People have professional pictures made for graduation to record that period in their life for the memories they bring years afterward. Here’s one that a soon-to-be graduate from Valdosta State University will never forget. In a stereotypical illustration of “Pride goeth before a fall,” redditor Typic0le’s girlfriend Chelsea Whitfield landed wrong while taking the “jump for joy” picture and broke a metatarsal. Let’s hope she completely recovers before she actually has to climb the stage to get her sheepskin. Several folks pointed out that this sequence could be a metaphor for life itself. See it full size at imgur.
Don’t panic- this list is about fiction. One of the reasons we haven’t colonized space already is that it’s an inhospitable environment. Outer space is a vacuum without the oxygen we require, and a common tragedy in science fiction is a human coming in contact with that vacuum. It doesn’t end well for the most part, but how accurate are these portrayals? They range from horrible to scientifically accurate but still scary. Take Total Recall, which is judged the most inaccurate of all.
Towards the end of Total Recall, Quaid throws a bomb and blows out the wall of one of the buildings on Mars. Cohaagen, who triggered the bomb, is sucked out of the building, where he proceeds to explosively decompress in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Why this is completely, utterly wrong: Aspiring screenwriters, repeat after me: you don’t explode in space. You don’t explode in space. Total Recall is a totally grotesque and hilarious scene. It’s a iconic, to be sure, but it’s not what would happen if you found yourself on the surface of Mars without a space suit. Not even close.
The town of Scarfolk, England, exists only in ephemera and at the blog bearing its name. Scarfolk is a authoritarian dystopia, a dangerous and paranoid place stuck in the 1970s. Browse through, and you have to wonder about the mind that conceived it. That would be graphic artist Richard Littler, who created it from the dim and nightmarish memories of his childhood. He explains one of the memories that led to Scarfolk.
I initially started Scarfolk because I wanted to capture, or rather investigate, the fading memories of my 1970s and early ’80s British childhood. I suffered from night terrors as a kid, and looking back, I often couldn’t distinguish between what was real and what had been a vivid nightmare.
One such memory was of children playing school sports on a railway line: As the children entered a dark tunnel, they’re injured or killed by speeding trains while a brass band played on the embankment. It almost sounds like the plot of a Bunuel film, and for many years I was convinced I had imagined it, especially because everyone I mentioned it to looked at me as if I were insane.
A few years ago, I finally discovered that I hadn’t imagined it—it’s a 1977 public information film called “The Finishing Line,” which was made to deter children from playing near railway lines. The film was screened at my junior school, or around second or third grade in the U.S., where pupils were also shown slide presentations of burn victims to discourage playing with fireworks. “The Finishing Line” caused controversy at the time and was eventually withdrawn. However, its replacement was another violent public information film about a boy called Robbie who loses both legs in a railway accident.
Littler tells about how Scarfolk came about, how it’s been received, and more in an interview at Collectors Weekly. There’s also a gallery of the some popular images from Scarfolk.
There’s another Bridget Jones movie coming out this September: Bridget Jones’s Baby. That’s excuse enough to get another look at the 2001 movie that started it all, Bridget Jones's Diary. The re-adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was written by Helen Fielding, with Renée Zellweger starring alongside Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. You remember the movie; now let’s find out more about what went on in order to get it made.
7. THE EPIC FIGHT SCENE BETWEEN GRANT AND COLIN FIRTH WASN’T CHOREOGRAPHED.
You can thank the two actors for the hilarity of the iconic scene. In a Vulture article about the greatest fight scenes in movie history, writer Denise Martin recalled the improvised spar, writing, “No stunt coordinators. No elaborate choreography. Just a perfectly realized wimp brawl between two upper-middle-class Englishmen coming to awkward fisticuffs in front of a Greek restaurant.”
11. GRANT DIDN’T HEAR ZELLWEGER SPEAK IN HER AMERICAN ACCENT UNTIL THE FILM’S WRAP PARTY.
Zellweger was so engrossed with Bridget Jones that one of her leading love interests didn’t meet the real actress until the end of the shoot. “Not once did she stop speaking with that accent, until the wrap party,” Grant told Cinema.com, “when suddenly this weird ... Texan appeared. I wanted to call security, I didn't know who the f*ck she was!”
