Vi Hart is not only great at explaining mathematics and making it fun, she can also cook and poke fun at herself. In this video, she uses her previously-explained hexaflexagons to make a tasty tortilla treat! -via Viral Viral Videos
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
The spiritualist movement rose at about the same time photography was invented. Therefore, it was no wonder that the earliest use of trick photography was to show evidence of spirits that one could communicate with -for a small fee. Buzzfeed has a collection of quite a few of these "spirit" pictures. Link
In a continuing series on coins and currency, Dark Roasted Blend has a roundup of weird designs and stories about money. When the USSR was formed, and again when it crumbled, new money was designed for various areas that you may never have heard of. For example, Transnistria is a strip of land bordering Ukraine that is not recognized as a country, but it issues its own currency anyway. The former Yugoslavia has such inflation between 1988 and 1994 that the Dinara unit was issued in bills of 500 billion! And then there's the weird coins of Somalia that you just have to see. Link
Jackson knows his English words, but he's a little fuzzy on judging whether his owner is giving him the runaround! -via Arbroath
Although it is unclear whether Charlotte, North Carolina, is any more obsessed with Halloween than other cities, there are some interesting people there who take Halloween very seriously. Creative Loafing featured four of those people and the ways they celebrate the holiday. Drew Badger, pictured, is a haunted house consultant who also organizes the local Zombie Walk, among other ghoulish activities.
Drew Badger was only 10 when he inadvertently gave his first haunted house consultation, in 1977. His elementary school was holding its annual Halloween carnival, which included the "Tunnel of Terror." The "really lame attraction," Badger recalls, was comprised of taped-together refrigerator boxes and witches and ghosts made by first- and second-graders. So, Badger and his friend decided to fix it up.
"I cut a hole in one of the boxes, and my buddy got a bowl of ketchup," Badger says. "We smeared it on our arms and when the next group — a group of fifth-grade girls — got to the hole, we reached through and screamed and yelled. They screamed and yelled and got outta there. Within five minutes, we had a line out the door. Something must have clicked in me at that point."
Also meet a man who makes giant monster costumes, a guy who drives a spooky hearse for fun, and a woman who had a Halloween "shotgun" wedding. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Justin Driscoll)
Photographer Sakir Gökçebag doesn't use digital manipulation to get his fruits and vegetables to line up just so -they are cut and arranged like this! See what he does with watermelons, peaches, peppers, pomegranates, and beans, too. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Sakir Gökçebag)
This comic is most likely based on personal experience with dogs, and we can all agree its conclusions are valid. And we love them anyway. Will at Doghouse Diaries says:
I have 4 doctorates in dogsareawesomeology. -Will
Link -via The Daily What
Gangnam Style originator PSY did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) at reddit today. Here are a couple of things we learned:
Oooh! See that video here.
That answers the question we explored here at Neatorama.
Right on. Read the entire AMA when you have time. Link
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Most of us who grew up watching and loving the Marx Brothers will agree on one thing -these guys were very, very funny, very talented, very creative, maybe the most surreal of all characters in the history of motion pictures.
Okay, ever heard of a seldom-seen or talked-about 1957 film called The Story of Mankind? Well, The Story of Mankind, it is universally agreed on, is a pretty rotten movie. Strictly forgettable, but for one single note of interest: The Story of Mankind is the last joint film appearance of the Marx Brothers. It is also their only full-length color film.
The Story of Mankind was sort of a mixed blessing (like many movies, come to think of it): yes, we get to see the Marx Brothers, and any Marx Brothers is better than no Marx Brothers. But Chico, the oldest brother, was a full 70 years old, and brothers Groucho and Harpo were in their late 60s. The boys were a bit long in the tooth by this time. It was a bit like the classic Beatles reunion so many hoped for, but with the Fab Four in their 50s or 60s.
The source for this debacle was a "serious" book by Hendrick van Loon (sounds like a Marx Brothers character, doesn't he?). The film was one of the first examples of a true "all-star cast." Hollywood has since learned, several times, that the greatest, most colorful casts in the world do not an entertaining or popular film make.
The casting is intriguing, to say the least. Groucho Marx is cast as Peter Minuet, the guy who bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24. Brother Harpo is cast as Sir Isaac Newton (???), and brother Chico, in a possibly a sly, sarcastic swipe at his well-known career as a ladies man, is cast as a monk.
The other cast members and fascinating role assignments are worthy of a mention. Vincent Price is the Devil. Dennis Hopper chews up the scenery as Napoleon, Agnes Moorehead is Queen Elizabeth I, Peter Lorre hams it up as Nero, And Ronald Coleman, in his surely regrettable final film, is cast as "the spirit of man." John Carradine plays "Khufu" (???). Oh yes, and Virginia Mayo is Cleopatra.
