Miss Cellania's Blog Posts

Persistence of Vision lll

Have you ever seen a cathedral dance? Ismael Sanz-Pena made it happen, by harnessing the frame rate, a rhythmic beat, and one single photograph of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway.

(vimeo link)

If you think the video is moving too slow at the beginning, just give it a few seconds and watch the statues dance! Sanz-Pena's Persistence of Vision I and Persistence of Vision II are experimental clips that can't hold a candle to number three. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: DXR)


Defensive Profile

Aw, yes, that's the application I really want -a translation button that, in addition to other languages, can tell us the thought process behind a post. By the time that happens, the robots will have already taken over and humans will be considered irrelevant. Still, a canny person can intuit what's going on. Too bad the person in the profile can't figure it out. A big chunk of the world's problems could be solved if everyone were able to put themselves in someone's else's shoes when needed. This is the latest from Randall Munroe at xkcd. Go to the comic link to see the extra hover text line.


Bewitched Chinese Dancing Horses

Often when you hear about supernatural events from a thousand years ago, like animals acting in ways you would not expect, you assume that the story has been made up, or at least embellished. That's what you'd think if someone told you a group of war horses started dancing like a chorus line from a Broadway musical. However, this tale has plenty of contemporary provenance in written records.

It is a WIBT (wish I’d been there) moment from Chinese history. One night in the mid-late eighth century the warriors of the Chinese warlord Ch’Eng-szu (704-778) were preparing a sacrificial feast. Some struck up music to add to the festive atmosphere when suddenly a very strange thing. Dozens of the war horses in the field behind them got into line and began to prance in a synchronized fashion to the tune, banging their hooves in unison. The onlookers were horrified at these bizarre dancing horses and news quickly spread that Ch’Eng-szu’s horse were bewitched.

In this case, there was a perfectly logical explanation, although the great coincidence convinced witnesses that something supernatural had to be involved. The moral of the story is that you don't know what you're getting when you steal other people's possessions. Read about the dancing horses of Hsuan Tsung at Strange History.  -via Strange Company


108 Years of Repaving

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909 as the largest sports arena in the world. It earned the named "the Brickyard" because the race track was paved with bricks. But it's asphalt now, and the road surface has been resurfaced and improved many times over the years. What you see here is a core sample taken at the track, two feet high and full of history. IMS president J. Douglas Boles posted this picture at Twitter. Speedway historians used the core to make a graphic explaining the various layers and the work that went into resurfacing the track over the years, which you can see at Jalopnik.


Thor Sings "Not Worthy"

Thor, the god of thunder, is back in theaters this weekend with Thor: Ragnarok. You know what that means- it's hammer time! Listen to him sing the song "Not Worthy," a parody of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This." And it works. Stay away from that hammer if you are not worthy.

(YouTube link)

Listen to the rhymes of this clever edit of the Thor and Avengers movies, set to a tune you know and love. James Covenant made the video for How It Should Have Ended. -via Geeks Are Sexy


The Long Travels of La Corriveau’s Cage

Marie-Josephte Corriveau became a legend in Quebec. She was executed for murdering her husband in 1763, and the tales grew from there. She was a witch. She was descended from a long line of poisoners. She killed seven husbands. The stories took on a folk tale quality, but there was a real Marie-Josephte, and she became famous due to the horrific way her dead body was publicly displayed, as a warning to citizens in the young nation that was then called New France.   

They sentenced Marie not only to hang, but for her body to be gruesomely displayed in a metal gibbet as a warning. She was hanged in April of 1763, and her body was placed on public display for about five weeks in nearby Pointe Lévis.

“They wanted to give an advertisement to the population with this hanging in the cage,” says Toupin. “It was unusual because this tradition didn’t exist anymore in France, but the British still used it, so it was a new thing for us, and for us an important political symbol. It’s still in our memory, because what they did was unfair.” Corriveau’s extreme sentence, both shocking and cruel, cemented her story in the local history and culture.

Eventually Corriveau’s body, metal gibbet and all, were taken down and buried in an unmarked grave in a Pointe-Lévis churchyard. And for almost 100 years, that’s where she stayed, her story slowly taking on mythic dimensions.

Only the gibbet, a metal body enclosure, remained when Corriveau’s grave was found by accident in 1851. The artifact traveled more than Corriveau ever did. Read the story of Marie-Josephte Corriveau at Atlas Obscura.


Cougar vs. Skunk

Who's the king of the forest? It's not the cowardly mountain lion! But in this case, you really can't blame the cougar for running away. The curious cat met up with the one critter that will repel even the most ferocious predator- a skunk! And the cougar quickly learns that discretion is the better part of valor. In other words, pick your battles, but don't pick one with a skunk.

(YouTube link)

The badass skunk, who knows his strengths, chases the cougar off not once, not twice, but over and over again. Greg Shyba caught this little drama playing out on a road near Calgary. -via Digg


The Tricky Origins of Turkey Day

(Image credit: Daniel Krall)

How the fall holiday wires got crossed.

Masked children roaming door-to-door, begging for treats. Well-lubricated adults dressing up for costume parties. Sounds like a normal Halloween -except it wasn’t. Less than a century ago, this was Thanksgiving. It seems as bizarre as decking the halls on the Fourth of July, but it’s true: For decades before World War II, Turkey Day was the day for putting on false faces

(Image source: Library of Congress)

How did Thanksgiving take such a detour? According to the 1873 book Old New England Traits, in the  early 19th century, poorer Massachusetts residents started knocking on doors on the holiday’s eve, begging, “Something for Thanksgiving?” As a (bad) joke, well-to-do children began dressing in tattered clothes and doing the same.

