You've heard that the best gift you can give a cat is the box it came in. However, a foot warmer appears to be quite popular with these two kittens. There’s your purrfect Christmas gift for the cat! I have four good-sized cats, so I can see having to get four of them to avoid fights, or five if I ever want to use one myself. -via reddit
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Tonikaku Akarui Yasumura made a series of videos in which he instructs a man on how to strike a pose that will make him appear butt naked, even though he is wearing underpants. This video is in English, which he doesn’t really speak, but that’s part of its charm.
First, you think, “Why would anyone do this?” Then you realize that this is the kind of thing that the internet was invented for. Don’t worry; he’s wearing. The Thai and Korean versions have a lot more poses, possibly because he can talk faster in those languages. -via Tastefully Offensive
Remember the scene in Return of the Jedi where the Ewoks aimed two logs at an AT-ST Walker and obliterated it? These guys recreated that scene with a LEGO walker. They shot the destruction with a high-speed camera so we get to watch it in glorious slow motion. It took three hours and over 1,000 LEGO pieces to built the model, and less than a second to wreck it.
I was just a little disappointed that it wasn’t actually in the forest of Endor, or anywhere else. But George Lucas used a green screen for much of the forest warfare, so that’s actually the most authentic way to recreate the movie scene. See the making-of video, too. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Who is the worst character on television? The Atlantic wants your vote to determine who it is. They don’t mean a “poor” character, one that’s badly fleshed out, uninteresting, or the victim of bad acting. They mean a person of loathsome quality, the kind you might enjoy on TV, but you’d never want to encounter in real life.
“Worst,” by its nature as a superlative adjective, should be easy to define, but TV’s Golden Age being what it is, there’s a lot to consider. Should the title of actual worst go to someone like Game of Thrones’s Ramsay Bolton, a psychopath and sadist with an almost unparalleled propensity for cruelty; or to House of Cards’s Claire Underwood, who threatens an employee with what amounts to infanticide? Or should it go to Homeland’s Carrie, for being a terrible spy and sleeping with all her sources, or Scandal’s Fitz, for being the worst president (and married lover) in recent memory? Is the #actualworst character someone viewers love to hate or hate to love? Is it Lucious Lyon or Piper Chapman? Hannah Horvath or Walter White?
The 32 contenders were culled from reader suggestions. Find links to a character profile for each of the contenders and the voting links here. See the entire bracket here.
The title is a long question, but the answer is pretty much yes, although I would use the word “inspire” or “lead to” instead of “create.” The connection between the CIA and the Grateful Dead falls squarely on the shoulders of Ken Kesey. That’s author Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and was later the subject of Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Kesey had volunteered to be a subject in the CIA’s drug experiments in 1959, where he learned about LSD. He was impressed enough to organize a series of parties to share LSD with others, and opening the events, called Acid Tests, to the public. LSD wasn’t outlawed until 1966. Jerry Garcia and the band that eventually became known as The Grateful Dead played at some of those parties in 1965, where full participation was expected.
For Garcia, the ability of the Acid Tests to stop the world for a while and then remind you that it was still spinning was one of its key lessons. The Acid Tests, he says in Signpost, were “our first exposure to formlessness. Formlessness and chaos lead to new forms. And new order. Closer to, probably, what the real order is. When you break down the old orders and the old forms and leave them broken and shattered, you suddenly find yourself a new space with new form and new order which are more like the way it is. More like the flow.”
To put Garcia’s formulation in terms a contemporary Silicon Valley venture capitalist might understand, LSD was a disruptive technology, except that instead of upending mere transactions such as hailing a cab or renting a hotel room, the things being disrupted were the basic conventions of society, which is why mainstream America was, and remains, so terrified of the drug.
Looking back from 50 years later, it’s hard to determine the date the band began using the name The Grateful Dead, but a chronology of their participation in the Acid Tests tries to nail it down at Collectors Weekly. And aren’t you glad it turned out the way it did: the group that used the name The Warlocks at the time also considered the names Vanilla Plumbago and Mythical Ethical Icicle Tricycle.
(Image source: Grateful Dead Archive)
The TV series Little House on the Prairie ran for nine years and became a symbol of wholesome family television. Don’t tell Grandma, but things weren’t quite so wholesome behind the scenes. The production of the Ingalls family saga was a completely different story.
