Lightsaber Chopsticks

Lightsaber Chopsticks - $20.95

Is your favorite Asian meal lacking something epic? Bring the force back to your dinner table with the Lightsaber Chopsticks from the NeatoShop. This out of this world set features the lightsabers of Luke Skywalker and Yoda. Mealtime just became Jedi approved.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Star Wars items!

Get your Light Saber Chopsticks today!

Jr. Astronaut Baby Outfit

Jr. Astronaut - $24.95

Halloween is right around the corner. Are you looking for an out of this world costume for your bundle of joy? You need the Jr. Astronaut one-piece footed romper from the NeatoShop. This fantastic baby costume is designed to look like a real astronaut flight suit.Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Baby Costumes!

Get your kid an astronaut uniform today!

Remember, a portion of every NeatoShop item you buy through this website helps to support Miss Cellania.

Informative Links

Experience the Final Shuttle Mission in story, audio, and lots of big, gorgeous photographs.

Why election outcomes often make no sense.

The Oatmeal reports on the State of the Web Summer 2011.

The Porcelain Unicorn, winner of a competition in which the rules were quite strict.

65 Seriously Great Comic Con Costumes. With ideas worth stealing for Halloween!

The winners of the 2011 Jell-O Mold Competition include ammunition, false teeth, and fish bait. (via Rue the Day)

"The major etiquette problem in American nowadays is blatant greed." An interesting and short interview with Miss Manners.

How 'Try A Little Tenderness' Got Its Soul (And Lost It). With seven versions of the song, from 1932 to Shrek. (via Boing Boing)

Fun and Funny Links

The Facebook Social Experiment.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2011 Results are in! Sample the worst fiction writing ever.

How to get more comments on your blog. Works every time. (via the Presurfer)

How Long Can You Listen To This ’90s A Cappella Dance Mix Before You Turn It Off? I made it about 2 minutes.

Eyrie: A nice animated tale with a twist ending.

A celebration of meteorologists!

40 Hilariously Inappropriate Place Names In The United Kingdom. Make your own Nyan Cat machine! See it in action!

Good Reads and Info

Coney Island: Dreamland by the Sea.

The Saddest Movie in the World. And other films that induce emotions for the purpose of psychology research. (via Metafilter)

What should you do to help your child pursue her dreams of becoming a writer? (via TYWKIWDBI)

Guys in groups can become really weird on the internet. Ken Dahl illustrates a recent flame war centered around the fact that a cartoonist is female. (via Boing Boing)

Meet my horse Hannah!

Nobody goes there anymore -it's too crowded. Burning Man 2011.

The Spatial Psychology of The Shining. (via mental_floss)

A tiny Monarch butterfly caterpillar eats away at a milkweed leaf in a specific pattern by instinct. Find out why at TYWKIWDBI.

Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph. (via Cynical-C)

The Science of Sunscreen. Which you need to know not only for your own benefit, but to convince your friends and family to use it.

Links for Fun

Parenting, illustrated with crappy pictures™. Amber Dusick tells wonderful stories about parenting and draws pictures that are not crappy, just simple. (via Metafilter)

Some people have internet memes tattoos on their bodies. Imagine trying to explain to your grandchildren why those things were so important to you.

Which is more entertaining, the new Harry Potter movie, or the clueless audience? This video may contain spoilers, I don’t know.

Death Carts. A horror film set in the terrifying world of supermarkets.

Shiro loves small baskets the way Maru loves boxes, and he has a patient zen attitude to wearing hats and other materials on his head. See photos and videos of Shiro and his feline family at the Basket Cat Blog. (via Metafilter)

Famous Movie Quotes as if Spoken by a Proper Englishman.

10 Bizarre Underwater Events. If you can do it at all, someone will find a way to do it underwater!

Students at Caltech didn't protest the Vietnam War or the draft or the voting age, but in 1968 they found time to stage a protest for something dear to their hearts. (via Buzzfeed)

How To Throw A Pie.

