Assuming that this video is labeled correctly, we see three Olympic fencing masters taking on fifty opponents simultaneously. Right from the beginning, the three work together to seize a defensible position. But there are only three of them. They can fall many opponents, but can they prevail against such overwhelming numbers?
-via WTF Japan Seriously
(Zach Weinersmith/SMBC Comics)
God said, "I need somebody willing to stay up until dawn, milking experience points, arguing about rules all night in a basement, and fighting through a dungeon crawl, then eat a pizza, get his PC and go on a raid." So God made a gamer.
(Photo: theapexfan)
Well, what did you expect when you asked the galaxy's most famous bounty hunter to the prom? She's not going to wear body armor to a formal. Now step into the carbonite chamber. And don't worry. You're no good to her dead.
-via Fashionably Geek
In Billy Joel's 1973 hit song "Piano Man," the titular character is the lounge piano player who is a cathartic outlet for the miserable people who come to the bar.
In this parody version by YouTube user GrombarSmash, that character is Gregor Clegane, a knight with a reputation for violence extreme even by the standards of Westeros nobility. Here is "Bannerman," a tale of a bloodthirsty killer:
Sack us a town, you're the bannerman.
Sack us a town tonight.
'Cause you're big, and you're strong, and you're merciless.
And you love setting buildings alight.
Content warning: violence, gore, and scenes from Season 1.
-via Geek Art Gallery
The Java mouse deer (Tragulus javanicus) is among the smallest deer species in the world. Adults typically weigh between 2.2 and 4.1 pounds. Their natural habitat is the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia.
This baby Java mouse deer lives at the Bioparc Fuengirola, a zoo in Spain. When these photos were taken a few days ago, he weighed just 3.5 ounces.
(Photos: Bioparc Fuengirola)
Here he is with his mother, who was born at the zoo in 2007. They're 2 of 43 of their species currently in zoos in Europe. His father came from a French zoo last year.
-via Inhabitat
The Moonblush Baker is the kitchen genius responsible for the maple pecan cupcakes with buttermilk pancakes on top. She hasn't stopped there. For Easter Monday, she made this amazingly complex cake with multiple layers of sweetness.
It's designed to loosely resemble a Mars Bar. The inner core is salted caramel. It's surrounded by yellow cake donuts, which are themselves surrounded by a thick frosting that tastes of honey and nuts. Then the entire concoction is wrapped in a layer of vanilla butter cream frosting. Then she topped it with dulce de leche and pieces of Mars Bars.
-via NotCot
Some people love anything associated with unicorns. Two years ago, I linked to a recipe for cookies made with unicorn poop. It got quite a bit of traffic, despite the disgusting theme.
Well, far be it for me to look down upon you unicorn weirdos--so as long that sweet blog traffic keeps rolling in. Let me satisfy your craving for unicorn gastrointestinal products with this recipe for unicorn barf by Instructables member Danger is my middle name.
Because I don't judge you--at least publicly.
You'll need butter, large white marshmallows, and small cereal marshmallows, as well as whatever else you've been able to coax out of your unicorn's stomach.
-via Foodiggity
The story goes that in October of 1860, an 11-year old girl wrote to Abraham Lincoln, then the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Young Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York urged the clean-shaven Mr. Lincoln to "let your whiskers grow." Lincoln did so.
But he never wore a beard.
That's right. And your eyes aren't lying to you. That really is President Lincoln pictured above. But according to Sean Trainor, a doctoral student in history and women's studies at Penn State, Americans during Lincoln's time distinguished between the terms "whiskers" and "beards." Men who trimmed their facial hair had whiskers. Men who let their facial hair grow wild wore beards:
The words ‘beard’ and ‘whiskers’ connoted distinctive styles in mid-nineteenth century America—and contemporaries used the words differently than we do. The word ‘whiskers’ typically referred not only to bushy cheek growths—to massive sideburns and muttonchops, as it does in the present—but to what we would call a ‘wreath beard’ as well: to facial hair configurations that met beneath the jaw. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, described one fellow writer as having “[t]hick whiskers meeting under the chin,” and another whose “hair and whiskers are dark, the latter meeting voluminously beneath the chin.” One might even use the word whisker to refer to what we would call a moustache. Writer Edward L. Carey, for instance, referred to a character with a “whisker on [his] upper lip” in a story entitled “The Young Artist.”
