I wasn’t sure if this was a foreshadowing or just a New Year gag from Chris at Lunarbaboon, so I went to his Facebook page and it appears to be an announcement, indeed! Expect a new character in the strip this coming June. Congratulations!
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Gizmodo collected six movies that referenced the year 2015 in their versions of the future. Well, that future is here, and where are our hoverboards? Not all the cinematic visions of the future are as fun as Back To The Future 2- some are quite dystopian, which is why they’ve ranked them in order of pleasantness. The real 2015 will be nothing like what was once imagined, but there is one thing we know for sure, and that will be that BTTF2 references will continue all year long.
John Green takes a look back at 2014 in a bit of a different way in this week’s mental_floss List Show. He looks all the way back to 1993 in order to count 21 things that turned 21 years old in 2014. I have no idea what inspired this odd list, but I enjoyed it, since I was busy having a mid-life crisis in 1993, and missed a lot of these things. I hope you enjoy it, too.
The name Margaret Hamilton may make you think of the actress who portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West, but this Margaret Hamilton is the software engineer who kept the Apollo 11 mission on track to the moon. The photo above was taken in 1969 and shows Hamilton with the mission software. In a recent interview, Hamilton tells us about her role at NASA, a little about women in programming, and how she coined the term “software engineer.”
Software during the early days of this project was treated like a stepchild and not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines, such as hardware engineering; and it was regarded as an art and as magic, not a science. I had always believed that both art and science were involved in its creation, but at that time most thought otherwise. Knowing this, I fought to bring the software legitimacy so that it (and those building it) would be given its due respect and thus I began to use the term “software engineering” to distinguish it from hardware and other kinds of engineering; yet, treat each type of engineering as part of the overall systems engineering process. When I first started using this phrase, it was considered to be quite amusing. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. Software eventually and necessarily gained the same respect as any other discipline.
Since 1986, Hamilton has headed her own software company. Read the rest of the interview at Medium.
(Image credit: NASA)
How do you walk down the road when you can’t see where the road is? There’s a sign, but it’s almost buried, too! Vladivostok was buried under several feet of snow a couple of weeks ago. The mayor’s office sent out “158 units harvesting machinery,” which I imagine means snow-removal vehicles. They didn’t cancel school, but gave parents the option to keep children at home. Some places just learn to deal with lots of snow, which is apparent from the videographer’s jolly mood. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Comet C/2014 Q2, commonly called Lovejoy after its discoverer Terry Lovejoy, is passing near Earth right now. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait watched it a couple of days ago, and says it will become brighter over the next couple of weeks, peaking on January 7th, and already visible to the naked eye.
If you want to see this comet for yourself—and you do—it rises a couple of hours after sunset. For now, I suggest waiting until about 9-ish or so to look, since it will be high off the horizon then, but your kilometerage may vary. It rises earlier every day, and by early January it’ll be high up by the time it gets dark (though the nearly full Moon will make things tougher; after about Jan. 7 or so the Moon will rise late enough that it won’t be as big a problem). Sky and Telescope has excellent maps with the comet’s path on them. If you have bad weather, or just want to stay indoors, the Virtual Telescope Project will have live online viewings on Jan. 6 and Jan. 11, 2015.
Better take advantage of this opportunity: Lovejoy takes 14,000 years to orbit the sun, so you won’t see it again. Read more about this comet at Bad Adtronomy.
(Image credit: Phil Hart)
Gina Sheridan is a librarian in St. Louis. Over the course of her career, she’s collected stories of the weird things, people, and situations that arise at the library from her personal experiences. The result is the book I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks. Neatorama is happy to bring you a sampling of the stories from this funny book.
________________
Reference Work
You don’t know if you don’t ask. What better place to bring your inquiring minds than the place with the most massive wealth of knowledge in town? It’s like the internet, only the information isn’t 90 percent false. Anyone can walk into the library and ask anything they please. And we will provide an answer. But when I think about my master of library and information science degree in relation to my average day at work, I have to laugh. Information science. I think about those two words when people approach the desk with questions like, “Where is the bathroom?” or “Can you open this tin of oysters?” or “Where can I copy my face in private?” Information. Science. Peruse the following stories as a frame of reference, and keep in mind, common sense is often past due.
Questions, Fielding
While standing at the desk, you never know what crazy questions will come out of left field.
Patron 1: Can you tell me what babies were born in Cleveland in June 1965? I think I am one of them! I just found out stuff about my family.
Patron 2: Where is the nearest waterfall? I want to dunk my head in it.
Patron 3: Do you have a knife so I can cut this onion?
Patron 4: What is the best way to cure hiccups, 'cause this kid is driving me nuts!
Patron 5: What is the standard length of eyebrow hair?
Patron 6: Has my wife seen this movie?
At, Where I’m
Web chat exchange:
Patron: I’m having trouble finding information through the library’s website. Can you help me?
Me: Sure. Are you at the library’s homepage now?
Patron: No, I’m at my apartment.
Dislikes, Likes and
Man: Can you give me a list of fun things to do in Seattle?
In 2002, new European banknotes were introduced, in different denominations of the Euro. The currency was designed so that no nation was favored over others. They contain architectural images, including seven different bridges representing different historical eras in Europe. The illustrations are all fictional, in order to remain geographically neutral. Or, they were. Dutch designer Robin Stam admired the currency illustrations and mentioned that it would be funny if someone built those bridges, all in one country.
