Two men in North Wales were spotted on a roof, and police were called. North Wales Police sent a hostage negotiator to talk to the men and get them off the roof. There didn’t seem to be any danger in the two jumping, as the roof was on a one-story house and only eight feet off the ground. The negotiator talked to the men for 90 minutes and then they were brought to safety -and then arrested on several charges, including “using threatening behaviour with intent to cause fear of unlawful violence,” which is against the law in Wales. Meanwhile, many in the Isle of Anglesey County are questioning whether a negotiator was necessary in this case. -via Arbroath
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Andrei Dragunov is a deaf Russian dancer. He dances with his hands, which is called finger tutting. There are elements of sign language here, some even Americans can understand, but the difficulty and the creative fluidity of the movements is what’s really impressive. -via Boing Boing
People and pop culture latch onto psychological terms and extrapolate them to people they know. Even themselves! Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is one of the more recent psychological fads. The real disorder is way more serious than we commonly think, and doesn’t fit the descriptions we see in the movies. This TED-Ed lesson by Dr. Natascha M. Santos explains the real OCD. -via Laughing Squid
The J. Paul Getty Museum has a Tumblr blog, and each week they post a recap of the latest Game of Thrones episode. Now, many pop culture blogs do that, but the museum adds a twist: they tell the story using their own works of art to illustrate the action, which works hilariously well. They post medieval art as illustrations that evoke an image of what happened and give links to more information on them. The two images here are from the latest installment, season 5 episode 6.
Check out the archive of all The Getty’s GOT recaps here. Some images are gory and explicit- just like the show, except you can see these works in a museum. -via HuffPo
The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Perpetually Pleasing Bathroom Reader.
(Image credit: Towsonu2003)
“Breaking wind,” as the English so politely call it, is a natural and inevitable part of life. So it’s not surprising that farts occasionally make it into the news.
GAS ATTACK
In June 2012, a 72-year-old New Jersey man named Daniel Collins was arrested and charged with assault, unlawful possession of a firearm, and making terrorist threats, when he pointed a .32-calibre revolver at his neighbor and threatened to shoot him in the head. What got Collins so worked up? According to police, he and the neighbor were involved in an ongoing dispute over noise. The feud escalated to its breaking point when the neighbor walked past Collins’s front door and farted so loudly that Collins could hear it from inside his apartment. Collins was later released on his own recognizance without having to post bail. (No word on whether, if convicted, he’ll have to spend time in the can.)
FIELD RESEARCH
Scientists have long known that the farts and burps released by livestock are a significant source of greenhouse gases. But precisely how significant has been difficult to say because it’s almost impossible to accurately measure the emissions of animals out in the fields.
Christian LeBlanc of Vancouver is an exchange student in Bangkok. He visited an elephant sanctuary in Thailand and was feeding bananas to the elephants when one of the pachyderms grabbed his camera! The result was a selfie taken by an elephant, or an “elphie.”
"I see a sign that for 50 cents you can feed the elephant. So my girlfriend and I go and buy a basket of bananas and we start feeding the elephant," LeBlanc told CBC News.
"The elephant loves the bananas, so it kind of gets a bit nosy — it grabs at your hands, it tries to take all the bananas. And once we ran out, next thing I knew it was it was grabbing the GoPro."
LeBlanc had turned on the time-lapse feature on his GoPro camera, so it automatically took a picture. As you can see, elephants don’t need a selfie stick because they carry their own extension around all the time! You can see more pictures of LeBlanc’s Thailand adventures at Buzzfeed.
These two teddy bears are the same age. Redditor UsernameIWontRegret explained what happened. His mother bought two identical bears when she had her first child in 1985. One was given to her new son, and the other was put into storage. Thirty years later, the second bear was brought out to give to that son’s first child, a little girl named Claire, who was born today. You can see the effects that a lifetime of love has on a teddy bear. If you doubt that it’s the same model of bear, there are plenty of folks who swore they had the same bear and several people posted pictures of theirs, in various stages of wear. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Yes, this sounds like a clever insurance plan, to have another bear in case the first one was lost. But if that were the case, the second bear would have been substituted when the son lost his beloved bear at Disney World, or used for another child in the same family. UsernameIWontRegret's mother insists that the plan was always to keep the second bear for the first child's first child.
My mind and my time have been preoccupied this week because my older daughter is graduating from high school this weekend. I’ve been to her art show, awards ceremony, spring concert, banquets, parties, the baccalaureate service, and still have more to come. We’ve assembled a dress, mortarboard, tassel, gown, stole, and honor cords to wear. And that song, seemingly endless as a class of 200 slowly enters, keeps going through my head. You know the song.
The graduation song is often referred to as "Pomp and Circumstance," but it's actually a small piece of Sir Edward Elgar's 1901 composition "March No. 1 in D Major," part of his "Pomp and Circumstance Military March" series that spanned nearly 30 years of his career.
How did a British military march become a staple of American graduations? In 1905, Elgar received an invitation to come to Yale's commencement and receive an honorary doctorate. To honor their guest, Yale officials had the New Haven Symphony Orchestra play parts of Elgar's compositions as students marched in and out of the ceremony. People enjoyed the tune so much that it soon spread to other schools' graduations. (And just as importantly, it eventually became "Macho Man" Randy Savage's entrance music in the WWF.)
