Minute Physics quickly lets us in on some slight but important differences in what we thought we knew and what really is. Since I never studied physics, a lot of this was new to me. -via Daily of the Day
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
The National Post has a graphic depiction of the zombie kills from all 27 episodes of 2.5 seasons of the TV show The Walking Dead. It's separated into four parts; the skull here is made of the first section, zombies killed by season (the yellow ones are main characters). You can also see a breakdown of each zombie and who killed it with what weapon, then a breakdown of the weapons by season, and then which characters do the most zombie killing. It's a lot of statistics that should keep a math geek/Walking Dead fan busy for a while. Link -via Digg
Scientists from the Czech Republic and Germany studied how carp arrange themselves in 80 different barrels while waiting to be sold at the traditional Czech Christmas sale last year. They observed fish in 817 samples over seven days. What diid they find?
We found that carps displayed a statistically highly significant spontaneous preference to align their bodies along the North-South axis. In the absence of any other common orientation cues which could explain this directional preference, we attribute the alignment of the fish to the geomagnetic field lines.”
Was the research tough? It was as easy as counting fish in a barrel! Link
The Shifters was a name of a group of young people who called themselves that for a few months in 1922. Some considered them a subset of flappers, but men were welcome to be Shifters. Newspapers covered the group as if they knew what the culture meant. No one knows who started the fad, and there was no organization behind it. And, like many fads among young people, the Shifters died out as soon as the media paid attention to them. It was a sort of "secret society" of cool, hep people "in the know," but we still know rather little. One of the fascinating things about the Shifters was their method of recruiting new members.
Central to the Shifters’ rapid growth was a pyramid scheme of enrollment and enrichment that was encapsulated by the Shifter motto, “Get something for nothing.”
A Shifter would tempt a victim into joining, swear her to secrecy, make her pledge to “be a good fellow” and demand an initiation fee of anything from 5 cents to $6. The newly minted Shifter was then dismissed to find fresh victims and make good her investment.
According to The Border Cities Star, “down in New York one stenog. cleaned out 1,200 persons in the Woolworth building offices during her membership campaign, and naturally collected 1,200 dollars.”
As time went by, established businesses wanted in on the game as well, and they manufactured Shifters pins, patches, and hats to sell. A lot of money changed hands, but when the Shifters were seen as mainstream, they disappeared. On to the next fad! The New York Times Sunday Review has the story, plus lists of "Shifter slang" terms, which may or may not be accurate, but it's fun to read. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: the New York Public Library)
What does the cat say? The lesson works best when you have authentic input! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Spike the cockatiel has the song down. Of course, "Tequila" by The Champs only has one lyric, but he does the instrumental parts pretty well, too! -via Daily Picks and Flicks
This isn't a parody video of "Gangnam Style," but a new parody song to the tune of PSY's song.
The Peterson Farm Brothers brought us I’m Farming and I Grow It, and this one is just as clever. Again, they are extolling the importance of agriculture and their pride in living "Farmer Style." -via Viral Viral Videos
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
The term "break a leg" is unique to actors. Actors often tell each other to "break a leg" and the term is also commonly used by non-actors, who wish the sentiment on actual actors. It means, of course, "Do well!" or "Have a great show!" The term can be used before a stage performance, a show, or an audition. I have never heard it used before filming a movie, but I guess it can be used on that occasion, too.
Interestingly, stagehands do not use the term, just actors. Stagehands will often tell each other "Don't mess up" or the more graphic "Don't f*** up" before a big or important performance.
Like many popular sayings and terms, the origin of "break a leg" is nebulous and disputed. The term "break a leg" was used originally, some say, to discourage evil spirits from deliberately causing one's performance to suffer. According to this theory, wishing someone "good luck" would be invoking the "evil eye." So "good luck" would actually cause bad luck for the actor. This, "break a leg," by this logic, would be a wish for good luck.
The term "break a leg" may be traced back to the Elizabethan language. To "break a leg" in Shakespeare's time meant, literally, to bow -by bending at the knee. Since a successful actor would "break a leg" onstage and receive applause, the phrase would, in effect, be a wish for good luck. However, in the 16th century "break a leg" also meant to give birth to an illegitimate child, which is hard to connect to the theatrical world.
Allison Keene, who writes about TV for Collider and mental_floss, grew up without ever watching a Star Wars film. She sat down and watched every one of them in release order, and wrote up her impressions as a 21st-century newbie. What's interesting is that she thought she knew a lot about the series, because she knew what people talked about on the internet. But that's completely different from seeing the films. She says after the first one:
A-ha! Moment: I was floored by how many pop culture references come out of this movie alone, are there any in the other movies? “These are not the droids you are looking for,” “a great disturbance in the Force,” “may the Force be with you,” “the Force is strong with this one,” etc.
