These Designer Plastic Covers Are Like Raincoats for Your Expensive Sneakers

So, you’re wearing a pair of fly Yeezy sneakers that you paid over $350 for, when it suddenly starts to rain, what do you do? You can take shelter and wait for the rain to stop, which still leaves you at risk of stepping in a puddle or mud, or you can just put on a pair of plastic bags for protection. Neither of those solutions is very elegant, which is why someone created Dry Steppers, a pair of raincoats for your feet.

Dry Steppers are high-quality plastic sheaths designed for sneaker heads who don’t mind paying $20 to keep their cool footwear looking fresh and pristine in any weather. They are both rain and snow-resistant and can also protect your expensive sneakers from gravel and dust. They are basically an upgraded version of the old plastic shopping bag trick, where people will tie bags around their feet to protect their shoes. They are made from tear-resistant plastic, feature non-slip rubber soles, as well as an adjustable draw-string and zipper system that insulates the shoe area perfectly. You can even get them printed with a variety of popular sneaker models, like Yeezy 350 V2’s, a Yeezy 750’s, or Jordan Air 11’s, to show off what you have on underneath.

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New App Stops You from Spending Money When You’re Drunk

If you’re the kind of person who goes goes online to buy all kinds of weird things in the early hours of the morning, after an alcohol-fueled night out, you may be interested in a new smartphone app that blocks your credit cards for 12 hours if it thinks you’re too drunk to shop.

DrnkPay is a smartphone app that stops users from making purchases while drunk, which is apparently something people end up regretting. It was developed by UK financial consultancy company iBe TSE, after research found that half of British alcohol drinkers admitted that they regret a purchase made when drunk. The survey that inspired Drnkpay also revealed a few bizarre examples of things bought while intoxicated, like flying lessons, a rowing club lifetime membership for someone who doesn’t row, 30 pairs of flip flops, and even a live chicken.

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Brazilian Man Spends 40 Years Bringing a Forest Back to Life

83-year-old Antonio Vicente has spent the last four decades of his life fighting against the current. As Brazilian landowners cut down rainforests to make room for profitable plantations and cattle grazing grounds, he struggled to bring the lush jungles of his childhood back to life. Today, his efforts are being rewarded, as the completely stripped land he once began planting trees on 40 years ago, has become a beautiful jungle teeming with tropical wildlife once again.

It was 1973 when Antonio took up the challenge of restoring the forest on a 31-hectare piece of land that had been razed for cattle grazing. Ironically enough, he bought the land on the outskirts of Sao Pablo, in Brazil’s Sao Paulo region, using credits that the military government was giving out to promote deforestation and investing in advanced agricultural technology. But Antonio had no intention of using the money to boost the national agriculture. He just wanted to revive the forest.

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Antisocial Woman Pretends to Be Blind for 28 Years So She Wouldn’t Have to Greet People

28 years ago, Carmen Jiménez, from Madrid, Spain, became completely blind due to a serious eye injury. At least that’s what she told everyone, including her own family, because she was tired of having to say “hello” to people she didn’t actually want to greet.

The 57-year-old woman recently revealed that she had always been able to see perfectly, which left her family in shock, even though they had always suspected that something was of about her condition. Her husband told reporters that she would put on her makeup perfectly, and sometimes they would see her trying to look at the TV from the corner of her eyes. But she never admitted to faking her blindness, until recently

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Chinese School’s Football Field Has a Tree Growing in the Middle of It

Students at Beijing’s Yucai High School have to be very careful when playing football on the school’s well-maintained field. That’s because it has a 100-year-old tree growing smack in the middle of it, and keeping their eye on the ball too much can result in a painful collision.

Building a football field around a tree sounds pretty stupid, but it’s not like the Chinese school had a choice. Yucai High School is reportedly surrounded by various historical buildings, and this was the only available space for a football field. Before starting work on site, the school did ask permission to have the tree transplanted someplace else, but they were notified that it was hundreds of years old, and considered a national treasure. Having it transplanted was considered too risky, so they were left with no choice but to build the field around it.

