Shiro loves small baskets the way Maru loves boxes. And 9-year-old Shiro has a patient zen attitude for wearing hats and other materials on his head, which leads to many photo and video opportunities. See photos and videos of Shiro and his feline family at the Basket Cat Blog. Link -via Metafilter

DeviantART member Bewheel painted a team picture of "Bobby and the He-man villains: '84 state champs." An unbeatable team! Link -via @JohnCFarrier

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In Over Time, a group of puppets find that their creator has passed away. This 2004 film by Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferrie doesn't explicitly say it is about Jim Henson, but you recognize it anyway. When I first saw this a few years ago, I couldn't help but tear up. -via the Presurfer

Minnesotastan studies butterflies and shares his observations and pictures. In this post, he takes us through the process of what a Monarch butterfly will do to a milkweed plant, from laying an egg to almost consuming it. The pictures will help you identify evidence of Monarchs in your area and what stage of development they are in. In this photo, a tiny caterpillar eats away in a specific pattern by instinct. Find out why at TYWKIWDBI. Link

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'They're not going to be pushed around any more'

You know how horror movies are sometimes designed around a lack of budget? In this short film, the bloodthirsty killers are shopping carts! Once you get past that bit of silliness, this actually resembles a sequence from feature films you've seen. -Thanks, Anthony Carpendale!

This space core from the game Portal 2 is a cake! Yes, it's a cake, not a sculpture or toy. To prove it, here's a picture of the cake being cut. It was made by Mike's Amazing Cakes. You can see more pictures of the space core cake at Flickr.

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-Thanks, Richard!

(Image credit: Flickr user sharkhats)

Historic LOLs has a collection of German prints from around a hundred years ago illustrating predictions for the year 2000. In this one, we're supposed to be able to walk on water, with the help of balloons and a waterwheel. Other pictures show moving sidewalks, personal flying machines, underwater tourism, and remote surveillance -all things that actually happened, although not quite the way they were pictured. Link

Heather McDougal talked to 5th and 6th graders about how the ideal body image of women has changed over time, from the corsets of 100 years ago to the Photoshopped images of today. And the modern altered bodies and altered images are the hardest ideal to even consider living up to. As an example, contrast the image of Usula Andress in the 1962 movie Dr. No with one of Halle Berry in the 2002 movie Die Another Day.

The thing that disturbs me most about these two images is how our daughters must feel about themselves when they see them. The girls in 1962, seeing Ursula rising from the waves in Dr. No, knew that what they were seeing was a real woman, something they could aspire to (if that was what they wanted). Seeing Halle Barry, above, holds no such comforts, particularly when digital film has so much option for smoothing out those flaws. Such perfection is absolutely outside the realm of anyone who is honest with themselves. They might as well throw themselves against a brick wall, because you can't live, and breathe, and be that perfect. It's impossible, and our daughters know it.

When she presented the changing ideal image of men, she found fewer changes over time, but a difference between what men and what women consider ideal. Read the rest at Cabinet of Wonders. Link

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Filmmaker and shoot-em-up enthusiast Freddie Wong gets to play with even more firepower in this short, with the help of John Favreau, director of the soon-to-be-released film Cowboys and Aliens.

The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The place that gave Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmoe the crazy idea that happiness was just a few subway stops away.

Between about 1880 and World War II, Coney Island was the largest amusement park in the United States. But back in 1609, when Dutch explorer Henry Hudson became the first European to arrive on the premises, he found nothing more than barren sand dunes and very unfriendly Native Americans. After his petty officer was killed in a skirmish, Hudson moved on to a much calmer and peaceful island later known as Manhattan.

At some point the island (which is five miles long and up to a mile wide) was named Konijn Eiland, which is Dutch for "Rabbit Island." Konijn became "Coney," possibly during the days of Lady Deborah Moody, a London widow in her mid-50s, who brought a group of religious dissenters to the island during a lull in the Indian Wars. It was rough going -the local Native Americans still weren't all that friendly- but the plucky group stayed on.

EASY ACCESS

Coney Island remained an island until 1829, when it was connected to mainland Long Island by Shell Road, a road made of -you guessed it- shells. It's been a peninsula ever since. But linguistically, it's still an island: one is said to be "on" Coney Island, not "in" it.


Hotel Brighton

HOLIDAY INN

Five years after Shell Road was built, a large hotel, Coney Island House, opened for business in hopes of drawing a summer crowd to the seaside. The hotel's success encouraged builders of even more elegant hotels. What started as a genteel resort recommended by doctors (sea bathing was considered to be healthy and invigorating), quickly became a hot spot with the upper classes. Before long, hotels along the seashores welcomed such distinguished guests as P.T. Barnum, Daniel Webster, and Washington Irving. Visitors lingered on the the hotels' long porches, ate their meals in posh dining rooms, and took dips in the Atlantic.

BATHING SUITS AND OTHER PURSUITS

What movies make you cry? When I saw The Champ during its initial theater run, I did not expect to cry, but I did, and so did everyone in the audience. Watching 9-year-old Ricky Schroeder begging his father not to die was just too much. When researchers Robert Levenson and James Gross began looking for a trigger that would ethically induce sadness in volunteer test subjects, they searched for the most sure-fire tear-jerking film ever. It took years, but they found The Champ.

In 1995, Gross and Levenson published the results of their test screenings. They came up with a list of 16 short film clips able to elicit a single emotion, such as anger, fear or surprise. Their recommendation for inducing disgust was a short film showing an amputation. Their top-rated film clip for amusement was the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. And then there’s the two-minute, 51-second clip of Schroder weeping over his father’s dead body in The Champ, which Levenson and Gross found produced more sadness in laboratory subjects than the death of Bambi’s mom.

“I still feel sad when I see that boy crying his heart out,” Gross says.

Cue the argument for Old Yeller. Excuse me, I think I need a handkerchief. Link -via Metafilter

Link to the specific scene from The Champ.

This image of Nyan Cat was created using Light Scythe, an open-source invention for writing text and drawing images with light in mid-air. I can't begin to tell you I understand it, but you can see for yourself. Link -via I Can Has Cheezburger

(Image credit: Flickr user Mechatronics Guy)

The River Fleet in London is a tidal river that once provided water for many industries. Over the years, it became quite polluted, then was consigned to flow underneath the city as London grew, until it was eventually incorporated into the sewer system. But the river is still there, filling its tunnels at high tide and ebbing to a trickle at low tide. Read about what happened to the River Fleet and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user sub-urban.com)

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Gus and his buddy have a wading pool in the backyard to keep them cool, but Gus has a better idea! -via Bits and Pieces

Animals have invaded your favorite social networking site -and what's worse, they have more followers than you do! So what's all the buzz about? ShortList will introduce you to cats, dogs, birds, and even snakes that Tweet. Maybe you'll find a Twitter critter you want to follow yourself! Link