Hundreds of Golden Retrievers Meet Up in the Scottish Highlands to Celebrate 155 Years of the Breed

 

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Womans Photochromic Dress Changes Color in the Sun From White to Pink

Photo: Screenshot from TikTok

A color-changing dress is something that sounds like it's straight out of a fairytaleor an illusion that has the whole internet polarized. But sometimes it's also a very real dress that actually does change color. In a now-viral video posted by @izzipoopi, the fashion influencer wears a cream knit dress at the beginning, announcing, My dress changes colour in the sun! She then walks outside, and as she steps out of the shadows, the garment begins its colorful transformation. By the end, the dress has completely turned pink, much to the wearer's delight.

The dress in question was created by New York-based fashion brand PH5. The name of the dress is Sponde UV Reactive Reversible Maxi Dress and it's part of the brand's UV Reactive collection, which also includes color-changing skirts, shirts, and cardigans. PH5 states, Using our innovative yarns we knit pleated & ribbed pieces that will transform in to bright pink's & blue's in the sun.

For some users, this color-changing clothing reminds them of Hypercolor, a fashion company that was trendy in the 90s. Although those garments transformed in a similar manner, they changed due to heat, while the PH5 dress changes with UV light. Though there isn't much info about the tech, it was most likely developed in the company's knitwear mill in China. We work hand in hand with our computer engineers and technicians to code and pattern each design, PH5 explains. Thanks to this advantage, we are able t...

All images Yoshiaki Ito

Slender pieces of beechwood connected by strings of elastic form a playful menagerie of toys by Brooklyn-based designer Yoshiaki Ito. Morphits begin as cubes, carefully packaged in a box, then expanded to reveal a stable of animals, which currently include a giraffe, monkey, pig, hippo, or a tiger. Bendable and posable, they can be displayed on a surface or puzzled back together into a compact form.

Find more of Itos work on his website, where he sells the toys in his shop in both color and natural options. You can also follow Ito and the monkeys world travels on Instagram. (via designboom)

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Uh ohits yet another story from Reddits Am I the A**hole? page that revolves around some serious drama involvingyou guessed it, vegan food.

Oh no!

And this woman asked the fine readers on that page if she was out of line for getting pi**ed off at her fiance for canceling the vegan food at their upcoming wedding.

Is she a jerk?

Lets see what she had to say!

AITA flipping out on my fiance for cancelling all the vegan food options from our wedding food menu behind my back?

My fiance (31 male) and I (25 female) are getting married soon. There wasnt much that disagreed on during the wedding planning except for food.

Me and my family are vegans, and there so many reasons why we chose this lifestyle and one of them being that we have a history of health issues. My fiance and his family are the complete opposite. theyre hardcore meat eaters which is fine by me obviously.

However, When deciding on the wedding food menu, I wanted to add 4-5 vegan options. My fiance and his mom objected saying it was a waste of money over food that isnt real food. They also argued that this would be offensive for their guests and suggested my vegan options just be the good ol salads & appetizers (his mom wanted cupcakes lol).

I said no because for one i...

5 Abstract Painting Tips From a Professional Artist

Creating abstract artwork can be a freeing and liberating process. But, for many, it can be difficult to let go of the desire to paint a specifically recognizable thing or object. If you are looking for more clarity on how to paint abstractly, Megan Elizabeth is happy to help. The Maryland-based artist is known for her stunning abstract acrylic paintings that focus on capturing movement and light.

In her online course, Dappled Light: Learn Abstract Painting with Acrylics, she guides us through the process of creating two abstract paintings. As we paint along beside her, she reveals some of her tips and tricks for settling into the process and for embracing creative experimentation.

You'll not only end up with two beautiful canvases, but you'll also learn how to break down and translate a familiar object or a particular feeling into something abstract on the canvas. If you are still hesitant to begin, read on to get five tips from her course on how to paint abstractly. And then take the time to enroll in her course to get all the tools you need to feel confident when creating your own abstract art. The class is available on-demand, and you can watch as many times as you'd like, making it a lasting resource for artists of all skill levels.

Here are five tips from a successful artist on how to paint abstract art.

Know when to stop

Taking a break and stepping back i...

If you have always wanted to be able to travel to alternate realities, some say you should be super jealous of AI because its been there and back.

Youve probably heard that one of the reasons Large Language Models (LLMs) spit out wild answers sometimes is because of machine hallucinations.

Well, according to Stability.ais CEO Emad Mostaque, those dont exist but alternate realities do.

