Photographer Kien Lam documented an epic round-the-world trip in this time-lapse video.
I quit my job last year and began backpacking around the world. To capture the spirit of the trip, I took time lapse photographs at practically every city I traveled to and compiled over 6200 photographs across 17 countries, during a span of almost a year to form one short video. Each 2 second scene is comprised of about 40-60 photographs.
If this visual tour goes too fast, you can read about Lam's adventures at his website. Link-Thanks, Kien!
Conventional wisdom holds that seeing someone naked makes you think of them as more of a sex object than seeing them clothed. According to a recent study, that is an oversimplification of what really happens. The human mind thinks of other people in two different dimensions: agency, or what the person observed can or will do, and experience, or what that person perceives and feels. And the amount of clothing worn changes what dimension the observer focuses on, as seen from an experiment in which people looked at pictures of faces or pictures of faces with some body skin also showing (as shown by the hunky "Aaron" shown here, or the female "Erin").
It turns out that a glimpse of flesh strongly influences our perception of Erin/Aaron. When the pictures only showed a face, they had lots of agency. But when we saw their torso, we suddenly imagined them as obsessed with experience. Instead of being good at self-control, they were suddenly extremely sensitive to hunger and desire. Same person, same facial expression, same brief description – but a hint of body changed everything.
In another experiment, the researchers varied the volunteers’ mindsets, sometimes asking them to look at photos as if they were on an online-dating website, focusing on attractiveness, and sometimes asking them to look at the photos as if they were hiring for a professional job, focusing on the mind. Once again, thinking about how “sexy and cute” someone is – those are bodily attributes – led students to endow them with more experience and less agency. The opposite held when people were asked to evaluate intelligence and efficiency.
Read more about it at Frontal Cortex, but be warned there is no full nudity in the article. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
People around the world have been trying to regulate music for centuries, but in the 1980s, Tipper Gore launched the first campaign to rate albums. Here's the story of how a vice-president's wife took on graphic lyrics in music and won ...sort of.
DARLING TIPPER
In 1984, Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore, bought Prince's Purple Rain album for her 11-year-old daughter Karenna. They put on the VD and Gore liked it ...until she got to "Darling Nikki," a very sexually explicit song, and one Gore thought was inappropriate for an 11-year-old. Had she known, she never would have bought the album.
Gore did some more "research" on the level of vulgarity in popular music -she watched MTV for a few hours and found more songs that troubled her, including Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," and Mötley Crüe's "Looks That Kill." "The images frightened my children, they frightened me," she said. "The graphic sex and the violence were too much for us to handle."
She started talking to some friends -wives of prominent Washington businessmen and politicians- and decided to use her influence to do something about it. With Susan Baker (wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker) , Pam Howar (wife of powerful realtor Raymond Howar), and Sally Nevius (wife of Washington City Council chairman John Nevius), Gore formed the Parents Music Resource Center, or PMRC, in 1985.
PMRC's stated goal: to raise parental awareness of "the growing trend in music towards lyrics that are sexually explicit, excessively violent, or glorify the use of drugs and alcohol." The group even suggested that the increase in some crimes in the previous 30 years directly correlated with the popularity of rock music -rape was up 7% since 1955 and teenage suicide was up 300%.
Barrett-Jackson Auctions has a car for sale with some history behind it. There were many '69 Dodge Chargers used in the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, but this particular General Lee was the one you saw jump every week in the show's introduction (55 seconds into this video).
Featured several times in the first episode of CBS hit "The Dukes of Hazzard." Fondly named "Lee 1" is the very car used to jump over a Hazzard County police cruiser in the first episode. Carefully restored over a 16 month period to pre-jump condition.