6. LAURA AND MANLY’S LACK OF CHEMISTRY WAS A CAUSE FOR CONCERN AMONG THE PRODUCERS.
A “secret” memo was circulated at one point discussing the romantic pairings on the show; Laura and Almanzo just didn’t look like they were in love, and couldn’t the actors do something to generate some “sparks” between the two of them? The same memo pointed out that when Nellie and Percival were together they “looked like they f*** like crazed weasels.” Unbeknownst to the production staff, Steve Tracy, who played Nellie’s husband Percival, was gay. But he and Alison Arngrim were great friends and used to swap passionate, open-mouth kisses during their love scenes just because they knew it grossed Melissa Gilbert out.
16. ADULT BEVERAGES WERE ENJOYED BY CAST AND CREW DURING THE WORKDAY.
Alison Arngrim often caught a nap during her breaks in the prop truck, and it was there while she was hunkered down on the front seat that she overheard Michael Landon say “Hit me” to propman Ron Chiniquy at the rear of the truck. She lifted her head to peek and saw Chiniquy pour the requested four fingers of Wild Turkey into Landon’s coffee cup, even though it was only 10 a.m. She later found out from Ron that the crew usually went through two cases of Coors beer per day while working. Particularly stressful days, when rewrites and retakes were necessary, were referred to as “three-case days.” After filming was wrapped for the day, a makeshift bar with hard liquor was set up on a sawhorse for the “real” unwinding to begin. Yet both Alison and Melissa Gilbert report that despite all the alcohol consumption going on, no one (cast nor crew) ever appeared the least bit tipsy, nor did their work suffer.
Other stories from the Little House on the Prairie set involve vanity, adultery, toxic waste, and Sean Penn’s first acting role. Read it all at mental_floss.
Have you ever dealt with a two-year old round the clock? Then you’ve probably seen something like this happen. You might think that the boy doesn’t know what he wants, because he changes his mind constantly. But oh, he does know what he wants. He wants to be mad, but he doesn’t want to admit it. So what he’s doing makes complete sense according to two-year-old logic.
Sooner or later, he’ll be able to either channel his frustrations differently or at least communicate them better. And then eventually, he’ll become a teenager, and use those hard-earned skills to make your life truly miserable. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
This comic is NSFW if you are a droid or other sentient hi-tech machine in a galaxy far, far away. .
Theirs was a forbidden love. Or who knows- maybe it was just a one-night hookup. But it left a lasting impression on Star Wars fans forever. This comic is by MediaSlugz at The Skeleton Blog. -via Kevin Anthony
Simone Giertz wanted to build and program a robot to feed her breakfast. She bought a robotic arm and taught it to pour cereal, pour milk, dip a spoon into it, and feed her. Let’s see how well that worked.
So much for that. If you want to try this yourself, she posted a tutorial at Motherboard with all the steps, with photos and more videos.
In retrospect I would probably recommend making a sandwich instead of milk and cereal. That process doesn’t contain any fluids which is preferable when dealing with electronics (and people). Bread is also a great excuse to eat butter.
All in all, preparing breakfast with a robot arm gets 4/10 stars. Messy. Crazy inefficient. Didn’t actually manage to feed me anything. But fun and made me not feel guilty about buying a pretty pricy robot arm.
-via Tastefully Offensive
University of Oxford geographer Nick Middleton wrote a book titled An Atlas of Countries that Don’t Exist. The world has plenty of them, some you are familiar with, and others you’ve probably never heard of. They are real places, but whether they are "countries" or not depend on what you mean by "country."
The problem, he says, is that we don’t have a watertight definition of what a country is. “Which as a geographer, is kind of shocking,” he says. Some cite a treaty signed in 1933, during the International Conference of American States in Montevideo, Uruguay. The “Montevideo Convention” declares that to become a country, a region needs the following features: a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and “the capacity to enter into relations with other states”.
