Good Reads for New Years Eve

One of our New Year traditions is to kiss someone at midnight. No pressure there, right? A kiss is a great way to start out a new year on a high note, and here’s the science behind it. (via The Intersection)

Ripley’s Says 2010 Was ‘Another Unbelievable Year’ – Believe It or Not! You can believe these weird stories from the past year -they were published by well-regarded news sources.

New Years on TV: 342 Holiday Specials, Episodes, Movies & Marathons. Except for the traditional ball drop, I’ll be spending my holiday with the Criminal Minds marathon! (via The Daily What)

Many blogs listed their best or most popular posts of the year in the past few days. Here’s a list of those lists with a lot of reading material in just a few clicks.

All the other year end lists are listed in this list from Fimoculous: everything from the best movies of 2010 to the strangest pet names of the year.

Forecasts for the year 2011, predicted back in 1931. Some were hilariously off but others were eerily prescient.

9 Major Stories Everyone Got Wrong This Year. News media often delivers the sizzle at the expense of the substance. NSFW text.

Man in a Blizzard (or Idiot with a Tripod) is a short art film about the snowstorm in New York City. It’s got nice music, interesting images, and at least one awesome review.

New York City drops a giant ball in Times Square to ring in a New Year. Other cities drop other things, some strange enough to make us scratch our heads.

6 New Year Traditions from Around the World. This year, why not try eating grapes or burning effigies for a lucky 2011!

Happy Feet New Year!

You think this penguin might be trying to tell us something?

Links for Fun

Video proof that puppies are the greatest Christmas gift ever. I wish I had known this earlier -before I bought my kids a horse.

How few pixels can you use to make a portrait and still recognize the person? Andy Rash calls his extremely low resolution celebrity figures iotacons.

Passive-aggressive notes display your feelings without spelling them out. They can also be works of art (and comedy).

Bad Science in Movies.

The Beauty of Pixar. If you’ve seen any of these movies -or all of them- this mashup will tug at your heartstrings.

The one-man Village People. The art of puppetry is not dead, it’s just rare that you find anyone who is a entertaining as this guy.

This looks like the ceiling fan in my house. However, I think mine moves more air.

A lot of older hearses are sold to private owners who like to show off their ride. See 20 “appropriately” morbid vanity plates spotted on these hearses. (via Bits and Pieces)

12 Tips From The Stupidest Criminals of 2010. Or, what not to do to succeed in crime.

Banana Boat

Stan Freberg has fun with The Banana Boat Song. Animation by Paul Glickman, 1967.

Good Reads

Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours. In an attempt to learn what went wrong, it becomes hard to find anything that went right. (via Metafilter)

6 Animals Humanity Accidentally Made Way Scarier. They’re striking back, and we’re just large vertical pink burritos to them. NSFW text. (via Gorilla Mask)

Remains of modern humans in Israel date back 400,000 years. That’s much older than modern humans found in Africa, which may cause some rethinking on theories of human origins.

Twenty hours of the blizzard in New Jersey is captured in a 38-second time lapse video. There’s a clock in there for proof, but it keeps getting buried!

Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science. When statistics can be so easily manipulated, should we bother to believe any medical research?

The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in China opens to the public on January 5th. However, the ice sculptures are ready and have had their pictures taken.

The element Lithium is a 50-year-old miracle drug that can protect us from brain damage and mental illness. But the pharmaceutical industry won’t fund more research because the drug is not profitable.

We Love Who They Aren’t: 7 Famous Impostors. Passing yourself off as someone else could land you in prison, but if you are convincing enough, your (fake) life could be the subject of a book or movie!

Cat Disturbed on Trampoline

Lesson learned: a child's trampoline is not the most peaceful place to take a catnap. (via Buzzfeed)

Fun and Funny Links

As ever, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

My Blackberry Is Not Working. Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield lob pun after pun until you think they're done, then comes the punch line.

The point of Japanese games shows is not to win fabulous prizes, but to entertain the audience. In this one, the contestants are going to look ridiculous no matter how good they are.

Ice fishing is a favorite winter activity in Ontario. If there’s no fish, it’s best to find out before you stay out too long.

Newspaper Nonsense. These are the typos and editing faux pas that make the paper worth looking at.

The Worst Movie of All Time?

