Just as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is going to home video, Screen Junkies gives us the Honest Trailer for it. If you haven’t seen the film yet, this contains minor spoilers, but not enough to make you not want to watch it. Frankly, it’s hard to parse a plot out of anything in this video. But I’ll still watch it, because when the scales are balanced between “stupid” and “awesome,” I’ll just make more popcorn. -via Gamma Squad
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If you read The Three Faces of Eve or Sybil, you are familiar with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Both books were based on real patients. The syndrome became a handy plot point for many crimes shows. However, in the years since, there has been doubt cast that the disorder even exists as those cases presented. The New York Times produced this video, along with an article exploring what we know and what we don’t know about the most famous MPD patient, Shirley Mason, who became known to the world as Sybil. -via mental_floss
PBS Digital Studios put together a tribute to the Mars Curiosity rover illustrated with a LEGO build and narrated with inspirational quotes from some very prominent scientists you may recognize. The point is that to make Curiosity and successfully launch it onto the surface of Mars, you have to start with your own curiosity. -via Geeks Are Sexy
If you don’t clean up your dog’s poop in North Hempstead, a community on Long Island, New York, you’ll face the possibility of a fine or imprisonment. But how much is the fine? The law says the fine is $25, but the signs say the fine is $250. It was a misprint. It would cost a lot of money for the small community to have all the signs changed, so they are considering raising the fine to match what the signs mistakenly say!
Community leaders have been considering raising the fine to what is actually posted. They want to do that instead of footing the bill for replacing hundreds of signs for a crime that is not easy to stop.
“It is hard to enforce, because you actually have to catch the dog in the act in order to give them a citation,” said North Hempstead town spokeswoman Carole Trottere.
The matter has yet to be decided. But a $250 fine may be a better deterrent, and a few violators might eventually raise enough money to actually replace the signs. However, if it works, there would be no reason to go back to the lower fine. -via Arbroath
The Los Angeles Cacophony Society held its first Krampusfest last year, and are hoping to stage an even bigger and better celebration this year. To that end, they have enlisted the help of Austrian “part-time Krampus” Martin Zehentner. Zehentner, his sister, and his nephew will be the first real European Krampuses to try out the American festival.
Zehentner is a member of one of Salzburg area’s oldest troupes, the Alt Gnigler. Mindful of traditionalist concerns, Zehentner says that with first online contact, he had misgiving about any transatlantic endeavors, wondering if Americans would “really understand our traditions—or will the Krampus be reduced to a Halloween horror figure?” Most Austrians, he says, are generally unaware of America’s love affair with the Krampus, or if they are, might expect it to result in something closer to “slasher movies than anything genuinely linked to our customs.” When he mentioned our efforts to bring the tradition to the US, most in Alt Gnigler regarded it as “madness—but in a positive way.”
“At first,” he says, “they were skeptical. But, later, fascinated.” Realistically, he says his fellow troupe members don’t expect the California group to mirror the look and feel of Alt Gnigler. Noting how our American-made masks deviate from the Alt Gnigler norm, Zehentner concedes, “This is absolutely okay.There are regional influences and differences in Austria too.”
Krampusfest in Los Angeles will run from December 6th through the 13th. Read more about the preparations for this year’s events at Boing Boing.
We’ve seen plenty of TV theme medleys, but usually when there are this many, they are played as fast as possible, one after another. Daniel Koren does it differently, blending the songs together when it works musically, although the shows they are from are quite different. Keep your eyes on the captions, because you will hear three or four themes played at the same time! But don’t miss the three Korens and their big heads. -Thanks, Daniel!
See also: more videos from Daniel Koren.
A space traveler of the future has a malfunction and must land on earth. Although no one is left to greet him, he has a “time trap,” a device which allows him to look into the past to find what he needs to repair his space ship. This short film by Michael Shanks is both intriguing and funny. -via Tastefully Offensive
The mental_floss List Show hit the internet early this week -and it’s a good thing,because you can use some of the tips in this list. Others, not so much. John Green tests some holiday “hacks” to see if they are really useful or not worth wasting your time. That thing about wrapping lights around a coffee can really defeats the purpose of packing things away -if you have as many Christmas lights as I do, those coffee cans would take up an entire room! I can tell you what gets pine sap off your hands: a mixture of mineral spirits and dishwashing liquid. It removes epoxy, too. -via Tastefully Offensive
Emergency! Call the fire department! These adorable dachshunds are on the ball, even if the truck doesn’t quite clear the doorway. This is just one of 32 Vines featuring dogs, cats, llamas, squirrels, pigs, goats, and sheep that will tickle your funny bone -and believe you me, it was hard to select just one to show you. Buzzfeed designated them as the 32 Best Animal Vines Of 2014. As with all year-end rankings, there could be some argument about who is included and who is not, but in this case you’ll be too busy laughing to think about that. Some have musical accompaniment with NSFW lyrics.
