Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam is a documentary scheduled for release in 2008. It was directed by Tammy Nguyen Lee, founder of Against the Grain Productions.
"Operation Babylift" was a $2 million dollar US initiative that airlifted over 2,000 Vietnamese orphans out of a war-torn country to protect them from the impending threat of the Communist Regime. Coined by some as "one of the most humanitarian efforts in history," it was also plagued by lawsuits and political turmoil. Even with the best intentions, these adoptees grew up facing a unique set of challenges in America, including prejudice overshadowed by a controversial war and cultural identity crisis. Now, over thirty years later, this documentary takes a candid look at a significant yet untold event as seen through the eyes of the volunteers, parents, and organizations directly involved, as well as uncovers the "lost" stories of the the adoptees and who they have become as adults. This documentary is not just a a historical piece, but gives a contemporary voice and perspective on international adoption today through the eyes of the adoptees themselves.
Link (Thanks, Kris!)
The space probe Voyager I was launched 30 years ago, and is still operational. Voyager is more than 103 astronomical units away from Earth (an astronomical unit is 93 million miles, so that’s roughly 9.5 billion miles away). Signals from the probe take 13 hours to reach earth, traveling at the speed of light. A Wired slideshow features some of the better images taken from the Voyager program since 1977. This image is a composite of photos of Jupiter and its moons taken in 1979. Link
Attorney Mark Goodall creates science fiction sculptures from antique and art deco appliances and toys. This rocket ship is made from two professional hair dryers! See eight pages of spaceships, trains, weapons and more. Link -via Everlasting Blort
Topiary Art Designs Ltd. is a company in Suffolk, England that mades topiaries and frames in amazing shapes. Browse their gallery for more like this elephant family. See the FAQs to find out how they do it, and how you can try it, too! http://www.topiaryartdesigns.com/index.html -via Arbroath
Ball of Being is a hypnotically beautiful animation by Koert van Mensvoort with music by Artefact.
http://www.ballofbeing.com/ -via Grow-A-Brain
An online flashclip of a dancer without a body. Featuring atoms, planets, balls, globes, foam and molecules. It is uncertain whether we are entering a microscopic nanoworld, virtual spheres or an immeasurable universe far away.
http://www.ballofbeing.com/ -via Grow-A-Brain
Atomic Rockets has everything you might want to know about space suits, in facts and in fiction. Cool photos, too! Link -via Everlasting Blort
In the wake of Owen Wilson’s attempted suicide last week, mental_floss has a surprisingly long list of celebrities who have suicide attempts in their past, but then turned their lives around.
Some of these cases you may have heard of; others will surprise you. Link
Halle Berry – admitted to Parade magazine that, distraught over her failed marriage to baseball star David Justice, she tried to end her life by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Nadia Comaneci – while she denied it for years, the gymnastics legend was so stressed out (due to several factors, including her parents’ divorce) that she tried to end her life by drinking bleach just two years after her 1976 Olympics success.
Richard Pryor – later admitted that the fire that injured him while free-basing cocaine in June 1980 was really a suicide attempt.
Some of these cases you may have heard of; others will surprise you. Link
Morph Thing is an application where you can combine a picture of two celebrities, or yourself with someone else, or yourself with a celebrity! You must create an account to upload your own photos. For best results, you should use photos with a closed mouth facing straight forward, but I made my first project using what I had. You can use your finished photo as an avatar, or even add speech bubbles. Link -via Ursi’s Blog
Bestselling author Neil Gaiman wrote about his recent trip to China, including the experience of holding a year-old panda in his lap.
Utter, utter happiness. Better than any number of awards. Makes being a writer completely worthwhile. I suspect that world peace and harmony would come about in weeks if people just got to put pandas on their laps every few months. Honest.
Link -via Exploding Aardvark
Also read about how giraffes hide in Beijing.
If you want to see Las Vegas as a neon wonderland, you should visit in the near future.
To get the most neon experience out of your trip, see this overview of the best and brightest neon displays in Vegas. Link -via Cynical-C
... neon will be close to extinction in Vegas by 2012. With the new neon-less casinos going up and the old casinos being imploded between now and then, visitors will only be able to find these tubes in places like the Neon Museum, Downtown and other nostalgic venues.
To get the most neon experience out of your trip, see this overview of the best and brightest neon displays in Vegas. Link -via Cynical-C
Qian Hongyan, the young amputee who used a basketball in lieu of legs (featured previously on Neatorama), has joined a swim team! She hopes to compete in the 2012 Paralympics in London. Although she now has prosthetic legs, she uses the basketball during swim training to help her get in and out of the pool. Link -via Arbroath
The Pete’s Pond webcam from National Geographic is back up for its third season! The webcam is at a watering hole in the Mashatu Game Preserve in Botswana. If the animals aren’t out when you go to watch, push play or go to YouTube for a taste of last year’s webcam feed. http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamafrica/ -via Metafilter
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