Learn about the importance of vaccines with parody rap song performed by eighth graders! No wait, really, this is not what you'd expect from that first sentence. It is actually very well done. The new lyrics are set to the tune of "My Shot" from the Broadway musical Hamilton.
The song was researched, written, sung, shot, filmed, and edited by students of the Nueva School (previously at Neatorama) in California. The eighth graders are members of the Science Rap Academy. -via Digg
If you've been wondering what legendary rock guitarist Eric Clapton has been doing lately, you need to look toward Iceland, where he's been doing a bit of fishing.
Clapton, while on a fly-fishing trip to Iceland last week, landed a 28-pound salmon on the Vatnsdalsá River, setting the record for reeling in the biggest salmon of the summer. The massive fish measured 42.5 inches. Working with Vatnsdalsá guide Sturla Birginsson, Clapton had to run over half a mile downriver after hooking the monster, and spent two and a half hours reeling it in. The local fishing association enforces a strict catch-and-release policy on the Vatnsdalsá River, but Clapton was able to snap a picture of his record-setting catch before setting it back into the river.
Clapton has always liked fishing, but after recovering from drug addiction more than 30 years ago, Gary Brooker of Procol Harem got him hooked on fly-fishing as an alternative. Since then, Clapton has even designed his tours around the availability of fly-fishing. He's been traveling to Iceland to Iceland to fish for salmon since 2000. Read about the guitarist's fishing habit at Men's Journal. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Sturla Birginsson)
Jürgen Horn and Mike Powell have a postscript from their 91 day stay in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City). It's a gallery of the many dogs and cats they've photographed during their stay!
We judge a city based on a few critical factors: cuisine, transportation, museums, nightlife… and the cuteness of its street cats and dogs. And that last one is a category in which Saigon scores high. Check out some of the creatures we’ve met during our 91 days in the city. Which would you take home? You can only choose one!
There are more dogs than cats in the collection, with some puppies and kittens thrown in for good measure, at For 91 Days.
Deric Ó hArtagáin of TV3 was giving a weather report Friday morning on the show Ireland AM when some weather happened to him.
His comrades back at the studio could not contain their laughter, although they might have felt a little guilty about it. You could say they were blown away, but not as much as Ó hArtagáin. Ó hArtagáin was a good sport about it. Let me type that name again: Ó hArtagáin. -via Tastefully Offensive
If you have a backyard pool, you've probably dealt with the horror of finding dead animals in it at one time or another. If they fall in, the sides are too steep and slippery for squirrels to climb out, and there's no solid surface for frogs to jump from. That's where the Frog Log comes in. The "critter saving escape ramp" is a floating platform attached to a ramp that anchors at the side of your pool. Small creatures, such as snakes, chipmuncks, or ducklings, can climb onto the platform from the water because it is edged with netting. The ramp also has netting for a firm grip. It's a lifesaver for the animal and you don't have to remove dead bodies before your refreshing dip. See a video at Geekologie that shows frogs, a salamander, a mouse, and a skink all escaping a pool using the Frog Log.
When the automobile started taking over the streets, people were justifiably afraid of getting hit by one. In response, a device was tested in England in the 1930s that acted as a "cow catcher" for humans. Just a flick of the switch, and the Safety Scoop deployed and scooped up the pedestrian before he knows what hit him. Literally.
I'm sure you have the same thought I did upon seeing this. If the driver sees a person in the road in front of him, why wouldn't he just hit the brake instead of the device switch? That eventually occurred to motorists, too, because the device never did catch on. At Atlas Obscura, you can read more about the Safety Scoop and see a gif of another such device from 1927.
Or it's possible that the thought you had upon seeing this was that YouTube really shouldn't have placed a 30-second unskippable ad in front of a 33-second video.
Europe is undergoing an unusual heat wave, which led to the road buckling in Diestersteenweg, Belgium. Or was there something more sinister going on?
Here's the English translation of the news story, but the headline looks so much better in Dutch.
-via reddit
We have covered the Bechdel Test before; it's a simple way to tell if a movie had any women at all involved in the creative process.
1) Does it have two or more women in it (who have names) ?
2) Do they talk to one another?
3) Do they talk to one another about something other than a man?
If not, we know that the woman or two are just there as accessories to the male roles. A list at TVOM looks at some blockbuster movies you may not have realized that fail the test. It just goes to show how well we've internalized the Hollywood gender imbalance.
The question was, Married men of Reddit: what moment with your future wife made you think "Yup, I'm asking this girl to marry me."? The thread is full of love stories that show how consideration and self-sacrifice mean so much more than looks, money, or fun. Sully1102's story is touching.
Things were going really well, and I was saying to myself "If this keeps up, I think next summer I'll pop the question."