The local council responsible for constructing a new housing development in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam, heard about the idea and approached Stam about using his designs.
"My bridges were slightly more expensive but [the council] saw it as a good promotional opportunity so they allocated some extra budget to produce them," says Stam.
The bridges are exact copies of those shown on the banknotes, down to the shape, crop and colour.
Dezeen talked to Stam about his project and posted pictures of the bridges, which are now in use by pedestrians and cyclists. -via Metafilter
Screen Junkies rings in the New Year in the traditional manner- with a countdown followed by epic explosions! Their latest movie supercut includes three dozen films featuring some of the biggest pyrotechnics in cinema history. No doubt you’ll recognize and remember a lot of them, but if you don’t, there’s a list at the YouTube page. We ultimately find that this is a New Year holiday greeting.
The child’s head is stuck between two iron bars in the gate. It won’t fit back through, so you have to wonder how he got it in there in the first place! But mainly, we wonder how they are going to get the little boy out. Think about whatever suggestions you may have as you watch and see how they eventually freed him. -via Boing Boing
Henri the Existential Cat lives a life filled with meaninglessness and ennui. What could possibly cheer him up? Maybe a new companion? Let’s see what happens when Henri’s family gets a dog. As you’d guess, Henri feels nothing but disdain for the “sack of drool,” but he eventually finds that the situation is not altogether as dreary as he first thought. -via Tastefully Offensive
See more from Henri, le Chat Noir.
Earlier this month, the 911 operator in the small town of Mammoth, Arizona, was inundated with calls wanting to know what’s going on. An internet cry for help had been posted on reddit that told of mysterious deaths that were spreading through the community. People were reported dead of illness, others were beaten to death, and strangers were answering phones at her friends’ homes and businesses. She said state and federal officials were in town, including representatives from the CDC.
Commenters chimed in with their own stories of being unable to contact relatives in Mammoth. The post got enough upvotes to promote it to the front page. Local officials and citizens of Mammoth, the one place where no one was worried, took calls from across the country. Police Chief Steve Nash said,
"We received calls from Texas, Florida, Maine, Wisconsin...It's really gone wide-spread."
Chief Nash says the calls tied up the town's 911 dispatcher and made it more difficult to answer actual emergencies.
If people weren't calling police, they were calling the locals.
"Me and my son were here in the store, and we got a call from somebody back in New York," Michael Salazar, owner of the convenience store Corkers told us.
"My dad handed me the phone," his son Adolfo said. "It had to be one of the craziest phone calls i've ever had in my life. {The person on the other line asked} have you seen anybody with bruises all over their faces, or bleeding for their ears or eyes?"
It wasn’t a deliberate hoax, but it had the same effect. What many readers didn’t catch was that the story was posted on the subreddit NoSleep, which is a forum for fictional scary stories. The subreddit rules state that authors must stay in character, commenters must play along with the stories, and in fact comments debunking them are deleted. Local TV station KGUN talked with the author, C.K. Walker, about how her work of fiction blew up and escaped the internet. -via Uproxx
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
1. He was pals with Clint Eastwood.
Elvis and Clint Eastwood used to see each other around the studio they both worked at in the mid-60's. According to Clint: “I was always wearing a gun. (Elvis) loved to do fast draws and stuff, so we always did fast draws together.”
“I liked him. He seemed like a good guy. Had a lot of guys hanging around, big entourage.”
2. His wife would cut up his meat for him at meals.
Elvis always loved meat, hamburgers, steak, whatever, and he demanded it be cooked extra well-done or "burnt.” During his marriage to Priscilla, she would cut his meat for him before he ate it. If Priscilla wasn't present, Elvis would have one of entourage cut it up before he ate it. They also salted it before he ate it.
3. He tried LSD once.
The King did try LSD, just one time. According to Elvis' entourage member, Sonny West, Elvis was curious one day and tried some LSD.
Nothing much happened. Elvis watched the movie The Time Machine and ordered a pizza. He was quiet and, according to West, he was more interested in watching others' reactions to the drug.
4. He hated women with big feet.
It’s a New Year’s Eve tradition in Ecuador (and other Central and South American countries) to burn effigies that are symbolic of the old year (“año viejo”). They range from simple family projects that resemble scarecrows to elaborate works of art depicting politicians and pop culture figures.
The tradition of the effigy burning is said to go back to an 1895 yellow fever epidemic that hit Guayaquil especially hard. That year people packed coffins with the clothes of the dead and set them in flames, the act being both a symbol as well as a purification rite. Now the figures that are burned are much more lighthearted and elaborate, with some towering effigies vividly painted and paraded through the city, while some families make due with sort of scarecrows stuffed with newspaper and covered with a mask purchased from one of the many street vendors. Before the evening's arson, men will dress as the "widows" of the effigies and beg for money in mourning in the streets.
See a collection of images showing some really elaborate año viejo effigies ready to go and a few being burned, at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Flickr user Lowfill Tarmak)
The music is nothing but sounds sampled from everyday items, plus many layers of Andrew Huang’s singing voice. The result is a medley of six hit songs of 2014, which you’ve heard many times, but not like this. The Canadian musician was staying with a friend in the Netherlands while he recorded it. There is a list of the songs and the sounds used to make them at the YouTube page. -via Viral Viral Videos
See also: more from Andrew Huang.
Email This Post to a Friend