Musical comedian Bill Bailey demonstrates the difference between major keys and minor keys and how important they are to the songs we know and love. "Für Elise" loses all its emotion when transposed to a major key, and "The Star Spangled Banner" becomes totally foreign in a minor key. Besides all that, this clip from his routine at the Prince's Trust Gala last fall is really funny, too. -via Laughing Squid
Also: Check out Bailey's video Dueling Sitars.
Prince George of Wales, who later became King George IV, fell in love with Maria Anne Fitzherbert. The couple could not officially marry because she was a Catholic. But he begged for her hand anyway, and in 1785 sent her a tiny painting of his own eye. She later gave him a portrait of her own eye, set into a locket. The small gifts were perfect to carry around and remind each of the lover they were separated from. This was the beginning of "lover's eye jewelry," a trend that lasted until the advent of photography fifty years later.
As objects, lover’s eyes are mesmerizing—and bizarre. Part-portrait, part-jewel, they resist easy categorization. They’re also steeped in mystery: In most cases, both the subject whose eye was depicted and the artist who painted it are unknown. What’s more, until the early 2000s, little had been written about the objects’ history and significance, though they have been part of the collections of museums like the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Big questions loomed: What sparked their popularity? Why had they faded so quickly from use? And why portray a single eye, as opposed to a whole portrait?
Well, we know the power of eye contact. Read about lover's eye jewelry and see some beautiful examples at Artsy. -via Everlasting Blort
In this short film from Dreamworks TV, a bilby goes about his business of trying to survive in the Australian Outback. It's a rough life, so when he encounters an abandoned baby bird, his protective instincts come into play. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The 2000 film Unbreakable has Bruce Willis as some kind of comic book superhero who doesn't wear a costume. And since it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie, it has an unexpected twist at the end ...or does it? I still haven't seen Unbreakable, and after watching this Honest Trailer, I realize that I still don't know what it's about.
Looking into someone's eyes has a profound effect on humans. It's part of a technique that will make people fall in love, and even a picture of eyes looking at you will deter theft. What is it about eye contact that affects us so? Science is on the case.
For instance, a recurring finding is that gazing eyes grab and hold our attention, making us less aware of what else is going on around us (that ‘fading to grey’ that I mentioned earlier). Also, meeting someone’s gaze almost immediately engages a raft of brain processes, as we make sense of the fact that we are dealing with the mind of another person who is currently looking at us. In consequence, we become more conscious of that other person’s agency, that they have a mind and perspective of their own – and, in turn, this makes us more self-conscious.
You may have noticed these effects particularly strongly if you’ve ever held the intense gaze of a monkey or ape at a zoo: it is almost impossible not to be overcome by the profound sensation that they are a conscious being judging and scrutinising you. In fact, even looking at a portrait painting that appears to be making eye contact has been shown to trigger a swathe of brain activity related to social cognition – that is, in regions involved in thinking about ourselves and others.
Read about the experiments that led to these conclusions at BBC Future. -via Digg
If you've ever enjoyed fiction set in England, Scotland, or Wales, you can now look up the location on a map! Londonist has compiled settings from hundreds of books, TV shows, and movies to create Fake Britain. You'll find places from Shakespearean plays and Thomas the Tank engine, by authors from Charles Dickens to JK Rowling.
The vast majority of entries are well defined geographically. Some — such as Beanotown and Blackadder's Dunny on the Wold — are a little more nebulous, but we've added them for fun. Hogwarts is an unmappable location (unless it's a Marauder's Map you're looking at), but we've had a go anyway.
