What we have here is a mashup of the Netflix series House of Cards and the HBO series Game of Thrones, so you know you’re in for some cutthroat shenanigans. House of Cards character Frank Underwood makes short work of getting the better of even the worst of the Westeros elite. -via Digg
Blog Posts Ponder Variety Likes
David Szakaly creates abstract moving gifs that appear to be way more than just a few images repeating. He’s been archiving these little artworks on his Tumblr blog dvdp for years. Look through his archives to find some that will particularly tickle your senses. -via Laughing Squid
YouTube member GAabriel Antunes put together a weird bit of Hollywood coincidence that will take some explaining, but will blow your mind. Or maybe not, does this kind of thing happen all the time, and we just aren’t aware of it? This video is arranged in three parts.
1. In 2009, comedian Louis C.K. talks about the wannabe actors who pose questions to movie stars, such as Sean Penn, during the show Inside the Actors Studio. No way any of those curious students will ever be famous!
2. In 1999, Sean Penn was indeed on Inside the Actors Studio, where he fielded a question from a wannabe actor named Bradley Cooper.
3. In 2013, Bradley Cooper harassed Louis C.K. onscreen when they were both in the movie American Hustle. Who's laughing now?
How anyone ever put all this together is beyond me, but I’m glad they did. -via Uproxx
The Ladybird Book line still exists, but in the traditional sense, the name refers to a line of British children’s books that were published from the 1940s through 1970s. The had a standardized format including a listing of key vocabulary words on each page.
Miriam Elia, a writer and artist, has released the book We Go to the Gallery. It's a satire on modern art that in the form of a fake Ladybird book:
“I thought it would be humorous to see Mummy, Peter and Jane going to a really nihilistic modern art exhibition”, she says. Among the works confronted by the trio on their cultural outing are pastiches of Emin, Creed and Koons, through which they learn about sex, death, nothingness “and all of the debilitating, middle-class self-hatred contained in the artworks.”
You can see more a few more pages at The Independent.
-via American Digest
Fong Qi Wei, an artist from Singapore, is noted for his creative photography. We've previously featured his photos of exploded flowers. Now he's once again demonstrating highly original thinking by creating animated collages of landscapes. He uses photos taken at different parts of the day, then blends them to show the passage of day and night.
Fong calls the series Time in Motion. You can see the rest of it here. You have to click on each image to see it animate.
-via Colossal
As a frequent thrift store shopper I’m always coming across terrible paintings being sold for a few bucks because nobody else wants them, a sad testament to the time and energy spent by a budding artist who had no idea of the cruel fate that awaits their painting.
Luckily there’s a good Samaritan named Dave Pollot shopping thrift stores and bringing a geeky new life to reject paintings. With the simple inclusion of pop culture icons like Darth Vader, Bender from Futurama and that cute little Android spokesrobot Dave gives these abandoned works of art a new life.
Dave’s appropriated paintings may not land him in the MoMA, but they’re sure to get him some geek love on the interwebs.
-Via Nerd Approved
Forensic artists can’t come across a skull, or skull shaped decanter, without wondering what that person’s fleshy face looked like when they were among the living, and there’s no better testament to your artistic skills than creating a skull sculpture from scratch that actually looks like a human being when clay skin is added.
Some hitherto unnamed forensic scientists couldn’t help themselves when they saw a bottle of Crystal Skull Vodka sitting on the shelf at their local liquor store, they just had to see what that laughing face would look like properly skinned.
So they bought a bottle and went to work properly replacing layers of muscle and flesh until they revealed the face of a drunken fool, very appropriate for the spokesskull of a popular alcoholic beverage!
If anyone knows the name(s) of the forensic scientists behind this project please share in the comments below!
-Via Cheezburger
Update: These photos came from Crystal Head Vodka’s Facebook page. The forensic artist who did this is Nigel Cockerton. -Thanks, kdub!
