(via Bad Newspaper)
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
The Simple Solution to Traffic
CGP Grey talks about traffic, specifically, what causes traffic jams when you can see no apparent cause, and what we can do about them. This seems like common sense to me. Don't tailgate! But like driving slowly in the left lane, it’s something many people have never even considered.
Spacing out cars properly would help with highway traffic, but it’s not going to do much about intersections. Good drivers like to keep a bit of distance between them and the air ahead while moving, but if you stopped at an intersection with a car-length space between you and the car in front of you, you’d probably get some quizzical stares, or even road rage. (via reddit)
Star Wars Go Rogue Chapter One
It’s about that time of year, when a new round of Star Wars toys will be heading to stores. Lucas film and Tongal recruited some seriously creative Star Wars fans to make a series of videos promoting both the new movie Rogue One and the line of toys that will accompany it.
In the first such video, animators Dan MacKenzie and Tucker Barrie show off what they can do with stop-motion, and what products you can line up for in September or purchase for Christmas gifts. (via Laughing Squid)
Adulthood
Buzzfeed has a list that is all Tumblr posts about becoming an adult. This one kind of spoke to me. For the last ten years or so, I was always known as the weird mom because my kids had way too much freedom and responsibility in the eyes of other parents. My girls had friends who weren’t allowed over to our house because of it. So many of their friends couldn’t go places, couldn’t do that, etc.
Then you launch your kids into the big world, and Princess’ housemates are coming to her asking for advice on cooking, driving, using a bank account, reading a map, etc. Gothgrrl’s friends who have already left for college are floundering in confusion and boredom and come home every weekend, while she has arranged to start college as a sophomore and has already registered with an employment agency in the town she’s going to. You can’t just be a helicopter parent and stop one day- you’ve got to prepare your kids for adulthood.
Life on Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited island in the world. Now you can take a little tour of island life with Stewart McPherson. Resident Harold Green says it’s quiet and peaceful, except for that volcanic eruption in 1961 that forced a two-year evacuation. Fifty-five years later, it’s still a traumatic memory for the islanders. With less than 300 permanent inhabitants, it’s no wonder they consider each other brothers and sisters. It’s likely they are all at least cousins. They have what they need, for now. There’s a bus, which is something my town of 8,000 doesn’t have. Then again, we have cars. (via Laughing Squid)
9 Really Cool Aquariums
Back in the summer of 2007, I posted a list at mental_floss of the weirdest aquariums I could find at the time. I'm still waiting for the Klein bottle fish tank.
Miss Cellania's Links
We've reached peak hurricane season. Two hurricanes are heading toward Hawaii, while another storm is threatening Florida.
The Absurd Rules for College Women That Were Actually Enforced in the 1950s. While the guys were considered adults, women had to be tightly regulated.
How Triage Works. In the emergency room, chest pains always outrank broken bones.
The 10 craziest things people have implanted in their bodies. Apparently, implants just for appearance sake aren’t crazy enough.
12 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Museums.
The site Советские Movies offers a wide variety of movies made in the Soviet Union with subtitles or dubbed in English. Select a comedy, romance, drama, science fiction movie, adventure, or cartoon. (via Flavorwire)
Anon and his hermit crabs. The story is an emotional roller coaster, and possibly true.
Bugs Bunny: The Origins of an American Icon
Okay, I admit it, all my knowledge of high culture comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons. Some of yours probably does, too. Bugs has been around so long it isn’t easy to find out where he really started. And his influence on generations of fans is phenomenal. YouTube member kaptainkristian breaks down where this rascally rabbit came from, what he’s done, and why we love him so much. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Defending His Twin Sister
These twins couldn’t be any more different. He complained that his sister farted in his face, but when she was about to get in trouble with Mom, he switches gears and wants to defend her. He pulls out every trick in the book to get his sister out of trouble, but she just doesn’t care. His arguments:
1. She didn’t do it after all.
2. She’ll be good now, won’t you, Ellie?
3. Bribery: Want some M&Ms, Mom?
4. She’s only bad because she’s so tired.
Does he really care for her that much, or does he realizes she’s going to give him what for for tattling in the first place? (via reddit)
This is CNN
Remy noticed a trend in broadcast journalism, particularly CNN, that everyone else has also noticed and wrote a clever song about it. If that’s not the formula for a viral video, I don’t know what is. When Ted Turner first launched CNN, the whole idea was to have news available to people 24 hours a day. But that in itself caused a problem, because TV channels are expected to be self-supporting. When networks only had news at 6 and 10, the ratings and advertising for their entertainment programs supported the journalism. Now even journalism must live and die by ratings. (via reddit)
The Millennial Whoop
When pop songs all started sounding the same to me, I though it was just because I was getting old. But according to musician Patrick Metzger, it may be because there’s an oft-repeated vocal phrase that turns up in more and more songs in the last few years. He calls it “the Millennial Whoop,” although it’s not exactly new. However, it is used in more recent songs than you realize. How many? Maybe all of them. There’s a long list of examples at Metzger’s blog. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
For one night, a drive-in theater became a true Little Shop Of Horrors. The traumatizing director’s cut of the musical was shown by mistake.
A Brief History of the College Textbook Pricing Racket. When your customers have no choice, you can charge them any amount you want.
Four Huge Myths About Intimate Relationships. Preconceived notions can get you into trouble, especially when they’re flat out wrong.
These Maps Show How Rising College Costs Are Forcing a Huge Student Migration. State universities are showing a preference of out-of-state students because they are more profitable.
Are unpaid internships ever okay? There are rules for such programs, but when they are ignored, no one wants to be the first to complain.
The Fierce, Forgotten Library Wars of the Ancient World.
How The Great Depression Revamped U.S. Diets. (via Metafilter)
Why Do We Judge Parents For Putting Kids At Perceived -But Unreal- Risk? The morality of the reason a parent leaves a child unsupervised directly affects how dangerous the situation is perceived to be. (via Digg)
A Full House of Avengers
A YouTuber named -zach- imagined the Avengers in a sitcom, just like we all did when we saw Thor’s latest adventures yesterday. So he made the intro for just such a show, to the tune of the Full House theme. You could put all the Avengers in that one house and still not have as big a family as the one in the Full House. I see a missed opportunity in not making a bigger deal about of Elizabeth Olsen’s role. He should have billed her as Elizabeth Elizabeth Olsen. Or maybe Mary Kate Ashley Elizabeth Olsen. (via Uproxx)
Monday, August 29, 2016
Young Frankenstein in Five Minutes
It was quite saddening to hear of the passing of Gene Wilder on Monday. There were so many of his movies that I loved… Blazing Saddles, The Frisco Kid, Stir Crazy, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Haunted Honeymoon, The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, The Producers, but nothing can match the script he wrote for Young Frankenstein. I saw it in the theater several times as a teenager, and it always made my sides split from laughing.
Star Trek Beyond Classic
Darth Blender took the audio from the trailer https://youtu.be/XRVD32rnzOw for the new movie Star Trek Beyond (featuring music from the Beastie Boys) and mixed it with video from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-69). The results are just right. You’ve got the nostalgia factor, and who would pass up a chance to see the original Kirk, Spock, and company in their youth? Plus the synchronization is really impressive. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
10 of the World’s Most Beautiful Public Gardens
Your backyard can be a wonderful retreat, but whenever you have the chance, you should visit a large, professionally curated public garden. Here are a few you might not be familiar with, but are worth a trip, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
Miss Cellania's Links
The 7 Most Half-Assed Monsters in Movie History.
Why Did It Take 9 Hours and 3 Emergency Rooms For This Woman to Get a Rape Kit?
The Hapless Explorer Who Helped Create the National Park System. They called his story National Lampoon’s Vacation meets The Revenant.
The Best 100 Films of the 21st Century. If you’re like me, you might want to save the list for future use when you have time on a weekend, or for when you retire.
13 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Park Rangers.
Six Scientists Just Spent A Year On Simulated Mars. Here’s What They Learned.
The Court That Rules the World. A look at the investor-state dispute settlement system, or ISDS.
The Fascinating Stories Behind Famous True-Crime Books. The truth is always stranger -and scarier- than fiction.
Before the Breathalyzer There Was the Drunkometer. In 1936, technology stepped in to provide evidence of drunk driving.
Bulldog Sings the Blues
What is Artemis singing here? I think I have an idea.
