What does Mad Max: Fury Road look like without the computer-generated imagery? Pretty much the same as the finished product. The explosions, the flamethrowers, and the fire? Those were all real. The wrecks? All real. Witness this.
To be honest, the only thing that tells you this video of action clips comes from production reels and not the theatrical release is the sight of an occasional camera truck and the ropes that are harnessed to some of the stunt guys. And a ramp and some traffic cones. The CGI department took more out of the film than they added in. -via reddit
Blossom (pictured on the left) came into the care of the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington, New York. Her eyes were so infected that they were ultimately removed. Blossom was taken in by Howard Stern and his wife Beth, who regularly foster cats until an adoptive home is found for them. Susan Smith and her family heard about Blossom and decided to adopt her, because they knew what they were getting into. They already had four blind cats! Now Blossom is right at home after a year with the Smiths and their other blind cats Ray, Cookie, Sabrina, and Donovan (Donovan also has cerebellar hypoplasia). The family has a seeing cat and a dog as well. Blossom and her cat colony are able to do pretty much anything sighted cats do. You can follow their lives at Instagram. -via Fark
In the United States, purple Skittles taste like grapes, or more accurately, artificial grape flavoring. But in Britain, Australia, and other nations, those Skittles are flavored with blackcurrant. In fact, the rest of the world is quite familiar with the berry, which is used for juice, jam, and other products.
Most American mouths have never tasted the sweet yet tart tang of the blackcurrant berry. There’s a big reason for that: in the early 20th century, the growing of blackcurrants was banned on a federal level in the U.S. after legislators discovered that the plants, brought over from Europe, had become vectors for a wood-destroying disease known as white pine blister rust.
During the 1960s, the federal ban on the berry was relaxed in favor of state-by-state jurisdiction, and most states now allow it to be grown. But the damage had already been done—the blackcurrant jams, juices, pastries and cakes that are standard throughout Europe are nowhere to be found stateside.
A few food producers are trying to change that. While American Skittles may stay grape forever, there may be other blackcurrant foods coming to a store near you. Read about them at Atlas Obscura.
David Gerrold wrote several Star Trek episodes, but he will always be remembered for “The Trouble with Tribbles,” which became a classic. It was funny! The tribbles exposed the humorous side of the Enterprise crew, it was a welcome break from meeting aliens who happened to be shaped somewhat like humans, and it introduced many of us to the concept of invasive species. Gerrold tells us how that idea came about.
It was really about rabbits in Australia. My thinking was that not every alien we meet is going to be ugly and not every alien we meet is going to be immediately dangerous. We’re not going to recognize the danger to us until it might be too late. So, the rabbits in Australia were perfect. Little fuzzy creatures that are fun to pet and they purr, but they breed like crazy. Next thing you know Captain Kirk is up to here in them. When they bought the story they gave me a chance to write the script. I wasn’t yet recognized as a professional writer but they gave me a few weeks to write the script…which I did over the first weekend. My thinking was to have something there for all of the other characters: Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty. It was just the right combination of idea and humor and character that it all came together very well. And then the best part was that we had such a talented and amazing cast that brought it to life in a way that here we are talking about it a half century later.
Looking back from our vantage point of 2016, it seems really odd that American women did not have the right to vote until 1920. But Switzerland is even odder. That country became a democracy long ago, with the first citizen balloting held in the year 1291. But that was for adult men only. Women in Switzerland didn’t have the right to vote until 1971. And even then, many women could only vote in national elections. Some cantons held women back from voting in local elections until ordered by the Swiss federal court in 1991!
The Swiss move very slowly. That’s their way. For centuries, husbands had legal authority over their wives’ savings. “In the 1970s, I had a bank account in my son’s name. I tried to go and buy something, and they told me I needed the signature of my man,” a woman told London’s Independent. She was furious. But that was the law. It wasn’t changed until a national referendum in 1985, and the vote that time was a squeaker: a 4 percent plurality.
Today I Found Out takes a deep dive into the history and etymology of the word "boob." The word was considered impolite when I was young, but now is one of the gentler synonyms for breasts in common use. Simon Whistler takes us through its early uses, possible origins, and its other meaning as a slang term for idiot.
This video is only NSFW if you would get in trouble for the repeated use of the word "boob" and a few of its synonyms. So it should appeal to the 12-year-old in all of us, I guess. -Thanks, Daven!
Macro Room gives us an art film with just a close-up view of a classic kitchen experiment. The colors are gorgeous as they move through the fluids to some appropriately dramatic music. -via Daily of the Day
Peter Davies of Christchurch, New Zealand, posted a complaint about a neighborhood cat at the Governor’s Bay Community Facebook group. He included a picture to illustrate his situation.
