Monday, November 30, 2015
Sgt. Pepper´s Paradise
Every once in a while, I just want to share a killer mashup that lets you hear two great songs at once. This one marries the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club band" with "Paradise City" by Guns 'n' Roses.
Americapox: The Missing Plague
Diseases brought by Europeans wiped out 90% of the people living in the New World, which allowed relatively easy conquest and colonization. That happens when long-isolated populations meet for the first time. Have you ever wondered why it didn’t go the other way? Why didn’t New World diseases wreak havoc on Europeans? CGP Grey explains how the differences between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres over the long history of civilization left us with plague, typhus, cholera, smallpox, and other diseases, but no “Americapox.” The transcript is at Grey’s website, and there’s a discussion at his subreddit. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
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It’s a simple quiz: just recognize all the U.S. states by their names. But there’s a lot of wrong answers, and you only have one minute.
Science has shown us that people who are generous and altruistic are happier and healthier than people who aren’t. But it’s not as easy to be kind to strangers as you’d think. (via Digg)
Hattie Brazier Stands Up. Her husband died at the hands of police in 1958, because he dared to be a successful black man.
A Conversation Between Chris Had field and Randall Munroe. (via Fark)
Star Wars: 10 Unsung Heroes Behind A New Hope. A lot of very talented people helped George Lucas bring his space opera to the world.
17 Hilarious Tumblr Posts About Language. They all have their quirks, but English is the wurst.
11 humiliatingly lame ways 2016 candidates are trying to appeal to young voters. Proving once again, that trying too hard is the opposite of cool.
Holocaust Hero Chiune Sugihara. The Japanese diplomat defied his superiors to help Jews escape Europe.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
NeuralTalk and Walk
This video is captioned in the upper left completely by machine. It was generated in real time by a neural network programmed to describe images. Stanford Ph.D. student Andrej Karpathy developed the NeuralTalk system and Kyle McDonald adapted it to describe this laptop of Amsterdam on a laptop.
Yes, it changes pretty fast, so you might want to keep your finger ready to pause. The original program generated four captions per second! McDonald reduced that to only one caption per second so we have a chance of following it. The program isn’t completely accurate, but it’s close enough to give you an “uncanny valley” feeling.
If you want a real laugh, a different neural network was used for an earlier experiment in captioning the intro to Star Trek: The Next Generation. That program definitely needs a bigger vocabulary. (via Metafilter)
Saturday, November 28, 2015
A Whole Lot Going On Here
Shane Victorino of the Boston Red Sox fell into the stands. The crowd helped him up. But there’s a lot more going on in this clip if you watch it a few times. Look at it again, and keep your eyes on the guy with the blue shirt with red sleeves. He moves in to help Victorino, but is no help at all. Victorino is up, so the guy knocks a woman’s phone onto the field, breaking it. Victorino hands the phone back, so the guy knocks a woman’s beer into her face. Really, if you’re going to be a walking train wreck, learn about personal space.
This happened during a game between the Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers in 2013. You can see the original video here. You kinds get the idea that if you watched the sequence a few more times, some other weird things will start happening. (via reddit)
Friday, November 27, 2015
9 Breathtaking German Castles
Germany, in its many geographical and cultural incarnations, has always been both a crossroads and a political player in Europe. Over the past millennium, the nobility has responded to frequent wars, danger, and even wildlife by building large, sturdy castles—many of which survive today, and most are open for tourism. See nine of them in a list I posted at mental_floss.
(Image credit: Marco Beck)
(Image credit: Marco Beck)
Holiday Parody Songs from Jimmy Fallon
It’s become a holiday tradition for Jimmy Fallon to perform a medley of holiday songs set to the tunes of pop hits from the previous year. Or, you can put it another way: pop music hits of the past year with new holiday lyrics.
The Tonight Show did just that last night, with Fallon joined by Rashida Jones, Queen Latifah, and Eric Nally. The songs from 2015 cover Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas. (via Viral Viral Videos)
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Randall Munroe’s video game called Hoverboard looks small, but it eventually leads you to a massive game world that tells a story. (via Boing Boing)
How Chicago tried to cover up a police execution.
The Beloved Pioneer Bread that Smells Like Feet and Breaks Food Safety Rules.
This guy thinks his sister is hot. NSFW language. (via reddit)
21 Truly Upsetting Vintage Recipes.
6 Realities In A Super Religious Family That Wants Me Dead. A woman explains life under the possibility of an honor killing.
Who Will Die on Sunday’s The Walking Dead? Register your opinion!
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
My Life After 44 Years In Prison
Otis Johnson was recently released from prison after serving 44 years. Think about how much the world has changed in 44 years. If you weren’t there to see it changing gradually, how surprising would it be? The scenes of Johnson taking in the sights of city streets will remind you of Back to the Future Part 2, if only Marty McFly had aged into an elderly man on his way to 2015. Johnson is 69 years old, and unlikely to find a job. He didn’t pay into the Social Security system. He has no children, and no contact with other family members.
