Thursday, June 30, 2016

Imagine That

Batman and Robin -or a Reasonable Facsimile



This clip is from the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special from the BBC. I found it in the more recent story about two guys who were cosplaying and rescued a man off the coast of Sussex.

Left Behind

(via reddit)

The Kitten’s Great Escape



A kitten finds a way to escape his enclosure at JoLinn Pet House, a pet shop in Taiwan. But then what? Where does he go? Straight into another enclosure, this one with a puppy! The puppy is exceedingly happy with the company. The kitten might have some regrets about the caper. (via Viral Viral Videos)

Sid

Market Street, San Francisco, 1906



On April 14, 1906, brothers Harry and Herbert Miles filmed the scene on the left as they rode a cable car down Market Street in San Francisco. You see the hustle and bustle of the city with trolley cars, pedestrians, automobiles, and horse-drawn wagons sharing the street.

Four days later, an earthquake killed 3,000 people and destroyed most of the city. A cameraman believed to be Otis M. Gove filmed the same street just after the destruction. The film is not as clear due to dust and smoke, but you can see the destroyed buildings and the survivors shuffling through the streets as if they were ghosts. You have to wonder how many of the people seen in the video on the left did not survive the quake. (via History Buff)

Miss Cellania's Links

The First Woman to Vote in American History. Eddie Deezen brings us the story.

To pay tribute to the classic American diner, Extra Crispy compiled a list, not of the 50 best diners ranked, but a great diner from each state in the Union.

The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes.

The Uncertain Future of Saving the Past. The people tasked with protecting objects that make up the backbone of our culture use a lot of trial and error along with their science.​

The 19 countries with the highest quality of life. The reason it goes to 19 is because that’s where the United States ranks.

How Old Is Your Body, Really? If all our cells are constantly being replaced, what part of us stays the same?

America's First "Climate Refugees.” Between rising sea levels, delta engineering, and environmental damage by oil companies, Louisiana is losing dry land at an alarming rate.

The science of a successful first date. Figure out what you need to know before you try to size someone up.

Fourth of July Fireworks. They’ve got a history much older than the United States.

Going to Get Tutored

(via Fark)

Mascot Dance Battle



It’s the San Diego Chicken vs. Barney the Dinosaur! Or, for you younger folks, the “Famous Chicken.”  (via reddit)

See also: Benny the Bull.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Not Ordinary Cows

100 Building Demolitions



Explosions, implosions, and general destruction caught on video! This is like porn for those who like to see things fall down and go boom. But you might want to pause and come back to it later… you get inured to the destruction after a while. (via Michael Leavitt)

Jabba the Hill

(via reddit)

The Star-Spangled Banner at the Lincoln Memorial



Star Genleah Swain was touring the Lincoln Memorial in Washington and was inspired. The acoustics are good, the feeling was there, so she gave in to a dare from her companions and sang the Star Spangled Banner right there in with a bunch of tourists. And she nailed it. A good time was had by all. (via Viral Viral Videos)

Hidden Message

Miss Cellania's Links

Cats and Dogs Research Review. People trip over dogs, and computers cannot recognize cats.

9 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of a Shark Week Cinematographer.

Caltech glassblower's retirement has scientists sighing. (via Metafilter)

The weaponised loser. Mass shootings have one thing in common: toxic masculinity.

The science of why people insist on making idiotic choices.

Did you know you an play a harmonica with a vacuum cleaner? Once you see these videos, you’ll have to try it yourself.

Why Pop Culture Needs Stories Like Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. We are all peculiar in one way or another.

The Sniper Who Slayed More Than 100 Union Soldiers. At 57 years old, he waged a one-man war against those who killed his sons.

We Waste An Insane Amount Of Food. Here’s What You Can Do About It.

