Author: Michele Debczak

If you’re looking for a restaurant that’s off the beaten path, consider The Pearl in Brussels. To eat there, diners must venture 16 feet below the surface of an indoor pool.

According to Reuters, The Pearl consists of a 6-foot-wide underwater pod that’s only accessible after a quick scuba dive. Once patrons climb inside and shed their gear, gourmet grub in air-tight containers is delivered by wet-suited servers.

The menu includes foie gras, lobster salad, and champagne, as well as a price tag to match. The whole experience costs around $106 per person. If you’re willing to spend serious cash to enjoy an aquatic dinner, there are underwater restaurants elsewhere that don’t require their diners to get wet.

[h/t Reuters]

Whether it’s a new car, a home renovation project, or a European vacation, many of us know the feeling of wanting something we can’t afford. After figuring out how much your dream purchase will cost you, this online calculator will translate that dollar amount into hours spent working.

As Business Insider reports, the calculator requires six numbers from its users: annual gross salary, top marginal federal tax rate, top marginal state and local tax rates, total hours worked per year, total hours spent commuting per year, and the cost of your expenditure.

You may not know all that information off-hand, but luckily there are plenty of resources online to help you figure it out. Annual gross salary should be easy enough to input—it’s your yearly salary before taxes are taken out. Your top marginal federal tax rate can be looked up at taxfoundation.org based on your income and marital status. Top marginal state and local tax rates vary based on your address, and these can also be found at taxfoundation.org. Add them together to get a single figure.

Next, enter the total number of hours you work per year (the standard for full-time employees is 2087 hours) and your total hours spent traveling to and from work annually (according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average American spends 216.7 hours a year commuting).

Before you’re ready to submit, you need to calculate the cost of what it is you’re saving up for. With that bit of information, you can enter the data and see what the labor cost calculator comes up with.

Let’s say you’re single, live in Brooklyn, get paid $50,000 year, work full-time, and commute an average number of hours. According to the calculator, it would take you 78.79 hours to earn the money you need to take a $1000 vacation.

Being able to translate money into labor hours is a helpful way to look at big expenses. But that’s just one step towards meeting your savings goals—strategies like kicking expensive habits and putting away a certain cut of your paycheck each month can also be useful.

[h/t Business Insider]

One of the most stunning sections of the Italian Alps is the Dolomites mountain range, which has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009. After a long day on the slopes, one of the coziest ways to enjoy the area’s natural beauty is from the Oberholz Mountain Hut restaurant.

According to Dezeen, the building is nestled 6500 feet high in the mountains. Peter Pichler Architecture, in collaboration with architect Pavol Mikolajcak, designed the structure to extend from the hillside “like a fallen tree.” Each glass facade is directed at one of three major mountains in the surrounding area. After enjoying a hot meal inside, visitors can hit the ski slope connected to the restaurant.

This is just one way for skiers to view the Dolomites once they’ve grown tired of being outside. As we reported last year, the nearby Cortina d’Ampezzo resort offers guests a mini-hotel contained by glass walls for optimal stargazing.

[h/t Dezeen]

All images courtesy of Peter Pichler Architecture.

It’s hard not to feel inspired after watching one of the fantastical films of Hayao Miyazaki. According to Juxtapoz, 50 artists have channeled that spark into works of art celebrating the legendary director.

The “Miyazaki Art Show” at Spoke Art gallery in San Francisco will feature tributes to such films as My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Spirited Away (2001), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). A variety of mediums will be represented (as you can see below, one sculpture is a tray of fake food inspired by the films).

The show runs from February 4 to February 25, but for a chance to meet some of the artists in person, fans should attend the opening reception on Saturday night—costumes are encouraged.

[h/t Juxtapoz]

All images courtesy of Spoke Art.

Home appliances are a lot safer than they used to be, but cooking still accounts for nearly half of all house fires. A new product on Kickstarter aims to lower that number: Not only does it tell you when you left your burner on, but it also lets you shut it off remotely from your smartphone.

As The Verge reports, the Inirv React consists of four smart stove or oven knobs linked to a sensor unit that attaches to the ceiling. The sensor connects to your home’s Wi-Fi network, allowing owners to communicate with the system no matter where in the world they are. If the sensor detects smoke or gas, it can be programmed to send alerts to an app or shut the burners off automatically. It also detects motion, and if it senses that the kitchen has been empty for 15 minutes it will turn off the stove by default (if 15 minutes is too quick, you can adjust the setting to another of the device’s four settings).

