In a famous scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Admiral Kirk screamed "Khan!" in rage and despair against his enemy, Khan Noonien Singh. This has become one of the great battlecries of Trekkies everywhere. So, appropriately, William Shatner led 3,000 fans in this call at Comic-Con. Behold its majesty, and tremble.
Now I'm not talking about whistling in a vacuum. It's obvious that attempting to do so would fail. But even astronauts on spacewalks in protective suits can't whistle. Why not? Former astronaut Dan Barry explained:
"You can't whistle because the air pressure in the suit is only 4.3 [pounds per square inch], and normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, so there are not enough air molecules blowing by your lips to make a sound," he said.[...]
Jeff Hoffman, a retired astronaut with three spacewalks (including a mission to repair the Hubble telescope) has traveled 21.5 million miles in space. He said the technicians who trained him on spacewalks had told him that he wouldn't be able to whistle, but he says he tried anyway.
Ah, the iconic Atari 2600! It was the first mass-produced home video game console. Back in 2009, Urchin Associates, an Australian art collective, covered an Atari 2600 console with gold. Link -via Technabob | Photo: Urchin Associates
For five months, 25 animators moved and filmed 350,000 Post It notes to mark the opening of a new flagship store in São Paulo for the Brazilian shoemaker Melissa. 30,000 fans took advantage of the opportunity to write messages on the Post It notes. -via Dude Craft
Japanese designer Hiroyuki Shiratori developed erasers that are shaped like the gradually evolving form between modern humans and their ancient ancestors. You can evolve as you correct mistakes. Link (Google Translate) via Colossal | Photo: H-Concept
The Science Museum in London has a collection of sixty tiny models of the human head made for a student of Johann Kaspar Spurzheim, a prominent German phrenologist, in 1831. Phrenology is the belief that the shape of the human skull reflects the shape of the human brain beneath it, which is in turn shaped by certain personality traits. Studying a person's skull thus reveals his/her personality, abilities, and character:
These heads are numbered according to Spurzheim’s classification. The heads may have been used to teach phrenology but were probably made as a general reference collection. A wide range of different heads are present. For instance, head number 54 is that of a scientific man; head number 8 is recorded as the head of an ‘idiot’.
Link -via How to Be a Retronaut | Photo: The Science Museum
A young filmmaker needs an idea for a movie to launch his career. But he's coming up dry. Then, while browsing Amazon.com, he sees a "Plot Device" for sale. What is it? He doesn't know but buys it anyway.
A mysterious device, labelled "Plot Device", arrives in the mail a few days later. There is a single button on it. He pushes it. Watch this funny short film by Seth Worley to find out what happens.
Jaume Plensa, an artist from Spain, has a motif of monumental, rounded heads. He uses a wide variety of materials, from polyester resin to stainless steel. Pictured above is one of a pair resting in the countryside, looking at each other. You can see other images of them at Fubiz. They're oddly soothing to look. Artist's Website -via Fubiz (Google Translate)
The city of Victoria, British Columbia, is taking a new approach to handling drunken, out-of-control revelers causing trouble in public places. The police hand such people lollipops. Councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe explained why it works:
Ms. Thornton-Joe said after the men popped a lolly in their mouths, their nasty energy all but dissolved. “They got calmer after taking the lollipops,” she said. “It had an immediate effect.” [...]
The sucker punch works for several reasons, she said. First, it's difficult to yell while sucking a lollipop.
Altercations happen due to verbal exchanges, but with a sucker in the mouth, there's less talk, which results in fewer fights.
The lollipop's sugar hit calms those who've drank too much, she said. And the lolly's pacifier effect can't be denied.
This fascinating scene takes place in a restaurant in Hakodate, Japan. The squid is actually dead, but the sodium in the soy sauce causes its muscles to contract. YouTube user richayanami writes:
Dancing squid dishes seem to be at many restaurants in Hakodate, but this particular one may have been the only one with this bowl set. The place was located in the seafood restaurant arcade across the parking lot from Hakodate Station if anyone is interested.[...]
The brain is probably still in the body, but a significant part of its nervous system, the giant axon, I believe extends into the mantle, which has been cut. I'm not an expert on squids so I can't really come to a definite conclusion about that. As you can see in the beginning, it's not moving at all when it's brought out so I assume that signals around the body have stopped, whereas a fresh intact squid out of water would constantly move around.
Ingrid Dabringer likes to "...elevate the mundane. The Mundane is so saturated with meaning if we just take an extra second to dwell on it." Among other expressions of this desire, she finds the forms for human figure drawings in maps. Link -via Geekosystem
Shiekh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan of the UAE, owner of the largest pickup truck in the world, would like to leave his mark on the world. He'd prefer to do so in a way that's visible from space, so he had workers dig letters a thousand feet across into the sand of his island Al Futaisi:
The name is two miles across — with letters a kilometre high. It is so huge that the "H", the first "A" and part of the "M" have been made into waterways.
The mega-rich sheikh, 63 — a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi — in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates — boasts a £14billion fortune that is second only to the Saudi king's.
Guy-Olivier Deveua does amazing work in a wide variety of media, as his website illustrates, but it's this sand sculpture that's recently captured a lot of attention. His ice sculptures are also quite striking and worth a look. Artist's Website and deviantART Gallery -via Geekologie
Windell Oskay made this 8-pound cake with a 3D printer called a CandyFab 4000:
The shape is a 3/4 twist mobius strip with a square cross section and windows cut at regular intervals in all of the sides the side. Even though it's hollow, it still weighs seven pounds and fourteen ounces-- that's a lot of sugar. We're bringing this monster to Maker Faire this weekend, so you can see it for yourself, too.
Link -via reddit | Photo: Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
Dutch designers Nathan Wierink and Tineke Beunders made a lovely wooden table covered with marble runs. The video is mesmerizing. Young children could have a lot of fun with this table. http://www.ontwerpduo.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=125&Itemid=81 -via This Is Colossal