Upon release from prison, Johnson was handed an ID, documents outlining his criminal case history, $40 and two bus tickets. Having lost all family connections while serving his sentence, Johnson now relies on Fortune Society, a nonprofit that provides housing and services to ex-prisoners in Harlem.Read more about Johnson at Aljazeera. (via reddit)
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Creed Is the Best Rocky Movie Since the Original. In fact, the plot is a lot like the first one.
42 Movies Being Adapted For TV. Only a fraction of them will ever land a network slot.
Watch How Rising Sea Levels Could Swallow Coastal Cities. For some of them, it’s already too late to reverse the process.
13 movies you can watch for free on YouTube right now. And you won’t even be breaking the law to do it.
How to Be a Lawyer Without Going to Law School.
Cybercrime: 10 Ways Criminals Use the Internet for Organized Crime.
Thanksgiving Side Dishes by Region. (via Marilyn Terrell)
Donald Trump's alarming skid toward outright fascism.
The Importance of Princess Leia Aging. (via Digg)
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Miss Cellania's Links
37 Facts You Probably Never Knew About The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 91 years, there’s been a lot of changes.
How Turducken Went From Food Of Kings To Poultry of the Populace. Stuffing animals inside other animals has a long and colorful history.
Almost Everyone Cheats, But Only Just a Little Bit. We have to hold back in order to justify it to ourselves.
The Galapagos Islands' Homesteader Death Showdown. Put a bunch of crazy people together on an island away from civilization, and you just might have a story.
How to destroy an American family. Years of cyber attacks have caused unemployment, divorce, and ruin for the Straters.
Life and Work: What Was It Really Like for Women in the 1970s? I remember all this well, even that one specific cartoon, but it may surprise younger people.
5 Times Republicans in Congress Screwed Veterans. This is nothing new.
The Origins of 15 Holiday Foods and Drinks.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Pennies
John Oliver tells us about pennies on Last Week Tonight. It costs more to manufacture them today than they are worth.
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The New York Times talked to the owners and employees of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus about how the circus has changed over the years, and how it will continue to change in order to survive.
The Christian case for opening America's doors to Syrian refugees.
Mall Santas Reveal The Most Funny And Depressing Things Children Have Asked Them For.
Why American Landlords Love Refugee Tenants.
Gingerbread King’s Landing. (via Uproxx)
Mufasa the mountain lion spent twenty years in chains in an illegal circus. After an eight-hour standoff, he was taken away to live in a wildlife preserve in Peru for his retirement.
In Six Words, Sci-Fi Comes Alive. The Twitter tag #sixwordscifi is giving us some spill-chilling scenarios.
19 Horrifying Thanksgiving Family Drama Stories. Your family will look downright normal in comparison.
An economic recovery few people feel. Economic improvement has gone to those on top, while the rest feel insecure and underpaid.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Meteorologist Uniform
Dallas meteorologist Jennifer Myers belongs to a Facebook group for women meteorologists on TV. I’m sure they discuss clothing, because there are many restrictions on what you can wear: no green, no patterns, no stripes, no cleavage, must be dressy, and you can’t wear the same dress too often. Still, most buy their own work clothes, so when one member posted a link to a dress for only $23, they all bought it. Myers tells us,
I'm on here twice. Top second from left in the purple and second from the right on the bottom in the blue.If you want to find your local weather reporter, the enlargeable picture is at imgur. (via reddit)
Sea Wars Trailer
The crew of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower put together their own version of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. The Navy’s creative use of what they had available will make you laugh and then make you go “Whooooa!”
At the end, you’ll see the title, and maybe think it says The IKEA Wakens. No, it’s The Ike Awakens. That’s the short name of the aircraft carrier, although you’ll be forgiven for the mistake. (via Uproxx)
15 Years of Terror
German designer Milan Vuckovic compiled terrorist attacks over the past 15 years, between December of 2000 and November of 2015. This visualization follows a timeline at the bottom showing where attacks took place and roughly the number of people killed. While every death is a tragedy, for accuracy and simplicity, the attacks plotted were limited to those in which twenty or more people died.
While the 9/11 attacks produced the highest number of casualties, you can’t help but notice that some areas of the world endure these incidents constantly. And they have since long before the beginning of this century. It’s a sad sequence, beautifully presented. (Thanks, Milan!)
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Mark Hamill is Good at Keeping Secrets
We don’t know anything about Luke Skywalker’s role in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He’s not in any of the trailers, and he’s not even on the poster. It’s supposed to be a surprise. Such a surprise, in fact, that Mark Hamill gets a bonus payment if he can keep it a secret until the movie comes out on December 18th.
