The AP Stylebook's Twitter account, in addition to creating writing standards often used in journalism, spends its time telling people what they should and should not think and say. In a recent now-deleted tweet, it urged people to avoid a particular type of phrasing that it regards as dehumanizing--describing people with a label preceded by the definite article.
Do not, it emphasizes derisively describe any person as belonging to some unfortunate class of people, such as "the poor, the mentally, ill, the French...."
The Embassy of the...uh, I mean, the Embassy of France to the United States is taking it fairly well:
Josh Jacobs, also known as Slinky Josh, is the world's premiere expert in slinky manipulation, or slinking, as he calls it. He came by the art honestly, by seeing someone on the internet do it. He was so impressed that he got a slinky and started practicing. The slinkys that Jacobs uses are a far cry from the original metal slinkys, which got bent before you could ever do fancy tricks with them. He uses tough, colorful slinkys that he sells along with slinky manipulation lessons. In this video, Jacobs shows us a couple of the basic moves that anyone can do, but you can only get really good at it with practice. -via Digg
It's been 30 years now since the last Sears catalog was printed. By then, the company had spent more than 100 years as the king of mail order. Does anyone else remember when you could order a gun through the Sears catalog? Sears would mail some items that would be unthinkable today, like heroin, back when it was offered as a non-addicting alternative to morphine. Sears offered a whole line of drugs, many that would be categorized as "snake oil" today.
You could order an entire house delivered from Sears, although it would come in many separate packages that you put together yourself. Plans were included that gave you step-by-step directions for buildings your own house from a kit. For an additional charge, you could even get one designed to include a bathroom.
Core 77 shares with us a fascinating development by NVIDIA, a graphics and artificial intelligence company.
Let's say that you're in a long virtual meeting with someone and would like to pretend to be paying attention to that person. Just occasionally nodding saying "uh huh" every 30 seconds isn't enough. People expect that you will maintain eye contact through the webcam in order to convincingly feign interest.
INVIDIA has developed an AI-based filter that will automatically present the eyes on display as directed at the camera. In addition to creating the appearance of attentiveness, it's useful when people are reading off of a script, such as a teleprompter, but wish to look their audiences directly in the eye.
Take a good look at the musical notation before you play the video. In ten measures scored for ten instruments, you see a cat curled up in a ball. How does it sound? Surprisingly good! How does that happen?Noam Oxman wrote this music as a memorial tribute for his beloved Chubby Cat, who he describes as "a sprinkle of playful piccolo, a touch of warm strings, and a sweet harmony progression." He is describing both the cat and the music. We can be impressed with the skill that went into this, although it's not Oxman's first such musical illustration. His YouTube channel of "Sympawnies" has a lot more, and some of them are for sale as art prints as well. Proceeds are used to feed and give medical treatment to stray cats.
When you've got the talent to do something as odd as this, you have to share it with the world. -via Fark
đ The last exercise I had that involved a cat comprised of running away from its murderous claws, but apparently, you can exercise with a feline strength training equipment. Behold, catflexing.
đŗ Long before the open concept kitchen and the farmhouse kitchen trend, there were avocado green appliances and other bygone kitchen fads. Take a stroll down memory lane or gawk at your parents' bizarre dream kitchens of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.
âī¸ Got an insufferable coworker who kept on droning about his mechanical keyboard? Tell him that he's behind the curve: the hot new, er ... make that old thing is the rotary phone keyboard.
đļ Move over, Perry Mason! Here comes Toddler Lawyer. LOL! If you like that, there's plenty more laughs over at Laughosaurus.
đģ It's 279 days till Halloween, but you don't have to wait that long to get your fix of horror and other witchy delights. Spooky Daily, where very day is Halloween, has got you covered with Halloween in January.
Image: Catflexing: The Catlover's Guide to Weight Training, Aerobics, and Stretching by Stephanie Jackson
Who was the real life Carmen Sandiego? History has so many male thieves, con artists, and scammers that the women who pulled these capers often fly under the radar. But they are there, making themselves wealthy by convincing people they are someone besides who they really are. Con women may present themselves as someone worthy of expensive gifts, or talk their way into money that is never seen again, or marry into wealth by false pretenses, or engage in plain old thievery. Some are better at it than others.
The picture above is of May Dugas, an educated prostitute from Michigan who blackmailed her wealthy clients. When her scams were uncovered, she took her show on the road, to Shanghai, Tokyo, London, the Netherlands, and back to the US, where she returned to her hometown as a fabulously wealthy woman. But Dugas continued her crimes even then. Other con women from history include a jewel thief, a royal fraud, and one woman who faked her own death. Read about five of them at Messy Nessy Chic.
It's so cool when people who have access to hi-tech equipment share the stuff they see with the rest of us. Photographer Jens Braun dissolved some vitamin C and then let it recrystallize under a microscope fitted with a camera, using polarized light and everything. We get to see the action in various speeds and colors. Even if you don't understand what's going on (and few truly do), the process is beautiful. It's the conjunction of art and science. Or you might say that the natural world is a work of art, but we aren't able to see all of it without the help of an artist. -via Digg
If a conjoined twin were to commit a crime, what would be the legal implications? The state could certainly put the perpetrator on trial, but could they be punished with a prison sentence? One twin could not be incarcerated without the other, and that would mean jailing an innocent person. You might think, how could one be guilty without the other also being guilty? There are plenty of crimes that happen in the blink of an eye, like shoplifting or simple assault, that the second twin might have no knowledge of before the moment it happens. That brings up the question of how responsible one twin would be for preventing their sibling's crime, or failing to report, or even fleeing. While one twin might be the guilty party, the other might be an accessory to a crime. That brings up the question of free will, the exact nature of the twins' physical bond, and how competent each twin is.
