If you look really hard at the screenshot above, you will see the proverbial polar bear in a snowstorm. The Oregon Zoo in Portland was closed to the public yesterday (and today) due to deep snow. But zookeepers let us take a peek anyway, by recording some video of the animals playing outside.
Some critters stayed in their dens, while polar bears, otters, seals, and even elephants had to explore and frolic in the snow. -via reddit
Once upon a time, particularly during the comics code days, comic book superheroes were written to be role models for kids, upholding "truth, justice, and the American way." Over time, that got pretty boring. As comic book writers made their characters more realistic, they struggled with the moral ambiguities of fighting super villains and dealing with modern life. And sometimes those superheroes could be plain assholes.
DC superheroes in particular have been saddled with the many ethical qualities that once made them so popular, but in recent decades have been shown to be much less wholesome than they were originally portrayed. Even the poster boy for DC, Superman, has been taken through a host of changes that have marked him as something less than the ideal superhero he was touted as in the beginning. As far as lying and cheating however, Superman is still a boy scout when compared to the five heroes listed below.
Read about the DC superheroes who have made lying a part of their personalities in order to achieve their ends at Unreality.
Martha Matilda Harper was put to work as a servant at the age of seven in Ontario, but she was ambitious. Armed with a thick head of healthy long hair and a secret formula shampoo from an employer, she moved to Rochester, New York, and set about her plan to open a public beauty salon. It was a novel idea in 1888.
After nearly a quarter century in servitude, Harper knew how to pamper her clientele. She designed the first reclining chair so they could have their hair washed without getting shampoo in their eyes, and had a half circle cut out of her sink (with running water) for ladies to rest their heads. The emphasis was on customer service, long before the term was coined. Once women experienced the Harper Method, they were converts.
Her clients were made up of an unlikely blend of society ladies and suffragists, whose movement was spearheaded in Rochester. Soon Harper was catering to both circles, and women in each sphere were spreading the word about the new salon. Susan B. Anthony was a friend and client.
The beauty salon became a place for women to socialize and talk about ideas among themselves unselfconsciously. It was so successful, Harper was encouraged to open salons another cities. To do that, she had to invent an entire system of quality control. Read about the amazing life of Martha Matilda Harper at Atlas Obscura.
Almost exactly a year ago, Grant Woolard gave us a fine mashup of classical music by the world's greatest composers. It's still a treat to listen to! Now he's back with volume two. This one features a blend of 52 familiar classics by such diverse names as Mozart, John Philip Souza, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Scott Joplin. They go together quite well. -via Digg
(Image credit: Nazario Graziano)
Bacon, Champagne, and 3-D movies? Why one Texas man thinks he’s uncovered an unlikely formula for feline longevity.
Jake Perry is a cat man. Standing about 5-foot-7 and often clad in workman’s clothes, the 85-year-old Austin, Texas, plumber is also a father and husband. But anyone who’s met Perry will tell you—first and foremost, he’s a cat man.
Perry’s cats broke the Guinness World Record for oldest cat. Twice, actually: The first record, from 1998, was for a part Sphynx, part Devon Rex named Granpa Rexs Allen who made it to age 34; the second, from 2005, is for a mixed tabby named Creme Puff who lived to age 38. Since the 1980s, Perry has adopted and re-homed
hundreds of cats, at his peak raising four dozen at once, showcasing the best and brightest in cat shows. According to Perry, it’s not just Granpa and Creme Puff who
had unusually long lives: About a third of his cats, he says, lived to be at least 30 years old—about twice the average feline life span. Over the years, Perry has been equally celebrated and psychologically analyzed for his extreme dedication to his pets. Now, toward the end of his own life, he believes he’s discovered the secret to feline longevity.
I first met Perry on a hot summer day in July 2012, when he showed up at my apartment to fix a leaky bathtub. He was strangely magnetic, with a slow Texas drawl, compulsive politeness, and a face that lit up when he saw the apartment’s resident pet—this was not your typical plumber. That day, Perry told me about his own cats, and what he believed were the keys to their unbelievably long lives.