PC Gamer got an interview with Hamill all decked out in motion-capture equipment as he worked on the the upcoming game Squadron 42 (Star Citizen). Hamill tells the story of how he kept the revelation of his genetic lineage a secret until the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back. He should be able to keep an expected plot twist a secret for another month. This is a small portion of a longer interview that you can see here. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Friday, November 20, 2015
Miss Cellania's Links
How Mr. Snuffleupagus Came Out. He was considered Big Bird’s imaginary friend until the big reveal 14 years later.
Last I Heard, We Had a Constitution.
Navigating New York City With a Guidebook From 1899.
MST3K Turkey Day 2015 Details and How to Watch. It’s a tradition the whole family can get behind.
10 Scientific Laws and Theories You Really Should Know. If you already know them, send the list to a younger person.
Alex Weinberg is a structural engineer, and as such, he notices inaccuracies in movies, particularly the physics of suspension bridges that get destroyed. Weinberg explains what’s wrong with suspension bridge wreckage in quite a few of your favorite movies.
Princesses, Slaves, and Explosives: The Scandalous Origin of Vaccines. There were smallpox inoculations centuries before Edward Jenner.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the queasy reality of how Hollywood deals with actors' deaths. There’s sadness and grief, and then there are business decisions to be made.
Princess Rap Battle: Katniss Everdeen vs. Hermione Granger
The final Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 2, opened nationwide last night. So it’s only natural to see Katniss in a rap battle in Whitney Avalon’s Princess Rap series. Her opponent: Hermione Granger, played by Molly C. Quinn. Who’s tougher, smarter, and hotter? You decide. All I know is that they rap and rhyme well. (via Viral Viral Videos)
These 9 NASA Posters Give Astronauts the Celebrity Treatment
Beginning with Space Shuttle Mission 96, each NASA crew has been featured on a poster with art by the Kennedy Space Center's graphics department. The custom has continued for the International Space Station (ISS) missions. They’ve been getting pretty creative, as you’ll see in this list I compiled for mental_floss.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
DNA is Complicated
Randall Munroe’s latest comic at xkcd is a discussion about whether we’ve actually cracked the code of life. Sure, we know about DNA. On the surface, it seems so simple: only four bases in only two combinations. On the surface, it may as well be just digital code. However, it is digital code that not only makes up a living being with all its components, but also contains a lot of code that isn’t necessary (at least not that we know), but still tells the history of evolution. The most complicated digital codes we’ve written don’t hold a candle to DNA.
Did this comic cause you to view the source code for Google’s minimalist home page? I did. It was an eye-opener.
Did this comic cause you to view the source code for Google’s minimalist home page? I did. It was an eye-opener.
Miss Cellania's Links
12 Years Later, Here's What Happened to the Viral Mastermind Behind 'The End of the World.’ Hokay. So. (via Digg)
A Veteran’s Playlist: The Top 10 Songs of Vietnam. (via Boing Boing)
A Modern-Day Lynching. In 2011, Craig Anderson was murdered and his family left devastated forever.
How to make a DIY ‘drone’ with balloons & a fishing rod. Aerial photography doesn’t have to be super expensive if you’ve already got a camera.
Neuroscientists measured the brains of other neuroscientists to see what gets neuroscientists excited. Getting published in the right journal is their supreme turn-on.
It’s All But Guaranteed That 2015 Will Be The Hottest Year On Record. The past six months have all set records as the hottest ever.
The Long and Glorious History of Cat Ladies. Plus some who became famous because of it. (via Nag on the Lake)
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
I Sit Around
Mike Wagner is a private jet pilot and musician. He’s written and performed a few songs about the life of a pilot before, which are pretty popular within the industry. Now he uses the Beach Boys’ song “I Get Around” to describe what he does all day -sit around! See, while airline crews are maximized by schedule, private jet pilots and crews are supposed to be ready when they’re needed. That means a lot of sitting around in various pilot lounges at airports all over.
The ties are little distracting. They obviously shot the entire video before realizing that the ties had identifiers they didn’t want to show us. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Colin Furze’s Apocalyptic Underground Bunker
Inventor Colin Furze has shown us many crazy things he’s built, but what’s he been up to lately? He’s been busy digging up his backyard for a unique man cave. A self-sustained underground bunker. In case the zombies come. That’s a big project! And he’s stocked his bunker with necessary things, like food, things he loves, like his cat, and all his previous inventions -plus some he’ll show us in the future. Want to see how he did it? The build process was documented, too, in parts one, two, three, and four. (via Tastefully Offensive)
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The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year for 2015 isn’t even a word. It’s an emoji, specifically the crying emoji.
Is divorce really that bad? A roundup of opinions and statistics from the experts.
