Brotherhood Workshop gives us a LEGO vignette from Lord of the Rings that doesn’t quite follow the original script.
Legolas and Gimli have a classic bromance. At least, that's the way Legolas sees it.
Short and sweet, with a punchline that is ever-so-satisfying. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Teen girl movies have so many things that stick in your mind from those formative years: cluelessness, embarrassment, cattiness, failure, triumph, friends, romance, trying to find yourself, trying to fit in, and most of all, lessons learned. Real life doesn’t wrap up so nicely at the end, but the movies helped us work out that we weren’t the only ones going through those struggles.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the movie Clueless, Robert Jones put together a supercut of teen girls in movies over the past twenty years set to “Kids In America” by The Muffs. Surely you’ll recognize a bunch of them. -Thanks, Robert!
Cheryl Treadway was at home Monday with her youngest child and her boyfriend Ethan Nickerson. Nickerson took Treadway’s cell phone and went with her to pick up her two older children. He had a knife and threatened violence. Treadway was able to borrow her phone back just long enough to send an order to Pizza Hut with their online ordering app.
Highlands County Sheriff's Office investigators say at 3:40 p.m. on Monday, May 4th, an online pizza order, for a small hand-tossed classic pizza with pepperoni, was received by the Pizza Hut in Avon Park. Under the comments section there was a message asking them to send help and call 911 as the customer was being held hostage.
Pizza Hut employees recognized the order as being from a frequent customer. But, the comments were out of the ordinary so they called the Highlands County Sheriff's Office to investigate the situation.
“We've never seen that before,” the restaurant's manager, Candy Hamilton, said. “I've been here 28 years and never, never seen nothing like that come through."
Highlands County deputies went to the address and escorted Treadway and her youngest child out. They negotiated with Nickerson for about twenty minutes before he surrendered peacefully. Lieutenant Curtis Ludden, who negotiated with Nickerson, spoke with WFLA.
“I don't know if I ever would have thought of it. I mean it's just something that she did so naturally. The boyfriend never knew about it until he saw us coming around the corner,” Ludden said.
Nickerson was arrested, and the victims are safe. -via Digg
Watch this adorable Shetland Pony race at Bath Racecourse! What the ponies lack in stride, they make up in heart. And you know they have to take way more steps to get to the finish line than the average Thoroughbred. The entire time, they manage to look like toys that little girls and Bronies would play with. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
A cat named Lincoln isn’t putting up with any feline intruders, even if it is his own reflection in a mirror! And he’s not giving up just because the glass stopped his attack -he’s coming back for more. That’ll show that other cat. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Did you hear the one about the plot to sneak estrogen into Hitler’s carrots? It sounds like the setup for a joke, but the Allies really tried this one out.
A study at the time by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, claimed that on the gender spectrum, Adolf Hitler fell notably near the middle—"close to the male-female line," wrote the OSS’s director of research and development, Stanley Lovell. The Allies thought if they could just tip him over the line into "female" territory, he would lose his hold on Germany and the war would be won.
Sources differ on whether the hope was that a more feminized Hitler would be less aggressive, and thus, less inclined to commit mass genocide, or that if he lost his facial hair and grew breasts he simply wouldn't have the confidence or charisma to allow him to serve as an effectively malevolent dictator.
We know that didn’t happen, but the reasons why are murky. Read about the scheme to feminize Hitler at mental_floss.
Redditor nerdlygames had no idea what this thing is, but had to buy it. Others introduced him to Kobitos, a line of Japanese toy characters. This character is Hiding Peach Bottom Kobitos, who lives in peach orchards and sucks the sugar out of ripe peaches. Kobitos (previously at Neatorama) are kind of like fairies, in that they inhabit the natural world, but are unseen as they go about their daily business. But of course, you can buy a doll representing them.
