Studio Ghibli has been known to be stern when it comes to the distribution and copyright of their films. However, it would seem that they are slowly changing their image through their recent actions.

… it’s come as a bit of a surprise to find the acclaimed animation studio finally releasing its once-firm grip on their movies this year, first with the release of their films on Netflix, and then with the free distribution of official backgrounds for Zoom meetings during the pandemic.

Perhaps the most surprising of all, as of now, is their recent announcement that they will be releasing 400 images for the public to use for free. The images will be from their eight films, such as Spirited Away, Ponyo, and The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

The images were released with this handwritten message from Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki: “Please use them freely within the scope of common sense.”

[...]

The images, which can be downloaded from the official Studio Ghibli website, are a beautiful reminder of the stunning hand-drawn animated scenes produced by the studio. While they’re beautiful to browse through on their own, the images can also be used as screensavers, inspiration for artists and aspiring animators, or for printing out in glossy colour to decorate the walls of your home.

See some of the images over at SoraNews24.

Thanks, Studio Ghibli!

(Image Credit: Studio Ghibli/ SoraNews24)

When Queen Elizabeth II participates in a public event, everything is carefully planned, choreographed, and stage-managed. People working with the Queen need to rehearse, so they call in Ella Slack. She's the Queen's stand-in.

Although she doesn't look much like the Queen, Slack is about the same height (just two inches shorter). She's close enough that event managers can rehearse as though Slack is the Queen. In this video by Great Big Story, Slack describes her work.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

Marvel Studios is introducing a new series for Disney+. WandaVision follows superheroes Wanda Maximoff and Vision as a young couple in 1950s suburbia. It comes across as a sitcom in some places, and a supernatural comic book adventure in others. It would probably help to have some knowledge of the charactes from the comic books, but Den of Geek has a breakdown of what we can learn from this trailer. WandaVision will debut in December. -via Metafilter

In Douglas Adams' novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a very powerful computer named Deep Thought is asked to calculate the answer to  “Life, the Universe and Everything.” The answer is 42. Obviously, this is a very important number. Now if we could only figure out why.

Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to calculate the answer to the ultimate question. The characters tasked with getting that answer are disappointed because it is not very useful. Yet, as the computer points out, the question itself was vaguely formulated. To find the correct statement of the query whose answer is 42, the computer will have to build a new version of itself. That, too, will take time. The new version of the computer is Earth. To find out what happens next, you’ll have to read Adams’s books.

The author’s choice of the number 42 has become a fixture of geek culture. It’s at the origin of a multitude of jokes and winks exchanged between initiates. If, for example, you ask your search engine variations of the question “What is the answer to everything?” it will most likely answer “42.” Try it in French or German. You’ll often get the same answer whether you use Google, Qwant, Wolfram Alpha (which specializes in calculating mathematical problems) or the chat bot Web app Cleverbot.

Adams has declared that the number 42 was a joke, a relatively small but meaningless number. Yet we see it everywhere, and not just because of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Find out how important the number 42 has always been at Scientific American. Warning: the article gets geekier and geekier as it goes along. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Martinultima)

Between 1855 and 1861, during the Caste War of Yucatan, this paddle wheel steamboat, called La Unión, illegally captured and transported about 25 to 30 Maya monthly to Cuba.

"Each slave was sold to middlemen for 25 pesos, and they resold them in Havana for as much as 160 pesos, for men, and 120 pesos for women," INAH archaeologist Helena Barba Meinecke said in a press release.

The ship sunk on September 19, 1861 while en route to Cuba, proving that slavery continued despite having been abolished in Mexico in 1829 and a decree issued banning the forced extraction of Mayan people that same year.

Archaeologists discovered this ship in 2017 as a shipwreck, but it took three years before they confirmed that this was, in fact, a Mayan slave ship.

"For researchers ... the discovery is highly relevant," INAH said in the release. "Beyond the difficulty in identifying a wreck by name, it also speaks to an ominous past for Mexico that should be acknowledged and studied in terms of its context and time."