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This Designer Wants to Make Flashing LED Eyelashes a Thing

You probably never even knew you wanted colored LED eyelashes, but just look at the pretty lights. Yeah, you want them!

Swedish Arduino designer Tien Pham has been getting a lot of attention lately for an unusual tech-inspired beauty product – interactive LED eyelashes that stick to your eyelids with regular eyelash glue. Called F.Lashes, these eye-catching accessories come in pink, red, blue, light blue, white, yellow and green, and feature different lighting modes, like follow, where the lights follow the movements of your head, dance mode, where they just blink at short intervals when you move your body, and sparkle, with the LEDs lighting up individually to create a sparkle effect.

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This Smartphone Case Doubles as an Espresso Machine

Mokase is the world’s first smartphone case that also serves users a warm shot of espresso whenever and wherever they want. It’s aimed at people who are always on the go, whose hectic lifestyle prevents them from stopping by a coffee shop or even a vending machine for a dose of caffeine.

Smart K, the Italian company that came up with the concept for Mokase, claims that they were looking for a way to make coffee available anywhere, and pairing it with the smartphone just made the most sense. “We thought, ‘how to make it always available? Why not join it to a gadget that is already a piece of our lifetime?’ the smartphone is the answer,” Smart K stated in a press release.

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Woman Creates Pigeon-Shaped Shoes in Attempt to Get Close to Real Pigeons

A DIY master from Tokyo, Japan, recently conquered the internet with a very unusual project. She set out to turn a pair of cheap high-heel shoes into realistic-looking pigeons to see if they would allow her to get closer to the real birds in a local park without them flying away. Did it work? Read on and find out.

47-year old Keiko Ohata creates all kinds of wondrous things and posts photos of them on Japanese DIY-themed community website, Nifty. She has shared dozens of interesting creations with her followers over the last 11 years, but it was her latest idea that attracted the attention of some of the world’s largest art blogs and news sites. Well, sort of, as all the articles I’ve seen got her name all wrong and linked to a Russian site as the original source, instead of her Nifty profile. Hopefully, they’ll make the necessary corrections, as Keiko deserves all the credit for this amazing pair of pigeon shoes.

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Man Wins 23-Kilometer Race He Ran in His Socks

Ibrahim Mukunga Wachira, a 27-year-old marathon runner from Kenya, became an overnight sensation in the small Baltic country of Estonia, after winning the 35th annual Tartu Half-Marathon, a 23-kilometer race he ran in his socks.

Just last week, we wrote about the monumental achievement of María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico, who won a 50-kilometer ultramarathon in rubber sandals made from used car tires and wearing a long traditional skirt. Today, we cover the amazing story of a man who not only won a 23-kilometer marathon in Estonia, but also set a new speed record, after running with no shoes on. It’s definitely an incredible time for sports, and running in particular.

 

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New Service Has Couples Walking Barefoot on Broken Glass on Their Wedding Day

Couples looking for a unique and unforgettable wedding day experience can now add walking barefoot on broken glass on their list of options. A Spanish company recently introduced the service as a metaphor for marriage.

Some people wouldn’t dare walk barefoot on pieces of broken glass even if somebody paid them to do it, but a Spanish company believes that couples will actually pay them for the opportunity to do exactly that on the day of their wedding. Wedding Glass is the first company in Spain, and probably the world, to offer walking on broken glass as a wedding ritual, but they believe that it will soon become a trend in the business, as couples these days are no longer happy with just the classic church ceremony and subsequent party.

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Mexican Woman Wearing Long Skirt and Rubber Sandals Wins 50 Km Ultramarathon

People usually train for years and invest in professional running gear just to be able to complete an ultramarathon, but María Lorena Ramírez, a native Rarámuri woman from Mexico who had not have any professional training or even basic gear, not only managed to finish a 50 km race, but actually win it. And she did it wearing a traditional long skirt and sandals made of recycled tire rubber.