Healing Green Wing Kobitos flies around the woods, spreading a pleasant fragrance come its wings. House Princess Kobitos lives in houses, plays with mosquitos, and may hide your possessions. Red Mushroom Kobitos lives in the woods, have gentle dispositions, and are tasty in a stew, once you remove the poisonous parts. There are plenty of others to select from.
(Image credit: nerdygames)
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
The year was 1970 and a young, unknown, 23-year-old actor named Sylvester “Sly" Stallone was going through very hard times. The truth is, young Stallone, who had finally found employment as a movie usher, was now jobless and flat broke. He was so broke he had recently been evicted from his apartment and was literally homeless. At the time he was hired for his first movie gig, he was living in a local bus station.
New York, at the time, was the hub of porno films and young Sly was about to film his motion picture debut. For a modest salary of $200 (for two days work) sly signed on for the title role of “Stud" in a cheapie softcore porno flick called The Party at Kitty and Stud's. The film's budget was a mere $5,000.00.
According to Sly, the film was financed "by a group of wealthy lawyers- very, very solid.” The film's triple threat director/writer/producer was the immortal Morton Lewis. Sly's co-star (“Kitty") in this epic was Janet Banzet.
The film's cast was rounded out by an illustrious cast consisting of Jodi Van Prang, Nicholas Warren, Frank Michelli, and Barbara Storm. No doubt each one has spent the last 40 years regaling their friends, mates, relatives, co-workers, and associates about "being in Sylvester Stallone's first film.” (Hey, look, the movie business is a very tough, competitive racket- more power to them!)
The "plot" (and I use the term loosely) of The Party at Kitty and Stud's involves Kitty and Stud, a New York couple, who throw a party and engage in group sex. To the delight of female (and gay guy) viewers, Sly spends much of the film stark naked.
A hundred years ago, before movies and TV became our default entertainment media, magic shows were a staple of the stage. Illusionists flourished, but none more so than Howard Thurston, whose over-the-top shows combined pretty women and life-or-death stunts to leave audiences astonished.
Thurston’s popularity also benefited from a growing interest in ghosts and the occult. During the mid-19th century, a religious fad known as Spiritualism gained millions of followers as mediums claiming to contact the dead sprang up all over the country. At a time when new technologies and scientific discoveries introduced seemingly magical concepts into everyday life, everyone was looking for ways to communicate with ghosts—even Thomas Edison worked on a “mechanical medium” to contact the deceased. Archaeological discoveries in Egypt, like the finding of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, furthered the public obsession with the afterlife.
Like other prominent thinkers, famous magicians became embroiled in the public debate over the supernatural. Houdini took the staunch position that all mediums were fakes and set out to publicly debunk them and destroy their businesses (frequently making headlines in the process), while Thurston favored a more nuanced view. Thurston agreed that many mediums engaged in trickery, but also believed he’d seen spiritual phenomena that couldn’t be explained by science. Of the mysteries he was unable to crack, Thurston wrote to Houdini, “I lean to the belief that these effects are produced by an intelligent force, which can manifest itself mentally and physically to some people under certain circumstances.” Regardless of what he believed personally, Thurston was aware of the profit to be made by exploiting the murky realm of religion, mysticism, and the supernatural.
The Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn has a new exhibit on Howard Thurston called “Do the Spirits Return?” on display the rest of this year. Read about the man behind the magic at Collectors Weekly.
I started this video and immediately thought my phone was ringing because this is my current ringtone. Arganalth programmed two hard drives and six floppy disc drives to play the Imperial March from Star Wars. And not just a few notes of the theme- this is an entire arrangement! -via Geeks Are Sexy
The world’s oldest complete deck of playing cards comes to us from the 15th century. The Flemish Hunting Deck, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has four suites (hunting horns, dog collars, hound tethers, and game nooses), with thirteen cards each (numbers and face cards). So it quite resembles modern decks.