Life with Hipster Cat.

Interesting Links

Here is a picture of Manhattan's first legally married same-sex couple, as the new law went into effect yesterday. They've been together for 23 years. More stories here.

Whose Ideal Was This, Anyway? The body image that's "in style" often has noting to do with what the opposite sex finds attractive, or with reality.

The 3 Big Advances in the Technology of the Pizza Box. If you ever wondered what they put pizzas in before the box was invented, you’ll find out in this article from The Atlantic. (via Metafilter)

The pros and cons of probiotics. Bacteria went from being the bad guys to being good for us, but where does the science end and the hype begin? (via Boing Boing)

You can now see the trailer for the new Spiderman film in both the official and bootleg versions. Not that you can tell any difference between them.

The ‘surprising’ link between secondhand smoke and hearing loss. Add that to the list of other risks.

Life Before Air Conditioning. A broken AC system today is much worse than back when homes were built to deal with the heat.

Two 14-year-olds will be on the sex offender registry for life after a stupid prank. It's time to rethink the registry, which is useless, out of control, and does more harm than good.

Life in the Post Food-Surplus World. The globalization of food supplies makes one break in the chain a potential disaster.

Punch Drunks

A 1934 short by the Three Stooges.

Friday Fun Links

The 17th-Century Breastoration: A Time Before Bras.

Come on, son, you've got to take your medicine. It's good -here, I'll show you.

The History of Rap, Part Two.

What would you put googly eyes on?

The Most Popular Sailboat Names. Remember Number 14 the next time you are called upon to name a boat.

Cyanide, Uranium, and Ammonium Nitrate: When Kids Really Had Fun With Science. I guessed we learned too much, because now you can’t even buy decent cold medicine without drawing suspicion that you’re up to something.

In the town of Wagah that straddles India and Pakistan, the border closes with a ceremony at 5PM every day. Tourists love the pomp, swagger, and faux menace which are remnants of the real thing.

The varied world of pop culture mashups. If you can think of two things, they can be combined in fan art.

A prison guard took security footage of a real escape and gave it the Benny Hill treatment. His supervisors are not the least bit happy about it.

A USA Military History

Told in pictures only. The music is Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. This was created in 2006, or else it would have ended with Bin Laden's death.

Let’s Paint the Town!

The term “monochrome town” evokes an image of a dreary gray industrial area. It is not always so! There are places around the world where residents agree to brighten things up with one beautiful color for their community. And there are other places where the citizens get together for more than one color as well! Let’s look at painted towns around the world, in an article I posted at mental_floss.

Good Reads and Info

The Secret Race to the Moon. The Soviets denied they even had a moon shot program for decades because if they didn’t get there first, it didn’t happen.

Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks on the future of NASA. No other part of government has the inspirational bang for the buck that the space agency has, but we are currently squandering it.

Zahi Hawass was the Egyptian minister of antiquities until he was recently booted from the position. Americans only know him as an erudite expert on ancient Egypt, while his countrymen considered him a corrupt extension of the Mubarak regime.

A Dino Named Sue: The Most Complete T. Rex Ever Found. Read the story of the tug of-war between several parties who claimed the bones.

Can Harry Potter win an Oscar? The critics love the latest film, so this may be the year the franchise breaks through at the Academy Awards.

Through the ages, the classiest cars always had fancy hood ornaments. Now you only see them on antique cars -or as art objects by themselves.

Hollywood Miscalculations: 5 Famous Actors and the Roles They Turned Down. Despite these miscalculations, none of the five starved to death.

Science Sides with Captain Obvious: Unsurprising Study Results.


To cool you off, read about the 10 Coldest Places on Earth Where People Actually Live. (via Dodgeblogium)

50 Disliked Americanisms. With more discussion here and here.

The Sabre Dance

Performed by Spike Jones and his City Slickers.

Links for Fun

How many scientists does it take to change a light bulb? It depends on the discipline!

