John Farrier's Blog Posts

Pac-Man X-Ray

Amazingly, this picture was made with cans of spray paint. The artist, SHOK-1, is noted for his gift for creating subtle shades and precise forms in that medium. He calls this work “The Consumer.”

With this talent, you might suspect that SHOK-1 would be a great street artist. And if you view his Flickr gallery, you’ll find that is correct.

-via Booooooom


Teaching US History through Star Trek

(Photo: SDSU News Center)

Dr. John Putnam is a professor of history at San Diego State University. He teaches an unusual American history course. HIST 557, which is titled “Star Trek, Culture, and History,” uses Star Trek to explore cultural trends in postwar American society. In an interview, Dr. Putnam explained what he hopes that his students will gain from the course:

As I became more engrossed and interested in Star Trek, I realized that the series had something to say about American society. Not only did I hope that students would gain a greater appreciation for Star Trek, but I also saw it as a different and unique way to examine post-World War II history in the classroom. […]

I remind them that this is a history course and the larger history we study and examine is the central part of this. Star Trek is a vehicle from which to do this. In addition, I hope that they learn how popular culture — whether television, film, or music — can offer insight into the values, concerns, hopes and anxieties of society at the time the television series or film was produced.

This statement resonates with me. Recently, I’ve been re-watching the original series, which is something I had not done regularly in perhaps 25 years.

A few weeks ago, I watched “The Cage,” which was the first pilot for the show, shot in 1964. One element that was particularly striking was the enormous weight Captain Pike and Vina gave to maintaining Vina’s illusion of beauty. In her natural form, Vina had a healthy but mangled body. Keeping the illusion was worth remaining in Talosian captivity. The characters accepted this decision uncritically.

That was 50 years ago. I suspect that such a sentiment could not be expressed without objections if newly published today. In a way, “The Cage” is a time capsule of American social history. I suspect that when examined carefully, many other Star Trek episodes and movies would also prove historically illuminating.

-via College Insurrection


17 Famous First Lines Rewritten for Modern Times

Can you connect with literature written so long ago? Human nature is eternal so literature should always be understandable. Selfies are new but self-love is not.

But perhaps we can compromise with great literature for the millennial generation. Imagine heroes and villains of our past using Tinder to find love and updating Twitter while hunting a terrible whale across the oceans. Jennifer Shaffer of BuzzFeed did so by rewriting the opening lines to 17 great novels for modern times.

-via 22 Words


The Keyboard Waffle Iron Is Finally a Reality

7 years ago, Chris Dimino, a technological seer of mysterious powers, conceived of the keyboard waffle iron. It was just a design concept built out of an old Smith Corona typewriter. Humanity would have to wait in breathless anticipation for it to become a reality.

That day is here. Dimino has now produced a functional waffle iron that is shaped like a keyboard. It is not yet functional as a keyboard, but I think that’s doable with just an array of pressure sensors wired into the waffle. Then just add syrup and butter to type an embarrassingly typo-filled blog post.

-via Foodiggity


Spider-Man Cuddling with Cats

Do you think that Spider-Man is a dark, brooding, and distant person? No, he's actually quite sensitive. This really comes out in home photos shot by Twitter user @tks1783. They show Spidey at home with his cats and son.

We all need to decompress from the stresses of work. Spider-Man knows exactly how to do that.

Continue reading

Man Uses World's Largest GPS Drawing to Propose to His Girlfriend

Yasushi Takahashi is a Japanese artist known as Yassan. In 2010, he quit his job, telling people that he would spend a few months traveling across the country. What he was actually doing was proposing marriage to his girlfriend in an enormous drawing that traced his route through GPS navigation. According to Guinness World Records, Yassan's GPS drawing is the largest in the world.

The entire journey covered 4,451 miles, mostly on foot. Yassan also occasionally used cars, bicycles, and ferries. He wrote "Marry Me" and a drew a heart with an arrow through it.

The project ended successfully: when he showed it to his girlfriend, she said yes!

-via Rocket News 24


How to Make the World's Simplest Electric Train

This looks like fun! To make your own electric train, you'll need coiled copper wire, a battery, and 4 strong magnets. Attach the magnets to the end of the battery and place the "train" inside the coiled wire.

The toy train zips along the copper track, which you can arrange in a circle to keep the movement going.


(Video Link)

I'm going to admit my ignorance: I'm not really sure why this works. Some YouTube commenters say that this toy is a homopolar motor, which is a type of electric motor in which the surrounding copper wire completes a circuit.

Commenters, is that correct?

-via Twisted Sifter


The Catwalk

Come here, kitty. British street artist JPS shows this cat's graceful balance on a wall in Barcelona, Spain. Can you walk the chain as confidently?

-via Street Art Utopia


Party in a Box

See that big gift-wrapped package? Open it! Comedian Nathan Barnatt will pop out and dance. With a sleek outfit, music playing, and a mirror ball helmet, he's a party in a box.

You don't even have to open the box to get the party started. As this man using a urinal in a restroom learned, it's enough to simply be in Barnatt's general vicinity.


(Video Link)

Nathan Barnatt loves to spread joy in public this way. We've also seen him dress as a skeleton and dance to the song "Dead Man's Bones" and try to audition for a music video.

