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One of the strangest April Fool hoaxes ever was pulled of by one Isaac Bickerstaff, an astrologer who published an almanac predicting the events of the year 1708. One of his predictions was the death of rival astrologer John Partridge on March 29th. On April first, news of Partridge’s death was all over London, and funeral arrangements were being made. The only problem was that Partridge was not dead. However, he spent the rest of his life trying to live down the hoax. Read the entire story, and the surprising true identity of Isaac Bickerstaff, at Damn Interesting. Link
The Harvard Lampoon’s latest issue came out April first entitled National Geographic. Staff members at National Geographic helped the student magazine to ensure the parody stayed true to the magazine’s style. Stories include Mongolia’s Wildest Waterparks, speculation on the nature of light, and an expose on the manufacture of lava lamps.
Editors from National Geographic could not be reached Monday, but the magazine released a facetious statement.
“Editors are unavailable for comment, having left the country … as usual,” it said. “There are reports of laughter from parts of the building, but that could just be because we are a fun place to work.”
Link to story. Link to pictures.
If you have young children, or if you’re young at heart, this is the song for you: The Elephant Song by Eric Herman (video created by Eric’s wife Roseann with the help of their 3-year-old daughter Becca. The little girl in the song is Meghan, who was 6 at the time).
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Christophe! | Don’t forget to check out Eric’s webstore: Link
Thats the METI Human Patient Simulator, a robot that breathes, urinates, and blinks with uncanny realism.
The high-tech robotic mannequin simulates a wide variety of battle wounds and injuries and is currently used in the Navy Trauma Training Center to train doctors and nurses in combat zones.
Link – Thanks Dave! (Photo: Dave Bullock)
Fogonazos blog has an interesting post about the huts abandoned by Antarctic explorers Robert F. Scott and Ernest Shackleton:
Shelves are still stocked with tins of cabbage, veal or onions. All these objects have been preserved by the cold for the last 100 years. Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton left them here in their way to the South Pole, in the beginning of the 20th century. But none of them was able to come back.
Link – Thanks aberron!
What do these sentences have in common?
"I noticed his glazed pompadour had acquired a killer swoop; a foxy wave befitting a jester."
"Strike with prejudice against laziness, that quixotic devil procrastination—but maybe tomorrow."
"Coitus interruptus—often exactly at the wrong moment, quite bedeviling kenetic zest—just happens."
Neatorama reader Ryan Hagen explains:
I’ve been fascinated for a while now by Pangrams,
sentences which contain each letter of the alphabet at least once (the most
famous one of course is "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog"). A few
weeks ago, as a challenge to myself, I started writing one pangram every
morning, and have been so captivated by the process that I find I can’t stop.So I started this blog, Pangramaday, to showcase the best of them.
Link – Thanks Ryan! (BTW, the illustration is from The Liner by John Ralston, whom we’ve covered before here on Neatorama)
Forget the Obama Girl … Here’s the Obama kid: Jeff Simmermon of And I Am Not Lying blog wrote to us about his friend’s toddler whose political preference was already set at such an early age. (Note how he has to get the last word in!)
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via And I Am Not Lying, thanks Jeff!
Dave Chameides of 365 Days of Trash blog wrote to us about his project of keeping all the trash he generates in a year:
The idea for this project came about six months ago as I was throwing something away in the garbage. It occurred to me that I was doing nothing more than that. I was making it go away, not dealing with it, not accounting for it, simply removing it from my sight. [...]
So starting tonight at midnight, I am not going to throw anything away for 365 days in order to see what my impact is. It sounds sort of nuts at first (perhaps for a bit after that as well), and believe me, while I am intrigued by the concept, I’ll admit that there are parts of it that I am dreading. Am I really looking forward to going on vacation and bringing all my trash home in a suitcase? Hardly, but that said, I need to be honest about this or it’s not worth doing in the first place. My hope is that, as the experiment takes shape, I will be able to quickly ascertain what waste I can simply cut out through choices, what waste is necessary but that can be dealt with in a sustainable way, and what waste I just simply can’t do anything about.
He’s keeping all the trash in his basement and you can follow his "progress" at his blog here: Link – Thanks Dave!
Treehugger has a short and sweet article about the Belmont Clothes Library in Australia, which loans out business apparel to the unemployed so they can look smart for job interviews!
Just avoid the underwear section! Link – Thanks Chris!
A lot of cities in the United States are strapped for cash but a handful of them are taking extreme measures of raising funds by taking these steps:
1. Install red-light cameras
2. Shorten the yellow light duration
3. Profit!
Here is an article at the National Motorist Association about 6 cities that were caught shortening yellow traffic light durations for profit. Take Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example:
The city of Chattanooga was forced refund $8800 in red light cameras tickets issued to motorists trapped by an illegally short yellow time. The refund only occurred after a motorist challenged his citation by insisting that the yellow light time of 3.0 seconds was too short. LaserCraft, the private vendor that runs the camera program in return for a cut of the profits, provided the judge with a computer database that asserted the yellow was 3.8 seconds at that location.
