The temperature where I am is about 65 degrees, which is odd for December. It's hard to get into the Christmas spirit amidst global warming, but there's always movies to put you in the mood. However, if you're looking for something without the sugary sweetness of Christmas family films, you might try movies that "revolve around cold, and snow, and hypothermia and madness." Five of them are detailed at Unreality. Pictured here is the “snow-nazi-zombie” movie Dead Snow. Link
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The following is an article from the Annals of Improbable Research.
by Peter Freundlich The Peter Freundlich Institute New York City, New York
Photographs by S. Drew, AIR staff
The author of this study has often been an object of intense study by Uniformed Private Security Guards. In response, he has spent much time in turn studying them and their behavior. Here is the fruit of that study. Read it, and you will have a clear understanding of the concept of Gluteal Hardness.
Private Parts of Behavior
If in the course of doing whatever it is you are doing, you are approached not by a police officer but by a UPSG, then you are not, as you may have thought you were, on public but on private property, and this is a critical difference, because on public property you are up against the law, which is hard and fast and applies equally to everyone. Whereas on private property you’re up against not the law but “rules.” Many spaces that may seem public (and are sometimes for that reason in fact called “quasi-public”) -- plazas, atriums, outdoor cafes, areas adjacent to the sidewalk, walkways leading to lobbies -- are in fact controlled by institutions, corporations, landlords, universities, and so forth. The police enforce the law, as we’ve said, but they have no interest in corporate and institutional “rules.” This is where private security forces -- and the tap on the shoulder -- come in.
Let’s stipulate, as the lawyers say, that there is no point arguing against “the rules.” For one thing, you don’t know what they are. They have been propounded by shareholders, board members, alumni, executive vice presidential conference committees, and cabals of maintenance and security men, and are published -- if published at all -- in employee policy handbooks unavailable to you (and unread by those to whom they are available). In sum, the rules are what “they” say they are -- and there you are. But -- and this is the nub of the current study -- not all uniformed security guards are equally inclined to make an issue of these so-called rules. Far from it. This being the case, what you need to be able to do is to quickly assess the degree to which an individual UPSG will be inclined to get in your face.
Luckily, this is not as daunting as it seems. In fact, it’s rather simple. I herewith offer you the fruits of my long experience in the area of gauging GH (Gluteal Hardness) in security guards. Just follow these few straightforward guidelines, and you will quickly be able to tell whether or not a particular UPSG is inclined to make trouble, or to “let it slide, this one time, if you don’t do it again.”
A talented countertenor busker in Krakow, Poland, has a child, or more likely a grandchild, who wants to follow in his footsteps. The baby sure knows the song well! -via Arbroath
Sometimes you buy Christmas presents out of obligation, like the annual name-drawing at your workplace, or some such event. What to get when you don't care to send the very best? Jill Harness came up with some fine suggestions, as long as you keep your tongue in your cheek. These gifts are all readily available, and will surely point out the recipient's faults in a public way. However, some of them might actually be useful to someone you love, but only if they request the product. Shown here is a set of garters for wannabe gangsters who want to strut around with low-slung pants, but can't keep their jeans in place. The rest are just as funny! Link
Adam the Woo went to Florida to see how the places where the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands was shot have changed in twenty years. For one thing, a lot of trees have grown! The many photos are posted in an album at imgur. Link -via Metafilter
The story of how these pictures were done is at YouTube. Link
What TV show required 60 pounds of baking soda, 20 boxes of fruit flavored, gluten-free breakfast cereal, 21 pounds of googly eyes, and 42 pounds of glitter? The new Spongebob Christmas special! Nickelodeon will present "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" on December 9th. The special was filmed in stop-motion, a first for Spongebob. Boing Boing has some background and trivia about the making of the special, like what all that stuff was used for. Link
This looks like fun! It's also a way to demonstrate to kids how a rocket works. From the Toys from Trash series by Dr. Arvind Gupta. Link -via Laughing Squid
We complain about traffic jams and videos that take too long to load, but when one's life is on the line, people can be pretty tough. At least some people. Adventure Journal has a list of amazing survival stories, beginning with the Antarctic adventures of Ernest Shackleton and his crew.