Neighborhood Kitty. http://www.neatorama.com/2015/11/16/Neighborhood-Kitty/
How a prized daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church came to question its beliefs.
8 Things We Want From the MST3K Reboot. Please keep what made the original run so special.
An Irish tourist took a GoPro to Las Vegas and held it backward the entire time. The result was a completely selfie video in which he describes the scenery.
Excerpts from a 1970 lecture by Kurt Vonnegut has been released in an artfully animated video. It has bits about his life and a story about man-eating lampreys.
The Myth of the Ever-More-Fragile College Student. The data is far from clear that young people now are any different from other generations.
Why America's sharing economy needs a massive expansion of the welfare state. We rely too much on employers to provide benefits, and fewer people even have employers these days.
An Honest Trailer for Star Wars
I can’t believe Screen Junkies hadn’t done this one already! For you youngsters, the movie is now known as Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. That’s a mouthful, but believe it or not, we used to just call it Star Wars. Because that was its name. In the Honest Trailer, we look back to 1977 and see how George Lucas made the perfect movie and then couldn’t keep from tinkering with it ever since. (via Uproxx)
8 Unusually Large Musical Instruments
Sometimes bigger is better, as in a box of chocolates. But with musical instruments, bigger is just different. The biggest instruments can provide rich, full, low notes, but those often come at the expense of portability. So if you get a chance to listen to music made by one of these instruments profiled in a list I wrote for mental_floss, don’t pass it up.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Miss Cellania's Links
The Star Wars prequels don’t deserve your hatred. While they aren’t perfect, their awful reputation is a product of the internet feedback loop.
25 Pets Who Hate You Deeply For Making Them Go to the Vet. It’s a gallery of misery and despair, so don’t laugh too much.
The Forgotten Midwest Craze for Building Palaces Out of Grain. The agricultural one-upmanship of the 19th century prairie.
Americans Greatly Overestimate Economic Mobility. Two studies show the American Dream is alive and well in our minds, if not in reality.
A Harvard physicist has an incredible theory for why the dinosaurs went extinct. It’s not so much about dinosaurs, but about how the Milk Way works.
The real reason many Americans don't vote. The U.S. makes the process unnecessarily difficult for a lot of people.
The Grossest Fictional Dishes of All Time. This may put you off lunch.
How One Man’s Face Became Another Man’s Face. (via Boing Boing)
The Time Republicans Helped Build an All-Black Town Called 'Soul City.’ (via Metafilter)
Mog’s Christmas Calamity
Mog is a fat cat who stars in a series of children’s books by Judith Kerr, published between 1970 and 2002. Mog is also the star of the Christmas ad campaign for the British supermarket Sainsbury's. The sweet animated cat accidentally starts a fire with a chain reaction beyond her control. However, in her panic she also accidentally dials 999 and summons the fire department.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Most Internships Are Actually Illegal
About ten years ago, I found myself without a job. I considered moving to a city, and looked for job openings. Under the “entertainment” category, the vast majority of help wanted ads were unpaid “internships.” There wasn’t any college credit attached, just “experience” and “exposure.” I stayed in Kentucky where I didn’t have to pay rent and ended up eating a living by internet. But even when there is college credit involved, most internships are a scam perpetrated against the working class. But look: even when you’re getting paid, you’re getting screwed.
Openness about your salary sounds like a great idea, but if you live in an “at will” state, you can get fired for talking about it. Oh, that won’t be the stated reason you are fired, that could be anything from they don’t like your looks to they needed the slot for their nephew. In the real world, the entire office would have been fired at the end of this video. There are plenty of applications for those jobs sitting in the office.
Daily Fantasy Sports
John Oliver proves that even when you don’t know or care a thing about the subject, he’s a wonder to watch. I must admit I learned quite a bit about daily fantasy sports this morning.
If you are wondering why Oliver didn’t focus on the Paris attacks… well, he did, in a rant full of premium cable profanity. You can see it here.
Miss Cellania's Links
Thousands of people in Kentucky are going to lose their health insurance under new governor Matt Bevin. Those people helped put him in office, whether they voted or not.
Coin-Op Cuisine: When the Future Tasted Like a Five-Cent Slice of Pie. We’re talking about the automat.
Here Are Some Ancient German Drawings Of Sick Horses.
13 Healthy Thanksgiving Dinner Tricks That No One Will Even Notice. Except the cauliflower in the potatoes; I’d notice that.
Why do we have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Because any other number would be weird.
The Monolith Monsters: Universal's Killer Alien Rocks Movie. A look at one of the weirdest monster movies ever.
The Story Of How George Clooney's Rescue Dog Went From Homeless To A Villa In Italy. That is one lucky dog.
The death of the swing voter. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t know which party they’ll vote for in 2016.
The Amazing Life of Audie Murphy. The 5’5” teenager became a war hero, an officer, and then a movie star.
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