This original infographic at Buzzfeed explains why my kids sold Girl Scout cookies for years and never encountered a Tagalong or Samoa, yet people on the internet still claim those are their favorites. You'll also get a good look at what cookies you can no longer buy from the Girl Scouts. Link
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This original infographic at Buzzfeed explains why my kids sold Girl Scout cookies for years and never encountered a Tagalong or Samoa, yet people on the internet still claim those are their favorites. You'll also get a good look at what cookies you can no longer buy from the Girl Scouts. Link
School officials in Raytown, Missouri have battled flocks of geese for years. The problem is the bird droppings in the playgrounds and ballparks. Young children were even forced to stay inside during recess. The school grounds crew was prohibited from poisoning or shooting the geese, but last month, they came up with a new idea.
Link -via Shoebox
They’re using plywood cut outs of coyotes, which is the natural enemy of geese. In the cutouts they placed plastic bags to make them look like they were carring a goose in their mouths.
Dr. Travis Hux, the assistant superintendent of support services for the district, said they brainstormed the idea after many golf courses use cutouts of foxes and other predators to keep animals away.
“For the geese from above it appears that they’re holding a goose in their mouth and that creates a threat to the geese, so they don't land on the playground. We have giggled about it and people laugh when I tell them, but I say go check it out, you’ll notice no geese running around on the playground,” explained Hux.
For Principal Dickerson she said she’s excited that they students get to enjoy the playground once again
Link -via Shoebox
The Gadget Show staged a foot race among various toy robots from all over the world in Manchester, England. The robots were controlled by audience members, which led to utter chaos. Some robots eventually made it to the finish line. See the whole thing at Technabob. Link
Joseph Tame will run the Tokyo Marathon while wearing an extensive set of gear that will enable him to publish constant updates on the web. He calls this getup the iRun.
Watch Tame looking incredibly cool in action at Japan Probe. Link
The iRun features four iPhones on rotatable mounts, an iPad, and Android handset, three mobile Wi Fi routers, a four-in-one atmospheric monitor and a heart monitor – all to record his route round the 26-mile circuit.
A post on Tame’s website states: ‘This technology will allow me to broadcast live video on two cameras (using either skype or FaceTime to a local studio for re-broadcast), send live location/pace/heart rate data via Runkeeperon the iPhone, transmit temperature, COx/humidity/noise levels via a custom-made Android app – and do all of this while looking incredibly cool.’
Watch Tame looking incredibly cool in action at Japan Probe. Link
A woman in Parauapebas, Brazil, was shocked to find her three-year-old behind the sofa, petting an alligator!
The alligator was taken from the house and released in another area. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Flickr user Mohammed Al-Naser)
The woman snatched the child away and called the fire brigade, who trapped the 1.5m-long (5ft) alligator.
The firefighters said the family was lucky the reptile was not hungry.
Firefighter Captain Luiz Claudio Farias said it could have seriously hurt or even killed the boy.
The alligator was taken from the house and released in another area. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Flickr user Mohammed Al-Naser)
(YouTube link)
This video explains how those cute little amigurumi figures are made -by magic!
If you have a big appetite and a big stomach, you might use this list of food challenges as a vacation guide. But beware: these offers have rules, like you have to eat everything on your plate in a certain time period to get the meal free. Eateries may have additional rules. LW Pizza in Long Beach, California, dares you to eat the 28-inch pizza shown in less than an hour with no bathroom breaks! If you do, the pizza is free plus you win cash and future pizzas. Link -via The Daily What
(YouTube link)
Adam Fisher spent 13 months growing a beard. I had to check to see if we had already posted that part, but they are two different men. Fisher's beard became a prop for a public service message about our natural resources. -Thanks, Bill!
For the first time in history, beer, currently classified as food, is set to be reclassified as an alcoholic drink in Russia. The move is a part of the Kremlin's war on alcoholism, as beer consumption is rising in the country.
Many Russians consider beer to be a soft drink. Link -via Arbroath
"Normalising the beer production market and classifying it as alcohol is totally the right thing to do and will boost the health of our population," Yevgeny Bryun, the ministry of health's chief specialist on alcohol and drug abuse, said.
"We have been talking about and have wanted such a measure for ages. I take my hat off to the parliament."
The new law would restrict beer sales at night, ban its sale in or close to many public places such as schools, and limit cans and bottles to a maximum size of 0.33 litres.
Many Russians consider beer to be a soft drink. Link -via Arbroath
Illustrator Benjamin Douglas created this chart as your guide to famous redheads. http://www.benjamindouglass.com/gingers.html -via Buzzfeed
Montreal artist Kim Gadbois created three minimalist but adorable pillows depicting characters from the Harry Potter series. This one, of course, is Harry. See the pillows depicting Ron and Hermione at Pantoufle de Verre, and buy them at Etsy. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Today's final launch of the space shuttle Discovery will have a robotic passenger aboard. Robonaut 2 (affectionately called R2) is going to the International Space Station so NASA can study how it performs in zero gravity. National Geographic has a photo gallery of the NASA robots who have paved the way for R2, including some that have been in space and some, like the Robonaut 1 shown, that were test models or concepts. I saw this picture and thought, "Spock on a lawnmower." Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(YouTube link)
These Dutch automotive engineers chopped up a Volkswagen Golf and it became the Mini-Golf. Then they added roll bars and it became the Rollgolf! See more videos at mastermilo82's YouTube channel. Link -via Everlasting Blort
(YouTube link)
Watch the books dance around while the clock spins in this time-lapse video. It will make you smile. -via Boing Boing
You know it as Slaughterhouse-Five, but it goes by another name, too. The complete title of Kurt Vonnegut's acclaimed novel is Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, A Fourth-Generation German-American Low Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, 'The Florence of the Elbe,' a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace.
Weird, yes. But when you get to know the book, it actually makes a lot of sense. Even the bit about the flying saucers. Allow us to explain.
THE STORY
Slaughterhouse-Five isn't told in the standard, chronological way. On the contrary, its main character, Billy Pilgrim, is an unwitting time traveler. One moment he's living in 1945, then 1968, then 1954.
Arguably the novel's most compelling sections take place during World War II, when young Billy is serving as a U.S. soldier. The Germans capture Pilgrim, who's lost behind enemy lines, and take him to Dresden, a beautiful city untouched by war. There, he and other POWs are kept in an abandoned slaughterhouse, where they escape the Allied bombing of Dresden in an underground meat locker. Although they are safe, they can still hear the firebombs pounding above. And when they emerge, everyone has been killed, and everything destroyed.
Pilgrim returns to these memories frequently. But after coming home from the war, he marries, graduates from optometry school, and becomes a respected businessman. Despite such positive steps, tragedy seems to follow him. First, he turns up the sole survivor of a plane crash. Next, his wife dies in a car accident. Following these events, Pilgrim starts telling people he was kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians, who taught him that the past, present, and future don't really exist. Instead, they believe time is a conceptual whole. Pilgrim accepts the Tralfamadorian theory, and as he floats through the unalterable events of his life, he accepts that he has no power over his fate.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Dresden, Germany was indeed firebombed on the night of February 13thy, 1945, and Kurt Vonnegut was one of the POWs who witnessed the attack. On that evening, Allied forces killed at least 25,000 people (although some estimates that as many as 130,000 people died). Vonnegut decided to write about his experience in Dresden as soon as he returned from the war, but it took him more than twenty years to finish the book. While crafting the novel, he realized that conventional narrative structure imposed logic on events -and that the events he witnessed in Dresden had none. Slaughterhouse-Five therefore lacks conflict, climax, and conclusion. Thus, the short, episodic style of the novel doesn't allow the reader to draw morals from the story, nor allow the characters to find peace. To underscore this point, he inserts himself into the narrative, making it clear that even the author can find no way to form a lesson from such horror.