You can click and expand the map greatly here, and marvel at how many places you haven't yet read about. Find out where these fictional places come from in the alphabetical index. The index will help you find your favorites, and maybe a suggestion for what to read next. -via Metafilter
Meet Albert, known as Pompous Albert on Instagram. Albert was named after Albert Einstein, possibly because he has the physicist's wayward hair. Albert is of the Selkirk rex breed (obvious from the curly fur), and has a natural resting bitch face that gives him a constant expression of disapproval or distrust, so of course he became an internet star. His description reads:
Rejected show cat, but I'll show them
Despite his look, Albert is a happy cat. Here's proof. He enjoys being groomed with a vacuum cleaner and ignoring humans. See more of Albert at his Instagram gallery. -via reddit
In the US, apple cider is sold in the produce section of grocery stores, and making cider is a children's activity at fall festivals. Everywhere else, cider is an adult drink that contains 4-6% alcohol, what Americans would call "hard cider." Europeans call American cider "apple juice." Why the difference? The explanation requires a history of both American drinking habits and apple cultivation. And a little chemistry.
In the American colonial era, there was only one form of apple cider: cyder. This type of beverage, a fermented product usually between 4-6% ABV, was brought onto the continent by colonists in the 17th century. Unlike barley and grapes, apples grew in New England with ease. New England residents in the 18th century consumed cider generously: an estimated 15 to 54 gallons per year.
Cyder was the most commonly produced drink in colonial America—the beverage of choice for most Americans at a time when imbibing water was questionable. Not only was it easy to obtain and affordable to produce, but the fermentation process guaranteed it would be free from disease-causing pathogens, writes Amy Stewart in The Drunken Botanist. Even as Puritans denounced distilled spirits, cider and other low-alcohol products remained in good repute.
Changes came about from immigration, the temperance movement, and the Industrial Revolution. Read why American cider is different at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Mike Faherty / Cider apple pressing at Open Day, New Forest Cider 2008 /
There's lots of ugliness in the world right now, so I think it's important to share these photos of what happened when my friend Marvin called me & said: "I'm getting married & we can only invite 100 people. You didn't make the cut. But you can come if you come as a drunk clown." pic.twitter.com/IaEXvxBEgc
— Erik Patterson (@erikpatterson) October 17, 2018
Erik Patterson got an unusual wedding invitation, or maybe we should just call it a request. He was welcome to come if he came as a drunk clown.
Marvin had a vision of a drunk clown crashing his wedding. It's all he ever wanted. Laura was on board. That's the kind of perfect-for-each-other weirdos they are.
Patterson was happy to oblige. He attended the ceremony as a well-dressed guest, but afterward quickly shaved and changed into a colorful clown costume. He also downed a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. He said he's a method actor.
(7) I barged in, marched over to Laura's mom, grabbed her wine, downed it, then handed the empty glass back to her. CONFUSION. MILD CHAOS.
— Erik Patterson (@erikpatterson) October 17, 2018
WHO IS THIS DRUNK CLOWN? pic.twitter.com/L59NUwIfX9
Most of the guests enjoyed his antics, but the bride's father called security. It had to be revealed that the clown was part of the official wedding party. The operative word being "party." A good time was had by all. You can read the whole story and see plenty of pictures at ThreadReader. You can read the responses in the original Twitter thread. -via Metafilter
The 35th annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Heilongjiang province, China, opened over the weekend, and will continue through February. The festival features an illuminated city made of ice, an art expo with a centerpiece sculpture more than 33 meters high, and a herd of snowman. A gallery of images of this year's festival at the Atlantic also includes a glimpse of how the sculptures are made.
When Dustin Marshall got ready to pop the question to his girlfriend Lindsey, he went all out. He got a tattoo of their cat Pinky inked on his butt with the caption "Will you marry meow?" Then he staged an elaborate ruse to reveal the tat to her... in front of a group of friends.
Dustin explained the elaborate proposal also involved a game of pool at his mate's, which would be a sure-fire way of getting his backside out for all to see, including bride-to-be Lindsey.
"To reveal my bum tattoo, I had to on purpose get seven-balled at pool in my neighbours' bar in their back garden," he said.
"If you get seven-balled then the pants come down. I'm a very good pool player so you can imagine the shock amongst the regulars that know me.
"Down came my pants, everyone cheered and Lindsey, my fiancé put her face right in there so she could read the question. This gave my friend Danny time to give me the ring he had stashed and I presented to her as she came up from reading my bum."