If you think this might be your cat can you please keep it in for a few nights . For the last week it has spent most of the night mewling on our terrace or being chased by me with a water-pistol around the garden As you can see from the picture below it is mainly dark grey with a white undercarriage and a rubbish voice No one in our House wants to have sex with you mr cat please go away
In the discussion underneath the post, Davies invites residents to post pictures of their cats so he can eliminate them from suspicion. He also posted a picture of the Super Soaker he has been using to discourage the randy cat. -via Arbroath
Artist Taylor Ann Linko wanted a colorful wedding, and that’s what she had. Check out her gorgeous dress! She bought it used, and then airbrushed it herself to add a touch of sunset colors to the traditional white. Linko used those same colors in her hair for the big day, and in the wedding flowers. And the cake.
A photo posted by James Tang (@jamestangphotography) on Jul 6, 2016 at 3:26pm PDT
The wedding party’s clothing, the centerpieces, tables linens, and more all followed the same colorful theme. Linko tells the story of the dress at her blog. See a gallery of wedding images at photographer James Tang’s website. -via Buzzfeed
The Pancake Robot is coming, with all the pancakes you can eat! This cartoon will make you want a nice, hot, buttery stack of flapjacks dripping in sweet gooey syrup. You’ll be thinking about it all day.
And the reason you’ll be thinking about it all day is because this is a new song from Parry Gripp (previously at Neatorama), the master of earworms. The good news is that this song is one of the more pleasant ones in his repertoire. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The hungry cat dreams of sushi. Can you find 20 pieces of sushi to feed him? The game Cat in Japan by Bart Bonte appears to be simple at first. Just gather the sushi! But this is anything but simple. After you’ve collected a few pieces, you realize that many more sushi are hidden. So you look closer and find more. But to reach all the sushi, you have to solve puzzles that are also hidden. There are tools to help you, but they are, you guessed it, also hidden! The good part is that solving one puzzle will help you learn how to find the others, and there is no time limit. I managed to find all twenty pieces of sushi, but it wasn’t easy.
Every person has an odd and interesting story in their past. Kirk Thatcher unexpectedly became an actor, put into a role for which he’d be remembered decades later. A devoted Star Trek fan and video effects creator, he landed a job as Leonard Nimoy’s assistant on the set of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He worked hard to convince Nimoy he could pull off the part of the “Punk on the Bus,” the guy Spock puts in his place with a Vulcan nerve pinch. Thatcher even wrote the lyrics for the song that was later added to the scene -and sang them.
“It’s nice to be remembered,” says Thatcher. “I could win the Nobel Peace Prize, and my gravestone would still stay, ‘Star Trek IV: Punk on the Bus.'”
Thatcher’s accomplishments since then are quite remarkable, albeit mostly behind the scenes of movies and TV shows you might have seen. Read the story of Kirk Thatcher and the “Punk on the Bus” at Wired. -via Metafilter
A photo posted by Subway Doodle (@subwaydoodle) on Jun 20, 2016 at 5:00am PDT
Ben Rubin, who goes by Subway Doodle, takes images of people on New York trains and adds monsters and other creepy creatures. His work occasionally ventures outside to other iconic New York City locations.
They don’t build cars like they used to. In some cases, that’s a good thing, but if you can find one of these fine sports cars from the 1970s, you’re in luck. The list has plenty of Lamborghinis and Ferraris, but there are also vehicles that you might have owned at one time, like the Mazda RX7.
The first RX-7 models made their entrance into the sports car scene in 1978 for the 1979 model cars. The debut was an instant success, as opposed to its predecessors: the rotary-powered coupes RX-3 and Cosmo 110. The RX-7 came with a 1.1L rotary engine producing 105 lb ft. of torque and 100hp, which was enough to accelerate the 2350 pounds of metal from 0-60 in less than ten seconds. The engine was compact and super light, making it easier to be fitted behind the front axle. It was also uniquely sleek and featured an integrated electric buzzer to warn motorists against blasting through the 7k rpm red line
The Frequently Asked Questions format has existed for a while, just not by that name. (The Four Questions of Passover have been in the Talmud since around the 4th century.) Today’s popular FAQ format actually began at NASA. In 1983, Eugene Miya was tired of seeing the same old questions posed by new members of a pre–World Wide Web newsgroup. The excessive questions took up space on the mailing list’s servers and flooded users’ inboxes. To correct it, Miya started posting a monthly Frequently Asked Questions list to the group, and thus, the FAQ was born.
2. Who asked the first question?
Believe it or not, someone’s taken a crack at answering this: Joseph Jordania, an Australian-Georgian ethnomusicologist and the author of Who Asked the First Question? The Origins of Human Choral Singing, Intelligence, Language and Speech. He proposes that the first question was asked by the first human being, because—as he explains it—the ability to ask a question was a critical evolutionary leap in distinguishing hominids from their ancestors. So we can't say who, exactly, but that individual gets credit for kicking off the entire human species.
