In this animated short, aliens are seeding planets with biological specimens. Of course, something goes wrong. Film by Matthew James Killian of the Ringling College of Art and Design. -via the Presurfer
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In 1931, John B. Sparks created a "histomap" that distilled the history of civilization into a colorful timeline. See 4,000 years of empires rising and falling, and even though it stops after World War I, you can imagine how it would look if it were continued.
The chart emphasizes domination, using color to show how the power of various “peoples” (a quasi-racial understanding of the nature of human groups, quite popular at the time) evolved throughout history.
It’s unclear what the width of the colored streams is meant to indicate. In other words, if the Y axis of the chart clearly represents time, what does the X axis represent? Did Sparks see history as a zero-sum game, in which peoples and nations would vie for shares of finite resources? Given the timing of his enterprise—he made this chart between two world wars and at the beginning of a major depression—this might well have been his thinking.
Only a portion is shown here. You can see the full, enlargeable chart at Slate. Link -via Digg
The following is an article from the magazine The Annals of Improbable Research.
by Eric Schulman
Alexandria, Virginia
Abstract
Yes.
1. Introduction
Although "fame" is an important concept, most previous studies of fame have been almost purely qualitative in nature. The reason for this is that fame was very difficult to quantify until recently. However, with the advent of the World-Wide Web, it is now possible to measure fame quantitatively.
In this paper we will introduce a method of quantitatively measuring the fame of an individual, show the results of this method for eight selected individuals, suggest a new unit of measurement for fame, and draw some conclusions.
2. Methods
We used the AltaVista Search Engine (http://www.altavista.com/); searches were performed on March 9, 1999) to determine how many web pages mention the eight people chosen for our study. For example, searching on "earle spamer" resulted in 43 web pages being found, while searching on "jesus christ" resulted in 389,351 web pages being found.
3. Results
The number of web pages that mention each of the eight people in our study can be found in Table 1. This table also includes two more parameters: the fame of each person and an estimate of how many people would immediately recognize each person's name. These parameters are discussed in the next section.
Cake Wrecks put together a post for back-to-school, illustrated with badly decorated cakes. There's a cake for each school subject, and more just for laughs. The cake pictured here represents math, although it may give a teacher a headache. Link
Once upon a time, movie theaters offered a "fancy night out" experience. You no longer see 50¢ tickets, but back then you got an awful lot for your money, whatever the price. Remember when almost all theaters had uniformed ushers?
Those gallant men and women who escorted you to your seats at the cinema used to dress in more finery than a decorated soldier. But that was at a time when movie ushers did much more than tear tickets and sweep up spilled popcorn; they kept an eye out for miscreants attempting to sneak in without paying, offered a helpful elbow to steady women walking down the steeply inclined aisle in high-heeled shoes, and were quick to “Shhh!” folks who talked during the movie. Ushers carried small flashlights to guide patrons who arrived after the movie had started, and they were also the ones who maintained order when the film broke and the audience grew ornery.
Most of us are only familiar with uniformed ushers only because they are depicted in classic films and cartoons. But there are some modern theaters that go all out to recreate those memories with ushers and the other theater amenities on the list at mental_floss. Link
What's it like to fall in love when you are suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? Neil Hilborn told the story last month at the 2013 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam. You might laugh, but eventually you'll tear up a little. Contains one NSFW word. -via Viral Viral Videos
You know how trees grow trunks in layers, and the rings shown in a crosscut will tell the story of the tree's lifetime. Scientists can not only tell how old a tree is by its rings, but also date some of the environmental conditions by studying those rings. In these trees, the newer growth is a completely different color of wood! Try to guess what caused it, and then find out at the BBC. Link -via Jason Kottke
(Image credit: Timothy A. Mousseau)
Young Charlotte Figi was born with Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy in which the patent suffers frequent, long-lasting seizures that don't respond to medication. Charlotte spent a lot of time in various hospitals, while the seizures stunted her development.
By then Charlotte had lost the ability to walk, talk and eat.
She was having 300 grand mal seizures a week.
Her heart had stopped a number of times. When it happened at home, Paige did cardiopulmonary resuscitation until an ambulance arrived. When it happened in the hospital, where they'd already signed a do-not-resuscitate order, they said their goodbyes. Doctors had even suggested putting Charlotte in a medically induced coma to give her small, battered body a rest.She was 5 when the Figis learned there was nothing more the hospital could do.
Charlotte's father Matt Fiji had read about a case in which medicinal marijuana helped another Dravet patient. It was a special strain that was low in THC and high in cannabidiol, or CBD, which has medicinal properties but will not make you high. After a difficult quest to get a prescription, Charlotte's parents bought two ounces, which was the entire supply available.
