The technology to make things invisible is progressing every day. Developers are having luck with nano materials that bend light around an object, rendering it invisible. It’s feasible that we could wrap such a cloak of material around us to make a person invisible to anyone looking.  

But even if we could use the meta material cloak in a bigger way, there's another problem. You'd be invisible to others, sure, but you couldn't see anything.

Since your vision is based on the light rays that enters your eyes, if all of these rays were diverted around someone under an invisibility cloak, the effect would be like being covered in a thick blanket. Total darkness. As Larouche points out, this is due to a physics principle known as reciprocity.

Yeah, that’s a problem. It’s explained in more detail at Atlas Obscura.

Kevin Weir of KW Designs unveiled a new Stormtrooper armor kit that makes cosplay easier for women. It’s called the FEM7, and a group of cosplayers wore it to Long Beach Comic Expo in February.

As a member of the Star Wars costuming group the 501st Legion, Weir has been familiar with stormtrooper armor for more than 10 years. Eventually he began making cosplay armor for others and created stormtrooper armor for women called the FEMTK, based on the armor worn by female stormtrooper Jes Gistang in the Star Wars: Legacy comics. The new armor differs from the FEMTK, since it's not directly inspired by an already established look.

"I wanted to go beyond the boundaries of creating a character that's been seen before, but at the same time try to encapsulate all those different elements from The Clone Wars, Ralph McQuarrie, The Force Awakens, [and] the classic stormtrooper," Weir told the Daily Dot. "I just kind of let my mind relax and have fun with the sculpt."

Read more about the FEM7 armor and the experiences of the women who tried it out at The Daily Dot.

(Image credit: Kevin Weir)

Renegade inventor Colin Furze has shown us some really weird and wild contraptions. Now he’s got something really dangerous -a rocket launcher for fireworks! Is this anywhere near legal? What did he hope to accomplish? Well, it’s for removing his socks.

(YouTube link)

This video is only about half as a long as it appears. The rocket launching comes first. -via Viral Viral Videos

Moonlighting, which aired from 1985 to '89, was a groundbreaking TV show for its time. Movie star Cybill Shepherd played an ice queen against a working-class free spirit played by newcomer Bruce Willis at a private detective agency. They solved cases, but they also bent the concept of a detective show by adding comedy, breaking the fourth wall, and building episodes around themes. The power struggle between the two leads was magic, but it didn’t make for an easy production.

2. THE SHOW’S BIG INFLUENCE WAS THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

Caron said the William Shakespeare play was “the emotional inspiration” of Moonlighting; he had seen his wife perform in a production of it in college eight times. “Moonlighting was sort of a rip-off of Taming of the Shrew, and always was," Caron said. "I've been trying to keep that a secret, you know." The play was specifically parodied in the third season episode, “Atomic Shakespeare.”

4. THOUSANDS OF ACTORS WERE CONSIDERED BEFORE BRUCE WILLIS.

Bruce Willis (whose lone TV credit before 1985 was as "Tony Amato" in an episode of Miami Vice) arrived to his audition with a “punk hairdo and earrings.” Shepherd remembered that Willis was wearing army fatigues, and unlike the other men who auditioned with her that day, he didn’t go out of his way to flatter her. He avoided eye contact with her and mostly talked with Caron. After he left the room, Shepherd says she told Caron that Willis was the one they needed to play David. Caron later said ABC executives “vigorously” didn’t want Willis, and were willing to pay him and Shepherd off to “go away” because they felt the David role was un-castable.

That’s just a taste of the trivia about Moonlighting you’ll find at mental_floss.   

Learn how to make proper french fries with a little song from the YouTube channel You Suck at Cooking (previously at Neatorama)! The steps may be hard to follow in the song, but the video gives you all the instruction you need to make fries from scratch. Or potatoes.

(YouTube link)

But if you really need them, the lyrics are in the YouTube description. Now I have a rhythm in my head and a craving for french fries! -via Tastefully offensive

Can't believe that the three best friends since highschool are all having babies within a month of eachother, one on the far left is my brother and he's having the first girl and this will be the sixth one, I'm pretty excited for it! #ManShower #Brother #BabyTime #FirstGirl #BabyGames #GoodNight

A photo posted by quentin barrick (@thatdudeqb) on Mar 24, 2015 at 3:55pm PDT

More and more men are throwing baby showers for expectant dads. It sounds like a great idea, where a man’s friends can provide diapers and other baby gifts, share some advice on fatherhood, and generally celebrate the impending arrival. These parties often include cookouts, beer, and maybe even games. The photo above shows three expectant fathers in a diaper-changing competition at their dad shower, or "dadchelor party." See more on this phenomenon at Buzzfeed.

Fans of The Simpsons have come to know the many characters of Springfield by the familiar voices coming out of animated drawings, but of course we also know the names behind those voices, since they’ve been doing them so long. On rare occasions, we get to see those folks, but its even rarer when we hear the character voices coming out of those real people. It can be jarring for an avid Simpsons fan. TVOM has collected videos in which you can hear Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer showing us their cartoon voices.