He wasn’t the first to use the song to enter the professional wrestling ring- that would be Gorgeous George. There are more traditions surrounding commencement exercises that you may wonder about, explained in The Stories Behind Graduation Traditions at mental_floss.
No matter how remote the possibility, the thought of being buried alive is ghastly. It’s not so much the fear of death as it is the fear of waking up trapped in a grave. Once that fear takes hold of one’s consciousness, it can become an obsession. Taphephobia, as it is called, is not so rampant in the era of modern medical care, but for some folks in the past, it was terrifying. Hans Christian Andersen suffered from taphephobia, which only became worse when he fell ill.
According to his biographer Jackie Wullschlager, Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was deathly afraid of being buried alive. He spent his final days at the home of his friends Dorothea and Moritz Melchior in Copenhagen, and as the end neared, begged Dorothea to cut his veins after he’d breathed what appeared to be his last breath. Dorothea “joked that he could do as he had often done, and leave a note saying ‘I only appear to be dead' beside him.”
The note was a fixture of Andersen’s bedside table—some say he even wore it around his neck. Andersen was more than a little neurotic, and being buried alive was far from his only fear. According to Wullschlager, he also traveled with a rope in his luggage because he was afraid of fire, was terrified of dogs, and refused to eat pork out of fear of trichinosis.
Andersen wasn't the only one concerned about premature burial. Read about others who expressed such fear in the article 10 Famous People Who Were Afraid They'd Be Buried Alive at mental_floss.
Dave Letterman’s final show aired last night. He pulled out all the stops for the show, including a star-studded final Top Ten List. His favorite guests from over the years each came out to tell the "Top Ten Things I’ve Wanted to Say to Dave.”
In case you were working last night, or if you are of an age that you can no longer stay up that late (like Letterman himself), you can also see clips featuring his final entrance, the opening monologue, the Foo Fighters playing “Everlong” behind a photo montage of Dave’s many memorable moments on TV, a presidential sendoff, and the final farewell speech. Happy retirement, Dave!
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
What's your motto? Hmmmmmm...
In all the conversations, chats, talks we all have regularly with all our friends and pals and acquaintances, we hardly ever communicate about "our motto.” I would have to assume that most people just simply do not have a motto.
I do think everyone, whether they realize it or not, has a philosophy of life and basic rules of how they conduct themselves. I guess if they had a motto, it would reflect these. And of course, a person's motto would reflect the person, him or her self.
Let's take a look at the actual mottos of 30 well-known people.
Julie Andrews: "When in doubt, stand still.”
Hugh Hefner: "This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Shirley MacLaine: "I am part of god in light.”
Brian Wilson: “Be cool.”
Yoko Ono: “Keep smiling and maybe you'll get something to smile about.”
Ted Kennedy: “The dream shall never die.”
Ray Charles: “God helps those who help themselves.”
Ron Howard: “Panic is not our friend.”
Blacksmiths in the town of Nuanquan, China, throw molten metal in the air in a dangerous display of light and skill. It’s all part of the entertainment and celebration of the Da Shuhua festival, part of the New Year celebration.
Taking place on the 15th day of the New Year celebrations, the legendary Da Shuhua event sees resident blacksmiths hurl molten metal against a cold brick wall, generating a spectacular avalanche of sparks that engulfs the men as though they are standing in the middle of exploding fireworks.
The custom dates back approximately three centuries to a time when the town was full of metal workers. During the annual Lantern Festival, rich locals would set off fireworks as a means of ritually banishing demons. Meanwhile, poorer blacksmiths, who could not afford to purchase fireworks, took to throwing liquid metal instead.
As far as death-defying stunts go, molten metal beats fireworks almost every time. Read more about this festival and see many pictures at Scribol.
(Image credit: Flickr user Robert Berkowitz)
Forty-nine students in an animation class at the University of Newcastle drew Taylor Swift’s video for the song “Shake It Off.” They each were assigned to rotoscope 52 frames and give it their own style.
What they ended up with is alternatively beautiful, surreal, and hilarious. You’ll be surprised by the creative flourishes that pop up when you least expect them. -via Time
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released nationwide on May 21, 1980, which is 35 years ago tomorrow. Does that make you feel old? The movie received mixed reviews at the time, but now is considered the best of the six Star Wars films (so far). The problem back then was that it did not have a happy ending, but rather a cliffhanger that made us wait three years for the resolution in Return of the Jedi. That darkness became more appealing over time. And since then, we’ve found out that the finished movie differed in many ways from the original plan. Warning: spoilers ahead.
Leigh Brackett’s first script did not have the Skywalker paternity plot twist. Luke was going to meet up with his father later, who would administer the oath of the Jedi with the help of Minch Yoda and Ben Kenobi. With this plot line, the Luke-Leia-Han love triangle would be a much bigger deal. Thankfully, this was cut when they reconfigured the Skywalker family tree.
Minch Yoda? Yeah, that’s another change in the original plan. You’ll find out plenty of those changes in an anniversary post on The Empire Strikes Back at Uproxx.
Oh, to be five years old again! When playing and having fun were the most important things -except maybe a sweet treat when you’re done. What could possibly be the inspiration for today’s comic from Doghouse Diaries?
We found a time machine that turned us 5 again. pic.twitter.com/E5flXHp6K3
— Ray Yamartino (@rayyamartino) May 17, 2015
That makes perfect sense. Next time we pass a swing set, I’ll be sure to refer to it as a time machine. Maybe I’ll even try it out!
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