If you're already tired of the never-ending marathons of Halloween horror films on TV, maybe you'd like to celebrate the season by some reading. Flavorwire has some suggestions in a reading list that ranges from Hamlet (yes, it's a ghost story) to Aim For the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry.

Maybe it’s just us, but we always consider poetry as a form (barring, you know, limericks) to be naturally a little more highbrow than prose. Which balances out the fact that zombies are probably the most lowbrow of popular monsters. So if you’re a poetry buff looking for a little excitement on a cold October night, or just someone who’s felt the incomprehensible urge to compose a poetic ode to The Walking Dead, we suggest this anthology, which takes itself seriously, but not too seriously.

You're sure to find something intriguing in the list of 10 books. Link

(YouTube link)

They pay close attention and learn well until they decide it's time to eat the experiment! Next up: the lesson on Schroedinger's Cat. -via Buzzfeed

(YouTube link)

In this short film by Christopher Kezelos, a rabbit-like creature channels Dr. Frankenstein. But there's a twist here that Mary Shelley's work did not have. -via the Presurfer

The British company Bodyform, which manufactures "towels," or what Americans now call maxi pads or mini pads, or sanitary napkins to those of an age to no longer need them. Richard Neill left a message on the firm's Facebook page, which is a basic retelling of an old joke.

Hi , as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn't I get to enjoy this time of joy and 'blue water' and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn't wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen .....you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger

Bodyform responded with a video featuring a statement from their "CEO." It may be NSFW if your employer is a real prude.

(YouTube link)

From the YouTube page:

We are always grateful for input from our users, but your comment was particularly poignant. If Facebook had a "love" button, we'd have clicked it. But it doesn't. So we've made you a video instead. Unfortunately Bodyform doesn't have a CEO. But if it did she'd be called Caroline Williams. And she'd say this.

-via Metafilter

Scarecrows should, by definition, be scary, at least to birds. Encountering this one would give anyone the heebie-jeebies for a good week or so! It's described as what an Tolkien Orc would look like if it were struck by lightning. This is just one from the list of 13 Creepy Geeky Scarecrows you'll see at WebUrbanist. Link -via Maajak World

Update: The scarecrow shown here is a sculpture from 2005 called Roots, by Pumpkinrot. -Thanks, Linda H!

The concept is simple -you pedal, the rotors turn, and air is displaced. But you need a lot of power to displace a lot of air and maintain control over the craft at the same time. Engineering student Graham Bowen-Davies is trying to work out the best design for a human-powered helicopter, which is no easy task.

Bowen-Davies and dozens of his fellow students from the University of Maryland are chasing one of aviation's last milestones: the Sikorsky Prize. The American Helicopter Society (AHS) has promised $250,000 to the team that can build a human-powered helicopter. All it has to do is hover for a minute, reach a height of 3 meters (about 10 feet), and stay in a 10-meter box.

Turns out, that's harder than it sounds. The prize has been unclaimed for more than three decades.

Making the craft very light is a shortcut to powering it, but that makes it harder to control. Recent designs are getting closer to fulfilling the Sikorsky Prize requirements. Read more and see a video of these crafts at NPR. Link -via Kottke

(vimeo link)

The music video for "Time To Go" by Wax Tailor feat Aloe Blacc stars a crocheted "quadropus" swimming through the urban landscape as if it were the deep blue sea. The video was produced by Oh Yeah Wow. -via The Daily What  

You never forget the moral of the story when you've got a chill running up your spine, and there was always a moral of some kind in the TV series The Twilight Zone. However, the lessons you learned might not be the same as those selected by Uproxx's Josh Kurp. For example, for the above picture, the lesson is:

Twitter and website comment sections have always existed, in some form or another.

And you thought the show was teaching us things like "be careful what you wish for." Ha! Link

(YouTube link)

If there was any question of why Henry Thomas got the role of Elloit in the movie E.T: The Extraterrestrial, just take a peek at his audition. You might want to grab a hankie. -via The Daily What

Mike Fay and Enric Sala are exploring the waters off the coast of Gabon with an eye toward protecting its ecosystem. This picture was taken when their remote operated vehicle (ROV) selected a shell from the sea floor.  

When we picked up the shell from the ROV’s arm, to our surprise, a small octopus came out of the shell. It was a female that laid her eggs inside the shell. We put shell and octopus in a tank with seawater, and after one minute thousands of octopus larvae started to stream out of the shell. The octopus eggs were hatching! That was the first time we had observed such a magnificent show. The larvae were changing coloration from transparent with dark spots to brown, and swimming like squid – although on a millimeter scale.

Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

(Image credit:Enric Sala)

Redditor SkeletonKeys visited Seokbulsa Temple in Busan, South Korea, where he found a bas relief that may depict the origin of the Gangnam Style dance. What do you think?

Farmerj0hn left a comment that may shed further light:

This is actually probably a depiction of the ancient story of Joo Rim Hoon, a hero of Korean folklore who crushed the demon of ignorance (the thing that looks like a baby) beneath his calloused feet (it was supposed to be poisonous to the touch, the skin on his feet was too tough).

Link

You recall the classic comic caption, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Many people were following the story of David Rose, also known as Dave on Wheels, on Blogger and Twitter. Dave told of his struggles as a man who is deaf and has cerebral palsy. He recently left a long "final post" before he died. Canadian blogger K-A hadn't been following the story, but when she heard about it, she started digging into it. What she found was a hoax. A simple Google image search revealed that Dave's pictures actually belonged to a young man in Virginia named Hunter Dunn.

So after seeing this, naturally my stomach sank. First, because one of my closest friends was so affected by Dave, and his message, although not true, was positive. At this point I wasn't sure whether it would be the right thing to come forward with the information because so many people were affected in a positive way. At the same time though, I realized this wasn't just any ordinary person impersonating some ordinary person. This was some "able bodied" person (referencing his final blog post) impersonating someone that is affected by this horrible disorder. And if anyone deserves credit for having a beautiful mind it is Hunter Dunn. So I searched on.   

K-A lays all her research out on a web page, and the person behind the hoax left a series of comments explaining -and justifying- the fiction. It's a fascinating read, whether you are familiar with the story of Dave on Wheels or not. The Dave on Wheels blog and the Twitter account have since been deleted, but a Twitter search revealed reactions to the hoax.

Link -via Shaun Usher

Jay Mark Johnson uses a slit camera to take surreal photographs that emphasize time over space. What comes through the lens looks different depending on whether it is moving or stationary. Where some folks are surprised by odd digital camera "mistakes," Johnson selects the subjects and adjusts the scan rate to come up with works of art.

Yes, it’s a confusing concept. Johnson—an architect, painter, political activist, cinematic special-effects designer, and student of cognitive sciences—probably would not have come up with the idea, himself, were it not for a chance discovery. He had purchased a $85,000 rotating slit-scan camera for high-resolution panoramas. (The camera records vast landscapes sliver by sliver.) Finding the accidental effects of motion in front of the camera strangely poetic, he experimented with stopping the rotation and honing in on one tiny area. These images are the result.

This unique look is possible because the fixed-position slit camera registers only a vertical sliver of a scene. Whatever passes that slit by gets registered in a narrow line. Over a period of time, which Johnson can control, it registers line after line. The final result is a bunch of these lines all pushed together. (In this sense, you could say each photograph is actually a composite of hundreds of very skinny images.)

Read more about the process at Slate. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jay Mark Johnson)

Previously: A slit-scan video.

(YouTube link)

You know what's missing from the AMC series The Walking Dead? Dancing! See the all-singing, all-dancing walkers/zombies communicate their feelings in this little production number from AVbyte. This contains NO spoilers from the TV show. -via The Daily What

Here's something you never expected to see! This picture from the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects annual ball in 1931 shows seven noted architects wearing costumes that resemble the New York City buildings they designed. Do you recognize them all? The architects and buildings are listed at Retronaut, where you can get a closer look at some of them. Link -via mental_floss