meanwhile at the @nuggets v @spurs game pic.twitter.com/OvpvYeXY5P

— rachael (@RachaelHoops) April 9, 2016

Kiss cams are old hat! Besides, it can be truly embarrassing when the camera focuses in and you’re sitting there with your brother, or even worse, your side-dude. Last night, the Denver Nuggets hosted the San Antonio Spurs, and unveiled a new crowd-cam idea that everyone immediately understood and took to: The Lion King Cam!

During a timeout, the camera finds a baby in the crowd, focuses in, and plays the opening lines from “The Circle of Life.” The object of the focus immediately understands what to do. All new parents, and even aunts and granddads, know they are supposed to hold the baby up just like Rafiki presenting Simba to the Pride Rock residents (or, for those of us of a certain age, the infancy of Kunta Kinte). We hope Denver keeps this idea going, and it may spread to other arenas. -via Uproxx

New corporate headquarters for Google, Apple, and other cutting edge tech companies are hailed as innovative and “futuristic,” but besides their size, they are a lot like the facilities that corporations built in the mid-20th century as they moved to suburbia. Companies not only got more space, they located near the white, middle class, educated suburban workers they wanted, not to mention that their executives already lived there. UC Berkeley architectural professor Louise Mozingo, author of Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes, tells us about that era. Those new workplaces had employee lounges for collaborating, services to help a worker with errands, and even recreational facilities like those we see today in tech startup offices.     

“All these perks had a certain element of welfare capitalism,” Mozingo says, “this idea that the all-inclusive physical environment is going to foster certain kinds of behavior, which are profitable for the company.”

The focus on amenities for office staff was also a way to prevent them from organizing, particularly the legions of low-paid female employees needed to maximize profits. “They were terrified that female clerical workers were going to unionize,” Mozingo says, “In the era before computing, companies ran on vast amounts of paper, and that paperwork was almost all done by women. That was one of the reasons they wanted to get out of downtown—if the secretaries unionized, they’d all be sunk.”

Even the shift to personal vehicles rather than public transit was hailed as a perk: Private cars were supposedly more reliable and allowed for more flexible work schedules, particularly in an era before highways were clogged with traffic. In actuality, this encouraged employees to extend their workday past the standard hours of nine-to-five, and helped isolated workers to ensure company loyalty. “This is something that Silicon Valley companies still do—they capture the employee for the entire day,” Mozingo says. “The descriptions were extremely explicit about this, about solidifying corporate culture, instilling loyalty, and minimizing happenstance meetings with people from other companies who might steal you. It’s about making the corporation your entire life.”

That sounds like a lot of tech companies today. Read more about the corporate move to suburbia and how those old ideas are new again at Collectors Weekly.

Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels analyzed the dialogue of 2000 films, counted how many lines each character had, and sorted them by gender and age. They present the data in interactive graphs. For example, they analyzed 30 Disney and Pixar films, and found that in 22 of the 30 movies, male characters had more lines. Even the dialogue of Frozen was 57% male. The movies ranged from 98% male dialogue (The Jungle Book) to 69% female (Sleeping Beauty).

There are outliers, like Mulan. Mulan is definitely the main character, but almost all the other characters are male, and Mushu has the most lines because fast-talking Eddie Murphy was the comic relief. Conversely, Tarzan was the lead character in Tarzan, but his fast-talking sidekick (Rosie O'Donnell) was female, and the movie had 55% female lines. Either way, the data shows that the overwhelming majority of lines go to male characters, both Disney and non-Disney.

The graphs that track lines by age and gender are not surprising. The age group of males that get the most lines in the 2,000 movies is 42-65, whereas the age group of women with the most lines is 22-31. There’s a lot more data to be seen in the article at Polygraph. You can look up individual movies; sort by data parameter, genre, or decade; or just check out the list. -via Metafilter

Alexey Zakharov took photographs from Shorpy that showed us scenes from New York, Washington, Detroit, Boston, and Baltimore in the early 20th century, and brought them to life! The angles change, the people move, and little details like exhaust fumes are added for a dose of reality. Even the credits are beautiful.

(vimeo link)

Imagine if you tried to explain to the people in these pictures back then what would happen to the images 100 years later. It would blow their minds. Likewise, we have no idea what will be possible to do in the future with the things we leave behind. You can see stills and process pictures at Bechance. -via Sploid

The talk pages on Wikipedia are often mundane, but if you look closely, you’ll run across occasional weirdness and outright hilarity. Randall Munroe of xkcd noticed that discussions on city entries are particularly funny, as they involve some back and forth from people who live there, or know the place well, and besides, every town has some skeletons in its closet. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one quite as funny as this hypothetical town, though.

Now go peek into the discussion about the entry for your town.  

Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund (previously at Neatorama) and his brother Oakley don ridiculous little uniforms to play a game of street hockey. They’re not very good players, but no one cares because they are so funny!

(YouTube link)

These dogs have little trouble aiming their sticks, and tend to succumb to temptation and eat the puck. But you won’t find better dachshund hockey players anywhere! -via Tastefully Offensive

Illegal climber rescued off Morro Bay by CHP helicopter & MBFD personnel. Assisted by SLO County Fire, Harbor, USCG pic.twitter.com/8nJ4nB9FhE

— Morro Bay Fire (@MorroBayFire) April 7, 2016

Michael Banks of Fresno, California, planned and executed a proposal for the record books. He climbed the south face of 581-foot high Morro Rock early Thursday morning. Then he called his girlfriend via FaceTime and proposed from the dramatic backdrop. She said yes! And then things went downhill.