The Game of Thrones Graveyard. If you click on the grave itself, you leave a flower. (via Metafilter)

Woody

(via Fark)

J-pop Ghostbusters



Sony Pictures Japan put four comedians together, Tomochika, Oniyakko Tsubaki, Naomi Watanabe, and Shizuyo Tamasaki, for a J-pop version of the Ghostbusters theme. This one’s funny and catchy, unlike the Fall Out Boy theme song for the new movie. (via Flavorwire

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Ballot Recommendations

An Honest Trailer for Jaws



As the July 4th holiday nears, it’s time to pull out the movie that ruined the holiday in 1975: Jaws! We cowered in our seats with suspense, even though we didn’t see the shark much at all. That was a great technique -except it wasn’t really the way they wanted to do it. Forty years later, there’s plenty to critique about Jaws in this Honest Trailer from Screen Junkies, but it still comes out as one of the greatest scary movies of all time. (Thanks, Paul Panday!)

Washing Instructions

Redditor Jl889 bought a cloth swim diaper for her baby. She checked the washing instructions tag and found that it was designed to be remembered. And not only remembered, but shared. I’m glad to oblige.


Suburbia

Hey, Mister Snek



Um, don’t tease a snake. This woman found a particularly long snake in her yard in Alabama. She didn’t have to touch it. Snakes can get defensive about that. She was actually quite lucky she was recording with her smart phone. He could have went straight to her face! (via Viral Viral Videos

7 Properties Offered as Prizes in Essay Contests

What do you do when you’ve decided to sell a huge, historic, or expensive property in a small town, but no one can afford it? One trend that’s gaining popularity is to run an essay contest with an entry fee that will cover your costs. The essay part makes the scheme a competition of skill instead of an out-and-out lottery, which is illegal in some places, and they also ensure that the winner is someone who will likely continue the business (though that’s never a sure thing). Generally, the contests stipulate the minimum number of entries required, which would add up to at least the value of the property; if the minimum isn't reached, then the entry fees are refunded.

The upside to these contests is that the property goes to an individual who might not otherwise be able to own such a property or start a small business, and the seller reaps the value of the property without having to sell to deep-pocket corporations. However, it doesn’t always turn out that way. Read about seven such contests in an article I wrote for mental_floss.


Miss Cellania's Links

The Critters Are Coming! Every once in a while, nature goes a little nuts with the infestations.

A shark scientist recommends what to watch or 'loudly criticize' for Shark Week this year. In a week of programming, some shows will be more accurate than others.

The Mysterious Origins of Sausage. No other food is so universal and so funny.

A dachshund somehow makes Game Of Thrones cute. Crusoe The Celebrity Dachshund can play all the parts -even the Hound.

Signs of Emotional Abuse People Often Overlook. Overlooked because they’re focused on the wrong person.

An Investigation of Asparagus Pee. (via Metafilter)

Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place. (via Boing Boing)

10 Facts About the Original 'Trial of the Century.”

The Deep-Fried Burger. The method is not difficult, but may take a little practice.

The 6 Most Embarrassing Superhero Costume Updates.

Breakfast

(via Fark)

Falling Tide



A young boy isn’t allowed on the train. Will it take off without him? Can he get his parents’ attention? He doesn’t have much time before the waves come in! This surreal story is told in wordless anime style. Animation student Ning Cheng produced this at CalArts. (via reddit)

Monday, June 27, 2016

Smart Noshery

(via Bad Menu)

World's Laziest Wolf Howls



"Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m expected to join in, and my instincts tell me I should, but honestly, guys, I’d just as soon take a nap. Maybe just a little 'woo' will do."

His name is Alawa, and he’s a gray wolf at the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC) in South Salem, New York. (via Tastefully Offensive)


Xenophobia

It's an old joke, but it still made it into a paper. I've heard it using a Navajo who the guy thought was speaking Spanish. (via reddit)

Rum

Mustard

Doping in Sports



The Summer Olympics start in just a few weeks, but doping threatens to pull it down already. The Russian track team has already been eliminated due to drugs. John Oliver takes a closer look on the show Last Week Tonight.

Miss Cellania's Links

A Stormy History of Weather Reporting.

The Great Trump Tax Mysteries: Is He Hiding Loopholes, Errors, or Something More Serious? He may as well release the documents; they couldn’t be any worse than what we imagine.

10 of the Strangest Looking Homes in All of Europe.

A Cautionary Tale of ‘Stem Cell Tourism.’ Jim Gass he figured the worst that could happen was that he didn’t get better. He was wrong. (via Metafilter)

The (Very Brief) Republic of Rose Island.

