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Mental_floss magazine dug up songs that made the news in the past quarter-century. They may be from a different era, and most of them aren’t particularly popular or critically acclaimed (although some are), but they all made a difference in the world one way or another. Many different ways, actually. Read the stories of each and every song at the blog. Link
Image: Bernie Boston
You probably don’t know who Paul Cole and Antoinette Sithole (or George Harris, above) are by name, but you’ve definitely seen their pictures. Over on listverse, Paul Holtum looks a little more closely at the people in iconic images, from The Little Rock Nine to the Abbey Road cover to the famous “Migrant Mother.”
I thought it would be interesting, and hopefully entertaining, to do a more personalized look at the subjects in some of these well know photographs. The unfamiliar names below will have one thing in common: because of a split second in time with a camera pointing towards, them they will always be remembered as “the person in that photograph.”
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The geeks shall inherit the earth? Vanity Fair made a list of the 100 most influential people, and internet geeks dominate the top slots.
1. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
2. Steve Jobs (Apple)
3. Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Erick Schmidt (Google)
4. Rupert Murdoch (News Corp)
5. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
6. Bernard Arnault (LVMH)
7. Michael Bloomberg (mayor of New York City)
8. Larry Ellison (Oracle)
9. Evan Williams and Biz Stone (Twitter)
10. John Malone (Liberty Media)
All 100 are profiled at Vanity Fair. Link -via Holy Kaw!
But it’s a good kind of weird. Neatorama made the list of Metro.co.uk’s “Top 10 Weird blogs”, along with Asylum UK, Dark Roasted Blend, Anorak, Oddville Daily, I have seen the whole of the internet, Urlesque, Weird Worm, Unique Daily, and Nothing to do with Arbroath. So we’re in good company! Link -Thanks, Jesse Netherland!
io9 takes a look at cities with something different, whether it’s a colony of feral dogs who live side-by-side with city residents, a town on fire, underground office spaces, or microorganisms that flourish in toxic sludge. And then there’s Thames Town, a copy of an English community in China.
This quaint English village, housing 10,000 people, is just 20 miles outside the center of Shanghai, and a new rail system puts it just 15 minutes from downtown, as part of a rapidly expanding Greater Shanghai. Thames Town was designed to look exactly like a bucolic English town, complete with red brick buildings, a sandstone church, a village green, a market square, and a pub. But it’s not a theme park – developers insist it’s a real residential community.
Link -via the Presurfer
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Some animal species get more press than others, but there’s always more to learn about the animal kingdom. For example, you’ve heard of the giant squid? Its cousin, the colossal squid, is even more astounding.
Colossal squids are found in the oceans around Antarctica, and were only recently photographed alive. Measuring up to 14 meters long and weighing up to 200 kgs, it is easily the largest invertebrate in the world. It also has the largest eyes of any living animal; these eyes allow it to see in the dark, an useful ability for an animal that spends most of its life in the deepest parts of the sea. Colossal squids are powerful, formidable predators armed with eight arms and two long tentacles; unlike the giant squid, which is armed with suction cups only, the colossal squid has both suction cups AND “tiger-like claws” on its tentacles, which allows it to catch bigger prey and to defend itself against its two main enemies, the sperm whale and the giant sleeper shark, both of which can sustain serious injury while trying to attack one of these squids.
Read about more of these little-publicized species at Listverse. Link -via Look at This
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I love it when people turn the ordinary into something special, it’s a nice change of pace. For example, check out these 31 cool benches, found all over the world.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
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We’ve had quite a few sci-fi movies grace our screens these past ten years, and Avatar will cap off a decade of the genre’s efforts this Friday. But which ones were good enough to make it on Sci-Fi Squad’s top ten list? Their staff narrowed the winners down to eleven, actually, with two very similar independent films occupying the same entry.
Jacob Hall writes about one of his picks: Minority Report.
The film is an engrossing look at a startlingly realistic future where psychics are used to predict murders and “Pre-Crime” units arrest would-be killers in advance. It is also a rousing, muscular action film in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the only film in recent memory to have a jet-pack chase. A jet-pack chase. It raises fascinating questions about choice and destiny and how even the best intentions can be abused and corrupted. It features oddness not seen from Spielberg since the ’80s, including a cackling Peter Stormare and Cruise pursuing his own rogue eyeball down a hallway.
They did leave some very good titles off their alphabetical list. I’d have gone ahead and put Avatar on there for how it looks alone.
Link. (Photo: Dreamworks Entertainment)
Within a storytelling construct, an antagonist is key, and cartoons have had some of the most dynamic, interesting villains throughout history. The list at Bezbrige has ten interesting choices, including everybody’s favorite desert dog: Wile E. Coyote.