There are plenty of places that fit this definition, yet that really doesn’t help when you’re a small nation trying -and failing- to gain acceptance from other nations. Not only does a country have to be recognized, but recognized by the right nations. Look at Taiwan: it was kicked off the UN’s General Assembly when China joined. Look at the United Kingdom: it has four countries, but only one seat in the UN. Look at Lakotah, in the upper Great Plains of the U.S.: by treaty, it belongs to the Lakotah Nation, but the U.S. reneged on the treaty long ago and doesn’t take kindly to secessionist movements. Look at Christiana, a neighborhood in Copenhagen: it considers itself sovereign, but relies on Denmark for everything. Conversely, Denmark owns Greenland, but Greenland has its own government. Read more about countries that don’t exist (or do they?) at BBC Future. -via Digg
You recall that a group of 1000 Italians musicians got together to play The Foo Fighters’ song “Learn to Fly” in order to convince the group to come play in Cesena, Italy? They did just that Tuesday night. Dave Grohl had a warm welcome for the fans.
The Rockin 1000 bandleader Fabio and the drummer with the Mohawk got to play with the band! They joined in for the Queen/David Bowie song "Under Pressure." Video contains NSFW language. -via Uproxx
Who knew that Rasputin, advisor to Tsar Nicholas II, had a daughter who became a circus performer -and then an American? Maria went from a young village peasant to a life of education and high society in St. Petersburg. The murder of her father threw Maria’s life into chaos. Eventually, Maria’s entire family, as well as the Tsar’s family, were either dead or imprisoned. Maria escaped to Europe with her husband, who died in Paris in 1926. She was left alone with two young daughters to support.
Then, Maria told the Los Angeles Times, “absolutely unexpected, I got offer to be cabaret dancer in Bucharest. This was because of my name, not because of my dancing.” For several years Maria danced across Europe, allowing herself to be billed as “the daughter of the mad monk.” In 1929, she published her first book, The Real Rasputin, a strongly worded defense of her father.
Soon Maria took on another career- that of an animal trainer in a traveling circus. With her characteristic sense of humor, Maria said: “They ask me if I mind to be in a cage with animals, and I answer, ‘Why not? I have been in a cage with Bolsheviks.’”
Maria Rasputin had what you could call an eventful life, which you can read about at Atlas Obscura.
Tattoos are more mainstream than ever, to the chagrin of tattooed hipsters who were once happily ahead of the curve. Anyone can ink a tattoo, but if you want it to look better than a jailhouse tat, you want to go to a professional artist to have yours done. Mental_floss talked to some experienced inkers to find out what goes on behind the scenes of your local tattoo shop. Here’s a sample:
5. A GOOD ARTIST WILL SAY NO.
Whatever your age or employment status, there are some tattoos artists just won’t do, either because it’s not their specialty or they know it won’t look good or heal well. The professionals will be honest about this.
Small, intricate designs might not age well, and finger tattoos won’t last. A good artist will warn you about these potential complications and maybe even refuse the work. Because so much of their business relies on referrals, their art is an advertisement, so it better be good. “A good artist will tell you no because your money is not worth their name,” says Page.
But this isn’t always true, especially for less-experienced artists looking to make as much money as possible. “They probably didn’t train under somebody that taught them well,” Leever says. “It’s become this cash-cow industry where people open up a shop that know nothing about tattooing and hire a bunch of people who don’t know anything about tattooing and it’s just about making money.”
8. THEY MAKE MISTAKES ALL THE TIME.
They just know how to cover them up so the customer never knows. “Every tattoo artist messes up,” says one artist on Reddit. “We just take the time to fix it as we go, adding a flourish here or there, a little bit more contrast. No client would notice.”
Oh, there’s lots more to learn about tattoo artists at mental_floss, and you’ll find it interesting even if you’re never going to get a tattoo.
In many American high schools, if you’re caught in a hallway during class, you need something to prove that you have permission to be out of the classroom. In these schools, teachers can give out hall passes, or “potty passes.” They are often slips of paper, but sometimes are more creative, in order to force shy students to choose between feeling humiliated or holding it in. Non-shy students don’t care. Redditor bad_trip_ posted such a pass from his school. It’s a full-size cardboard cutout of a cop.
One of my teachers back in the ‘70s used a toilet seat for a potty pass. No one cared, and some would even wear it around their necks. Of course, back then it was important to go to the restroom often, because that was the only place in the building you could smoke (besides the teachers lounge).
You may have played with Barbie dolls when you were young, but they don’t come with this much trivia! John Green returns in this week’s mental_floss List Show to talk about Barbie. Learn the doll’s origins, statistics, and the soap opera saga of careers and romance that is her life.
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