Imagine that Jules Verne produced the Star Wars saga instead of George Lucas. Swedish artist Bjorn Hurri brings us a series of Star Wars characters rendered in steampunk style.He's been working on the series for years, and is now up to 13 characters.
See Luke Skywalker protected by a welder’s mask. See Yoda with his oxygen bottle (or whatever they breathe in a galaxy far, far away). See C3PO articulated by pulleys and belts! Each of the 13 prints are available for purchase. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Star Wars: where dreams come true. Now that Disney owns the Star Wars franchise, is it really so far-fetched to imagine them sliding in some of their more popular tropes into the seventh episode of the movie series?
Some of it doesn’t take much of a stretch, like Mufasa as Darth Vader. That's a given. But Peter Pan with a light saber? Pinocchio as a hologram? You may have to watch twice to catch all the weirdness in this mashup from PistolShrimps. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The character in today’s xkcd comic must use a Mac. I’ve used Macs for almost thirty years, and can verify that you will wear out three or four keyboards for every computer that goes obsolete. And that’s even discounting keyboards that users try to wash. Right now my previous Mac, which was given to the kids, is completely unusable because the keyboard is messed up. Oh, I have several other keyboards, but they are all messed up in one way or another. The kids don’t care; they have hand-held devices. I use a wireless keyboard now, which was replaced just last month (under warranty) because it failed. I have become an expert in typing with a mouse via copy and paste.
Martin Vargic is a 17-year-old Slovakian artist who specializes in maps. He created a world map of stereotypes, relying on online forums, TV Tropes (warning: internet black hole), movies, books, and internet search. There are over 5,000 stereotype labels on the globe!
Note “Hipsteria” in Oregon and “Shit hit the fan” for Detroit. Washington, DC is “Baphomet’s Lair.” I was a little disappointed that my part of Kentucky, with all the stereotypes that come with it, is only labeled “white water rafting.” The map is part of his new book Vargic's Miscellany of Curious Maps: Mapping Out the Modern World. Get a closer view of North America and some of the other continents at Buzzfeed.
It says something about what the Academy thinks of comedies that, of all his movies, the only Oscar nomination Bill Murray has is for Lost in Translation. The 2003 movie was directed by Sofia Coppola and starred Murray and Scarlet Johansson. It touched a lot of people, and if you are one of them, you might like to find out more about the making of the movie.
1. SOFIA COPPOLA WANTED BILL MURRAY—AND ONLY BILL MURRAY—FOR THE LEAD ROLE.
Mutual friend Mitch Glazer showed Murray an early draft of Coppola’s script for the movie. Murray liked enough of what he read to meet Coppola at a downtown New York restaurant with some of his friends. Murray and Coppola talked for five hours, though very little of their conversation was about the movie. Murray agreed to do it, but did not sign a contract.
Though director Wes Anderson, who has worked with Murray on several films, assured Coppola that, “If [Murray] says he’s going to do it, he’ll show up,” she was nervous. Especially considering that $1 million had already been spent on the film in pre-production. “It was nerve-wracking,” Coppola told Filmmaker Magazine. One week before filming was scheduled to commence, Murray arrived in Tokyo.
9. THE LOCATION MANAGER RESIGNED.
When the filmmakers overstayed their welcome at the shabu-shabu restaurant, the owner simply turned the lights out, forcing Coppola to finish shooting the take in the dark. The incident, however, prompted the location manager to resign. The crew didn’t have permits and shot illegally on the subway and on some streets. Charlotte crossing the street was shot in a Starbucks that overlooked the road. (They paid for their coffee.)
Other factors, from language to jet lag made the film shoot difficult, but the cast and crew pulled it off well in the end. Read more about Lost in Translation at mental_floss.
Sara Goetter participated in 24 Hour Comics Day and produced a story about two geeky girls who find each other in 7th grade. They are both going through the agony of puberty: Joanna is short, a bit overweight, and has a volatile temper, while Penny has acne and a unibrow and suffers from crippling shyness. They become friends over their shared love of anime. The 18-page story will remind you of the horribly awkward process of growing up, when making friends was difficult but having friends was crucial.
Goetter says these characters will return in a new strip she’s developing. I’ll look forward to seeing more of them. -via Metafilter
James Bristle of Lima Township, Michigan, dug up what he first thought was a fence post, but it was a bone -a mammoth bone! The farmer contacted the University of Michigan, who sent paleontology professor Daniel Fisher out to get a look. Such bones are reported occasionally, but they usually turn out to be from mastodons. This one was a genuine woolly mammoth. Was there more to it? Fisher wanted to find out, but there was a catch- Bristle could only spare one day for an excavation, because farm work can’t just stop for an indefinite dig. So Fisher and his team did a banzai dig on Thursday, and carefully and quickly recovered the bones. So far, they are excited about the find.