Lee 1 was purchased by a California movie studio in 1978, soon to become "The most famous television car in the world." Lee 1 was featured several times in the first episode of CBS' hit television series "The Dukes of Hazzard." This episode titled "One-Armed Bandits," aired on January 26, 1979 and was filmed in the Covington, Conyers and Oxford area of Georgia. The show's opening sequence, featuring Bo and Luke Duke, included the clip of Lee1 jumping over a Hazzard County police cruiser. That jump, for which Lee 1 is most famous, was made by a stunt man on the campus of Oxford College on Saturday 11, 1978. Lee 1's first and only jump was 16 feet up and over the cruiser, landing 82 feet from the take off ramp. The only cast member that ever drove Lee 1 was John Schneider, who played Bo Duke. After 23 years in a junkyard, in Metro Atlanta, Lee 1 was rescued and professionally, passionately restored to pre-jump condition over a 16 month period. Lee 1 is truly an American Icon.
See plenty more pictures of the car at the auction site. Link -via Fark
I'm not usually good at this sort of thing, but I looked at the 1980s Film Alphabet and could name all the movies! Yes, even Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is under "I", for the character, I guess. This is a creation of artist Stephen Wildish. Link -via Laughing Squid
Slate V imagines LEGO sets that reflect what is going on in the world, in your choice of Occupy Wall Street or Arab Spring versions. If these really existed, I would be in line to get one! Then it would be easy to illustrate the events of the past year in LEGO. Link -via I Am Bored
These two photographs of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's funeral procession were taken only seconds apart, but the top photo was taken by Japanese press outlet Kyodo News, and the bottom one was provided to journalists by North Korea’s state news agency. North Korea is no stranger to photo manipulation; in this case it serves only the purpose of making the procession look more "perfect." The details are at the New York Times photography blog. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credits: Associated Press, via Kyodo News; Korean Central News Agency, via European Pressphoto Agency)
Joe Johnson has lived at the Morningside retirement center in Greenwood, South Carolina, for about ten years now. He's been a regular blood donor for most of his life, and sees no reason to stop now.
Johnson said in the same phone call that he began donating after he joined the Army in Tennessee at age 21 and kept it up after moving to Florida, and then later South Carolina. The former infantry soldier said he served in Europe — though not in combat — and back in the United States, training National Guard forces.
"They'd say to us, 'Line up and give blood' and maybe out of 200 or so in the company, maybe 40 or 50 guys would do it. Some people would just walk away, but I never did," Johnson said. "I constantly gave blood. I had a routine going."
Johnson celebrated his 96th birthday on Tuesday with a cake, which Amerson said he insisted on sharing with some of the other 43 residents at the assisted living home. His most recent blood donation was a week earlier when a mobile unit made one of its periodic visits to the retirement home.
There is no upper age limit for blood donation, as long as the donor is healthy. Johnson plans to continue giving, and says he is "good for a few years more." Link -via Breakfast Links
Why do we take a parasitic weed, one that is rather difficult to gather, and hang it in the house so people can kiss underneath? That's a rather weird tradition when you think abut it. Smithsonian tells several old tales of why we do this, but the real story of how mistletoe evolved from sandalwood into what it is now is the more interesting tale.
Before there were forests, wispy plants fell on each other in their struggle to reach the sun, like clumsy teenagers unsure of their growing bodies. Then one plant evolved a simple woody stem. It could grow taller than the other plants, and it stole light from them. It poisoned them with shade. Wars ensued that have lasted hundreds of millions of years. Trees of many kinds arose and struggled with each other to be taller. Any species that does not participate in battle loses out in the darkness of the understory—any species except a few. Those in the clan of the sandalwood evolved a way out of the darkness. They survived by stealing from the trees what they had spent their tall stems fighting for.
Sandalwood discovered deceit. Its roots kissed the roots of trees and slipped inside them to steal. But sandalwood still needed to grow up a little and put out a few green leaves to have enough sugar to thrive. And then came mistletoes. Mistletoe is a common name for several independent lineages descended from sandalwood. Like their ancestors, mistletoe species sink their roots into trees. Unlike those ancestors, they do so in the sky.
The story continues to explain how mistletoe developed its way of reproducing in the treetops. Link
This Christmas Twaggie was illustrated by artist Ingrid Doering from a Tweet by @1surlygurl. You have to feel sorry for Santa Claus -especially if you are Santa! Link
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader is proud to announce their new mobile app, which enables you to enjoy bathroom reading on your iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device! Which means, you can enjoy them anywhere, not just the bathroom.
