Animator Joshua Slice is single-handedly making people fall in love with a spider. Or is it his nephew Lucas, who does the voice of of Lucas the spider? In the latest episode of Lucas' adventures, he tells of his aspirations. He wants to be a musician when he grows up! And for that, we get a little song.
Check out Lucas' other cute videos. -via Tastefully Offensive
The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Perpetually Pleasing Bathroom Reader.
The Abraham Lincoln bloodline shed its last drop in 1985. Or did it?
ROOTS
A year after Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith’s death in 1985, a 17-year-old boy appeared in court to accept a million-dollar settlement from the Lincoln estate. Beckwith was the last of the 16th president’s three great-grandchildren to pass away. None of the three were believed to have produced any kids. So who was this kid, and why did Lincoln’s estate pay him?
At the time of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, his family tree had a single living shoot: Robert Todd Lincoln, the only one of the president’s four children (all sons) to survive to adulthood. Robert Lincoln not only survived, he thrived, perhaps driven by a compulsion to prove he was more than just Abe Lincoln’s son. “No one wanted me,” he once said. “They wanted Abraham Lincoln’s son.” What they got was a Harvard-educated lawyer, banker, and corporate executive who also served as U.S. Secretary of War under President James Garfield. But he was not “a man of the people” like his father. In fact, he was said to have an almost “morbid repugnance” for public life.
BRANCHING OUT
Nevertheless, Robert Todd Lincoln did become president …of the Pullman Railroad Company. (Ironically, he’d been dubbed “the Prince of Rails” during the 1860 presidential campaign because of his presidential father’s reputation as a “rail-splitter.”)
As a railroad tycoon, Robert made enough money to leave his father’s humble beginnings behind. In 1902, he acquired a 412-acre property in Vermont, where he built a luxurious 24-room mansion. He called the estate “Hildene.” Inside the mansion was an impressive library decorated in the style of a first-class Pullman coach and an entry hall that boasted a thousand-pipe electromagnetic organ. The organ was installed in 1908 at a cost of $11,000 -about $282,000 in today’s dollars.
Planning a trip to Japan means choosing what kind of experience you'd like to have while you're there- you can go full urban in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, go see all the wonderful nature in Kyoto or hop around and combine the two.
Either way, if you're planning a trip to Japan you should check out this TopTenz article that reveals 10 Must-See Tourist Attractions in Japan so you'll know which way you want to go.
You could go visit the wonderfully relaxing "onsen ryokan" hot spring hotels all over the country and unwind, or get wild in the city and see the famed Akihabara and Harajuku districts in Tokyo.
If you're looking for something a bit different why not visit some of the last remaining feudal castles like Matsumoto Castle pictured at the top of the post? Add Maruoka Castle and Matsue Castle to your itinerary and you've got a feudal fairy tale trip in the making.
And if you're planning on visiting Japan with your kids, or you're just a kid at heart, then you may want to check out Tokyo DisneySea, which looks amazing and quite different than all the other Disney theme parks.
(Image credit: U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team)
The women of the US Olympic Ski Team have been spotted wearing uniforms that make them superheroes! Marvel teamed up with the sportswear company Spyder for ski gear the team is wearing in PyeongChang. These are not the official uniforms for the actual events, but practice uniforms. They are still getting all the attention. Above you see gold medalist Lindsey Vonn decked out as Captain America. And other skiers are wearing the uniform of Captain Marvel, who'll be seen in her own movie in 2019.
THE US WOMEN’s SKI TEAM IS WEARING CAPTAIN MARVEL SUITS!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/d0iddtKaZy
— Amanda (@NeverSunIX) January 23, 2018
See more pictures of the US Olympic ski team at Uproxx.
You may recall the cat piano and other weird musical instruments that harness the various sounds of ...various things. This is even weirder. An organ made of Furbys is what nightmares are made of. Since no one in their right mind ever had more than two Furbys, it took a lot of looking to assemble enough of them to build this thing.
The Furby Organ is like a choir of 40 Furbys, all controlled by a keyboard. It was inspired by the Furby Gurdy, although the organ uses a lot more Furbys and cost quite a bit more. Now if we can only find a way to shut them all up. -via Digg
Cathode ray tube televisions totally revolutionized the world of home entertainment when they first debuted back in 1934, and they were the norm right up until "flat panel" technology replaced CRT for good in the early 2000s.
But even though CRT has gone the way of the VCR there are still millions of sets out there, many of them in full working order, and if CRT enthusiasts like Chi-Tien Liu and Ian Primus keep up their good work the CRT TV will never go extinct.