30 Snowmen Who Need An Intervention.

A swinging sword looks very different from the sword’s point of view!

Good Reads and Informative Links

Dust Ball: The Vacuum Of The Future. Or possibly the greatest cat toy ever invented. Either way, I want one!

A finger bone found in Siberia belonged not to a neanderthal, not to a human, but to a previously unknown close relative of both. DNA analysis shows the Denisovans are different, but interbred with humans.

We thought the Coelacanth was extinct until a fisherman caught one in 1938. A museum curator had it mounted by a taxidermist because there was no other way to preserve such a large specimen. (via Boing Boing)

A teenager takes time out every evening to help a family who needs him. But Rudy says he is receiving more than he is giving. (via Metafilter)

Sometime in 2011, there will be seven billion people on this planet. Can our earth support the nine billion people that the projections predict we’ll have in 2045?

Five Fake Memoirs That Fooled the Literary World. Of course, now everyone says they had their suspicions at the time, if not all the answers.

Four Unusual Treadmills.

Ho Daddy

Bob Denver in the 1964 movie For Those Who Think Young.

Health

By Hayley Morris. (via Everlasting Blort)

Christmas Eve Links

Christmas greetings from the International Space Station. Many good wishes and the secret to a fluffy hairdo.

Allie at Hyperbole and a Half tells about the time she decided to rewrite the story of the Nativity to give it more pizzazz. The production included a flying baby Jesus, two drunk wise men, and Kenny Loggins.

12 Things You Might Not Know About A Christmas Story (even though you’ve seen it 90 times). All of which should enhance your next viewing this weekend.

Rudolph, and Santa’s 27 Other Reindeer. We herd they were planning a trip this weekend.

10 Historically Bad Christmases.

The 6 most offensive and/or psychotic gingerbread houses we could find. (via The Daily What)

The 12 Psychology Studies of Christmas.

25 Examples of Christmas Decoration Abuse.

How Different Age Groups Celebrate Christmas. Since I am always 20 years behind, I fit exactly in the “30-somethings with kids” category, which is “pretty damn awesome”.

The children of St. Paul's Church of New Zealand acted out the Nativity on video. They stuck to the basic story, but their performances (and accents) are more than adorable.

Top 10 Funny Santa Claus Videos.

It takes a special kind of Santa to pose for pictures with stranger's cats. It takes a special cat to not freak out. #6 is the best of these 35 photos.

Santa answers questions from redditors.

Where Candy Canes Come From. Of course, they come from Santa’s workshop at the North Pole, but this post is about the history of candy canes.

Joel Veitch’s Christmas decorations this year are mainly kittens. His latest song is enhanced by turning the sound off.

The Singing Sewermen of east London sing a holiday song to remind people about what goes on down in the sewer. Make life easier for them and don’t put grease down your drains.

To the soldiers deployed this Christmas, thank you. The Brigade has a photo essay on what they are doing far away from their families. (via Gorilla Mask)
ing more than he is giving. (via Metafilter)

Dominic The Italian Christmas Donkey

(via J-Walk Blog)

Jewish Christmas Traditions

Christians view Christmas as a holy celebration. It’s not as sacred as Easter, but it is certainly bigger! Those who don’t view themselves as particularly religious are happy to join in the fun with the not-so-sacred trappings of Christmas: Santa Claus, a tree in the house, lights, and especially gifts. Jews, not so much. To many, the secular parts of Christmas are still symbolic of someone else’s religion. So, what is there to do on Christmas? The traditional activities are explained in this article I posted at mental_floss.

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Fun and Funny Links

Walks of Life is a Cyriak animation made for Showtime. Once you get past the creepiness of finger-figures, notice it tells the tale of evolution.

Double Dreamhands! Part of me wants to try this; another part of me is laughing to hard to stand up straight. (via Breakfast Links)

London’s parkour stuntmen show off their stuff -and how! The action starts about 2.5 minutes in.

Everything I Know About Love I Learned From… The Coen Brothers. These valuable life lessons come wrapped up in total weirdness, so you have to really pay attention to see them.

How to Write an Interdisciplinary Research Paper: Planning for Retirement by Solving Time Travel Paradoxes Using Open Book Management in Nearby Disk Galaxies.

Speaking of near-humans, just for laughs, check out the hairy chin monkey. He’s ready for a kiss!