Other neat features include voice control capabilities through the Amazon Echo and a child safety lock. The project has already more than tripled their goal of $40,000, and there are still two weeks left in the campaign. To reserve an Inirv React of your own, you can make a pledge of $229 or more. Shipping is estimated to begin in December.

[h/t The Verge]

To sugar-lovers stateside, Cadbury is best known as the maker of the cream-filled eggs that appear in stores each spring for Easter. But their full lineup of sweets includes close to 100 products that are beloved in the UK and around the world. Here are 11 decadent facts about the candy brand.

1. IT STARTED AS A DRINKING CHOCOLATE BUSINESS.

Before it was an international corporation, Cadbury got its start as a humble grocery store. In 1824, John Cadbury opened a shop in Birmingham, England where he sold, among other goods, cocoa and drinking chocolate he ground by hand. The beverage was initially marketed as a health drink, and it was often served with lentils or barley mixed in. He opened up a full-fledged chocolate factory in 1841, and by the following year he was selling 11 types of cocoa and 16 varieties of drinking chocolate. Solid “eating chocolate” only came about years later as a way for the company to utilize the cocoa butter left over from the cocoa-making process.

2. CADBURY MADE CHOCOLATE FOR QUEEN VICTORIA.

The Cadbury company was just a few decades old when it was deemed fit for royalty. John Cadbury and his brother and business partner, Benjamin, received a Royal Warrant to assume the role of “manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate to Queen Victoria” in 1855. Today the company continues to hold a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

3. THE COMPANY INVENTED THE HEART-SHAPED CHOCOLATE BOX.

Heart-shaped chocolate boxes are nearly as old as the commercialization of Valentine’s Day itself, and that’s thanks to Richard Cadbury. By the mid-19th century, exchanging gifts and cards with loved ones had become a popular practice around the holiday. Chocolate became part of the tradition by way of Cadbury’s romantic chocolate boxes. Richard, son of company founder John Cadbury, had the brilliant idea to package his confections in heart-shaped boxes embellished with cupids and roses in 1861. Customers could use the fancy boxes to store keepsakes long after the contents were consumed.

4. “RATION CHOCOLATE” WAS SOLD DURING WORLD WAR II.

Like many European businesses, Cadbury was forced to make sacrifices during the Second World War. When the British government banned fresh milk in 1941, the company stopped production on its Dairy Milk bars. Ration Chocolate, made from dried skim milk powder, was released as a cheap substitute.

5. THE FIRST CADBURY EGG APPEARED IN THE 19TH CENTURY.

Cadbury’s connection to chocolate eggs traces back to its early history. While experimenting with moldable chocolate formulas, Cadbury came up with a hollow Easter egg in 1875. The first iterations had a plain, dark chocolate exterior with sugar-coated chocolate drops filling the inside. In 1923, Cadbury debuted a cream-filled chocolate egg, but it wasn’t until 1971 that the Cadbury Creme Egg we know today, with its white-and-yellow fondant center, became an official part of the lineup.

6. CADBURY WON—AND LOST—THE TRADEMARK TO THEIR SIGNATURE PURPLE.

Cadbury first adopted its signature purple packaging in 1914 as a tribute to Queen Victoria’s favorite color. After a four-year legal battle with Nestle (which uses a similar shade in their Wonka candy line), Cadbury won the right to trademark Pantone 2685C in 2012. But their victory was short-lived—Nestle successfully appealed the ruling the following year and “cadbury purple” became free for all to use once more.

7. ROALD DAHL WAS INSPIRED BY THE COMPANY.

Years before he became a world-famous author, Roald Dahl taste-tested sweets for Cadbury. The company sent shipments of their chocolates to Dahl’s boyhood school for students to sample and the experience sparked the young boy’s imagination. When writing about his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a draft of a speech, he recalled:

“It was then I realised that inside this great Cadbury’s chocolate factory there must an inventing room, a secret place where fully-grown men and women in white overalls spent all their time playing around with sticky boiling messes, sugar and chocs, and mixing them up and trying to invent something new and fantastic.”

His musings came in handy years later when he sat down to write his most famous novel.

8. THE IDEA FOR FLAKE CAME FROM A FACTORY WORKER.

Flake, the crumbly bar made from thin layers of chocolate, is one of the most unique products in the Cadbury family. Rather than being dreamt up by a recipe developer, it was discovered by an employee by mistake. One day a worker responsible for filling the molds noticed something unusual about the excess chocolate spilling over the sides. The ribbons of liquid chocolate cooled into light, flaky bars quite different from anything else on the market. The company ran with the concept, and in 1920 the Cadbury Flake bar made its commercial debut.

