All over the world, babies are dancing Gangnam Style! The first video in this list is a hilarious work of art, and the next ten are all adorable children learning the joy of dance to PSY's infectious song. Most are pretty short clips, and all are just as cute as can be. See them at NeatoBambino. Link
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Not really PSY -this is a video celebrating this little boy's first birthday. But he does the "Gangnam Style" dance really well, doesn't he? -via Everlasting Blort
Okay, want to see babies really dancing Gangnam Style? Continue for the cutest little dancers ever!
Mr. Potato Head is 60 years old -and he doesn't look a day over 30! In honor of the occasion, artist Nacho Tamez had created Mr. Potato Heads in the likeness of other famous people who are turning 60 this year. Here you have Dee Dee Ramone; see more at Media Bullies. Link -via Laughing Squid
Soccer ART is a "professional freestyle football group" that takes the definition of juggling and stretches it to the limit. talk about mad skills! -via Buzzfeed
It must be a big-screen TV, as these adorable kittens are mesmerized by watching a tennis match -or the ball, at least. -via Laughing Squid
Look! Dorothy's dream has a backstory! No, nobody expects the fantasy of the land of Oz to make sense, and why should it? The prequel about the wizard from Kansas has a full trailer, to get us excited about the movie Oz The Great and Powerful, which will not be in theaters until March. -via The Week
Taxidermy is an art, but the problem is that so many non-artists think they can do it. The results are sometimes so funny you can't believe they are unintentional. See a collection of hilarious attempts at Uproxx. Link
Lego New York by artist JR Schmidt is exactly that: a model of New York City made of Lego bricks. Schmidt used satellite images, pixelated them to scale correctly for Lego bricks, and built the city. And a good piece of New Jersey as well! See more images at Cargo Collective. Link -via The Daily What
You might think it would be a manly sendoff to have your coffin carried to the graveyard in a Harley Hearse. And you can do it, but how much more manly is it to drive a motorcycle to your own funeral? That's what David Morales Colón did. Sort of.
After a mortician pumped him full of formaldehyde, the 22-year-old Puerto Rican motorcycle enthusiast rode his beloved Honda F4 one last time. (Another guy, Julio Lopez of Philadelphia, had a similar motorcycle wake.) Not many journalists could resist "Ghost Rider" puns.
A considerably less disturbing option: the "Harley Hearse," offered by a handful of funeral homes across the nation. For when the Harley-Davidson motto "Live to Ride, Ride to Live" no longer applies to you.
How could you have a more manly funeral than that? Well, there are many ways that men have pre-planned an unforgettable funeral, and you can read about them at MTV's Guy Code blog. Link
Sometimes when tales told around the campfire get passed around, details are added along the way that make you scratch your head. The Geekout rounded up the weirdest monsters from Japanese folklore for a list that will make you more likely giggle than cower in a corner. Pictured here is the Akaname, a monster that will come into your bathroom at night and …clean it up! Really! That's the kind of monster I'd really like to have around, wouldn't you? Link -Thanks, Sebastian!
It's been almost two years since we told you about the Law & Order Database that Overthinking It was working on. But now they have finally finished up all the data from all 20 seasons of the show! The database results can be downloaded if you want to study them. Meanwhile, Overthinking It has some interesting graphs dealing with the disposition of cases on the various seasons, compared with real-life crime and with Neilsen ratings.
Over the entire run of the show, more than a third of all the episodes ended in Guilty verdicts, while another third ended in plea bargains. 80% of episodes ended in solid wins: either Guilty verdicts, plea bargains, or implied victories. That’s not too shabby, considering that the actual NYPD has a homicide clearance rate of about 50%. (Although you have to figure Law & Order isn’t meant to represent every case these detectives investigated; in 20 seasons, I don’t think there was a single murder that didn’t result in an arrest.)
Now are they going to start on SVU and Criminal Intent? Link
Also: Slate has graphs generated from the database information about which of your favorite characters were most successful in case disposition. Link
-via Metafilter
Neatorama readers know that the bristlecone pine tree is the oldest non-clonal living species (clonal tree species reproduce by spreading and splitting, sort of like bacteria, but older parts eventually die off). How did we first find this out? In 1964, Donald Rusk Currey, a graduate student of geology, discovered the tremendous age of a Great Basin bristlecone pine, after he had it cut down.
By the time of Currey’s survey, trees were typically dated using core samples taken with a hollow threaded bore screwed into a tree’s trunk. No larger than a soda straw, these cores then received surface preparations in a lab to make them easier to read under a microscope. While taking core samples from the Prometheus tree, which Currey labeled WPN-114, his boring bit snapped in the bristlecone’s dense wood. After requesting assistance from the Forest Service, a team was sent to fell the tree using chainsaws. Only days later, when Currey individually counted each of the tree’s rings, did he realize the gravity of his act.
Currey downplayed the discovery in a dry essay for Ecology magazine in 1965, in which he stated, “Allowing for the likelihood of missing rings and for the 100-inch height of the innermost counted ring, it may be tentatively concluded that WPN-114 began growing about 4,900 years ago.” Though its exact age is still debated, the Prometheus tree was certainly the oldest single tree scientists had ever encountered.
The Prometheus tree’s felling made it doubly symbolic, as the myth of its namesake captures both the human hunger for knowledge and the unintended negative consequences that often result from this desire. Though members of the scientific community and press were outraged that the tree was killed, Currey’s mistake ultimately provided the impetus to establish Great Basin National Park to protect the bristlecones. The death of the Prometheus tree also helped to change our larger perception of trees as an infinitely replenishing resource. “It’s not going to happen again,” says Shoettle. “But it wasn’t something that I think they struggled with at the time, because it was just a tree, and the mindset was that trees were a renewable resource and they would grow back. And it didn’t seem like it was any particularly special tree.”
Collector's Weekly tells the whole story of Prometheus, plus the science of tree dating, and theories on why the bristlecone lives so long. Link
(Image credit: Nick Turland)
Quite a few subway stations underneath the City of Lights were closed when trains became bigger, and the city found it easier to build new stations nearby instead of redoing the old stops. Many of these are not accessible to the public, and there are even more of us who cannot get to Paris at all! The next best thing is to see these lost Metro stations through the photographs of French urbex photographers. See more pictures, and read about the abandoned Paris Metro places at Urban Ghosts. Link -Thanks, Tom!
(Image credit: Flickr user vincent desjardins)
Rhett & Link made a music video in split screen, with a contest attached in which you are challenged to spot the differences between the two takes. That gimmick is for their sponsor, who is giving away prizes on Facebook (details at the YouTube link). If you don't want to jump through the necessary hoops to enter, you'll still enjoy the creepy song about common nightmares. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Spain recently raised the value-added-tax (VAT) on cultural activities to 21%, which didn't sit well with theater owners. One theater in Bescanó staged a revolt by using carrots! Theater owner Quim Marcé explains:
"We said, 'This is the end of our theater, and many others.' But then the next morning, I thought, we've got to do something, so that we don't pay this 21 percent, and we pay something more fair," says Marcé in Spanish.
He looked out his window at farmland that surrounds this village, two hours north of Barcelona, and suddenly had an idea: Instead of selling tickets to his shows, he'd sell carrots.
"We sell one carrot, which costs 13 euros [$16] — very expensive for a carrot. But then we give away admission to our shows for free," he explains in Spanish. "So we end up paying 4 percent tax on the carrot, rather than 21 percent, which is the government's new tax rate for theater tickets."
Classified as a staple, carrots are taxed at a much lower rate and were spared new tax hikes that went into effect here on September 1.
Theater patrons love the idea, and bought plenty of carrots. Marcé also has the support of the local mayor, but other officials say the scheme is plainly tax evasion. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Quim Marcé)
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