The judge then personally checked the intersection in question was timed at three seconds while other nearby locations had about four seconds of yellow warning. City traffic engineer John Van Winkle told Bean that “a mix up with the turn arrow” was responsible and that the bare minimum for the light should be 3.9 seconds. (Source)
Link – Thanks Christophe! (Photo: Tmuna Fish [Flickr])
Photo: massdistraction [Flickr]
Folks, it’s time for this week’s Neatorama and Hobotopia‘s Caption Monkey game. But first, the story behind this photo, from Flickr user massdistraction:
I’m going to burn in hell for posting this…but here’s the story. Many years ago the little man went to daycare daily, while I worked full-time. He wasn’t yet potty-trained but would wander into their bathroom, express some interest (as the older kids used the potty) then wander out again. Usually. On this day he somehow managed to get himself stuck in the toilet. The daycare provider’s first instinct was to grab a camera and snap off a photo before helping him out. I was both appalled and amused (and felt guilty for the latter).
Now, on to the game: place your caption in the comment section. One caption per comment, please, but you can enter as many as you’d like. The funniest caption will get a prize: Adam "Ape Lad" Koford’s Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, which details the adventures of Kitteh and Pip in over 250 comic panels.
If you like Adam’s old-timey LOLcat cartoon (many found in his Flickr set), then you’ll love this book!
Good luck (if you don’t win, you can still get his book at Lulu).
Update 4/4/08: Congratulations to Nora whose caption “Mario Lied to Me!” won! Woohoo, way to go, Nora!
Why settle for Vitaminwater? Go for the flavor you really crave with Meatwater! It comes in many flavors: Beef Jerky, Beef Stroganof, Cheese Burger, Chicken Teriyaki, Dirty Hot Dog, Fish’n Chips, Hungarian Gulash, Italian Sausage, Peking Duck, Tandoori Chicken, Texas BBQ, Wiener Schnitzel, and introducing the new Escargot flavor! From Till Krautkramer. Link -via the Presurfer
In case you are lost, or drawing a blank on what to do for April Fools Day, don’t be blue (or orange or gray). You might find these pages useful. In case you want to design your own April Fool post. -via the Presurfer, YesButNoButYes, and Metafilter.
Frances Carr was quite a piece of work. Born into the powerful, not to say Machiavellian, Howard family in 1591, she was married to the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, when she was 13 and he was 14. They were kept apart for a couple of years because of their youth, but when they finally got together, Frances was dissatisfied to say the least — she had already fallen in love with the Earl of Somerset –and went about getting the marriage annulled for non-consummation:
She claimed that she had made every attempt to be sexually available for her husband, and that she was still a virgin. She was examined by ten matrons and two midwives who found her hymen intact. It was widely rumoured at the time that Sir Thomas Monson’s daughter was a substitute, which is possible because she had requested to be veiled during the examination "for modesty". The matter was a subject of mockery and ribald commentary throughout the court, including: This Dame was inspected but Fraud interjected In turn, Essex claimed that he was capable with other women, but was The idea of satanic involvement was seriously considered by the judges and at one point it was proposed that Essex should go to Poland to see if he could be "unwitched". The annulment languished and possibly would not have been granted if it were not for the king’s intervention (Somerset was the favourite of King James). James I of England granted the annulment . . . and Frances married Somerset [in] 1613.
A maid of more perfection
Whom the midwives did handle whilest the knight held the candle
O there was a clear inspection.
unable to consummate his marriage. . . . When asked why only she
caused his failing, he claimed that "she reviled him, and miscalled
him, terming him a cow, and coward, and beast."
Prior to the marriage, a friend of Somerset’s, Sir Thomas Overbury, tried to convince the groom not to go through with the wedding. Frances’s family, the Howards, took immediate action:
[They] managed to get Overbury imprisoned during the annulment proceedings where he died — interestingly enough, the annulment went through eleven days after his death. It has been widely considered that Lady Somerset had him poisoned through an agent. The Somersets were convicted of murder, but spared execution.
Thanks to 24-Hour Museum for reminding me of this Renaissance shocker. And, by the way, if you think that neckline is low, it was not uncommon for some ladies of high fashion to show actual aureole.
Anyone who’s ever seen the heartbreaking documentary Lost in La Mancha knows that esteeemed filmmaker Terry Gilliam does not have fortune on his side when he’s making films. But what might be less familiar to people is that his bad luck has followed him almost since the beginning of his career. According to film blog Cineleet:
No director in history knows more about compromise than Terry Gilliam. Part and parcel of being a visionary is being constantly told you can’t get the shot. Forces of Darkness conspire to defeat you, often in the form of studio executives, sometimes in the form of Nature herself.
Right now, they have a great post documenting many of the challenges Gilliam has faced, from 1977′s Jabberwocky all the way through next year’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which was dramatically affected by the tragic death of Heath Ledger (Ledger was slated to portrayed one of the film’s main characters). I can’t imagine the fortitude it takes for a man like Gilliam, who’s suffered countless setbacks, to keep pressing forward. I’d like to think that the visions he has for his movies prevent him from stopping.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.
The exciting Virgle project was announced today at the Official Google Blog.