“We think we’re dealing with an animal that was at least butchered by humans,” even if the humans didn't kill it, Fisher said. He believes the carcass was placed in a pond — a practice he's observed evidence of at other dig sites in the area. “It was essentially stored meat,” he said.
Fisher doesn't have quite as much evidence as he'd like to confirm that theory, but he hopes that the bones will yield more information.
Legally, the bones still belong to Bristle, because the university didn’t have time before the dig to secure a donation. Bristle has yet to decide whether the school will have long-term access to the skeleton. Read more on the story at The Washington Post. -via TYWKIWDBI
Oliver has a tiny electric car just big enough for himself, but he’s managed to squeeze in Daisy the dog, too. Mom has a remote that can kill the power any time. On this day, Daisy is the one doing the steering! -via Viral Viral Videos
As we turn to our October habit of reading, watching, and re-enacting horror stories, you may wonder about those who wrote those stories, their inspirations, and their environments. Take a look at Stephen King’s house -it’s just perfect for imagining horrific plot points, don’t you think? The house was built in the mid-19th century, but the gate with the bats was added by King himself, which he reportedly regrets because of the crazy people it attracts. Duh. Get a look at the homes once inhabited by other writers, such as Anne Rice, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and others, at Flavorwire.
Robert Krulwich addresses the problem of our human inability to understand the vastness of space. There are no words to adequately describe it, so he falls back on the poetic description in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. See, the images we’ve all seen show the planets at a size we can comfortably see, while the space between them is compressed so that the solar system can fit on the page. The really big part of the solar system is space itself, and the planets are just microscopic in comparison. But a visual analogy might help.
Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh went out to the desert to make a model of the solar system to scale. That’s the only place they could think of where there’s really enough room. This project aims to scale not only the planets, but the space between them.
While our planet Earth is an actual blue marble, they have to drive a vehicle out to the other planetary orbits. Then it gets really neat, as they drive around with lights after dark to show the orbits. Krulwich says,
The most wonderful moment comes at the very end, when we stand nose to nose with the marble that is Earth and look back at the actual sun coming up in the east and, astonishingly, their model sun and the real sun … match! They’re the same size. So the model suddenly feels real, and that’s when Overstreet takes Earth and tosses it along the desert floor so it rolls into orbit, and you see, really think you see, how small (minuscule? tiny? Lilliputian?) our little planet—home to all of us—actually, really is.
It’s lip-bitingly beautiful.
This picture of pumpkin spice salmon was posted as an example of the trend taken too far. Then in the discussion at reddit, salmon lovers said this sounds pretty good, if you don’t put any sugar in the spices. Then there are those who say a sugar rub on salmon is actually delicious. I’m not much of a fish eater, especially at $12.99 a pound, so what do I know? What do you think?
The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.
Deacon William Brodie has been largely forgotten, but he was as notorious in his day as the stock swindler Bernie Madoff is today. He was also the inspiration for one of English literature’s most infamous villains. See if you can guess which one it is.
FORTUNATE SON
William Brodie was born in 1741 to one of the most prominent carpenters and cabinet makers in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Francis Brodie, was a leader, or “deacon,” of a guild of skilled tradesmen, a position that also gave him a seat on the city council. Francis’s standing in the community brought him access to the highest social circles, and examples of his handiwork could be found in many of the finest homes in the city. (Image credit: John Kay/CC)
When young William was old enough, he began to learn his father’s trade. Like his father, he rose in his profession until he, too, was a deacon of his guild and a member of the city council. His status, profession, and family connections should have been enough to ensure a comfortable life for the rest of his days… except for the fact that there was one way that he didn’t take after his father: William was, at heart, a scoundrel.
SPLIT PERSONALITY
During the day, Brodie was to all appearances a morally upright citizen and a pillar of the community. But at night he prowled the worst neighborhoods of Edinburgh feeding a compulsive appetite for vice. He frequented a seedy tavern in a back alley called Fleshmarket Close, where he consorted with criminals and gambled at dice and on cockfights. He wasn’t very good with dice, even when he played with his own crooked pair. He wasn’t good at picking winning roosters, either, and lost huge sums of money at both.
Brodie had two mistresses that historians know of, and fathered five children by them. To his credit, he supported both his families (neither of which knew about the other), but the expense of maintaining their households plus his own, when added to his substantial gambling losses, was more than he could afford.