Continue reading

10 Things You Didn’t Know about Finding Nemo

Did you watch the movie Finding Nemo back in 2003 during its first theatrical run, or did you watch it at home later when your children or grandchildren were the right age? My kids were five and six, so we went to the theater, and I think I enjoyed it more than they did. They didn't have the context to be impressed by the amazing animation, the marine species, the geography, the familiar voices, and the subtle references. But they did enjoy it. Check out some of the other things that went into Finding Nemo.  

10. Nemo was shown initially in Monsters, Inc.

This is how Pixar silently begins to announce their upcoming films. Nemo was a toy in Boo’s room if you go back and watch the movie.  

9. The pitch was a lot longer than it needed to be for the film.

The pitch lasted for about an hour during which the director was very animated in telling the head of Pixar just what he wanted to do. When he was done all that was said was “you had me at fish”.

Read more trivia about Finding Nemo at TVOM.


Joker Delivers Baby on Halloween

You thought the Joker was disguised as a nurse, but for Halloween, he was an obstetrician! Brittany Selph and her husband Justin went to the hospital in Paris, Tennessee, on Halloween because Brittany was in labor. Her doctor, Paul Locus, was dressed as the Joker and left for a while to hand out Halloween candy. He was still in costume when he returned to the hospital in time to deliver their little girl Oaklyn at 8:20 that evening.

"When [Locus] came in our room the following morning, in normal doctor attire, he said, 'Sorry I couldn't make it in last night, glad to see the delivery went well'," said Justin. "He was a great sport about it all."

I saw this picture yesterday at reddit, and at that time almost everyone said it was staged. So many redditors assumed that childbirth in a hospital is a sterile procedure, with mandatory scrubbing and masks. That's only necessary for surgery. See more pictures of Oaklyn's first Halloween at Buzzfeed.


The Swim Reaper

When you're having fun in the water, your thoughts are far from death. But danger is lurking, so the Swim Reaper is there to remind you to think first and follow water safety rules. The Swim Reaper is a collaboration between Water Safety New Zealand and the ACC to prevent deaths at the beach and New Zealand's many waterways.   

(YouTube link)

Summer is just beginning in the Southern Hemisphere, but water safety rules apply everywhere at all times. The Swim Reaper is most active on Instagram.

The caption to this photo is

They say one in every two guys is a dumbass. I’m going with red shirt #everybreathyoutake #everymoveyoumake #illbewatchingyou

-via Laughing Squid


The Day Deteriorates

Poor Bradley. He gets his hopes up, only for them to be dashed, and by the end of the day his evening is ruined. Maybe you need something to cleanse your mind after reading this. Aren't you glad we saw this story unfold from the remote end? And aren't you glad it isn't you dealing with this? And aren't you glad it's Friday? This is the latest comic from Megacynics.


A Suspense Thriller for Dogs

A man is out walking with his German shepherd. The dog looks back at his human regularly. But then the man disappears! On no, what has happened to him?

(YouTube link)

Luckily, the story has a happy ending. This very short drama is a tribute to a dog's love, plus a lesson in how music enhances a plot, even in a home video of less than a minute. By the way, in the comments, someone asked if German shepherds were just "shepherds" in Germany. The German name is Deutscher schäferhund, named by a German breeder. A German commenter says they indeed just say schäferhund unless they need to distinguish it from another schäferhund, like the Belgischer schäferhund. -via Boing Boing


1996 Honda Accord for Sale

Carrie needs to sell her 21-year-old car. Her boyfriend, Max Lanman, got some talented friends together and created a video ad to attract buyers for her. From the looks of it, he may end up with some advertising jobs out of it, too.

(YouTube link)

Be sure to read the fine print:

Paint is in fantastic shape with few cosmetic dings. Drives like a dream. Cat and coffee pot not included. Bug shield, rubber duckies and tape converter included. Featured girlfriend is not actual girlfriend, but an actor. Stunts not performed by a professional driver, but just my actual girlfriend. Do not attempt. Girlfriend is now fiance.

You can bid on this car at eBay. -via reddit


Farmers Urged to Bury Their Underpants for Better Beef

The latest advice for farmers sounds like a superstition: to improve yields, dig a hole in your field and bury your underpants for two months. If you have several fields, you'll need to cough up more underwear. The idea began with the "Soil My Undies" challenge from the California Farmers’ Guild, and is now recommended by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS). But it's no old wives' tale. The underwear must be made of cotton, and the result is a relatively cheap and easy soil test.

Evan Wiig, Executive Director of the California Farmers’ Guild, said: “Cotton is an organic material and breaks down naturally just like anything else you’d put in your compost pile. So if you bury cotton in soil teeming with life, all those creatures will begin to feast.

“If you have dead soil, if it is totally lifeless you should be able to pull the pants out of the ground, throw it in the washing machine and put them on like nothing ever happened. If you have incredibly healthy soil, you should have nothing left but an elastic strap.”

Soil that is worked over by microbes, insects, and worms will be more nutritious for the plants that grow there, and for the animals that graze the fields. Read more about the underpants test at the Telegraph. -Thanks, Walter!

(Image credit: California Farmers’ Guild)


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  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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