Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Introducing Broga – Manly Yoga for Dudes

Posted: 22 Jul 2013 05:22 AM PDT

When yoga first came to the United States it was mostly regarded as a chick thing, and the few men who rarely walked into a yoga studio were only waiting for their girlfriends. Things have changed a lot in the last few years, and now almost 50% of attendants are men, but there are still stiff guys out there who don’t feel comfortable in the same room with a bunch of flexible women. That’s where broga comes in.

As its name suggests, broga is a variation of yoga tailored for “bros”. It’s based on the idea that most men want to keep fit without feeling emasculated by silly posies, meditation and Sanskrit chanting.  Co-founders Robert Sidoti and Adam O’Neill have found a way to combine yoga routines with manly exercises like push-ups and squats to make the original Indian practice more appealing to men. Guys usually engage in other types of physical activity, like tennis or basketball, because it feels like a better workout, but broga is brutal enough to make you sweat and catch your breath, while at the same time improving your muscle and joint flexibility and reducing stress. Sidoti and O’Neill also design their studios with men in mind, and although they don’t look like regular man caves, the two always opt for neutral colors and use a soundtrack featuring the Black Keys, Radiohead, Awolnation and Bon Iver instead of the traditional New Age music commonly used for yoga. Their instructors don’t sound like the usual zen types either, but more like buddies giving you pointers.

Yoga-for men

German Star Wars Fans Build 1:2 Scale Tie Fighter

Posted: 22 Jul 2013 03:49 AM PDT

The Star Wars universe has millions of fans throughout the world, and some of them really invest a lot of time and money into their passion for the franchise. Case in point, a group of German Star Wars enthusiasts who created an almost life-size model of the iconic Tie Fighter spacecraft out of wood, steel and plastic.

It took an army of hobbyists two years to complete, but the 1:2 scale Tie Fighter recently unveiled in Eichenzell, Germany, is a true DIY masterpiece. 20 Star Wars fans of different professions, from financial brokers to policemen and architects, put their blood and tears into this 5.30 m wide, 4.80 m long, 4.30 m high and 1.4 tons heavy model of the Galactic Empire’s starfighter. They worked in 12-meter-wide parking garage and spent an estimated €14,000 ($18,500) on necessary materials. The steel and aluminum frame alone cost €6,000 ($8,000), the wood was mostly provided for free, and the giant plastic ball that makes up the cockpit cost €1,900 ($2,500). Luckily, they had a couple of generous sponsors who took care of the bills.

Tie-Fighter-model6

Swedes Create Machine That Turns Sweat into Drinking Water

Posted: 22 Jul 2013 01:38 AM PDT

To highlight the seriousness of potable water shortage in some parts of Africa and Asia a group of tech-savvy Swedes have created a machine that turns perspiration into drinking water. Aptly named the “Sweat Machine” was inspired by technology used by NASA to recycle everything from human sweat to urine.

Developed by a team of engineers led by Andreas Hammar, the Sweat Machine works by extracting the perspiration, which is 99% water, out of people’s clothes. Sweaty garments are tossed into a dryer, where they are spun and squeezed for every last drop of liquid. The gathered sweat then gets heated, exposed to ultra-violet light and passed through a series of high-tech filters to remove the salt and bacteria. During the final stage of the purification process, the sweat goes through a coffee filter that retains any textile fibers left over from the clothes. The result is perfectly drinkable distilled water. Although the exact capacity of the dryer is yet unknown, the inventors say it takes a full load of sweaty shirts and shorts to produce a pint of potable water. Drinking your own and other people’s sweat sounds disgusting, but according to one brave sommelier, it actually has nice sweet taste.

Sweat-Machine

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