When Rou (the male on the right) met Minou (the female on the left), they hit it off right away. Their rhyming names are completely coincidental. Unfortunately, theirs was only a fling, as they have different owners. But watch and see this picture from redditor RobertKrug become a meme. Link
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When Rou (the male on the right) met Minou (the female on the left), they hit it off right away. Their rhyming names are completely coincidental. Unfortunately, theirs was only a fling, as they have different owners. But watch and see this picture from redditor RobertKrug become a meme. Link
Just like skating, except instead of balance and control, you have those uncomfortable supports for your little foot-unicycles. It's no wonder this never caught on! -via The Daily What
We rarely see these 15 species of strange deep-sea fish, and even more rarely get to see their insides. They look scary, but most are only dangerous to other creatures that live in the ocean depths. Shown here is the inner workings of the Pelican Eel, also known as the Umbrellamouth Gulper, which isn't an eel at all. The fish's jaws (at the bottom) are bigger than the rest of its body, and it can swallow fish larger than itself. See 15 such weird creatures at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Sandra J. Raredon, NMNH, Division of Fishes)
Putting a coin in a bottle is so much more impressive when you do it with a forklift! I was equally impressed with the way he picked the coin up in the first place. -via I Am Bored
Ben Schmidt took data from ship's logs to make a visualization of ocean traffic between 1750 and 1850. It is not meant to be comprehensive, as logs from many nations are not represented, and traffic on the Pacific is lost due to the orientation of the globe. But it's still an interesting way to see how world exploration and trade progressed through the period. Schmidt also made another video showing just one year of traffic in more detail. See it and read about how this project was done at Sapping Attention. Link -via Metafilter
Can you just plop a community of 70,000 residents onto 70,000 acres of land and keep it a secret? Sort of. People in the area knew that the government was doing something classified at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but since there was a war on, no one questioned the need for secrecy.
My grandfather worked at the Oak Ridge facility during the war, and when he went home to the farm, he never discussed anything work-related with his family. Read more about how Oak Ridge was born at A Continuous Lean. Link -via Metafilter
In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government acquired 70,000 acres of land in Eastern Tennessee and established a secret town called Oak Ridge. The name chosen to keep outside speculation to a minimum, because Oak Ridge served a vital role for the development of the atomic bomb. The massive complex of massive factories, administrative buildings and every other place a normal town needs to function, was developed for the sole purpose of separating uranium for the Manhattan Project. The completely planned community was designed by the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and had a population of more than 70,000 people. Due to the sensitive nature of the work at Oak Ridge, the entire town was fenced in with armed guards and the entire place — much like the Manhattan Project in general — was a secret of the highest concern.
My grandfather worked at the Oak Ridge facility during the war, and when he went home to the farm, he never discussed anything work-related with his family. Read more about how Oak Ridge was born at A Continuous Lean. Link -via Metafilter
Baker LavenderLily16 made this cake for her 4-year-old son's birthday party. According to her comments at reddit, she baked the blue layer then cut out the middle of it. She then replaced it with the inner parts of thinner red and white layers. She also made her own fondant with marshmallows and powdered sugar! Link
More pictures here.
Diane Pieknik was 65 years old when she decided she wanted to play hockey, which she had never done before. You go, girl! -via the Presurfer
This footage was taken this past Wednesday on the road to Tegel airport in Berlin. At first I wondered why someone on the bus was playing bagpipes, then it became apparent that the music was added afterward. There is no other information at the YouTube page; we can hope the video was trimmed because the deer left the roadway in bright light.
The ocean liner Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, 100 years ago today. You've noticed the internet seems to be obsessed with this historic event, and Neatorama is no exception. In an extensive article at The New Yorker, we see how the story of the Titanic became entrenched in 20th-century culture, and several reasons are given for its extraordinary popularity. One is that the disaster happened to occur at the dawn of mass communication.
The article also examines themes of class and privilege, hubris, and heroism.
The story of the Titanic had almost every dramatic angle possible for a great book or film, which is why so many books (both fiction and non-fiction), songs, poems, and movies sprang from the real-life disaster. You may find some titles you'll want to read or watch in the article at The New Yorker. Link
Further reading on the Titanic at Neatorama
Masabumi Hosono: The Man Condemned for Surviving The Titanic
The Titanic Today
The Laroche Family on the Titanic
And many more posts on the Titanic.
The Titanic was one of the first ships in history to issue an SOS. (“Send S.O.S.,” the twenty-two-year-old Harold Bride, the Titanic’s junior wireless operator, who survived, told the twenty-five-year-old Jack Phillips, the senior officer, who died. “It’s the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it.”) And the sinking was among the first global news stories to be reported, thanks to wireless radio, more or less simultaneously with the events. One of the early headlines, which appeared as the rescue ship carried survivors to New York—“WATCHERS ANGERED BY CARPATHIA’S SILENCE”—suggests how fast we became accustomed to an accelerating news cycle. The book winningly portrays the wireless boys of a hundred years ago as the computer geeks of their day, from their extreme youth to their strikingly familiar lingo. “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH U?,” came one response to the Titanic’s distress call.
The article also examines themes of class and privilege, hubris, and heroism.
If you were writing a morality play about class privilege, you couldn’t do better than to dream up a glamorous ship of fools and load it with everyone from the A-list to immigrants coming to America for a better life. The class issue is one major reason the Titanic disaster has always been so ripe for dramatization. And yet the way we tell the story reveals more about us than it does about what happened. If the indignant depictions of the class system in so many Titanic dramas coexist uneasily with their adoring depictions of upper-crust privilege, that, too, is part of the appeal: it allows us to demonstrate our liberalism even as we indulge our consumerism.
The story of the Titanic had almost every dramatic angle possible for a great book or film, which is why so many books (both fiction and non-fiction), songs, poems, and movies sprang from the real-life disaster. You may find some titles you'll want to read or watch in the article at The New Yorker. Link
Further reading on the Titanic at Neatorama
Masabumi Hosono: The Man Condemned for Surviving The Titanic
The Titanic Today
The Laroche Family on the Titanic
And many more posts on the Titanic.
Imagine sitting on a beach and an adorable baby sea lion comes right up to you! This happened at Gardner Bay, in the Galapagos Islands. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Yes, really. The Hubble telescope captured the images last November, but as with all things astronomical, the data had to be properly crunched and an analysis made before the news is released to the public. The two aurorae observed were as large as the Earth, although they look small against the gas giant Uranus. Read all about them at National Geographic News. Link
(Image credit: Laurent Lamy)
Dr. Phil Plait has them all figured out. But you know, this could be made into a flowchart, with people being born flowing into the right circle, a trickle of people flowing from the right to the left, and because of the death rate, there would be outflow from both circles. Read plenty more geeky jokes in the comments of the post at Bad Astronomy. Link
In the video for Sir Paul McCartney's new song "My Valentine," Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp present the lyrics in American Sign Language (more or less). Read more about it at The Huffinton Post. Link -via Metafilter
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