Cool Pictures XIII: Artistry is Everywhere!

[tjs282]

Yeah, at first i saw someone with messy hair and a backpack. Once I found out what it was I could only see that.

I saw the dog first -- even before I opened your spoiler. To be honest, I was having difficulty understanding why you thought the spoiler was necessary, until you wrote the quoted.

I'd like to think I unconsciously picked up the impossibly bent leg, so I didn't have to consciously examine this as a person, but I am not sure.

For me, it's the scale of the picture. To see the person, I have to kind of ignore the trees.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Yes, the scale regarding the trees is a more likely explanation for my own take too

 

[Birdjaguar]

I saw the person first and didn't see the dog until I opened the spoiler.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Let's see if this link points to the picture I want to show...

It didn't.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Cat looking over the curbstone.

 

[Samson]

The blue dot is a blue whale trying to feed while dodging boats.

 

[mitsho]

-cut-
The blue dot is a blue whale trying to feed while dodging boats.

That is just sad. It shows a week in which the single blue whale had to dodge 1000 boats. We as humans really need to become more sustainable: local productions, longer delivery times and so on. Thanks for that

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the idea was to have the MI6 building (London) look like a Ziggurat and project power, but in reality it looks like Megatron Starscream died and half his body sticks out of the ground, causing laughter and disgust.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think the idea was to have the MI6 building (London) look like a Ziggurat and project power, but in reality it looks like Megatron Starscream died and half his body sticks out of the ground, causing laughter and disgust.

It looks like the sort of thing that might be a thing you'd build in a Jewel Match game (some of them have fantastically gorgeous castles, but the one I'm working through right now are just so ho-hum and don't inspire any stories).

 

[Samson]

This baby Namib web-footed gecko (Pachydactylus rangei) fluoresces under ultraviolet light. The intense neon-green and blue glow — among the brightest fluorescence in any vertebrate — is produced by modified pigment cells called iridophores. Why many animals fluoresce is still a mystery — but in this case, the pattern suggests that it helps these social animals to signal to each other across the moonlit desert.

While taking aerial photos with his drone, Australian photographer Derry Moroney came across these massive, tree-like patterns in Lake Cakora in New South Wales. The colourful drainage channels form when water full of oil from the surrounding tea trees (Melaleuca alternifolia) runs into the lake. The photos were taken after several days of storms.

Here is an mp4 video of a tardigrade "playing" with spherical colonies of a green alga. I cannot figure out how to embed it. More at nature.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I find tardigrades creepy, so thank you for not embedding.

 

[Kyriakos]

Another painting by Edvard Munch.

 

[CKS]

Snow Art from Finland:

 

[Paul in Saudi]

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is Ravenscliffe Castle, in Hamilton, Ontario. It's recently been put up for sale, and it can be yours for only $8,888,888 CAD (plus HST, I'd imagine - Harmonized Sales Tax; I don't know what that is in Ontario).

It reminds me of some of the settings for the various Mystery Case Files computer games, though that's only external. The interior rooms have been mostly modernized, but they still look cool.*

*Who would commit the travesty of remaking a library into a billiard room? (no, that's not a Clue joke).

Source article, plus photos of some of the rooms.

 

[Kyriakos]

^It looks really nice, but I am not sure if it is worth (almost) 7 million US dollars...

That said, I would consider it, if I had that kind of money

 

[Arakhor]

Nice-looking place. I hope it has excellent central heating.

 

[The_J]

The article says the current owners have been renovating, so maybe.
If I had so much money that I'd not know what to do with it, then I'd certainly buy this one lol.

 

[Kyriakos]

I really like this room: (but they took all the paintings out, which comes across as cheap...)



Not sure about the location, though. Seems to be some gated community. A castle should be away from other buildings, preferably on a hill.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

^It looks really nice, but I am not sure if it is worth (almost) 7 million US dollars...

That said, I would consider it, if I had that kind of money

It's 12,000 square feet according to the article, and has a driveway that can accommodate 10 cars. This photo doesn't show the entire property.

Not that I'm saying it's worth that much money; it depends on what shape the guts are in (heating, plumbing, electrical, etc.) and if the foundation is solid. Oh, and mold and asbestos would also be a concern.

But it looks just like the creepy gothic mansions in some of the computer games I've played, not to mention the house in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook House of Hell (which I've never finished during the last 35 years due to the frustratingly complicated multi-level map that has to be drawn accurately on graph paper so you don't get completely confused and end up dead... that's one I started novelizing a loooong time ago, even though I haven't solved it yet).

I really like this room: (but they took all the paintings out, which comes across as cheap...)



Not sure about the location, though. Seems to be some gated community. A castle should be away from other buildings, preferably on a hill.

It looks like the paintings were replaced with posters of wine bottles. That room looks absolutely claustrophobia-inducing.

Honestly, if I were to buy that place, I'd turn it into a gothic-themed LARP or other RPG-type attraction. They didn't post photos of the bedrooms or bathrooms or the stairway in the tower, so I can't say whether those would be a plus or minus.

I do like the front hall and stairway, though.

All this said... Ontario lacks the Rocky Mountains, and while there are some very scenic areas of that province that I'd like to visit, it's not a place where I'd want to live.