You’ll find a lot more trivia about Bridget Jones's Diary, from the idea behind the novel to behind-the-scenes details, at mental_floss.
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!
Bits of regulated wisdom from many fields compiled by Ernest Ersatz, Improbable Research staff
How to Obtain Gold These are from the book Alaska and the Klondike Gold Fields, Containing a Full Account of the Discovery of Gold; Enormous Deposits of the Precious Metal; Routes Traversed by Miners; How to Find Gold; Camp Life at Klondike — Practical Instructions for Fortune Seekers Including a Description of the Gold Regions; Land of Wonders; Immense Mountains, Rivers and Plains; Native Inhabitants; etc., A.C. Harris, Minter Company, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1897.
How to Instruct a Jury This is from the book Sackett’s Instructions and Requests for Instructions in Jury Trials, second edition revised, Frederick Sackett and Martin L. Newell , Callaghan and Co., Chicago, 1888.
When I worked at a toy store, a club deejay bought a dozen realistic-looking guitars right after Christmas at a bargain price, but it was easy for him- he didn’t really play them before smashing them in front of a crowd. Anyone who’s ever paid for a decent guitar, or just scanned the prices at a music store, can’t help but be impressed in one way or another when a rock star smashes his on stage. If you’ve ever wondered how this become a thing, is started with Pete Townshend of The Who.
The first time he broke a guitar on stage, it was basically an accident—working on a stage with a low ceiling, he cracked the headstock on his Rickenbacker, then decided to follow through with the destruction. But the crowd's response to his guitar-smashing capabilities led him to eventually start cracking six-strings at almost every show.
According to an analysis by TheWho.net, Townshend broke more than 35 guitars in 1967 alone. (In case Bryan Adams is reading this, one other factoid: During the summer of '69, Pete broke just three guitars.)
Townshend learned not to throw a lot of sentimental value into his rock machines, but every axe-grinder has their own approach to the guitar-destruction process. And yes, they do get their broken guitars repaired, generally.
But not all smashed guitars can be repaired, and not all the damage is done intentionally. An article at Atlas Obscura looks at the history of smashed guitars, from stage antics to accidents to natural disasters to abuse by baggage handlers.
Sunday afternoon, police in Dodge Center, Minnesota, pulled over a cement truck for speeding. When they saw a juvenile at the wheel, he took off again. The unnamed 11-year-old had stolen the cement mixer from a construction site. A chased ensued, in which the truck barreled down city streets at 65 to 70 miles per hour, and hit two police cars before it came to an end.
"I betcha he drove around town 6 or 7 different times," said Dodge Center resident Troy Flatness, who witnessed the chase. "He was smiling, hooting and hollering...he was having a good time."
The chase went on for about an hour before the juvenile pulled over on a dead-end street. He jumped out of the cement truck and tried to run, but authorities were able to catch and arrest him.
A state police helicopter was dispatched to track the truck while it raced around town. Neighbors caught a bit of video footage of the cement truck passing at an unusual speed. The boy was taken to juvenile detention. -via Digg
Mark Smiley designed a LEGO BB-8 droid that really rolls! Not only that, but the project is a building set submitted to LEGO Ideas (formerly LEGO CUUSOO), which means if enough people like it, the LEGO corporation will consider it for an official LEGO product.
This unique BB-8 was designed with the primary goal of being able to move with his head staying up on top. The entire model was made using 100% Genuine Lego parts. His shells were of course carefully painted (and if this model is approved and created by Lego, the parts would come printed as so many Lego parts are). Inside you'll find Lego weights suspended from the central axle that bolster up two Lego magnets. Those magnets are held up close to the top of the ball and attract the two magnets built into BB-8's head. The head uses a cockpit dome (painted), hinge parts, and the smallest Lego wheels to skate on top of the body. The body's shell started out as Tatooine from the Lego Star Wars Planet series. The total part count is around 180 pieces.
It only rolls along one axis, because this is the real world, not Industrial Light & Magic. Want to get a look inside? Here’s a video showing updates to the project since it was first launched.
The set only needs a few more votes to get it past the magic number of ten thousand. If you’d be interested in seeing on store shelves, you can vote for it at LEGO Ideas. -Thanks, Mark!