Google+, Google Wave, Google Earth, what will Google try next? College Humor predicts The 15 Dumbest Google Products (That Don’t Actually Exist Yet).

If you’ve heard somewhere that Charlie Sheen died, it’s just the latest in a long line of celebrity death rumors. Sometimes it’s better to wait for a reliable source.

The Dark Knight Rises won’t be in theaters until 2012, but the teaser trailer is out. An there’s a slide show of photographs from the production as well.

Phillip Mendonça-Vieira accidentally found himself in the possession of 12,000 screenshots of the New York Times homepage, which he arranged into a video for your perusal. There are some stories that were so big you can follow them even at this breakneck speed. (via Laughing Squid)

Romance novelists find out that literal bodice ripping was never easy. Deeanne Gist wanted her writing to be historically accurate, so she studied actual Victorian underwear and shares her research with other writers. (via Metafilter)

Geeks warn us about geek bullies in this parody of anti-bullying PSAs. Or maybe it’s not a parody after all, since I’ve seen this type of snobbery all over the internet.

Ranking the 5 Dumbest Categories of People on the Internet. You already guessed YouTube commenters, didn’t you? (via Film Drunk)

A small kitten plays with a small box on a slippery floor. What more can you ask for?

Squirt Gun Fun

Do I really need a good story? Isn't it enough that these neat laughing babies will make you smile? (via Sofa Pizza)

10 Cool and Creative Marriage Proposals

Whatever your opinion of flashy, big-production proposals, you have to admit that someone who puts that kind of effort into asking a simple question is someone who really cares about the answer. Personally, I still get all sentimental about the Hollywood ideal of screaming your love from the rooftops, no matter the consequences. Here are ten proposals that you won’t soon forget in a list I posted at mental_floss.

Interesting Links

Corporate profits are up 36%, but they still won't hire full-time workers. (via Metafilter)

The winners of the very first Google Science Fair were announced this week. These young ladies may one day save your life with their research, but right now they are looking forward to some awesome internships. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

“Why does she stay with that jerk?” Victims of domestic abuse have their reasons, often quite understandable reasons. NSFW text. (via Metafilter)

Do we really need a remake of the 1990 film Total Recall? It won’t have the goofy humor, Schwarzeneggar, and maybe not even Mars -but it will have Colin Ferrell.

A group called Brighter Lights, Thicker Glasses performs “Cambrian Explosion,” a catchy tune about the biodiversity event of 530 million years ago. (via Boing Boing)

An educational report tells us of widespread cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta schools. Here is a roundup of opinions on what we should do to catch and discourage this sort of thing.

The tomatoes in my garden are starting to turn red. Looks like it may be getting close to Salsa Time!

The Top 10 Invented Languages. Of course, all languages are invented, but these were deliberately created for specific reasons that you’ll find quite interesting. (via Neatorama)

Harlequin Poison Dart Frogs come in a variety of colors depending on what specific valley of the South American rain forest they live in. They don’t have to blend in with their background because they are covered in dart poison!

Honeybees are responsible for pollinating our food crops, but Colony Collapse Disorder is killing them off. One way science is responding is to selectively breed super-tough bees to replace them.

Restless Knights

A 1935 short by the Three Stooges.

Fun and Funny Links

Who will be the inaugural inductees into the Trivia Hall of Fame? Nominees include Ken Jennings, Mangesh Hattikudur and Will Pearson, Alex Trebek, and Robert Ripley, so go cast your vote today!

And the Band Played On. Weird Al Yankovic provides music for the passengers of the sinking Titanic.

It only takes these cats a minute to re-enact all the Harry Potter movies. I think they skipped some plot points, but what would I know… I haven’t seen any of the films.

This guy decided to take the plunge and propose to his girlfriend. I think he interpreted that phrase a bit too literally.

5 Little-Known Pirate Stories (and a Quiz). You probably know more about pirates than you thought you did!

Ten Frighteningly Prophetic Parodies from ‘The Critic’. Don’t dare joke about horrible movie concepts, because producers will steal your ideas!