I got those harmonica blues.(via Tastefully Offensive)
Oh, I got those old harmonica blues.
If you don’t stop playing that harmonica
I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
What Thor Was Doing During Captain America: Civil War
When the events of Captain America: Civil War were happening, Thor was taking a break from being a superhero and instead was indulging in real life activities. He’ll be glad to explain them to you. However, it turns out that the "break" wasn’t all his idea. And the sirtuation was complicated by the fact that an ancient Norse god isn’t up on all the latest communication technologies. Maybe the rest of the Marvel superheroes were a bit upset over Thor's pranks pulled on Spider-Man. Anyway, this scenario would make a great sitcom, but only if Chris Hemsworth played the part. (via reddit)
Life as a Berserker
The berserkers were a subset of Viking warriors who went into battle wearing wolf or bear skins instead of armor and fought with uncontrollable fury, which is where we get the phrase "going berserk." While in their battle state, they were a danger to even their own compatriots. The berserker fighting style has been attributed to a self-induced trance, drugs, or possibly mental illness. Life couldn’t have been easy for a berserker, especially when they had time to confront moral dilemmas. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Disney Characters Sing "All Star" by Smash Mouth
So much of the internet generation knows “All Star:” from the 2001 Dreamworks movie Shrek. The rest of us recall it from the summer of 1999, when the song was played on the radio about once an hour for months. Here, an edit by James Covenant has Disney characters singing the song. I wonder how Dreamworks feels about this. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Saturday, August 27, 2016
On Being Hated
How do you handle haters? In the 3D world, you can avoid such people -if you ever find out they are your enemy. It’s not so easy on the internet, where so many people have access to so many other people and most of them remain anonymous.
The School of Life looks at why criticism, contempt, and hatred bother us so much. So many people come across as haters when they really just don’t know how to criticize wisely, while others are just trolls. And how we respond to online criticism or hatred is key to learning to handle the feelings it brings. (via Digg)
Betty Boop for President
This rather racy 1932 cartoon was later reworked into the 1948 cartoon Olive Oyl for President. http://misscellania.blogspot.com/2016/08/olive-oyl-for-president.html
Friday, August 26, 2016
Dancing Pokémon
An animation of Dragonite and Charizard dancing has Twitter users trying to one-up each other with the music they add.
Ashley Feinberg has a roundup of the Pokémon dancers set to various songs (post title contains NSFW language). But it doesn’t contain “All Star” by Smash Mouth. (via Metafilter)
— Ollie Cole (@ProducerOllie) August 25, 2016
Ashley Feinberg has a roundup of the Pokémon dancers set to various songs (post title contains NSFW language). But it doesn’t contain “All Star” by Smash Mouth. (via Metafilter)
Duet with a Parrot
A Brazilian musician sings with his parrot, who knows the songs and even harmonizes in places! I’d like to know how long they’ve been making music together for the bird to be such a good performer. (via Digg)
10 Amazing Dog Parks
The modern dog park is designed to maximize fun for both dogs and their owners while providing exercise, socialization, and enrichment for the dog. And what better way to show your dog how much you love him than to take him out for a day of canine-style fun? In honor of National Dog Day, here are a few parks you might want to visit with your best friend, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
Miss Cellania's Links
20 Things You Didn’t Know about Betty White.
I Spent 5 Years With Some of Trump's Biggest Fans. Here's What They Won't Tell You.
John Lennon’s First Acid Trip.
24 Tattoo Cover-Up Before And Afters That Prove Ink Isn’t Always Permanent. Yes, you can change a tattoo, but it’s neither easy nor cheap.
Pokemon Go & a Brief History of Accidental Exercise Through Gaming. They’ll get you out of the basement one way or another.
How Optical Illusions Work. Most of it is in our brains, not our eyes.
Nothing To See Here Except 25 Orphaned Bear Cubs Eating Apples. Most of them out their mothers to auto accidents.
How Madonna: Truth or Dare Peeked into the Future of Celebrity Culture. The documentary laid the groundwork for the reality TV style we are so familiar with 25 years later.
400 Years of Equator Hazings: Surviving the Stinky Wrath of King Neptune's Court. In which we get to witness one of them.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Miss Cellania's Links
KFC’s secret recipe might not be so secret anymore. Try the 11 herbs and spices yourself and give it a taste test.