The Met acquired the deck from an Amsterdam antiques dealer in 1983. It was once believed that the cards dated back to the 16th century, but the dealer thought they were even older, and purchased the whole set for a mere $2,800. After investigating the cards in detail (the dress of the Burgundian royal figures painted on the face cards, and a pair of watermarks found elsewhere in the deck), it came out that they were actually created between 1475 and 1480 CE.
Although now more than 500 years old, the game resembles a contemporary 52-card deck to a surprising degree. It's certainly fun to look at, but we wondered: what would it be like to play a 15th-century card game?
The staff at Atlas Obscura recreated the deck and played with it to find out. Maybe if they had tried a modern game, like poker or canasta, it would have been easier. But they tried learning the ancient game of Karnöffel. The lack of numbers in the corners would have thrown me. Learn how that turned out, as well as the history of playing cards, at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Eric Grundhauser)
Astronomers at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, have been noticing strange signals coming through the radio telescope since 1998. These signals were designated as perytons, and were observed maybe twice a year. No one knew where they were coming from, but lightning was proposed as the cause. Of course, we’d all prefer it to be aliens. A new receiver installed this year picked those signals up even stronger at 2.4GHz, which led the scientists to suspect the facility’s microwave oven.
Immediate testing of the oven failed to detect any perytons -- until they opened the microwave door a few seconds before it had finished cooking. Johnston told The Guardian: "If you set it to heat and pull it open to have a look, it generates interference."
Although the telescope, known locally as "The Dish", is operated largely remotely, a few operational staff who maintain the facility would use the microwave oven to heat their lunch in the daytimes. Moreover, the interference would only occur when the telescope was pointed in the oven's direction, making the cause even harder to pinpoint. The findings have been published in the notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
So much for aliens trying to contact us. But it’s nice that the 17-year mystery has been solved. -via @pourmecoffee
(Image credit: CSIRO)
Remember Sam, the cat with eyebrows? Now we have a kitten with the same look. Gary is an 8-week-old kitten in Bolton, UK. He belongs to Andy and Caroline Entwistle, whose cat Luna had four kittens. They kept two, Gary and his special needs sister Amy.
Now Gary (named after Gary Barlow) and his two eyebrow markings are internet stars under the name Concerned Kitten. You can see more pictures of Gary at his Facebook page. And the name is just about his looks -at eight weeks, Gary isn’t really concerned about anything. -via Laughing Squid
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
Transcribed by David Kessler
Four Nobel laureates enjoy their first taste of Soylent. Photo: David Holzman.
As part of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, four of the world’s great thinkers were invited to give 24/7 Lectures. Each 24/7 Lecture was on an assigned topic. The lecturer was asked to explain that topic twice: FIRST, a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS; and THEN a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS. The time and word limits were enforced by the Ig Nobel referee, Mr. John Barrett, and by the Ig Nobel V-Chip Monitor, Melissa Franklin. Here are the complete transcripts of this year’s 24/7 Lectures.
Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate in Economics
TOPIC: Income Inequality
Complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS:
The dispersion of the income distribution as measured by the Gini coefficient—not to be confused with the “I dream of Gini” coefficient—has expanded in many developed and emerging economies. One explanation is skilled-biased technical change, wherein the productivity of high-skill workers is enhanced by technical progress more than for their lower-skilled contemporaries. An alternative theory by Thomas Piketty works through the interest rate exceeding population growth. Critics say Piketty’s theory is rickety. He says they’re too persnickety.
Clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS:
The rich get richer. The poor… don’t.
There’s no argument that the MPAA ratings system for movies has wandered far afield of what was intended when it was first introduced in 1968. At the time, most movies were rated G and the whole family went to see them. Now, a G-rated movie is pretty much aimed at young children, and PG is almost there. The rating modern movies want is PG-13, the new rating introduced in 1984, so the lucrative teenage market can get into the theater and know they will see the the maximum adult content allowed for them.
This video from Pitchfork explains how we got to this point. You’ll find a more involved article about the PG-13 rating at The Dissolve. -via Metafilter
