Dreaming Tree

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." ~Edgar Allan Poe

[catsbeaversandducks]

Photo via Crazy Space Cats

[joelzimmer]

Misty Forest

Outside of Fes, Morocco

[black-and-white]

(by Justine PACCARD)

[kingjaffejoffer]

[whaleforsale]

[ashbless]

Always reblog Bowie.

[sashylee]

I <3 my sister

[defyingthelabyrinth]

for more calming manatees

<3

[defyingthelabyrinth]

que’ed! doing a meditative week without technology. i’ll be back before you know it, please don’t unfollow! <3

[yelyahwilliams]

Had the busiest craziest week! This means everything to me.

[sashylee]

@neuroactivity

[omfgbooks]

[black-and-white]

Twilight Clouds (by Nenad Saljic Photography)

[lessthanlovers-deactivated20130]

[instagram]

A Stop in Ostrichland

Want to see more photos of Ostrichland? Visit the location page.

Just outside of Solvang in Central California, 50 ostrich eagerly await visitors day in and out at Ostrichland. Ostriches are native to Africa, can run up to 45 miles per hour, and weigh between 250 and 350 lbs. The Browns, a husband and wife team, have run the unique farm for two decades. Visitors are invited to feed the bizarre creatures and can take home their fresh, giant ostrich eggs.

[sashylee]

@neuroactivity can we add this to the ever growing list?

[our-strange-yet-beautiful-planet]

[sashylee]

Arnensee Lake, Switzerland 

The waters of Arnensee in Switzerland are so clear they cause boats such as the one in the picture to appear as they are hovering in the air. 

The lake is located in Canton of Berne in Switzerland, and can be easily reached with a little planning. Although that first picture has made the lake relatively known, it’s still usually a quiet, tourist-free place.

[itsokaytobesmart]

How the Duck Hunt Gun Worked

This settles a mystery that has plagued my now semi-grown-up brain for decades, even more than the memory of that hound’s taunting laughter.

If you’re like me, and you played a lot of Duck Hunt growing up, you never quite figured out how the dang gun worked. I mean, I assumed it was shooting something at the screen, like maybe a beam of infrared, and the Nintendo console would somehow triangulate where I was shooting from, and somehow calculate how big my TV was, decipher some x,y coordinates from that and then determine if I had actually hit the duck.

Of course, none of that takes into account that it still registered the kills when I was cheating experimenting by putting the gun right on the screen and pulling the trigger wildly. Well, thanks to the folks at Mental Floss, I know the truth.

The gun didn’t shoot anything.

It was a receiver! Check it out:

When you point at a duck and pull the trigger, the computer in the NES blacks out the screen and the Zapper diode begins reception. Then, the computer flashes a solid white block around the targets you’re supposed to be shooting at. The photodiode in the Zapper detects the change in light intensity and tells the computer that it’s pointed at a lit target block — in others words, you should get a point because you hit a target. In the event of multiple targets, a white block is drawn around each potential target one at a time. The diode’s reception of light combined with the sequence of the drawing of the targets lets the computer know that you hit a target and which one it was. Of course, when you’re playing the game, you don’t notice the blackout and the targets flashing because it all happens in a fraction of a second.

My sleep tonight will be that much sounder, now that this has been settled. Now if we could just explain that Power Glove …

[date-a-girl-who-reads]

[magicalnaturetour]

Fall & St. Michael by niko-matveev

[colorful-butterfly-and-rainbows]

Paint Splattered Teardrops on We Heart It. http://m.weheartit.com/entry/50437818/via/CharlotteHendrickx

[magicalnaturetour]

Some people will never admit they are wrong about anything. Great quote! :)

[instagram]

Vacant Chicago Warehouse Burns, Becomes Frozen in Ice

Want to see more photos from the icy warehouse? Search the #bridgeport hashtag, and visit the location page for the nearby Advertising Flag Company.

On Tuesday evening, a vacant warehouse in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood caught fire. It took more than 200 firefighters the entire night to bring the blaze under control.

With Chicago facing some of the coldest temperatures of the season, the water used to battle the flames froze to the exterior of the building. The warehouse-turned-ice cube has attracted visitors from across the area, who have been documenting the uncommon sight through Instagram.

The five-alarm fire—the largest in Chicago since 2004—thankfully resulted in no injuries.