It's a novel! It's a philosophy! It's the instruction manual for a crazy cult! Atlas Shrugged could be all of those things. Then again, maybe it's just about a little Russian girl who really hated growing up around Bolsheviks.

Ayn Rand was a woman who knew how to sell philosophy. As the founder of Objectivism—a belief in the power of the individual and "the virtue of selfishness"—Rand had something going for her that great thinkers like Aristotle and Kierkegaard didn't: She got her start in Hollywood.

After immigrating to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1926, Rand managed to sign on with famed film producer-director Cecil B. DeMille as an extra in his movie The King of Kings. An aspiring screenwriter, she soon had the connections she needed to begin hawking her wares. By 1932, she'd sold her first screenplay and overseen the production of one of her plays. In other words, Ayn (pronounced "Eye-n," not "Ann") knew how to produce for a general audience—not just the intellectual elite. So when she delved into philosophy and began to formulate the ideas that would eventually become Objectivism, the resulting works (namely The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) read more like blockbuster melodramas than philosophy dissertations.

The Rise of John Galt

Rand's ability to write for a general audience is certainly one of the reasons Atlas Shrugged landed the No. 1 spot on Modern Library's readers' poll of "100 Best Novels of the 20th Century." But just like the crowd-pleasing popcorn flicks that don't have a prayer of winning an Oscar, literary critics often treat Rand's novels like something the cat coughed up. Atlas Shrugged was nowhere to be found in the "official" Modern Library ranking, and in 2000, a columnist for the liberal-minded Salon.com slammed it as "a novelization of Mein Kampf by Barbara Cartland."

Whether you see it as a 1,200-page doorstop or the book that changed your life, Atlas Shrugged is a good introduction to Rand's philosophy. The story takes place in what is essentially the author's vision of the future America. After liberals gain control of the government, federal officials immediately begin imposing regulations on businesses that are intended to help the weaker members of society. As a result, the main character, railroad executive Dagny Taggart, is forced to give up her company's most lucrative route to a smaller operator. Meanwhile, steelmaker Henry Rearden is prevented from selling his latest metal invention because the government believes it might hurt his competitors by giving him an advantage. Laws are passed that require all patents to be signed over to federal officials, and businessmen are no longer allowed to focus their companies on profits. Instead, the government tells them they must work to benefit society, even if that means running their operations at a loss.

Soon, all of the capitalists have their hands tied. The so-called "looters" take charge, causing the natural order of the economy to be subverted, and millions are given jobs because they need the work, not because they can actually perform the labor. With incompetents and slackers staffing important positions, America's infrastructure begins to fall apart. Railroads stop, bridges fall, cities go dark, and a mysterious pirate named Ragnar Danneskjöld pillages the few ships that still carry goods to America.

Bloomberg Businessweek has an extended account of how Disney made the deal to purchase Lucasfilm and its Star Wars franchise. They spoke to George Lucas about the timeline of the negotiations and his retirement plans, and then, on the fifth page, Lucas let the cat out of the bag.  

Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”

So when Lucas announced a few years ago that he was finished with Star Wars movies, he wasn't exactly finished with Star Wars movies. Maybe now, with $4 billion, he can afford to retire. Link -via USA Today

PS: A statement from Lucasfilm said:

Even though there are a few reports out there about casting for Episode VII, we are not making any announcements at this time. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future."

Ah, the vegetable that thinks vast thoughts! With a great big eye stalk! This was the cover of The Salt Lake Tribune on October 13, 1912. They didn't exactly present it as the truth, but as a theory.   

The Giant All-Seeing Eyeball was hoisted high in the Tribune, given supposed life by the very highly capable astronomer W.W. Campbell (1862-1930, with his biography here at the National Academy of Science), who is quoted by the paper as being the source of this preposterous theory.  Campbell was not pleased by this--not at all.  And I can well imagine why.  

Link  -via Boing Boing

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A cat sees a printed version of the Rotating Snake Illusion and reacts as if its moving. The cat's owner, rasmusab, said the cat did not react to a different illusion on paper, and in fact, lost interest in the snakes after a few exposures. So he began to wonder how other cats react to illusions, and produced a form you can submit to relate your own cat's experience. -via reddit

A recently-published study on the history of dogs says that the domestication of wolves was initiated by the wolves, not by people. That makes so much sense, when you boil it down to the basics of who benefits the most, as we see in this comic from Doghouse Diaries. Link -via Tastefully Offensive  

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End cost $300 million to produce. Oz the Great and Powerful is said to have cost $325 million. And that doesn't include the cost of marketing, which can be just as much, or even more, than production costs. Of course, the costs are worth it when the movie makes a profit, but that's a gamble. Flavorwire take a closer look at ten movies that cost way more than they should have, considering the finished product. For example, Tangled cost  $260 million.  

This one is likewise puzzling — another Disney production whose cost seems way out of proportion with the product onscreen. Tangled is a nice enough throwback to the classic Disney style, an old-school effort to contrast the Pixar present. So why did it cost more than any of Pixar’s fancy, high-tech efforts? Did Snow White and Cinderella cost that kinda bread? Hand-drawn animation is presumably more expensive, but with this movie’s bloated budget and six-year production schedule, they must’ve been averaging a cell a day, followed by a caviar lunch.