LLMs dont hallucinate. Theyre just windows into alternate realities in the latent space. Just broaden your minds.

LLMs dont hallucinate.

Theyre just windows into alternate realities in the latent space.

Just broaden your minds.

Emad (@EMostaque) March 7, 2023

It sounds like he was born in the wrong generation or at least, he really wants to believe theres a good reason for the growing pains AI is going through as it begins to interact with humans on a regular basis.

Some think that the explanation could also help better explain the concept of latent space, which is the compressed space between an input and output image.

Visitors to Japan cant help but be struck by the beauty of its temples, its scenic views, its zen gardens, its manhole covers

You read that right.

What started as a scheme to get taxpayers on board with pricey rural sewer projects in the 1980s has grown into a countrywide tourist attraction and a matter of civic pride.

People sure do get fired up when it comes to swimming pools, huh?

You know thats the truth!

And this woman wants to know if shes acting like an a**hole for causing drama over a pool.

Take a look at her story and see what you think.

AITA for causing family drama over a swimming pool?

So I know from experience that Reddit isnt the most understanding towards parents of young kids but I really just want a third party opinion because this situation is driving me crazy and my family are saying I need to get over it

I (F30s) live with my partner and our two kids, ages 7 and 3.

My older sister Ava (also F30s) and her husband recently purchased a house in the local area. Its a super nice place with a big yard and as you can probably guess from the title, a swimming pool.

Ava recently hosted a barbecue at her place. It wasnt a huge event, she invited me, our parents and our other siblings.

She mentioned letting the kids play in the pool so I only assumed my kids would get to be included

We are potty training although my youngest is still in diapers at the moment.

At the barbecue, I was getting my youngest ready for the pool by changing him into a swim diaper. Ava pulled me aside and told me she doesnt think its hygienic for my youngest to play in the pool, since swim diapers dont hold pee and she asked that he doesnt swim in th...

A lesser advertised joy of working in food service is achieving command of the slang:

Monkey dish

Deuces and four tops

Fire, flash, kill 

As you may have noticed, we here at Open Culture have an insatiable hunger for vintage lingo and it doesnt get much more vintage than The Boke of Kervynge (The Book of Carving).

This 1508 manual was published for the benefit of young noblemen whod been placed in affluent households, to learn the ropes of high society by serving the sovereigns.

Few families could afford to serve meat, let alone whole animals, so understandably, the presentation and carving of these precious entrees was not a thing to be undertaken lightly.

I can totally understand a parent wanting their kids to have the best in life and to succeed in every way possible, but is it wrong to have one kid take another kids test to prove a point?

I guess everyone has different opinions about thatand now its up to you to read this dads story to see if you think he acted like an a**hole.

Check out what he had to say in the story below.

AITA for having my daughter take her sisters test?

I have two daughters in high school. Sam is an A student and Emma is a B and C student. Sam has basically been making fun of Emma for her lower grades. We punish her when it happens but she goes back to it every time.

Now the difference between the two girls is that Sam takes the general classes where Emma takes the college classes. For example sam took biology as her science and Emma took college physics 2. So very different.

Summer is here and the final grades came in. Sam got all As and when she saw she did better, she started the I am smarter comments again. I had enough at this point

I grabbed one of Emma old tests, it was a geometry test since Sam took geometry this year and sat her down and had her do it. Long story short she was in tears and then I explained again how grades dont measure how smart you are. That she is in much easier classes compared to Emma, I think it finally got through to her.

My wife was informed of...

What if?

I love questions like this because people come up with all kinds of creative answers and you never know what to expect!

What would happen if a billionaire CEO had to live on the salary of their lowest-paid employees AND it was a reality TV show?

Check out what folks had to say about this on AskReddit.

Make it longer.

It would be better if they had to live with their lowest salaried employee for a month or two.

In their house, dinner with the family, travel to and from work together, same lunch, kids with homework, the works.

Building that relation would imo do much more for this problem than just experiencing below your normal standard of living before returning to it..
Youre more likely to feel empathy for a family you know, and much less likely to forget them.

Anything else would just be another show about wealthy people having a fun adventure to talk about at cocktail parties.

Lets reverse it.

It would be incredibly self-serving and boring.

They would never truly experience what it is like to be in the precarious position of a minimum wage employee living hand-to-mouth and the novelty is just salt in the wound.

It would be more interesting to see the reverse.

Interesting.

There was this similar themed show in Hong Kong and Mainland China years ago.

They swapped billionaire with bottom feeders, let the rich do the basic job, on the lowest salary, to see how far the rich could go by purely their own effort.

