Think the Easter bunny is the most iconic fictional rabbit? It has a lot of competition. Far from being the ultimate in non-theratening cuddly fluffiness, rabbits in movies are usually terrifying. Watch this and see what I mean. It is not for children.
Yeah, there are a few benign cinematic rabbits, like Harvey and Thumper, but the vast majority of them are murderous demons you don't want to confront, ever.
Science fiction is only fiction until someone figures out how to make the science a reality, and as scientific technology progresses the sci-fi stories of the past become the strange realities of today.
There are two specific ways in which the now reminds me of the near future in William Gibson's Neuromancer- you can sell your internal organs at will for cash and the "cyber homeless" are now living in internet cafes.
In Iran it is totally legal to buy and sell kidneys, so people post signs advertising their kidney for sale around major transplant centers in Tehran, including their blood type for a quick match.
Once there's a sale the person visits the chop shop transplant center and the organ is removed and cold, hard rials are acquired.
The decline of the Japanese middle class has made it hard for men (specifically in their 30s and 50s) to find work, so no work means no home means living in an internet cafe for fifteen bucks a night, which includes a shower and laundry service.
Now that might not sound too bad for fifteen bucks until you consider how tiny the space actually is that they now live in, essentially like living in a closet.
See 4 Creepy Ways Everyday Life Is Turning Into Sci-Fi at Cracked (NSFW language)
Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy, the Slow Mo Guys, have a segment from the latest episode of their YouTube series The Super Slow Show in which they pander to us with a "montage of lovely, fluffy, soft, 4K kittens." I'm down with that.
If you want to rationalize the time you take to watch this video, I guess you could term it educational. Call it a study of how kittens move as they learn how to be graceful cats. But you and I know the real pull is the raw joy of watching kittens play. -via Tastefully Offensive
Video games are such an integral part of pop culture that quotes from games are often just as well known as those from movies and TV shows, and even people who don't play video games know a quote or two.
But less than diehard gamers will probably have a hard time figuring out all the quotes on this comic quiz created by Mart Virkus, so to get you started here's a list of the games on the strip:
Red Alert 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Super Mario Brothers
Overwatch and Age of Empires 2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time and Minecraft
Zero Wing and Half-Life
And if you want to see all the quotes click here
-Via Geeks Are Sexy
Britton Hayes was on a photo safari at the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania during spring break. The group stopped to watch three cheetah brothers. Then this happened.
"One of the cheetahs hopped onto the hood and was sniffing around, so we were all focused on the cheetah on the hood that was looking around," said Hayes. "While we were all watching the cheetah in the front, one of the brothers had flanked around the back and hopped in back of the vehicle to try and sniff us and make sure that we weren't a threat."
Hayes credits his guide for helping him through the ordeal."Alex (my guide) kept me calm and made sure I never made eye contact nor startled the cheetah," Hayes said, "allowing the animal to see that it could trust us."
Peter Heistein caught the brief scene on video. Notice the cheetah looking right into the camera and licking his lips in the still frame above. Hayes didn't tell his mother, KOMO news anchor Elisa Jaffe, until he got home. -via Laughing Squid
People think you need to be cursed, possess some sort of magical ability or have some evil a-hole who wants you dead to be a Disney princess, but all you really need is a good rapport with animals and a well timed photo to give you that fairy tale hero vibe.
Friendly woodland critters are a big reason why people are mistaken for real life Disney princesses, and since they seem to be getting friendlier by the day the world is becoming one big Disney princess parade.
Just look at this kid who seems to have a strange power over parrots- can't you just hear him belting out a princess-style song as his parrot friends help him get dressed for the ball?
See 25+ Adorable Times People Suddenly Became Disney Princesses at Bored Panda
National Hockey League teams keep two goaltenders ready, plus an emergency backup goalie in case both of the pros become injured. The emergency goalie is often from a recreational league, and it's an honor for them to be selected to sit on the bench. They rarely get to play, and when they do, they aren't expected to shine. That wasn't the case for the Chicago Blackhawks last night.