Where did the money go? Who knows! Link  -via Geekosystem

Be careful when you pack a suitcase, because a container full of clothing may be irresistible to your cat! Mervat Ciuti flew from Cairo to London with a large suitcase, but had no idea her persian cat Bisou was in it.

Bisou slipped through security at Cairo unspotted and was stacked into the hold of the plane with hundreds of other bags.

It was only when Mervat's mobile rang while she was in a taxi on the M1 up to Notts – after the six-hour flight landed at Heathrow – that she realised what had happened.

A relative back home in Cairo had realised the cat – who normally never leaves the house – was missing, and frantically called her owner.

Monica, 40, said: "When she realised what had happened she said she was trembling. She thought she would be dead.

But Bisou survived the 3,400 mile trip, despite being zipped in a suitcase in the cargo hold with hundreds of other bags. Unfortunately, after traveling internationally, the cat is in quarantine in England, but should be reunited with Ciuti by summer. Link (with video)  -via Arbroath

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Nick Bertke took the Ghan, a three-day train trip across the heart of Australia and recorded the sights and sounds for the latest Pogo mix. It really shouldn't be called a "remix" because this video was made from original footage instead of using an existing movie or music video. -via Viral Viral Videos 

Computers, robots, artificial intelligence …modern technology is good for a scare, because the idea that a machine can become sentient and not have our best interests at heart is terrifying. Hollywood takes advantage of that fear in movies good and bad. Remember how you felt when HAL 9000 said, "I can't do that, Dave." in 2001: A Space Odyssey? The Terminator, War Games, and plenty of other films will horrify you in the same manner. Relive that fear in a list at Gizmodo. Link

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Sesame Street has been campaigning to reach a billion views on their YouTube channel. They've now met that goal! In celebration the channel has released a new video featuring The Count, singing and counting YouTube viewers. That's a lot! Link

A donkey is tied to a rope 10 feet long. Twenty feet away is a field of carrots. How does the donkey get to the carrots? 

Continue reading when you are ready for the answer. 

On March 10, the first annual Symmys will be awarded for the best palindromes of 2012. Ten finalists in four categories will compete under the eye of linguists, palindromists, and celebrity judges. The forty finalist palindromes are anonymous until the winners are announced in Portland,Oregon, and online.

The criteria for judging were left up to the judges, whom we surveyed via email. Their ranks will determine a winner in each category and an overall champ. “Weird Al,” who names “Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo” as a personal favorite, says a winner should show a sense of humor or a spark of wit, as he did in his palindromic song “Bob,” which contains another renowned Agee line: “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog.”

***

Palindromist and judge Jeff Grant says he’s also looking for a “natural” quality in palindromes, as in one of his favorites: “Sex at noon taxes.” Comedian Jackie Kashian, who hosts the podcast “The Dork Forest,” says she’ll be looking for depth, though she also loves the simplicity of creations like “evil olive.” Other judges include comedian Demetri Martin and musician John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.

You can see a couple of the entries at Time Newsfeed. Link

This psychedelic image of Emperor penguins is not a fancy blacklight poster (although it would make a good one), but a thermal image taken to help find out how penguins stay warm in the Antarctic. THe surprising find was that while the birds generated heat inside like all warm-blooded animals, a large part of the penguins' outer feathers were actually colder than the surrounding air! How can this adaptation possibly help them?  

The penguins do lose internal body heat to the surrounding air through thermal radiation, just as our bodies do on a cold day. Because their bodies (but not surface plumage) are warmer than the surrounding air, heat gradually radiates outward over time, moving from a warmer material to a colder one. To maintain body temperature while losing heat, penguins, like all warm-blooded animals, rely on the metabolism of food.

The penguins, though, have an additional strategy. Since their outer plumage is even colder than the air, the simulation showed that they might gain back a little of this heat through thermal convection—the transfer of heat via the movement of a fluid (in this case, the air). As the cold Antarctic air cycles around their bodies, slightly warmer air comes into contact with the plumage and donates minute amounts of heat back to the penguins, then cycles away at a slightly colder temperature.

Most of this heat, the researchers note, probably doesn’t make it all the way through the plumage and back to the penguins’ bodies, but it could make a slight difference. At the very least, the method by which a penguin’s plumage wicks heat from the bitterly cold air that surrounds it helps to cancel out some of the heat that’s radiating from its interior.

When you're trying to get through the winter at the bottom of the world, every little bit counts. Read more about the research at Smithsonian's Surprising Science blog. Link

(Image credit: © Université de Strasbourg and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Strasbourg, France)

(Image generated at RedKid)

These famous quotations are missing their vowels. Once you figure out the theme, you should be able to get them all.

SHWMTHMNY
HSTLVSTBBY
MYTHFRCBWTHY
WRNTNKNSSNMR
DNTCLLMSHRLY

Continue reading to find out the answers.

(Image credit: Michael Nika Photography)

You're sitting on a boat in a swimming pool. You have a large anchor on the boat. You drop the anchor into the water, and of course, it sinks immediately. What happens to the water level in the pool?

a. It goes up
b. It goes down.
c. It stays the same.

Continue reading for the correct answer.