Not for a long time, anyway! Ben Warheit doodles on Post-it Notes. The results are strange and funny observations on life and how life might be with a bit of a twist. This prehistorical scene is one of many that made me giggle. Check them all out at Ben's newly relaunched site, I'm Ben Warheit. Link
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Not for a long time, anyway! Ben Warheit doodles on Post-it Notes. The results are strange and funny observations on life and how life might be with a bit of a twist. This prehistorical scene is one of many that made me giggle. Check them all out at Ben's newly relaunched site, I'm Ben Warheit. Link
Reddit member guantes ordered a signed copy of Ken Jennings' book and requested he draw a picture of his Jeopardy battle with the computer named Watson. The result was so cool that the autographed title page had to be shared with everyone. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fvzup/got_my_signed_copy_of_ken_jenningss_book_i_asked/
Pull up an armchair -you might be up in arms over this roundup of arm stories from mental_floss magazine!
NO ARM, NO FOWL
One afternoon in 1972, friends Jack Northrup and Jack Bishop were having lunch at their local drugstore in Olney, Texas, when they realized the strangers next to them were eavesdropping. The pair, both amputees, had a reputation for mischief. Rather than get upset, the "One-armed Jacks" decided to have some fun.
Northrup and Bishop began talking loudly about their hunting adventures with pump-action shotguns and bolt-action rifles -firearms that would be nearly impossible to operate without two arms. They cracked each other up with the stunt, but they also decided, heck, why not turn the joke into reality? That year, they sponsored the first ever One-Arm Dove Hunt, which drew six amputees to the field.
The Jacks have sponsored an annual shoot ever since, and the One-Arm Dove Hunt now brings in close to 100amputees each year. Participants shoot skeet, golf, play pool, and, of course, hunt doves (although they usually miss). The two Jacks also spice up the proceedings with their unique brand of humor. During the cow chip-throwing competition, they sit on toilets and act as targets. For breakfast, they charge diners "10 cents a finger." They may be missing arms, but their funny bones are still intact.
A SEGUE FROM THE SEGWAY
In 2001, Dean Kamen invented the Segway, forever changing the way people get around while standing on two wheels. More recently, though, he's partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense to expand the range of human motion once more. His new invention is a high-tech prosthetic arm with fingers, which has been nicknamed "the Luke arm," in honor of Luke Skywalker's cybernetic hand in the original Star Wars trilogy. Unlike most prosthetic limbs, which are built around a series of hooks, the lightweight Luke arm actually works like a human arm, converting nerve impulses into motion. Amazingly, test subjects have been able to use it to drink from wine glasses, pick up raisins, and peel bananas -tasks that require enormous dexterity. The Force is strong with this one.
FAREWELL TO ARMS, HELLO OBSCENITY!
When Scribners published Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms in 1929, the publishing house eliminated all potentially offensive words, replacing them with a series of dashes. Hemingway was peeved that he couldn't use even mild obscenities such as "balls" in a novel about war and sex, but he went along with the censorship to get the book published.
After the novel came out, however, the writer got his mitts on a few copies and reinserted the vulgarities by hand. At least two of the corrected texts survive today. Hemingway gave one copy to French literary translator Maurice Coindreau; the other copy he gave to James Joyce. Want to know what curse words go where? Joyce's copy is held at SUNY-Buffalo's library in upstate New York.
A HELPING HAND
Back in 2006, two dolphins at an aquarium in Fushun, China, became gravely ill after ingesting some plastic from the liner of their tank. When traditional techniques of extracting the the material failed, the vets called in an unlikely hero: Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun. At 7'9", Bao isn't just one of the tallest men in the world, he also has incredibly long arms. Using his spindly limbs, Bao reached into the sick mammal's tummies and pulled out the plastic. Let's see Stretch Armstrong top that!
Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!
NO ARM, NO FOWL
One afternoon in 1972, friends Jack Northrup and Jack Bishop were having lunch at their local drugstore in Olney, Texas, when they realized the strangers next to them were eavesdropping. The pair, both amputees, had a reputation for mischief. Rather than get upset, the "One-armed Jacks" decided to have some fun.