Learn more about the La Unión over at CNN.

(Image Credit: Mexican’s National Institute of Archaeology and History/ Reuters/ CNN)

Utah, U.S — World-class biker Paul Basagoitia has already charted the whole bike course inside his mind, and has already planned what he will do as he runs through the course. He steadies himself, and the 2015 Red Bull Rampage contest begins.

What makes the contest stand out - and one of the reasons it's been called the world's most extreme mountain biking competition - is that riders get to choose how they want to ride the terrain.

The aim is to successfully navigate your own line down the 1,000-vertical-foot mountain path - roughly equivalent to the height of The Shard, the tallest building in the UK.

[...]

"It's a very dangerous event but at the same time, it's the only event that we're able to showcase our true riding skills."

And show his true riding skills he did… but he failed to pull off the 40-ft landing. He overshot by just a couple of feet,

His pedal got caught on a branch and he flipped over his handlebars, down over a ledge and straight onto his back.

Paul had hit the ground perhaps hundreds of times. He had been knocked out before, and had suffered broken bones. He says that, compared to that fateful day, he has taken harder crashes. But this crash was very different from the previous ones.

… as he tried to get to his feet, he realised he couldn't move his legs.

"That's when I knew my life was gonna change forever."

Paul was helicoptered to hospital from the scene and rushed into surgery. It ended up lasting ten and a half hours.

He had a burst fracture in his T12 vertebra - one of the bones that makes up the spine (back bone) - causing the shattered vertebra to compress his spinal cord.

Doctors had to stabilise his spine and pick the bone fragments off his spinal cord. They also replaced his 12th vertebra with a titanium cage.

During those times, Paul only had one thing in mind: to be able to ride a bike again. But was he able to ride again?

Know more about his story over at BBC.

(Image Credit: BBC/ Red Bull Media House)

New Frame Plus is back once again with another principle of animation. This time it’s about slow in and slow out (also known as ease in and ease out). In this video, Dan explains that by applying this principle, animators can make an animated character’s movements more natural and realistic, and not robotic and mechanical. This principle also helps the viewer to identify which objects in the scene are heavy, and which are light.

Learn more about this principle through this video.

(Video Credit: New Frame Plus/ YouTube)

An international team of researchers led by Matthew Stewart have discovered human footprints in an ancient lake deposit in the Nefud desert in Saudi Arabia. Footprints of some animals, such as elephants, camels, and horses were also found. The footprints are estimated to be 112,000-121,000 years old. 

“We immediately realised the potential of these findings,” says Stewart. “Footprints are a unique form of fossil evidence in that they provide snapshots in time, typically representing a few hours or days, a resolution we tend not get from other records.”

From the size and orientation of the human footprints, there were likely two or three individuals travelling together.

Learn more details about this study over at Cosmos Magazine.

It’s amazing how some footprints could give us a glimpse of the past.

(Image Credit: Klint Janulis/ Cosmos)

Sometimes you don’t need to know the dish name. As long as it's edible, and it tastes delicious, then you can eat or sell it.

What do you think?

Image via Engrish.com

Petrit Halilaj’s first solo exhibition at the Reina Sofía's Palacio de Cristal is beautiful and deeply personal. The artist was inspired by the elaborate courtship rituals of bowerbirds, who are known for decorating structures to attract a mate. Halilaj strung up enormous flowers inside the glass conservatory, wanting to turn Palacio de Cristal into a place for the celebration of love, as My Modern Met details: 

This time, the artist uses nature to construct a highly personal narrative. The large forsythia, palm seeds, cherry blossom, poppy, carnation, and lily flowers that dangle from the roof were constructed from steel and canvas in collaboration with Halilaj's life partner, Álvaro Urbano.