WTF? Moment: I think I’ve always conceived of Darth Vader as being some all-powerful evil villain, and to see him just hanging around the council, running his own errands and in fact getting in a fighter jet to go out on an attack run himself confused me greatly. Doesn’t he have minions for that sort of thing? Also I expected his voice to sound like something in between Christian Bale‘s Batman and Tom Hardy‘s Bane, but he was quite normal, which disappointed me a bit.
And even that's funny, that the voice of James Earl Jones may sound "quite normal" now that everyone has heard him so much. In 1977, it stood out from every other voice on the planet. Keene wrote up all six movies, which are posted at Collider in reverse (blog) order. Link
In a not-too-distant but disturbingly violent future, brain implants record everything you see, and holographic cops can check them to see what you've been doing. This low-budget Swedish short by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson has the potential to become a feature film. -Thanks, Jimmy and Eric!
Michael Jackson's chimpanzee Bubbles is now 29 years old, and lives in a shelter in Florida. Expenses are around $20,000 per ape, so Bubbles is contributing two of his abstract paintings to an exhibit called "Endangered" at Art Basel Miami Beach. You can have one for $1,500. There are quite a few other former show-biz apes at the Center for Great Apes.
In captivity, chimpanzees can live to be 60, orangutans 50. Yet by around six years old, all had reached the ends of their careers, growing too big and too strong-willed to manage.
Bubbles’s story is typical in this respect. Born in a laboratory in Texas in 1983 and raised by humans, he was sent to join the other chimps in his trainer’s compound when he became too much for the pop star.
“He’s had a really tough time,” says Casey Taylor, who turned her back on a law career to become the sanctuary’s communications and development coordinator.
“He didn’t know how to be a chimp. There’s a serious social structure with these animals -- you have to know the chimp rules. He mentally shut down.”
But now Bubbles is the dominant chimp in his group, although he sometimes reverts to acting like a spoiled child. Read more about Bubbles and the other apes at Bloomberg. Link -via Flavorwire
After many years of installing a natural Christmas tree in the main public square of Brussels, Belgium, the tree this year is artificial, abstract, and electronic.
An enormous abstract Christmas tree has been unveiled at the center of Brussels, though some are displeased with the city's modern take on holiday tradition. Created by French collective 1024 Architecture, the "Abies Electronicus" is an 82-foot steel-ribbed installation that replaces the real pine tree typically on display at the city's central square. Every night, the structure comes to life with a light and sound show, replete with shimmering lights, glowing cubes, and a mix of both holiday and industrial music. And unlike traditional trees, visitors can actually climb to the top of the Abies Electronicus for a panoramic view of the city.
Some citizens are not pleased with the structure, preferring a traditional tree. You can see a video of the tree changing colors. Link -via Buzzfeed
Jazz musician and composer Dave Brubeck died this morning due to heart failure. If you don't know the musician, you know his works, such as the classic "Take Five." Shown here is the song performed in Berlin in 1966, with Brubeck on the piano.
Throughout his career, Brubeck defied conventions long imposed on jazz musicians. The tricky meters he played in “Take Five” and other works transcended standard conceptions of swing rhythm.
The extended choral/symphonic works he penned and performed around the world took him well outside the accepted boundaries of jazz. And the concerts he brought to colleges across the country in the 1950s shattered the then-long-held notion that jazz had no place in academia.
Read more about the jazz pioneer in his obituary at the Chicago tribune. Brubeck would have turned 92 years old tomorrow. Link -via Metafilter
Yes, it's a real thing. Pizza Hut Canada made 100 bottles of perfume featuring the scent pizza.
Here's the full story: Grip Limited, an advertising firm that works with Pizza Hut Canada, originally originally floated the tongue-in-cheek notion on the Pizza Hut Canada Facebook page back in August as part of a broader push to promote more engaging social media activity. The post asked fans to dream up names for an imaginary scent inspired by "the smell of a box of Pizza Hut pizza being opened." But the fan response to the idea was so enthusiastic that Grip and Pizza Hut decided to make the perfume a reality.
A month and a half later, to commemorate the fact that Pizza Hut Canada had gotten 100,000 fans, the chain's community managers announced that the first 100 people to message them would actually get a bottle of Pizza Hut perfume. And sure enough, the bottles were shipped to those 100 lucky fans at the beginning of December.
There are no plans to make more -yet. Of course, if the demand is there, they still have the formula. Link -via Fark
The Ringwraiths were terrifying, but they didn't have a lot of screen time in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here you see what they were doing offscreen during the rest of the story. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Email This Post to a Friend