Some rich kids shared the moment that they found out everyone else’s lives are not like theirs. You can sift through the entire thread at reddit or see the highlights at Pref. (via Team Takei)

The 12 Best Civil War Movies. Or, to be honest, all the Civil War movies ranked, until Free State of Jones joins them.

Here Is How To Plan The Ultimate 4th Of July Party. If you’ve got food and drinks, the rest is just window dressing.

When the Mainstream Media Interviews Musicians, Hilarity Ensues. See nine examples of how wrong it can go.

The Texas Slave Who Conned Everyone As a Mexican Millionaire. And other impostors tried to take advantage of him.

We Recreated The Moon Landing To See If It Really Happened



Fifty years after Star Trek debuted on TV, Star Trek: Axanar was made by everyday people to much higher standards. So it only makes sense that everyday people could recreate the moon landing with the latest movie sets and video effects, right? Or maybe it’s not so easy.

Why do people still have doubts that the moon landing really happened? Most;y because it was such an amazing accomplishment. And because the people that populate the internet tend to be too young to remember it. That same internet feeds conspiracy theories about everything being either fake or controlled behind the scenes. The truth is that we had the technology to go to the moon in 1969, but we didn’t have the technology necessary to fake it. (Thanks, Ricky Sans!)

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Limited Quality

A Useful Emmy

(via reddit)

Exploding Spray Paint Cans in Slow-Motion



Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy, also known as the Slow Mo Guys, explore ways to relieve a spray paint can of its contents other than the normal method. A gun works well. So does an axe and a sledgehammer. In the process, they make a much bigger mess than they expected. But that’s par for the course for them. The finished canvas is now on eBay, but you can’t afford it. (via Tastefully Offensive)


Bus Destination

(via Buzzfeed)

The Strongest Sword in the Seven Kingdoms

Jon Snow’s sword, named Longclaw, is made of Valyrian steel and is five centuries old. It’s a wonder it’s lasted this long, considering how it wobbles like rubber under the pressure of Snow mounting a horse. Last week’s Game of Thrones was the most expensive episode to date, yet this made it into the final production. Well, to be fair, it took a really sharp-eyed imgur user to spot it and isolate it. (via Uproxx)

Windex

(via Fark)

Holmes and Watson 1916-2016



Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson have been with us onscreen for 100 years. Video editor Sanguinity shows us 54 different iterations of the duo on film, from the 1916 silent film Sherlock Holmes to the web series S(her)lock, which launched this year. They include movies, TV shows, animation, and even video games. The clips are quick and jump around from era to era. What’s striking is that no matter who plays the part or what year the film was made, you always recognize the characters. You’ll find a list of the video sources here. (via Metafilter)

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Shatner Quesadilla

(via Bad Menu)

Mac 'n' Cheetos

(via reddit)

How to Make a Car Ad Without a Car



Why would you bother trying to make a car ad without the car itself? Well, ad people will tell you it’s not always easy to get a few vehicles of the latest model with every style change, especially on short notice. But more often, you’ll spend time and money making a great ad, and then one of the suits will insist you reshoot with a different color car. You can change that with computer graphics now, but wouldn’t it be even more cost-effective if they allowed for those expected alterations at the beginning, and dispensed with the real vehicle models from the start?  The Blackbird is a new vehicle from The Mill, designed to imitate the size and actions of any vehicle, which can be then skinned by CGI to resemble any car, even one not yet on the market. This innovation will excite ad agencies way more than the car companies that hire them. It will also help us to convince our more gullible friends that you can’t believe everything you see on TV. (via Viral Viral Videos)

Figure 1.1

What Happened Before History?