9. CADBURY PRODUCTS ARE SOLD IN 40 COUNTRIES.

Cadbury may forever be associated with its British home, but the brand extends far beyond the UK. Their chocolates can be found in countries across the globe including Thailand, Argentina, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia [PDF]. Regional specialties include Cadbury Oreo Eggs sold in Canada and Cadbury Glow that’s marketed as a Diwali gift in India.

10. THE CHOCOLATE TASTES DIFFERENT IN THE U.S.

If Cadbury chocolate tastes better in its British homeland than it does in the United States, that’s not in your head—products sold under the same label are made with different ingredients in the two countries. The UK product is made from milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat, and emulsifiers, while U.S.-made Cadbury chocolate also includes lactose, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavorings, and lists sugar as the number one ingredient. Unfortunately for Cadbury purists, finding the real stuff in the States is next to impossible. Hershey, the manufacturer of the products sold in U.S. markets, forced a ban on British Cadbury imports in 2015.

11. CADBURY WORLD HAS BEEN OPEN SINCE 1990.

Fans in search of a more immersive look at the company and its history can visit Cadbury World in Birmingham, UK. The space features over a dozen interactive zones, including a 4D chocolate adventure, a chocolate-making exhibition, and a full-sized replica of the street where John Cadbury opened his first shop in 1824. If the original location is too far out of your way, Cadbury also runs a sister attraction in New Zealand.

If you want to find a place to settle down, you could do worse than looking to this latest Gallup-Healthways report for direction [PDF]. Rather than ranking states by healthcare resources, economy, or workplace equality, the index looks at the overall well-being of each state’s residents.

Gallup surveyed over 175,000 Americans about several different criteria, such as their health, sense of purpose, sense of economic security, the quality of their relationships, and satisfaction with their home.

Hawaii ranks highest overall, with a well-being score of 65.2 out of 100 possible points. But that doesn’t necessarily mean tropical weather is the key to health and happiness: Alaska, South Dakota, and Maine occupy the next three spots. The report also includes the states with the lowest overall well-being rates. West Virginia takes last place with a score of 58.9, with Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Indiana faring only slightly better.

No matter where in the country you live, the 2016 Well-Being Index has good news for the U.S. as a whole. Overall well-being levels are at their highest since Gallup began administering the survey in 2008, with historically low smoking rates and record-high health insurance coverage. But not every area saw improvement: On the flip side, obesity, diabetes, and depression rates have also reached new heights.

[h/t CBS News]

Nintendo released Donkey Kong 64 in 1999, which means gaming enthusiasts have had plenty of time to perfect their run-throughs. Collecting every last one of the game’s 976 banana coins is no small feat, but Twitch user Isotarge recently achieved something even more impressive. As Kotaku reports, the speedrunner uncovered a 977th coin that’s been hidden in the game’s code for more than 17 years.

The treasure was able to go unnoticed for so long because it’s located in a confusing area. Players normally uncover rainbow coins—the most valuable currency in the game—by pounding on patches of dirt. In the Fungi Forest level, this giveaway dirt patch is concealed by a layer of tall grass.

977 coins total now 🙂 pic.twitter.com/s6VYXGesck

— Isotarge (@Isotarge) January 28, 2017

The bonus coin is so well hidden that the player who found it only became aware of it while combing through the game’s save data. After finishing what was thought to be a full run of the Fungi Forest stage, the player noticed the Rainbow Coin count wasn’t quite complete. Instead of replaying the level blindly, they used analysis tools to identify the coin’s exact location and dig it up.

It’s not unheard of for years to go by before a hidden video game feature is finally discovered. When programmer Landon Dyer slipped his initials into the code of 1983’s Donkey Kong, it went unnoticed for 26 years. But unlike some trickier video game Easter eggs, the 977th rainbow coin is actually part of its game. That’s sure to annoy many perfectionist speedrunners.

[h/t Kotaku]

Unlike art lovers, the subjects at the center of the world’s great masterworks have no need for shut-eye—and that’s the idea behind Belarus-based designer Lesha Limonov’s sleep mask project, “Masterpieces Never Sleep!” On the front of each sleep mask is a pair of eyes taken from a famous painting.

As designboom reports, Limonov created the masks for the International Rijksstudio Award. This year the competition asked participants to reinterpret pieces from the Rijksmuseum‘s art collection in Amsterdam and work them into their new designs. The artistic eye masks sample components from Frans Hals’s The Merry Drinker, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue, a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait, and more.

