If you want to really bring a smile to the face of the geek in your family, select a Christmas gift from a list compiled by geeks for geeks. In this guide from Geeks Are Sexy, you'll find books that have passed the test -they stimulate the mind as well as entertain it! Link
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If you want to really bring a smile to the face of the geek in your family, select a Christmas gift from a list compiled by geeks for geeks. In this guide from Geeks Are Sexy, you'll find books that have passed the test -they stimulate the mind as well as entertain it! Link
It's time for another round of the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Steven M. Johnson comes up with all sorts of wacky inventions in his weekly Museum of Possibilities posts. Can you come up with a name for this one? The commenter suggesting the funniest and wittiest name win a free T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Contest rules: one entry per comment, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Please make a selection of the T-shirt you want (may we suggest the Science T-shirt, Funny T-shirt, and Artist-designed T-shirt categories?) alongside your entry. If you don't select a shirt, then you forfeit the prize. Have fun with this one!
Update: Congratulations to first place winner ladybuggs who suggested Aquaphobmobile - a vehicle for the "sailor" who is afraid of the water, and to second place winner scarab, who called it a Minnow-Bago. Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop!
Leslie Nielsen, the star of the movie Airplane! and the TV series Police Squad! has died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Florida. Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Nielsen appeared in over 200 movies and TV shows in a career spanning six decades.
After Airplane! became a hit, the film's directors -- Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker -- wanted to take the film's slapstyle style of comedy to TV. They asked Nielsen to play the lead role in their new series "Police Squad!"
In the show, Nielsen played Frank Drebin, a stereotypical police officer modeled after characters in earlier police TV series. The show lasted only six episodes but earned Nielsen an Emmy nom for lead actor in a comedy series.
Six years later, Nielsen reprised his role for a feature-length version of the show, Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, as well as two sequels.
Other credits include 1956's Forbidden Planet, the 1960s TV series Peyton Place, Dr. Kildare and The Bold Ones: The Protectors.
Nielsen was 84. Link
The following is an article from Uncle John's Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, remains one of the most infamous events in U.S. history. Yet the spy who played a key role in the sneak attack is a forgotten man, unknown even to many World War II buffs.
UNDER COVER
On March 27, 1941, a 27-year-old junior diplomat named Tadashi Morimura arrived in Honolulu to take his post as vice-consul at the Japanese consulate. But that was just a cover- "Morimura" was really Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese Imperial Navy Intelligence officer. His real mission: to collect information about the American military installations in and around Pearl Harbor.
Relations between the United States and Japan had been strained throughout the 1930s and were now deteriorating rapidly. In 1940, after years of Japanese aggression in China and Southeast Asia, Washington froze Japanese assets in the U.S., cut off exports of oil and war material, and moved the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet from southern California to Pearl Harbor, bringing it 2,400 miles closer to Japan.
The fleet was in Pearl Harbor to stay. But if Japan wanted its funds unfrozen and the crippling economic embargo lifted, the United States insisted that all Japanese troops had to leave China and Southeast Asia. This was a demand that Japan was unwilling to meet. Instead, it began preparing for war, and by early 1941, the eyes of Japan's military planners had turned to Pearl Harbor.
THE AMERICAN DESK
Yoshikawa had become a spy in a roundabout way. He'd been a promising naval academy graduate, but his career hopes were dashed in 1936 when, just two years after graduation, stomach problems (reportedly brought on by heavy drinking) forced him out of the Japanese Navy. The following year he landed a desk job with Naval Intelligence, where he was put to work learning all that he could about the U.S. Navy.
From 1937 until 1940, Yoshikawa pored over books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, reports filed by Japanese diplomats and intelligence officers from all over the world, and anything else he could find that would give him information about the U.S. Navy. "By 1940 I was the Naval General Staff's acknowledged American expert," he recounted in a 1960 article in the journal Naval Institute Proceedings. "I knew by then every U.S. man-of-war and aircraft by name, hull number, configuration, and technical characteristics. I knew, too, a great deal of information about the U.S. naval bases at Manila, Guam, and Pearl Harbor."
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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, remains one of the most infamous events in U.S. history. Yet the spy who played a key role in the sneak attack is a forgotten man, unknown even to many World War II buffs.
UNDER COVER
On March 27, 1941, a 27-year-old junior diplomat named Tadashi Morimura arrived in Honolulu to take his post as vice-consul at the Japanese consulate. But that was just a cover- "Morimura" was really Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese Imperial Navy Intelligence officer. His real mission: to collect information about the American military installations in and around Pearl Harbor.
Relations between the United States and Japan had been strained throughout the 1930s and were now deteriorating rapidly. In 1940, after years of Japanese aggression in China and Southeast Asia, Washington froze Japanese assets in the U.S., cut off exports of oil and war material, and moved the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet from southern California to Pearl Harbor, bringing it 2,400 miles closer to Japan.
The fleet was in Pearl Harbor to stay. But if Japan wanted its funds unfrozen and the crippling economic embargo lifted, the United States insisted that all Japanese troops had to leave China and Southeast Asia. This was a demand that Japan was unwilling to meet. Instead, it began preparing for war, and by early 1941, the eyes of Japan's military planners had turned to Pearl Harbor.
THE AMERICAN DESK
Yoshikawa had become a spy in a roundabout way. He'd been a promising naval academy graduate, but his career hopes were dashed in 1936 when, just two years after graduation, stomach problems (reportedly brought on by heavy drinking) forced him out of the Japanese Navy. The following year he landed a desk job with Naval Intelligence, where he was put to work learning all that he could about the U.S. Navy.
