Over 38,000 runners participated in the London Marathon today, including celebrities, a couple who got married during the race, and quite a few who were raising money or awareness for various causes. There were also plenty of people in costume, whether they represented a charity, advertised a sponsor, or were just trying to draw attention. Jack Woodward, shown here, ran for the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign. See a collection of 17 costumed runners in the London Marathon at Buzzfeed.
Leland Devon Melvin posed for his official NASA portrait with his dogs Jake and Scout! You can see they were excited about it. More pictures were taken after the dogs calmed down. Melvin was an NFL player until injuries ended his career, then an astronaut, flying on two shuttle missions to the ISS, until hearing failure grounded him. Melvin still works with NASA, and with several organizations to promote STEM education. Besides all that, he’s a photographer, snowboarder, and dog lover. -via Daily of the Day
Layout editors have an important job to do, but rarely have the time to do it properly, since deadlines get stretched to the last second. Even worse, many newspapers just do without a qualified layout editor these days. This can lead to unexpected consequences when no one checks for headline juxtaposition. In this case, the run-un headlines are more interesting than the actual stories. Found at Bad Newspaper.
What does your state have more of than other states per capita? This map has some superlative for each of the 50 states, some of which are kind of surprising (Georgia, Texas), others not so much (Utah, Kentucky). Of course, every state is tops at something, but many states are tops at several things. In those cases, Estately selected the most provocative thing to label a state. They posted a list of source links for each superlative, in case you can’t believe them. See, Georgia is not overrun with pandas, but Zoo Atlanta has seven living there now, and no other state in the U.S. can match that. -via Daily of the Day
Three people take the challenge to give up sugar for a month -which also includes giving up artificial sweeteners and honey. These are folks who drank soda all day, so it was not easy, but it was a life-changing experience. Do you think you could survive a month without sugar?
My daughter went on the Daniel fast a couple of years ago, which was three weeks of no sugar, meat, dairy, fried food, or processed grains. It was difficult shopping for such a diet, because when you read ingredients, everything in the store has added sugar! Even in the health food section, you see “dehydrated organic cane syrup,” which is a euphemism for sugar. I still don’t understand why a can of kidney beans has sugar in it. But she managed it, and learned to love a variety of fruits and vegetables along the way (she learned to cook, too). Two years later, she still eats healthily, and I keep a never-ending seasonal fruit bowl for the whole family to enjoy.
The picture above looks like it is part of a particularly artful fashion shoot at the beach. You might be surprised to know that this color photograph was taken in 1913 -over a hundred years ago!
Mervyn O'Gorman was 42 when he took these pictures of his daughter, Christina O'Gorman at Lulworth Cove, in the English county of Dorset. He photographed Christina wearing a red swimming costume and red cloak, a colour particularly suited to the early color Autochrome process.
Autochrome was one of the first colour photo technologies, which used glass plates coated in potato starches to filter pictures with dye.
O’Gorman wasn’t even a professional photographer. This is one of a collection of family photographs he took. You can see more the photos at Mashable, including one of Christina wearing a hoodie that looks as if it could have been taken yesterday. -via Metafilter
An eagle owl in Noordeinde, the Netherlands, swoops down and lands on a guy’s head. He must not know the guy, or else why would he be constantly asking, “Who?” But he puts on a show for a bunch of photographers there, with a little dance as he’s perched on the man’s head! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Buzzfeed had Australians fill out a little quiz about America. We can’t expect people from other countries to know all the stuff about the U.S.A. that we know, but the Aussies did their best. When they couldn’t think of an answer, they always had something entertaining ready. In naming presidents, quite a few took a shortcut and said George Bush x2, which got them most of the way to three. Other answers were Jed Bartlett, Bill Pullman, and Donald Trump. The overwhelming opinion is that fast food is our biggest export, and the First Amendment must have something to do with guns. See them all here.
The 2013 Superman movie Man of Steel was in color, alright, but it was muted and dark, trying to emulate the look of The Dark Knight. But what works for Batman doesn’t necessarily work for Superman. VideoLab adjusted the colors to look more like the real world, which makes a real difference, don’t you think? At least its much easier for someone with less-than-optimal eyesight to follow. -via b3ta
Paddy Elliot of Birmingham, UK, recently celebrated his 90th birthday, and also his medical certification to continue flying his plane! He’s been a pilot for decades, although he only took up flying when he retired at 64.
After 50 years he retired from Rover cars and finally got the chance to live the dream, gaining a private pilot’s licence in 1988.
“I spend every second I can spare up in the skies. It’s a truly unique feeling to be up there looking down on the world.
“It’s given me perspective but more importantly it’s kept me young. I may be 90 but it certainly doesn’t feel like that.”
Elliot flies at least three times a week, and flew to France for lunch last week. To keep his license, he must pass a medical certification every two years, and recently got the all-clear to keep flying for another two years. Read more about the amazing flying nonagenarian and see a video of Elliot in action. It just goes to show that you’re never too old to take up something new.
Chris Poole’s cats Cole and Marmalade illustrate how they are better than everyone. In fact, they have super powers! Of course; all cats do.