“I am an accounting professional with experience in financial services. I have expertise in fund accounting and financial reporting.”
That’s the first sentence on the LinkedIn page of Scott Foster, a 36-year-old accountant (duh) who works in Chicago and played college hockey more than a decade ago. Tonight, he played his first competitive game since finishing his career at Western Michigan University in 2006—for the Chicago Blackhawks, who picked him up as their emergency goaltender today, and then found themselves actually having to play him in the third period of tonight’s game against the Jets.
Foster stole the show by blocking seven goals and preserving the Blackhawk's 6-2 lead over the Winnipeg Jets during the third period. It was a night he'll never forget. A good time was had by all. -via Metafilter
The journey of the comic artist takes place on a road full of steep learning curves, potholes of pain and dark dead end roads devoid of inspiration, but if you keep on truckin' you'll end up with something that resembles a decent comic strip.
And while people may not get your strip or find much enjoyment in reading it you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you followed in the footsteps of legends such as Jim Davis, Gil Keane and Berkeley Breathed.
Of course, if you look too closely at their works for inspiration you'll soon find your strip resembling the strips they created, making you nothing but a copycat, so don't look at their stuff too long before you write your strip!
This life lesson for comic artists and more are presented here in comic strip format by CollegeHumor's Karina Farek, so you can learn from her mistakes and be a more better comic artist than her. Or perhaps even a more bestest comic artist...
-Via CollegeHumor
Psychedelic Panther by Albertocubatas
The people of Wakanda had been waiting for a hero like the Black Panther to take them out of their isolationist shells for quite some time, in fact they'd been waiting so long some Wakandans were still wearing their old psychedelic gear from the 60s when he finally showed up. There were bell bottoms and dashikis a plenty, and afros as far as the eye could see, and a few of the Wakandans were even wearing those weird two-colored sunglasses, which really tripped T'Challa out. So when the Panther took the mantle and agreed to rule Wakanda he declared their first mission to be a fashion update- so he took everyone to the mall for some new threads!
Add some vibrant superheroic energy to your geeky wardrobe with this Psychedelic Panther t-shirt by Albertocubatas, it's an unique way to show love for your favorite MCU hero from Wakanda!
Visit Albertocubatas's Facebook fan page and official website, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more mighty geeky designs:
| Rising T-Rex | Gepard in Africa | Wolves Attack | Circle Jungle Tiger |
View more designs by Albertocubatas | More Comic T-shirts | New T-Shirts
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!
Have you ever wondered about the effects of a nuclear bomb going off in your city? Of course you have, unless you were born after the end of the Cold War. And even if you were, you may have thought about it at one time or another. A new simulator from the Outrider Foundation lets you pull up a map by city name or ZIP code, select a bomb, and it shows you how far the fireball, radiation, shock wave, and heat would reach, and how many people would be killed. There are four bombs: the 15-kiloton Little Boy from World War II, the 150-kiloton North Korean Hwasong-14, the 300-kiloton W-87 from the US military, and the 50,000-kiloton Tsar Bomba. You can even specify whether the bomb detonates on the surface or in the air. Dropping Little Boy over my town would kill everyone in the city limits. The image above shows the effects of Tsar Bomba on New York City. -via Digg
Jeff Goldblum is one of the least afraid actors in Hollywood, and his effortlessly cool demeanor makes me think he must be a descendant of Fonzi and therefore quite magical to hang out with.
But since I'll probably never get to meet the guy, much less hang out with him, I'll have to get to know him by watching this fun Autocomplete Interview video by WIRED instead.
That way I can find out fun facts about Jeff, like the fact that he has two sons and does not in fact have a stutter, and the video also answers one of the most important questions of all time- does Jeff Goldblum song? Why yes, he does song!
