You have to wonder why software even bothers with a progress bar if it's not going to give you any useful information. You're thinking about it wrong. The purpose of the progress bar is NOT to give the user any useful information. It's to keep the user from rebooting or losing their temper, which is helpful to the software provider. Consumers will put up with a lot of things, if they are dressed to look as if they are good for us. This is the latest from Tree Lobsters.
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Shasta is a smart dog. She's figured out how to turn that annoying Roomba off! Yeah, she is scolded for it, but it doesn't take long for the aggravation to overtake her desire to obey her woman.
Shasta has the right idea. Are Roombas really that loud? I'd much rather spend five minutes with a broom than listen to that. -via Tastefully Offensive
Get ready for a trivia list that covers all kinds of characters, from the early history of Disney to the current lineup of Princesses! Trivia like this could fill books (and it does), but here it comes in bite-size pieces that you'll find easy to digest.
There are people who would argue about Mulan, a story based on a Chinese legend that may or may not have been an actual person. But we have go with what we know for sure. Check out the rest of the Disney character trivia list at TVOM.
Zach Anner (previously at Neatorama) was asked to come up with a list of 10 things people should know about cerebral palsy. It wasn't easy, but he managed to come up with ten of his funny stories that overlay real information about CP. For example, I know how CP works, but I had no idea people in wheelchairs get patted on the head!
The TV show he is promoting, Speechless, is about a family with three children, one of whom has cerebral palsy (and is played by an actor with cerebral palsy). Anner talks more about the show here. -via reddit
British artist Anna Rie makes beautiful stained glass works depicting pastoral landscapes, using a classic technique you may have never heard of. She tells us a little about her work.
In my work I use the same methods as stained glass painters of the early 14th century. Shades of black Glass Painter’s Stain are applied to coloured glass creating another dimension by controlling the amount of light coming through the glass – almost painting with light. This painted work is then kiln fired before all the glass fragments are fitted together. The quantity of paint allows enough light through the glass to cast refracted pools of colour, a quality I consider essential for the vitality of stained glass.
See more of Rie's stained glass at her gallery. -via Everlasting Blort
We all make mistakes. I make mistakes in my work every day, as many of you know. Some jobs demand more precisions than others, and some have expensive or dangerous risks. If you are working with space ships or military campaigns, a tiny mistake could have large consequences. It's happened.
Here we have ten true stories of mistakes that had far-ranging consequences. In other words, "oops!" -via Geeks Are Sexy
The following article is from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into California.
Got a minute? In L.A., you can use it for a trip back in time.
A HEAVENLY RIDE
On the morning of December 31, 1901, a new train opened for business in downtown Los Angeles. There were crowds and many speeches about progress, and Mayor Meredith Snyder took one of the first rides. Wealthy women who lived in the Victorian mansions atop Bunker Hill served free punch to the passengers. The new railroad’s official name was the Los Angeles Incline Railway, but a nearby metal archway already contained the words, “Angels Flight,” so that’s what everyone called it. Passengers paid a penny for a one-way ride that lasted just 50 seconds. Advertised as “The Shortest Railway in the World,” Angels Flight’s track was only 315 feet long. It wasn’t a typical train, either, and didn’t have an engine car, boxcars, or a caboose—there were only two small, 32-passenger trams.
The cars were named Olivet and Sinai (for two mountains in the Bible). They traveled on an incline between Hill and Olive Streets that was so steep their floors and seats had to be built on different levels like stairs, to keep people from sliding off their benches. Painted white with black trim, Olivet and Sinai worked in tandem: one car carried passengers up from the corner of Third and Hill to Olive, while the other car was heading down.
Some people complained that the ceremonies in 1901 made too much fuss over a train that just traveled a couple of blocks. But Angels Flight went on to carry more passengers per mile than any other railway in the world. More than 100 million people traveled on its tracks in the first 50 years.
THAT MAN WITH A PLAN
Fine porcelain originated in China (that's why it's called china), and in the 17th century, Europe couldn't get enough of it. French potters would have loved to get in on that business, but they did not know how to produce porcelain. The Chinese weren't about to give away their secret techniques. The Jesuits sent missionaries to win souls around the world, and they were also into gathering knowledge from every culture they visited. So they assigned Francois Xavier d’Entrecolles to figure out how porcelain was made when he was sent as a missionary to China. D’Entrecolles had to learn the language, gain the trust of the Chinese, and then learn how to make porcelain. It took him ten years. Then he set it all down in a long letter.
But by the end of the letter, he has taught his interlocutor exactly what porcelain is made of, how those materials are mixed, separated, and purified, and how the resulting clay is rolled, kneaded, moulded, and fired. He has gone over special cases (extra-large pieces; glaze preparation; crackling) and speculated about how to reconstruct various techniques that the Chinese artisans considered “lost secrets,” including kia-tsim—a glazing technique in which illustrations appear on a bowl only when it’s full of water.
A modern reader comes away with a good understanding of the porcelain-making process, as well as an appreciation for the creativity on display. D’Entrecolles tells of porcelain ducks and turtles that float on water, and realistic porcelain cats with eyes that glow when candles are put inside. (Those were meant to scare rats.)
Did this satisfy his superiors? No, ten years of work on one project wasn't enough for them. Read the story of D’Entrecolles and his industrial spying at Atlas Obscura.
Disney's new themed area Pandora-The World of Avatar has an animatronic Na'vi (previously at Neatorama). You can see the technology has come a long way since the Hall of Presidents was launched. Check out this Shaman, recorded during a publicity preview run.
The the Na’vi River Journey is one of two new Avatar-themed rides. The Shaman of Songs you see here is the climax, and the only animatronic. From Inside the Magic:
Up to this point in the attraction, all of the creatures you have encountered (including the Na’vi) have actually been presented on layers of screens that are positioned inside beautiful sets. The sights are impressive, but they are projections nonetheless. In the attraction’s final scene, though, we are treated to a rather climatic encounter. Sitting and singing, the Shaman of Songs is the most fantastic animatronic on Walt Disney World property to date.
The ride officially opens to the public May 27. -via Gizmodo
Twitter user Matt Alt posted this image taken backstage at Ryōgoku Kokugikan, a sporting arena used for sumo wrestling in Tokyo. What's the difference? The wheelchair on the left is standard issue; the wheelchair on the right is sized for a sumo wrestler. It's no doubt built pretty sturdily, too. -Thanks, John Farrier!
In 2014, Wes Modes and friends built a floating house, a #shantyboat made of reclaimed junk, and set off down the river. The purpose was to meet the folks who live and work along the riverbank and tell their stories in photos and interviews. The crew has been down the Mississippi and the Tennessee rivers in past summers, and plan to ride the Sacramento River this year. What they've found so far is in a multimedia project called A Secret History of American River People. Read about Modes' project at Laughing Squid and see teh results of the project so far at A Secret History of American River People.
(Image credit: Flickr user Wes Modes by Kai Dalgleish)
People fall into habits, which become customs, and then eventually become unwritten rules. Some drive you crazy, while others make perfect sense. Above you see an example of "driving without thinking." You try to pass, and the other driver thinks, "Oh! I didn't realize I was going nine miles under the speed limit!" But they still don't think of waiting for the faster car to pass first. That would make too much sense. You've probably done that at one time or another, although you may not have been aware of it at the time.
As silly as it may seem, there's good reason to always face the door when riding on an elevator. How else are you going to press the button or know what floor the elevator is stopping on? There are 15 other unwritten rules, both senseless and perfectly understandable, at Cracked.
This guy is going places -and we can clearly see where. But I suppose inventing the wheel would take a lot out of you. Our cavemen ancestors were truly geniuses. This is the latest from John McNamee at Pie Comic.
Dogs love sticks, for some reason. This dog found what he considers the perfect stick, and he won't settle for any less.
The problem is that the stick is still attached to the tree, and is not inclined to let go. Neither is the dog. He even manages to bark at the stick while hanging by his teeth! -via Tastefully Offensive
In World War I, the number of wounded soldiers was overwhelming for every participating army. Poor conditions and the difficulty of evacuation meant that many wounds became septic. There just weren't enough bandages, and nothing could be kept sterile. So battlefront doctors had to get creative. They began to dress wounds with peat moss! Peat, or sphagnum moss, was not only plentiful, but it was super-absorbent: the moss can hold up to 22 times its weight in liquid.
Sphagnum moss also has antiseptic properties. The plant’s cell walls are composed of special sugar molecules that “create an electrochemical halo around all of the cells, and the cell walls end up being negatively charged,” Kimmerer says. “Those negative charges mean that positively charged nutrient ions [like potassium, sodium and calcium] are going to be attracted to the sphagnum.” As the moss soaks up all the negatively charged nutrients in the soil, it releases positively charged ions (protons) that make the environment around it acidic.
For bogs, the acidity has remarkable preservative effects—think bog bodies—and keeps the environment limited to highly specialized species that can tolerate such harsh environments. For wounded humans, the result is that sphagnum bandages produce sterile environments by keeping the pH level around the wound low, and inhibiting the growth of bacteria.
Moss worked so well that volunteers back home held drives to gather and pack it for medical use. Read more about the wartime medical use of sphagnum moss at Smithsonian.
Email This Post to a Friend