We know that the webcomic xkcd is influential. Yesterday, Black Hat guy entered an imaginative coupon code while ordering online. Think Geek is accepting the code. (via The Daily What)

The Best Viral Videos of 2010: A Retrospective. Even if you aren’t familiar with all of them, Videogum has composed a pleasing mashup that stands up on its own.

The Return of Count Spirochete

A 1973 Navy training film on venereal disease. (via The Daily What)

Informative Links

Cahokia, America’s Forgotten City. Hundreds of years before St. Louis was founded, the area was home to tens of thousands of Native Americans who left no stories behind.

If you didn’t catch the solstice lunar eclipse for one reason or another, we have video. I never knew until now that the earth’s shadow is red.

The new Google Cr-48 notebook doesn’t have the standard Caps Lock key you see on other keyboards. Is this the beginning of the end of Caps Lock? Will anyone miss it? (via Bits and Pieces)

Even the people that work on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition are surprised by the generosity of others. Especially those who have every reason not to feel generous.

Parasitologist Susan Perkins started the blog Parasite of the Day to highlight a different parasite for every day of 2010 -the UN International Year of Biodiversity. As the year comes to a close, she’s posting the 12 Parasites of Christmas. (via The Loom)

The Most Heroic Animals of 2010. Read stories of dogs, cats, horses, dolphins, rabbits, and a cow that might leave you a little verklempt. (via Nag on the Lake)

Ancient Robots & Victorian Androids. Leonardo da Vinci thought about them, and people have been building robots of one kind or another ever since.

Sex in space will eventually lead to pregnancy in space, which raises some far-out concerns. How will microgravity affect human gestation and childbirth? (via Metafilter)

Orphan's Benefit

Mickey Mouse, 1934. Disney remade this in 1941 in color with the newer-style Mickey and Donald, but I like the earlier version better. See a comparison here.

Wearing Light

Designers are working with advanced technology like knitted and woven fiber optics, LEDs, and chemicals to make wearing light simpler. See some examples in this article I posted at mental_floss, and get some ideas about how you can stand out at your News Years Eve party!

Fun and Funny Links

The Dark Side of Christmas.

The Santa Brand Book. Everything by the book, to fulfill the promise of the concept and to maximize profits, the Santa way. (via Metafilter)

The 30 Most Important Cats Of 2010 . They didn’t save the world, but they kept us entertained through the year.

The Gifford Children’s Chorus performs A Christmas Trololo, in honor of one of the year’s biggest internet memes. Bonus: Extraneous weird details are thrown in for good measure. (via The Daily What)

Trollquotes: Or, 32 Ways to Make Geeks Rage. Then watch him/her get mad all over again when they realize what you’ve really done.

When a roller coaster cab became stuck at the top of a hill, the passengers started rocking it back and forth to get going. Of course, that triggered an inspirational YouTube remix.

Christmas Tree Fads and Fashions. These are not your grandmother’s Christmas decorations.

Cats and Your Exercise Routine.

Good Reads and Info

The only total lunar eclipse of 2010 will be visible from all of North America on Monday night/Tuesday morning. The last time we had a lunar eclipse on the winter solstice was nearly 500 years ago.

Billions of dollars and a Hollywood biography doesn’t hurt a bit. Mark Zuckerberg was named TIME’s Person of the Year, while Julian Assange got the most votes in the People’s Choice poll.

The New York Times has a series of interactive maps of the US with which you can study population distribution by race and ethnicity, income, housing (such as mortgage, home value, and rent), and by education. The data comes from the US Census Bureau. (via Metafilter)

Quick, how many dwarf planets can you name? One? Depending on how you define a dwarf planet, there may be around a hundred, half of which have names.

What Everyone Needs to Know About College and Privacy. You don’t have to tell your parents what your grades are, just like they don’t have to pay your tuition.

All Singing! All Dancing! All Failures! 4 Variety Shows that Failed to Find an Audience. When every network had a variety show on every night, only the strongest could survive.

Tim LaFollette is battling ALS (Lou Gehring’s Disease), a disease that took the life of his mother and grandmother. One powerful episode of his web series recaps his first year living with the diagnosis.

Should solitary confinement be considered a form of torture? Studies show that long-term isolation leads to some severe psychological damage.