Banks chose a different route for his descent, and became stranded on a ledge. Someone heard him yelling and called 911. Banks was rescued by a crew in a California Highway patrol helicopter -and then arrested. Climbing on Morro Rock is banned as too dangerous, so he was cited for trespassing. Other charges include possession of methamphetamine. He also faces a bill for the rescue service, which could run to thousands of dollars.

At least she said yes. 

A stray cat started hanging around the Serpukhov Museum of History and Art in Serpukhov, Russia, a couple of years ago. The museum staff took him in, and Maray became quite popular with museum visitors. For April Fool’s Day, the museum sent an “application letter” from Maray asking for a job to the local press. In English, it said:

Application. As I am a direct relative of [Anna] Maraeva, I ask you to give me a job in ​ your museum. Maray The Cat.

Anna Maraeva is the former owner of the building, and inspired Maray’s name. The letter was accompanied by a press release that announced he had been hired. The museum staff got a laugh, but the media pounced on the story and made inquiries about the cat. So the museum had to make good on the “joke” and gave Maray the official title of doorman. He is paid in food and affection. See pictures of Maray at work at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: Serpukhov Museum of History and Art)

Wrapped is an art film that shows what happens when you don’t clean up the streets. Don’t let that description stop you, because this is beautiful.

(vimeo link)

Directed by Roman Kaelin, Florian Wittmann, and Falko Paeper, it is an award-winning graduation film from Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. They say it is an illustration of “the clash between civilization and nature,” but we know they are showing off their animation skills, and accomplished that aim well. -via the Presurfer

A new reddit account popped up in just the last 24 hours from an artist who goes by Pet_Disneyfication. He or she takes pet pictures uploaded by others and draws them in an adorable Disney-like style. The above picture is from the post I love my job but the cat doesn’t.

Continue reading to check out the illustrations Pet_Disneyfication has contributed so far.

Say what you will about romance novels, they generate over a billion dollars in revenue every year. The authors, or at least the best ones, put a lot of thought and research into the time and place they’re writing about, and the readers they are writing for. Here are some thing you might not know about those who write romance novels.    

2. THEY DON’T USE PEN NAMES FOR THE REASON YOU THINK.

The authors of romance novels don't use pen names out of embarrassment. Adina (a.k.a. Adina Senft) says that pseudonyms—many authors have more than one—help readers compartmentalize writers who generate multiple series. “People who read Amish fiction may not read steampunk,” she says. Another, bigger reason: Bookstore software can use “kill orders” on authors who don’t sell a certain number of titles. If they fall below parity, retailers will automatically stop ordering more copies from that author. “If that happens,” she says, “you have to reinvent yourself with a new name.”

5. THEY HAVE BONUS SCENES.

Self-published authors (who make up about two-thirds of the total romance e-book revenue on Amazon) spend much of their time marketing their work. To help maintain interest from their existing readership, some send out email newsletters with updates on new titles and include exclusive passages that can enhance the experience of a previous book. “My first book was about an actor who had to do a love scene with a woman he hated,” Leigh says. “It was never going to be in the book because that was from his girlfriend’s point of view, but I got a chance to write it as a bonus.”

And there’s more, about the trends in these novels, the business behind them, and the lives of the novelists, in a list at mental_floss.

(Image credit: Flickr user Kate Haskell)

Randy Velthuizen of Everson, Washington, used a blowtorch to get rid of some weeds in his flowerbed. He’s used the method before.

“It kills it better,” Velthuizen said of using a blowtorch to get rid of the weeds. “They don’t come back for a long time.”

But this time, it didn’t turn out so well. About a half-hour after completing his chore on Monday, he smelled smoke and called 911. Firefighters responded and were able to extinguish the fire. However, half of Velthuizen’s 120-year-old home was destroyed and the other half is smoke-damaged. Whatcom County Fire Marshal Mitch Nolze said there will be no charges against Velthuizen, as the fire was an accident.  -via Arbroath

(Unrelated image credit: Dmitry G)

Only in Russia. A farmer monkey checks out his livestock. And since it is Russia, he’s wearing a serious snowsuit.

(YouTube link)

The second time you watch this, turn on the auto-translate (under settings) and marvel at the narration that accompanies this bizarre video. I get that they're filming a viral video, but most of it is just plain bizarre. -via Metafilter

April 7 is National Beer Day! Of course, there are many ways to celebrate, and now that it’s evening, it only makes sense to pop the top and enjoy one. But while you’re doing that, you might want to raise a glass to some of the best bartenders from pop culture. Don’t tell me you can’t think of any. You’ve seen Cheers, haven’t you?

As a relief pitcher for the Red Sox, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) may have been a footnote in baseball history. But as the owner/bartender of Cheers, he was nothing short of a hero. With his suave demeanor, instant rapport with his customers, and reputation as a ladies’ man, Sam simply embodied everything cool about being a bartender.

Oh, but there are plenty of others, most of them ready to listen to your troubles or even give out some advice. Read about the top twelve pop culture bartenders at Uproxx. Link contains autoplay video.

This dog really wants to play fetch, but that’s not a child! That’s a doll! Elsa’s not going to throw that toy for you.

(YouTube link)

Must be a pretty good likeness to the dog. I wonder how many people in this house he already solicited for the game. I hope after this clip was recorded, someone took pity on the pup and threw the toy for him.  -via Tastefully Offensive