-Via WIRED
People have been lifting ideas from Mother Nature for decades. Velcro was inspired by the hooked barbs of thistle, and the first highway reflectors were made to mimic cat eyes. But today, the science of copying nature, a field known as biomimetics, is a billion-dollar industry. Here are some of our favorite technologies that came in from the wild.
Hospitals are constantly worried about germs. No matter how often doctors and nurses wash their hands, they inadvertently spread bacteria and viruses from one patient to the next. In fact, as many as 100,000 Americans die each year from infections they pick up in hospitals. Sharks, however, have managed to stay squeaky clean for more than 100 million years. And now, thanks to them, infections may go the way of the dinosaur.
Unlike other large marine creatures, sharks don't collect slime, algae, or barnacles on their bodies. That phenomenon intrigued engineer Tony Brennan, who was trying to design a better barnacle-preventative coating for Navy ships when he learned about it in 2003. Investigating the skin further, he discovered that a shark's entire body is covered in miniature, bumpy scales, like a carpet of tiny teeth. Algae and barnacles can't grasp hold, and for that matter, neither can troublesome bacteria such as E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
Brennan's research inspired a company called Sharklet, which began exploring how to use the sharkskin concept to make a coating that repels germs. Today, the firm produces a sharkskin-inspired plastic wrap that's currently being tested on hospital surfaces that get touched the most (light switches, monitors, handles). So far, it seems to be successfully fending off germs. The company already has even bigger plans; Sharklet's next project is to create a plastic wrap that covers another common source of infections—the catheter.
Glacier National Park in Montana has several webcams set up in important places. One is focused on a cottonwood tree that black bears use as a den, so that we can see them as they slowly emerge from winter hibernation. One webcam is focused on a large hole that bears occasionally stick their heads out of. Another webcam is further back, so you can see how far up the tree that hole is. The images refresh every minute or so. If you don't see a bear when you check it, the park's Twitter feed will have sightings.
Yawn! Do you ever struggle to get out of bed? This black bear has been sluggishly poking its head since March 23rd. You can watch it emerge from hibernation live on our new temporary webcam here: https://t.co/vrfiP1oa4v pic.twitter.com/40LnBfT6dC
— GlacierNationalPark (@GlacierNPS) March 29, 2018
-via Metafilter
Victorian era etiquette was rigorous, and the rules and rituals one had to follow after a death in the family were particularly strict, even though they were only enforced by social pressure. A widow was expected to grieve for two and a half years, with her activities, dress, and demeanor proscribed in every detail. That included wearing black crape, a stiff, heavily-dyed type of silk, with a veil to hide her tears. These requirements made some fabric and clothing manufacturers rich, but they weren't so great for the widows who had to wear the veils. They were hot, heavy, scratchy, restricted one's vision, and were full of toxic chemicals.
By the 1880s, medical journals had begun a discussion about the health effects of heavy crape veils. The New York Medical Journal decried “the irritation to the respiratory tract caused by minute particles of poisonous crape,” while a syndicated column from the North-Western Lancet declared the mourning veil “a veritable instrument of torture” in hot weather, staining the face and filling the lungs with toxic particles. Doctors speaking of poisonous fabric were not being hyperbolic: Many of the substances used to color and treat crape were seriously toxic, and as the 19th century progressed, the dyes in use only became more dangerous.
Read about Victorian mourning veils and the dangers they posed at Racked. -via Digg
The Simpsons isn't a musical show per se, since not every episode features a musical number, but over the last three decades the show's creators have treated us to some great original songs that really get stuck in your head.
Songs like "Baby on Board", "Who Needs The Kwik-E-Mart?" and "See My Vest" stick with you seemingly for the rest of your life, lying dormant in your brain until you hear a few verses sung or read about them on a list such as this.
And let's face it- as far as earworms go I'd rather have "Baby on Board" bouncing around inside my head than some cheesy modern pop song created using the same algorithms that gave the Bieber-bot sentience.