7 things campuses have done instead of teaching people not to rape. No one’s mindset will change by banning alcohol, cell phones, and energy drinks.
Meet the new young Hollywood — 30 stars under 30 whose careers are blowing up. “Blowing up” as in inflating, not self-destructing.
Is Angela Corey the Cruelest Prosecutor in America? (via Metafilter)
The British Olympic team traveled together on a chartered flight and were all given luggage for the trip. The same red luggage. It took about two hours for everyone to find their bags. (via reddit)
The 50 Most Segregating School Borders In America.
10 Incredible Homes Made from Mud.
Since 2008, the cost for a package of two EpiPens has gone from $95 to $608, a price jump of more than 450%. Meanwhile, the salary for the CEO of the company that makes them (although they did not develop them) went up 671%.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The Craziest Thing That Ever Happened To Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert tells a story. He doesn’t quite answer the question asked of him, but it’s a good story.
10 International Cat Celebrities
There are few places around the world where people don’t love cats. And what’s not to like? They are cute, cuddly, funny, and they keep vermin away from your home. Some cats even rise above the fray and become famous in places far and wide. Meet ten cats who are tops in their native lands and around the globe, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
An Honest Trailer For The Jungle Book (2016)
Screen Junkies takes a look at the CGI/live action version of The Jungle Book, which will be available on DVD and Blu-ray next week. While they tend to tear movies apart with their Honest Trailers, the critique of this one is downright positive. That doesn’t mean they won’t point out all the silliness that went into it, including some jabs at the 1967 animated version. We also get to see some of the work that went on behind the scenes. (via Uproxx)
Cooking with Tools
One of the earliest articles I ever wrote for mental_floss was a re-working of an article I had here (that has since been lost). It's a list of unconventional cooking methods, including the use of steam irons, dishwashers, lava, blowtorches, car engines, and more. Enjoy Cooking With Tools.
Miss Cellania's Links
Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster? (via John Farrier)
There have only been 12 people in the world who have gone over 400 miles an hour in a piston-powered car. The twelfth man to do it was legendary racer Mickey Thompson’s son Danny, who broke his father’s speed of 406.6 miles last week. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/22/us/danny-thompson-bonneville-speed-record/ (via reddit) https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4z4au1/it_took_almost_50_years_but_i_set_400mph_speed/
The History Of Mac And Cheese.
11 Super Creepy Modern Conspiracies That’ll Make You Believe. Unless you do some further investigation, then you won’t believe.
The Big Sleep: Proof That Plot Doesn’t Matter. We could never figure out what was going on, but we loved watching Bogie and Bacall.
Extinct Marsupial Lions Killed Prey in a Really Weird Way. Thylacoleo carnifex must have been terrifying to prehistoric Australians.
Late-Night TV Shows You Might Have Missed. Night owls have always been a test audience for experimental television.
Women are literally expected to do all the chores, depressing study finds. This belief holds true for full-time working women, even if she’s making more money than her husband.
The Art of Hay Sculpture. You can make some bug stuff -and funny stuff- with bales of hay.
Guardians Trailer
A supernatural force is threatening the nation, so a secret government agency must locate and assemble a group of mutants with super powers to save the day. Sound familiar? What’s different is that this Russian movie is set in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The top comment at reddit:
I smirk when I see a sickle guy, someone who controls concrete, and a bear... because those are the most stereo typically Russian things ever.Guardians is set to debut in Russia in February of 2017. It will no doubt be distributed internationally sooner or later.
Then I realize I'm American and we've had 5 Captain American movies.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Welcome to the Fourth Grade
Imagine you are nine years old and you don’t feel at all confident about moving up to the fourth grade. You don’t know who your teacher is going to be, or what you’ll be doing this year. And then your parents get an email from your new teacher, and it’s a music video! New teacher Dwayne Reed sent a video to his incoming students to show them what the next year will be like for them. I can imagine that other Chicago fourth-graders are already envious. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Women in My Family Had to Be Good With Money. Not because they didn’t have enough, but because their husbands would take it from them. (via Metafilter)
The Misadventures of the Other Grand Duchess Anastasia, the Last "Real Romanov.” The last Tsar’s cousin was a true character as well as royalty.