The legendary character known as Slenderman or Slender Man is an urban legend, but one for which we know the exact origin. Neatorama readers know he was born at Something Awful, but you might not know all the details. Eric Knudsen, who uses the internet name Victor Surge, spent 15 minutes coming up with two Photoshopped images in response to a forum prompt in 2009. He presented them with a couple of mysterious and creepy newspaper captions.
The Something Awful community latched onto Knudsen's photos. A user named "21st Century" imagined Slender Man as an ergodic novel in the vein of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. User "TrenchMaul" linked it to an actual 1959 hiking accident in the Ural Mountains where nine people died (six of hypothermia, three of mysterious bodily trauma), earning "Slender Pass" a casual mention on the "Dyatlov Pass incident" Wikipedia page. The pile-on of manipulated images and faux-documentation eventually dissolved the Slender Man's ties to the Something Awful forums. Anyone who Googled for Slender Man "lore" would find offshoot sites and stray blogs, filled with connections and references in actual mythology. Many wondered if Germany’s 16th-century monster Der Großmann aka "The Great Man," a spindly creature rumored to stalk the deepest parts of the forest, was the actual Slender Man. Sure, why not?
Knudsen had created a monster. "An urban legend requires an audience ignorant of the origin of the legend," he said in an interview. "It needs unverifiable third- and fourth-hand (or more) accounts to perpetuate the myth … internet memes are finicky things and by making something at the right place and time it can swell into an 'internet urban legend.'"
The spread of Slender Man was a phenomenon. Writers created more stories. Video producers were inspired by Slender Man. Video games were designed around him. And the further the character got from the original source, the murkier its source became. The uncontrolled spread of the stories eventually led to two 12-year-olds stabbing a classmate 19 times in 2014 (she survived, but the case is ongoing). Knudsen asserts his copyright over the character Slender Man, while Hollywood acts like he's fair game, and people who hear about him assume it's an old legend instead of a recent fictional character. Read the complete history of Slender Man at Thrillist.
(Image credit: mdl70)
Did you make a New year's Resolution to get in better shape during 2017? have you started yet? Or have you given up already? No matter, you'll still enjoy learning some trivia about fitness from John Green, in the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show.
The roads are deep with snow, and you gotta take the dogs out anyway. You might as well have a little fun doing it!
Stephen Mann gathered his dogs Cabot and Barney, their leashes, his snowboard, and a selfie stick for a romp that's just as much fun for him as for the dogs! I'm not completely sure, but I think this is in New Jersey. They got up to ten inches of snow last weekend. -via Digg
One of the many things I liked about Rogue One was that it occasionally drew attention to things that weren't explained -just like real life. Overexplaining every McGuffin or expanded universe detail tends to drag one's suspension of disbelief down, like the endless political discussions in the prequels. Some of these unexplained shots were easter eggs for well-read Star Wars fans. For the rest of us casual but still excited fans, we can catch up with a rundown from Adrián Maldonado, who did the research so we could just enjoy the film, maybe even more next time.
While The Force Awakens had plenty of ruins, and featured one iconic artefact from the original trilogy, there was no real sense that history extended beyond the events of Episodes IV-VI. Yet with Rogue One, turn any stone and you’ll see the remnants of a past so deep that even its creators have only glimpsed it. The film also draws from the prehistory of George Lucas’ own writing, going back to his early journals from 1973. As if you needed another excuse to re-watch Rogue One, here is a handy guide to the archaeological items and motifs you may have missed. And do I really need to warn about spoilers? I’m surprised I haven’t spoiled anything already. Valar morghulis.
When I read "one iconic artefact from the original trilogy," I thought of Luke's lightsaber, while he meant Darth's helmet. (BTW, "artefact" is the British spelling.) Rogue One has a lot more archaeological items that become more intriguing as you read about them, at Almost Archeaology. -via Metafilter
Attack on Titan is a spectacularly popular manga series that came to TV in 2013. And it's coming again! Whether you are a manga reader or an anime viewer, you'll be excited by the impending continuation of the series.