As an aside, every time I hear about Cole and Marmalade, that song goes through my mind: “Cole and Marmalade for tea, sailing ships upon the sea…” -via Tastefully Offensive
As a kid growing up in Waterbury, Vermont, Kirsten Schimoler was a regular on the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour. Now, after getting a food science degree from Cornell University, she’s moved back to her hometown and taken her dream job on Ben & Jerry’s research and development team, where she helps think up, develop, taste, and perfect every flavor that comes out of the company kitchen.
1. THERE’S A REASON BEN & JERRY’S FLAVORS ARE SO RICH
It’s partly because co-founder Ben Cohen has anosmia, or almost no sense of smell. If he couldn’t taste a recipe, he just added more flavoring!
2. THE R&D DEPARTMENT IS ULTRA ELITE
Schimoler is one of just three food scientists on staff. The remaining four members of the team come from culinary backgrounds. (One of them has the title “primal ice cream therapist.”) Together they launch about five flavors each year.
3. A FLAVOR CAN TAKE MORE THAN A YEAR TO DEVELOP
The average development cycle of a basic pint is about 12 to 14 months, but there have been occasions where Schimoler nailed a flavor on the first try. “Other times,” she says, “you’re on iteration 10 and still wondering if it’s going to work.” Which is exactly what happened with Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt, one of the few products where the name came before the flavor. “They knew they wanted to do a Liz Lemon flavor but didn’t know what they wanted it to be. We looked at so many different lemon flavors.” At the other end of the spectrum, Schweddy Balls, inspired by Alec Baldwin’s SNL skit, got to market in a record four months.
In April of 1968, an outdoor rock concert by Country Joe and the Fish was punctuated by a helicopter dropping a piano from the sky. Talk about a special effect! Several thousand people were there in Duvall, Washington, to witness the event. Who came up with such an idea? That would be Gary Eagle and Larry Van Over. The alternative newspaper the Helix promoted it.
Having the “Helix” in his camp gave Van Over the modest amount of seed money he’d need to purchase a used piano ($25) and rent a helicopter (that cost another $100). Details are sketchy, but by that morning, people were starting to stream in by the thousands, clogging narrow Cherry Valley Road for miles leading to what became known as Jug’s Ravine. Fortunately, Country Joe and the Fish had arrived early (“I remember being there, but I don’t remember driving there,” says McDonald), which allowed them to set up their amplifiers and instruments on the makeshift stage that had been set up steps from the rear end of the band’s equipment truck. Sometime around 1 p.m., the Fish began their set.
Meanwhile, Van Over decided it would be a good time to drop a hit of acid, since all he had to do that day was pay the helicopter pilot at Boeing Field the hundred bucks he had brought along for this solemn purpose, and then hop into the chopper’s cockpit for the 20-miles-as-the-crow-flies flight back to Duvall.
“It was kind of a wild ride—I was pretty disconnected,” Van Over allows. “And by the time we got out there, there were 3,000 people underneath us, which made the pilot very nervous. He hadn’t expected that. He said, ‘I can’t fly over these people with a piano,’ and I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because it’s dangerous!’ And I said, ‘They’ll part like the Red Sea the minute you come over the hill with that piano hanging underneath you.’ I got out, he hooked up the piano, and when he picked it up and started flying over the crowd, they just split, like in the movies. It was really a wonderful scene.”
Collectors Weekly spoke to Country Joe McDonald, instigators Eagle and Van Over, and Helix editor Paul Dorpat about the spectacular stunt that made big outdoor outdoor rock concerts a thing. You can read the whole story there.
A new lamb was born in Wales last week with five legs: two in the rear and three up front. It might be tempting to relish an extra “leg of lamb” from this lamb, but that won’t be happening.
Bethan Davies, who runs Rhiwlas Farm, where Jake was born, at Llanwddyn, North Wales, said he will be spared a trip to the butcher and stay with her as a pet.
She said: “The plan would normally be that he would go into the food chain but we’ve decided we’re going to keep him as a bit of a farm mascot.
“We’ve named him Jake, like Jake the peg with his extra leg – we couldn’t call him anything else really.”
I looked that up, it’a reference to a 1965 comedy song by Australian comedian Rolf Harris. Jake the lamb is a week old and his leg appears to be complete and functioning. He should do well with it. See more pictures at Caters News.
Chris Early of Knoxville, Tennessee, has made the term “helicopter parenting” quite literal, when he used his new video production drone to remotely watch his daughter walk to school without her knowledge.
A few weeks ago Chris's eight-year-old daughter Katie asked to walk to school on her own. Chris said, "She said you're not going to come watch me, but I had another idea."
He got out his drone and took video of her on the way to school. Early says, "I could see other people looking up and I'm sure Katie was just like aw it's my dad."
Katie goes out and flies the drone with her dad. So what does she thinks of that ? Katie says, "I was like oh wow! He didn't tell me so I was pretty surprised."
Yeah, my kids were pretty surprised to find out that I was driving around the neighborhood the first time they walked home from school alone, but that was years after the fact. Now, if my parents had been able to see where I was going and what I was doing as a child, it might have driven them into an early grave. -via The Mary Sue