-via Blame It on the Voices


Fantasy Island

You can rely upon the Doma Collective, an Argentinian art group consisting of Mariano Barbieri, Julián Pablo Manzelli, Matías Vigliano and Orilo Blandini, for a constant stream of unique works of art combining images and media that you'd never thought of before. For example, in the past, we've seen their conveyor belt of human evolution and a giant plush walking around urban streets.

This plastic sculpture is called Fantasy Island. What is real and what is the product of pharmaceutical-driven delusions?

-via Super Punch


Lost Masterpiece Found in the Background of a 90s Children's Movie

(Image: Columbia Pictures)

Róbert Berény (1887-1953) was an accomplished Hungarian painter famous in his homeland for his avant-garde innovations. One of his more important works, Sleeping Lady with Black Vase, disappeared in Hungary in the 1920s. More than 80 years later, an art historian rediscovered it in the background of the 1999 American children's movie Stuart Little.


(Photo: Virág Judit Galéria)

In 2009, Gergely Barki of the Hungarian National Gallery sat down to watch a movie with his daughter Lola. They saw a television presentation of Stuart Little. The Guardian describes Barki's experience:

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Bereny’s long-lost masterpiece on the wall behind Hugh Laurie. I nearly dropped Lola from my lap,” said Barki. “A researcher can never take his eyes off the job, even when watching Christmas movies at home.”

Barki wrote many emails to people who worked on the film. 2 years later, he got a response from a set designer:

“She said the picture had been hanging on her wall,” Barki said.

“She had snapped it up for next to nothing in an antiques shop in Pasadena, California, thinking its avant garde elegance was perfect for Stuart Little’s living room.”

After leaving Sony, she sold the painting to a private collector who has now brought the picture to Budapest for sale by auction.

Berény's Sleeping Lady with Black Vase will be auctioned on December 13. The starting price is €110,000 ($136,930 USD).

-via Ace of Spades HQ


Craigslist Ad: Man Will Pretend to Be Your Horrible Boyfriend in Order to Torment Your Family

I missed this wonderful news story from a few days ago and some ladies missed a great opportunity. Nick Schimdt of Nashville, Tennessee placed an ad on Craigslist, offering to be some woman's Thanksgiving dinner date. Schmidt, a convicted felon and high school dropout, was prepared to pretend to be someone's boyfriend during Thanksgiving dinner:

I am a 28 year old felon with no high school degree, and a dirty old van one year younger than me painted like Eddie Van Halen's guitar. I can play anywhere between the ages of 20 and 29 depending on if i shave. I'm a line cook and work late nights at a bar. If you'd like to have me as your stictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you, to torment your family, I'm game.

In exchange for a free dinner, he would also:

  • talk about politics and religion
  • openly hit on other female guests
  • pretend to get really drunk
  • start a fistfight with a member of your family on the front lawn in full view of the neighbors

Prior to Thanksgiving, he told a reporter that he had secured a date. Schmidt promised to live-tweet the date, but the results of that date are unclear in his Twitter timeline.

It's now too late to have Thanksgiving dinner with Schmidt, but you can make use of his other services.

-via Tastefully Offensive


During World War I, British Tanks Were Designated as "Male" or "Female"


(Photo: Imperial War Museum)

How would a soldier know if his tank was male or female? It would be necessary to make an anatomical inspection. Heavy tanks with cannons were male. Lighter tanks with multiple machine guns were female. Bryn Hammond writes in Cambrai 1917: The Myth of the First Great Tank Battle:

The Mark IV tank came in two varieties: the ‘male’ was armed with two 6-pdr. Hotchkiss QF 57 mm naval guns and four Lewis guns, its ‘female’ consort had six Lewis guns . . . The ‘male’ version weighed 32 tons, whilst the ‘female’ weighed 28 tons.

Lieutenant Horace Birks of the British Army preferred to go into battle with a male tank. Hammond quotes Birks:

Everybody wanted a male tank. I was a junior officer. I got a female. The male tank was a thing because it had a gun and it was a more formidable weapon altogether. You could get out of it easier because it had quite a biggish door on the back of the sponson. But the female tank had doors [close to] the ground. And it was very difficult to get out of. If there was a fire or anything like that it was odds on that some of you would get hurt.

Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Swinton, though, thought that the female tank could be ideal under the right circumstances. Paul Kendall quotes him in Bullecourt 1917: Breaching the Hindenburg Line:

The female, which, in accordance with the laws of Nature, is the man-killer, carries nothing but machine-guns for employment against enemy personnel. Her special role is to keep down hostile rifle fire, to beat back counter-attacks and rushes of infantry.

-via TYWKIWDBI


Scenes from Assassin's Creed Juxtaposed over Real Life

Assassin's Creed Unity, the newest game in the Assassin's Creed video game franchise, takes place in Paris during the French Revolution. It's 1789 and, thanks to the photogaphy of Damien Hypolite, also 2014. Hypolite spent 2 days traveling through Paris, photographing settings from that game over their real-life locations. You can view more of Hypolite's pictures here.

-via Fubiz


Cat Walking a Cat on a Leash


(Video Link)

Internet cat celebrity Kodi has a busy life, but he always puts his pet care responsibilities first. Here he is taking care of his pet, a toy kitten. Having leashed the kitten (not shown), Kodi leads his little companion on a walk.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath


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Profile for John Farrier

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