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Here’s Thomas Grillo playing a classic 1914 Mother song (written by Howard Johnson and Theodore Morse) on a Moog Theremin [wiki]. Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Ralph Geiger!
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This gruesome print memorializes the last two heads to be impaled on pikes over the Temple Bar, a stone archway that traditionally set off the western boundary of the city of London. Throughout the eighteenth century, the heads of traitors were routinely displayed on the roof of the Bar, which was called the Golgotha of Traitors.
Francis Townley and George Fletcher had been executed for their part in the 1745 rebellion, which was intended to place "Bonnie Prince Charlie" on the throne. The flag that the devil is waving over the archway was the banner of the rebellion, whose motto was "A Crown or a Grave." Under the devil’s wing is the Stuart crest.
This is the scene as described in Old and New London (1878) via British History Online:
The heads of Fletcher and Townley were put on the Bar August 12, 1746. On August 15th Horace Walpole, writing to a friend, says he had just been roaming in the City, and "passed under the new heads on Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spy-glasses at a halfpenny a look." According to Mr. J. T. Smith, an old man living in 1825 remembered, the last heads on Temple Bar being visible through a telescope across the space between the Bar and Leicester Fields. . . .
The heads were left to "moulder in the sun and the rain" for twenty-six years
till the last day of March, 1772, when one of them (Townley or Fletcher) fell. The last stormy gust of March threw it down, and a short time after a strong wind blew down the other . . . . According to Mr. Timbs, in his "London and Westminster," Mrs. Black, the wife of the editor of the Morning Chronicle, when asked if she remembered any heads on Temple Bar, used to reply, in her brusque, hearty way, "Boys, I recollect the scene well! I have seen on that Temple Bar, about which you ask, two human heads—real heads—traitors’ heads—spiked on iron poles. There were two; I saw one fall (March 31, 1772). . Women shrieked as it fell; men, as I have heard, shrieked. One woman near me fainted. Yes, boys, I recollect seeing human heads upon Temple Bar."
The print comes from Portaits, memoirs, and characters, of remarkable persons: from the revolution in 1688 to the end of the reign of George II collected from the most authentic accounts extant by James Caulfield’ [which] is online in its entirety as page images among the Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Library, Pennsylvania. Via BibliOdyssey
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Creativebits blog has a collection of some really creative business card designs (many from the businesscards pool on Flickr): Link – Thanks Tara!
That’s a Tesla coil sculpture called Cauac Twins, built by Syd Klinge for the Coachella 2007. Here are more photos and build photos of the largest twin Tesla coil in the world – Thanks Jason Mika!
Flickr user Mr Biscuit took these photos and wrote:
Personal pics from the set of Back of the Future taken while I was a security guard at Universal Studios. Hey, I heard Steven Spielberg snuck onto the lot in a security uniform, so I took it to the next level and got a job there. …
They built the 1955 set first, then when I came back just two weeks later, they had rebuilt the same set for 1985, paving over the courthouse square park and completely remodeling all the storefronts and signage. Amazing! And they did this TWICE, since they originally shot the entire movie with Eric Stoltz, who was later replaced by Fox.
Link [Flickr] – Thanks Geith!
Being Five is a comic blog by George Sfarnas about a five-year-old boy who blogs using a voice recognition software (why? because he can’t type yet, of course!). It’s very cute: Link – Thanks George!
Comments Off Whenever my friends get together, they always joke that they’d get a drum set for my little Maddy. Apparently, that might not be such a bad idea – case in point: Julian Pavone, the World’s Youngest Drummer (previously on Neatorama here: Link).
Now Julian is getting his own Reality TV Show, called Finding Julian’s Band. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] for the trailer. Also, check out Julian’s website: The Little Drummer Baby (warning: drumming, lots of it). – Thanks JP!
Element Labs, Inc. built this giant 45,000 square (!) feet LED display for the 2006 Asian Games ceremony in Doha, Qatar.
The massive size of the display—covering over 4,500 square meters, or 45,000 square feet—allowed it to be used in ways previously unachievable. …
In keeping with the circular structure of the stadium, the screen was designed to be curved. The entire screen is 165 meters wide along the curve, reaching 39 meters at its highest point. The screen is comprised of 20,000 individual Versa RAYs, which laid end to end would span 58 kilometers (over 36 miles). 762,000 individual LEDs were used, with a pixel pitch of 77 millimeters.
Link (with lots of cool pics) – Thanks Jason Mika!
