Disney's animation team likes to have fun by making subtle references to other movies, characters, or real-life Disney employees in their movies. For example, pictured above is a screenshot from Frozen. There's a tiny Mickey Mouse figurine in Oaken's trading post. You can see it clearly at the 0:37 mark in this clip.
This is one of 22 Easter eggs that Brian Gilando of BuzzFeed found in Disney movies, both recent films and classics. You can find the rest here.
You may have heard of the disturbing result of a recent experiment. KIKN Radio in Sioux Falls, South Dakota discovered that the ice cream sandwiches that he purchased at Walmart won't melt under conditions that you would expect to liquify ice cream. That's because they contain guar gum and calcium sulfate, which increase the viscosity of the ice cream.
Our friends at 22 Words have learned that this subversion of our precious bodily fluids extends far beyond ice cream sandwiches. Even the ice sold in bags won't melt after being left out in the sun for over an hour!
Over the weekend, I will conduct further experiments with other Walmart products, including underpants, motor oil, and sleeping bags. Will these melt in the sun like they are supposed to?
Maybe they also do senior citizen or group discounts, but you can never be sure which television or movie character to impersonate until you show up at Not a Burger Stand and look at the chalkboard. This family-style restaurant in Burbank, California will take off a percentage if you use the right voice or wear the right costume. You can even eat free if you’re Patrick Stewart or arrive in a TARDIS.
Bubble wrap is so much fun! Each delightful pop lets us feel some tiny, immediate impact on the world. But Daisuke Akiyama’s goldfish bubble wrap is designed to inhibit this desire. It’s made to give the impression that there’s a tiny fish inside each bubble. That way, Akiyama says, “I’ve made it psychologically more difficult to pop.”
(Photo: China Daily)
11-year old Liang Yaoyi of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, died on June 6 of a brain cancer. He wanted to become a doctor when he grew up. He will not get the chance, but Yaoyi will get to heal the sick. Before he died, he asked that his organs be donated to people who need transplants. Within eight hours of his death, his kidneys and liver were transplanted.
After they were removed from his body, the doctors from the operating room bowed to honor him.
-via TYWKIWDBI
Whitlands Engineering is an Australian company that manufactures wood splitters, firewood processors, and awesomeness. In order to advance their dominance of the latter field, the company built a chainsaw powered by a 4.2-liter car engine extracted from a 1985 Holdren WB Ute.
Sadly, the company has no intentions of mass-producing this excellent design. It’s just a one-off marketing tool. That’s a pity because I could really use it to--well, nothing around the house, I suppose. But if I owned something this cool, I would find a good use for it.
-via Jalopnik
(Photo: WIRES Northern Rivers)
One morning, a man in Toonumbar, New South Wales, Australia went to his SUV to drive to work. He found a 9-foot long python sunning itself on the dashboard. Since he had another vehicle, he left the car doors open, hoping that the snake would move on. But when he got back home, he found that the snake was still there. So he left the doors open overnight.
After 5 days, the snake still had not moved out. So the owner called WIRES, an Australian wildlife rescue organization, to remove it. They evicted the snake, which WIRES described as "a bit cranky about being disturbed."
(Photo: Sam Bompas)
Hank Hill is right: clean-burning propane is the best way to taste the meat, not the heat. But in the absence of God's gas, lava is an acceptable substitute. Sam Bompas and Harry Parr give a demonstration in this video embedded below.
The artistic duo is known for its creative food installations, such as architectural Jell-O and a punchbowl so big you can row across it. For this project, they worked with Robert Wysock, an art professor at Syracuse University who is an expert at producing and controlling man-made lava.
They heated an industrial bronze furnace to 2,100ºF, placed a grill over the lava stream, and cooked two 10-ounce ribeye steaks and 2 ears of corn. You can see more photos at Designboom.
Bayonne is a city in southern France. Like Pamplona, Spain, there is a festival in which bulls chase runners through the streets. This is 2014, so it’s no longer enough for participants to just enjoy the thrill of angry bulls pursuing them. Now these moments must be immortalized on social media.
In Pamplona, this is actually illegal and police are searching for a man who snapped a photo of himself while a bull was just inches behind him. Police in Houston, Texas are not trying to find another man who made a video of himself while being chased because, thankfully, this is Texas.
Neither of those men appear to have been trampled. But YouTube user lexflex freeman shot this video of a man in Bayonne getting too distracted by his phone. It looks like he escaped with no injuries to his body—only his pride.
-via Daily Telegraph (warning: auto-play)
Desk designs that require you to move around are popular these days. Many people have standing desks. Others use treadmill desks, even though they impair your work performance.
If this is the lifestyle that you prefer, go for it. But I think that this trend in desk design is going in the wrong direction. The ideal position is not standing upright, but lying supine. The wise Sir Winston Churchill explained its value when asked for the secret to his success in life:
Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.
Precisely! Therefore this desk on sale in Japan is perfect for work and napping performance. You can save energy by skipping wasteful activities, such as sitting up in bed. The panel can rotate 360º and lock into six positions.
Long plane rides are so booooooooring. Here's a traditional game that helps you pass the time. Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal gives us a primer on the rules. It's really straightforward. Now the man on the toilet must tag his playmate back.
Note that on some planes, the sign flips up rather than down.
Be careful putting anything down in the studio of Akihiro Morohoshi, a Japanese miniatures artist. Cities will quickly pop up on everyday objects. Musical instruments, home appliances, and food containers will teem with life and the industry of tiny people. You can see more of his work at Spoon & Tamago.
If you're a native Japanese speaker traveling to an English-speaking country, you might wonder how you will be able to conduct business and everyday transactions in a language that is very different from your own. How will you order food at a restaurant, check into a hotel, or make a business deal?
Thankfully, in the Anglosphere, you can get most of this done by selectively quoting Star Wars. Darth Vader's own dialogue is a particularly good starting point, which is why the publishing company Gakken has produced a phrasebook which translates Lord Vader's English into Japanese. Here are some sample pages.
-via Rocket News 24
Once again, Nick Chipman of DudeFoods invents a food product that becomes instantly indispensible. Now that you know that these things exist, you feel an overwhelming urge to eat them, right? Of course, you do!
They're simple to make at home. First, bake unbreaded chicken wings. Then dip them in melted marshmallows, sprinkle with graham cracker crumbles, and pour on chocolate sauce. Yummy!
-via That's Nerdalicious!
And it's completely charming!
This is the Diana Isaac Retirement Village in Christchurch, New Zealand. 60 residents and members of the staff made this shot-by-shot remake of the original music video by Pharrell Williams. They made it to show their friends and family that they're happy. The Daily Mail describes the dapper fellow who plays Williams:
The star of the video, complete with a Pharrell-esque smart white shirt, bow tie and iconic hat, is 79-year-old former engineer Alister Leckie who Mr King said 'had never done anything like that before, and absolutely loved it'.
The residents stay in shape with regular exercise and flashmobbing, so they were up for the demands of the video.
Yes, really! They hold flashmobs. The residents converge on malls and dance. Skip to 4:00 in this video to see them in action.
-via 22 Words
