If Quentin Tarantino directed the next Star Trek feature film, it would be the weirdest, bloodiest, most intense Star Trek ever! Luckily, we have some footage that fits the bill in this trailer. This is not for children.
Nerdist presents a vision of Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones, and the rest of the USS Enterprise crew in a grindhouse B-movie you can't wait to see, coming soon to a drive-in near you. -via Digg
Maybe I'm just projecting human emotions on to inanimate objects, but every time I see discarded stuff sitting on the curb waiting to be taken away it looks so sad and lonely.
And even though I feel for those tossed out couches, mattresses, TVs, chairs and aquariums I don't have room to give them all a new home, nor a truck to haul them home with, so I must turn away from their sadness and drive on.
But Los Angeles-based street artist Lonesome Town doesn't just drive by discarded and depressed home furnishings- he stops and gives them a sad clown face so they'll look even more pitiful than before.
-Via Laughing Squid
When a little green man from Mars approaches you and says, "Take me to your leader," who are you going to call? "Your leader" could be anyone from your father to the mayor to the president, but getting any of those people to take your call is another thing entirely. Calling 911 might even get you arrested when you tell them what your emergency is. Do we even have a protocol for alien contact? Gizmodo called around to various authorities to find out, and mostly found out how they all passed the buck on such calls.
Bertram Kelly, Public Affairs Team Lead, Centers for Disease Control
UFOs are not in the scope of research work performed by the CDC. We suggest you reach out to NASA for any information regarding UFOs.
Catharine “Cassie” Conley, Former Planetary Protection Officer, currently a researcher at NASA
That would depend if it’s a big alien or a little alien. If it’s an intelligent alien, that’s actually probably [the responsibility] of the Air Force, other militaries and probably the UN. If it’s a tiny alien, you wouldn’t know you ran into it.
Daryl Mayer, 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
To be honest, we don’t have any guidance here about such an event. You might be able to get more from the Pentagon Press Desk, but I’m not sure.
There are plenty more opinions and procedures from everyone from the NYPD to the Astronomy Department at Harvard, at Gizmodo.
Watching videos in the age of dial-up was a real pain, when it could take an hour to watch a five minute video, and yet despite this lag Jason Windsor's freaky animated short End Of Ze World went viral in 2003. (NSFW language)
End Of Ze World was (arguably) the first viral video, and definitely helped start the viral video craze, but Jason never wanted to make a sequel to his totally terrifying film, and then 2017 happened...
“No one likes a sequel that’s not as good as the original. :)” Windsor told Gizmodo in an email. “But watching 2017 unfold made me want to make something. Maybe it’s just a way to deal with my own fear and anger and frustration.”
END OF ZE WORLD...PROBABLY FOR REAL THIS TIME is a darkly comedic update of the original film, and it not only shows how chaotic the world has become in the last fifteen years but also how much Jason's animation skills have improved.
And despite all the madness Jason remains optimistic about our future:
“I’m certainly still hopeful we can avoid doing something silly like blowing ourselves up, or not listening to scientists when they’re like, ‘No seriously, s#%t’s effed, and we need to stop this,’” Windsor said. “But there’s also action to be taken right away to avoid that stuff.”
-Via Gizmodo
The US-Canadian border along the 49th parallel is the longest national border in the world at 5,525 miles. You'd think such a long border would be fairly invisible, especially since it runs through forests for much of its length. But there's a straight line running through those woods in which a 20-foot-wide swath of trees have been cut down. In fact, they call it the Slash. It's visible in satellite photos.
Stripped of trees, this slice runs through national forests and over mountains. It is too long and remote to be continuously cut down, but every few years (longer on the Western sections, where growth is slower) workers freshly deforest the greenery that grows back.
It might seem unnecessary, but there is a reason for this intervention: a person on either side wandering close to the border can see it and recognize they’re approaching the line. So each year, American taxpayers pay around half a cent each to the International Boundary Commission (IBC) to help periodically maintain this dividing void.