Until rather recently in human history, obesity was a sign of wealth. Who could afford to eat  more than they needed without working it off? Wealthy people. The tail end of that idea overlapped with the fad for joining social clubs and secret societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that's when the U.S. had a lot of clubs for fat men. One had to be at least 200 pounds to join, and meetings were announced far ahead of time to make sure members could pass the weigh-in. They they had a jolly time. 

What did one do at a fat men's club gathering? Well, eat, of course – a lot. At its peak, the New England's Fat Men's Club had 10,000 members, according to writer Polly Tafrate's brief history of the club for Upper Valley Life. The men would cram huge breakfasts into their bellies, then stumble outside and work up a sweat in a friendly Olympics-style competition showcasing strength and virility: leap-frog contests, broad jumps and races, Tafrate writes.

Of course, like many men’s clubs at the time, the real advantage of such clubs was professional networking between the wealthy. Read more about the Fat Men's Clubs, including a sample meeting menu, at NPR.

(Image credit: screenshot from British Pathé)

What if the plot of the Star Wars prequels had taken a left turn and Jar Jar Binks had ended up as a Sith Lord? This question was put to Ahmed Best, who played the voice of Jar Jar. At least he could show us what such a character would sound like.

(YouTube link)

First, Best does a generic Darth voice to get into the mood, then he puts Jar Jar into it, and the results are …weird, to say the least!

@ziyatong I was there! The refugees loved us, children especially. I'm glad we made their transition to Canada fun. pic.twitter.com/YjNRMRLZVZ

— Dray (@LiveitRivet) March 8, 2016

The fifth annual VancouFur convention was held last weekend at a hotel in Vancouver. The same hotel was housing newly-arrived refugees from Syria. To head off problems, the hotel issued a message to the convention attendees, notifying them that the refugees were there and that the furries may be a major shock to them.

“Keep in mind that they likely will not want to interact with you and consent is important to everyone,” the message added.

The exact opposite happened. The furries put on their best welcoming behavior, and the refugees, especially the children, were delighted to see the costumed characters.

Mike Schmidt, who attended VancouFur wrote on Vancity Buzz: “One of the many highlights for me was when the new group of Syrian refugee children came in and got to interact with us. To them we were cartoons to come to life, to us [it] was a means to display our acting performance to a very appreciative audience.

You can see more pictures and videos of the interaction between the refugee children and the furries at Independent. -via Metafilter

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

Charlie Brown made his “Peanuts" debut on October 2, 1950. On March 6, 1951, he appeared in his first baseball game. Charlie Brown was life's perennial loser, and this fact was always reflected in his baseball career.

Charlie Brown was not only his team's pitcher, but he also served as their manager. The rest of the team's usual lineup was as follows:

First base: Shermy
Second base: Linus
Third base: Pig-pen
Shortstop: Snoopy (only beagle on the team)
Right field: Lucy
Center field: Patty
Left field: Violet
Catcher: Schroeder

The "opposing" or "other" team (never shown) was usually headed by Peppermint Patty. Her teammates included Marcie, Franklin, Thibault, and José Peterson.

(YouTube link)

In this kindergarten gymnastics recital, a young boy attempts to clear the vault. He fails. And fails again. But he keeps trying, and eventually breaks into tears. Still not giving up. But he gets an encouraging cheer from his fellow students (“You can do it!”) and that makes all the difference. -via reddit

Technology keeps advancing, to the point where every job will be automated, even that of raising children. The iMom is a robot that can take the place of a mother, freeing parents up to do whatever it is they want to do. What could possibly go wrong?

(vimeo link)

In this award winning short film by Ariel Martin, it doesn’t take the viewer long to get the idea that something will go horribly wrong at some point. And kudos to actress Matilda Brown for making us believe that the robot iMom is not human at all. -via Digg

Professor Joseph Faber spent 25 years perfecting his “talking machine,” which he called the Euphonia. He unveiled the Euphonia in 1846 at London's grand Egyptian Hall before a crowd of people who paid a shilling each to see it. The contraption was essentially a keyboard and bellows attached to a automaton of a woman’s face.

Fourteen piano keys controlled the articulation of the Euphonia's jaw, lips, and tongue while the roles of the lungs and larynx were performed by a bellows and an ivory reed. The operator could adjust the pitch and accent of the Euphonia's speech by turning a small screw or inserting a tube into its nose. It was reported that it took Faber seven long years simply to get his machine to correctly pronounce the letter e.

But she pronounced more than that, as the Euphonia held conversations with the crowd, slowly but understandably. It was certainly a technological wonder, but people were put off by the creepiness of the face that spoke -a view of the uncanny valley. The machine might have been a sensation without the face, but it was not to be. Read the story of Faber and his Euphonia at Atlas Obscura.   

After twelve years and 282 episodes, Mythbusters is gone for good. In honor of the show, Thomas Crenshaw put together a tribute using only the best clips without any context. That means lots of explosions.

(vimeo link)

And with Mythbusters goes the last vestige of educational content on the Discovery Channel. Boom de yada.  -via reddit