...this app will give you a daily dose of the best of what Uncle John has to offer. You never know what’ll pop up: One day it might be a dumb crook, the next day, a popular myth from history debunked. With one click you can share your favorite Uncle John’s facts via email, Twitter, and Facebook. You can even enable push notifications to get daily facts or the weekly article sent directly to your home screen without having to open the app. And when you need a bit of bathroom humor, go ahead and squeeze the little yellow ducky—he’ll fart. (How many other apps can make you smarter and make fart noises?)
But that's not all -Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books are available now in ebook format, starting with nine of the most popular titles!
There are two ways to enter. You can leave a comment here, and tell us whether you prefer the app or the book. Or you can Tweet to your friends about the contest, directing them to this post and using the hashtag #neatUJ, and you'll be entered as well! We will draw ten winners, five from those who choose each prize, on Friday evening.
Meanwhile, how many of your friends and family members would like an Uncle John's Mobile App for Christmas? Get them while they're hot! And check out Uncle John's new ebookstore, too!
*(The Android version of the app is not yet available for giveaway.)
Update: Congratulations to the five who won the apps: iain, Akik P, anonymous coward, TohAtin, and Ben Ratner! And congratulations to the five who won paperback copies of Uncle John’s 24-Karat Bathroom Reader: e kolter, Miles G, Shae, Dougert, and Brad!
Each year, America spends about $250 billion on marketing and advertising -- more than the entire GDP of Thailand. Too bad most of that money is a complete waste. For an increasingly savvy, TiVo-equipped public, our brains seem to shut down whenever something registers as "advertising." Which means all those marketing creatives at the big ad firms have had no choice but to, well, get more creative.
Some advertisers have relied on product placement (think James Bond stopping mid-gunfight for a refreshing sip of Heineken). Others have attempted to make their ads so entertaining that people will watch them in spite of the sales pitch. And then there's the more mischievous route -- the grassroots, take-it-to-the-streets method -- and that's where guerrilla marketing comes in.
Dirt-cheap and chock full of trickery, guerrilla marketing is advertising with a wink. The successful campaigns usually corral attention through subversive means before revealing their true purpose, and they distinguish themselves by being so clever that even once the bait and switch is revealed, there's no negative outcry.
In other words, even though consumers know they've been duped, the reaction amounts to nothing more than a bashful, "Oh Pepsi! We can't stay mad at you!"
And it's with that good-humored and awe-inspired mindset that we pay homage to the best "gotcha" moments in advertising.
1. The Blair Witch Project
Arguably the most important aspect of a successful guerrilla campaign is staying one step ahead of the public. As consumers become more attuned to ad agency efforts, marketers have to figure out how to attack the mob from unexpected angles. The brand standard for catching the public off guard? 1999's The Blair Witch Project. With no stars, no script, and a budget of around $50,000, University of Central Florida Film School pals Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez successfully scrubbed out the line between reality and fiction.
The film's tagline set the stage: "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found." Audiences were expected to believe what they were watching -- shaky, low-quality videotape of three runny-nosed kids weeping in the woods -- was an edited-down version of real recovered footage. And while it was certainly an inventive way to challenge the boundaries of cinematic storytelling (not to mention justifying the low-budget look of the film), Blair Witch didn't exactly seem poised to rival Titanic. That is, until an inventive guerrilla marketing scheme was devised.
To ease the suspension of disbelief and stir up some buzz, Sánchez created a Web site devoted to the Blair Witch -- a fictitious, woods-based specter who'd been snapping up Maryland kids for the last century. Although the legend was created out of whole cloth, it was soon snapped up by gullible Interneters everywhere, and a first-ballot hall of fame urban legend was born. Pretty soon, thousands of people were terrified of the Blair Witch. Even when the actors who played the "film students" started showing up (alive) doing interviews about the movie, many across the country refused to believe the Blair Witch wasn't real.