It’s the story of humans, from the time our distant ancestors dropped from the trees and started walking up right to the relatively brief period we call recorded history. We had a lot to do to get where we are, like learning to deal with tools and fire, but most of all, each other. There were many important systems to develop, like cooperation, communication, education, organization, and civilization.  This brief overview of humanity from Kurzgesagt covers a lot of ground quickly, in bright, colorful animation. We’ve come a long way. (via Digg)  

Stalking

(via Fark)

Friday, June 24, 2016

Apparently a Long Wait

Game of Jones



This video contains spoilers for Game of Thrones. Seth Myers invited Leslie Jones to watch last week’s episode of Game of Thrones with him, in this clip from Late Night with Seth Meyers. It’s the first time he’d seen it, but she knew exactly what was coming up. Her commentary is priceless! Contains NSFW language. (via Uproxx)

Spud and Darrel's Adventure

(via Fark)

Squirrel Pulls Loose Tooth



David Freiheit of Montreal enlisted the help of a wild squirrel in a city park to help pull his daughter’s loose tooth. He tied a length of dental floss to the tooth on one end, and attached a chunk of granola to the other end. Freiheit is pretty excited about getting this stunt on video, while Stacy is concerned about retrieving her tooth! Don’t fret, Stacy, the Tooth Fairy probably reaped enough reward from the Viral Video to leave something under your pillow. (via Dave Barry)

Who's Dumb?

O Death



Bluegrass legend Dr. Ralph Stanley has passed away at the age of 89. Here’s another song from him.




Miss Cellania's Links

The Beatles and The White Album. Eddie Deezen tells the story.

The Art of Speaking Like Donald Trump, in 10 Easy Steps.

14 Secrets of U.S. Postal Carriers.

Why Did an Ex-Amish Family Sell Their 14-Year-Old Daughter? Plus their nine younger daughters.

Dain Yoon, a Korean college student, uses face paint to create astonishing optical illusions. The military should hire her to design their camouflage.

The Rocketeer at 25: An Adventure Movie Out of Time. Although it was set in the past, it was ahead of its time.

Inside the Troll: The Science of Being an Awful Person.  But why are there so many of them?

If You’re Younger Than 31, You’ve Never Experienced This. The last time the global monthly temperature was below average was February 1985.

The Emile Berliner Musée des Ondes in Montreal is dedicated to preserving the memory of early sound recording and aerospace engineering. That seems a weird combination, until you learn a little bit about electrical genius Emile Berliner.

Balance Beam

(via Cat-Shaming)

How To Train Your Drogon



YouTube user Darth Blender refreshed the trailer from the 2010 animated movie How to Train Your Dragon by replacing the video with clips from the HBO series Game of Thrones, while retaining the original audio. Let’s see how that turned out.

It’s a mashup that should have been done long ago, but waiting this long meant that more video footage was available. It also means that kids who watched the animated film six years ago may be grown up enough to enjoy Game of Thrones now. (via the A.V. Club)

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Hawaiian or Aussie Pizza?

That would be a hard decision. (via Bad Menu)

Ether

SpotMini from Boston Dynamics



Boston Dynamics’ newest robot is a mechanical pet! Watch it go for a walk, crawl under a table, and extend its neck for a petting. But did you ever see a dog load the dishwasher and straighten up the kitchen? SpotMini can trip and fall, but they had to put out a banana peel to demonstrate it. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

What Luke's Been Up To For the Past 20 Years



Luke Skywalker has been holed up like a hermit for how many years? Surely he’s got some stories to tell about what he’s been doing all that time. Important Jedi stuff. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Poor lonely Luke. When episode VIII comes around, we probably won’t hear a word about his lonely life on an island on a distant planet. Too boring. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Donald and Hobbes

Here we find evidence that Donald Trump is a 6-year-old boy. A fictional one at that. A subreddit called r/DonaldandHobbes puts The Donald in various Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, with original dialogue, so we can marvel at how accurate they are. You can peruse more there, or see a roundup of the best ones at Uproxx.


Miss Cellania's Links

In Search of Astronomy’s Holy Grail.

How American Politics Went Insane. Our reforms have worked against us, turning Washington into chaos.

The Lord of the Memes. (via reddit)

Jason Headley produced an interactive map of the United States that’s also a game. How many of them have you been to? How many of them have you shagged in? (via Metafilter)

The UK is voting today on a referendum over leaving the European Union. Here’s What You Need to Know About Brexit.

A UCLA psychiatrist has some counterintuitive advice for dealing with negative people. You can’t change other people, but you can change the way you react to them.

The Japanese Plan to Disrupt the US Homefront Through Giant Balloons and Forest Fires. Out of maybe 9,000 such bombs, only six people were killed.


Frankenstein, the Baroness, and the Climate Refugees of 1816.

