The Michelin Man—the mascot for the Michelin tire company—is a happy, jovial fellow. He’s always been that way, but you may find early photos and illustrations of him scary.
His name is Bibendum. That’s a reference to a line by the Latin poet Horace, who said, “nunc est bibendum.” That means “now is the time to drink.” Michelin did not adopt this phrase in order to promote drunk driving, but to express that Michelin tires eat up obstacles on the road.
He doesn’t anymore, but Bidendum used to drink heavily, smoke cigars and wear pince-nez glasses. He was drawn gray when tires were usually gray in color, then black when tires were commonly black. You can see more early images of him here.
Redditor sneakylawyer went urban exploring in Ronse, Belgium. He went inside an abandoned building and found several walls covered with beautiful, precisely-executed images from the Batman universe. The unknown artist appeared to be heavily influenced by The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and The Dark Knight trilogy. You can see more photos here.
Several days ago, we featured Michael Kenny's illustrations of several incarnations of the Doctor as if they had been drawn by Tim Burton. The tumblr blogger Made by ABVH animated 3 of them: the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor and the War Doctor. They only further my argument that Tim Burton and the BBC should make this happen.
In case you haven't heard already: the sign language interpreter at the funeral for Nelson Mendela was a fake. He signed pure gibberish. If Thamsanqa Jantjie knows any sign language, he failed to demonstrate it at the funeral.
But perhaps, as this animated .gif (that's pronounced jeeeef) demonstrates, he was actually trying to make balloon animals.
Quantum Leap, episode 273: Sam leaps into the body of a sign language interpreter at Mandela's memorial. "Oh boy."
What we do know is that the signs made no sense at all. Jimmy Kimmel brought a real interperter onto his show, who then translated Mr. Jantjie's gestures.
Should a person in this situation, as Jimmy Kimmel advises, just do the macarena dance? Maybe Mr. Jantjie was trying to start his own dance craze, as this video illustrates.
When the Klingon leader General Martok (who was recently elected to public office in New York) wishes you a merry Christmas, you should at least try to respond in his own language. There's a limit to the Yuletide cheer that the universal translator can express.
Here is Mashable's handy guide to saying "merry Christmas" in 40 languages, including Farsi, Lithuanian and Korean.
Oh, is it cold up north? I didn’t know. You see, where I am in Texas, it’s quite pleasant. Why, I went running in short-sleeves yesterday! Some of you, such as cartoonist Beth Evans, may have to spend too much time scraping ice. I think that I’ll go for a swim instead.
Kat and Cam of Our Nerd Home have a great holiday craft for role-playing gamers. The d20 is obviously the most complex piece and the pair describe it as “a patience-trying project.” It’s hard to get the angles correct and cut out without breaking the graham crackers.
Once you do cut out all the necessary triangles, glue them together using melted white chocolate candy. Make three dome-like structures out of 5 triangles each, then connect them. You’ll probably need an extra set of hands to do this correctly. Then add red frosting for the numbers and roll for initiative.
Walk up to the barista and say, "One coffee." That'll be 7 euros. Or say, "One coffee, please." That'll be € 4.25. But if you say, "Hello. One coffee, please" then all you have to pay is € 1.40.
At the Petite Syrah in Nice, France, it pays to display proper gentility. The manager, Fabrice Pepino, started it as a joke after encountering too many customers who dropped their manners when they were in a hurry.
So far, he hasn't had to enforce it. Mr. Pepino says that when customers notice the sign, they slow down and watch what they say.
Riley, a 3-year old corgi, has new friend. It’s a wild rabbit! Lareina Tan, Riley’s human, says that they met on a walk. She was initially afraid that Riley might hurt the bunny. But all they want to do is play together. The bunny has even waited outside Riley’s house for the dog to come out and play. Ms. Tan says:
The bunny ran around in circles around us instead of away, and jumped onto Ripley's front paw while she was sitting. I want to believe the bunny chose to hang with her.
Riley is quite gentle and, true to his shepherding roots, only nudges him along. You can see more photos here.
With scrap iron, welding equipment and a bit of Russian ingenuity, this man now has a tool to quickly and easily load logs into the back of his truck. All he has to do is rotate his rear axle.
I’m exaggerating, of course. But proper grammar became a point of dispute in the negotiations between the United States and the United Kingdom that led to the 1871 Treaty of Washington.
American and Britain had a border dispute over the San Juan Islands in the Strait de Juan de Fuca as well as questions about fishing rights and access to the sea. But the most pressing issue was known as the “Alabama claims.” During the American Civil War, British companies built several warships for the Confederacy, such as the C.S.S Alabama. These commerce raiders damaged US shipping during the war. The United States held Britain partially responsible.
The British largely acceded to American demands (much to the frustration of Canadian fishermen). But there was one position from which Britain would not budge: proper grammar.
At that time, British conventions of English grammar considered splitting an infinitive a serious grammatical error. Thomas R. Lounsbury, a professor of English at Yale University, wrote in 1904 that the British government insisted that the text of the treaty contain no split infinitives:
At last an agreement was reached. It involved certain concessions to the American demands to which, in the opinion of some, assent should never have been given.
There was one point, we are told, upon which the home Government was sternly inflexible. “For it,” says Mr. Lang, “much may by literary persons be forgiven them.” It telegraphed that in the wording of the treaty it would under no circumstances endure the insertion of an adverb between the preposition to (the sign of the infinitive) and the verb. Mr. Lang feels justly the heroic nature of the act. Much might be yielded on questions in dispute which all knew would ultimately involve the expenditure of money, and indeed implied at the time admission of previous wrong-doing; much might be yielded in the case of certain things which the biographer himself seems to regard as points of honor. Still, on these minor matters it was thought advisable to give way. So much the more must our tribute of admiration be paid to the English Government for remaining as immovable as the solid rock when it came face to face with the great question of severing the close tie that binds to infinitive the preposition to. “The purity of the language,” observes Mr. Lang, “they nobly and courageously defended.”
I cannot verify Prof. Lounsbury’s assertion from original sources. But if it is not good history, then it is at least a good story. Upon casually perusing the text of the treaty, I cannot find any split infinitives.
The treaty was duly ratified by Queen Victoria and the United States Senate. This event began the Great Rapprochement—an era of warming relations between the United States and the United Kingdom that was by no means historically inevitable.
In the spirit of that special relationship of shared language, culture, law and history, let both nations commit to not split infinitives in the future.
Juno is an unmanned spacecraft launched by NASA to study the planet Jupiter. As Miss Cellania mentioned yesterday, it recently flew by Earth to make use of its gravity and slingshot toward Jupiter.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recruited ham radio operators across the world to send a coordinated message that could be picked up by Juno. Timing and organization were essential. As you can see in the video below, they were successful. At the right moment, the ham radio operators sent out a simple Morse code message: “Hi”. Juno’s sensors picked it up.
Whether it's Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or another game in the genre, a new player has a lot to learn. I never got into the genre because there's such a steep learning curve. Your opponent knows all of the special moves and combinations, how to hit them and when. The noob is still trying to figure out what the A and B buttons do.
Freddie Wong, the great independent filmmaker whose work we've featured extensively, makes fun of the genre by acting out two characters and their corresponding players.
Be sure to check out our exclusive interview with Mr. Wong here.
