The Bonhams auction house in London recently sold this grisly coin-operated amusement dating from the 1920s and attributed to Charles Ahrens, a noted creator of such automata.
It's called the "English Execution." If it looks familiar, that may be because you watched "The Wench Is Dead," a 1998 episode of Inspector Morse. This automaton appears in the opening scene.
first look: alex chinneck brings a massive, looping steel boat to sheffield's historical canal https://t.co/ncHEkGfBK0 pic.twitter.com/X1JPWFQ3ca
— designboom (@designboom) September 10, 2024
The surreal artwork of Alex Chinneck has long been a Neatorama favorite. He creates large-scale sculptures that bend reality in astonishing and amusing ways, such as this canal boat with a looped body. It's on display on the historic Sheffield & Tinsley Canal in South Yorkshire.
Chinneck has worked on this project for eight years. It's a complex build process, as you can see from videos posted on Instagram. The boat is a floating monument to two hundred years of industrial history in the region. You can see more photos of it at Design Boom.
-via Messy Nessy Chic
This is Mad Skills a custom boat and/or truck lovingly crafted by Scott Carder of Delphos, Ohio. Overdrive Online says that it has the cab of a Peterbilt 379 truck mounted on the deck of a 22-foot pontoon boat.
In this video, Carder describes the build process, all of which is, of course, custom. He says that he wasn't entirely sure of his final plan when he began, but, "I thought, well, I'll build it and it will either sink or float. And it floats very nicely." The Mad Skills also lights up impressively at night. It's a party boat with a commanding presence.
-via Andrew Doyle
Canalside Studio, an architecture and furnishings design house in Hong Kong, offers this innovative bench design that can bring people together and keep conversation flowing. It's made entirely of pine and medium density fiberboard. Between the two halves are a set of ball bearings that allow users to spin.
It appears to move a bit roughly at first, but with more speed and probably more people, the ride gets smoother.
-via Toxel
Yes, Parmesan ice cream used to be a thing. It was actually popular, especially in the time of the American Revolution. George Washington himself enjoyed it and you can, too, because there's a recipe preserved in a 1789 cookbook. Why was Parmesan ice cream such a hit? Perhaps because the cheese was one of the few European ingredients that could survive the trans-Atlantic passage to the New World.
This is only one of 7 once-popular ice cream flavors featured by the food blog The Takeout. They include teaberry, which is still found in Pennsylvania, and butter brickle, which is a kind of toffee flavoring.
Photo of non-Parmesan ice cream by PickPik
This sea border is only 22 miles across at its narrowest, but even birds and fish don't cross it. In 1859, British scientist Alfred Russel Wallace identified it and another scientist later named it the Wallace Line in his honor.
The animal life on either side of this line in the East Indies evolved separately because the Wallace Line marks the boundaries between tectonic plates. The straits along this border are narrow, but very deep. It's not completely unknown for animals to cross it, but modern scientists still see the Wallace Line as the site for an abrupt change in the distributions of many species.
-via Laughing Squid
Sky News reports that David Game College, a private school in London, has created a class of 20 students that are taught entirely by artificial intelligences. These students are preparing for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) that assesses completion of secondary education.
The AIs evaluate what students need help with to prepare for the exam, then creates customized computer-based lessons for them. Much of the instruction is conducted in virtual reality. The school's administration argues that the AIs avoid mistakes that human teachers make and offer precise teaching based on the ongoing evaluation of teach student in the class.
The college still employs human teachers--for now--who teach soft skills, such as public speaking.
-Thanks, Bruce!
I had two hamburgers for breakfast this morning. This fixings were pretty simple, including pickles and onions. They were certainly nothing as exotic as this culinary marvel from, of course, Japan. Perhaps I should have scrounged for a pear, sliced it up, and added it to my burgers because Sora News 24 tells us that adding pear slices to a hamburger really works.
Dom Dom, a well-established hamburger chain in Japan, now offers Asian Pears (pyrus pyrifolia) on teriyaki burgers for about $5.30 USD. Reporter Casey Baseel says that the sweetness of the pear mixes perfectly with the mayonaise and teriyaki flavors.
-via Joseph Mallozi
Cosplayer Ashley Ruhl calls this her "Badonkagonk" costume. She wore it to the recent Dragon Con in Atlanta. It's inspired by the GNK power droid, commonly known as the Gonk in its occasional appearances in the Star Wars franchise.
What does a Gonk do? Well, this Gonk spits out a ribbon that says, "GONK" from its printer slot. Within Star Wars, though, it's basically a battery that walks around on short, stubby legs. Ms. Ruhl's fishnet-covered legs are quite different and give the hapless Gonk a more aesthetically appealing appearance.
Dustin Ballard's There I Ruined It project continues to enchant audiences with its inventive juxtopositions of musicians with radically different themes and genres. In this video, Ozzy Osbourne's Black Sabbath mixes it up with the wholesomeness associated with the late folk singer John Denver.
"War Pigs" is a vigorously anti-war song from 1970, the same time that Denver's career was beginning its ascent. Black Sabbath was vaguely referring to the Vietnam War, of which the UK was not a participant. Denver was largely silent about Vietnam, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of detente between the US and the USSR. So this musical synthesis isn't too far from reality.
Instagram user @nn.hcafe prepares astonishing meals that look almost too good to eat. They're true works of art that wow our senses with their surreal forms.
This cake, which resembles a piece of skyline, is one of her more exemplary pieces. Both the clouds and the outside atmosphere are made of coconut-flavored gelatins. She makes the clouds first, then adds them to the transluscent gelatin as it hardens. You can see a video and how-to video here.
-via Totally Gourmet
YouTuber DemonFlyingFox is an AI artist who creates videos that bring pop culture figures to zenith of their narrative purposes. That's why this song imagines Harry Potter as an American redneck. He's still a wizard and fights Voldemud, but time with a mullet. Watch and learn how your favorite characters from the Harry Potter universe live in the trailer park by the swamp.
Redneck adaptations are a recurring theme with DemonFlyingFox lately. Be sure to also watch his music videos for rural versions of Star Wars, which includes the startling detail of a pair of siblings kissing, and Breaking Bad, which imagines rednecks cooking crystal meth in a camper.
-via Educatëd Hillbilly
Adult Swim has released this bumper for Rick and Morty by animator and director Aaron Fromm. It adapts images, ambiance, and music from the famous opening to Bruce Timm's Batman: The Animated Series. Compare it with the source material:
We clearly need a full half-hour episode of Rick and Morty developing this aesthetic.
-via Discussing Film
Tião e os Bravos is a Brazilian band that clearly takes its inspiration from American bluegrass music. Or the members at least have a hillbilly aesthetic. The use of a banjo, an upright bass, and a washboard certainly reflect a American folkways take on "All Star" by Smash Mouth.
Many of their vocal tracks are in Portuguese, as you would expect from a Brazilian band. Fortunately for the monolingualists among us, American classics such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters are presented in English.
-via The Awesomer
I've tried to source this claim by the always-interesting X account Traces of Texas. The histiography is a bit sketchy. But it's not unreasonable for North Street in Nacogdoches, Texas to claim the title of the oldest public road in the United States.
The Spanish explorers and early settlers referred to the route as La Calle Real del Norte. It stretched across eastern texas, serving as a trade out between a variety of indegenous peoples, most notably the Nacogdoche and Nansoni.
A historical marker in Nacogdoches, one of the oldest settlements in Texas, notes the possible beginning of the route.
Image: Google Maps