High quality running shoes, compression socks, Lycra suits, energy drinks, all these are considered essential by most runners participating in an ultramarathon, but they were of no importance to 22-year-old María Lorena Ramírez, a sheep herder from Chihuahua, Mexico, who showed up at the starting line of a women’s ultramarathon in Puebla in traditional clothing and equipped with just a bottle of water and a handkerchief. She stood out like a sore thumb among the 500 or so other runners from 12 countries around the world, but she didn’t seem to care.

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The Eerie Tree Carvings of Perryville Park, in Maryland

Maryland’s Cecil County is home to many interesting parks, but none more mysterious and disturbing than the Perryville Community Park, in Perryville, where around 100 trees are marked by eerie messages left by patients from a veteran psychiatric and rehabilitation center, decades ago.

Before becoming a public park, the land was owned by the nearby Perry Point VA Hospital, and some of its former patients carved their disturbed thoughts into the trees. Over time, the words and drawings etched into the tree bark have grown larger, drawing the attention of curious passers-by. Interestingly, even though the mark trees of Perryville Community Park have become quite popular among fans of eerie tourist attractions, and even gotten their own Wikipedia entry, few residents of the Maryland town know about them and their history.

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Indonesian Man Is Best Friends with a 400-Pound Bengal Tiger

What started out as a simple job turned into an amazing friendship between a man and one of the most efficient predators on Earth. 10 years ago, Abdullah Sholeh became a “nanny” for a 3-month-old tiger cub, but they eventually became so close that even after the tiger matured, they spend almost every minute of the day together, and sometimes even sleep in the same enclosure.

Mulan Jamillah, a beautiful Bengal tigress, was donated to the Islamic school in Malang, Indonesia, when she was just 3-months-old, and then 25-year-old Abdullah Sholeh became her full-time caretaker. Her previous owner was unable to take care of her, but the young student was more than happy to dedicate most of his time to the adorable cub. The only problem is that what started out as a temporary job eventually turned into a full-time friendship, with Abdullah having to spend almost 24-hours with the tiger, which earned him the nickname “The Nanny”.

 

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Disabled Pensioner Dedicates His Life to Building Secure Mountain Roads for Isolated Village, Out of His Own Pocket

76-year-old Zhang Jiwen is almost completely deaf, but he has two able hands and a strong desire to help those less fortunate. Ever since 2012, he has been carrying building materials up a mountain in Fuling Forest Park, near the city of Chongqing, and building safe walking paths leading up from the modern road at the base all the way to an isolated village near the top. He has already completed a safe path a few hundred meters long and has started work on another leading to the water source of the village.

Zhang grew up in a village in the forests of Fuling, and even though he moved to the big city as an adult, he never forgot about his roots. When he heard about an isolated mountain village whose children had to come down precarious slopes in order to reach their school, he decided that he just had to help. For the past five years he has been taking a bus from his home in Chongqing to Fuling Forest Park to work on a better road for the village located on a mountain there.

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Swedish Tech Company Implants Microchips in Employees’ Bodies to Make Their Lives Easier

Epicenter, a technology startup hub in Stockholm, Sweden, has been offering employees the chance to have a small microchip implanted in their hand, ever since 2015. So far, 150 of its 3,000-strong staff have taken bosses up on their offer, and they couldn’t be happier with their decision.

Implantable microchips the size of a grain of rice have been around for a while now, but they are usually used as virtual identification plates for pets, or as tracking devices for deliveries. Up until a couple of years ago, when Epicenter started offering its employees the chance to have them implanted into their hands, these tiny devices had never been used to tag humans on a large scale. For many people, having a chip inserted into their body sounds like something out of a dystopian future, or, at the very least, raises privacy questions, but the 150 Epicenter employees who have had them implanted say the technology just makes their life easier.

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