Each of the above actors and actresses are indisputably talented and have each given us wonderful performances. It is a tribute to this film's excruciatingly bad script, not their individual talents, that these poor guys end up looking so ridiculously bad.
Psychology researcher Mikel Delgado and his team asked 189 people to ascribe traits to pictures of cats, and sorted them to see if they tended to judge a cat by its color.
If you thought the orange cat looked friendly, you're in good company — survey respondents were more likely to attribute friendliness to orange cats than to the other colors (except bi-colored, who are apparently also seen as friendly). The study authors found this a bit surprising, since "depictions of some of the most well-known orange cats in American culture, such as Morris, 'The world’s most finicky cat' and Garfield, who is described as lazy and cynical, are not positive." However, it's possible that "the tendency for orange cats to be highly anthropomorphized in advertising and other popular media influences their popularity. For example, both Morris and Garfield are depicted as being able to talk."
White cats, meanwhile, were more likely than others to be seen as aloof, calm, and shy. Tortoiseshell cats were aloof and intolerant. Black cats were just average at everything — no traits stood out as being more commonly applied to them.
The next question is, why do people believe those things? Is it because of media images like Morris? It may be from the experiences of cat owners, although when generalized to all cats, it sounds like prejudice. I have three cats, and the orange one is the friendly one. The white cat is aloof, and the black cat is the most normal in personality and behavior. How do these traits compare to cats you've had? Link
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 clues. Good luck!
Upodate: the pictured object is a Scandinavian nutcracker. The first with the correct answer was Anker, who wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from Thom1, who guessed it to be a steampunk Pac-Man! So Thom1 also wins a t-shirt. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who played this week! Also thanks to the What Is It? blog for providing us with this contest. See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
This TEDEd talk by Tim Verstynen & Brad Voytek of the Zombie Research Society needed some animation because they get all scientific and stuff. Link -via Boing Boing
Ig Nobel Achievements distilled into limerick form
by Martin Eiger, Improbable Research Limerick Laureate
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, then make them think. For details of all the Ig Nobel Prize–winning achievements, see each year’s special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine, and also see the website.
2011 Ig Nobel Mathematics Prize
The prize was awarded to Dorothy Martin of the U.S.A, (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the U.S.A. (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the U.S.A. (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of Korea (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.
The end of the world was projected,
Projections that proved misdirected.
They all seemed so sure,
But the earth did endure. When it ends, it will be unexpec—
2003 Ig Nobel Physics Prize
The prize was awarded to Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces." [published in Applied Ergonomics, vol. 33, no. 6, November 2002, pp. 523–31].
Researchers worldwide were asleep.
There was, before this, not a peep.
But now it is known,
As these guys have shown,
How much force you will need to drag sheep.
2007 Ig Nobel Economics Prize
The prize was awarded to Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device, in the year 2001, that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them. [Documented in U.S. patent #6,219,959, granted on April 24, 2001, for a “net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately.”]
Your banker should quickly adopt
This device whereby robbers are stopped.
It’s worthy of praising.
It’s simply amazing
When netting upon them is dropped.
_____________________
This article is republished with permission from the January-February 2012 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
It doesn't say specifically that this fabulous cake was made for a wedding, but the tables in the background are a giveaway. The cake is a recreation of Sauron's Barad-Dûr Tower in the Lord of the Rings saga. It was made by Cake Central member solociachef21. Link -via Geekologie
Before the use of ether revolutionized surgery in 1846, Dr. Robert Liston was the premiere surgeon at his teaching hospital in London. In those days, surgery was a last resort, patients had to be restrained, and speed was essential. Liston was very good at what he did.
Richard Gordon, a surgeon and medical historian, calls Liston the “fastest knife in the West End.” His style may have seemed careless, but in the age before anesthesia, speed was essential to minimizing the patient’s pain and improving their odds of surviving surgery. Slower surgeons sometimes had pain-wracked and panicked patients wrestle free from their assistants and flee from the operating room, leaving a trail of blood behind them. Only about one of every 10 of Liston’s patients died on his operating table at London’s University College Hospital. The surgeons at nearby St. Bartholomew’s, meanwhile, lost about one in every four.
Liston’s quick hands were so sought after that patients sometimes had to camp out in his waiting room for days waiting for their turn to see him. Liston tried to see every last one of these patients, no matter their condition. He especially loved treating those cases that his fellow surgeons had dismissed as beyond help, which earned him a reputation among colleagues as showy.
Read more about Dr. Liston and the way surgery was done in the 19th century at mental_floss. Link
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