The Top 20 Performances Of Robert Costanzo. Who? Oh, you’ll known him when you see him, after 200 movies and TV shows. Yeah! THAT guy!

The Immigrant Song

Led Zeppelin performing in Australia in 1972.

Fun with Harry Potter

The final movie in the Harry Potter series opened this weekend -although you may have to wait a day or two to get tickets at this point. To get you in the mood, here are some of our favorite Harry Potter tributes, fan films, and parodies, in a list I posted at mental_floss.

Bicycles in Los Angeles

A street scene is captured by the Edison Company in 1898.

Good Reads and Info (Friday)

Elvis, from the Waist Up. The famous Ed Sullivan show appearance in 1957.

6 Lies About the Human Body You Learned in Kindergarten. Or maybe some other year, but you can spend the rest of your life unlearning the conventional wisdom. NSFW text.

American farmers would have a tough time providing our food without illegal immigrants. It’s more than a labor cost problem; workers must have the proper skills to get the job done. (via The Week)

Now that the space shuttle program is closing up and 585 people are laid off, what will happen to Titusville, Florida? Two very different videos show the state of the town near the Kennedy Space Center.

Prolific TV writer-producer Sherwood Schwartz died Tuesday at the age of 94. In his honor, here are clips of the five most memorable TV shows he worked on. (via Neatorama)

The Film Archive has a collection of ads from the 1964 U.S. presidential campaign, promoting both Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. If you didn’t already know who won, you could probably guess from the quality of the TV commercials.

LIFE Goes Inside Today's KKK. Just long enough to get some pictures and information for you.

Two Harvard researchers say obese children might be helped by separating them temporarily from their enabling parents. Others say that's going too far, and that the real reason for obesity is poverty

True Crime: Doug Street, Human Chameleon. This impostor proved that intelligence plus cajones can make up for a lack of education credentials.

How Metafilter changed one man's life. And other Mefite memories.

The Enduring Legacy of Li’l Abner

Li’l Abner was a comic strip drawn by Al Capp that appeared in newspapers from 1934 to 1977. Those born after the strip ceased publication may look at samples and see only humor based on stereotypical hillbilly culture, but when you follow the adventures of the citizens of Dogpatch over the years, it was so much more than that. Capp had plenty to say about the events, trends, and politics of his time. He used a parade of unforgettable characters like Moonbeam McSwine, Fearless Fosdick, and Jubilation T. Cornpone to comment on world events, buried but visible under a thick Appalachian accent. The comic strip spawned books, plays, movies, and TV shows, as well as an avalanche of advertising and merchandising. Forty-three years of Li’l Abner left us with cultural touchstones even my children know, although they don’t really know where they came from. Read aout them in this article I posted at mental_floss.

Funny Links

War and Social Upheaval Cause Spikes in Zombie Movie Production.

The World’s Largest Truck Stop. It covers 75 acres and has everything a truck driver ever needs.

An Ontario Family Court judge summarizes a divorce case in 45 pages, which you will want to read in their entirety. Do not skip the footnotes: “A finger is worth a thousand words and, therefore, is particularly useful should one have a vocabulary of less than a thousand words.” (via Metafilter)

Juan of the Dead is a Cuban zombie horror/comedy film. It’s gory and bloody, and I can’t wait to see the whole thing!

From Zippo Cars to the Peepmobile: 7 Bizarre Marketing Vehicles. Ah, the perfect ride to the prom!

Sometimes state flags are surprisingly good at wrestling. Sometimes every state flag has their little idiosyncrasies someone should humorously point out.

Why do some Americanisms irritate people? Meaning people from other countries, that is, so it would behoove us to find out what they're talking about. (via Metafilter)

5 Famous Ad Campaigns That Actually Hurt Sales. Of sure, you remember them after all those years, but you still don't buy the product ...whatever it was. NSFW text. (via Huffpost Weird News)
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Millie, Phillie, Billy, Groin, Sproing, Boing & Chad are dwarves from The Hobbit. They're making the leap from literature to the big screen, and you can see some of them at Film Drunk.

Good Table Manners

An educational film from 1951. Note the lovely reindeer sweater! (via The Film Archive)

Interesting Links

The Late Movies pays a tribute to the Space Shuttles.

Hidden Tunnels, Bugs, and Bigamy: A Strange and True D.C. Story. The solution to the mystery of the tunnels is both mundane and truly weird at the same time.

A 22-year-old former homecoming queen finds herself in Uganda mothering 13 orphans. And she has a blog. (via Metafilter)

An awful lot of people who have used government social programs say they have not used a government social program. Which means the medicare recipients who are afraid of socialized medicine are not alone in their misunderstanding.

Nevada skinheads on the hunt for Native Americans.

America’s fattest states: By the numbers. Obesity rates are too high all over, and rising by the year.

6 Big Questions about your Television. Whether yours is a cathode-ray tube or a HD flat screen, you still might wonder about these broadcast features.

Forty years ago, the Stanford Prison Experiment shocked the academic world and led to new standards for ethics in psychology studies. Those who participated in the experiment look back and tell their sides of the story. (via Metafilter)

10 Cheap Date Ideas She’ll Actually Love. Because you want to court women who will value your caring and creativity more than your cash. (via Nag on the Lake)

The Real Spartacus. The 1960 movie was based on accounts of the real fighter who led thousands of slaves on a campaign against the Roman army.

Where Oh Where

From the TV show Hee Haw.

Ten Tiny Treasures: Artists and Their Miniatures

Art of all kinds gives us pleasure, but when it is scaled down to miniscule sizes, it impresses us with the increased difficulty factor. Besides that, tiny artworks are more accessible and downright cute! See ten such projects from ten artists in this list I posted at mental_floss.

Links for Fun

Monkey Business. (NYT link) Researchers taught capuchin monkeys to use money as an exchange medium, then gambling, theft, and prostitution soon followed.

The Viva Vox Choir does an a cappella version of Rammstein’s “Du Hast.” For a comparison, here is the original.

“Who to Believe” is an optical illusion installed outside the Paris City Hall. It look odd and useless until you stand in one exact spot, then it’s “whoa!”

Behold, a photo booth moment from around a hundred years ago. The magic that happens when people stop posing is preserved for posterity.

Medal of Honor Cat. It was only a matter of time before filmmaker Freddie Wong tackled the subject of cats… and of course, a lot of gunfire.

A dog learns about physics the hard way. But science is like that, you experiment over and over and over, even while people laugh at you.

10 Unfortunately Named Doctors.

The Greatest Movie Bank Robbery Ever. It’s a supercut, because it takes a lot of robberies to be the best. (via The Daily What)

By video, a Marine in Afghanistan asked actress Mila Kunis to accompany him to a Marine Corps Ball in November. She said she will be honored to attend.

Good Reads and Info

Deconstructing the Color Wheel.

Five Fantastic Felines. Inspiring stories of cats who earned their places in history and in our hearts.

A Newsweek reporter tells about his time in an Iranian prison.

Andy Cavatorta was commissioned to build a new musical instrument based on a pendulum for Bjork's Biophilia show in Manchester, UK. He developed Gravity Harps. (Thanks, Andy!)

Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Internships. (via Metafilter)

What History Teaches Us About the Welfare State.

Joe had never used a computer in all of his 60 years. Watching him try to figure it out from scratch is an educational experience for a browser analyst. (via Metafilter)

After declining for twenty years, home births are becoming more common since 2004. Here are five possible reasons parents are choosing to stay at home to deliver.

3 Noteworthy Typing Feats. Although why people would want to do such things is beyond my comprehension.

A 22-year-old former homecoming queen finds herself in Uganda mothering 13 orphans. And she has a blog. (via Metafilter)

Rhythmus 23

Hans Richter's experimental film from 1923.

Friday Fun Links

Ever since the car was invented, people have wrecked them. Here's a collection of auto accidents from the early 20th century.

An old fireworks safety video gets a makeover with a new soundtrack: The 1812 Overture. Exploding heads and flying limbs can be entertaining -when they are from plastic mannequins.

The world’s most unusual vending machines. If there’s any reason you can’t sell your product in a vending machine now, someone will eventually come up with a way to do it.

For years, we’ve had a chuckle at the Shed of the Year competition in the UK. This year’s winning shed has the history and charm to draw interest on its own merits -plus music! (via Breakfast Links)

Outfit skateboarders with paint-spraying devices under their boards and let them loose in an empty pool, and what do you get? A human Spirograph!

The Star Wars Zone, by Rod Serling and George Lucas. We always knew Luke was a monster underneath that goofy expression. (via Cynical-C)

If cats could write poetry, they’d probably write haiku. Because if you spend time writing too much, you’ll run over into nap time.

The Beatles' Strangest Gig.

I Hope This Will Meet with Your Approval. It does!

Flamenco Chihuahua

(via Daily Pics and Flicks)

8 Wonderful Dog Stories

When I compiled the post 10 Stories of Lifesaving Dogs a couple of weeks ago, I found more heroic dogs than I needed that day, plus quite a few other dogs that accomplished wonderful things. Read about brave, loyal, smart, resourceful, and persistent dogs in this list I posted at mental_floss.

Informative Links

Bradley Manning’s Army of One. He’s in jail for allegedly leaking military documents to Wikileaks, and everyone wants to know why. (via Boing Boing)

The Physics of Cheating in Baseball. Baseball fans know the rules and the scandals, but does a wet ball really travel further?

“Among all 90 belly buttons Dunn and his colleagues have studied so far, they have found 1400 species of bacteria, a number of which have never encountered on human bodies before.” Carl Zimmer does some extreme navel gazing. (via Metafilter)

The Sixth Sense and Beyond. This has nothing to do with ESP!

People are more likely to change their behavior when they get immediate feedback and the ability to change that feedback in real time. Feedback loops give us a sense of control, like how we make the radar speed sign change as we drive.

Gulags: Then and Now. Thankfully, the “now” part of a set of abandoned place photos.
A CIA analyst spent ten years tracking Osama bin Laden. Now that he’s dead, we get a glimpse into how “John” caught up with the terrorist leader. (via The Daily What)

From LP to App: A Brief History of the Evolution of Recorded Music. People have been happily listening to someone else’s music for over a hundred years now.

A woman who left the Quiverfull Movement give an inside look at the culture and philosophy of the lifestyle. She also explains why she had to get out. (via Metafilter)

Sutro Baths

The Edison Company filmed this in 1897. The Sutro Baths were a facility in San Francisco.

Links for Fun

An ad from Argentina called “Braids” could stand on its own even without the product it is promoting. What was that product, anyway? …not that it matters.

A Guide for a Young Lady in Manhattan, from 1939. (via reddit)

Glenn Beck's last show: A 'terrifying' look back.

Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine.

This Saturday, the date being 7-9-11, is Odd Day! Ron Gordon, who brought us Square Root Day, is having a contest for those odd people who celebrate and promote Odd day.

Firefighters tried the leaf blower method to extract a kitten from a pipe. The kitten was terrified, possibly by the laughter more than the procedure, but it worked!

You can't get any more "aww" than soldiers with puppies. Here are 34 of them, enough to make you go all verklempt inside.

The Fly. Try to guess the punchline before you get there.

That's exactly why you don't have a girlfriend.

Pop Goes the Easel

A 1935 short by the Three Stooges.

Enterprise: The First Space Shuttle

As soon as Apollo 11 delivered astronauts to the lunar surface, NASA was asked to develop a new space program that would be more immediately useful and (most importantly) more cost-efficient. The Apollo program continued through mission 17 in 1972, but meanwhile engineers were developing a reusable spacecraft. It was a totally new concept, a vehicle tough enough to go into space, complete mission after mission, and land on earth with such little damage that it could be sent up again. We didn’t see the first space shuttle until 1976. It was called Enterprise. Read about it in this article I posted at mental_floss.

Good Reads and Interesting Links

What was that weird expanding halo of light seen from Hawaii? It looked like a giant blowing bubbles, but astronomy forums have worked out a more reasonable explanation.

15 Badass Recipients Of The Dickin Medal. This is an award for animals who served honorably during wartime, even the pigeons.

How do polar bears cope with shrinking ice caps? They eat less, grow less, and have fewer cubs -all bad signs for their future.

2 True and 2 False Origins of Tongue Twisters And Nursery Rhymes.

6 Beloved 80s Toys With Bizarrely Horrifying Origin Stories. And what does this say about the movers and shakers who grew up on these tales? (NSFW text)

Our earth is a dynamic place that moves and changes with no regard to humans or anyone else. Cracked looks at five events that left behind some serious scars. (NSFW text)

First, they made killing infants illegal, then they outlawed sex determination before abortions. Now families in India who want sons are resorting to gender reassignment surgery to turn their daughters into boys.

Stephen Colbert was approved to form his own super PAC (political action committee), so he can campaign for any person or issue and doesn’t have to disclose who finances it. Which is all to highlight how ridiculous U.S. campaign financing laws have become.

6 Historical Snitches (Who Weren’t Named Judas). Because including Judas would make it seven.

The Shocking True Tale Of The Mad Genius Who Invented Sea-Monkeys. The man behind the “Bowlful of Happiness” was Harold von Braunhut, who produced a lot of bizarreness besides sea monkeys. (via Nag on the Lake)

What Is Nuclear Fallout?

An Animated Nuclear Radiation Preparation Film. (via the Film Archive)

Fourth of July Links

Putting Liberty on a Pedestal. The story of how the Statue of Liberty finally gained support from Americans.

7 July 4th Traditions from Around the Nation. Although it is quite possible to grow up in New England and never eat salmon for the holiday.

American as Apple Pie? An Index of Things we used to feel Patriotic about.

9 Fourth of July Myths Debunked. We learn our history in childhood as short sound bites that oversimplify what really happened in 1776.

Watch fireworks explode in slow motion, thanks to ultra high-speed film. They’re blowing things up, too, although I can’t imagine why they picked a jar of mayonnaise.

July 4 Course Meal.

265 TV Marathons & Specials for 4th of July Weekend 2011. So you’ll have something to do between picnics, parades, and fireworks.

Ten Big Uncle Sams. Americans, take this larger-than-life symbol with you as you celebrate the holiday weekend.

Gettysburg: The Great Reunion of 1913.

5 Reasons The Founding Fathers Were Kind Of Dicks.

Stars and Stripes Forever.

What patriotic song are you?

Symphonie Diagonale

A 1924 experimental film from Viking Eggeling.

Friday Fun Links

Accidental Accident Reports.

11 Overdramatic Road Warning Signs (Ranked By Overdramaticness). Sometimes you have to be dramatically obvious to get anyone to pay attention at all. (via J-Walk Blog)

Female Armor Sucks. Or at least it does in video games, which they explain is exactly for the reason you thought.

7 Links for People Who Really Miss the Workplace. This might be more useful as 7 Ways to Remind Yourself You’re Glad to Be Retired.

I love Swede Mason’s re-edit of the TV show MasterChef into a snappy techno rhythm. I love the buttery biscuit base, too!

The Ray Harryhausen Creature List. The legendary special effects wizard was a master of the stop-motion monster, every one of which you’ll see in this video.

How to irritate all kinds of people.

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study. If you are paranoid about government mind-control rays, you’ll be even more so after reading this research from MIT. (via Everlasting Blort)

The internet has something for everyone. (via reddit)