Jason Craig caught a cougar on a camera trap on a cold January morning. Listen as he sings you the song of his people. Or cats.
Not as intimidating as you expected? You might laugh, but next time you are in the wilderness and hear what you think is a bird, you may be in the sights of an American apex predator. -via Digg
San Francisco has a rich history, and has been famous for many things: the Gold Rush, the 1906 earthquake, and the 1967 "Summer of Love" which is being celebrated this year for its 50th anniversary. Now the city is famous for its unaffordable housing costs. However, to reveal San Francisco's longest-running claim to fame, we go back ten years before the hippie invasion, to 1957, when Herb Caen’s Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area was published. The tourist guide has plenty to say about the city and recommendations for what to do when you visit.
…Caen invites tourists to spend an evening at Finocchios, “the far-famed or ill-famed place—depending on your point of view—where ‘female impersonators’ go through their paces, alarmingly disguised in garish wigs, overflowing gowns, and comic-opera false bosoms, all designed to make your visiting maiden aunt from Anamosa, Ia., gasp in delighted disbelief (‘You mean they’re actually men?’). Some of the talent is quite good, and the productions show more imagination than you might expect. Finocchio, incidentally, means ‘fairy’ in Italian.”
And with that, Herb Caen introduces his readers to San Francisco’s nascent LGBTQ community, which, far more than the hippies, would come to define their city. After all, the struggle for civil rights has always been more compelling than the mere desire to let one’s freak flag fly, however much fun that might be.
Read the entire article at Collectors Weekly.
I was talking to someone and didn't believe her when she told me her name.
— Andre Golo (@AndreGoLow) April 9, 2017
Dear Internet, please don't break. pic.twitter.com/vxsTZwwvZg
When you name a child, you put a lot of effort into making sure it is pleasant, meaningful, and won't cause problems down the road. But you can't predict the future, or what names may become famous due to events that you cannot foresee. And so it was when Mr. and Mrs. Spjut named their daughter Isis Harambe some years ago. Isis Harambe Spjut came by her name honestly.
“I’m not the type of person to do something for attention,” Spjut insists, shooting down accusations that she may have faked her own name. “I don’t know if they believe me, but who changes their name? People who go through that much effort just to get attention, I’m not down with that.”
When Spjut was born in 1998, a name like Isis Harambe—obscure as it may be—wouldn’t make anyone think twice. And her parents had reasons for choosing it.
“My parents, when I was born, they were both Rastafarians,” she said, saying why the defied convention. “So my mom kinda picked my first name, and ‘Isis’ was a Bob Dylan song, along with the Egyptian goddess, and then Harambe means ‘Harmony’ in Swahili, and my Dad picked my middle name.”
It was only in high school that her first name was connected to the terrorist group, and then last year the gorilla named Harambe became an internet meme when he was shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into the gorilla enclosure. If her name is that prescient, we might want to keep an eye on anyone named Spjut. Hear more from Isis Harambe at The Daily Dot.
Time for some clowning around! John Green is back with another episode of the mental_floss List Show! This one addresses our constant need for comic relief, which led to an infestation of clowns. He has the history of clowns, the different kinds of clowns, and how familiar clown tropes were developed. Now if he can just explain why clowns are so terrifying, we'd all be smarter.
In 1951, the U.S. government built the country's first breeder reactor, an experiment to show the country that nuclear power could be used for a peaceful purpose- generating electricity. And it worked, as far as generating power goes, but it was an experiment. As such, the scientists who operated Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 in Idaho fiddled with the equipment in 1955 to figure out why the reactor did not respond to coolant flow "in the most stable way." That led to a meltdown of the nuclear core, but the effects were not what we'd expect today after seeing all those movies. Engineer Ray Haroldsen was in his office, and did not know about the meltdown until a technician told him.
Since the reactor was nearing the end of its useful life, the scientists decided to conduct an experiment that was riskier than they’d normally have tolerated. They decided to turn the coolant off while slowly turning the power up, in the hopes of determining what made the reactor act the way it did. They knew there was a risk the core could be destroyed, but they planned to proceed slowly and back off at the first sign of danger.
The experiment ended more quickly than they thought it would. The power produced by the reactor started rising and rapidly went off the scales. Haroldsen’s boss yelled to the technician to shut the reactor down.
Haroldsen tells the story of what happened that day, and the fallout (so to speak), in a video at Atlas Obscura.
His name is General, and he's a Great Pyrenees. He escaped from the Aquia-Garrisonville Animal Hospital in Stafford, Virginia, Monday morning by opening the latch to his kennel and then three other doors to get outside! His movements were caught on surveillance cameras.
It's a good thing General wasn't in need of medical care; he was being boarded while his family was out of town. The dog was found later that day in a yard near the animal hospital. His owner, Travis Campbell, was surprised at the scope of the caper, but knew General was a smart dog. -via Digg
(Image credit: Travis Campbell)
It hardly seems possible that the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction is 23 years old. The complicated and sometimes incomprehensible film still captures the imagination of its fans old and new. And there's always something new to learn about the movie.
See quite a few more bits of trivia about Pulp Fiction at TVOM.
They're trying to pull a tree stump out of the ground with an SUV. They should have tried digging, even a little bit, because that tree has been there since way before any of these guys were born. It's not giving up easily. Okay, spend the first 30 seconds of the video trying to imagine what will happen. And then be surprised. -via Jalopnik
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
The Beatles' first record "Love Me Do" was released on October 5, 1962. It was a moderate success, peaking at #17 on the national music charts. Now, the band needed a good, strong follow-up song. "Please Please Me" was written entirely by John Lennon.