Northrup and Bishop began talking loudly about their hunting adventures with pump-action shotguns and bolt-action rifles -firearms that would be nearly impossible to operate without two arms. They cracked each other up with the stunt, but they also decided, heck, why not turn the joke into reality? That year, they sponsored the first ever One-Arm Dove Hunt, which drew six amputees to the field.
The Jacks have sponsored an annual shoot ever since, and the One-Arm Dove Hunt now brings in close to 100amputees each year. Participants shoot skeet, golf, play pool, and, of course, hunt doves (although they usually miss). The two Jacks also spice up the proceedings with their unique brand of humor. During the cow chip-throwing competition, they sit on toilets and act as targets. For breakfast, they charge diners "10 cents a finger." They may be missing arms, but their funny bones are still intact.
A SEGUE FROM THE SEGWAY
In 2001, Dean Kamen invented the Segway, forever changing the way people get around while standing on two wheels. More recently, though, he's partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense to expand the range of human motion once more. His new invention is a high-tech prosthetic arm with fingers, which has been nicknamed "the Luke arm," in honor of Luke Skywalker's cybernetic hand in the original Star Wars trilogy. Unlike most prosthetic limbs, which are built around a series of hooks, the lightweight Luke arm actually works like a human arm, converting nerve impulses into motion. Amazingly, test subjects have been able to use it to drink from wine glasses, pick up raisins, and peel bananas -tasks that require enormous dexterity. The Force is strong with this one.
FAREWELL TO ARMS, HELLO OBSCENITY!
When Scribners published Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms in 1929, the publishing house eliminated all potentially offensive words, replacing them with a series of dashes. Hemingway was peeved that he couldn't use even mild obscenities such as "balls" in a novel about war and sex, but he went along with the censorship to get the book published.
After the novel came out, however, the writer got his mitts on a few copies and reinserted the vulgarities by hand. At least two of the corrected texts survive today. Hemingway gave one copy to French literary translator Maurice Coindreau; the other copy he gave to James Joyce. Want to know what curse words go where? Joyce's copy is held at SUNY-Buffalo's library in upstate New York.
A HELPING HAND
Back in 2006, two dolphins at an aquarium in Fushun, China, became gravely ill after ingesting some plastic from the liner of their tank. When traditional techniques of extracting the the material failed, the vets called in an unlikely hero: Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun. At 7'9", Bao isn't just one of the tallest men in the world, he also has incredibly long arms. Using his spindly limbs, Bao reached into the sick mammal's tummies and pulled out the plastic. Let's see Stretch Armstrong top that!
__________________________
The article by Ethan Trex is reprinted from Scatterbrained section of the January-February 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Subscribe today to get it delivered to you!Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!
If he were alive, Theodor Geisel would have been 107 years old today. You know him better as Dr. Seuss, the author of those books that taught you to read. In commemoration of the anniversary of his birth, Buzzfeed posted a list of Dr. Seuss trivia, some of which is even new to me! Link
(YouTube link)
Remember the cat who gave us thumbs up? What if all cats were to develop opposable thumbs? They'd be after us ...for our breakfast cereal milk, according to this ad from a milk company. -via Laughing Squid
Brain scanning technology is teaching us how very versatile or brains are. For example, what is happening in the visual cortices of people who have been blind since birth? A series of experiments in which blind subjects were monitored while performing different linguistic exercises show that those parts of our brains are put to work for other tasks!
Brains: use 'em if you got 'em! Link
In the brains of people blind from birth, structures used in sight are still put to work — but for a very different purpose. Rather than processing visual information, they appear to handle language.
Linguistic processing is a task utterly unrelated to sight, yet the visual cortex performs it well.
“It suggests a kind of plasticity that’s even broader than the kinds observed before,” said Marina Bedny, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a really drastic change. It suggests there isn’t a predetermined function an area can serve. It can take a wide range of possible functions.”