Fortunately, Lindsey said yes. And now the couple has a permanent reminder of the event. See more pictures of the happy couple, the tattoo, and even Pinky the cat at LADbible. -via Geekologie
(Image credit: LADbible)
Early in his tenure as the commander of the Continental Army, George Washington was nearly the victim of an assassination. When the plot was unearthed, Thomas Hickey, one of Washington's personal guards, was convicted of mutiny and sedition. Washington staged his execution in front of 20,000 people in New York in order to send a message about his power. What Washington did not reveal was that Hickey was only one of a gang of plotters, and the real message was for the rest of them, and any other soldier who considered mutiny. That such a plan was necessary underscores the difficulties Washington had forming an army.
Americans love to tell the story that we were this ragtag group who saw a common goal, and we all got together, and we all won the day. It just wasn't that simple. We were an actual mess. One observer said [the colonials] were, “the most wretchedly clothed, and as dirty a set of mortals as ever disgraced the name of a soldier.”
We weren’t soldiers at all. We were farmers and common laborers, ex-criminals, beggars, some suspiciously old, some suspiciously young. We were carrying pitchforks and shovels as weapons, other people have no weapons at all. We're not one united fighting force. We're wearing uniforms from the local militias from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey. A majority are wearing dirty work shirts and tattered pants.
Why are people switching sides? Because we were getting creamed. Because we may lose. It's cold. We have no weapons. It's a disaster. When you have a moment where you think we're going to lose, that's the first moment where people say, “Maybe I should switch sides.”
The extent of the assassination plot has been more or less hidden since then. The details are in Brad Meltzer's book The First Conspiracy. An interview with Meltzer at Smithsonian doesn't tell us much about the conspiracy itself, but it does explore the early days of Washington's command and the process he used to bind the army together in loyalty to both their leader and their goal of freeing America from the British.
Denmark has preschools for 3- to 6-year-olds that take place almost entirely outdoors, no matter the weather. Kids in these "forest kindergartens" are always supervised, but they have the freedom to explore, to play, to socialize. Along the way, they learn how to interact with the environment and each other. While they aren't yet learning to read, they are learning about biology, physics, botany, engineering, and meteorology. And they learn to have confidence in their own abilities. -via TYWKIWDBI
In 1933, doctors discovered that a chemical known as 2,4-Dinitrophenol could raise the body's metabolism. It immediately hit the market as a diet aid. And it worked! Diet supplements containing DNP became all the rage.
DNP wasn’t a new substance. It had been used in pesticides, preservatives, and explosives for years. Highly flammable, it has eighty-one percent of the explosive strength of TNT, and it tastes like sulphur. It was its explosive properties that made it so effective for weight loss. Instead of converting food to fat or energy, DNP turns it into heat, “setting tiny internal fires” that can raise the body’s temperature high enough to cause brain damage and essentially cooking people from the inside out.
What could possibly go wrong?
At the time, medicine was regulated, but since obesity was not considered a medical condition, diet aids were not. Soon, varied and horrific symptoms showed up in DNP users. Some were permanently disabled, and some died. Read the story of DNP at Dirty, Sexy History. -via Strange Company
And now, an incomplete catalogue of things Oscar, pictured, has eaten in the last year or so: pic.twitter.com/3AvbUMIbfY
— Jordan Ginsberg (@jordanginsberg) December 23, 2018
Jordan Ginsberg has a dog named Oscar. Oscar will eat anything, including soap, cactus, a passport, and kitchen shears. Ginsburg has taken pictures of many of those things, with Oscar's teeth marks. But Oscar has a particular taste for books, which caused a real problem.
But, also, just… a lot, generally: pic.twitter.com/rJYenr2tBo
— Jordan Ginsberg (@jordanginsberg) December 23, 2018
In response, Ginsburg actually put chicken wire across the front of his book case! You'll get a kick out of Oscar and his diet. Ginsburg says he's "remarkably hard to kill." The replies contain many other stories of dogs who eat anything and everything and managed to survive. You can read all of it in the Twitter thread. -via Everlasting Blort
