Steve Cutts (previously at Neatorama) takes an animated look at what happens when humans lock themselves inside for an extended period. This is a sequel to his 2012 cartoon called MAN. -via Laughing Squid

Randy Tuten was one the dozen or so design artists who made posters for Bill Graham’s rock concerts in San Francisco in the 1960s. As such, those original posters are quite collectible today, particularly the ones for Led Zeppelin concerts. Tuten emblazoned his posters with fancy typography, often paid with a mundane but incongruent photograph of a boat, train, or automobile. Graham didn’t give Tuten a lot of direction for his posters, and trusting the artist’s instincts led to some memorable posters.

“When I started working for Bill Graham,” Tuten says, “I learned pretty quickly that the band names were more important than the artwork. If I did a nice piece, that was all fine and dandy, but it was the band name that made the poster collectible.” In fact, Tuten designed a lot of Led Zeppelin posters that have since become quite collectible. “Rick Griffin ended up doing most of the Jimi Hendrix posters for Bill,” he says. “I ended up doing all of the Led Zeppelin posters. It wasn’t planned that way. It was just an accident.”

Many of those posters have become iconic, including the one shown here that was a recycling of a college project. Read how that came about, as well as Tuten's other posters for Led Zeppelin and other concerts (for decades afterward) at Collectors Weekly.

Is it too much to expect reporters to wear pants?@GMA pic.twitter.com/064cNDsmID

— K Prudhomme O'Brien (@prudhommeobrien) April 28, 2020

Good Morning America on Tuesday featured a segment from reporter Will Reeve about pharmacies. Like many broadcasters, Reeve is now reporting from home via internet link. However, you have to be careful when you are doing your own video and audio hookup, because the shot of Reeve was a little wider than it should have been, and you can see he is wearing a suit coat but no pants. This is one clip from GMA that, so far, had not been posted to YouTube by the network. And if you are wondering about the resemblance, Will Reeve is the son of the late Christopher Reeve. Read more on the incident at Gizmodo.

Salazar Slytherin was one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the world of Harry Potter. Now a new species of snake has been named in his honor. And it's only appropriate: the species Trimeresurus salazar translates to Salazar’s pit viper.

The newest member of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, which includes at least 48 species of pit viper distributed across east and southeast Asia, the snake is the fifth reptile discovered by scientists in India’s northern state of Arunachal Pradesh in the past year or so, joining three other snakes and a tortoise also native to the region. A paper published in the April issue of Zoosystematics and Evolution describes the find, made by a team of researchers led by Zeeshan Mirza, a biologist at India’s National Centre for Biological Sciences.

The genus Trimeresurus has been described as "charismatic, venomous serpents.” Read more about the snake and its name at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Mirza et al., Zoosystematics and Evolution, 2020)

Be warned that this video may or may not give you the willies. Artist François Vogel has turned his surrealist eye on what's available at home, and that means his cat. He calls this sequence "Jellyfish Cat," although commenters at reddit called it "Salvador Dali's cat." However, that phrase makes us think of an ocelot. See more of Vogel's cat hijinks at Laughing Squid.

You may have always thought of "chintz" as a derogatory term for garish style, like your grandmother's floral curtains. The term "chintzy" was coined just for that purpose. But actual chintz was a kind of imported fabric that took the Western world by storm.

Chintz — although it might today be largely associated with twee or cutesy armchairs and wallpaper — is, in its true form, a fabric that was not only once highly prized the world over, and helped revolutionise fashion and design, but also changed the course of history — in many cases, unfortunately, for the worse. “[Chintz tells] a story that is much larger, and often much less pleasant”, according to Harvard historian Dr Sven Beckert. “A tale of armed trade, colonialism, slavery, and the dispossession of native peoples.”

The story Beckert is referring to begins, for the most part, in the late 15th Century; but the history of chintz extends far beyond that. Chintz — which comes from the Hindi word chint, meaning “‘spotted’, ‘variegated’, ‘speckled’, or ‘sprayed’”, as Fee writes in the book Cloth That Changed the World — originated in modern-day India and Pakistan thousands of years ago. Contrary to what many think, chintz does not necessarily have anything to do with glazed fabric, or even floral prints. Simply put, chintz is cotton to which substances called ‘mordants’ and ‘resists’ — used to help dyes adhere to it — have been applied.

The demand for chintz helped to shape the shipping industry which in turn shaped much of world history. It is true that chintz was banned in some places, to protect local fabric producers. But the story is much bigger, as you'll read in an article at BBC Culture. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)

The opening sequence of a TV series can be very memorable -after all, the same introduction begins every episode, sometimes for just a season, sometimes for years on end, designed to let you know your favorite show is starting now. Andrew Stephens constructed a quiz about those opening sequences that you might breeze through, or might drive you nuts.

Here are a number of frames taken from well-known television shows. Likely you have seen these frames dozens of times - but can you remember the shows?

Click on an image and type the name of the show (press return to submit your answer). You will know when you get the answer correct.

The shows range from decades old to some that are running now (or both). Can you name the show from one screenshot? If you guess right, the quiz will tell you, but if you are wrong, you'll just have to try again until Stephens adds an answer key -any day now. The best I can do is 12 out of 20 so far. -via Metafilter

Update: The answers are here.

Self-isolation affects everyone, but while we may envy the homes that wealthy people can retreat to, some celebrities may suffer an added effect that the rest of us would never think about. That is, until we may someday see the evidence. Plastic surgeons in California have had to shut their doors to all but medically necessary procedures. A couple of months on, some of their clients are late for their regular maintenance.

...Jezebel spoke with four surgeons, most of whom agreed that in lieu of injectables, at-home skincare is becoming the new focus of face maintenance. Because botox requires upkeep every three to four months, it’s possible that some celebrities will emerge with looser faces than previously seen. Fillers require updates every six to 12 months, so it’s unlikely that all of white Hollywood will return to its thin-lipped glory—unless, of course, they were due for an update before self-isolation became a requirement. Some may be receiving treatment at home, which may very well be unethical. And, like all non-essential industries, plastic surgeons have had to get creative to continue to provide their services.

Read what these four plastic surgeons have to say about their interrupted business and what effects it may have at Jezebel.  -via Digg

(Image credit: dronepicr)

Time travel is tricky, and it's a rare movie that even comes close to getting it right. Back to the Future is considered to be one of the best time travel movies, except for one thing. For 35 years now, people have been speculating about the one big possible plot hole. Why didn't George and Lorraine recognize that their son Marty grew up to look just like their friend Calvin Klein from high school? The debate has recently resurfaced for the film's anniversary.

Marvel filmmaker James Gunn argued via Twitter "a perfect film can be different from a favorite film, or a great film. A perfect film is something that sings from start to finish with no obvious mistakes, whether they be aesthetic or structural. There are no logical lapses."

He pointed to 1985's Back to the Future, writing, "Back to the Future SEEMINGLY could be imperfect (why don't Mom and Dad remember Marty?), but I would still argue it's a perfect film because there are reasons why this could conceivably be the case (time protects itself from unraveling, etc). Or maybe I'm in denial. Who knows."

Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt replied, explaining the situation as best he saw it: "Maybe they do remember him tho, not as Marty, as Calvin. When Marty returns to present day 1985, it could have been years since his parents would have perhaps originally noted the uncanny resemblance between their son and that kid from high school 20 years previous."

BTTF screenwriter Bob Gale sets the record straight, with an explanation that will have you looking through your old high school yearbooks, at the Hollywood Reporter. -via Mental Floss

Ipley Cross is one of the most dangerous junctions for bicycle riders in Britain, with a couple of crashes every year, and two cyclists have died there in the past few years. What causes these nearly-identical crashes? Tom Scott explains, and in doing so reveals some things about British traffic customs that American will find odd.

The skies above earth are filled with satellites, many of them transmitting GPS signals that help us find our way around, track both animals and people, and spy on friends and enemies alike. How did all that get started? The first animal with a satellite tracker was an elk named Monique, and the news media followed her exploits closely. You can see in the image that the tracker was quite cumbersome, and so was the experiment.