The Top Ten Prison Gangs. These descriptions will reinforce how prison is a place you never ever want to enter. (via Dangerous Minds)

Dreaming Puppy

Get ready for a sugar overload!

Vintage Christmas ‘Toons

Take some time on this last weekend before Christmas to enjoy some holiday cartoons you might remember from your childhood. Or more likely, from your parents’ or grandparents’ childhoods! Enjoy eight of them in this collection I posted at mental_floss.

Friday Fun Links

Too bad The Brothers Mario is a fictional video game. Mario and Luigi get the Grand Theft Auto treatment and kick some serious goomba.

Rudolph, the Regular Reindeer. The classic story would have been so different with the benefits of modern plastic surgery.

8 Christmas Foods That Should Be Forgotten. Have anyone reading this ever tried lutefisk? Your input is appreciated. (via Breakfast Links)

Modern Times is a low-budget but well-made science fiction short. It shows us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

A ladybug is caught having fun with sprinkles. This would have made a decent subject for a stop-motion animation if it weren’t already a real “wildlife” video.

Yes, physics students, Santa Claus is real! Makes perfect sense to me.

Welcome to finals week. It happens twice a year until you graduate, then it’s constant.

8 Great TV Christmas Specials (But Not The Ones You’re Probably Thinking). You’ll be lucky to find these anywhere, but you might remember them.


Bizarre But Clever Christmas Decorations. All I want for Christmas is a sleigh pulled by eight tiny flamingos that light up!

Fun with Gas

Adam Savage demonstrates the effects of both helium and hexafluoride.

Ten More Odd 2011 Calendars

Earlier this week we showed you Ten Odd and Awesome 2011 Calendars, but that wasn’t enough. The variety of calendars available for 2011 is such that ten more are warranted. See them all in this list I posted at mental_floss.

  

Good Reads and Information

TIME magazine lists The Top 10 Everything of 2010. It’s a list of lists so list-lovers can pick a list or two to argue about.

The 6 Greatest War Heroes Who Got Screwed Out of History. As The History Channel retreats from history to bring us UFOs and ghosts, Cracked steps in to fill the gap.

The Top 10 Real-Life Grinches. History has no shortage of men whose shorts were too tight or whose hearts were three sizes too small.

The Lesser-Known Race Riots of Los Angeles. The melting pot boils over more often than you realized.

Jack Tripper the Amazing Eyeless Kitty. (via TYWKIWDBI)

There’s more to Mary, the mother of Jesus than what you find in a Renaissance painting. Clues from the Bible paint a picture of a strong young woman, which is what she had to be.

You might find these 19th century firefighter’s masks eerily familiar. They certainly look like characters we knew a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Today, you …tomorrow, me. A personal story shared that might renew your faith in humankind. (via Metafilter)

A Delta Baptism

From 1968. (via Nag on the Lake)

Links for Fun and Amusement

What happens why you try to fry gnocchi? You start to giggle like a little schoolgirl!

Light up the Christmas tree! Not an easy task: you have to connect all the bulbs and wires first.

The silliest fan site dedicated to Julian Assange yet: Julian Assange is gorgeous. "Julian. The sexiest, naughtiest librarian we’ve ever laid eyes on." (via b3ta)

Horse Outside. Language very much NSFW, but an entertaining music video nonetheless. (via Breakfast Links)

Lego Black Ops. This is the most violent Lego stop-motion video you’ll ever see, so keep telling yourself that they are just inanimate toys.

31 Star Wars Christmas Gifts for Geeks, in case you don’t have your shopping done. You can still order gifts online and get them by Christmas, if you don’t procrastinate too much longer. (via I Am Bored)

Do you go home for the holidays and find yourself spending all your time teaching your parents how to use the computer? Now you can send them simple videos in a Tech Support Care Package. (via Laughing Squid)

Students at Liberty University perform a choral version of Antoine Dodson’s Bed Intruder Song. The last minute has a definite Christmas carol flavor.

The Most Annoying Christmas Lights Ever

From the YouTube comments: "Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a 23 year old Star Trek parody song." (via b3ta)

Ten Odd and Awesome 2011 Calendars

Calendars are a popular Christmas gift for friends and relatives who already “have everything”, because you need a different calendar every year. And these ten I posted today at mental_floss are certainly different!

Funny Links

The best spoofs of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.