In the 1430s, King Sejong came up with an idea to develop a Korean alphabet based on the sounds of the spoken language. That scared the wits out of the ruling elite class, who objected for centuries.
JFK's Goat-Out-the-Vote Campaign. It took a goat to get Massachusetts voters to give the young politician a good look in 1946.
What Is the Earliest Evidence for Life on Earth? It may be chemical smears inside gemstones.
8 hilariously outdated sex ed films you can watch online. No sex, though; they’re all about puberty in girls.
Ramen Is Now More Popular Than Cigarettes in U.S. Prisons. Food overall is becoming more scarce behind bars.
Damon McMillan and friends spent three years designing, building, and perfecting a solar-powered boat called the SeaCharger. How far can a boat like this travel by itself? You can keep track of the SeaCharger as it makes its way to New Zealand at the project’s website. (via Metafilter)
Monday, August 22, 2016
Gotta Love Millennials
Micah Tyler tells it like it is. I do love Millennials- after all, I have several of them! (Thanks, Bonnie!)
10 Delicious Food Mashups You Have to Try
What’s better than your favorite foods? Combining your favorite foods to make new foods! Combination dishes, or mashups, are another extension of how American cuisine developed in the first place, by using what ingredients are available and modifying recipes from elsewhere to adapt them to local tastes. Here are some mashups you might want to try, in a list I constructed for mental_floss.
Charter Schools
John Oliver explains what charter schools are, why politicians love them, and we the American public should beware of them.
Miss Cellania's Links
An anonymous guy asked Sara Benincasa why she is so fat. She gave him an answer.
There’s More To Measuring An Olympic Course Than Just Measuring It. (via Metafilter)
Manicures and Permanents: Inside a Senior Living Facility Beauty Shop.
How Natural Are Nature Documentaries?
These Are The Best Photos Of The 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony. All of the color in a fraction of the time.
15 Things You Didn’t Know About Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. The 1966 novel about drug abuse was based on real-life experiences.
When a Paris Newspaper Pushed a Housewife to Murder. Freedom of the press comes with real-life consequences.
What I'll miss about Gawker. Saying goodbye to the blog everyone loved to hate.
Body Anomaly Tattoos. Tats go a long way toward celebrating one’s difference.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Simon’s Cat Logic: Feeding a Cat
Simon Tofield and Nicky Trevorrow explain how cats go nuts when it’s feeding time. My cats can tell time better than I can, because if I’m the least bit late with the nightly Fancy Feast, they gang up on me. My oldest cat Gogo has nothing better to do than to guard the kibble bowl and let me know when it’s not quite full. The best part of this video is that it ends with a new Simon’s Cat cartoon entitled Feed Me.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
We Don't Win Anymore
"We don't win anymore." pic.twitter.com/opLEssKAxA— Deadspin (@Deadspin) August 20, 2016
(via Uproxx)
Friday, August 19, 2016
Meeting a Family of Skunks
Don’t. Move. An. Inch. You don’t want to startle this family! Francois Arsenault was out on his bike in Pointe-Taillon National Park in Quebec when he was approached by a fairly tame mother skunk and her litter. Luckily, he satisfied their curiosity without triggering their defense mechanisms. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
7 Insane Things TV Shows Did When They Ran Out Of Money.
Donald Trump and the long history of white men claiming fraud.
The Olympic tennis courts in Rio are surrounded by a bright green floor and walls, reminiscent of a TV studio weather center. The temptation was too great. (via Boing Boing)
The sorority house door stack is a strange and alien ritual.
Here’s How Ryan Lochte’s Robbery Story Turned Into An International Incident. Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
Hawaii Might Just Have The Best Rainbows On The Planet. Cameron Brooks records them from a helicopter.
Inside the World's Only Surviving Tattoo Shop For Medieval Pilgrims. You can still get a tat to commemorate your trip to the Holy Land, just like the Crusaders.
What's the deal with the modern pentathlon? The event combines running, swimming, shooting, fencing, and horseback riding, but why?
He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died. The photos Jamie Livingston took tell his story better than any book could have.
Thug Notes Review: A Wrinkle in Time
This was my favorite book when I was about ten years old or so. The illustrations here don’t quite match my imagination from that time, but the commentary is incisive and entertaining.