From that point, the "I've got to see for myself" effect took over, and Blair Witch dominated at the box office. Considered the most effective horror hoax since Orson Welles' The War Of The Worlds broadcast, the film grossed $250 million worldwide. Not a bad return for Artisan Entertainment, which paid only $1 million for the flick after its Sundance screening.
2. Acclaim Entertainment
Nowhere are the semi-criminal aspects of guerrilla marketing more important than in pitching to video gamers. Regular folks might occasionally enjoy being duped by an unusually clever campaign, but gamers seem to suck down daring and deception like a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew. The more the stunts flaunt the law, the more the gaming demographic seems to like them.
The undisputed high-score holder in this renegade arena is Acclaim Entertainment, a plucky little company that began as a one-room outfit in Oyster Bay, New York, and bloomed into a multinational juggernaut. Eschewing artistry in favor of an "all publicity is good publicity" philosophy, Acclaim stirs up the stuffy types -- and then laughs all the way to the bank. One of its bedrock tactics is to offer people money for performing some insane stunt on behalf of its upcoming game. Prior to the release of "Turok: Evolution," for instance, the company offered £500 to the first five U.K. citizens who'd legally change their names to Turok. (Almost 3,000 people tried to claim the prize.) Later, promoting the release of "Shadow Man 2," Acclaim announced it would pay the relatives of the recently deceased to place promotional ads on the headstones of their dearly departed. The company said the promotional fee might "particularly interest poorer families."
The latter campaign was, of course, shouted down. But Acclaim blew it off and said the whole thing was a joke -- right after its name had been conveniently plastered all over the headlines. In fact, many of the company's schemes are designed to die on the vine that way. Acclaim actually counts on law enforcement and city officials to shut down their antics -- preferably as publicly as possible. In 2002, the company announced its plans to promote "Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance" using something called "bloodvertising." Touting it as the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim said it was developing bus shelter ads that would seep a red, blood-like substance onto city sidewalks throughout the course of seven days. Officials thought that might not be in the best taste, so the campaign was aborted, as the world looked on. Also in 2002, Acclaim offered to pay all speeding tickets incurred in the U.K. on the day its racing game "Burnout 2" was released. Naturally, the bobbies balked, feeling that removing the consequences for speeding might encourage people to speed. Acclaim judiciously rescinded the offer, but, yet again, not before the name "Burnout 2" was burned into the public consciousness.
Neatorama is proud to present a guest post from Gary Noarnan, a contributor to the ragbag.
The king of hearts is called the suicide king because the king appears to be stabbing himself in the head. The jack of spades and jack of hearts are known as one-eyed jacks because their faces are in profile and only one eye is visible. But do you know why the nine of diamonds is called the curse of Scotland? Did you even know that it’s considered to be the most unlucky card in the deck? It is, though how it received its fearsome name is a source of wild speculation.
Here are eight leading theories on why the nine of diamonds is called the curse (or scourge) of Scotland. Some are more plausible than others, but all of them are highly intriguing.
1. British Commander William Augustus, the “Butcher Duke of Cumberland” was a lover of card games and always carried two packs on his person. After his decisive victory in the Battle of Culloden, he quickly scribbled an execution order for his Scottish prisoners on the closest paper he had at hand. The paper turned out to be—you guessed it—the nine of diamonds, a card that haunts the Scots to this day.
[Prince William, the “Butcher Duke” of Cumberland]
2. In the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, A notorious jewel thief by the name of George Campbell snuck into Edinburgh Castle and successfully heisted nine valuable diamonds. He then escaped to a neighboring country, never to be heard from again. Queen Mary responded by levying a heavy tax upon her kingdom to replace the gems. The hapless tax-payers have ever since had negative opinions about the nine missing diamonds and have vented their frustration by renaming the nine of diamonds playing card, the curse of Scotland.
3. Comete, a card game inspired by the discovery of Halley’s comet was introduced to Scotland by James II. To win the game, one needed to secure the nine of diamonds. It is said that the card was called the curse of Scotland on account of the large sums of money that Scottish gamers lost when first learning this new game.
These cute cookies with melting snowmen on top were made by professionals at Truly Custom Cakery, but they explain how you can make your own. The tutorial even shows you how to make a melting snowman throwing a snowball! http://www.trulycustomcakery.com/tutorials/25.html -via Fuzzy Dave's Carousel of Wonderosities
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website. This post is in honor of The Simpsons anniversary tomorrow.
On December 17, 1989 The Simpsons made its debut on Fox TV. What can you say about The Simpsons? Now in its 23rd season, it is, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant television shows of all time. Let's take a look at some Simpsons trivia you may not have known
Why are they yellow? Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, said he made the characters yellow to grab the attention of channel surfers.
How much does Maggie cost in the opening sequence? O.K. we're all familiar with the classic opening sequence on the show, where Marge and Maggie are at the supermarket checkout line and Maggie goes through the market scanner. Ever wonder how much she scans for? Maggie originally scanned for $847.63, which was the price of raising a baby for one month back in 1989 (when the show debuted). Now things have changed and Marge's groceries add up to $243.36. When Maggie is added and scanned, she doubles the tab to $486.52.
Tracy Ullman sued the show. The Simpsons is one of the most successful spinoffs in history, spawning from The Tracy Ullman Show. Tracy Ullman's variety show ran for three years on Fox, and The Simpsons originated as brief cartoon vignettes on the show. Dan Castellanetta (the voice of "Homer") and Julie Kavner ("Marge") were regulars on the series, nancy Cartwright ("Bart") and Yeardley Smith ("Lisa") were brought in to do the voiceovers for the cartoons. After The Simpsons took off on its own, Tracy Ullman sued, unsuccessfully, to earn a share of The Simpsons' merchandising bonanza. (So far, The Simpsons has lasted twenty years longer than the show that spawned it.)
Most unnecessary translation switch. The Simpsons is dubbed in by foreign-speaking actors for its runs in many different countries. In episodes dubbed in French, Homer's catchphrase "D'oh!" is translated and read as "T'oh!"
Most Parodied movie?The Simpsons is always incredibly clever satire. One of the show's favorite satire targets is, of course, the movies. According to the show's creators, the show's most parodied film is Citizen Kane. "They could create an entire film from Simpsons clips," a Simpsons writer has stated, referring to the amount of Citizen Kane gags they've used.he added that The Godfather films were very popular targets, too. Specifically, the show's creators listed the show's four most popular movie targets for satire as: 1. Citizen Kane 2. 2001: A Space Odyssey 3. The Shining 4. A Clockwork Orange
What celebrity guest star has played the most roles?The Simpsons is not only the longest-running animated TV show in history, but it holds the record for the most celebrity guest star appearances. Albert Brooks has made the most guest appearances in the most different roles: five different appearances as five different characters.
Many last names come from actual streets. Matt Groening got many of the last names of characters on the show from streets in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. Lovejoy, Quimby, Flanders, Kearney, Terwilliger, and Burnside are all actual street names in Portland.
Who is the only character on The Simpsons to have five fingers on a hand?The Simpsons characters, like almost all animated characters, have only four fingers on each hand.Only one Simpsons character has ever had five fingers. "God" is the only character portrayed on The Simpsons to ever have five fingers.
Secret Hidden Beatles Message
In the episode "Lisa the Vegetarian," Paul McCartney made a guest appearance, along with his wife, Linda. In the closing credits of the episode, Paul sings "Maybe I'm Amazed." There is a background voice on the song that does not appear on the record. The voice is Paul's. If you play it backwards, the voice is a recipe for lentil soup read by Paul.
Six celebrity guests have played both themselves and also a fictional character. Of all the hundreds of Simpsons celebrity guest voices, just six have appeared in episodes as both themselves and as a fictional character. They are Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Mark Hamill, Steve Buscemi, and Joe Montagna.
Sensitive guest voice. Former heavyweight boxing champion "Smokin'" Joe Frazier guested on a Simpsons episode. In the episode, Joe gets into a fight with the local drunk, Barney Gumbel. Joe objected to Barney beating him in a fight, so the writers changed the scene so Joe would win.