‘Beards,’ on the other hand, were more unruly affairs. In an article in the American Phrenological Journal entitled “Wearing the Beard,” for instance, the anonymous F.W.E. instructed beard-wearers that, contrary to the practice of bewhiskered men, “Thou shalt not cut it off at all, but let it grow. Let it grow, all of it, as long as it will.” What often distinguished beards from whiskers, then, was neither facial real-estate nor the length of one’s hair—one might wear a short, untamed beard-in-the-making or a long, carefully-sculpted set of whiskers—but rather one’s relationship to the work of men’s grooming. Hairy men who continued to visit the barber, trim their mustaches, or wax their locks wore whiskers; men who let their facial hair grow unrestrained sported beards.
Brig. Gen. John C. Robinson (USA), however, sports a beard. And what a beard!
-via TYWKIWDBI
One has a wand. The other has a lightsaber. Both are champions of their mystical traditions. Who will prevail? Watch this impressive short film by Danny Philippou to find out. It's filled with great stunts and special effects. Tragically, it does not have a sensible Trekkie character to intervene and end the madness.
Content warning: foul language and violence.
-via Kotaku
Balloon artist John Reid built this enormous balloon sculpture for the Salt Lake City Comic Con. I cannot verify his claim, but he says that it's the largest balloon sculpture ever built by a single person.
-via Nerd Approved
UPDATE 4/28/14: The Deseret News has more information. Although Guinness World Records has not conferred a record upon Reid, proper record observers were on hand to watch Reid. A time-lapse video that Reid made will help him secure a Guinness record.
The sculpture is 50 feet tall and made of 4,302 balloons. It's so large that it can't stand in the convention center upright. Building it took Reid 42 hours.
How many hours of the day is a computer screen in front of you? Wait, let’s change that question: how many hours--or minutes--of the day is a computer screen not in front of you?
Dhairya Dand and Henry Holtzman of the MIT Media Lab think that we don’t spend enough time looking at the world outside of our screens. Even when walking around, many of us are also looking at our smartphones instead of the physical world (thus providing for hilarious moments on video).
So Dand and Holtzman created SuperShoes. These are insoles with built-in vibrating ticklers. They fit inside standard flat shoes. If you’re navigating an unfamiliar location with a map on your smartphone, you no longer have to look at your phone. The ticklers will vibrate you to let you know which direction you should move in.
-via Walyou
The cold never bothered me anyway, but I won’t turn away a nice warm latte on a wintery day. The great Japanese latte artist @Belcorno created this lovely image of Elsa and Anna on the surface of cups of coffee.
Will Pemble and his son Lyle love to visit amusement parks. One day, while returning home from one of those adventures, Lyle asked, "Why don’t we build our own roller coaster, Dad?"
That's what the two began to do. They call the project Coaster Dad. They're building a wooden mechanical roller coaster in their backyard. Will regularly updates their website about their progress. As you can see from the demonstration video above, it's coming along very well.
-via Hack A Day
The Milton-Madison Bridge stretches across the Ohio River. The 0.6 mile long structure connects Milton, Kentucky and Madison, Indiana. It was built in 1929. The bridge has shown its age, so engineers erected new pylons. Then, carefully, they slid the entire bridge over on to these new pylons. Watch this amazing time-lapse video showing the event.
-via The Presurfer
Edited 4/28/14: Thanks for letting us know about trusses vs. pylons, Jeff!
(Photo: Haplochromis)
99% of flamingo couples split up. 67% of piping plover couples separate. But according to ornithologist Jeffrey Black, albatross couples never divorce while 1 partner is still alive.
That's his conclusion after studying the mating habits of 100 bird species. Albatrosses travel thousands of miles, roving the sea for years. They are often physical separated from their mates for months. Occasionally, they may, er, stray from fidelity (unlike urban coyotes). But the albatross couples remain together for life. Robert Krulwich writes for NPR:
What's more, they don't see each other that often. When at sea, couples don't hang together. It's too easy to get separated. "So even the most committed partners habitually spend months at a time alone, without knowing what their mates are up to."
They don't build nests every year. Often, they'll wait for two. But when the urge is on them, somehow they both manage to return to the nesting site at roughly the same time "almost as if the date were prearranged" and they settle in.
"There are few distractions in the life of an albatross, so the birds concentrate on things that matter most — such as one another. They often sleep with the head of one bird cozily pillowed against the breast of its mate," Noah writes.
Whatever it is that brings them together, albatrosses turn out to be among the animal kingdom's most successful couplers. Nobody knows what they've got that makes them this way.
-via But Not Simpler