Nearly all of the billionaire admitted that they could not make anywhere, regardless of how hard they worked, even working without sleeping and resting could not give you any accumulation to help climb up to the higher level of the society.

There was only despair, and admission that the divide between the poor and the rich is already a deep valley and mere personal effort makes little sense.

It stirred big debate among the society back then, and I think that was part of the reasons the show got cancelled .

There was also another show in China, swapping senior political figures with community level council workers, to see how good they could do in each others posts. The mayors were flooded by the angry mobs w...

A word to the wise before we get started: we NEVER condone dealing with a criminal or a dangerous person this way because you just never know which way its gonna go

Now, on to the story!

A woman named Rachel shared a video on TikTok where viewers got to see her catching a thief in the act of trying to steal her carbut things didnt go as planned.

Photo Credit:...

All moms and dads choose to raise their kids differently and sometimes that can lead to some conflict within families.

One parent wants to be stricter than the other and things can get messy.

And a guy took to Reddits Am I the A**hole? page to ask if hes wrong for not letting his wife punish their son.

Get all the details below and see what you think.

AITA for refusing to punish or allow my wife to punish our son?

This all started back in March. My sons best friend turned thirteen. In his family, thirteenth birthday is a huge deal. In addition to a massive party (which all four of us were invited to) his parents also took him to Disney World. They invited my son to attend as well.

My wife was hesitant to consent to this. She said it was unfair to allow our son to go when our nine year old daughter cant. Especially since she loves Disney and princesses. I said that our kids wont always have the exact same opportunities, and if we set a precedent here, well have to stick to it if and when our daughter gets a similar opportunity. So wed just be punishing both our children needlessly. My wife reluctantly agreed that we should allow our son to go.

I gave our son money to buy his sister souvenirs. He did, and his friends parents even bought extra stuff for him to give to her. Still, when she saw him come back wearing a Star Wars shirt with the Mickey hat...

Its a darn shame

Im talking about how much food restaurants and other businesses throw out at the end of a typical work day.

And a Starbucks employee whose store is in a Target shared a video on TikTok that went viral because he showed that they throw out a ton of food that looks just fine.

Photo Credit: TikTok

The mans video showed cartloads of food that is still in wrappers and his text overlay says, POV: Youre closing at Starbucks.

I guess sometimes things like this are necessary, but is this person an a**hole for embarrassing their father?

Take a look at whats going on here and see what you think

AITA for embarrassing my father by offering to stop telling my children that I love them.

I call my kids Boy (15) and Girl (16). I love the Simpsons and I always thought it was funny that Homer referred to Bart as Boy and Bart called him Homer. With my father everything was yes sir no sir.

I also constantly tell my kids that I love them and am proud of them.

For some reason the name thing puts a wild hair up my dads ass.

He was over last weekend and he was vociferous about how Im hurting his grandchildren by not calling them by their names. I told him that my kids were happy and to leave it alone.

He just wouldnt drop it. So I called my kids over to where we were talking and I asked them if they wanted to be called by their names instead of Boy and Girl.

I said in return they would have to call me Sir not daddy or dad. I said I would accept Father in emotional conversations. But that I would no longer remind them every day that I loved them and was proud of them.

They both did they were happy with the status quo. They know what my relationship with my father is like.

My father got all pissed off and said thats not what he wanted at all. So I asked him how often he told my sisters and I he loved us or was proud...

Ive had some pretty bad roommates in my life, but I never had to deal with anything like thisbecause this is pretty outrageous!

A woman responded to a viral TikTok video about folks getting Venmod by friends and posted a video on TikTok that got a lot of people talking.

She said that her roommate sent her a Venmo request for money because she ate a cookie her roomie made with HER ingredients.

Photo Credit: TikTok

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More than 1,100 scholars, poets, writers, and supporters have signed an open letter outlining concerns and demands directed at the Smithsonian Institution after the abrupt cancelation of the 2023 Asian American Literature Festival (AALF). The letter, written by AALF partners and participants, alleges that the Smithsonians Asian Pacific American Centers (APAC) notice of the events cancellation just one month before it was set to take place shows a flagrant lack of accountability for the harm caused...

There is a knowing in being an artist, Jay-Z says in one of the many videos of him currently on view at the Brooklyn Public Librarys (BPL) main branch, located at Grand Army Plaza in the center of New York Citys most populous borough. That the local man born in 1969 as Shawn Carter but who now prefers to call himself HOV knows how to create memorable popular music and stay atop the entertainment industry is not in doubt. 

