In 1973, Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés put 11 young adults, including himself, on a raft sailing from the Canary Islands across the Pacific for three months to Cozumel island, Mexico. He expected to document the power struggles, sexual jealousy, and violence that would inevitably overwhelm the group. Kind of like a reality TV show. But you know what they say about assumptions.
I had heard about the Acali raft experiment, but didn't know a lot about it until I watched a video today. It was interesting, but with an AI-generated narration and images, I didn't want to post it. Then I saw a video from three years ago with the exact same title, and it has most of the same narration and actual footage of the event. The newer AI video has an update about a reunion of the surviving participants, who had a wonderful time meeting up with each other 45 years later.
Sunday, July 12, 2026
The Experimental "Sex Raft"
Nature’s Most Brutal Predators
Killer turtles with poison spears! Invaders of the slime glass fortress! The ballistic torpedo shark! These creatures sound like they came from a B-movie, but they are real, and they are dangerous. We humans simply ignore them, because we can't see them and barely know about them. These are protists, mostly single-celled organisms that are neither animal, plant, bacteria, or virus, but are the ancestors of them all. Now they feed on their descendants, with an amazing variety of weapons that are hard to believe come from a single cell. The prey they feed on are also quite small, and some protists are even beneficial to humans by controlling the species they eat. Kurzgesagt introduces us to three of the weirdest predatory protists to show what an amazing world lies underneath us while we don't pay attention. This video contains a sponsor message from 3:47 to 5:04, and the last minute is promotional. (via the Awesomer)
Saturday, July 11, 2026
It! The Terror From Beyond Space
The 1958 movie It! The Terror From Beyond Space has been cited as the inspiration for the 1979 movie Alien. Set in 1973, a mission to Mars aims to rescue the astronauts of the first mission, but there's only one survivor. The crew suspects he murdered the others, but he insists that a Martian monster killed them. They take off, not realizing that the Martian has stowed away on their spacecraft. Yeah, that sounds familiar.
Wikipedia has a hilarious account of why the monster looks the way it does. As a cheap movie with a killer premise, it has a 74% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. (Thanks, WTM!)
Rules and Regulations
The Fridge
Somewhere between Veggie Tales and Sausage Party, there is The Fridge, a short film by Coby Palivathukal. Food comes alive in a weird animation style that soon becomes unimportant as we get to know the residents of the refrigerator. They realize that their time is limited, but meanwhile they deal with romance, betrayal, nihilism, and the hope of better days to come. Ted the carrot loves Rachel the tomato, but he's also a player. Beefster wants to escape, and Tot the potato is there to help him. So what does he think is going to happen to him if he gets out? Jake the cucumber falls for newcomer Sophie the avocado. Meanwhile, they get advice from Master Mayo, who knows things because he's been there forever.
They all learn life's lessons in a hurry, because refrigerated food is nothing if not ephemeral. The story requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, because what is a potato, a tomato, and an apple doing in a refrigerator in the first place? (via Nag on the Lake)
What Makes "Roundabout" Great?
Rick Beato deconstructs your favorite songs. In episode 36, he tackles Yes's big anthem "Roundabout" from 1971. I adore this song. It was one of the many from that year that led me into teenagerhood. (via Metafilter)
Pool
Cartoon by @hickeycartoons.bsky.social.
— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) July 9, 2026 at 7:06 PM
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Friday, July 10, 2026
He Gave His father the Gift of Legs
YouTuber JLaser has been interested in robotics and exoskeletons for years, and now we find out why. His father, a young and athletic guy, uses a wheelchair. JLaser was determined to make a wheelchair that would give him more freedom and travel through the great outdoors. How about mounting a chair atop a quadruped robot? Those cost around $100,000, but it helps when a robotics company's founder is a fan of your YouTube channel. Still, there was a lot of tinkering necessary. Then the chair had to be designed and blinged out. But the results will bring a tear to your eye. (via Nag on the Lake)
Screen Grab
Simon's cat and the kitten accidentally discover the TV set. Unfortunately, it's a modern flat screen. Unlike the old CRTs, these are visible to cats and will draw their attention, depending on what's being shown. They are also lightweight, fragile, and balanced on one tiny leg. The flat screen in my office has a substantial base with four legs widely spaced, and the one in the living room has a heavy weight holding down the base. After all, I have cats.
Yellow
Homemade movies have long used LEGO minifigs as characters, because they are attainable, first for stop-motion, then computer-generated. Eventually, we got full-length official LEGO movies, but like the homemade films, they are often parodies of live action movies starring toys. Technically, Yellow is a parody of psychological horror films, and may remind you of the movie Us at first, but the twist reveals that it makes plenty of sense within the world of LEGO minifigs, and mirrors what happened to the toys in the real world.
Sure, this trailer gives away the twist, but that's okay when you realize that there is no full-length movie. Yet. LEGO fans in the comments are clamoring for the full story in an extended version, so creator George Coley is making plans to do just that. (via Geeks Are Sexy)