This film experiment shows that you can find pretty much anything you want in stock footage. If you have the time, money, and patience, you can string together whatever you want. Filmmaker Matthew Highton put in the time and effort to recreate every slip of The Simpsons intro scene using available stock footage. Fox Broadcasting really should use this for the show sometime. -via Fark
In the middle of the Japanese countryside, there's a train station. You can exit the train, but you can't go anywhere. There are no roads or paths away from the station and no one lives in the area.
Why does it exist? Spoon & Tamago tells us that the Seiryū-Miharashi Station was built solely to allow people to enjoy the natural beauty of the Nishiki River flowing through the forest. After you disembark and breathe in the mountain air, the next train will pick you up in about 10-15 minutes.
-via Messy Nessy Chic | Photo: With News
If by some chance you were planning to show your love to someone this Valentines Day with a curated playlist, congratulations, that is almost as cliche as a heart-shaped box of candy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A shared love of music is probably healthier than chocolate, anyway. However, before you go choosing messages of undying love from various top 40 lists, you might want to take a second look at the lyrics. Songs that became classic love songs in the past often have rather problematic story lines.
Whether they’re a little too obsessive, written about an inappropriately young love interest or romanticizing a toxic relationship, there are a surprisingly number of songs about love that actually are far creepier than they were intended to be. To help you know which ones you should steer clear of when putting together your Valentine’s Day playlist this year, we’ve rounded up some of the most disturbing examples. (For the purposes of this list, we’re focusing solely on songs that are unintentionally creepy, meaning self-aware depictions of unhealthy relationships or songs that are specifically intended to shock — like The Misfits’ “Die, Die My Darling” or Gnarls Barkley’s “Necromancer” — don’t fit the bill.)
InsideHook spells out what’s wrong with 13 love songs that you might not have noticed when casually listening. After all, you don’t want to send the wrong message, or give the impression that you don’t pay attention to details. Yeah, "EveryBreath You Take" is there, because that's a gimme. The others may surprise you. -via Digg
My number #1 rule in life (Jordan Peterson has 12, but I have 20) is "Always wear shoes you can run in. You never know what the day may bring." That's why fashion designer Beate Karlsson now has my undivided attention.
What are your fashion needs? Do you need shorts that make you look like you have Kim Kardashian's posterior? Do you need shoes that look like giant human hands? Beate Karlsson has you covered.
Now I know that it's common to scoff at fashion designers' more... imaginative improvements to haute couture. They tantalize us with designs that never appear in stores. Well, I have good news! You can actually buy these shoes!
-via Super Punch
It hasn’t been long since Google lost Dr. Timnit Gebru, the tech company’s top AI ethics researcher, last December 2020, after apparently mistreating her. Now, just a little over 2 months after Gebru’s termination from the company, engineers and other staff have also left Google.
According to Reuters, engineering director David Baker left the tech giant last month after 16 years with the company. In a letter seen by the news organization, Baker said Gebru’s exit “extinguished [his] desire to continue as a Googler.” He added: “We cannot say we believe in diversity, and then ignore the conspicuous absence of many voices from within our walls.”
[...]
Timnit Gebru used to co—lead Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team until her controversial exit. Gebru said she was fired after sending an email to the company’s internal “Brain Women and Allies” list. In a report trying to get to the bottom of what happened, MIT’s Technology Review said Gebru’s departure was a result of a conflict over a paper she co-authored. The paper discussed issues with training language AI, including its environmental impact and its potential to cause a disadvantage to marginalized groups.
[...]
Gebru’s exit caused an uproar, prompting thousands of Googlers, as well as academic, industry and civil society supporters to sign a letter calling on Google Research “to strengthen its commitment to research integrity and to unequivocally commit to supporting research that honors the commitments made in Google’s AI Principles.”
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: The Pancake of Heaven!/ Wikimedia Commons)
Toys are normally supposed to make your mood better and not to make it worse. Comedian Jeff Wysaski of Obvious Plant went the opposite way from the norm and decided to make these toys which are insulting at the very least, and morbid at the most. While the toys are considered “fake”, these are “actually available for purchase through the Obvious Plant store.”
Dibs on the leg! How about you? What will you take?
Via Laughing Squid
(Image Credit: obviousplant/ Instagram)
Computer systems and cyber-infrastructures will almost always be imperfect. This is why updates and patches are essential to these systems. But while the devs are busy creating the patches needed to fix the flaws of a computer system, malicious entities can sometimes take this time to launch a cyber attack to exploit the flaws. This type of cyber attack is called zero-day attacks, and this is the worst that could happen to vulnerable computer systems. Zero-day attacks…
can quickly overwhelm traditional defenses, resulting in billions of dollars of damage and requiring weeks of manual patching work to shore up the systems after the intrusion.