Early on in their co-writing careers, John and Paul had decided that every song, even if only written individually, would be officially credited to Lennon-McCartney. And so it was with "Please Please Me." Interestingly, on the song's original release in England, on the Beatles' first album, it was credited as a "McCartney-Lennon" composition. After this, every co-written or individually-written song by John and Paul was credited to the now-familiar "Lennon-McCartney".
Written at his childhood home at 251 Menlove Avenue in Liverpool (his aunt Mimi's home), John was to vividly remember composing the number. He remembered "The pink eiderdown over the bed, sitting in one of the bedrooms."
John said he had just heard a Roy Orbison song "Only the Lonely," which influenced him to write the song as a slow-paced ballad. He was also strongly influenced by a 1932 Bing Crosby song called "Please." In it, Crosby sings the line "please lend a little ear to my pleas." A natural wordsmith, John was always fascinated by this double use of the word "please."
You knew it was coming, and now it's here. Screen Junkies turns a jaundiced eye toward the latest film of the Star Wars universe, even though it's not quite an episode in the saga. Rogue One is also not quite a prequel, because even though it occurs before another well-known episode, the word "prequel" has an extra meaning when combined with the words "Star Wars."
Also, the word "rogue" manages to be mangled when people type in a hurry. Or is it autocorrect gone rogue? -via Uproxx
Wanna see some happy cows? Then you're in for a real treat! "Koeiendans" is a Dutch term meaning "cow dance." Why are these cows so happy? They've been inside their nice warm stalls in the Netherlands for five months, which is good when it's cold outside, but gets a bit frustrating after a while. Now they get to go outside to frolic through the fresh new grass in the pasture. You'd be dancing, too!
These cows belong to Brandsma's Pleats, which might be the farm's name, but it's all Dutch to me. -via Everlasting Blort
The most mundane items often have a fascinating story behind them. Post-It Notes? We use them every day, whether in office work or to keep kids busy yet non-destructive. This is one of the rare stories in which the product came before there was a recognized need. After all, we had paper clips and thumbtacks already!
Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out tells us the story of Post-It Notes, and how they eventually came to be both ubiquitous and indispensable.
No matter what ciganyolga has in his hands, his cat Pocak wants some, and she isn't too proud to beg. She's the very opposite of picky. Or else just has an insatiable curiosity.
He tells Pocak's story.
I bought the cat from breeders, and when I picked her up, after watching the 'exhibition' of her parents' awards from different cat 'beauty pageants', they handed me a 10 pages long handbook about what exactly I should feed the cat with, that she only eats Royal Canin etc.
On our way home, I made a deal with the cat: I won't call her von Orchidenwald Baby Mercedes, like her mom, or similar posh cat names, and in exchange, she does not torture me with being snob and picky.
She agreed, and she wants to eat everything. And her name is Pocak (means tummy in Hungarian).
(Begging this way has been her skill since she was a kitty, I did not trained her. I cannot train her to do anything, anyway.)
He's right about that. Cats train us to do their bidding. -via Viral Viral Videos
The newest version of Mystery Science Theater 3000 debuts on Netflix on April 14. It's a remarkable comeback for a show with a complicated history. It started out on local cable in Minnesota, jumped to multiple markets, got a ten-year run on the Sci-Fi Channel, re-ran for a while, jumped to DVDs, and birthed an offshoot called RiffTrax. All along the way, the concept gained fans old and young. The new MST3K is a result of a crowdfunding campaign. Read how it all came about at the A.V. Club.
Although we all know the devil has blue eyes and blue jeans, the biggest pop culture franchises still portray the villain as ugly, and often use dermatological conditions to do so. This is a shortcut to make it easy for the audience to identify and to dislike the villain. But what are the consequences? A study in JAMA Dermatology found that of the top ten villains (as compiled by the American Film Institute), 60% displayed diagnosable dermatological conditions, while none of the top ten heroes did. Not surprising, but a breakdown of the different characters and conditions is quite informative. Take albinism and hypopigmentation, for example:
The “evil albino” trope likely precedes film and may have multiple cultural sources, dating back to Neolithic Eastern European culture, in which death is depicted in art as a fair woman with light hair.5 European folklore, rich with vampires and pallid undead creatures, may have also influenced the stereotype, as well as African attitudes toward people with albinism as being cursed or magical.6 The albinism bias was adopted early in film history and pervades modern cinema. The 1960s saw an explosive increase in film villains with albinism. During this period, tanned skin was considered healthy and glamorous.7 What better way to identify an abnormal character then one who can’t tan at all? From 1960 to 2006, there were a total of 68 films featuring the “evil albino” stereotype.8 Typical depictions include characters with albinism that act as assassins, are scary, have silly nicknames, dress entirely in white, and/or have health problems beyond their albinism.7 Several advocacy groups for people with albinism have responded to depictions of albinism in film with protest. Notably, NOAH works to counter negative and frequently inaccurate depictions of albinism in film.9 Although albinism is not present among the AFI top 10 villains, gray-hued complexions and other abnormal skin colors are prominent, as seen in both Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (1974).
The upshot is that dermatological conditions are not an indication of evil in the general populace, and these portrayals may contribute to discrimination for those who suffer from them. Interestingly, the study looked at red hair, too, and found that it occurs in both top heroes and top villains at the same rate, although a much higher rate than the general population. Read the report of the research here. The reference articles are interesting, too. -via TYWKIWDBI