This is what happens when catalog copy writers snap. (Thanks, David!)

Two Falkland Island penguins confront a dilemma. The world stands still while they decide whether to walk, jump, swim, or try to fly over a few inches of water.

This Wizard of Oz medley sounds good, but the choreography and props make it something special. You’ll start singing along at some point, but will probably deny it if asked.

Public access TV had some real gems among the garbage. In this clip, we 1. get some chemistry knowledge, 2. learn a cool parlor trick, and 3. watch a gas-huffing scientist get all giggly and stupid.

8 Truly Strange Christmas Customs. Horses, pickles, fried chicken, and …things we don’t talk about in polite company.

Use this Complete Map of Optimal Tic-Tac-Toe Moves from xkcd to become a whiz at the game. Until now, I’ve had to rely on he strategy of picking a really dumb opponent in order to win.

Simon’s Cat discovers the Christmas tree. Bonus: in this video, we hear Simon actually speaking for the first time.

Beer Bike

A rolling bar spotted in Amsterdam. (via Metafilter)

Good Reads and Informative Links

Attention, New York area! We're Giving Away a Brand New Car!

The Whale that Started the Green Movement.

Geomyces destructans, the fungus that causes “white nose syndrome”, is killing off bats in record numbers. Mammals don’t usually die from fungus, but this one strikes when a bat is most vulnerable.

Politics and Eye Movement: Liberals Focus Their Attention on ‘Gaze Cues’ Much Differently Than Conservatives Do. The reasons behind it are wide open to speculation, but don’t we love to speculate! (via Metafilter)

How to feel emotions without ever moving your face. Once upon a time, some considered it better to appear as a creepy emotionless zombie than to risk the development of wrinkles. (via Buzzfeed)

You might be surprised at what happens when police officers and firefighters use steroids. They look good in the calendars, but they are risking their lives to become big and strong. (via Metafilter)

The Washington Post featured a story of joy and sorrow spelled out on Facebook. Better get a hankie before you start reading, because onions will be chopped.

7 Inventions You Didn’t Know Were Australian. Plenty of Aussies don’t know about all these inventors, either.

Night Rider

Max-Arthur looks like an alien riding a UFO when he rides a Roomba in night vision. See more Roomba cats at Buzzfeed.

Vintage Christmas Films

Christmas has been the subject of film ever since film was invented. Some of those early shows survive, although you may not have seen them. Here’s your chance to watch some rarely-seen Christmas cheer, spanning from 1898 to 1969, an a collection I posted at mental_floss.

Mother Cat Bathes the Baby

Fun and Funny Links

Rudolph, you don’t have to put on the red light. “Roxanne” by The Police mixes well with the animated Christmas reindeer story.

When you trying to jump over a rolling hay bale, remember it’s rolling. Also remember, the harder you fall, the more likely the video will be uploaded for all to see.

The 25 Greatest Internet Memes of 2010. Ah, the memories of a year chock-full of useless and incomprehensible wastes of time.

Osama bin Laden gets a real laugh.

Jonathan Coulton's Typographic Video for "Shop Vac".

The Secret History of What You Wear Every Day. If wear a tie, fedora, pants, and socks every day instead of working in your pajamas like I do. (via Buzzfeed)

Qwop is hands down the most difficult video game ever. Either you’re up for the challenge or you can try it for giggles.

Lions, tigers, leopards, and other big cats enjoy Christmas treats. Just like their house cat cousins, they enjoy the box more than the gift inside.

Gimme Shelter

Merry Clayton sang on the Rolling Stones 1969 recording of Gimme Shelter, then recorded her own version (this one) in 1970.

15 Snowmen You Wish You’d Made

It’s time for snowmen! And snow women, and animals, and pop culture icons …anything you can make out of snow. My daughter packed five-gallon buckets of snow to make a sort-of robot-shaped snowman. Those who have more snow, more time, and a dose of imagination have made some startlingly wondrous creations. For this list I posted at mental_floss, I avoided most professional snow sculptures, x-rated images, and offensive snowmen. What’s left is a delightful roundup of winter creativity!



Informative Links

The US government spends billions of dollars each year on dialysis for those who need it. But even as we spend more money than other countries, American patients are more likely to die from kidney failure or other complications than patients elsewhere.

Graveyards at Disneyland, and other weird secrets of “the happiest place on earth.” The smallest details are deliberately placed for those who are more observant.

He Inspired Jerry Springer (Plus 9 Other Stories About RFK). Little more than Robert Kennedy’s assassination made it into history textbooks, but there was so much more to him than that.

The Need for Double-Strength Placebos.

Houses of the Holy: The backstory to the famous Led Zeppelin album cover. The real story is nothing like the rumors of the time, but is quite interesting all these years later.

The Once and Future Brain. Predicting the future of science and technology is problematic because every breakthrough reveals a world of things yet to be learned.

Krampus: The Darker Side of Christmas. I love these vintage images, but I’m glad my childhood Christmas memories are different! (via Everlasting Blort)

7 of America’s Quirkiest Food Festivals. Whatever they’re named after, they’ll still sell get funnel cakes and blooming onions.

Optical Illusions

Yep, these are good.

Links for Fun and Enjoyment

Things Not to Name Your Pet. Get your weirdest pet names ever right here, and in the comments.

Look what's on TV!

How to give a cat a pill. (via b3ta)

Penn State sends their students a birthday card when they turn 21. Do they really care about your welfare or are they trying to creep you out with the chattering squirrels? (via reddit)

The 22 Dumbest Things People Do on Facebook. Most have links to egregious real examples.

I don’t know what this press conference was about, but the best part came at the end. President Obama knows how to make a grand exit!

Osama bin Laden gets the last laugh.

Jonathan Coulton's Typographic Video for "Shop Vac".

Lost, Lonely, and Vicious

The trailer for the 1958 movie. (via Everlasting Blort)

Strangely Specific: A Roundup of Niche Blogs

When you want to read about a wide variety of interesting topics, you check out my link dump or go to mental_floss or Neatorama or any number of general interest blogs. If you have the time, you might also be interested in seeing some highly-specific blogs that may amuse you for a while. You just might find one with a topic that speaks to your heart in this list I posted at mental_floss!

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Informational Links

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the US into World War II occurred 69 years ago today. You might not know about the one person who caused it to be so devastating (a two-part story).

NASA announced a new kind of microbe that uses arsenic as a chemical building block instead of phosphorus, previously thought to be one of the essential elements of life. The bacterium throws a wrench into the entire discipline of organic chemistry, and maybe even the definition of life.

The 10 Most Spectacular Ways the World as We Know It Could End. And, as you probably guessed, there are book and movie analogies to help explain each catastrophe.

The US government spends billions of dollars each year on dialysis for those who need it. But even as we spend more money than other countries, American patients are more likely to die from kidney failure or other complications than patients in other countries.

Harry Kislevitz invented the plastic shapes that stuck to just about everything, but his company Colorforms manufactured many other playthings. Toymaker Mel Birnkrant worked for Colorforms for 20 years and tells of toys you may remember, toys that were never mass produced, and toys that flopped (and are now collector’s items). (via Metafilter)

Wikileaks may change history -and not necessarily for the worse. TIME looks at the concept of classified information and why so many mundane documents are labeled as secret. (via Boing Boing)

The Liljenquist family donated 400 Civil War photographs to the Library of Congress for a collection called The Last Full Measure. Then as now, many who did the fighting and dying seem to be too young to shave, much less fight.

7 Works of Art That Are Taking a Beating. Vandalism strikes even the most precious masterpieces.

Join Me in a Bath!

Kitty says NO!

Links for Fun

Take part in a poll at Ironic Sans -it will make you seriously consider what you are all about.

Everett Hiller and his wife throw a holiday party ever year. Then they sent out photographs featuring celebrities who weren’t there, but should have been. (via Metafilter)

A camouflaged cat fools a compatriot that should have known better. Pay close attention to the first ten seconds of this video -then you can laugh.

Wiley vs. Rhodes is a live action film that you soon realize is a fan film based on the Roadrunner cartoons. There's no mistaking the plot, sound effects, and mayhem.

Penn State sends their students a birthday card when they turn 21. Touching or terrifying? (via reddit)

Things Not to Name Your Pet. Get your weirdest pet names ever right here, and in the comments.

Ducks in the Wind. A mother gets her ducklings in a row despite the interference of nature, with and without music.

The United States of Autocomplete. This map was made with the help of Google’s autocomplete suggestions for each state. (via The Daily What)

The Utah Baby Namer. Be sure to click on "The Cream of the Crop".

Jumping Spider

A jumping spider confronts his/her image in a mirror. (via Everlasting Blort)

Chinese National Anthem

Sung by paul Robeson while on tour in Europe in 1949.

Bend and Snap

(via The Daily What)

Good Reads and Information

Statistics tells us that 200 countries have improved in both health and wealth over 200 years. What is amazing is how this data can be made so interesting with the right graphics and storyteller.

If you enjoyed Deconstructing Gimme Shelter, you'll love this look at the separate Beatles tracks in Deconstructing Helter Skelter.

Original transcripts from NASA missions are online at Spacelog. So far you can follow Apollo 13 and Mercury 6 (John Glenn’s first orbital flight in 1962), and more are in the works.

Four-year-old conjoined twins Tatiana and Krista Hogan share parts of their brains. One can perceive what the other one sees and feels, and they are believed to read each other’s thoughts.

Capt. Robert Falcon Scott led a team to the South Pole in 1912, but didn’t make it back. He wrote a letter to his widow on the return trip, knowing it would be their last communication.

7 Silly Civic Wagers on Sports. Sometimes you pay dearly for the inevitable publicity.

Boner in a Bottle. How the pharmaceutical companies made ED medicine an integral part of middle-class life. (via Breakfast Links)

Many people say they'd love to write, if they only had the time. John Scalzi says if you can't find the time, then you don't love it.

Everybody Wants to Be a Cat

YouTube member trudbol sings his own four-part harmony in this song from the Disney film The Aristocats. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

11 Clever and Creative Gingerbread Structures

There are so many great gingerbread creations on the 'net, I had to post about them a second time this week! A gingerbread house is a delightful combination of food and art. Some bakers go way beyond the call of duty in their holiday creations and deserve to be seen even years after the gingerbread is dismantled (or eaten). In this list I posted at mental_floss, you’ll see houses, mansions, skyscrapers, pop culture recreations, and even math!

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Fun and Funny Links

Happy Hanukkah! The Maccabeats explain the holiday in the song “I Flip My Latkes In The Air Sometimes”.

Cats Celebrating Hanukkah.

Cracked reveals who is really pulling the strings in the movie The Wizard of Oz. It was all an evil plot to consolidate power over Oz into the hands of one person. NSFW text

Nordics like fish. I don’t, so this doesn’t affect me. Much. Of course, we Americans have our strange eating habits as well.

5 Cults We Feel OK With. Because there’s no religion involved (and we hope no suicides).

This clock is made of little nude cartoon men. Click on it to change from analog to digital and back. (via the Presurfer)

Jen made little pizzas that resemble the flags of some of the countries she’s visited. (via Everlasting Blort)

The Krewe of Grateful Gluttons presents the 4th annual Gingerbread Trailer Park competition.

Quantum Tunneling Observed in Cats.

Beau

Jimmy Stewart reads a poem about his dog on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1981. (via Metafilter)

Good Reads and Info

The Forgotten Pearl Harbor Spy. Takeo Yoshikawa found all the information Japan needed to destroy our Pacific fleet.

A woman in Spain claims ownership of the sun, apparently because no one else has. But there are international treaties and laws covering space issues, which prevent her from being the Sol owner.

Deconstructing ‘Gimme Shelter’. You can hear so much more of the classic song when you separate the voices and instruments from each other.

Molly was developmentally disabled and was institutionalized just before her third birthday. After their parents died 47 years later, Molly’s brother Jeff found her and filled in the gaps of the family’s history. (via Boing Boing)

Harry Potter and the Incredibly Conservative Aristocratic Children’s Club. Do kids internalize this “chosen one” mentality or is the author completely overthinking a kid’s story? (via Metafilter)

Swimming Without Legs: 3 Inspiring Athletes. Some people won’t let a setback like an amputation stop them from pursuing their dreams.

Phrases that announce that someone is about to put you down or lie to you. I've told my kids this over and over and they believe me when I have backup from the Boston Globe.

The world’s largest aquarium is in Atlanta, Georgia. From the looks of this video, it may be the prettiest as well.

Like They Do It In Harlem

A remix of "Give Me Some Skin" by The Andrews Sisters from the 1941 movie In the Navy.