A couple of years ago we posted about an infinite photo called As Seen on Earth. National Geographic has a new infinite photo project called Tropical Island. At the link, you can select a piece of the image and click to zoom in on more images, and then click again to zoom in to yet more! You'll also find information about the creatures pictured. The images are of the life forms of the beautiful South Pacific island of Mo‘orea. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: the Biocode Project and National Geographic contributing photographer David Liittschwager)
I had so much fun playing this game that it was at least ten movies in before I realized that you don't have to type the entire title in order! You can guess letters if you don't know the answer, which may lead you to remember what movie the object is from. It's surprising how many I could guess without ever having seen the film in question. Link -via Breakfast Links
We all suspected that George Lucas didn't really have his stories written in advance when it turned out that Luke Skywalker's love interest was (spoiler alert!) his sister. That kind of thing happens more often than you think in movies and TV. For example, you'd expect with a TV show like 24, the story of the entire season would be planned -after all, it's supposed to be 24 consecutive hours of action! But no...
Early in Season 6 they had a nuclear bomb going off in Los Angeles and killing at least 12,000 people ... only to be forgotten a few episodes later. That is, a few hours later. In the world of 24, America gets over an attack four times the size of 9/11 before the emergency response even gets fully under way. Did the writers really plan it that way?
To quote writer David Fury, they were just "winging it." He says that worked out fine because they got good ratings doing it: "In the early seasons of 24, [the writers tried] to map out stories and arc out stories [beforehand] a little bit more than they did, say, in seasons four and five, and four and five turned out to be two of most successful seasons."
Making up plots as you go along tends to happen more in shows that unexpectedly become hits -as if the writers were pretty sure they wouldn't have to write too many episodes. There are more examples in this surprisingly SFW article at Cracked. Link -via The Daily What
Just when you think a Twitter feed is run by machines, something happens to remind you that a real person with a real sense of humor is on duty. The Boston Police Department assures us that they aren't holding back pertinent information. -via Breakfast Links
Since we didn't have cable TV when I was a kid, my father showed me how to put a small piece of cellophane tape on a cat's tail and watch the fun. Simon's Cat manages to get himself into that kind of situation, in the latest animation from Simon Tofield. -via Laughing Squid Previously: More Simon's Cat videos.
The wheel from the comic strip B.C. is now a real product! The Solowheel is sort of a minimalist Segway, consisting of only a powered, gyroscopic wheel and foot platforms. It should be available sometime this month for $1,500. See more pictures and a video at Gizmodo. Link -via the Presurfer
What would you do if you had five minutes to live? Probably things you wouldn't do otherwise, as you'll see in this short film Ien Che made for a Campus Movie Fest at Emory University. -via reddit
Thanks to auto-tune and video editing, the late George Carlin can add singing and dancing to his repertoire of stand up comedy. Remix by by DJ Steve Porter & DJ Eli Wilkie (Agent 001). -via I Am Bored
It's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what this mysterious item is?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Update: Several of the over 100 guesses were correct, but Twist was the first to say it is a device used for making lots of holes before sowing seeds -it's called a "dibble board." See a couple more pictures here. The award for the funniest answer goes to artsnarf, who says this is Gojira's (Godzilla's) toothbrush! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.
Oddee has a roundup of the creepiest taxidermy creations ever. Shown here is the work of Jaun Cabana, who creates mythical aquatic creatures from parts of different animals. He's just one of ten taxidermy artists linked in the list. Not for the squeamish; some images are NSFW. Link
cartozoology n. The science or practice of discovering and studying animals outlined paradigmatically by street layouts as they appear in maps, especially with reference to physical evidence of the animals’ presence in the corresponding terrain.
cartozoologist n. [From French carte ‘map, card’ + modern Latin zoologia (as ZOO-, -LOGY)]1
As the dictionary definition indicates, cartozoology is a study of maps: a search for animal outlines hidden in the street layouts primarily of cities. But equally, if not more importantly, it is a field study, a study of the terrain: the animal outline is meticulously explored on foot. In cartozoological terms, this exploration is referred to as a “con-tour”.
Cartozoology in Norway, as in the world at large, is a young science. Tor Åge Bringsværd’s seminal article “Den store fisken i Reykjavik” (“The big fish in Reykjavik”)2 is generally accepted as the first properly cartozoological work. The term “cartozoology” is more recent still. The first recorded instance in print is from Bringsværd’s book London3 from 2003. The archives of the Norwegian Cartozoologic Society show the term in use in private correspondence in February 2003. In other words, we are dealing not with a young, but virtually an infant science. Nevertheless, we find that not only has a cartozoologic method been developed, but also elements of self-reflection and a critical methodology can be found in the cartozoological texts. As yet no fully-fledged meta- cartozoology can be said to have emerged; this article is intended as a first seed.
The Origins of Cartozoology Even though cartozoology is a neophyte in the academic arena, it has of course not sprung full-born out of nothing. As Aphrodite rose from the ocean foam, cartozoology has been shaped by ideas and thought currents that have undulated through human consciousness since the beginning of history.
A fundamental trait of the human psyche is our search for meaning and understanding in addition to mere knowledge. This wish is naturally accompanied by a deep assumption that the meaning of existence is inscribed in the world, in the shape of more or less hidden messages that may be read and understood by she who acquires the requisite knowledge and skill. These are important ingredients in the ideas whence cartozoology sprang forth.
An early example of cartozoology: the constellation Cygnus the swan, and for comparison, a swan.
In cultural history, we find several cases of discovery and examination of emerging animal shapes that have so much in common with modern cartozoology that they rightly may be described as examples of proto-cartozoology. A clear example is the surveying of celestial constellations. However, a critical examination of a fairly typical example, the constellation Cygnus (the Swan), juxtaposed with an image of an actual swan should illustrate that this is not particularly fruitful from a cartozoological point of view.
The format of this article prohibits a detailed treatment of all proto-cartozoological precursors of the modern science; such a project should be reserved for a future monograph. In this short article we jump instead to contemporary literature.
Minnesotastan read the entire first volume of The Autobiography of Mark Twain and posted a review. The short version is that he's not putting it on his recommended book list. However, he reprinted a story from the book in which Twain meets the then 14-year-old Helen Keller. He labeled the story with the tag "impressive." Link
This video contains the title cards from every movie that has ever won the top Academy Award, now known as the award for Best Picture. {wiki} The only exception is The King's Speech, which won the 83rd such Oscar just last night. I've seen 55 of these movies; I'm not going to admit to how many of them I saw in first run theatrical release. How many have you seen? -via Nag on the Lake
Karen Woolley of Thrumpton, Nottinghamshire, England, couldn't find her diamond ring she had taken off while she bathed the night before. Their four-month-old puppy Barney was a suspect. So Woolley turned to modern technology to find it.
"My husband Jonathan and I were searching everywhere, and then he had the idea of using the metal detector.
"We put Barney on the floor and ran the metal detector over him and he started to bleep."
The ring that Barney had swallowed had been given to Mrs Woolley by her grandmother.
"It was her engagement ring," said Mrs Woolley, who is setting up a bed-and-breakfast at her home in Thrumpton. "She's 104 in two weeks' time. It's gold and has three big diamonds, so it is probably worth a lot, but it's also very precious sentimentally."
Barney is such a small dog that the ring wouldn't pass naturally, and he underwent surgery to remove it. Woolley now stores her ring in a drawer when she isn't wearing it. Link -via Arbroath
