Some people are adventurers and others are homebodies. That’s fine. But sometimes, homebodies want to get the experience of an adventure without leaving their couch. If that sounds like you, these pics should serve you well.
Back to the future.
Those 3.5″ floppy disks from the 80s and 90s are totally obsolete these days, but there were built to last. Apparently, in the year 2020, some workplaces are still using them.
Perfection.
Using a simple compass to draw a perfect circle still feels like a minor miracle. This individual blade of grass has been blown around to create a perfect circle. It’s the same principle.
Good as new.
I’m not going to pretend to understand the mechanics behind this, but this tomato has managed to stitch itself back up after receiving a gouge in its surface.
Rivers in the sky.
These trees are practicing social distancing by never letting their branches touch. It looks almost like a river system up in the tree canopy.
Stylin’.
Lots of reptiles shed their skin, and the awkward in-between stages can look a little odd. In this case, it looks like this lizard is wearing a tiny, fashionable white coat.
All the better to give you allergies.
Pollen got together with raindrops on the roof of this car to create a unique sight. It’s incredible how each droplet has one, and only one, chunk of pollen in it.
On their way out of Gotham.
Clearly a Batman convention must be going on nearby if there are multiple, unique Batmobiles forming a convoy. Hopefully, these Batmans (Batmen?) drive safe.
We’ve come a long way.
Remember the floppy disk a few items back? That was the past, but this is the future: a tiny computer, much smaller than the single grain of rice it’s pictured next to.
Shut up and take my money.
This ecodome, situated somewhere underneath the Northern Lights, is basically the most beautiful bedroom I’ve ever seen. It might get a tad bright during the day with no curtains, though.
Looks ominous.
This isn’t the lair of some Bond villain, it’s actually a helpful entity: a fire station in Italy. No idea why they made their building so evil-looking, though.
Into the abyss.
This boat is chasing storms in Milford Sound, New Zealand. It’s incredible how sea, sky and icy cliffs all kind of blend in together.
Hobbit house.
This rustic house, built on top of a hill on Iceland, doesn’t look so different from the kind of huts that were built during the Viking age.
Before it’s a Hershey bar.
We all know that chocolate is, at its core, a natural product. But it’s got a long way to go from raw cacao beans in their pod (pictured) to a Twix bar.
Shopception.
This delightful display in a shop window in Kyoto, Japan, shows a miniature version of the shop…which in turn has an even smaller miniature version of the shop.
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Anything for cats.
That rickety-looking staircase leading up to a fifth-floor window in Zurich isn’t for humans, it’s for cats. The person who lives there is clearly devoted to their furbabies.
Life finds a way.
Somehow, a tree took root in the middle of this old silo. It took years of growth, but eventually, the tree was tall enough to peek out over the top.
Safety for the smartphone generation.
These studs, embedded into the street, show colored LEDs to reflect whether it’s safe to cross or not. It’s designed to be visible to people who are looking down at their phones.
Fakeout.
This place uses an authentic Porta Potty door to lead into a legit washroom. I wonder how many people decide they’d rather hold it than use a gross Porta Potty.
Old idea, new tech.
These street lamps, with flames burning inside, look a bit antiquated. But they’re not real flames; they’re LED lights. It gives the streetscape an old-fashioned feel by using newfangled technology.
Absolute unit.
Yes, dogs and wolves are closely related and can even breed with one another. But wolves are seriously big — probably even bigger than you thought. Just look at this comparison between a domestic dog and wolf.
Under my icebrella.
This gorgeous pic shows a little bird (chickadee, I think?) enjoying some birdseed under a canopy of ice. It’s pretty cool that it navigated its way in without breaking any icicles.
Saturn’s getting awfully close.
Unique atmospheric conditions and clouds conspired to make this view of the moon look like something else entirely. Relax, it’s still the moon, even if it’s cosplaying as Saturn.
My brain hurts.
This table is holding itself up with string. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Apparently the middle string is doing most of the work, while the other strings are there for balance.
Dwarfed.
There are big planes, then there are big planes. This Soviet-era plane isn’t commonly seen, but when it does touch down, it’s sure to dwarf all the other planes on the tarmac.
Crikey.
I think, even with a protective acrylic cylinder to cower in, I’d be freaking out a lot more than this diver is. That croc has to be 20 feet long.
When life gives you plastic…
This company creates pellets out of recycled plastic waste and turns them into durable roads. We have to reduce our reliance on plastic, but at least we’re finding innovative ways to use the plastic waste that’s already here.