Cats will act like there’s nothing on earth that will scare them, until something does. And when that happens, it’s something completely inconsequential to we humans. It may sound mean, but it can be a satisfying payback for the times they’ve tripped you in the middle of the night or attacked your ankles from under the bed. But like most parents, we try to shield our babies from anything that may cause anxiety. This is the latest comic from Chaos Life.
Batman is sitting in the park, just minding his own business and playing the Batman theme on his ukulele, when he is suddenly drowned out by Superman playing bagpipes on a unicycle. Just another day in Portland.
Hey, since when does Superman wear a kilt? Brian Kidd, the Unipiper, is getting ready for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in his own unique way. -via Laughing Squid
Brigit lives in Hamilton, New Zealand. Her hobby is collecting men’s underwear. Brigit’s owner, Sarah Nathan, would catch the cat burglar with a sock every now and then, but did not realize the extent of her thievery until the family got ready to pack up and move to a new home. She posted Brigit’s haul to Facebook, hoping to find the owner of the socks and underwear. She also posted the above notice and slipped notes into her neighbor’s mailboxes.
Set 100 years after George Orwell’s 1984, this dystopian scenario is, once again, about Big Brother and the state bending people into obedient sheep. But when you try to take away everyone’s free will with the power of fear, you’ll occasionally run into someone who’s not even smart enough to be afraid.
Before this is over, you might even feel a little compassion for Big Brother. Taz Goldstein produced this sci-fi comedy short all by himself, except for the three actors. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail. In another life, he ran ShortFormBlog.
The ability to do multiple things well, or multipotentiality, is a big problem for some people. Why? Because they’re often stuck having to choose one thing.
Sometimes, it sucks to be talented at multiple things. Just ask Louis C.K., the multi-hyphenate comedian, director, actor, producer, editor, and whatever else. Because he’s in film and television, he’s a member of a bajillion unions, and he has his own production company. One benefit of working for a union is that they help you cover your health care and contribute to your pensions, but Louie’s production company has in recent years been stuck in a lawsuit with some of the unions, because it didn’t contribute enough money for some of the jobs he did on Louie. He’s one guy, doing five jobs on a single show, and there aren’t 200 hours in a week. But the unions wanted him to pay for his health and pension like he was working full time in every discipline, despite the fact that he clearly wasn’t. And, in the end, the unions won, legal fees and all. Yes, it sucks to be talented in multiple ways. Today’s Tedium explains the pain of multipotentiality.
The problem with being good at multiple things is that people usually want you to choose one.
The reason that Louis C.K. has managed to stand out as an entertainer in recent years is largely in part because he’s a singular talent. Yes, stand-up is his forté, but he has other artistic wrinkles he’s learned over the years, some of which he picked up when working on other things.
He spent years as a writer for a number of late-night shows, and he gained his chops with the camera by working at a public-access TV station when he was a kid. Every little failure eventually turned into a success.
You've heard about these reference books, and probably have used some of them. Who are the people behind them, and how did the references come about? We'll find out today, courtesy of the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids.
FUNK & WAGNALLS
Significance: From the early 1900s until the 1980s, Funk & Wagnalls published reference books: dictionaries and a series of encyclopedias. The encyclopedias, in particular, found their way into millions of American homes because of the way they were marketed: the 29 volumes were sold one volume per week in supermarkets, meaning if you bought the book with aardvarks on January 1, you wouldn’t learn about zygotes until the middle of July. Consumers liked Funk & Wagnalls because the arrangement spread the cost of a complete encyclopedia set over 29 weeks; supermarkets liked them because consumers were motivated to come back to the same store for seven months so they wouldn’t miss any volumes.
Who Were They? In 1876 a Lutheran minister named Isaac Kaufmann Funk started a company that would publish works that reflected his interest in religion, psychic phenomena, and temperance. In 1877 Funk took on clergyman Adam Willis Wagnalls as a partner, and they began publishing reference works, starting with a dictionary in 1893. The first Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia came out in 1912, the same year that Funk died.
What Happened Next? It wasn’t until 1953, after Funk’s son Wilfred sold the company to Unicorn Publishing, that its unique supermarket marketing strategy emerged.
If a friend asks you to be a bridesmaid this year, and you want to send her a subtle warning about becoming too uptight over wedding plans, this cake might do the trick. Imagine bringing this to a bridal shower! If she doesn’t take the hint, you can always throw the cake at her. But don’t, because it’s a work of art.