The Chinese have built this swing on top of a 700 foot tall viewing platform in China. Swingers are propelled out over the edge of the platform for a terrific (or terrifying) view of Harbin city in the Heilongjiang province. Link
While this may be the swing with the longest potential fall, the world’s highest swing highlighted here in March still seems much scarier (particularly with its stomach turning 33 story freefall).
This is the weirdest Coke commercial.
Click play or go to Link [YouTube].
Link to YouTube – via Bilfeber
It’s like a giant Chia Pet: the 100-foot walls of the National Theatre in South Bank, London are covered in grass.
Which begs raises the question: how do you mow it?
Kludge Spot has a neat list of the Top 20 Signs You Might be a Geek:
When someone says ‘organized sports’ you think ‘LAN party’
You have lost most of your social abilities.
You never used them anyway.
You’re always free on Friday night. Free to play your favorite MMORPG
From the website:
This nasty rescue is no fish tale. Rescuers cut through a filtration tank of dense fish feces to reach four workers who fell into the sludgy dung Friday while cleaning the 18-foot tank at a western Massachusetts farm.
(Thumbnailed Photo: AP/ Greenfield Recorder, Paul Franz) Unfortunately, no photo of the giant vat of fish feces.
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BBC food writer Stefan Gates travelled to Chernobyl in Ukraine and meets with people live there and regularly eat radioactive food:
It turns out that the Chernobyl "Zone of Alienation" is home to several hundred mainly elderly people living illegally in the area, and their attitude to the risks of radiation is very different.
They returned to their homes soon after the disaster and are now growing vegetables and raising livestock again, despite the fact that the entire region is now an empty, isolated and post-apocalyptic vision of abandoned villages and rampant wildlife.
Anna is a wonderful, garrulous 83-year-old babushka who has returned to the Zone of Alienation.
She was outraged to hear that the BBC had instructed me not to eat any of her food and she began a sustained bullying campaign, saying: "What’s wrong with you? There’s nothing to fear from my food – God will protect you."
Her reasoning was pretty simple: "If it were contaminated we would have died a long time ago, but we’ve been eating it for 20 years already!"
Greyhound #3 fell down in the race, took a shortcut and got in first anyway! Smart dog!
Link [YouTube] – via Gorilla Mask
Tennessee inmate Philip Workman requested that his last meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person near prison, but prison official refused (they do not donate to charity, they said)
Upset after hearing the news, a few people decided to donate pizzas to homeless shelters themselves:
That apparently upset a few people willing to pay for and deliver a lot of pies themselves.
Homeless shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas all Wednesday. (Watch homeless feast on piles of pizza Video)
"I was like, ‘Wow, Jesus!’ " said Marvin Champion, an employee of Nashville’s Rescue Mission, which provides overnight shelter, food and assistance to more than 800 homeless people a night.
Link – via Blue’s News
Here’s something very cool: synchronized skating [wiki]! Apparently, it’s quite a popular sports in Europe.
Link [Google video]
When its own mother abandoned it, this lucky pig found a new mother, a German Shepherd dog! Link
Here’s something wonderful: old people dancing in the street to "Dance of the Knights" by Prokofiev. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks antnhec!
Here’s something that I wish I had while studying for the SATs: Justin Heimberg’s Yo Momma vocabulary builder book, which uses the one-liner joke to teach new words!
Yo momma’s so emaciated, she can hula hoop in a fruit loop.
Yo momma’s so obtuse, she thinks a webcast is when Spider-Man goes fishing.
Here’s an interview with Justin at ABC News: Link
And yes, that’s Justin with his mom (who happens to love the book, btw).
From the website:
Scientists have developed an artificial plastic blood which could act as a substitute in emergencies.
Researchers at Sheffield University said their creation could be a huge advantage in war zones.
They say that the artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer.
The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body.
Link – Thanks David R!
The City Desk, a blog about life in a non-existent city, is a strangely fascinating blog by RJ White. Sample entries:
As temperatures start to warm up, we would like to offer a reminder that a city ordinance passed last year makes public male toplessness illegal in the area bordered by 4th St, Gordon Ave, 57th St, and Burton Blvd.
Link – Thanks RJ!
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Shaun at the Book Inscriptions Project wrote to us:
We are trying to collect as many book inscriptions as we can from all around the world so we can put up a new one every day.
Some of them are funny, some are sad, some are just unbelievably personal. We would love to see the ones you’ve found over the years.
This one above is a 1935 copy of Victoria Regina: A Dramatic Biography by Laurence Housman, with the inscription:
"Miss E Frances. With my dear love. It is forbidden to laugh at Royalty."
Link – Thanks Shaun!
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