Really, Monique was two elk, both of whom were outfitted with satellite collars in early 1970 — almost fifty years ago on the dot, in fact. The Moniques belonged to a migratory herd of 7,000 animals that wintered on the National Elk Refuge just south of Yellowstone National Park, and then went…  well, no one quite knew where. Although John and Frank Craighead, twin brothers and legendary wildlife researchers, had long studied the region’s elk movements, their tracking methods were rudimentary. In the 1960s they’d fitted thousands of animals with color-coded necklaces, then hiked around Yellowstone searching for their bands. The herculean project revealed patches of habitat, but offered scant insight into how the animals moved between them — a Connect-the-Dots illustration with no dots connected.

Those gaps, the Craigheads vowed, would be filled in 1970. The previous year, they’d struck up a partnership with NASA to develop a newfangled elk tracking collar that would communicate with a weather satellite called the Nimbus 3. The collar cost $25,000, weighed 23 pounds — most of it a sheath of protective fiberglass — and would beam its wearer’s location and skin temperature, along with the ambient air temperature and light conditions, to the Nimbus every day.

The project was not without problems. In fact, everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. Meanwhile, pundits mused on where this technology would go and worried about the ability to track people with satellites as well as animals. Read the story of Monique the Space Elk at The Last Word On Nothing. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jackson Hole Guide)

One thing about quarantine is that it gives you the time to create. Redditor ktk4lyfe showed us the RV cake his girlfriend made. When they cut it open, she regretted not having any blue food coloring for the cake inside. If you don't get the joke, it's a reference to the TV show Breaking Bad. CakeyHo also posted a tutorial so you can see how she made it.



Be aware that having the time to bake does not imply that you can make something this awesome, but you can try.

Eighteen-year-old Amari Dancy of Woodbridge, Virginia, was only trying to keeper younger relatives busy with a game of hide-and-seek inside the house. She took note of all the places she had hidden before, and decided to jump into the washing machine. And then couldn't get out. The Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue was summoned to the home to extract Dancy from the top-loader. 

“I was really worried to see if they were going to get me out or not,” the teen said. “Once they figured out what to do ... I just felt relieved. I just wanted to be out of there.”

Suni Dancy said her relatives found the situation funny. “She doesn’t even normally play with the younger kids,” Suni Dancy said.

Once she made it out of the laundry machine, Amari Dancy was able to see the humor in her predicament as well.

The rescue crew was able to remove the top of the machine, which created enough space to get Dancy out. Read the whole story at NBC News. -via Bits and Pieces

In case you have some extra time, and might be looking to treat yourself with something delicious, you might want to make some maple butter, which has no butter in it, so it may be more accurate to call it maple cream, although it has no cream in it, either. The terms are interchangeable, and have more to do with its consistency than its ingredients.

What is maple cream?  It’s maple syrup that’s been transformed (miraculously) into a creamy, spreadable, butter-like consistency through a process of crystallization.

It’s meant to be spread on English muffins, or toast or even … on a grilled cheese with bacon and green apples.

I prefer to eat the maple butter by just taping the jar to my head and licking my way to the bottom like an anteater.

Maple cream has only one ingredient -maple syrup. However, it's not that simple, as making it requires a candy thermometer, some elbow grease, and time. If you have those things, check out the instructions at The Art of Doing Stuff. -via Nag on the Lake

Almost everyone has memories of a distinct incident that happened at their high school that was scandalous, criminal, or just really weird. That happens when you put hundreds of teenagers together, who try to impress each other without thinking through the consequences. The one about the bats stands out, as related by maceylou:

"My high school in Florida had a bat problem. The school was tired of cleaning up bat poop, so one winter evening after the bats left for the night, they covered the openings where the bats would go (this is illegal in Florida). The next day, students arrived to find frozen bats all over the ground, unable to move. Here’s where the real stupid happens..."

"Some students thought this was so cool, so they put bats in their pockets and went in to class. After about fifteen minutes in the nice, heated classrooms, the bats started defrosting and WAKING UP. So bats broke loose of pockets, biting the students and flying around. Later, any student who came in contact with the bats was required to get a round of shots."  

Yeah, this may have happened last year or decades ago, but it's the kind of thing you will never forget. Read 16 outrageous high school incidents at Buzzfeed, with more in the comments.

(Image credit: Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren)