The Hacksmith became a walking meme for Independence Day as he walked around in a T-rex costume holding Roman candles. Don't try this at home.
WARNING: THESE VIDEOS ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. PERSONAL USE OF VIDEO CONTENT IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE HACKSMITH IS A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL WHO KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE'S DOING. EXCEPT WHEN HE DOESN'T.
Those T-rex costumes are probably just flame-retardant enough to pass the US standards for Halloween costumes. They weren't designed for pyrotechnic stunts. That said, we'll always have this video. -via Geeks Are Sexy
An exhibit called Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders is on display now through September 23 at at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. The artworks of Medieval Monsters were selected to show how the depiction of monsters communicated larger concepts. Fear of the different and the unknown could be harnessed to promote ideas such as the power of authority, the evilness of an opponent, and the punishment for sin.
“Monstrous imagery was often associated with members of socially disadvantaged groups in order to suggest that they were less than human; such a strategy rationalized repression and could even be used to instigate violence,” write curators Asa Simon Mittman and Sherry Lindquist in the accompanying catalogue. “In addition to the representation of nonnormative figures within European Christian culture, such as the mentally or physically impaired, whole groups of outsiders were also demonized. Representations of Jews and Muslims, whom Christians believed sinful for denying Christ, were made monstrous with exaggerated or animalistic features and graceless bodies, such as the caricatured representations of Jews — identifiable by their pointed hats — who torture Christ in a thirteenth-century German Book of Hours.”
The blades on a lawnmower aren't as sharp as the name would imply (although they will hurt you), and they don't use an opposing force like a knife on a cutting board or scissors, so how do they cut grass instead of just pushing it down? The answer may surprise you. Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day takes us underneath a mower with a high-speed camera so that we can understand what's going on. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Mark Hough and his wife were enjoying some margaritas in their backyard Jacuzzi last Friday, when their fun was interrupted by a bear! The Houghs hightailed it into the house, and the bear took over the good times. First he swam in the Jacuzzi.
Hough said the bear was "bobbling away having fun, playing with the chlorinator and the thermometer, and grabbing the string of the thermometer and throwing it up in the air."
He stood "about 15 feet away" and started filming.
The bear was "playful" and "kinda cute, even though he’s huge," Hough said.
Then he helped himself to Hough's abandoned margarita, climbed into a tree, and slept it off for a couple of hours. You can read the whole story, and see a couple of videos taken from a distance at Buzzfeed.
Pierre Gombaud made a video of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road by animating the still picture from the album cover. But that's just the beginning! As soon as they make it to the other side, the Fab Four enter their psychedelic period. The songs used are "Two-Finger Chord & Whistle" by Paul McCartney and "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles. -via Digg
While the members of the second Continental Congress didn't celebrate American independence with picnics or backyard grilling the way we do today, they did their share of celebrating. Smithsonian takes a look at the food that was available to the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia at the time, but the more interesting subject was what -and how much- they drank. They drank a lot of alcohol. George Washington was known for spending prodigiously on drinks for everyone, while Thomas Jefferson worked to produce better wine. Benjamin Franklin was the most famous drinker of the bunch, because he wrote about his appreciation of alcohol. Steven Grasse and Reverend Michael Alan, who produced a book on colonial drinking, tell us more.
Benjamin Franklin was especially unabashed about his love of “the cups.” Though Grasse writes that he was careful to advise temperance, he regularly enjoyed wine and what some might argue were early iterations of craft cocktails. His favorite, according to Alan, was milk punch, a three-ingredient brandy-based sip whose two non-alcoholic components–milk and lemon juice–washed and refined its third. Another Franklin foodie badge is his “Drinkers’ Dictionary,” a compendium of Colonial slang describing the state of drunkenness. Initially printed in 1737 in the Pennsylvania Gazette, its publication made Franklin one of America’s first food and drink writers.
There are already four movies in The Purge franchise -who knew? The fourth film, an origin story called The First Purge, opens nationwide today. Not that anyone will go see it for a logical explanation. Violence sells, and The Purge delivers. Now Screen Junkies delivers an Honest Trailer for the franchise as a whole.
Filmmakers know they can snag an audience by appealing to their sense of patriotism. The most notable patriotic movies that stand the test of time are pretty straightforward: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Independence Day, 1776, Rocky IV, etc. There are many other movies that faded into the mist because they were riding a trend that passed. A story that illustrates America's mood one year will appear as ridiculous propaganda when the political winds change.
In 1933’s Gabriel Over the White House, President Judson Hammond (played by Walter Huston), having been possessed by the Angel Gabriel, brings the Depression to an end by dissolving the Legislative and judicial branches of the federal government, concentrating all political power within himself. He then declares martial law, single-handedly battles the mob, puts the Army of the Unemployed to work on a public works project, and uses the threat of military force to strong arm the other nations of the world into signing a peace treaty. Made in the depths of the Great Depression and confronting many of the problems facing Americans at the time, it’s all portrayed as a very good thing.