Chi-Tien Liu fixes up discarded CRT TVs and rents them out to museums and filmmakers, keeping these "relics" of TV history alive so they won't become lost in the mists of time:
The first floor of CTL Electronics — whose clientele includes the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and other museums across the country — is lined with a rich mix of vintage TVs, from tiny boxes to big, looming screens. In his bedroom upstairs, Lui has a 1930s mechanical television, an early image transmission system that passed light through a spinning metal disc. In his workshop, there’s a grid of old screens that once sat inside the Palladium, an iconic New York nightclub that closed in 1997. “They used to have 16 of these, rotating in the club — everybody danced underneath,” Lui recalls. “When they went out of business I took all the equipment back. And right now, I’m restoring them.”
And even though people think he's crazy IT professional Ian Primus goes around picking up CRT TVs from whoever wants to get rid of them, in part because he sees them as the best TV for retro gaming:
Primus says he doesn’t just hoard old TVs; he uses them constantly in his daily life. “I don’t have an LCD computer monitor, and I don’t have an LCD TV. Everything is CRTs,” he says. “I know I’m crazy.” Most new devices exclusively support current TVs, including one of Primus’ newer tech purchases — Nintendo’s NES Classic — which, ironically for such a retro-looking device, only features a modern HDMI adapter. But it’s still possible to use adapters with many of them. As long as that’s true, Primus says he’ll probably stick with CRTs.
“I’m not going to try to be one of those guys who says, ‘Yeah the picture on a CRT is better than the LCD,’” he says. But he likes the deep blacks and high color contrast and the sturdiness of old hardware. Primus, like Lui, is also helping keep CRTs available to the people who can’t do without them. In his case, that’s the retro gaming community.
Read Inside The Desperate Fight To Keep Old TVs Alive at The Verge
Because Albert Einstein was so well-known and regarded for his theory of relativity, his many other accomplishments are often overlooked. Einstein was interested in everything, and he spent part of his time figuring out how to improve existing gadgets. He held quite a few patents, including one for a refrigerator that would make the appliances much safer.
In the 1920s, nascent refrigerators used highly toxic, corrosive, or flammable compounds like sulfur dioxide or methyl formate as refrigerants. When passed through tubes and chambers while being pressurized and depressurized, these chemicals could efficiently cool a target chamber. However, moving them around required motors, and thus moving parts, which were subject to breaking down or leaking. When Einstein read a news article about an entire family in Berlin who died in their sleep by breathing in leaking refrigerant fumes, he resolved to do something about it.
He and his colleague Leo Szilard thus spent the early 1930s designing a refrigerator that utilized calmer chemicals – butane, ammonia and water – as well as an ingenious electromagnetic pump. The system required no internal moving parts and was completely sealed. All it needed was an external heat source in the form of a contained natural gas flame.
The refrigerator was a great idea, and might have been a success, if freon hadn't eclipsed it before the bugs could be worked out. Eistein also held patents for a hearing aid, a camera, and even a blouse. Read about all those inventions at Real Clear Science.
Train horns are made to be heard from miles away, and while they serve a potentially life saving service on trains the smaller versions people put on their vehicles are just there to annoy and get attention.
So builders who like to play with train horns try to make as much noise as possible with their creations, building larger and louder horns until they've constructed something so loud it should be illegal.
But this leaf blower-powered 55-gallon train horn built by Barrett Crook is well beyond illegally loud, like hear it booming in the next state loud!
-Via Laughing Squid
Have you ever known someone who begged for your devotion, your company, and your loyalty, even though they didn't want to put the slightest bit of effort into doing anything for you? That person had unlimited love, as long as it didn't inconvenience them in any way. This comic lays that idea out in a more humorous vein, as no one cares that an entertainment corporation is breaking the guy's heart. That's the danger of a free trial -don't do the free trial if you can't pay for the continuing service and if you tend to get emotionally involved. A good relationship is worth investing your resources. This comic is from Dystopia. See the Spanish version here. You can follow Dystopia on Facebook and Instagram. -via Geeks Are Sexy
It's not hard to chisel away at a block of stone and make something that resembles a human form, but it takes a true master to create photorealistic sculptures in marble, a master who often begins their training at art school.
However, some incredibly gifted (and lucky) people are born with the skills of a master sculptor within them waiting to emerge, and after a few lessons and a little practice they can sculpt better than people who have spent years training.
Jacopo Cardillo, aka Jago, is one of the lucky ones, and at just 30 years old this Italian sculptor dreams of being the next Michelangelo- and might actually live up to his dreams despite being virtually self-taught.