MAKING AN IMPRESSION
At some point in the 1760s, Brodie began stealing from the customers of his cabinetry business to support his lifestyle. His modus operandi was simple: in those days it was common practice in private homes, businesses, and even government offices to leave the key to the front door hanging on a nail next to the door. When Brodie was building cabinets in someone’s home, he’d quietly case the premises while pretending to go about his work. Then, when no one was looking, he’d take the key from its nail and quickly press it into a wad of putty that he kept in a small metal case in his pocket. He’d return the key to its hook and later use the impression to make a duplicate key. Weeks or months afterward, when enough time had passed for him to avoid suspicion, he’d return with the duplicate and burglarize the home. (Image credit: Kim Traynor)
The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.
Disney World may be a nice place to visit… but would you want to live there?
(Image credit: Bobak Ha'Eri)
WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR
By the early 1960s, Walt Disney was no longer content to be an animator, movie director and producer, theme-park designer, and TV show host. What he really wanted to do was build a city in central Florida. But not just a city— a “planned community” that would serve as a utopian example for future urban planners. He called it “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow,” or EPCOT for short.
Top-level executives at the Walt Disney Company (not to mention Disney’s financial advisors) thought he was out of his mind. But they had to give him the benefit of the doubt— just a few years earlier, the same people thought that building a “kiddie park” in a California orange grove would bankrupt Disney and his company. They were wrong, of course. Disneyland, which opened in 1955, became one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
Even so, Disney’s plans for EPCOT were fairly bold. He’d never built a community before. But he had overseen the complex design and development of Disneyland, and he wanted to draw on that experience to build EPCOT. For example, he wanted to install small elevated trains like Disneyland’s People Mover, as well as a citywide monorail. What automobile traffic that was left, Disney planned to limit to underground tunnels, like the ones used by park staff. EPCOT would also be laid out, like Disneyland, in a circle, with businesses in the center and residential areas (with enough housing for 20,000 people) along the perimeter.
GET A JOB
But Disney also wanted to make sure the community ran smoothly and according to his vision. That meant that EPCOT residents would not be allowed to own property— homes would be rental-only, and tenants would have no voting rights or any say in community lawmaking. And while that sounds very similar to a modern-day elderly residence home, Disney actually didn’t want any retirees living in EPCOT. Everyone (except for children) would have to be employed, and employed at EPCOT. Disney actively wanted the town to be a showcase for advanced technology and to serve as a tribute to American ingenuity and the benefits of American capitalism.
International markets for Hollywood movies are more lucrative than ever, but the quality of the translations has suffered tremendously over the past couple of decades. We’ve seen examples of lousy translations from both movie titles and subtitles, and they can end up confusing or even comical. The Chinese opening of Avengers: Age of Ultron was a fiasco due to poor translation. What happened?
Localization, the process of adapting a work for a foreign market, has been going on for decades in the movie business. But if the names seem increasingly obtuse or just weird, there’s a reason for that: the bottom fell out on the translation market.
Like most other areas of skilled labor, film translation has changed substantially in the past few decades. Dean Remy, of GlobalVision International, a US-based translation outfit, doesn’t bother with movies anymore for exactly that reason. “We've done a number of Sony productions in the past, but we've kind of moved away from that,” he says. His translators are heavily accredited, with advanced degrees and translation certifications, and they simply can’t translate for a penny a word.
Atlas Obscura explains the painstaking process of properly translating a film, which involves timing, cultural knowledge, and judgement calls, as well as fluency. That kind of work doesn’t come cheap. Or you can use sweatshop labor or even a computer and save some money, but you’ll end up with something like Backstroke of the West.
The American Society for Microbiology held an art contest. Yes, scientists, specifically microbiologists, created artworks by growing microbes in an agar medium in Petri dishes. The results of the Agar Art contest are stunning! The winners of the competition are:
- First place: Neurons, submitted by Mehmet Berkmen of New England Biolabs, with artist Maria Penil.
- Second place: NYC Biome MAP, submitted by Christine Marizzi, an educator at a community lab. This art piece was created as a collaboration between citizen scientists and artists at Genspace: New York City's Community Biolab.
- Third place: Harvest Season, created by Maria Eugenia Inda, a postdoctoral researcher from Argentina working at Cold Spring Harbor Labs.
- People's Choice: Cell to Cell, with almost 3,500 likes on the Facebook album. This image was created by the group who won first place, Mehmet Berkmen with artist Maria Penil.
See all the submitted entries at Facebook. Shown here is the first-place winning entry from Mehmet Berkmen and Maria Penil. -via Metafilter