But is a public library the appropriate venue for a shrine to a billionaires glamorous life?

Whether the knowing HOV refers to places him in the category of artistic genius is a thorny debate that hinges on which criteria one uses. But conspicuo...

LOS ANGELES Although Martha Alf (1930-2019) is recognized for her distinctive pear drawings, her inaugural posthumous exhibition at the Michael Kohn Gallery, Opposites and Contradictions, sheds new light on her breakthrough moment as a painter. While the exhibition presents a small selection of later drawings, hung salon-style, the primary focus is on the body of work that earned Alf a place in the 1975 Whitney Biennial: her paintings of toilet paper rolls, which she preferred to call cylinders. Such phrasing is significant because, by this point in her career, she was a formalist who boldly applied what she learned about abstract painting to still life, but with a twist in the form of unconventional subject matter. As she wrote at the time, she was finding reality through an artificially contrived arrangement customarily associated with the stage or an altar, which raises the most mundane of material objects in our society to the authoritat...

Located at the tail end of the 7 train not far from LaGuardia Airport, Flushing is a magnet for both longtime Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) residents and newcomers from overseas. Home to New York Citys largest Chinatown, the Queens community has served as an entryway for new immigrants in search of work and housing.

A new exhibition pays homage to Flushing and its history by spotlighting the work of eight artists, most of whom are residents of the neighborhood, and encouraging community contributions and interaction. Home-O-Stasis: Life and Livelihoods in Flushing, curated by Herb Tam and Lu Zhang, is...

In April of 1969, around 200 Black and Puerto Rican students at the City College of New York brought classes to a grinding halt. For two weeks, the protesters occupied the schools Harlem campus in demand of a more equitable education and a student body that mirrored the racial makeup of New York City. Culminating a nearly decade-long undertaking, filmmakers Andrea Weiss and Greta Schiller are exploring the historic action in a new documentary titled The Five Demands (2023), showing at the Downtown Community Television Centers (DCTV) Firehouse Cinema in Chinatown today, July 18, through Thursday, July 20. Following last months Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action, the story feels more pressing than ever.

Weiss and Schiller have made a number of documentaries under Jezebel Productions, a company they...

61 and 56-Year-Old Couple Shows What a Healthy Marriage Looks Like in Every Sense of the Word

 

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Robyn Farrell has been named senior curator of New York nonprofit the Kitchen. Farrell, who will step into her new role on August 1, comes to the organization from the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC),

Researchers Discover New Extinct Species of Mini Penguins That Lived 3 Million Years Ago

What Eudyptula wilsonae may have looked like, darn cute! (Photo: Simone Giovanardi)

Penguins are survivors. Modern species of the adorable birds withstand freezing temperatures or dive deep in swift currents. In fact, penguins have been doing their adorable thing for millions of years. Prehistoric penguin species date back to the days of the dinosaurs. A team of researchers in New Zealand have discovered one more member of the ancient family, a tiny and distinctly precious species newly known as Eudyptula wilsonae. Its name means Wilsons little penguin. Explained in their recent paper, the researchers detail how the examination of several small fossilized skulls led to the classification of this cute critter who lived 50 million years ago.

The two fossils were discovered on New Zealand's North Island. Only the skulls are extant, and they are slightly narrower than those of modern little penguins (korora) which currently frolic along the islands coasts. From the one juvenile and one adult skull, the researchers determined it was a new species. They likely stood just about a foot tall and weighed a measly 2 pounds, much like their modern analogs. In fact, the new species may be a late Pliocene ancestor of the modern birds.

This is important when thinking about the origins of these penguins, the evolution of the seabird diversity of Aotearoa and the dynamic environment in which they live, co-author Daniel Thomas said in a...

The organizers of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts have announced that the thirty-fifth iteration of the event will be titled From the void came gifts of the cosmos. Taking place September 15,

Vellarron de Catrelo de Cima, Galicia. All images Roberto de la Torre, shared with permission

In Microcosmos, photographer Roberto de la Torre (previously) centers his lens on the celebratory costumes of the entroido. Held widely in his home region of Galicia around Lent and the shift from winter to spring, entroidos are annual gastronomic carnivals in which food and dance are plentiful. Elaborate costumes and masks are essential for participation, which de la Torre documents in the ongoing series.

Taken throughout northern Spain and Portugal, the photos capture the expressive, varied designs made with feather-like husks, vibrant tufts of synthetic materials, and animal horns. Each costume is unique and tied to a specific role in the celebration. Some of them are difficult to portray because of their elusive character. Sometimes the people who wear them do not want them to become tourist symbols and lose their ritual character, so they do not like to be photographed, he tells Colossal.