Résumé

(via Fark)

Ireland Fans Dent French Car, Then Fix It



The UEFA Euro Cup is happening in Lille, France, this week. Irish soccer fans are making themselves seen in the streets celebrating their team’s advancement in the tournament. Were they rioting, fighting, or wrecking the town? No, they were celebrating. And when a group of revelers accidentally dented in the roof of a car, they did the right thing. First, they were seen stuffing money for repairs into the rim around the door. Then someone decided they could just fix it themselves, which they immediately banded together to do. They managed to knock the dent out of the roof. Yay! (via The Daily Dot)

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Rightful Place

Filet

(via reddit)

Flip

Miss Cellania's Links

Eureka! The Discovery of Photosynthesis. We found a lot of dead ends first.

A Lottery Lawyer Explains What You Should Do if You Hit the Jackpot.

How Is Donald Trump Going to Quit? Here are four possible scenarios.

Sacred Anatomy: Slicing Open Wax Women in the Name of Science and God. 

The Pro Wrestler Who Fought Segregation in 1950s Memphis. More on Sputnik Monroe here. https://youtu.be/9TYHHwC-0Ew

The Great Vampire Epidemic of the 1720s. The world’s first bloodsucker craze in what is now Serbia started all the vampire legends we know.

What Happens if a Presidential Candidate Dies? The only time it ever happened was a losing candidate after the votes were cast.

This Truck Driver Dad “Babysat” His 9-Year-Old Daughter’s Doll For The Day And Had A Blast. Of course there are pictures!

Star Trek V: revisiting The Final Frontier. Really, what does God need with a starship?

Neil Young Finally Confirms The Most Popular Legend About Him. The barn was his right speaker.

Roadkill

(via Cat-Shaming)

Dumb, Lovable, Funny Dogs



Aren’t you glad that dogs don’t hold a grudge when we laugh at them? This compilation from fail Army has dogs that aren’t so smart, some that aren’t lucky, but all are adorable.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Greyhound Lasagna

(via Bad Menu)

Commencement Speaker Needed



How comfortable are you with public speaking? How about a spur-of-the-moment commencement address? Improv Everywhere recently staged a graduation ceremony in Bryant Park. The premise here is that the scheduled commencement speaker (John Kerry if anyone asked) missed his flight and couldn’t make it, so they asked random people to step in and do a speech. The ones who took on the challenge didn’t do half bad at all. Some, if not all, of the people who volunteered could tell that this was a prank, but they still rose to the occasion and had a few inspiring things to relate to the graduating class. You can get more details at their website, like the story behind the woman who spoke entirely in Spanish. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Diving Platform

(via reddit)

9 Amazing Tiki Bars

In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans were obsessed with “tiki culture,” the relaxing, tropical lifestyle that they perceived was led in Hawaii and the rest of Polynesia. It flourished from the stories brought home by World War II soldiers, Hawaii’s statehood in 1959, and the hit musical South Pacific. While tiki culture is no longer a nationwide fad, some of the kitschy bars that flourished during that era are still around, and new ones spring up occasionally to give folks a taste of a tropical paradise, whether they can actually visit that paradise or not. Check out nine of those bars that you can still visit, in a list I posted at mental_floss.




18th-Century Fried Chicken



Warning: this video will make you hungry. The recipe for fried chicken was found in a 1736 cookbook called Dictionarium Domesticum by Nathan Bailey. It features a rather acidic marinade that ensures the finished chicken is tender and tasty. But probably different from what you’re used to. The video is from Jas. Townsend and Son, Inc., a business that sells living history products. Their YouTube channel has more on recreating history in your spare time. (via reddit)

13 Gorgeous Images of hte Solstice Strawberry Moon

Last night, sky gazers were treated to a rare sight: a Strawberry Moon falling on the summer solstice. This full moon, which always falls in June, is so-named because, according to Farmer's Almanac, "the Algonquin tribes knew it as a signal to gather ripening fruit." The Strawberry Moon fell on the summer solstice in 1948, and won't fall on the solstice again until 2062. It inspired many people to go outside and snap photos—a selection of which I gathered for a post at mental_floss.

Tan, Don't Burn