This is a common thought experiment in law school, but believe it or not there have been a couple of real world cases, including one in the US. There was also a fictional case in the TV series American Horror Story. Read about those cases and the legal questions surrounding conjoined twins and the law. -Thanks, Jill!
In Iceland, people are beginning to celebrate Sólardagur by enjoying sólarkaffi. That takes a bit of explanation. Iceland is below the Arctic Circle, but it is close and quite mountainous. In some valley communities, the sun does not shine for a month or so on either side of the winter solstice. Sólardagur translates to Sun Day, the day when the light comes back, even for just a few minutes. That calls for a celebration which involves sólarpönnukökur (sun pancakes) and sólarkaffi (sun coffee). Some villages, schools, and and workplaces have community breakfasts to celebrate, and children sing songs welcoming the sun.
In those villages affected by midwinter darkness, the coffee and pancake tradition goes way back. But due to people moving into the city, meaning Reykjavík, they spread the traditions of Sólardagur to all of Iceland. Read about the return of the sun to Iceland and the celebrations that accompany it at Atlas Obscura.
For years, we at Neatorama made fun of Snakes on a Plane. It started out in 1992 as a single pitch line, which became the title. "Snakes on a plane" was such a silly yet intriguing idea for a disaster movie that it became an internet meme, gaining so much steam that the producers incorporated elements of the meme into the movie. Yeah, it was lots of fun until the actual movie was released in 2006, and the fun came to a screeching halt because the movie was awful. Well, maybe it was a good time if you weren't expecting too much. The lesson of Snakes on a Plane was to not get your hopes up over a pitch line, especially if the production is taking its cues from the internet hive mind (see also: The Rise of Skywalker). Screen Junkies takes a closer look at Snakes on a Plane from almost 17 years later, and discovered that yes, it still sucks. However, the story of how it came about is interesting.
No, she's not been infected by a parasitic alien cephalopod; these are earbuds, but I don't blame you for taking a second look. Glass artist Genki Hirano crafted unique wireless earbuds for a design show in Japan last year. The theme of the show was marine life, which inspired the octopus tentacle. They were a hit, but he only make a few glass sets for the show. To fill popular demand, Hirano partnered with a toy manufacturer to make a plastic version for the public, with six different tentacle designs.
But don't think it will be easy to get your hands on them just yet. The tentacle earbuds have recently gone on sale only in vending machines in Japan. Still, who knows- they might prove popular enough to eventually be offered for sale online. My guess is that it won't be long before someone sets up a resale operation. -via Nag on the Lake
Every year, the night before the Academy Awards are announced, the Golden Raspberry Awards are bestowed on the previous year's worst movies. Well, tomorrow we will find out who the nominees are for the Oscars, so today we get the nominations for the Razzies, as they are called. Netflix's Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde leads the pack, with eight nominations including Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. The Disney "live-action" version of Pinocchio was nominated for six Razzies, and the Marvel movie Morbius is up for five awards. In addition to those three movies, The King's Daughter and Good Mourning round out the nominees for Worst Picture.
Tom Hanks was nominated for three awards from two different movies, Elvis and Pinocchio, while Pete Davidson got two nominations for different movies, Marmaduke and Good Mourning. You can see the entire list of Razzie nominations at Variety. The awards will be announced on March 11.
It takes a certain kind of person to even want to try this game. In 10 Typos, you'll be presented with a news article, and you must find the ten words that are misspelled. You will be timed, but you are only competing with yourself. You can't compare scores when the news articles are different lengths. If the same article comes up for you twice, there will be different words misspelled. You can read slowly and get them all, or you can read as fast as you normally do and your brain will sail right past typos. The goal is to find the sweet spot in your reading speed so that you see the typos without wasting time.
One thing that will make it easier for you is the scorecard on the right. If you are missing a word, you'll know it's between a couple of the words you already found.
What makes it hard is the fact that the articles are from British news sources. I didn't know I was going to have to proofread in another language! The first time I played, I wasted a lot of time correcting words that are perfectly cromulent in British English, but not in American English. The real misspellings are common words that are just mistyped. My fastest time was less than a minute, but that may have been an unusually short news article. -via Nag on the Lake
I always thought that not plowing the streets in residential neighborhoods was a genius way to keep people at home on snow days, at least before everyone and their brother decided that owning a pickup truck or an SUV made them invincible. People look out their windows and assume all the streets are covered the way theirs is. Or you might get the idea that it's just laziness. But cities put a real effort into clearing snow from the streets, starting with the main thoroughfares and places like hospital entrances. It's just a lot more expensive and time-consuming than it may appear to us. Streets like the one to my house usually have to wait at least until the temperature rises, and by then the problem is solved on its own. Half as Interesting explains the factors that slow down snow removal in both cities and rural areas. If you live in, say, Texas, your town probably doesn't even have a snow removal system. This video is five minutes long; the rest is an ad. -via Digg
