Every once in a while nature pulls a mean little trick on a selected member of a species. For whatever reason, that particular specimen has been chosen for alteration. Perhaps they wind up with an extra leg. In some case they are shaped differently.
The bottom line is that these guys look a little different from the rest of the pack. Some may call them “special.” And some may call them what they’re more commonly known to be: freaks of nature.
Here is a look at 10 such freaks.
Laird Hamilton is as tech savvy as surfers get. Here he discusses his part in pioneering the latest surfing techniques, such as jet-ski tow-in surfing, hydrofoil boards and kite boarding:
I've been involved in the conception of a few different activities or disciplines of surfing, however you want to describe them: Foil boarding, kite-surfing, stand-up paddling most recently, and then of course tow-in surfing, which kind of allows us to ride some of the biggest waves in the world.
Stand-Up Paddling
I don't describe them as inventions, but really as a combination of a couple things that together created a new thing, a form of invention I guess, but we're never going to take credit for something that existed in some form before, that somebody else may have done.
Tow-In Surfing
I just think we were the first people to realize that you needed a motorized vessel to give you the speed in order to catch waves that are beyond 50 to 60 foot faces. They move at 30 or 40 miles an hour and manually you're just unable to match the speed and the timing it takes to ride one. That's really where tow-in surfing came from—a necessity.
We were able to catch these giant waves with a wind surfer and ride them unlike when we were surfing. Then we had foot straps. We already had a relationship with riding these outer-reef breaks in real rugged conditions that you just couldn't get to by laying on your stomach, paddling around.
And once we realized it, we were able to do it. And we started with a Zodiac boat and an outboard. That was obviously a little fragile and dangerous, so then, eventually, came the jet-skis. I think the first Yamaha sit down jet skis came out—the Wave Runner helped us evolve. Driving a Zodiac around in 30 foot surf is a lot trickier than getting on a Wave Runner. If the Zodiac gets tipped by a wave, you're over, whereas the jet-ski doesn't do well but it can survive.
I describe it like the four-minute mile. Once the guy broke the four-minute mile, then 30 guys broke the four-minute mile, but before that it was this invisible barrier. That's a little bit like what's happened with tow surfing.
Hydrofoil Surfing
As for the hydrofoil surfing, what we've found is that the foil board is probably the single most efficient wave riding instrument that we know of today. The reason why we say that—and the reason why we know that—is because you can ride waves that don't break.
Now we have a thing that we can use on a day when we wouldn't be able to ride the waves on anything except maybe a jet ski or some sort of power boat. We get on them by being towed, and we ride these waves for miles and miles at a time. By eliminating surface texture and tension, resulting in less friction, we created the ability to ride waves that don't break—to surf waves that were really unsurfable. Now we can ride a ground swell in the middle of the ocean.
We've also done it with the kite, but then you're obviously not going to let go of the kite—as you would a tow line—so then you're kiting-foiling instead of just foil surfing.
Kite Boarding
We were involved with the conception of kite boarding as well. Not the first people to ever kite obviously, since they've been around for thousands of years, but we were first guys really to start, because we had these big wave boards with foot straps—the perfect setup for being towed by a kite. We had these kites that you get launched, but if your kite crashed you were done. If you were a mile out in the ocean and your kite crashed, you now had yourself a giant bed sheet and a small little board.
Inflatable kites really created kite boarding. We were able to get those from a French guy who had invented a blow-up kite and a blow-up little catamaran—you could have a backpack and go hike and launch your blowup catamaran and your blowup kite and go and sail around with it. We got a hold of one of those little blowup kites and then one thing happened after another, then kite surfing or kite boarding was really born. Since then, it's been just a matter of evolution.
Laird Hamilton has been a surfing hero since the 1980s, solidifying his reputation as the king of big wave surfing when he conquered Tahiti's Teahupo'o Reef at its most perilous in August 2000. As an innovator, he pioneered many new activities including kitesurfing, tow-in surfing and hydrofoil boarding. He's on the board of directors at H2O Audio, makers of pro-level waterproof iPhone and iPod cases, and has his own signature line of Surge waterproof earphones, proceeds of which are donated to the Beautiful Son foundation for autism education.
From MSNBC
An obese inmate in Texas has been charged after officials learned he had a gun hidden in his rolls of fat.
George Vera, 25, was charged with possession of a firearm in a correctional facility after he told a guard at the Harris County Jail about the unloaded 9mm pistol.
The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday that Vera was originally arrested on charges of selling illegal copies of compact discs.
You gotta love the prison system. From selling pirated CDs to hiding guns in your fat. This guy definitely sounds rehabilitated.
Yesterday we showed you how to make your own tonic water, but if you're more of an active type, why not make your own sports drink as well? The New York Times has a simple recipe that shows you how.
Photo by madaise.
The Times' Well blog dedicated a post to determining whether sports drinks are good for kids (answer: it depends). The article ends with the following recipe—a modified version of our previously featured DIY sports drink concoction. To make yours, you'll need the following ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 1/2 cups cold water
As for the preparation, dissolve the sugar and salt in the hot water (using a quart pitcher), then add in the remaining ingredients and cold water. According to the NYT, "the drink contains about 50 calories and 110 mg of sodium per 8 ounces, approximately the same as for most sports drinks."
When you run a business or even represent a business it’s best to represent that business in the most professional way possible. Well I’d argue that professional doesn’t have much to do with it. I think you should be represented in the most appropriate way possible. At least that’s what some business owners think.
And one of the best representations of a business is the business card. Have I used the word “business” enough by the way? Anyway, rather than handing out the plain old white boring piece of crap, why not be creative?
Well these 15 guys certainly were
Jelly fishes attacking an undersea monster? That would be cool, but the reality is much simpler, and more beautiful: It's an helianthus annuus.
It's a sunflower (I had to look that up too). Japanese artist Macoto Murayama creates these beautiful illustrations of flowers, highlighting their geometry. Intriguing, delicate work. [Creators Bank via Pink Tentacle]
If I ever get to be a grandfather some day, this is the exact grandfather I want to be.
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