candles: These look incredibly lifelike and comes in boxes of 4 Cacti.

DoubleWick Candles: These elegant candles contain two wicks and feature a range of beautifully colored embedded wax decoration. It measures 30cm high, 7cm wide and is only 1cm thick.

Coral Candle: This Coral Candle range comes in Jasmine, Lavender and Lemongrass.

5 Minute Candles: Apt for spontaneous celebrations. "Designed to look like an ordinary book of matches but inside are 10 small candles."

Stone Candles:

Castle Candles:

Lonny-Design's Candle: If you are among those who are ready for anything then this is something which is sure to impress you!

Jeremy Walton's Design:

Notmy Candles: Interesting shaped candles comes from Russia.

Coffee Beans Candles: These candles come in different colors, patterns, and sizes.

Chalkboard Candle: These cute Chalkboard Candles come gift boxed with a chalk pack.

Flower and Fruits candles:

80 Hour Beeswax Coil Candle: It allows you to set the amount of time before it automatically extinguishes itself.

Bottle Candle: Best suited for parties and celebrations.

Coffee Cup Candle: Designed by Denis Belenko, it looks like a cup of coffee.

Cowboy Boot Candle:

Electronic Candle: Aram Bartholl's candle uses a combination of resistance wire, copper wire, switch, and 12V power transformer to light a candle.

Fresh-Baked Cookies Candle Set:

Light Bulb Candle: A candle design that looks like the light bulb, made from Bee's Wax.

Multiple Candles: Design inspired from modular structures, gives you a choice to choose how many candles you need to light and its unlike the conventional ones.

Candlestrip: These candles appear to get the energy from the base that they plug into.

Rocklite Candle: This unique one-of-a-kind hand crafted out of select rock and stone, can be used indoors or even outdoors using Citronella Oil.

Building Brick Candles: These eight-wick soy-blend, non-scented candles are sure to bring back the memories of childhood.

Cappuccino Coffee Candle: This scented candle fills your room with the delightful fragrance of cappuccino.

Friedegg Candle: An interesting design by Jaehyung Hong.

Spye Design studio's Candle: This cool candle is 32 ounces Brazilian white beeswax with 3 cotton wicks, measures 7 inches width and 3.5 inches height and 3 inches in dimension.

Sushi Candle Set: Each of this Sushi candle comes per-arranged in its own Japanese "take out" box.

Swiss Cheese Candle: Looks delicious in shape of the cheese.

Pillar Candles: These look like ordinary white candles, once you light it red wax flows out.

Scented Candle: Who wouldn't want this one!

12 Weird and Strange Socks

Posted by Unknown on 1:22 PM

Collection of unusual modern socks that will keep you warm and look great on your feet.

Toeless Socks

Notebook and Pencil Socks

Super Mario Socks

Zebra Socks

Tattoo Socks

Big Banana Socks

Cigarette Socks

Hi Top Socks

Meat Socks

Anatomically Correct Bone Socks

Zip It Passport Socks

Unusual and Creative Astronomical Clocks

Posted by Unknown on 11:36 AM

Antique and Medieval Technology Blended With Art

Many believe early man saw the universe as a living thing: each flash of lightning, every star in the sky, the rain that fell, the ground beneath their feet – everything around them was part of some huge, living, breathing creature.

But then all that changed. The Greeks, along with their intellectual ancestors, looked at the world and while they saw life they also began to see a mechanism to it all, a precise and ordered regularity.

The Antikythera Device

Alhough we know the ancient Greeks were extremely intelligent, just how smart was hinted at in 1901 – and then confirmed many years later. At first the hunk of rusted iron pulled from the sea near the Greek island of Antikythera was just a curiosity, a bit of archeological weirdness. It was only decades and decades later that modern science was finally able to pry apart the secrets of ancient science. Very, very ancient science.

The Antikythera Mechanism, as it’s called, is a meticulous and precise assembly of 72 gears – a simply staggering piece of craftsmanship. What’s even more astounding is that scientists think the device was an astronomical calculator: an elaborate, incredibly accurate computer that was built in 150 to 100 BC (more info, also see the mechanism in action).

Other Antikythera Mechanism reconstruction projects and working models:

All the instructions for the mechanism are written in Greek; one case when you can say "this manual is all Greek to me" and be entirely correct. Surprising details about this artefact are still being uncovered - for example, the various dials on the back of the Antikythera Mechanism include one dedicated to the four-year Olympiad Cycle of athletic games in ancient Greece!

What’s even more intriguing -- as well as exciting – isn’t the device itself but the broad hint it sends at how technologically advanced the ancient engineers were. The device is certainly miraculous but it was also a common working machine; not a rarity but instead what could be something that navigators used every day. Who knows what other mechanisms and devices have yet to be found?

Beautiful Astronomical Clock in Prague

A few hundred years later the universe was still a mechanical place but the engineering that went into creating machines to predict and understand it became even more complicated and elaborate. Clocks got a developmental shot in the arm because they – when used with star charts and sextants – were essential navigation tools. It wasn’t long before clock mechanisms were used to track not just the hours, minutes and seconds of commerce and shipping but also the stars and planets in the sky.

One of the more incredible astronomical clocks is the legendary Prague Astronomical Clock. To say that it’s elaborate would be a ridiculous understatement. The clock is an insanely complicated instrument created not only to tell the time but also track the movements of the stars and planets – at least the ones they knew about in the 1400s when the clock was built. It's easy to think that making something as complicated as the Prague clock was a one time, supremely rare thing.

Although the clock wasn’t a common working gizmo like the Antikythera device, it also used technology and craftsmanship that existed in many other Medieval cities – and even, a century or so later, insanely miniaturized to the point where, if you were rich, you could carry what was basically a tiny version in your pocket. Read this article about the grim fate of the clockmaster... which is only a tale, but an atmospheric one at that.

While complicated, one of the greatest things about the Prague clock is that it isn’t just a working clock; it almost deserves to be called a monumental kinetic sculpture. It ticks and tocks and ticks and tocks in ways, to quote from the Bible, that are “a wonder to behold.” So wondrous, in fact, that you can find computer models online demonstrating just how elegant and beautiful the mechanism is – which says a lot that we use 21st century technology to appreciate the skill of a 1400s clockmaster.

Unfortunately, the growing ubiquity of these clocks’ technology spelled their doom. As more and more people could afford to carry watches there was less and less of a need for a huge, central and, naturally, elaborate town clock. It simply didn’t make financial sense to keep building them, a sign that humanity's evolving view of the world was mechanical: ticks and tocks as well as dollars and sense.

What’s ironic is that with the dawn of the 21st century, in a world ruled by the careful calculations of software, humans are starting to understand, and even plan to use, the uncertainty of a quantum universe: an existence where things are never quite what they seem and chaos is part of How Everything Works.

Still, the incredible Antikythera device, the Prague and Wells Cathedral clocks, are beautiful in their antique mechanisms – as well as evoking a time when the world was as precise and orderly as the back-and-forth swing of a pendulum.

Astronomical Clock at Hampton Court Palace, London, UK (1540):

Zimmertoren Astronomical Clock on Zimmer Tower in Lier, Belgium (left) and Strasbourg's Cathedral Astronomical Clock:

Lund's Cathedral Astronomical Clock, 1424:

Lyon's Cathedral Astronomical Clock:

Beauvais Cathedral has the St. Pierre Giant Astronomical Clock, made by Auguste-Lucien Verité in 1865-8. It contains 90,000 pieces, 68 statutes and 52 dials: