Happy 150th birthday, Canada! In honor of Canada Day, we should all learn a little Canadian slang to better communicate with our neighbors to the north, just in case you're American and have been thinking of traveling to Canada. Better have your passport ready!
It’s not easy meeting people when you’re travelling. The locals have their own words to describe everyday things. If only there was some way you could crack their code!
Well, it’s easy once you get started. Next time you’re in the country, how about sitting down with a local for a proper yarn (a chat). Try ordering a double-double (a coffee with two milks and two sugars) to win their trust.
The first men to land on the moon used a Saturn V rocket. Now that rocket is a LEGO set, with 1969 pieces (because the Apollo 11 mission was in 1969). It comes with a lunar orbiter, a lunar lander, and three astronaut minifigs. The rocket can separate into three stages, just like the original. The finished model is over three feet tall! To get a sense of how big that is, check out the size of the minifigs.
Since you probably don't have that much room to stand it up, it comes with three stands so you can display it horizontally. -via Kottke
In Turkey, a lot of cats are strays that are taken care of communally, as residents and shopkeepers feed them without trying to own them. In this system, it's no wonder a cat would ask humans for help, but one cat picked the right place -almost- when she went into labor. The pregnant cat in the in Tatvan district of Bitlis province went to the door of a health clinic Wednesday and started meowing at the door.
The nurses let her in but they could not tell what exactly was wrong with the pregnant kitty.
They soon realized that despite minutes of intense labour the cat could not produce a kitten so, they called the municipality vet.
Yeah, the cat should've gone to the veterinary clinic, but she can't read the signs. The cat was taken to the Tatvan Municipality Stray Animal Neutering and Rehabilitation Center, where Dr. Sefer Durmuş performed a C-section. The cat and her four kittens are doing fine, as you can see in a picture at Daily Sabah.
Here's a post you might want to bookmark for the next few days: the complete schedule for The Twilight Zone marathon on the SyFy channel. It starts at midnight on Tuesday morning and runs through 5AM Wednesday (EDT). If you've watched The Twilight Zone before, you probably have some favorite episodes. A list at Paleofuture has the complete marathon schedule, with descriptions and a picture of each episode to jog your memory. That way, you won't come in late and miss the one you really wanted to see. There are also links for those who no longer have cable TV. What's your favorite Twilight Zone episode?
Before cable TV took off, there were three big broadcast TV networks: ABC, NBC, and CBS. But back in the earliest days of television, the DuMont network was right up there with them. DuMont network programming officially began in 1946, just after NBC and CBS, and just before ABC. DuMont was different in that it was only a wing of a larger company that made television sets, and they figured providing programming would sell more sets. So the broadcast department had no budget, no rules, no tradition of how TV was done, and therefore everything they did was experimental.
The network developed and produced a variety of shows ranging from early talk shows to inventive crime dramas to ground-breaking science fiction. There was Night Editor, an anthology program where the host, ostensibly the nighttime editor of a newspaper, would narrate and perform stories as though they were requested by viewers. There was the early crime drama The Plainsclothsman, told through the eyes (the camera literally showed viewers his POV) of the titular police officer. And there was Captain Video, often hailed as the earliest science fiction TV show, which followed the low-budget adventures of the Captain and his Video Rangers. DuMont also aired such groundbreaking programs as The Hazel Scott Show, often credited as the first network television show to be hosted by an African-American.
But DuMont went out of business after nine years, and even worse, the shows they produced were almost all lost. Read what happened to the Dumont network at Atlas Obscura. The post contains a complete Captain Video anad His Video Rangers show.
Remember Bryan Wilson, the Texas Law Hawk? He's back with an over-the-top ad featuring fireworks safety tips. Now, considering who this is, you expect to see anything but safety.
And Wilson delivers. I hope they didn't have to do too many takes for this, or he'd have to approve the final cut from a hospital bed. -via Tastefully Offensive
Sure, you'd like to watch a dozen police cars spend an hour chasing a truck through two states, but who has an hour? How about a sped-up version with "Yakety Sax" in the background? Thats' the way to watch it! The Louisville Metro Police Department chased the suspect out of town, and then through two counties in Indiana. From a news report at WLKY,
"It could have been a lot worse, there could have been wrecks. What I seen there was five cop cars tore up and down that had bumpers ripped off and everything else," said Mark Renn, who owns the property where the chase ended.
This child's ball is printed with letters of the alphabet and pictures of things that start with the letter. English Language & Usage Stack Exchange member gmauch asked what word could the image with the Y represent. It looks like an axe. Dozens of people are speculating on the answer, which leads down a rabbit hole of toy manufacturers, foreign languages, and counterfeiters. The Swedish word for axe is yxa, but connecting the ball to Sweden leads to a dead end. There are archaic terms that might work, but that makes no sense -but then, neither does using a submarine for the letter U, as in U-boat. One contributor wrote a "Who's on First"-style sequence about a Chinese knockoff company trying to design the ball. Maybe you can contribute, too. See the whole discussion here. Be aware that it is still growing.
-via Metafilter, where one commenter summed it up as "This is what the internet is for."
The number of animals who use tools keeps expanding. Another thing we once thought was for humans only is music. Sure, birds sing songs, but now we know they can play the drums, too. The male palm cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus) carefully selects a "drumstick" (a stick or seedpod or some other object), and beats out a rhythm to impress females during mating season. Australian researchers spent seven years collecting data and ended up with recordings of 131 drum sessions.
"Each of 18 male palm cockatoos, known for their shyness and elusiveness, was shown to have its own style or drumming signature," lead author Rob Heinsohn of Australian National University said in a statement.
"Some males were consistently fast, some were slow, while others loved a little flourish at the beginning."
Heinsohn said the unique rhythms could act like a signature or a call sign, identifying each bird as its beats ring through the forest.
A handshake is a simple gesture 99% of the time, but in movies where every second counts, they can be used for many purposes: to come to an understanding, establish dominance, plead for help, get a laugh, or show off some cool moves. A skilled actor can take that simple gesture and give it a world of meaning. If you didn't catch that meaning the first time around, TVOM has selected five scenes (with videos) that tell an entire story in a handshake.
See, the earth is a round disc, supported on the back of a four elephants, who are standing on a giant turtle. These guys got too close to the edge, and this may be the last photo we ever see of them.
Twin_Keel took this picture and blamed the result on a camera malfunction. The digital camera apparently changed orientation from landscape to portrait in the middle of scanning the image. Standing on a pier can totally disorient a person, so it may be the same for a camera. The result gives us an M.C. Escher or Inception vibe. This is a slightly altered version of the picture, repaired by VallleyNL. You can see the original at reddit.
In the Bible, siblings Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were good friends of Jesus. A legend in the region of Provence tells that they were exiled from the Holy Land along with many other early Christians, and Martha wound up in the south of France. Her potential new converts in the town of Nerluc asked for a miracle. Maybe Martha could save them from the Tarasque?
At that time, on the banks of the Rhone River, between Avignon and Arles, there was a fearsome monster terrorizing the region. It was called a Tarasque, and it was a horrendous creature. It had the face of a lion and razor-sharp teeth. Its body was similar to a dragon, and it had six legs ending in claws so sharp that one swipe could slice a boat in half. On its back was an armored shell, like that of a turtle, with spikes running along it, and to finish off, it had a tail that it used like a whip.
This monster killed every living creature that crossed its path: man or beast, on land or in the river. It could shoot fire from his eyes and its mouth, even its breath would burn whatever it touched. Legions of soldiers were sent out to fight it, but because of its impenetrable shell, their spears and weapons were useless.
Martha indeed conquered the Tarasque, but not by killing it. The result was that the villagers converted to Christianity, Martha eventually became a saint, and the town of Nerluc changed its name to Tarascon in honor of the beast. The Festival of the Tarasque was established in 1469, and now it is held every summer, with parades featuring a mockup of the terrifying creature. You can read the full story of Saint Martha and the Tarasque at The Curious Rambler. -Thanks, Newton!
Some men who do mundane things for fun came together and formed the Dull Men's Club. Great Big Story thought they were interesting enough to make a video about. That in itself negates the very idea of the club.
However, when dull people get together, they can turn out to be pretty extraordinary. They represent such a variety of odd hobbies that you might discover one you're interested in. Beyond that, these men (and a few women) embody the idea that taking pride and joy in simple things pays off in the long run. -via Laughing Squid
Here’s a recipe for an Internet phenomenon: Begin with a major disaster, create an improbable image that cuts to the core of the disaster, and then distribute the image to a stunned and gullible public.
INBOX HORROR
Were you one of the millions of people who was e-mailed an eerie photograph in the weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? A young man wearing a black ski coat and knit cap is standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Center with Manhattan in the background. Behind him, a jet airliner is flying straight for the building, just seconds away from crashing into the floors below. The date stamp on the bottom right corner: “9-11-01.”
By telling two conflicting stories—the blissfully ignorant tourist, and the hijacked plane that was about to take his life—the image perfectly captured the sense of security and complacency that Americans felt before the terrorists shattered it and “changed everything.” The caption on the photo drove home the point even more:
Chief meteorologist Ted Pretty of Fox5 in Las Vegas was sent out to do a human interest story on fireworks for the Fourth of July. They did it live from a fireworks stand. It did not go as planned... or did it? Select text ahead to see spoiler: the kid is his son. (via reddit)