Wile Ethelbert Coyote seems to have an endless supply of Acme tools that he can use against the innocent Roadrunner. In every episode he attempts to destroy the Roadrunner with a bag of tricks that would make any terrorist envious. Thankfully he usually fails and blows himself up (something else the terrorists are probably familiar with).
See the rest of the list, and come back and tell us what they missed.
Link. Cartoon still from Fast & Furryous, 1949. (Wikimedia).
The Kids In The Hall were probably most successful at pulling off the female disguise, although they weren’t trying to fool anyone. Their skits occasionally needed women characters, and their delivery was a perfect blend of self-awareness and application.
Many times in movies and other forms of entertainment, the contriving plot demands someone dress like a woman and fool other people, ostensibly people who aren’t blind. OMG Lists compiled ten of the worst offenders, from White Chicks to Bosom Buddies. It’s a pretty accurate list, despite my affection for Tootsie.
Lifehacker collected ten handy household repair secrets from around the web that may come in handy when you least expect them. For example, a tip for getting your dying hard drive to survive long enough to make the backup you should have made long ago.
If it looks like mechanical failure is the cause, and you need just a bit more data off that drive before it’s gone for good, try sticking it in the freezer until it’s good and cold, then let it reach room temperature again and give it another try. This passed-around tech geek tip works, as a last resort, because when worn-out mechanical parts fail to connect and align properly, contracting them with cold, then allowing them to expand again, can sometimes restore things to barely-working order just long enough to give you a little more time before the funeral.
You’ll also find quick fixes for stripped screw holes, broken light bulbs, and even hangovers! Link -via the Presurfer
During president Richard Nixon’s administration, he and his staff compiled a list of political enemies. How well do you know (or remember) this list? Take the challenge in today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. My memory isn’t what it used to be; I only scored 50%. Link
If ever there was a cause for a Spoiler Alert, this would rank. The very nature of good films is the conflict factor, which will ultimately end with someone’s demise. But who’s whose? And how? When it’s done memorably well, character death in a movie can have a lasting impression, and worthy of a top ten list. David Frank’s offering at RopeOf Silicon is a pretty good one.
These are the death scenes we remember long after the actors have screamed, slobbered, cried, coughed, wheezed, or drawn out to William Shatner-esque lengths their final words. They are a perfect combination of acting, writing, filmmaking, image and idea. Some are shocking. Some are sad or bittersweet. Others funny. Some deaths you cheer on. All are memorable.
There are many more, of course. Which ones did he leave out?
Image from Psycho, Paramount Pictures.
You know all about student pranks – greased pigs in the cafeteria, cows being led upstairs, all of that juvenile stuff. Maybe you’ve even heard about the more complicated college stunts – when M.I.T. students erected a police car on the top of the school’s Great Dome, for example. Its license plate number was pi. Anyway, here are a few lesser-known student stunts. If you’re, um, “inspired” by some of these, I claim no fault… but be sure to take pictures.
Caltech is M.I.T.’s biggest rival in pranks, despite being located at opposite ends of the country. They often take potshots at one another and are especially prone to pranks at football games. Although the Great Rose Bowl prank is pretty well known, another football stunt occurred when Caltech wasn’t even playing. During the 1964 Washington vs. Illinois Rose Bowl game, the audience of 100,000 was rather bored by a somewhat lackluster game. That is, until they looked up and realized that someone had changed the electronic scoreboard to make it appear as if Caltech was putting the hurt on M.I.T. It happened again in 1984 – although the teams were UCLA and Illinois (again), it appeared as if Caltech was stomping M.I.T., 31-9.
I did a little digging around and created a list of facts that tell the history of the great sport of miniature golf.
The Ladies’ Putting Club in St. Andrews, Scotland is considered the very first miniature golf course. It was built in 1867 for practical purposes as it was considered unacceptable for women to take the club back past their shoulder during this time period.
There were stories of 12-year-old boys, during the Great Depression, that for an initial investment of 90 cents would set up a miniature golf course in a vacant lot and turn a 1000% profit over the weekend.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by stevesteve8383.
Who knew that Gourmet Magazine has been picking cookies of the year for the past 68 years!
You can view pictures and the recipes for each year, from 1941′s Cajun Macaroon to 2008′s Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies.
Skip the Flash intro (link below) and delve to the 1940 cookies list here.
Link – via suburbanfoodforthought
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by stevesteve8383.
Just so you completely understand, The Longest List of the Longest Stuff at the Longest Domain Name at Long Last is a website that compiles a list about the longest things in the world.
For example:
... the world's longest abbreviation containing 56 letters:
NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOM
ONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT
Meaning: Laboratory for Shuttering, Reinforcement, Concrete and Ferroconcrete Operations for Composite-monolithic and Monolithic Constructions of the Department of Technology of Building Assembly Operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for Building Mechanization and Technical Aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR.
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
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