Before there was an Incredible Hulk there was the Iron Will, the green-skinned behemoth who helped build railroads across North America. Iron Will was a hero with a wicked temper, and as much as the railroad companies liked having his help when laying down the tracks they hated dealing with him after hours. So they hired a young inventor named Stark who had created a steam powered suit of armor to help keep Will in line. Stark was a cocky little dandy with a wax moustache, but he claimed his armor would give him the power to bust the strongest bronco and tame even the most ferocious beasts, including a raging Hulk of a man...
Add some old school tattoo cool to your geeky wardrobe with this Iron Will t-shirt by OneBluebird Art, featuring an eye-catching design that'll make you a fashion hero to all of your friends!
Visit OneBluebird Art's Facebook fan page, official website, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more mighty cool designs:
| Ohhh Mamma Mia! | Little Plumbers | Falcon Dress shirts and Blasters | Little Hellions |
View more designs by OneBluebird Art | 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!
Nicholas Alkemade was a World War II gunner in the Royal Air Force. In March of 1944, his squad flew to Berlin on a raid in an Avro Lancaster II aircraft named Werewolf. Alkemade was in the rear gun turret. On the return flight, the plane was hit by machine gun and cannon fire, and burst into flames. The crew had parachutes, but the rear gunner didn't wear his due to space limitations. When Alkemade opened the turret door, he saw his parachute on fire. The flames were nearing his turret, so he slammed the door shut. He told the story of what happened then.
“I had the choice of staying with the aircraft or jumping out. If I stayed I would be burned to death – my clothes were already well alight and my face and hands burnt, though at the time I scarcely noticed the pain owing to my high state of excitement...I decided to jump and end it all as quick and clean as I could. I rotated the turret to starboard, and, not even bothering to take off my helmet and intercom, did a back flip out into the night. It was very quiet, the only sound being the drumming of aircraft engines in the distance, and no sensation of falling at all. I felt suspended in space. Regrets at not getting home were my chief thoughts, and I did think once that it didn’t seem very strange to be going to die in a few seconds – none of the parade of my past or anything else like that.”
Falling head-first, looking back towards the stars twinkling in the night sky, FS Alkemade, serenity itself, hurtled towards the ground at 120 mph. At some point in the descent, Alkemade lost consciousness, possibly his body’s reaction to the pain where the flames had licked around his skin. Above him, Werewolf exploded.
Alkemade survived the 18,000-foot fall and was captured by Germans. He survived that, too, plus three horrific industrial accidents after the war. Read Nicholas Alkemade's story at the RAF Museum. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Bennett Ley Kenyon)
When Nicole Renae was 14 years old, she had to give up her beloved little black dog named Chloe. Years passed, Nicole grew up, got married, had a baby, and wanted to adopt a dog for her daughter to grow up with. So she started checking online ads. A notice of an elderly dog that needed a home caught her eye. The dog was named Chloe, and looked like her long lost dog from childhood, but this dog was gray. Nicole decided this was the dog she wanted.
Upon meeting her "new" dog, Nicole was struck with an uncanny feeling.
"She just ran up to me and started licking my face," she said. "As the day went on, all these characteristics just reminded me of my old dog."
Chloe, it seems, knew her adopter was her old friend from the start — and soon Nicole was convinced of it, too.
"She just kept hugging me. I was crying — it reminded me so much of my Chloe," Nicole said. "I never thought I’d see my dog again, but I just knew in my heart that it was her."
Although eight years had passed, Noel was able to get information from the dog's microchip to confirm that she was, in fact, the same Chloe that Nicole had as a child. Read their story and see plenty of pictures at The Dodo. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Nicole Renae)
The first gold medal for the U.S. in the Pyeongchang Olympics has been won by a 17-year-old in an event you probably haven't seen before. Red Gerard came from last place to gold in his final run in the snowboard slopestyle event. He is the first American born in the 21st century to win gold at a Winter Games. Watch him soar in this crazy sport.
미국의 유일한 스노보드 결선 진출자, 17살의 제라드 선수.
— 「Rostratula benghalensis」 (@hosa_Y) February 11, 2018
첫 올림픽 출전에 금메달 획득.
스노보드 거의 문외한인데 보고 감동했음 pic.twitter.com/fC0BtHdkJB
You can see the performance with English commentary here, as well as those of the Canadians Max Parrot and Mark McMorris, who won silver and bronze. -via reddit
Do you reckon maybe that therapy isn't the best time for dad jokes? The therapist must be a dad. but the tire came in with a pun, so you can't blame the doc for taking advantage. This is the latest comic from Extra Fabulous Comics.
