Sunday, June 04, 2023
Mother Moose
We mere humans often don't realize how large moose are until we see them in relation to something else. A hungry bear would love to feast on moose meat, but the full-grown moose is much bigger than the bear. But she has two young calves. The bear would have a much easier time with one of those tasty young calves, but their mama will defend those calves with her life!
The bear doesn't want to give up, though, and keeps making his moves in between retreating up a tree. The people recording this interaction a couple of weeks ago in Anchorage are safely far away, as you can see from the camera movement and refocusing. It's a good thing, too, because these are two very dangerous animals. They don't tell us how the whole episode ended; we can assume the animals moved out of camera range. We hope the bear gave up and decided to go fishing instead. (via Digg) https://digg.com/digg-vids/link/mother-moose-defends-her-calves-viral-hog-T79FknL4MH
Cat Toys Dancing to Ievan Polkka
Stop-motion artist tomosteen went viral a year ago with his dancing cat pen holders, a popular accessory in Japan. He's only collected more of them since, and now has a huge production number featuring them. The wonder of this video is how he manages to get inarticulate figures to shake their booties as if they really have joints. The cats, who only move when tomosteen is away from them, learn a new song and dance from an alien, but it's Ievan Pollkka, a song quite familiar to all of us. The original two cats are joined by others until an entire zoo is dancing!
Drive-In Intermission
Nostalgia time! Remember when drive-ins had an intermission reel between movies to give you time to go to the snack bar? Most of what they showed then were ads, but they were silly enough to stay in our memories. From Archive.org. (via mental_floss)
Tweet of the Day
(via Everlasting Blort)Cat offers her food to the sick owner...ππΎπ€❤️ pic.twitter.com/kd5EbDVmB9
— πo̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) May 25, 2023
Saturday, June 03, 2023
The Slow-Mo Guys Have a 6-Foot Water Balloon
Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy, the Slow-Mo Guys, know how to have some summer fun. They've played with water balloons before, but this year they're going all out, with a 6-foot balloon, rigged up with a high-speed camera and lights inside! The idea was that Dan (it's always Dan) would slide down a wet tarp right into it, bursting the balloon, and they would have some cool footage. Dan even rigged up a device to make sure the balloon actually burst instead of just acting like a brick wall he was slamming his head into. If you just want to see the slide, skip ahead to the nine-minute mark, but the rest of it is pretty amusing, too. (via Digg)
Meerkat Triplets
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, DC, welcomed the arrival of meerkat triplets on May 10, the first time they've had three born at once in 16 years. The mother, Sadie, is five years old and the father is 6-year-old Frankie. Their brood is the result of the institute's careful selective breeding to ensure genetic diversity. The National Zoo keeps their meerkats together in a "mob" as they would be in nature. Their enclosure has constructed burrows that mimic those in the wild. Sadie gave birth in the burrow, as expected, but in the wild, the newborns would stay hidden for about three weeks. However, Sadie wanted to show off her babies, and brought them out into the exhibit area the same day they were born!
Sadie has been observed nursing the pups, so they are assumed to be healthy. Zookeepers will not handle the pups for some time, so their sex is still unknown. Read more about the new meerkat pups at Zooborns.
Laurence Brown is Becoming a Midwesterner
When we listen to Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond, we still think of him as English, because of his accent. But after years on the US, he has learned to enjoy baseball, wear flannel, and put cheese on everything. Here he reflects on how he is changing into a Midwesterner.
Xenostapler
This is what happens when you get bored at your office job. Let’s hope Bruno Mosconi Ruy’s boss has a sense of humor when he sees this video go viral. There was a suggestion for improving the monster, but I don’t know how you’d make that work in moving pictures. (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)just pretend nothing happened pic.twitter.com/V6dIa6AE1x
— animals going goblin mode (@mischiefanimals) April 19, 2023
Friday, June 02, 2023
Electric Car Goes Dangerously Fast
When electric car first became available, they were described as useful for running errands around town, but not for road trips. Later models proved that wrong, but many car enthusiasts doubted that electrics would ever be used for hauling (and now they are) or racing. Then a small auto company in Croatia, Rimac Automobili, introduced the electric hypercar Rimac Nevera.
Automann-TV takes the 1913 horsepower Rimac Nevera out on the Autobahn to check out its acceleration potential, specifically how fast it can go from 100 km/h to 200 km/h (62 mph to 124 mph). Can its four electric motors and 120 kilowatt battery keep up? You betcha, and it only takes three second to go from 100 to 200.
Somehow, I get the feeling that this supercar is not so much about saving the environment (and how could it at those speeds), but more about proving that electric cars can and do perform as well as gas guzzlers on the racetrack. This may sway some who feel internal combustion engines should be kept around for specialty uses. (via Born in Space)