The demonic Chocalheiro de Bemposta, for example, has bulbous horns and a serpent-like creature on the shoulder and is from a small Portuguese village in Mogadouro called Bemposta. It emerges twice annually, making an appearance the first day...

Bay Area artist Mitchell Johnson is exhibiting 35 paintings at 229 Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto, California, a 3,000-square-foot gallery space formerly occupied by Pace Palo Alto. The gallery is open daily from 12 to 6pm (PT) through Thursday, August 3.

Palo Alto has played a significant role in Johnsons life and career. He moved there from NYC to work for Sam Francis and has since had numerous exhibitions in the city, but never a show of this scale. This exhibition,...

Colombia Sees a 29% Drop in Deforestation Over the Last Year

Photo: ilyshev/Depositphotos

As the second-most biodiverse country in the world, Colombia has an important role to play on our planet. Over 60,000 species have been registered in the country, many of which call the Colombian Amazon home. But deforestation has always been an issue. Thankfully, according to official figures released by the government, deforestation fell 29% nationwide and 26% in the Amazon over the last year.

The impetus for this dramatic turnaround? It's all tied up in Colombia's complex political history. In 2016, then-president Juan Manuel Santos signed a ceasefire with the guerilla group FARC, ending 50 years of civil war. Unfortunately, the environment was not put at the forefront of those peace negotiations, and as splinter groups popped up in the Colombian countryside, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest continued and, in some cases, worsened.

Now, under the leadership of the country's first left-wing administration, the government is reaching out to these groups for individual peace talks. And often, the top bargaining chip is the environment. President Gustavo Petro has made a pledge to bring total peace to the country and is sending representatives deep into the Amazon to speak with these factions. In return, some of the rebel leaders have ordered farmers to stop cutting forest as a show of good faith.

Carla Stellweg is a critic, curator, mentor, professor, and salonnire who has championed Latin American art for the last sixty years. As one of the first independent curators in Mexico and the

All images Akasaki Vanhuyse, shared with permission

Once the largest enclosed docks in the world, Londons Royal Docks span around 2.5 miles of waterway along the River Thames, encompassing about 250 acres. Today the home of numerous repurposed spaces and contemporary living developments, the area remains flush with industrial and maritime heritage, with historic architecture characterized by red brick. For design studio Akasaki Vanhuyse, founded by Japanese architect Kenta Akasaki and French designer Astrid Vanhuyse, Royal Albert Wharf provided the perfect platform for FLOAT, a curvaceous brick bench perched on the quayside.

Working with specialty brickmaker Mishelmersh, the designers tapped into the companys deadstock, plucking 360 pieces that were expertly cut into 13 unit types with specific angles and dimensions so that they could be precisely puzzled together into the final shape. The shape of the seat nods to the recognizable ring shape of the life preservers dotting the rivers edge, and users can sit around the perimeter or sink into the middle as if in an inner tube. By connecting the bench design to its immediate surroundings, we wanted to create a symbol for the town, the studio says.

See more work on Akasaki Vanhuyses website and Instagram. (via...

99-Million-Year-Old Baby Bird Feathers Study Sheds Light on Dinosaur Extinction

These tiny baby bird feathers preserved in amber since the Cretaceous period have enabled scientists to understand the effects of such feather features on survival for certain species. (Photo: Shundong Bi)

Birds may not seem like fascinating windows into the past, but for paleontologists our feathery friends are living relics. Birds have a direct line of continuity back to the age of the dinosaurs. Many varieties survived while the likes of the T-Rex went extinct through catastrophic events. But why the birds were able to survive is still a question for study. New papers suggest that the molting patterns of certain prehistoric species may have engineered their survival and shaped the biology of modern birds.

Birds molt their feathers in a process which replaces these valuable appendages made of keratin (what composes our fingernails). Like human children loosing baby teeth, this is the process by which baby birds get adult feathers. There are two types of bird molting patterns to consider. Altricial birds are born naked and kept warm by their parents body heat. Precocial birds are born with their own baby feathers. They all molt periodically, even in adulthood, a process which is very energy-draining. It can also make a bird vulnerable to temperature changes if (like altricial chicks) the bird simultaneous molts all its feathers. This is less protective than species who lose and replace feathers progressively over a molting period.

A recent study by Shundong Bi and Jingmai OConnor examines baby bird feathers preserved in amber. An incredibly rare find, Chicago's...