Use squirrels to save water

Are you a plant or animal lover? Here is a marvelous eco-friendly idea. This nice plant pot, which was designed by New Arriwa Co. Ltd., has a secret. A small cute squirrel rises from the log when you water the plant once every few days. After the water is absorbed by the soil, the squirrel hides again. And you always know if your plant needs some water, or it would be better to wait a couple of days.

Rice returns

People in Sanyo were so concerned that consumption of domestic rice in Japan has decreased by half compared to fifty years ago that they invented a magic machine to help the situation.

This magic machine makes bread from rice. As our friend, Naoko Odaka, told us that it was impossible before to make rice bread at home, because rice grains are very hard and cannot be easily processed. Rice-flour always existed, of course, but it was very expensive. The rice bread cooker makes bread directly from rice, and now every Japanese family can make rice bread at home.

The demand for that machine was so high, that it is out of stock now. Probably, rice consumption in Japan will be back to original figures soon. And we wish someone went that far to make us eat oats, when we were kids.

Self-direction is the key. Pictures are even a bigger key.

In his speech - click the words "in his speech" to see the speech - career analyst Dan Pink examines the phenomenon of motivation and proves that financial awards stop being efficient after a certain point. He sounds very convincing. But we would like to say that the animation for this video doubles his persuasion power. Can we get that guy with the pencil to all our presentations?

How to measure spaghetti with a noooodle

It is so hard to measure the right amount of spaghetti. How much do you need for one person? Or for three? The device called ‘noooodle’, designed by Konstantin Slawinsky, can help us. This spaghetti measure is twisted in such a way that 4 loops will provide the right portion for 1 to 4 people. And you can also use it as a trivet, when you are not measuring spaghetti.

Self-made thongs

Now you can make thongs from anything: from two spoons, from two forks, a fork and a spoon, etc. This handle functions the same way as a kids’ chopstick trainer does. The silicon handle has cross-shaped holes where any kind of silverware can be inserted. After that it can be used as thongs for any kind of cooking or eating purpose. This clever thing is designed by Kosntantin Slawinsky.

Buttons for Pegasus

Horse riders need to cross streets from time to time, right? And it is a very good idea to have very high buttons on button-operated traffic lights, so that a rider can press the button and turn on the green light. There is no need to dismount.

The crossings equipped with traffic lights with such buttons are called Pegasus crossings, and we would like to thank Alexander Agatov for showing us this wonderful thing. There are also toucan crossings for cyclists where they are permitted to ride across the road. The toucan name comes from “two-can-cross”, meaning both pedestrians and cyclists. It is really nice when people remember that everybody may need a different thing on the road.

Double Dish

Joseph Joseph, the person who designed the Double Dish, made a great contribution to keeping tables clean. The Double Dish is, in fact, a double dish. It is created for serving snacks with shells or seeds: you serve snacks in the upper dish, and the shells and seeds go to the collection dish underneath. It can also be used as two separate dishes, if you want.

Have you seen my shells, darling?

Well, imagine, you are a young and beautiful woman. And you like to bathe in the sun topless to get a lovely goldish tan on the whole body. Except two small parts. Nipples! It is perfectly understandable that you would like to cover them in order to protect yourself from breast cancer and annoying gazes. In Vietnam we’ve seen a really nice way to do that: girls cover their nipples with sea shells. It is convenient as shells are always handy, and looks great.

Cobbles as an anti-slip solution

In Spanish hilly towns people use ordinary cobbles in an unusual way. In order to improve safety they cover their streets by stones placed on their edges, vertically. After that the road surface looks like a grid and helps to make roads a lot less slippery. It is unbelievable – smooth stones can provide a good anti-slip solution.

Even stones can say “thank you”

There are countless ways to express gratitude. Spanish street cafes know how to do it in a simple, but ingenious way.

The staff wrote ‘gracias’ on the small stones to press bills to the cash plates. It looked nice and… led us to leaving more tip. But what is great about the whole situation that everyone is happy.

Genius staircase

This is a great storage solution, and basically there is nothing much to say about it. It is just super. None of us has such a thing because we don’t have staircases in our apartments.

The fox, the duck and the deer

I hate having to memorize figures. When a taxi company tells me that their car is waiting for me, the number plate is as follows: …, my brain just switches off. That is why I was so happy when one famous printer company changed the labels of their ink cartridges from numbers to animal images. Now all you have to remember is the right animal. And it is much easier to remember that you need a fox or a duck, then TZ-9879 or something like that. It feels like I’m in the kindergarten, but I don’t mind.

Finland recycles sand to keep winter roads clean

Winter road maintenance is no easy thing. Every northern country can prove it. For example, Finland is covered with snow, on average, from November to March, and in Lapland the snow stays until June. However, this country knows how to cope with frost and snow, and even blizzards do not often cause serious trouble.

Grit – a mixture of sand and rock salt – helps a lot to keep roads clean. Gritters – also known as sanders or salt trucks – are used to spread grit onto roads. Salt makes ice melt at lower temperature and run off to the edge of the road, and sand helps to increase friction between car tires and the road surface. Though the salt eventually gets washed away, the insoluble sand is collected, recycled and kept for the next winter.

Annual cost of winter road maintenance is about €100 mln, which is definitely a lot. But everybody who drives in Finland in wintertime is grateful to the guys who managed to keep the roads that perfect.

Ocean pack

Ocean pack is a great thing for any trips in, by or around water. Boat trips, rafting, sightseeing in the rain, whatever you can think of. It is made of some clever waterproof material. Several sizes are available, but even a 10-liter option is enough to fit the whole world in it.

The seal is formed by rolling the top over on itself four times and then clipping the top into a circle, one side to the other. You know, there is nothing else! Nothing! This piece of rubber will perfectly protect your precious electronic devices and other stuff.