When the going got tough: In 1914, Shackleton’s crew intended to attempt the first Trans-Antarctic Expedition, a crossing of Antarctica over the south pole. Then their ship, the Endurance, was trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea, stranding 28 men.
The tough: Hung out for nine months, but then the ice crushed their ship, so they took lifeboats and camped on the ice for six months eating seal meat and eventually the expedition dogs, until an ice floe suddenly split and they were forced to take the lifeboats to nearby Elephant Island, in freezing water and -20 F temps. From there, Shackleton and five men took four weeks’ worth of supplies and launched a 22.5-foot lifeboat for an 800-mile trip to South Georgia Island, where they hoped to get help at a whaling village. After 16 days of navigating based on dead reckoning, the men landed on South Georgia, but on the wrong (unpopulated) side. Shackleton and two other men crossed the then-unmapped, unexplored island in 36 hours. After several attempts over the course of three months, Shackleton eventually returned to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of his crew. All crew members survived. The first Antarctic crossing would not happen for another 40 years.
The other ten stories in this list all happened within the past 50 years. You may remember some of them, but you probably don't know all of them. Link -via the Presurfer
Albania's laws and culture are so restrictive for women that "Sworn Virgins" find it easier to just live as men. They live celibate lives, but in return they have the freedom to do as they please. Many of them were assigned this role as children, and were raised as boys.
As an alternative, becoming a Sworn Virgin, or 'burnesha" elevated a woman to the status of a man and granted her all the rights and privileges of the male population. In order to manifest the transition such a woman cut her hair, donned male clothing and sometimes even changed her name. Male gestures and swaggers were practiced until they became second nature. Most importantly of all, she took a vow of celibacy to remain chaste for life. She became a "he". This practice continues today but as modernization inches toward the small villages nestled in the Alps , this archaic tradition is increasingly seen as obsolete. Only a few aging Sworn Virgins remain. The number of new cases are scant and tend to be considered less authentic by younger generations.
Photographer Jill Peters photographed some of the Sworn Virgins and is collaborating on a documentary about them. See more pictures at her site. Link -via Flavorwire
(Image credit: Jill Peters)
Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? You can win even if you don't know!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Check out the What Is It? Blog for more pictures of this item. Good luck!
Update: the unknown item turned out to be the housing for a four-face Verdin street clock. Anker was the first with the correct answer, which is good for a T-shirt from the NeatoShop! We also have a t-shirt for amanderpanderer, who said, "It is a connecting piece from the construction of Hamtopia, the pleasure palace for our Hamster overlords who will be arriving on December 21st. All Hail Squeeky, Lord of all Hamsters." That wins the award for the funniest answer of the week! You'll find the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Henry Hargreaves is the artist who brought us Deep Fried Gadgets. His latest series of works is called Game Over.
Taking games from my childhood I wanted to strip away the color making the games themselves useless but draw the viewers attention to how beautiful and sculptural the forms themselves become as stand alone objects.
See more at his website. Link
The Best in Show website invites you to knit your own dog, or "stitch your bitch." There are patterns available for many different breeds (only hounds are shown here), a gallery of submissions, and an ongoing competition for knitted dogs. They are adorable! Link -via Nag on the Lake
The Voyager I space probe, launched in 1977, continues to transmit data as it approaches the edge of the solar system. NASA announced yesterday that it appears Voyager has entered a new region of space, which may be the final barrier before leaving the heliosphere and venturing into interstellar space. They don't know for sure because we've never had a spacecraft travel this far.
"Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager."
NASA explains the data as they understand it, and the behavior of solar particles as they get further from the sun. Link -via Geekosystem
Did you know that the sphinx is just one of several hairless cat breeds? There are four, count 'em, four hairless breeds in this list of ten from Environmental Graffiti. Shown here is the Elf cat, a new breed created by Karen Nelson and Kristen Leedom, that reminds one of a certain Jedi master. Link
(Image credit © Kristen Leedom)
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