Computer scientists recognize the limitations of traditional defenses in computer systems, and so they try to make new types of computer security.
Now, a Penn State-led team of researchers used a machine learning approach, based on a technique known as reinforcement learning, to create an adaptive cyber defense against these attacks.
According to Minghui Zhu, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and Institute for Computational and Data Sciences co-hire, the team developed this adaptive machine learning-driven method to address current limitations in a method to detect and respond to cyber-attacks, called moving target defense, or MTD.
Learn more about this method over at TechXplore.
(Image Credit: TheDigitalArtist/ Pixabay)
On August 3, 2020, a beefalo was able to escape from a trailer outside the Plymouth Meats processing facility. It was then next seen in Terryville two weeks after its escape. Ever since its escape, the Plymouth Police Department had been trying to capture it, but in all of their attempts, the beefalo was able to elude them. Now, over six months later, the police department encountered the beefalo again, and it seems that, despite the winter storms, it was able to take care of itself pretty well.
The Plymouth Police Department shared a photo on Facebook showing the beefalo, dubbed Buddy by locals, wandering in the snow in the Terryville area of Plymouth.
"As you can see, he is doing fine," the post said. "Ready for dinner."
[...]
A fundraiser to save Buddy from slaughter raised enough money to secure the bovine a new home at the Critter Farm Sanctuary in Florida, but attempts to capture the beefalo have thus far been unsuccessful.
Well, I hope that the cops are not giving up on capturing him. The sanctuary in Florida seems like the better place for him.
Well, what do you think?
(Image Credit: Plymouth Police Department/ Facebook)
Who doesn’t want a relaxing hot coffee or tea while chilling on a plane and waiting for it to land? Well, after reading this, you might want to avoid any type of hot beverage while on the plane.
“Flight attendants will not drink hot water on the plane," a flight attendant told Business Insider. "They will not drink plain coffee, and they will not drink plain tea.” So why not? The answer, which comes from the EPA, is pretty disgusting.
The water used for hot drinks on flights comes straight from the tap rather than from bottles. The EPA did a study on the water back in 2004 and found that 12.6 percent of the samples contained coliform. Not grossed out yet? Coliform count is an indicator of how much fecal matter there is, thus determining the sanitary quality of foods and water.
"Both total coliform and E.coli are indicators that other disease-causing organisms (pathogens) may be present in the water and could potentially affect public health," the study noted.
To make things worse, the EPA also found that of the 158 planes they looked at, two of the planes tested positive for E.coli, which can cause diarrhea and stomach cramps.
Maybe I’ll just stick with the canned beverages next time.
(Image Credit: LeeRosario/ Pixabay)
Oddity Central brings to our attention this amazing desert. It's called shiltarae bingsu. These fine noodles are actually made of shaved ice! Cafe Tiravento in Seoul, South Korea, makes it.
As I explored that restaurant's Instagram page, I found other amazing dishes that rival shiltarae bingsu as edible works of art.
Spock rocks. 🖖🤘
— Star Trek on CBS All Access (@startrekcbs) February 7, 2021
See what awaits our heroes at the peak of Paramount Mountain during today's big game. #ParamountPlus pic.twitter.com/LymkkMzZOm
I am informed that there was a significant football game last night. More importantly, the most prized television commercials of the year aired. CBS debuted a series of short ads featuring characters from Paramount's deep bench journeying together to the summit of the mountain on that company's logo.
The results are very funny, such as Spock jamming to SpongeBob SquarePants singing "Sweet Victory" by David Glen Eisley. Other stars appearing together include Patrick Stewart on air guitar, Stephen Colbert working the bar, Dora the Explorer, and Tom Selleck.
How would a centaur ride a bike? As the anime series A Centaur's Life teaches us, a lot of design modifications are necessary for centaurs who live in a bipedal-majority world. But those changes can be done. Kyle Scheele becomes the center and centaur of attention whenever he rides this two-person bicycle that becomes serves as a costume.
This is one of Scheele's many creations with cardboard. It is, perhaps, not his most extraordinary. When he turned 30 a few years ago, he held a Viking funeral for his 20s.
-via Boing Boing
(Berkeley Mews/Ben Zaehringer)
There is a single bright spot in this crisis: if you're going to die, it's not because of one of those profoundly annoying Liberty Mutual ads. So in the instant that your consciousness vaporizes with your body, it will retain a bit of dignity.
Food artist Erik Vernieuwe and photographer Kris De Smedt operate Burp, a food photography studio. Lately, they have been altering hot dogs to show famous scenes from movies and works of art. You'll recognize E.T., the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and others.
The full length nudes in the series are especially . . . strange.