Then, my mother had a stroke. We were all sitting in the waiting area outside the ICU, because only 2 people were allowed in at a time. It was my now-wife's birthday, and a Wednesday, and she didn't hesitate to take the day off to sit with me and my family.
I went to visit my father at home, and she came with me. Her Italian instincts kicked it, and she brought a load of groceries and a lasagna with her.
My father was a mess at the hospital, and it fell on me and my siblings to speak with the doctors and make plans.
I would get home, and pour myself some bourbon. She made me dinner, and just sat with me while I silently sobbed.
It wasn't about how great we were when things were good, it was about how perfect she was when things were bad.
I bought the ring 2 months later.
Danger0clock had a short but meaningful story.
The day she took off work to help me go through a dumpster. I had accidentally thrown my keys in the trash while cleaning out my car.
Yeah, they found the keys, but it took a couple of hours. There are plenty of other stories in the thread, and also at Metafilter.
(Image credit: Jim Harper)
Most people run away from spiders, but Little Centaurs has a pet Phidippus adumbratus jumping spider. Is she cute and cuddly? Yes, if you can get beyond the fact that she's a spider.
Personality among Phidippus jumpers can vary a lot from one individual to the next, but the Adumbratus (adumbrati?) I found in Oxnard seem to all have a very calm disposition. I've noticed that one of the differences between wild and domesticated animals is whether the animal has an instinctual bite response to handling. There are certainly Phidippus that I've owned that could have been incited to bite under various conditions, but for this spider, I am not sure it would be possible to elicit a bite response outside of when she'll be guarding eggs. As this video illustrates, she does not seem to be bothered by much - even touching the dorsal side of the abdomen, which seems to be universally disliked by jumpers, just makes her lazily take a few steps in the other direction.
-via Tastefully Offensive
In 1985, snowboarding was still fairly new at ski slopes in the U.S. Ski slope operators hated it, and the people who did it. Watch a 1985 CBS news report on the phenomenon.
We can assume that eventually, the slope operators saw which way the wind was blowing -or more accurately, where the money was coming from. And the snowboarders grew up a little. -via Digg
Stomach doesn't really know what it wants, but Tongue knows he is very suggestible. What Tongue wants is what Stomach will get, as long as we don't let Brain's logic interfere. Poor Brain, he's always getting overruled by dumber but more forceful organs. This is the latest comic from The Awkward Yeti.
Brandon Alinger takes Star Wars fandom more seriously than the average fanatic. He started building his own Star Wars props when he was 12, and at 17 talked his family into vacationing in Tunisia, where he got to see the Tatooine movie set. Alinger studied film in college, worked at the Prop Shop, and worked his way into Lucasfilm. All that time, he collected Star Wars props and memorabilia. Alinger found some internet fame in January when he appeared on Mark Hamill's Pop Culture Quest and reunited the actor with the original light saber prop he used in Return of the Jedi. Alinger gave an interview to explain his amazing journey to the apex of Star Wars prop collectors. Here's a sample:
Collectors Weekly: Why did Mark use Obi-Wan’s old lightsaber in the third movie instead of the original made from the Graflex flash gun?
Alinger: Luke had to use a different lightsaber because he lost the weapon when he lost his hand in “The Empire Strikes Back” fight with Vader. Howard Kazanjian had a lot of the production photos for “Jedi.” When we were researching the book, we found a contact sheet with photos from the very first day of filming “Jedi.” One image showed Mark Hamill on the sandstorm set—for a scene was cut from the movie—and he’s holding the lightsaber prop from “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back.” I don’t know exactly what happened. But it sure seems to me like someone brought out the old “Empire” lightsaber and then a decision was made right then and there that they needed a new prop because the “Empire” one fell into the Cloud City air shaft with Luke’s severed hand.
Read the rest of the interview at Collectors Weekly.
We celebrated the beginning of summer when school was out, then again over Memorial Day weekend, and now that the solstice has passed, it is really REALLY summer! You've been out of school three or four weeks now, and what have you crossed off your bucket list? About three weeks of video games, that's what. You might get around to going to the beach next month, and maybe camping in August, and you might remember that novel come September. Also, the color of your room will be okay until next summer. This is the latest comic from Alex Culang and and Raynato Castro at Buttersafe.
This Bengal cat is aptly named Loki, because he's both clever and mischievous. He likes to play hide and seek. This video captures Loki's favorite hiding place -in the dresser!
Once he shuts the drawer, you'd never think to look for him there! Unless he purrs with satisfaction, of course. Loki's owner, josht1212, says they closed this room off to him after the video was made, because they're not sure if he can get out of the drawer on his own. I bet he could. -via Laughing Squid
