Friday, December 05, 2014
Hebocon: The Robot Contest for Dummies
Hebocon is a robot battle in Japan that focuses on low-tech, crappy robots. In fact, entrants are penalized for any hi-tech features- and there’s a trophy for the lowest-tech robot in the competition! What remains are conglomerations of cheap toys and motors made for other purposes. The fun of the contest takes precedence over winning, and the entrants even help each other out. The resulting video is a joyous celebration of failure.
For the English captions, the robots were introduced with descriptions: Pole Dancing as a Weapon, Sweeping Foes with a Dust Pan, Addressing the Stupidity of Fighting, Sushi-go-round of the Future, Speeds Up as the Cow is Lowered, and more. My favorite was the soup-packet-shaking robot we first see at about 2:10. (via Daily of the Day)
This. Is. Target!
Only in America do we conflate Christmas shopping with an epic battle between warring factions. As opening time on Black Friday approaches, Target employees get an inspirational speech from a guy the uploader says is named Scott, but I believe it may actually be William Wallace or Leonidas. Considering how outnumbered the Target crew will be in the looming melee, they will need all the inspiration they can get. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
Miss Cellania's Links
23 Disturbing Santa Claus Photos That Will Wreck Your Christmas. I would make a more jolly Kris Kringle myself!
The Republican Party's top priority is to raise taxes on the poor. Literally.
One Size Fits All? Let’s test that statement. (via Metafilter)
The Pantone Color Institute has announced the Color of the Year for 2015: Marsala 18-1438. The color is named after the wine, which is descriptive enough. (via Design Boom)
10 Offbeat Christmas Movies You Can Stream Online. By now, you’re probably ready for something besides what TV is offering over and over.
Matt Davidson got an old TV and used the cabinet to enclose an aquarium. But to make it a proper TV aquarium, he outfitted it to exactly resemble Jerry’s apartment in the TV show Seinfeld! (via reddit)
10 Cool Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Hawking. He was a college athlete; try to guess in which sport.
10 serious-sounding medical conditions that aren't so serious. But these fancy words will come in handy when you want to cause panic among your friends and family.
A Brief History of Christmas Tree Lights. You’ll appreciate electricity all the more when you consider balancing candles on your Christmas tree.
The Terminator Genisys Trailer
The fifth Terminator movie Terminator: Genysis marks the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the franchise. It is a retelling of the events of the first film surrounding Sarah Conner, now rendered in an alternate timeline that has been altered by other time travelers the principles weren’t aware of when they set things in motion. You can’t really call it a reboot, since it is a different story, just set in the same time, and believably connected to the original timeline …except for a few pesky things like the actors being different and Arnold being 30 years older. The movie could be either a shot in the arm for the franchise, or as terrible as our worst fears. Either way, we have to wait until next summer to see it. (via Gamma Squad)
Thursday, December 04, 2014
How to Do Action Comedy Like Jackie Chan
There are few movie stars who can combine comedy and action as smoothly as Jackie Chan. What makes him so good at what he does? Detailed attention to lot of a lot of things you never consciously notice in a movie. Every frame is planned, choreographed, and edited just so. In this fascinating video from the series Every Frame a Painting, Tony Zhou explains those details. While he does, we get to see Chan fight his way through four decades of movies. Particularly interesting is the difference between his Hong Kong films and his American movies, where he doesn’t have as much control over the finished product. (via Laughing Squid)
A Cthulhu Christmas
Some people like to combine their traditional Christmas holiday decorations and customs with their enjoyment of H.P. Lovecraft’s dreaded elder god Cthulhu. Cthulhu’s appearance is depicted as “part man, part dragon, and part octopus,” and the incongruence of his image in the trappings of a joyous family-centered holiday are too precious to resist. Some refer to these mashups at Cthulmas or Cthulhumas, while others just simply say Cthulhu Christmas. See some of the best in an article I posted at mental_floss.
Simon’s Cat in Catnip
Guess what Simon’s Cat is getting for Christmas! You guessed it: catnip. And like all of Simon Tofield’s cat animations, this one is brilliant in the way it portrays one cat as representative of everyone’s cat. Give a cat a catnip toy, and eventually they will be rolling around in the mess they made all over the floor. I may be wrong, but I believe this is the first time I’ve heard Simon’s Cat purr. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Miss Cellania's Links
The “Gangnam Style” video had so many view that YouTube was forced to upgrade its view counter. When they did, they gave the song’s counter an easter egg you can see when you hover over it.
Lothar's Apartment - Same Place, Different Time. Stripping an apartment of all its personality is sad, but it opens up a new palette for the next occupant to personalize. (Thanks, Özi!)
The world's largest Christmas lights display makes your house look like a joke. A tasteful, energy-efficient joke.
Baby Bats Swaddled Like Little Burritos Are Way Cuter Than You Might Expect. The little orphans are swaddled for naps at a rescue center in Australia.
In 1985, a collection of about 200 brains from mental asylum patients was set into a closet at the University of Texas in Austin. There, they sat for over twenty years until photographer Adam Voorhes found out about them in 2011.
New terms in the Oxford Dictionaries include duck face, lolcat, cool beans, and more. Suddenly, we’re all speaking a little more properly.
The Horrifying Sound of an Aztec Death Whistle. A hundred of these drawing near would be enough to make you lay down and surrender -then change your pants.
Royalty, Espionage, and Erotica: Secrets of the World's Tiniest Photographs.You may have a Stanhope lens and never even know it!
Hitler on Ice: Did the Nazis Have a Secret Antarctic Fortress? Tracing outlandish tales back to their roots makes a great story on its own.
Stuck on a Ski Lift
One of the thoughts you inevitably have on a ski lift or chair lift is what happens if the mechanism stops? Travis Waite found out when he went up at Beach Mountain ski resort. He’s lucky the lift wasn’t any higher at his stopping point. The rescuers threw a rope over the cable so he could be belayed down. But oh, that snow is slippery! That’s when the procedure goes altogether slapstick. Then the boss says, “You know, next time I’m gonna have to…” Next time? Now I have to wonder how often this happens. In this video you’ll see something that rarely happens in these type of videos: the guy with the camera actually puts it down to help! (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Richard Pryor in 1964
In a clip from the 1964 Kraft Music Hall Special, Richard Pryor sounds like someone completely foreign compared to the star he became. The coffee cans may sound completely foreign to you, too. (via Uproxx)
Building Curiosity
PBS Digital Studios put together a tribute to the Mars Curiosity rover illustrated with LEGO and narrated with inspirational quotes from some very prominent scientists you may recognize. The point is that to make Curiosity and successfully launch it onto the surface of Mars, you have to start with your own curiosity. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
An Honest Trailer for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Just as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is going to home video, Screen Junkies gives us the Honest Trailer for it. If you haven’t seen the film yet, this contains some spoilers, but not enough to make you not want to watch it. Frankly, it’s hard to parse a plot out of anything in this video. But I’ll still watch it, because when the scales are balanced between “stupid” and “awesome,” I’ll just make more popcorn. (via Gamma Squad)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)