While we can buy all sorts of ice cream at a supermarket, soft serve usually isn’t one of them.
However, it seems that in many parts of Asia, one wouldn’t be stuck trying to find a McDonald’s with an actually functioning ice cream machine.
Yup, they’ve got pre-served soft serve all over the place there.
While it may not seem like this would be good for the trees, bricking them up like this does make sense if they suffered severe enough damage.
That’s because when there’s a large split like we see here, limestone bricks can be placed inside to ensure proper growth.
Not only do those bricks not get in the way, but limestone is usually soft enough to crumble after the tree no longer needs it in place like this.
This definitely goes to show that the most effective ideas don’t always have to be complicated.
After all, there are times when I’m so sure of what I want that anyone else’s input would only be a distraction and times when I have to stop myself from clinging to the first person who offers to help like a life preserver.
And I probably look pretty much the same at both extremes.
You might be wondering what’s so special about this lakeside photo on a cloudy day.
To answer that, I’ll tell you that while it was certainly cloudy on the day this was taken, this is actually the roof of a car and not a lake at all.
The most staggering quality of this escalator may not translate through this photo, but it’s actually pretty notorious.
That’s because this is the escalator leading down to the Washington DC DuPont circle metro, which is known for being the longest in the world.
It apparently takes three whole minutes to ride, which probably feels a lot longer than it sounds considering what we’re used to.
Despite the size of this tree, its roots manage to not overlap with the sidewalk at all.
Sure, this is likely because somebody is deliberately trimming the roots to maintain this shape, but it’s still very impressive because it takes a lot of skill to do that without dooming the tree.
This German pub is closing up to comply with anti-coronavirus measures, but it’s actually unprecedented in this specific case.
That’s because the staff of the Elbschlosskeller in Hamburg had to actually install a lock for this purpose as the pub has literally never closed before now in the 70 years since it first opened.
A lot of moths and butterflies have intricate patterns on their wings to serve as warnings, but this one takes the most direct aprpoach.
It’s easier to see if you focus on the tip of one individual wing, but this type of moth has wings that look like snake heads.
Now, that’s a deterrent.
This is a small thing, but have you ever seen an elevator that has no idea where it’s going?
Well, you have now! As error messages go, this one is both pretty funny and able to convey a lot of information with very little.
If this landscape seems suspiciously artificial, you’re right to feel that way. Still, you not realize exactly what you’re seeing.
After all, we’re not just looking at a section of some quaint children’s museum, but rather an underground bunker made to resemble life on the surface during the 1960s.
While it’s not too unusual for family members to bear little resemblance to each other, it’s still crazy to see how much they can match.
On the left side of this composite, we can see the face of a young man. On the right, his mother.
It’s long been confirmed that the “Flying Dutchman” sailors used to see is an optical illusion, but this display in Amsterdam found another way to recreate it.
By shining lights at the right angles in this misty fountain, they were able to create an image of a pretty convincing ghost ship.
This is known as the Gravity defying bench, which makes the “magic” hands seem like a particularly cute touch.
As for how this bench remains standing, it’s likely because its foundation is buried under this moss.
And if that’s it, then it’ll remain as one of those annoyingly mysterious magician’s tricks.
Lightning storms aren’t so unusual at the Grand Canyon, but their intensity is something you won’t see in many other places.
According to the National Park Service , these storms that they describe as “monsoonal” are known to hit Arizona between July and September and the Canyon itself gets about 25,000 lightning strikes per year.
The Baatara Gorge Waterfall in Lebanon is sometimes called a “triple waterfall,” but that’s not entirely accurate.
As we can see, it cuts through three separate layers of rock, but it’s technically the same, uninterrupted waterfall.
It is breathtaking, though.
Fair warning.
I’ve seen knockoffs that claim to be something else and I’ve seen knockoffs that have no branding at all. This knockoff Zippo lighter belongs to a third category, one that believes honesty is the best policy.
Ever vigilant.
This shot of a tiger leaning down to drink does an excellent job of showing how the patterns in its coat are designed to give the impression that the big cat is watching — even when its guard is down.
After the pandemic sets in…
These cars in Wuhan, China haven’t been driven in months. After some inactivity, combined with the rainy season, nature is in the very first stages of reclaiming them.
Between two continents.
North America and Europe are far apart, but the continental plates that they sit on actually get quite close. This diver is technically touching both continents at the same time.