”I wanted to conceive Palacio de Cristal as a place for the celebration of love,” Halilaj declared. And by publicly demonstrating their love, the couple is making a big statement about acceptance, particularly when neither the artist's family nor Kosovar society fully embraces them. This call for acceptance also extends to the artist's own nation, as Kosovo is not a fully recognized state. In fact, Spain does not recognize Kosovo and is one of its biggest opponents in entering the European Union.

As a secondary concept, the nesting space that Halilaj has created within the Palacio de Cristal is tied to its environment. It cannot be separated from its surroundings and together they function as a whole. By opening windows and setting up feeding areas for birds to enter the space, he blends indoors and outdoors seamlessly. And by inviting viewers to wander among the enormous structures, he asks them to consider their own place in nature.

Image via My Modern Met

Youtube Channel What's Inside:

The Ultimate Las Vegas Nevada Underground Bunker! Thanks to AMC’s The Walking Dead: World Beyond for sponsoring this video!



Did you know that water can turn into a disinfectant if electrolyzed? Regular tap water turns into a non-toxic disinfectant that’s capable of instantly neutralizing any microorganism or volatile organic compounds. Electrolyzed Water is capable of killing bacteria and viruses, and is certified by the FDA. Now you can get your hands on it through a small spray can. The EO Mini turns water into the solution, as Yanko Design details: 

Just fill its vessel with regular tap water and the EO Mini’s tiny electrolyzing system creates electrolyzed water in a matter of seconds. Most tap water comes with trace amounts of chlorine in it, which the EO Mini’s internal electrolyzer breaks down to create Hypochlorous acid – which gives the electrolyzed water its disinfecting abilities. A single button on the EO mini allows you to electrolyze the water (by holding it down for 3 seconds) and spray the EO Water solution on your hands, cutlery, handles, spectacles, smartphones, laptops, and even out in the air.

By shrinking the technology into something that’s small enough to fit in your pocket, the EO Mini allows you to carry your safety with you. It can be used at home to clean surfaces, or even outdoors, allowing you to quickly sterilize your hands, your mask, and even frequently-touched objects like the handle on the shopping cart or the keypad on an ATM. By eliminating the use of off-the-counter sanitizers, the EO Mini does two noteworthy things… It provides a healthier and more potent alternative that’s safe for humans and animals, all along while using any regular tap water, saving you money on sanitizers down the line!

Image via Yanko Design

Listen, it’s alright to be creative when it comes to designing your home. Sometimes though, there’s a limit to how creative you can be. Reader’s Digest shares some epic fails when it comes to DIY bathroom projects. From backwards toilet tanks to a showerhead tub faucet, scrolling through this compilation will either have you laughing so hard, or cringing. Check the full piece here. 

Image via Reader’s Digest

If you want to feel the thrill of action movies where protagonists would hack and program a moving vehicle, well this robot vehicle might be for you! While it isn’t like the big cars featured in films, the Sphero RVR is made for everyone ages 8 and up. The mini robot car can help level up anyone’s programming skills, from coding to hacking! 

Image via AutoBlog 

Artist and designer Sean Brown has created a collection of hand-tufted acrylic rugs that emulate the round disc shape of a CD. The Toronto-based artist included designs based on different albums such as   Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core, The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” and Jay-Z’s Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter. The rugs are available for $250 each, as Apartment Therapy details:  

Brown initially shared the designs on Twitter in April, and the tweet has since amassed over 90 thousand likes. In an interview with Vogue earlier this month, Brown cited the serendipitous “happenstance” of coronavirus quarantine as the inspiration behind the collection. “I don’t think it would have gone the same way if it was something I had deliberately set my sights on,” the designer said. “I think being at home allowed me to get in touch with my space, and how I could utilize that in my creativity in my art.”

Brown also said of the sentimental aspect of the collection, “I was talking to a friend and we were discussing how we don’t think it’s fair to judge art so harshly in the moment, because it can mean something so different to the following generations.” Musing on the always-changing landscape of music and hip-hop culture, Brown added, “You look back now, and people who are older now want things to go back to that, and they have a problem with all the Lils and the face tats and the dyed hair.”

Image via Apartment Therapy