"When she didn't have those three, four seizures that first hour, that was the first sign," Paige recalled. "And I thought well, 'Let's go another hour, this has got to be a fluke.' "
The seizures stopped for another hour. And for the following seven days.
The next problem was the drug supply. Read how a group of brothers came to the rescue for Charlotte, who is now six and thriving. Link -via reddit
A restroom attendant dreams of love in this Russian short from the Melnitsa Animation Studio. One day, flowers appear in her tip jar and the mystery drives her crazy with curiosity. A sweet story, even if it is set in a public mens room! -via Kuriositas
Alexander Jansen is stationed in Germany and took advantage of some leave time to tour Europe with his two younger sisters. They took the train from the airport to their Dublin hotel and realized too late that Jansen's backpack was left on the train car! It had a long list of photo equipment…
…in it, but also my and my two sisters’ passports. The holy grail of things to NEVER lose.
Eyes growing incredibly wide, he picks up the phone and calls someone. He explains the situation to the person on the other end of the phone when I hear him say “Don’t joke like that.”
He hangs up the phone and says, “There’s no one on the train other than the driver, and he can’t stop the train. You will have to wait for it to reach the end of the line and then have my guy at Howth (the final stop) check to see if it’s still there. I’m going to be completely honest with you: I don’t think it will be there. That train is passing through some really bad areas.”
You might say that the story has a happy "ending," but it gets even better after that, as Jansen ponders how much the kindness of a group of young Irish girls meant to him. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Alexander Jansen)
This clever little guy in Kobe, Japan, throws his ball in upstream, and catches it downstream …over and over and over! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
The following is an article from Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader.
Long before videos or DVDs, even before television, families used to gather nightly for their favorite programs. They'd sit around the family radio and listen to popular comedies, dramas, and variety shows. Here's how it all started.
LISTEN TO THIS
Have you ever heard this joke about Alexander Graham Bell? "When he invented the phone, who did he talk to? He was the only guy with a phone!" It was the same with radio when it started out. The only people who owned radios were hobbyists who built their own sets. There were no radio stations as we now know them -these radio amateurs, or "hams," built their own transmitters and receivers so they could talk to each other. They were enthusiastic about their hobby and spent a lot of time talking on their radios: what kind of equipment they had, how much power they were using, and how well they were receiving each other's signals. But even dedicated hams got a little tired of the conversation after a while.
One day in October 1919, Frank Conrad, a ham in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, got so bored with talking that he pushed a phonograph up to his microphone and played a record of the Stephen Foster song "Old Black Joe." In the past, Conrad's transmissions had always been directed toward one particular person. This time, he sent "Old Black Joe" out over the air waves to no one in particular …and made radio history. He called his new form of communication "broadcasting."
The UNESCO World Heritage Centre has named 19 more places as World Heritage sites. Pictured here is the view from Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel, Germany. The Grand Cascade waterworks flowing down the front embankment were designed in 1689 and are powered by hydro-pneumatic devices. See the castle itself, and plenty of pictures of four other beautiful new World Heritage sites at Atlas Obscura. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user fanglan)
The comment thread is full of puns for this painting of Walt and Jesse from Breaking Bad in the setting of Grant Wood's American Gothic by redditor milbo. Some of the best:
Jesse, we need to FARM
Raking Bad
Agriculture, bitch
I'm the one who crops.
I AM THE ONE WHO TILLS
The overall reception was so positive that the image is available to order as prints through Etsy. Link
Almost 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a shockingly public shooting in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was taken into custody and then shot dead himself by Jack Ruby. Oswald's body is buried in the Shannon Rose Hill Cemetery in Ft. Worth, with only his last name on a stone marker. Cemetery employees do not give out the location of the grave to people who inquire. But many know where it is, and even the grave gives fodder to conspiracy theorists.
For the last 15 years, this curious name has vexed the obsessive assassination buffs who make regular pilgrimages to the Oswald plot here in Fort Worth. That is because a pinkish granite marker suddenly appeared beside the assassin’s grave sometime in 1997. And all it said was Nick Beef.
In their quest to make sense of a national catastrophe — to find a narrative more acceptable than that of one gunman, acting alone — some theorists have tried to divine meaning in a name that, more than anything else, evokes a private eye who specializes in agricultural intrigue. It added another question to their already exhausting list. Who was Nick Beef?
The New York Times found out who Nick Beef is, and the story has nothing to do with conspiracies of any kind. However, it is an interesting story of how events conspired unfolded to bring a puzzling marker to the gravesite. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Texican Chick)
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