WHY THE STORY MATTERS
ANTI-PLOT, NON-HERO: Vonnegut abandons traditional storytelling by drastically altering chronology. This strategy allows him to reflect Pilgrim's disjointed reality and avoid a conventional plot. Vonnegut also discards the traditional literary hero. Christ-like in his suffering, Pilgrim does not act, but is instead acted upon -a victim of destiny without any motivation beyond basic survival. Through Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut paints all participants of war as the "listless playthings of powerful forces."
LITTLE GREEN CREATURES IN FLYING SAUCERS: The science-fiction segments of Slaughterhouse-Five strike most readers as bizarre, even distracting. Out of nowhere,. Billy Pilgrim is kidnapped, displayed in an alien zoo, and mated with a movie star. Vonnegut never says his alien stories are imaginary, but Pilgrim does read science-fiction novels with similar plots. Real or not, the Tralfamadorians are a coping mechanism that enables him to accept empty tragedies. He clings to the Tralfamadorian saying about life and death: "So it goes."
BILLY PILGRIM: Slaughterhouse-Five focuses on POW Billy Pilgrim. His first name (Billy, not William) marks him as permanently childlike. His last name identifies him as a voyager, but with one poignant exception: Billy is on a pilgrimage without a purpose.
KURT VONNEGUT: Vonnegut appears as a character in his own book, both in the semi-autobiographical first and last chapters and occasionally in the body text itself. He uses these appearances to remind the reader that many of the events are true, and that he experienced them himself.
Scenes to Remember
* Vonnegut visits his war buddy Bernard O'Hare to talk about Dresden. He's surprised by the hostility of O'Hare's wife, Mary, who accuses his books of portraying war as glamorous, as in a movie with Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. Vonnegut promises her Slaughterhouse-Five won't have a part in it for Sinatra.
* Two days after the war ends, Pilgrim rides on the back of a green cart pulled by two horses. If he could choose to remember only the happy times and ignore the bad, this would be the moment he'd choose: lying in the sunshine with the birds singing in the trees. This is Pilgrim's happiest memory -not his wedding day or the birth of his children, but an experience of simple animal comfort.
Famous Last Words
* "I happened to tell a University of Chicago professor at a cocktail party about the raid as I had seen it, about the book I would write. He was a member of a thing called The Committee on Social Thought. And he told me about the concentration camps, and about how the German had made soap and candles out of the fat of dead Jews and so on. All I could say was, 'I know, I know, I know.'"*
*Though horrified by Nazi atrocities, Vonnegut refused to allow for a "just war" or a "right side." He tried to curtail the inevitable criticism of the book by addressing it within the novel itself.
* "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've sad before, bugs in amber."
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
Weird, yes. But when you get to know the book, it actually makes a lot of sense. Even the bit about the flying saucers. Allow us to explain.
THE STORY
Slaughterhouse-Five isn't told in the standard, chronological way. On the contrary, its main character, Billy Pilgrim, is an unwitting time traveler. One moment he's living in 1945, then 1968, then 1954.
Arguably the novel's most compelling sections take place during World War II, when young Billy is serving as a U.S. soldier. The Germans capture Pilgrim, who's lost behind enemy lines, and take him to Dresden, a beautiful city untouched by war. There, he and other POWs are kept in an abandoned slaughterhouse, where they escape the Allied bombing of Dresden in an underground meat locker. Although they are safe, they can still hear the firebombs pounding above. And when they emerge, everyone has been killed, and everything destroyed.