Learn more about the Slash, particularly how the two countries maintain it, at 99% Invisible. -via Digg
(Image credit: Flickr user Carolyn Cuskey)
Want to see Breaking Bad in just a tad over a minute? We've got you covered! Condensing a story that took 62 hour-long episodes into one minute is not the least bit edifying for someone who hasn't already seen the TV series, but for those of us who remember it fondly, it hits the high points. And the tiny little characters are cute. Contains NSFW language.
YouTuber cineytele made this animated recap in celebration of Breaking Bad's 10th anniversary. -via Aaron Paul
Palpatino's Pizzeria by BeezleBub Ross
Seasonal affective disorder is the real deal and it's in full effect, as the snow and frosty weather makes it hard for folks to leave their homes, much less hang out with other people and socialize so they don't feel so lonely.
If you want to help battle the forces of sadness and make people smile when you finally manage to leave your home then you need to grab a NeatoShop t-shirt or hoodie featuring a fun design that'll warm hearts wherever you go!
Serving up smiles is easy when you're wearing a shirt with a funny graphic
Senor Wilson's Taqueria by TeeKetch
And the NeatoShop has the most powerfully funny print on demand designs in the universe!
You probably never heard of gluten until just the last few years, but all you know now is that it's in bread. The American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios show and tell us what gluten is, how it works, and what it does in bread.
Is gluten good or bad? That depends on who you are. Some people have a physical condition that makes gluten an enemy for them, such as celiac disease or a wheat allergy. But gluten doesn't scale like, say, sugar, in that we should all restrict our intake lest we develop obesity, diabetes, or cavities. Gluten is fine for most of us. Oh yeah, the bread recipe is here. -via Laughing Squid
The 1986 film Crocodile Dundee was an introduction to Australia for many Americans. The title character, played by Paul Hogan, was pure stereotype, but one that Americans loved. The movie was a huge hit and spawned two sequels, with another one in the works now. Let's learn something about Crocodile Dundee.
10. Paul Hogan helped paint the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Apparently he kept his co-workers laughing a good bit of the time so it’s not too hard to believe that he eventually became an actor.
9. The character of Crocodile Dundee came from Paul Hogan’s own imagination.
He went on TV and stated that there was no real character that went by the name of Crocodile Dundee. The idea came to him the first time he visited New York since he felt like such an outsider.
Learn more trivia about Crocodile Dundee at TVOM.
Before people thought rollerblades were cool for a minute we all used to roll around on roller skates, and the skaters would bounce, rock, skate and roll around the rink to old school jams that made us want to groove. The rollerbladers took themselves so seriously yet looked so silly, especially when they started sporting spandex biker shorts and silly helmets, but rollerskaters are cool, were cool and will always be cool. But if the only kind of rollerskaters you can think of are those who did the disco then you must not have experienced the joy of skating free!
Show the world how you roll with this Retro Rollers t-shirt by Stationjack, featuring a fun design that'll take people back to the good old days when feeling free and easy meant rolling down the sidewalk in your sweet skates.
Visit Stationjack's Facebook fan page, official website, Instagram and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more old school cool designs:
| Club Cheetara | Chocolate Traders | Punch It | Halloween Monster Mash |
View more designs by Stationjack | More Funny 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!
This video was presented as "bro's night out," which makes it seem like a silly game, but watch and listen. These guys are making serious music! Well, maybe not 'serious' music, it's the theme from Knight Rider followed by the theme from The Flintstones, but they do it well.
They are playing musical instruments called boomwhackers, or tubes that are tuned to a musical pitch to be played like bells. The group is Louie's Cage Percussion, made up of classically-trained musicians from Austria.
Named after the Monkey King Louie and the composer John Cage, this percussion group consists of six talented young musicians in their twenties. They are some of the youngest members of renowned Austrian orchestras including the Vienna Volksoper, the Lower Austria Tonkuenstler Orchestra and the Graz Opera and play all repertoires of classical music. Besides their studies of classical music, they have always been interested in jazz, rock and electronic music and have played in various bands and broadened their knowledge of various musical genres.
You can get an idea of how boomwhackers work from an extended cut of one of their practice sessions. Now watch a stage performance from Louie's Cage Percussion.
