(via reddit)
Sunday, July 13, 2025
All Kinds of Dogs
How many wild canines can you name? There are wolves, foxes, and coyotes, and lots of other wild dogs in Africa. Dingos are descendants of domesticated dogs that became wild again. Domesticated dogs come in a much greater variety of size, shapes, and temperaments, but they are all one species (Canis familiaris). They are man-made breeds, descended from the gray wolf, although there is a recent breed developed from wild foxes.
MinuteEarth gives us an overview of the different kinds of dogs, starting with some examples of extinct canids, then moving to wild dogs of the world and ending with domestic dog breeds and mutts. You might get the idea that this is a ten minute ad for a poster they produced, and you'd be right. But the selling part is not intrusive and the subject matter is interesting enough on its own.
Celebrating National Ice Cream Month
July is National Ice Cream Months, and next Sunday the 20th is National Ice Cream Day, so celebrate accordingly. Why do Americans eat so much ice cream? Duh. Americans like ice cream because it's full of milk, sugar, and fat, all delicious things. Plus it's nice to have something cold to eat on a hot day, and we have plenty of those. Besides, there's nothing more American than overconsumption. Laurence Brown, as is his habit, researches all those American things that we never think much about. In this video he goes over the history of American ice cream. It was Thomas Jefferson that popularized the dish in the US (as he did macaroni and cheese). Brown reveals that American ice cream also benefited from the country's huge size, when ice was harvested in cold areas and transported to the whole nation, even the hot parts. This video has a one-minute ad at 3:04.
The Sound Illusion that Makes Dunkirk So Intense
You've heard the sound many times -it appears to rise, and rise, and rise in tone, but it never reaches a climax, or else takes way longer than you think it should to reach a climax. This is called the Shepard tone. This video from Vox explains how the Shepard tone works, and why it's so effective in creating tension in a movie, like the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for the Christopher Nolan historical film Dunkirk. (via TYWKIWDBI)
Upgrade
#scifi&fantasy #speclist The common and the upgraded version:
— Guido Eekhaut (@eekhaut.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 8:41 AM
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Saturday, July 12, 2025
True Facts: Turtle Spiders Of The Sea
The first thing we learn about horseshoe crabs in this video is that they aren't crabs at all! Neither are they turtles, nor spiders, but resemble all those things. Horseshoe crabs are a threatened species, so Ze Frank explains what we can do to help these creatures survive and thrive.
The Changing Room Illusion
This illusion by Michael A. Cohen won second prize in the Best Illusion of the Year competition in 2021. It sure fooled me. Even when I went back and watched one small region, the differences snuck up on me. Only when I focused on a single element did I notice a change. (via TYWKIWDBI)
Neuralize This!
Not every member of the Men In Black is a man. Not every member is anywhere near competent. (via Kuriositas)
Marvel Superhero Three-Point Landings
If you are a superhero who can fly, or even just leap tall buildings in a single bound, you still have to come down to earth sometime. The standard way to do it is to land with bent knees for shock absorption, feet apart for stability, one hand down for safety, and the other arm flung wide because it's hella photogenic. That gives you the standard superhero landing that we've all become familiar with. It takes some practice, and you get the idea that they learned this from each other. However, it doesn't always go that smoothly (2:45). Marvel Entertainment put together this compilation of epic landings in the MCU films. If you remember them, you're enough of a fan that you'll want to see them again. (via Laughing Squid)
Cat Burglar
Zolthux has at least three cats and a sophisticated sound-activated burglar alarm system. What could possibly go wrong? We found out, because he also has security cameras. Just a few more sleepless nights and he'll learn to clean the table off before he goes to bed. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Friday, July 11, 2025
Skeletor and Evil-Lyn Have a Discussion
The bad guys from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe reenact a scene from the 1992 movie My Cousin Vinny. This nonsense is brought to you by Adam Schleichkorn, better known as Mylo the Cat. (via Neatorama)
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