Pilgrim returns to these memories frequently. But after coming home from the war, he marries, graduates from optometry school, and becomes a respected businessman. Despite such positive steps, tragedy seems to follow him. First, he turns up the sole survivor of a plane crash. Next, his wife dies in a car accident. Following these events, Pilgrim starts telling people he was kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians, who taught him that the past, present, and future don't really exist. Instead, they believe time is a conceptual whole. Pilgrim accepts the Tralfamadorian theory, and as he floats through the unalterable events of his life, he accepts that he has no power over his fate.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Dresden, Germany was indeed firebombed on the night of February 13thy, 1945, and Kurt Vonnegut was one of the POWs who witnessed the attack. On that evening, Allied forces killed at least 25,000 people (although some estimates that as many as 130,000 people died). Vonnegut decided to write about his experience in Dresden as soon as he returned from the war, but it took him more than twenty years to finish the book. While crafting the novel, he realized that conventional narrative structure imposed logic on events -and that the events he witnessed in Dresden had none. Slaughterhouse-Five therefore lacks conflict, climax, and conclusion. Thus, the short, episodic style of the novel doesn't allow the reader to draw morals from the story, nor allow the characters to find peace. To underscore this point, he inserts himself into the narrative, making it clear that even the author can find no way to form a lesson from such horror.
WHY THE STORY MATTERS
ANTI-PLOT, NON-HERO: Vonnegut abandons traditional storytelling by drastically altering chronology. This strategy allows him to reflect Pilgrim's disjointed reality and avoid a conventional plot. Vonnegut also discards the traditional literary hero. Christ-like in his suffering, Pilgrim does not act, but is instead acted upon -a victim of destiny without any motivation beyond basic survival. Through Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut paints all participants of war as the "listless playthings of powerful forces."
LITTLE GREEN CREATURES IN FLYING SAUCERS: The science-fiction segments of Slaughterhouse-Five strike most readers as bizarre, even distracting. Out of nowhere,. Billy Pilgrim is kidnapped, displayed in an alien zoo, and mated with a movie star. Vonnegut never says his alien stories are imaginary, but Pilgrim does read science-fiction novels with similar plots. Real or not, the Tralfamadorians are a coping mechanism that enables him to accept empty tragedies. He clings to the Tralfamadorian saying about life and death: "So it goes."
**********
Literary VIPsBILLY PILGRIM: Slaughterhouse-Five focuses on POW Billy Pilgrim. His first name (Billy, not William) marks him as permanently childlike. His last name identifies him as a voyager, but with one poignant exception: Billy is on a pilgrimage without a purpose.
KURT VONNEGUT: Vonnegut appears as a character in his own book, both in the semi-autobiographical first and last chapters and occasionally in the body text itself. He uses these appearances to remind the reader that many of the events are true, and that he experienced them himself.
Scenes to Remember
* Vonnegut visits his war buddy Bernard O'Hare to talk about Dresden. He's surprised by the hostility of O'Hare's wife, Mary, who accuses his books of portraying war as glamorous, as in a movie with Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. Vonnegut promises her Slaughterhouse-Five won't have a part in it for Sinatra.
* Two days after the war ends, Pilgrim rides on the back of a green cart pulled by two horses. If he could choose to remember only the happy times and ignore the bad, this would be the moment he'd choose: lying in the sunshine with the birds singing in the trees. This is Pilgrim's happiest memory -not his wedding day or the birth of his children, but an experience of simple animal comfort.
Famous Last Words
* "I happened to tell a University of Chicago professor at a cocktail party about the raid as I had seen it, about the book I would write. He was a member of a thing called The Committee on Social Thought. And he told me about the concentration camps, and about how the German had made soap and candles out of the fat of dead Jews and so on. All I could say was, 'I know, I know, I know.'"*
*Though horrified by Nazi atrocities, Vonnegut refused to allow for a "just war" or a "right side." He tried to curtail the inevitable criticism of the book by addressing it within the novel itself.
* "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've sad before, bugs in amber."
__________________________
The above article by Elizabeth Lunday is reprinted with permission from the July-August 2005 issue of mental_floss magazine.Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
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