Upon seeing it, an historian I know noted that it was the only film he could think of in which fascism, was presented not only as a cure for America’s troubles, but as a force of goodness and light working to protect the common man.
The film’s message was a popular one upon its initial release, but then that damn Hitler had to come along and ruin everybody’s dream. Warner Brothers pulled the film out of circulation for the next 70 years.
In other eras, different ideas of patriotism could appeal to different audiences at the same time. In the very politically-divided year of 1968, moviegoers could see both The Green Berets and The Legend of Billy Jack. Fifty years on, both films come off as overlong sermons about right and wrong. Den of Geek takes a look at quite a few of those movies considered patriotic in their day, but are kind of creepy when you see them now.
When the subject of the show is "modern marvels," you really don't know what to expect. Maybe this is a "potpourri" episode of the Mental Floss show Scatterbrained, where each host got to select a subject that fascinates them. Anyway, the new gives us information and trivia about skyscrapers, the history of robots, Tesla's Gigafactory, transportation myths, and the Three Gorges Dam.
Americans go a little crazy blowing stuff up to celebrate the nation's birthday. John Adams said that Independence Day should be celebrated with "bonfires and illuminations," even though he was actually referring to July 2. Our national anthem has "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air," leading us to do just that on July 4th. The majority of people who set off fireworks don't thoroughly consider the dangers, which can lead to a trip to the hospital.
According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, fireworks were implicated in 12,900 hospital visits, resulting in eight deaths in 2017. There were 800 hospitalization from firecrackers, 1,200 from sparkler injuries, 400 from Roman candles, and 300 from bottle rockets (if you needed clarification, a device called a “bottle rocket” is not perfectly safe).
Who would you have guessed is affected most? You're exactly right -teenage boys. A 2014 study in The Journal of Surgical Research came up with the data in the above graph (the raw numbers are from 2006-2010). See more statistics on fireworks injuries at Vox.
YouTuber DogScientist built a mechanical game for his dogs. Was this project just to give the dogs something to do? To make them put a little effort into feeding? Or is it a lesson in figuring out challenges? It doesn't really matter, because all those ends are accomplished as the dogs learn how the machine works, and then learn strategies to make it work better for them. And it's pretty neat to watch, too. -via Tastefully Offensive
It's a plot from a Cold War B-movie: nuclear fallout produces dangerous mutant animals that cannot be controlled because of the radioactivity of their environment. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine suffered a meltdown in 1986, leaving the surrounding area so radioactive that an exclusion zone was designated for 30 kilometers in each direction of the plant. A few residents refused to leave, but thousands of people moved away. Scientists consider the zone too dangerous to live in, although it is open to tourism and a few people work there on a strict time limit. With so few people, nature has taken over.
Numerous investigations into the effects of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout on its surroundings have returned conflicting results. While some studies have found that local wildlife suffered, others have discovered evidence that wildlife has prospered, likely because the exclusion zone — devoid of people — has "become a de facto nature reserve," study lead author Michael Byrne, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Missouri at Columbia, told Live Science.
Gray wolves have especially flourished in the exclusion zone, "with their population density within the zone estimated at up to seven times greater than in surrounding reserves," Byrne said. Given this high population density, the researchers expected that some wolves born within the zone would disperse into the surrounding landscapes, "since one area can hold only so many large predators," Byrne said.
Now, for the first time, "we have tracked a young wolf that has definitely left the exclusion zone," Byrne said.
Of 14 wolves fitted with trackers, one juvenile was found to have left the exclusion zone. But no one knows where it is now, because the tracker has malfunctioned. Nor do we know how many others may have wandered outside the zone. The Invasion of the Mutant Wolves may be coming to a theater near you as soon as someone writes the script. Read more about the wolves of Chernobyl at LiveScience. -via Fark
Since Jack Torrance froze solid at the end of The Shining, we never thought there would be a sequel. But what if Torrance's spirit stayed at the closed Overlook Hotel to complete his novel -and haunt the place? Antonio Maria Da Silva constructed a sequel to The Shining by using clips from the movie mashed up with clips from other horror films. -via Laughing Squid
This is a weird-looking cat in a field of flowers, the kind of thing that's all over the internet already. But when you translate the Russian text, the real magic appears.
The photograph is charged on the subjugation of countless worlds and the construction of the Intergalactic empire.
Click the date stamp to see the entire thread at Twitter. You'll get a kick out of translating the Russian comments, while noticing the English commenters are completely oblivious to what is going on among the Russians. Kind of like real life. -via Digg
A big part of our modern world is only possible due to the development of plastic. However, our reliance on the material is biting us in the butt. What was once a miracle of manufacturing is now filling our landfills, oceans, and our very bodies. Kurzgesagt gives us a history of plastic and a look at the various ways we've backed ourselves into a corner with what we've made. -via Geeks Are Sexy