Bubble wrap is one of life's greatest little pleasures! Once you get started, you can’t stop until every bubble is popped. You know how it is. That goes for raccoons, too! -via Daily of the Day
Remember the Homeland Security Advisory System from the Department of Homeland Security? It tried to tell us how scared we should be, as if that would help anything. Now you can make your own, with the Personal Threat Level generator. I threw this one together in a hurry, which means I’ll probably have some much better ideas later. I bet you could even make a personal Valentine with this. -via Boing Boing
Although most superheroes could be diagnosed with a mental illness or two, Batman always seems to be a cornucopia of neuroses. When it was suggested to Kerry Callen that the Caped Crusader he may be a hoarder, he was inspired to write a comic about it. It's only two pages long, and what you see here isn't the only joke. Link -via Boing Boing
Astronaut Karen Nyberg, currently living on the ISS, shows us how to wash long hair in space. It can't be easy when your water keeps flying away! Nyberg, a mechanical engineer, flew to the ISS on the space shuttle in 2008, but this is her first long-term mission on the space station. -via Viral Viral Videos
Italian artist Paolo Troilo needs no paintbrushes to create his artwork. Instead, he dips his fingers into jars of black and white paint to create the most amazing fingerpaintings you'll see today.
The Seattle Public Library lined up 2,131 books and knocked them all over to kick off their summer reading program. It took all day to get the books to fall just right.
At around 11 p.m., when the fifth try was successful, “everyone was jumping up and down, hugging and shouting,” Twito said. “Despite how tired we were at that point, everyone stayed to box up all the books, which had to be on the loading dock by midnight,” she said.
She noted that if it the fifth attempt had not been successful, there wouldn’t have been enough time to try again. “We had to be packed up and out of the building by midnight,” she said. “Everyone was so happy that we were able to break the record.”
The books used in the chain will be sold, each with a special sticker noting its use in the event. Link -via Metafilter
And a human tightrope walker at that. Siam is one seriously talented gibbon and needs form a circus at Monkeyland so he can become a true star.
For Father's Day, let's hear some fatherly advice on learning, love, friends, worry and patience from a few famous fathers:
On Learning by Einstein
"That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don't notice that the time passes."
In a letter to his son Hans Albert about playing the piano, Albert Einstein wrote that the secret to learning is working on something that you love. That worked for Einstein himself, who was "sometimes so wrapped up in [his] work that [he] forgot about the noon meal ..."
Source: Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children - via Brain Pickings
On Love by John Steinbeck
In 1958, John Steinbeck's oldest son Thom confessed to have fallen madly in love with a girl. Steinbeck has this advice:
First - if you are in love - that's a good thing - that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light for you.
Second - There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you - of kindness and consideration and respect - not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release you in strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had. [...]
And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Source: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
On Choosing Friends by Gen. George Patton
The swashbuckling General George S. Patton, commander of the Third United States Army during World War II, took some time away from fighting the Germans to give some fatherly advice to his son, then a young cadet at West Point. Patton's obscenity-laced letters (this is Patton, after all), included this advice on how to choose a friend:
"You must dispense with friends or 'buddies.' Be friendly but let the other man make the advances. Your own classmates – the worthless ones will tease you about [it] – admit it.
"I repeat ... you must be a man not a boy and you must never let up working. You must not be a good fellow or join in 'harmless larks.' They are the result of an unstable mind.
"You will probably have no choice in initial roommates or tent mates. But keep looking for a quiet studious boy or boys for roommates in the winter. The older the men you can pick the better as roommates. It is usually best not to live with your friends – that makes you lose them. Remember you are a lone wolf.
"If some little fart hazes you don’t get mad. Do what he says and take it out on someone else next year."
On Worry by F. Scott Fitzgerald
When his eleven-year old daughter Scottie came to him with worries, F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby and many other novels, told her:
Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about Cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship
Worry about…Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactionsThings to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?
Source: F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters
On Patience by Charles Darwin
In 1873, 28-year-old George Darwin, the son of naturalist Charles Darwin, wrote a pointed essay on religion and morality. The essay, Darwin worried, could unnecessarily cause harm to George's reputation. To this, Darwin counseled patience - "my advice is to pause, pause, pause" - so his son could weigh the pros and cons of publishing the essay, and whether he could achieve his objective by subtler means that did not create new enemies:
"I am rather alarmed at you getting into the habit of desiring an early harvest or result & frittering away your time on many such subjects or by writing short essays (& therefore temporary) on important subjects; & this, I think, would be beneath your powers.— I wish that you were tied to some study on which you could not hope to publish anything for some years. I have marked one or two passages in which you give your own conviction: remember that an enemy might ask who is this man, & what is his age & what have been his special studies, that he shd. give to the world his opinions on the deepest subjects? — This sneer might easily be avoided, & yet you could say your say. But my advice is to pause, pause, pause."
Source: Darwin Project
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