-via reddit
The following is an article from Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.
In the Olympics, silver means second-best. Here's the story of the 1972 U.S. men's Olympic basketball team and how they refused to take second place.
THREE SECONDS TO GOLD!
Before 1972 no U.S. men’s basketball team had ever lost in Olympic play. Starting in 1936 (the year basketball became an Olympic sport), U.S. men’s teams won 63 consecutive games- and seven straight gold medals. But just after midnight on September 10, 1972, in Munich, Germany, that golden winning streak came to a screeching end, courtesy of the Soviet Union. The final three seconds of that game may be the most controversial Olympic finish of all time, because officials allowed those three historic seconds to be played not once, not twice, but three times.
TEAM OF DESTINY
Although the U.S. was favored to win, the Soviet team was not only good, it was seasoned, having played hundreds of games together. The American team, on the other hand, was basically a college all-star team; most of its members had played together only a few times before the Olympics. According to U.S. assistant coach John Bach, the team’s experience amounted to 12 exhibition games plus the Olympic trials. To top it off, the 1972 squad was the youngest ever to represent the United States in Olympic competition. They had two things going for them- they were tall (average height: 6’7″) and they were talented (an amazing 10 members of the team went on to become first-round NBA draft choices.) “These were the two strongest countries in the world fighting for supremacy, and basketball was ours,” said U.S. guard Doug Collins, now head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.
The more futuristic a spaceship looks the harder it is to identify which real life object inspired the design, but at their core all sci-fi spaceship designs are based on something from the real world.
Most concept artists conceal their inspiration by adding detail until the ship looks too complex for our minds to pick apart, but San Francisco-based freelance artist Eric Geusz doesn't care about hiding the truth.
He's just having fun drawing ships based on stuff he finds lying around his house so he doesn't care who knows where the inspiration for his ship designs comes from.
And his willingness to share this part of his artistic process may open up new worlds for budding artists looking to draw unique and interesting vehicles.
-Via Laughing Squid
In the 16th century, Dutch Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted a village scene filled with people doing nonsensical things. They are each illustrating an old Dutch saying, adage, or proverb. The painting has been called The Blue Cloak or The Folly of the World, but its actual title is Netherlandish Proverbs. It's slightly reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, but much less creepy.
The precise number of proverbs that Netherlandish Proverbs contains is somewhat uncertain because modern scholarly interpretations vary, and in some case, more than one proverb might be assigned to the same component in the painting. Critics have identified approximately 112 identifiable proverbs and idioms in the scene, although Bruegel may have included others which cannot be determined because they have either disappeared from usage or the language had changed.
Bruegel has hidden his proverbs in the characters as well as in the buildings and in the landscape in highly imaginative ways. At the center of the painting is a woman placing a blue cloak (hence the painting’s original title) over her husband, indicating that she is cuckolding him. The man biting into the wooden pillar is a hypocrite. The man who’s filling a pond after his calf drowned is one who takes action after a disaster. The person who spills his porridge, will never be able to spoon it all back into the bowl. The two men defecating out of the same hole indicates they are inseparable companions.
Proverb: “To be a pillar-biter”
Meaning: To be a religious hypocrite
Proverb: “Never believe someone who carries fire in one hand and water in the other”
Meaning: To be two-faced and to stir up trouble
Read about Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his curious painting at Amusing Planet, where you'll find several individual proverbs. You can also check out an interactive map of the painting, where you can hover over a scene and read its proverb. -via Strange Company
For me growing up left-handed meant remaining adaptable and constantly improving my ambidexterity, because it was often easier to learn how to do things the right-handed way before trying it with my left.
I've also learned a few tricks to keep tasks from being so annoying, like filling a notebook up backwards to avoid smearing and keep the rings out of your way, and sitting on the left of people at the dinner table to avoid knocking elbows.
But there are plenty of other lefty problems that are still annoying, like the fact that most scissors are made for righties so they hurt my hand when I use them, and manual can openers can be a real pain to use too. Too bad there isn't a Leftorium in my town...
See 11 Everyday Tasks That Are Tricky For Left Handers at Mental Floss