From 1937 until 1940, Yoshikawa pored over books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, reports filed by Japanese diplomats and intelligence officers from all over the world, and anything else he could find that would give him information about the U.S. Navy. "By 1940 I was the Naval General Staff's acknowledged American expert," he recounted in a 1960 article in the journal Naval Institute Proceedings. "I knew by then every U.S. man-of-war and aircraft by name, hull number, configuration, and technical characteristics. I knew, too, a great deal of information about the U.S. naval bases at Manila, Guam, and Pearl Harbor."
(YouTube link)
The film Iron Sky has been in development for years. It's a Finnish-German-Australian sci-fi parody involving Nazis -a premise that cannot fail!
Towards the end of World War II the Nazi scientists made a significant breakthrough in anti-gravity. From a secret base built in the Antarctic, the first Nazi spaceships were launched in late ‘45 to found the military base Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) on the dark side of the Moon. This base was to build a powerful invasion fleet and return to take over the Earth once the time was right.
Now it’s 2018, and it’s the time for the first American Moon landing since the 70’s. Meanwhile the Nazi invasion, that has been over 70 years in the making, is on its way, and the world is goose-stepping towards its doom.
Filming is going on now in Germany and the process is documented for you to follow.
Link to website | Blog | Flickr stream -Thanks, Janos!
Look at these cute mice made up as a Star Wars characters! They're available from Etsy store TheHouseofMouse. You'll also see R2D2, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker mice, plus mice from the cast of The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and other stories. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
(YouTube link)
A trailer for the movie Blue's Clues, if it were directed by Christopher Nolan. It makes sense, as the first generation that grew up watching Steve and Blue solve puzzles in three clues are now watching crime dramas. -via The High Definite
Ischigualasto, meaning "the place where you put the moon" is a remote valley in Argentina. It is studded with geological formations left by wind erosion, amazing standing stones and boulders that are so rounded they look like enormous marbles. The valley's once-fertile ground is now arid and contains so many plant and animal fossils that paleontologists come from all over the world to study them. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Aylwin Lo)
(YouTube link)
Terry Hope was presented with a challenge. He was working aboard an 88-foot sailboat and the captain would not let him bring a standard electric scooter on board. The only way he could have one is if it were to fit into a suitcase, and it had to be rechargeable off the grid. So he developed the Hybrid Electric Kinetic Photovoltaic Vehicle you see here! The battery is recharged with both solar and kinetic power -and it folds up. Get the specs at his website. Link -Thanks, Terry!
A 27-year-old elephant named Devidasan developed a painful 19-inch crack in his tusk over the past five years. CV Pradeep, a dentist in Kerala, India, did some research and decided to fill the crack with the same resin used to repair human teeth. The difference: repairing the tusk took 47 tubes of resin in a two-hour operation!
The elephant was not tranquilized, and remained cooperative through the procedure. The repair seems to have eased his toothache. Link -via Arbroath
"It was literally an elephantine task, because we had to find specialist equipment and modify it," Dr Pradeep said.
"The main difference between this and a similar operation carried out on humans is that we were not able to use X-ray screening, because none of our mobile X-ray units was large enough to suit the elephant's needs."
Dr Pradeep, a professor at the PSM dental college in the town of Trichur, said that if the crack remained untreated dirt would have gathered inside it and potentially caused a deadly infection.
The elephant was not tranquilized, and remained cooperative through the procedure. The repair seems to have eased his toothache. Link -via Arbroath
Greedo may not have shot first, but at least you thought the Star Wars character was male. Well, the character might be male, but he was played by two actors because of scheduling problems: Maria de Aragon and Paul Blake. I believe this photo probably shows Aragon in costume. -via Geeks Are Sexy
You may have seen hand-printed marbled paper on the inside covers of books, or inside old luggage or cabinets. This pattern was achieved by floating inks and other chemicals on a liquid surface and then pressing paper against it. Variations in the basic process lead to different types of patterns, like this Spanish moiré on Turkish with gold vein pattern.
The pattern is created by making a Turkish pattern where the first colour used is gold. As further colours are dropped to complete the Turkish pattern, the gold constricts into veins. Then a paper, which has been folded in half is laid onto the bath, moving slightly from side to side to create the curvilinear gradations typical of this pattern.
Learn how other vintage patterns were made at BibliOdyssey. Link
Wouldn't you love to browse a shop like this? Hoxton Street Monster Supplies in London is a Ministry of Stories project that gives children a place to go for inspiration and where they can write and get help with their school work. It was inspired by Dave Eggars' 826 project responsible for the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store in New York. The Hoxton Street store shelves are filled with items like brain jam and organ marmalade, pickled eyeballs, human snot, and my favorite, a canned vague sense of unease. Link -via b3ta
Olga Kotelko is an athlete. She holds 23 world records, mostly track records for the category of age 90 and up! Kotelko is 91 years old and runs, jumps, and throws a javelin in "masters" meets for those age 35 and over. Her success has led scientists to study her abilities in hopes of finding out how some bodies age at a predictable rate and others don't.
Kotelko plans to continue competing and is looking forward to a new set of world records -when she reaches the "95 and over" age category. Link -via Buzzfeed
(Image credit: Patrik Giardino for The New York Times)
Kotelko herself speaks often of the perils of getting carried away. “If you undertrain, you might not finish,” she says. “If you overtrain, you might not start.” But there’s some evidence that, in trying to find the sweet spot between staying in race shape and avoiding the medical tent, a lot of seniors athletes aren’t training hard enough — or at least, aren’t training the right way to maximally exploit what their body can still do.
Kotelko plans to continue competing and is looking forward to a new set of world records -when she reaches the "95 and over" age category. Link -via Buzzfeed
(Image credit: Patrik Giardino for The New York Times)
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