The mimic octopus, discovered ten years ago off the coast of Indonesia, has been observed duplicating the appearance of at least fifteen other species. It can swim like a banded sole, a type of poisonous flatfish. If it fears attack, it can bury six of its arms so that its two visible arms make it look like a particularly deadly snake. The octopus can also swim with its arms spread in such a way that it looks like a venomous lionfish. It's like the Mystique of the natural world.
Therese of Earth and Living figured out how to construct shoes like those worn by Medieval Scandinavians. It's not as simple as you might think, but it's a quite feasible craft project for the non-professional leatherworker. She provides step-by-step instructions with pictures from start to finish. Once you're done, grab a sword and go raiding!
Etsy seller Rachel Peters makes Franken Toys -- freakish dolls and stuffed animals attached to each other, probably against their will: Elmo's head on a toucan's body, Ronald McDonald and a Teletubby, and more. It's like a mad scientist started producing children's television.
The Belgian television channel Prime commissioned miniature sets for major American shows, including Mad Men, Lost, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under. It's simple, but quite visually effective. Warning: the video at the link compiling them is NSFW.
So you suddenly find yourself long, long ago in a galaxy far away. You're going to need to earn some money, so it's time to find a job. This flowchart by Andy Green and Bobby Bernethy will make some suggestions for careers that fit your personality.
Photographer David Kaplan took this mesmerizing image. It shows a cloudbank over the Rhine with Liechtenstein in the background. The Moon and Venus can be seen in the upper right corner. Click on the link to view a much larger image.
Comics critic and editor Steven Padnick has an interesting read on the Batman narrative. Bruce Wayne, he argues, is hardly a hero of the oppressed, but a tyrant whose primary goal is to maintain a rigid class structure in Gotham City:
Batman isn’t just “the man,” Bruce Wayne is also The Man. He’s a rich, white, handsome man who comes from an old money family and is the main employer in Gotham. He owns half the property in the city. In a very real sense, Gotham belongs to him, and he inherited all of it.
True, it’s a very American version of aristocracy, based on wealth rather than divine right, but in practice it’s basically the same. The myth of aristocracy is that class is genetic, that some people are just born good enough to rule, and that this inherent goodness can be passed down from generation to generation.[...]
This gives Batman’s origin an Arthurian “king-in-exile” element. “Banished” from Gotham by the death of his parents, Bruce Wayne returns to reclaim his throne and redeem his land. But instead of reclaiming it from usurping uncle or foreign invader, Batman must take Gotham back from a rising underclass.
Just look at who he fights. Superman (for example) fights intergalactic dictators, evil monopolists, angry generals, and dark gods, i.e. symbols of abusive authority. Batman fights psychotics, anarchists, mob bosses, the mentally ill, and environmentalists, i.e. those who would overthrow the status quo. Superman fights those who would impose their version of order on the world. Batman fights those who would unbalance the order Batman himself imposes on Gotham.
Swarovski, a manufacturer of glass crystal, has a museum and garden in Wattens, Austria. This enormous fountain stands in front of it. Think of the setting possibilities it offers to producers of science fiction shows!
Official Website and Video via Super Punch | Photo: Michael Slonecker
Japanese artist Jarashi Suki developed dominoes that trip each other even without physical contact. Each one has a number, 1-5, displayed with dots. You can change the number of a domino by shaking it. When domino 1 falls, it will then trip 2, which will then trip 3, and so on. The video shows creative ways that this system can be used to make domino chains that would be impossible with conventional dominoes.
Do you need a stock photo to illustrate some point in a presentation? Specifically, that you shouldn't grope your co-workers? Stock photo companies try to meet all sorts of needs, including this one. Abe Sauer of The Hairpin rounded up some of the oddest pictures of sexual harassment from stock photo archives, and this picture is among the tamest. All SFW, but really weird.
http://thehairpin.com/2011/02/the-best-of-sexual-harassment-stock-photography/ via reddit
Kevin Kelly, an editor for Wired and Cool Tools, points out something that is both simple and profound. No piece of technology, once it becomes widely used, ever goes extinct. It doesn't matter if that technology has become obsolete. There are and always will be people who will continue to produce it. Robert Krulwich of NPR reports:
Nothing? I asked. Brass helmets? Detachable shirt collars? Chariot wheels?
Nothing, he said.
Can't be, I told him. Tools do hang around, but some must go extinct.
If only because of the hubris — the absolute nature of the claim — I told him it would take me a half hour to find a tool, an invention that is no longer being made anywhere by anybody.
Go ahead, he said. Try.
If you listen to our Morning Edition debate, I tried carbon paper (still being made), steam powered car engine parts (still being made), Paleolithic hammers (still being made), 6 pages of agricultural tools from an 1895 Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue (every one of them still being made), and to my utter astonishment, I couldn't find a provable example of an technology that has disappeared completely.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133188723/tools-never-die-waddaya-mean-never and http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/01/133211209/am-i-extinct via GearFuse | Photo: Archaeology.org
David Windestål's RC helicopter, equipped with little missiles, hunts balloons across the frozen Swedish landscape. That's cool enough as it is. What makes this video superneat is the way that the scene is presented like a classic arcade game with appropriate sound effects and text notifications.
A "Dude Licking a Pole Production"? That's the best name for an entertainment production company EVAR.
http://rcexplorer.se/files/ba11c31bb018b71fbf14995bce5af236-246.html via DVICE
The Earnest movies were, like, deep. Really deep. There's a lot in there, and Wonder Tonic's automatic film school thesis generator will give you a lot of ideas that will further your pursuit of master of arts in film studies.
Comedian Jack Vale drove around pretending to be looking for people. He provided the physical description of whatever person he asked. No one recognizes his own appearance, or at least doesn't want to admit to it.
A dog owned by Japanese medical researchers has a remarkable gift for detecting colon cancer victims by sniffing their excrement. The black Labrador Retriever has a 95% accuracy rate:
In the study, the retriever performed as well as a colonoscopy, a technique in which a fibre-optic tube with a camera on the end is inserted into the rectum to look for suspect areas of the intestine.
It correctly spotted which samples were cancerous and which were not in 33 out of 36 breath tests, equal to 95 per cent accuracy, and in 37 out of 38 stool tests (98 per cent accuracy).
Link via Popular Science | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user DrStarbuck used under Creative Commons license
