TastyTalk took a picture of some pigeons walking along a ledge. What he ended up with was an optical illusion straight out of a 1960s horror movie. Sure, if you look closely, you can see the edge of the concrete ledge they are standing on, and the cars on the ground about a floor below, but that edge could easily have been between lanes in a parking lot. He was accused of blurring the image intentionally to enhance the illusion, but is that so bad? We ended up with a neat picture to make us smile. -via reddit
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The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research, now in all-pdf form. Get a subscription now for only $25 a year!
Inventive yet under-publicized devices
by Marina Tsipis, Improbable Research staff
Here are two patented inventions designed to wake sleeping persons.
Stevens’s Water-Spewing Awakener
“Machine for Waking a Sleeper,” US patent 7283427, granted to James Thomas Stevens, October 16, 2007.
The primary object of the invention is to awaken a sleeper by means of a light spray of water as a harmless, tactile stimulus. Another object of the invention is to awaken a sleeper who may not respond to stimulation of his/her other senses, for example, a hearing impaired person....
Frankly, anyone who donates blood has a right to say it like royalty. It's true that a blood donation could end up saving someone's life, and there's no better feeling in the world than knowing that you had a hand in it. This comic reminds me that it's been a few months since I gave a pint, so it's about time to share the wealth, so to speak. Frankly, I prefer this method over the way Negan does it. I'm sure you do, too. This is the latest comic from Megacynics.
In the latest video of his series Things You Might Not Know, Tom Scott shows us something you most likely have never heard of -unless you pilot boats into a harbor. There are lights that use the moiré effect to steer ships into the right path, no matter where the ship is at the time the sign is spotted. And what's more fascinating was Scott's search into where they came from.
If there's one thing I am very familiar with, it's how a typo can totally screw up an internet search. Now that you've learned about them, you can tell your buddies about Inogon leading marks, and they might even believe you, but I wouldn't count on it. -via
The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) was commissioned to write a song for this year's Oscar ceremonies. They came up with an amazing tune called "Why Not Me?" about the stars and movies that weren't nominated, which were the ones we liked the most anyway. But the song was rejected because of all the star power that would have been involved in producing it. "Too expensive," they said. Sad!
But we have the demo song, with a video The Lonely Island cobbled together from the storyboards. It's a gem, and would have been a highlight of the broadcast. -via Uproxx
When you hear the phrase "cut the deck," you probably think of re-stacking playing cards after shuffling. This is better. Finnish machinist Lauri Vuohensilta of the Hydraulic Press Channel (previously) has a lot of fun smashing and destroying things. In this video, he stacks up ten decks of playing cards -thats 520 cards- and slices through them with a cutting tool attached to his powerful hydraulic press. It's quite satisfying to watch in slow-motion.
After that stunt, you'll want to stay for the cutting of lots of other stuff Vuohensilta has laying around, while he has a cutting tool attached and a high-speed camera to record it. -via Laughing Squid
The superheroes of Marvel Comics live in a variety of movies in which they all exist, whether they appear in a particular movie or not. The same goes for DC superheroes. But these are fictional universes, and not the one we live in. The same thing occurs in Star Wars, which is set in a galaxy far, far away, shared by movie characters who never meet each other. These are cinematic universes. But long before these movie franchises took over the silver screen, there was the shared universe of the Universal monster movies.
Over 80 years since it began, the Universal Monster legacy continues to stretch into a new century, spreading its celluloid immortality like a juicy Transylvanian kiss. The Universal Monsters did it first, and in many ways, their blunt directness has a special charm that is sorely lacking in the self-seriousness currently masquerading in their bloodless, caped descendents. And it really all goes back to one monster in particular: Lon Chaney Jr.’s eternally unblessed Wolf Man.
Chaney’s unforgettable plea for audience mercy and understanding in 1941’s The Wolf Man, as well as make-up artist Jack Pierce’s notoriety for the best use of Yak fur in movie history, is generally considered the marker for Universal's final “A-list” monster picture. But it also signified a change of thinking at the studio, inadvertently inviting a literary concept as abstract as "universe-building" in through the backlot's sidedoor. And with those eventual follow-up sequels, there came a new type of monster movie.
Read about how Universal tied its monsters together and created the first cinematic universe at Den of Geek.
Jordan Watson of the How To Dad series usually brings us instructional videos on how he interacts with his adorable daughters. But since he became well-known on the internet, he's come across a lot of folks who assume he is Australian. He is not. He is from New Zealand. In this video, Watson explains the differences.
Mainly, it's a different country. They don't even share a border. Yet the differences between the US and Canada are still more pronounced from our perspective. You gotta hand it to him, he's doing his best, and he's proud to be a Kiwi. -via reddit
The Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab at the University of Haifa conducted an experiment in which romantically linked heterosexual couple were recruited to study pain. It was the woman feeling pain, and the man was either holding her hand, together but not touching, or in another room. Meanwhile, their brains were being scanned.
So the hypothesis was that touch would increase brain coupling between members of the couple and the extent of coupling would be associated with the degree of pain reduction. It would also be linked to the degree of empathy in the man. And this is, in fact, just what was found.
EEG recordings of alpha waves revealed an “interbrain coupling network” in the touch + pain scenario that exceeded the brain coupling seen in any of the other scenarios. The alpha-mu band of brain waves was primarily examined because it has known roles in pain perception, empathy, and interbrain synchronization; beta waves were examined as well, since interbrain coupling has been seen there, too, but none was found in this case.