Brains: use 'em if you got 'em! Link
Rob Cockerham constructed a chart of TV shows that were set in a time period other than the one they were produced in. This may be especially useful for young people who weren't watching at the time, like my children, who thought the series Happy Days was produced in the 1950s. Still, there are some surprises for all of us. Really, who knew that Lost in Space was set in 1997! Shown here is a small part of a much larger chart. Link
(YouTube link)
The tungsten filament of a common incandescent light bulb is way more interesting than you thought. Bill Hammock, "The Engineer Guy," explains how it is made and how it works -or sometimes doesn't. -Thanks, Bill!
Also: If you enjoy the Engineer Guy, you'll love the video in which he posts and responds to criticism from reddit members. Link
Designer John Leung from ClarkeHopkinsClarke Architects presents the "Bias of Thoughts" Bookshelf. How does this illusion work? You can figure it out by seeing pictures of the bookshelf from different angles and a video as well at the Neatorama Spotlight Blog. http://www.neatorama.com/spotlight/2011/03/02/the-bias-of-thoughts-bookshelf/
Ronnie the 7-month-old Rottweiler has megaoesophagus, an incurable condition that makes it impossible for him to eat or drink like other dogs. He cannot swallow properly, and relies on gravity to get his kibble to his stomach. Therefore, it can take up to 20 minutes to spoon-feed him.
Ronnie will only be adopted out to a home in which he can receive the time and attention he needs. Link -via Arbroath
Staff at Leeds Dogs Trust rehoming centre have helped to make life easier for Ronnie after they designed and built him a special feeding station.
Manager Amanda Sands said: “We’ve fed Ronnie standing up since he came to the centre with his littermates aged seven weeks but now that he is bigger we can’t support and feed him at the same time.
“We designed the feeding station so he can support himself while we spoon-feed him. He happily gets in by himself.
“We’re going to decorate it so it will look nice in his home when he hopefully gets one.”
Ronnie will only be adopted out to a home in which he can receive the time and attention he needs. Link -via Arbroath
A couple of years ago we posted about an infinite photo called As Seen on Earth. National Geographic has a new infinite photo project called Tropical Island. At the link, you can select a piece of the image and click to zoom in on more images, and then click again to zoom in to yet more! You'll also find information about the creatures pictured. The images are of the life forms of the beautiful South Pacific island of Mo‘orea. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: the Biocode Project and National Geographic contributing photographer David Liittschwager)
I had so much fun playing this game that it was at least ten movies in before I realized that you don't have to type the entire title in order! You can guess letters if you don't know the answer, which may lead you to remember what movie the object is from. It's surprising how many I could guess without ever having seen the film in question. Link -via Breakfast Links
(YouTube link)
This helmet-cam video might make you a bit woozy. Filip Polc rides down a steep path in Valparaíso, Chile as the crowd watches. -via The Daily What
We all suspected that George Lucas didn't really have his stories written in advance when it turned out that Luke Skywalker's love interest was (spoiler alert!) his sister. That kind of thing happens more often than you think in movies and TV. For example, you'd expect with a TV show like 24, the story of the entire season would be planned -after all, it's supposed to be 24 consecutive hours of action! But no...
Making up plots as you go along tends to happen more in shows that unexpectedly become hits -as if the writers were pretty sure they wouldn't have to write too many episodes. There are more examples in this surprisingly SFW article at Cracked. Link -via The Daily What
Early in Season 6 they had a nuclear bomb going off in Los Angeles and killing at least 12,000 people ... only to be forgotten a few episodes later. That is, a few hours later. In the world of 24, America gets over an attack four times the size of 9/11 before the emergency response even gets fully under way. Did the writers really plan it that way?
To quote writer David Fury, they were just "winging it." He says that worked out fine because they got good ratings doing it: "In the early seasons of 24, [the writers tried] to map out stories and arc out stories [beforehand] a little bit more than they did, say, in seasons four and five, and four and five turned out to be two of most successful seasons."
Making up plots as you go along tends to happen more in shows that unexpectedly become hits -as if the writers were pretty sure they wouldn't have to write too many episodes. There are more examples in this surprisingly SFW article at Cracked. Link -via The Daily What
Just when you think a Twitter feed is run by machines, something happens to remind you that a real person with a real sense of humor is on duty. The Boston Police Department assures us that they aren't holding back pertinent information. -via Breakfast Links
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