It’s true that Christmas is for kids -at least the gift part. I have to go window shopping just to figure out things that my family can give me, because they will ask. Even my teenagers can’t think of anything they want (that’s within our budget). But the grandkids are easy to buy for; they want everything they see!
This is the latest comic from Chaos Life. At the website, plenty of people are letting the world know what they want for Christmas. Agreed, rocket skates are impressive no matter what age you are, but I wouldn’t want to actually try them out myself. Candy, whiskey, or socks will all be appreciated.
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Improbable Research staff
The Blonsky centrifugal-force birthing device has proved an inspiration for many people for many purposes. This is a brief, partial survey of some of their ideas.
The Blonsky Device
In 1999, an Ig Nobel Prize in the field of managed health care was awarded posthumously to George and Charlotte Blonsky of New York City, N.Y., and San Jose, Calif., for inventing a device (U.S. Patent #3,216,423, for an “apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force”) to aid women in giving birth. The woman is strapped onto a circular table, and the table is then rotated at high speed. The Blonskys’ niece, Gale Sturtevant, came to the Ig Nobel ceremony and accepted the prize on behalf of George and Charlotte (for details, see the January–February 2000 issue of AIR). In 2013, the Ig Nobel ceremony again honored the Blonskys, this time by creating and performing an opera about them and their invention (for details, see this post).
Additional details from the Blonsky patent.
The Blonsky device was never used in an actual human birth, so far as we have been able to determine. But it has not gone unnoticed.
Several patents explicitly cite the Blonsky patent as one of the pillars upon which their innovation is built. Some adapt aspects of or notions from the Blonsky device for different purposes. Other aim to improve on one or another aspect of the Blonsky achievement. And at least one earlier invention seems, in a way, to hint at the coming of the Blonsky idea.
Pre-Blonsky Devices
A general-purpose centrifugal machine appears to foreshadow the Blonsky device, though Amilio speaks only of non-birthing uses.
Detail From the patent for Antinori’s device to spin a person or other entity. Preceding the Blonsky invention by 20 years, it seems to be intended for use in ornamental, rather than childbirth, situations.
Amilio’s Pre-Blonsky Person-Spinner
If you wanted to remake the Marvel movie series The Avengers as a retro made-for-TV movie from the 1970s, you wouldn’t even have to shoot film, because it’s already been done. All you’d have to do is go through the TV archives and edit our favorite superheroes together. They’re all here: the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, and Hawkeye (which is a bit of a stretch, but it’s funny enough to let slide). We’ve also got Loki and KISS as super villains, which I think works quite well. This guy should do a Justice League version next! -via Laughing Squid
It’s been an annual event in Germany for some time, and now it appears that the sport of Christmas tree throwing is spreading! A competition was held over the weekend at the Keele Christmas Tree Farm in Staffordshire, England. Participants tossed a 6-foot, 22-pound Christmas tree for both length and height (trying to get it over a bar). There were about 100 trees of the same height and weight available, as tossing does tend to wear a tree out fast. The event was a fundraiser for the Help for Heroes UK military charity. See more pictures at Buzzfeed.
When a cat sees something it wants, it’s time to go for it, whether it’s behind glass or not. These cats don’t quite understand this magic force field that is keeping them from their object of desire! Strange how these same cats can deal with a window just fine, but maybe they look at windows as the big separation between “inside” and “outside.” A glass table may be more difficult to rationalize. It’s all fun and games until the cat breaks the glass. -via Tastefully Offensive
It’s adorable when little kids do it, and it’s even cuter when a puppy does it. Oakley, a young Australian shepherd, is sleeping in the car when the strains of his favorite song come on the radio. He wakes up and has to sing along! Then when someone changes the station, he goes right back to sleep. -via reddit
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