In other words, holding hands reduced the women' pain more than other scenarios. One should hope that the women were compensated appropriately for their willingness to experience pain for this experiment. The study does not jump to conclusions about cause and effect, but offers some possibilities that should be studied further. Pain alleviation could be due to the touch itself, the appreciation of the partner's empathy, a feeling of general support, or other factors. Read about the experiment at Ars Technica.
(Image credit: Flickr user ccbarr)
Traditionally, the most difficult part of producing the Academy Awards ceremony every year is keeping it on schedule, with the show ending at midnight. Winners' acceptance speeches often run too long, and cutting them off seems mean-spirited. Last night, they were expected to contain statements about representation, diversity, and sexual harassment, so host Jimmy Kimmel made keeping speeches short into a competition of sorts.
The meme-worthy moment happened after Kimmel encouraged nominees to give passionate, but short speeches at the awards show. He joked that whoever gave the shortest acceptance speech would also go home with a $17,999 jet ski which legendary actress Helen Mirren modeled onstage.
Whoever gives the shortest speech at tonight's #Oscars goes home with a brand new jet ski. Sam Rockwell has already given it a shot. https://t.co/exBwXiE7dz pic.twitter.com/2H3wzFXVbk
— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018
At the end of the broadcast, the jet ski was given to Mark Bridges, who won the Oscar for Best Costume Design (for Phantom Thread) and gave a speech of only 36 seconds. That also came with a free stay at a Days Inn in Lake Havasu, and a life vest.
Costume designer Mark Bridges wins the jet ski for the shortest speech of the evening. https://t.co/lJd891ISOk #Oscars pic.twitter.com/HQI5x8TuOa
— ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018
You'll see jokes passed around about this everywhere in the next few days. -via Mashable
Isn't this a pretty castle? You'd think it would be a well-known tourist attraction, and it is, but mainly among Eastern European fans of a certain magical children's book series.
I‘m not really sure where to start with Mozna Castle. The middle of old nowhere would probably be quite accurate, but to be more specific, this Baroque behemoth lies in old Bohemia, otherwise known as Upper Silesia, Poland. The castle has 365 rooms and 99 spires. Its historical records only date back to the 17th century but excavations in the 20th century revealed medieval burial crypts and remnants of a presumed Templar stronghold. Curious to know more about the site featured on numerous lists for “the most beautiful castles in the world“, I discovered that not only can you stay overnight in its rather peculiar brand of luxury hotel accommodation, but the historic building is also home to a real-life Hogwarts school of wizardry…
Yes, you can enroll in the Quatronum, if you can read Polish. Otherwise, you might want to step over to Messy Nessy Chic to take a tour and see what this castle looks like inside.
(Image credit: Bochnaank)
Russian artist Vera Shimunia creates small embroidered landscapes with colors that pop. The varied stitchery also give a sense of depth and a feeling of movement in places. In this one, the sunbeams and shadows put you right into the scene, even though it's only a few inches wide.
See a gallery of of Shimunia's embroidery at at Bored Panda. You can follow her art at Instagram.
The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Canoramic Bathroom Reader.
When PBS executives started planning a new science show in the early 1970s, people in the TV business were baffled. A show about…science? Were they crazy? Audiences wanted Happy Days and M*A*S*H*, not educational shows! Luckily for us, they were wrong.
IN THE BEGINNING…
In 1971 an American television producer named Michael Ambrosino was in London and happened to see some episodes of a science-based British TV show. Ambrosino worked at Boston’s legendary public television station WGBH, and he’d been there since 1956 -just a year after it went on the air.
WGBH was a pioneer in the American public television business and by 1971 had produced several groundbreaking shows, including The French Chef (1963), the cooking show hosted by Julia Child; Evening at Pops (1970); and Masterpiece Theatre (1971). In 1970 the station had become part of the brand-new, government-backed Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), with new funding that allowed WGBH to begin thinking bigger. That’s why Ambrosino was in London: The 40-year-old was taking part in a yearlong fellowship program with the BBC -the British equivalent of PBS- to learn production techniques. There he observed the making of several episodes of Horizon, an educational science-based series that, to the surprise of BBC officials, was actually pretty popular with viewers.
SUPRA-NOVA
Horizon was a groundbreaking series of its own, having proven that television shows based on scholarly subjects could make for riveting TV. First airing in 1964, and roughly twice a month since then, Horizon covered a wide array of subjects. The 1969–70 season alone featured episodes on the science of insanity, the psychological and physical effects of alcohol consumption, the history and science of bread, an examination of wolves (and werewolves), and the role of expert scientific witnesses in the courtroom. The format employed a narrator who spoke over footage taken mostly in the field, and regularly included appearances by some of the era’s leading thinkers, who spoke directly into the camera in a loose, informal setting. It was nothing like a dull classroom session -and audiences liked it.
Charles Barkley hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend, and they had this Star Wars skit filmed and ready to go, but it was cut for time. It's supposed to be an outside-of-the-canon story featuring the "Mos Eisley Five" (who all look strangely familiar) negotiating for the release of a captured rebel pilot.
But the action comes to a standstill when Barkley points out a feature of most of the Star Wars movies that didn't make much sense. As if we have a shortage of those!
You know what they say, you can have the job done quickly, or cheaply, or well, but never all three. You'll be lucky if you can get two of those, so think carefully about the outcome you want most. And woe unto the employee who delivers good work quickly, because he's not only raising the expectations of his future work, he's also ruining standards for everyone else. In this case, he knows a lucky break can set you up for heartache later, because you can't count on lightning striking twice. Just ask any band that's known as a one-hit wonder. That's not quite comparable to office work, but you get the idea. This is the latest comic from Jeff Lofvers at Don't Hit Save.
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