According to the video below, the project is based on a rather unsettling concept (in case wearing the eyes of a long-dead portrait subject wasn’t creepy enough):

“When night begins and the museum halls turn empty, the art masterpieces stay awake and look from the darkness. Till the morning they don’t close their eyes, monitoring what happens around.”

Good luck falling asleep with that image in your head.

[h/t designboom]

Drinking hot chocolate is already a decadent experience (when else is it acceptable to have marshmallows and whipped cream at the same?). But cafes around the world are taking it upon themselves to bring this sweet beverage to even greater heights. From flowering marshmallows to chocolate-covered mugs, here are eight over-the-top drinks to get cozy with this winter.

1. PEANUT BUTTER HOT CHOCOLATE // CEREAL KILLER CAFE

Chocolate and peanut butter are a match made in dessert heaven. At Cereal Killer Cafe in London, this relationship is taken to new heights in the form of an indulgent mug of hot chocolate. A peanut butter cup garnishes the rim like a lemon wedge, while the rest of the glass has whipped cream, Nutella, peanut butter chips, and chocolate sauce oozing down the sides. And because cereal is kind of their thing, they also sprinkle Reese’s Puffs on top.

2. UNICORN HOT CHOCOLATE // CREME & SUGAR

Joanna Czikalla took her customers (and their Instagram accounts) by storm when she added Unicorn Hot Chocolate to the menu of her Anaheim, California cafe. The fantastical concoction is made by loading rainbow marshmallows, sprinkles, and whipped cream on top of white hot chocolate that’s been dyed a delicate shade of pink. The beverage is one of several unicorn-themed treats offered at Creme & Sugar.

3. BLOSSOMING HOT CHOCOLATE // DOMINIQUE ANSEL BAKERY

No matter how blustery it feels outside, it’s hard not to think spring when watching a marshmallow flower bloom in your mug. Dominique Ansel (the same French pastry chef behind the cronut) invented this treat by folding a flower-shaped sheet of marshmallow into a white chocolate cup of cocoa. When the cup hits the hot liquid it dissolves, allowing the marshmallow to unfurl its fluffy petals across the width of the cup. The drink is available at Dominique Ansel bakeries in London, Tokyo, and New York City [PDF].

4. MARSHMALLOW SURPRISE // LONG STORY SHORT CAFE

The hot chocolate from Long Story Short Cafe in Port Melbourne, Australia is served in two parts: a mug with a chocolate globe and chocolate pieces on the bottom and a beaker full of piping hot chocolate. After pouring the liquid into the mug, guests can watch the chocolate sphere dissolve to reveal fluffy marshmallows hidden inside. The interactive delicacy comes in different varieties, including white chocolate green tea and a red chocolate Christmas “bauble” available around the holidays.

5. SALTED DARK HOT CHOCOLATE // SWEET JESUS

This Canadian dessert chain is known for its outrageous lattes and soft serve, but it would be a crime to leave Sweet Jesus without sampling their Salted Dark Hot Chocolate. The sinful creation starts with basic hot chocolate and milk that’s then topped with dark chocolate whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and Malden’s finishing salt. A crushed Oreo-covered rim ensures plenty of chocolatey goodness in every sip.

6. OVERFLOWING HOT CHOCOLATE // SAID

This artisanal chocolate shop, with outposts in both London and Rome, knows how to make a bellissimo cup of hot chocolate. Before filling a mug with the rich beverage, melted white, dark, and milk chocolates are spilled over the sides to create a luscious effect. We recommend having napkins close at hand when you take the plunge.

7. RED VELVET HOT CHOCOLATE // THE PICNIC BURWOOD

When it comes to decadence, this hot chocolate somehow outdoes the dessert that shares its name. The drink comes with strawberries, marshmallows, Cadbury chocolate, and a whole red velvet cupcake nestled on top. The Picnic Burwood in Sydney, Australia seats diners outdoors year round, and when they break out the patio heaters in the winter months, a mug of hot chocolate makes for a perfect cozy treat.

8. MARSHMALLOW RIM HOT CHOCOLATE // FATTIES BAKERY

Fatties Bakery at London’s Druid Street Market has found an ingenious way to ensure that every sip of their salted caramel hot chocolate has the sweetness of marshmallow included. After pouring the hot chocolate into a cup, marshmallow is piped around the rim and brûléed with a torch. The marshmallow barrier keeps the beverage contained while keeping your mouth sticky and happy.