What Happened Next...

You probably don't want to know.
I'm sure I don't want to know.
It won't be a pretty sight.
If she hasn't already, she soon will...

New Zealand's Flying Motorcycle Is All Set To Take To The World's Skies...

There's good news for New Zealand's Christchurch based Martin Aircraft Company and their Jetpack that was voted one of Time Magazine's Top Fifty Inventions a couple of years ago.
Their P12 Jetpack labelled a 'Motorcycle In The Sky' will be on the market next year with buyers from around the world already queing up to have one. Or two, at around $150,000 each.
Ideal for a fast commute to the office avoiding the traffic gridlock and parking hassles, this personal single person jet whatever will be invaluable in first response situations, fire services and search and rescue missions.
And for the military. As if they haven't got enough weapons of war.
It will fly at an altitude of around 7,000 feet or 1.5k with a cruising speed of around 56kph and a top speed of 74kph for approximately thirty minutes. You'd want to get your timing right.
This great little idea that's about to take off has been classified as a microlight so you'll need a pilot's licence.
There's more to know here and here...

The Crippling Burden Of Home Ownership...

Most men said Henry David Thoreau, live lives of quiet desperation...
He was totally correct when he said those words a hundred and seventy something years ago and they're still true today.
Paying a mortgage, interest, insurance, property rates and taxes, even without any utilities added to the equation these days is a bit like juggling your finances while keeping all your balls in the air at the same time as keeping your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone.
All that is very difficult to do.
In New Zealand in 2013 for example, buying a house for say $400,000 with a twenty percent deposit of $80,000, the purchaser would pay $610,000 interest at six percent for twenty five years just on the loan, property rates or taxes of even a modest $2,000 per year amounting to $50,000, another $50,000 at least for insurance. Then maintenance and upgrading for the period of around $125,000 and you're looking at a grand net total of $1,225,000.
You'll be paying around $49,000 a year or $4,100 a month or $943 a week to own your house. And all those outgoings are after you pay tax on your earnings. You'll need to earn a lot more than that depending on your tax rate.
To have your own roof over your head. Wow!
And then there's food for the family, a car to run, education for the children, medical bills and entertainment. What entertainment. You're going to be too exhausted working to have time for going on holiday and being entertained.
And what happens if you're made redundant, get sick or can't get work?
So what's the options smarty pants you may very well be saying.
There are lots of answers or options.
Thinking outside the square is a good option to start with. Think about renting.
Renting the same house might well cost you $400 per week or $21,000 a year instead of $49,000 and it's true, if you rent the same house for twenty five years at the same rate you will have spent $520,000 and you won't have a house to show for it but you just might be a lot more healthy, less stressed and happier.
You might be.
And think about working to live.
Not living to work.
Think about not playing the consumer game.
Think about getting off the treadmill.
Think downsizing. Think less is more.
And think about this.
All you need is enough and enough might be what you have...

The Simple, Ingenious, Portable Rubbee Turns Any Old Bike Into An Electric Bicycle In Seconds...

The very clever and seemingly well designed Rubbee is a portable device that can turn any old bike into an ebike in just a minute. Or less.
The Rubbee's polyurethane roller simply engages the rear tyre making a motor only speed of twenty five kph possible.
Created in Kaunas in Lithuania, the stylish Rubbee is very easy to install, just mount it on the seat pedestal, attach the throttle
and you're good to go.
The efficient friction driven Rubbee is a great idea even if it's a bit expensive at around 799 British pounds and 1227 US dollars but it might be worth checking out.
There's more to know here, here and here.
It must be good I guess,
Sir Richard Branson's backing it...

The Most Amazing Detailed Close Up Photo Images Of Insects You'll Ever See...

Sam Droege's amazingly stunning images and others like them here and here are the most detailed macro images of Arthropods you're ever likely to see.
Arthropods are Invertebrate animals having an external skeleton, a segmented body and jointed appendages.
And they're so exquisitely beautiful...

The Very Strange Tiny Truffle House Is A Home In A Stone...

This is a wonderfully simple concept.
And a great story about how the Spanish Architects Ensamble Studio built a house using hay bales and concrete and a calf called Pauline.
This little house, now above ground, started life a bit like a Hobbit House.
First they created a hole in the ground, then they basically built a shape made from hay bales surrounded by a concrete mass. They left the whole thing to weather for awhile then after removing the surrounding soil, they cut off the end facing the wonderful view of the ocean and invited Pauline the calf to come for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch and dinner breakfast and lunch again until a year later, she'd eaten out the inside of the tiny house and left home a healthy six hundred and sixty pound cow.
There's a video here and there are more great images of the build process and the finished Truffle here...
If there is such a thing as a finished Truffle...

It Pays To Advertise. Darling Robert's Looking For A Wife...

The poor darling.
For the past twelve years, darling Robert, woops I mean Robert Darling, now a fifty eight year old unemployed dreamer from New Jersey has been commuting to Manhatten's Upper East Side, twice a week, looking for a wife.
Not that he lost one there you understand.
The darling man has never had one. For some reason he's never had much luck with ladies.
He's never had a serious relationship and probably not a funny one either.
There's more about the creatively audacious darling Robert here.
Ladies, don't bother trying to call him.
The phone company disconnected the number because he hadn't paid his bill.
If you can dream it...

In Zimbabwe, Poachers Are Now Killing Elephants With Cyanide!

Poachers in Zimbabwe have taken their obscenely greedy pursuit of elephants for their ivory to a new and even more disgusting level.
A few weeks ago you would have read here that African elephants are being slaughtered at a rate of one every fifteen minutes.
Not fast enough for six despicable apologies for mankind who were arrested recently in relation to the deaths of forty one elephants in Harere.
The elephants drank from a water source laced with cyanide.
If it isn't bad enough to kill elephants, the poison will kill other animals who use the same water sources and then to compound the problem even further, the animals feeding on the dead will die and the animals that feed on their bodies will die too and so it goes for perhaps four or five generations.
Another depraved act of greed that is, yes I've said it before, destroying our world...

A Very Clever, Very Swedish, Very Tiny, Very Wooden, Very Accommodating Home For One Or Two Very Close Friends...

Designed by Swedish Architects Tengbom as a 'Smart Student Unit' this tiny one hundred square foot living space is crafted using cross laminated timber, super strong panels made from sustainably harvested wood.
There's some very clever design features here. Check out the window plug that becomes a table, the sink cut out of the kitchen bench, the unusual doors and windows, the  shaped shelves and the smart stairs. Using a hammock in a small space is a great idea too.
The Smart Student Unit is currently on display at Sweden's Virserum Museum until December and next year a number of the units will be available for students to rent.
There's a lot to like here and more to know here.
It's a very cute unit. I love warm wonderful wood and that roof is really inviting some solar panels to be fitted...