Attack on Titan managed to capture the interest of a wide range of anime viewers when it started airing in April of 2013. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that it was slated to receive a second season, which was delayed because of developments in the manga that served as its source material. Now, the second season of Attack on Titan is set in air in January of 2017, preceded by an official trailer featuring new scenes from the upcoming season that are sure to whet the appetite of interested individuals.
To get you ready for the next chapter, Unreality brings you their top five moments from the first season of Attack on Titan, with video goodness.
It appears that Tom Scott is back from Lake Constance and now he's on the streets of London. The streets themselves have a story that you may not know, unless you are blind. If you know what to look for, the texture underneath your feet can tell you a lot about where you are and how to get around. A totally neat system! -via Viral Viral Videos
Fritz Lang produced a huge 153-minute budget-busting science fiction saga in Berlin in 1927. After Metropolis' first showing, it was chopped down to 92 minutes, then to 80, then it wasn't shown for decades. When it was resurrected, it was subtitled, colorized, a soundtrack added, and even Lang wouldn't have recognized it. But he didn't like the movie, anyway. Or at least that's what he said.
Lang wasn’t alone back in 1927 when the film was first released. Critics applauded the striking visuals and the ambitious technical achievement, but lambasted the trite melodrama and cheap platitudes. In a vicious New York Times review, H.G. Wells attacked the picture’s anti-progress, anti-technology message, accused it of ripping off several earlier works (including his own), and called it, “Quite the silliest film.” It was also attacked as a bunch of simpleminded and heavy-handed pro-communist propaganda, while at the same time and ironically enough it was hailed by the Nazis for portraying the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie.
Ninety years later, Metropolis is hailed as a work of art, a product of its time, yet ahead of its time. Read the story of how Metropolis was produced, and what happened in the year since, at Den of Geek.
The Canadian linguistic quirk of putting "eh" at the end of a sentence is an example of a tag, which is a word or phrase appended to a sentence. In Mandarin, any statement appended with "ma" turns that statement into a question. In English, the tag "isn't it?" provokes a response of agreement or disagreement. As a tag, "eh" is more universal and flexible. It can be used for just about anything.
There are a few major ways a Canadian could use “eh.” The first is while stating an opinion: “It’s a nice day, eh?” Another would be as an exclamation tag, which is added to a sentence in order to indicate surprise: “What a game, eh?” Or you could use it for a request or command: “Put it over here, eh?” And then there’s the odd example of using it within a criticism: “You really messed that one up, eh?”
Jack Chambers, a linguist at the University of Toronto, writes that these “ehs” are all of a piece. “All of these uses have one pragmatic purpose in common: they all show politeness,” he wrote in a 2014 paper. Using “eh” to end the statement of an opinion or an explanation is a way for the speaker to express solidarity with the listener. It’s not exactly asking for reassurance or confirmation, but it’s not far off: the speaker is basically saying, hey, we’re on the same page here, we agree on this.
Even in the use of “eh” as a criticism or a command, the word seeks to find common ground. If I say “you’re an idiot, eh?”, what I’m saying is, you’re an idiot, but you should also think you’re an idiot, and our understanding of you as an idiot finds us on common ground.
The tag "eh" is also used to give orders and to tell stories. Read about these and the general usage of "eh" among Canadians at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Flickr user Nicole Bratt)
Screen Junkies takes on a difficult project -critiquing a movie that's close to being beyond critique. Yes, they're doing an Honest Trailer for The Princess Bride.
Yes, there's plenty about the movie that's over-the-top silly, but that just makes it the wonderful production it is. You get the feeling they rejected doing this Honest Trailer a few times before, but people keep requesting it because everyone loves The Princess Bride. -via Tastefully Offensive
A group of British friends went on a nice bike ride. When Paul tried to lift his fat bike over a fence, he suddenly realized it was an electric fence and dropped the bike, which became tangled in the wire. Now what? Their efforts to free the bike involved much laughing and swearing. In other words, this contains NSFW language.
"It's only a little electric." Yeah, that's easy to say before it zaps you! The project was complicated by the fact that everything was wet, so trying to avoid the electricity was futile. "Go on, just be brave!" -via reddit
