Jack Black is an entertainer extraordinaire-he sings, plays guitar, dances, writes music, plays roles both comedic and dramatic, plus he's one hell of an interview, which is why he's constantly invited to go on shows all over the world.
But Jack's musical and comedic skills in particular are why the South Korean game show Infinite Challenge asked him to be one of their celebrity guests, and his spot-on imitation of a K-Pop song ensured he'll be asked back.
-Via Geeks Are Sexy
Sven Stoffels is an animator with some serious illustration skills and a seriously warped mind, which made him a natural fit for the Comedy Central series TripTank, which "showcases animated shorts so volatile they should come with a recommended dosage".
When you tune in to a Sven Stoffels cartoon your head may start to feel a bit funny, or depending on your state of mind (or the mind-altering substances you're on) you may feel even more fine. However, it's worth noting before you watch that neither Sven nor Comedy Central are responsible for what may happen to your psyche after you tune in.
But if you're anything like me then feeding a bunch of dark and ridiculously funny cartoons to your head will make you feel all warm and squishy inside, like a kid who needs to poop but refuses to leave the TV until the commercial break! (NSFW)
The Joker is one of the most enduring characters in the history of comic books, and his name is so recognizable most people can picture his grinning face whenever his name is mentioned- even if they've never read a comic in their life.
But to really know the Joker's story you have to study every dimension of the character, including all the different versions from alternate dimensions, shows, movies and extended comic universes, all of which are truly Jokers at heart.
This Screen Rant video exposes 10 Alternate Versions of The Joke You Didn't Know About to the light, including the reality warping Emperor Joker, the madcap wanna-be Duela Dent and the half Joker-half Sabretooth hybrid Hyena.
For decades guitar players had to deal with miles and miles of cable when playing on a large stage, but the wireless instrument systems are here and they're cleaning up the stage.
The BOSS KATANA-AIR amplifier is the cutting edge in wireless guitar tech- it can be charged for 12 hours of use and therefore requires no outlets or cables to play, and its motion sensing technology gives guitarists the freedom to move around without affecting the sound.
Now guitar players can play pretty much anywhere they want and freely rock out without getting hung up on cables or cords, how cool is that?!
-Via Laughing Squid
Photographing wildlife is a lot like taking photos of thugs, gangsters and criminals on the streets- they both force you to shoot without being seen, neither group knows how to pose properly, and taking the pics could cost you your life.
But as American street photographer Bruce Gilden has discovered the resulting photos are worth the risk, because the untamable creatures he photographs aren't always going to be around to smile for the camera.
Bruce spent just over two weeks in a small provincial town in Russia populated by criminals, drug addicts and other "lost people", a terrifyingly rough and tumble place he referred to as a "Dark Ages community".
And, much like the photos you'd expect to see taken at a wildlife reserve, Bruce's photos showcase wild creatures in their natural habitat, feeling free to go about their regular daily business while a visitor takes a pretty picture.
See American Photographer Bruce Gilden Documents The Wildlife Of The Russian Gangsters here
The whole zombie thing is starting to make fans groan, but if you dig around a little you'll find that fresh visions of a zombie infested world have been out there all along, hiding out in all the unusual places.
Raised By Zombies was written and created by Guy Collins back in 2013, and while it isn't a reinvention of the subgenre it presents lots of fresh and interesting ideas in a simply eye pleasing style. In fact, it might be the most chill zompocalypse story ever told!
Shakespearean scholars have been debating for centuries about whether William Shakespeare was a rip-off artist or not, and whether the true "inspiration" for his works can be traced back to one of his contemporaries.
And now thanks to the research done by two Shakesepearean scholars and an open-source plagiarism software called WCopyfind we may be one step closer to solving the mystery.
Dennis McCarthy and June Schlueter ran Shakespeare's plays through WCopyfind and discovered a connection to an unpublished manuscript from the 16th century called "A Brief Discourse Of Rebellions and Rebels" by George North, a minor figure in the court of Queen Elizabeth:
Mr. McCarthy used decidedly modern techniques to marshal his evidence, employing WCopyfind, an open-source plagiarism software, which picked out common words and phrases in the manuscript and the plays.
In the dedication to his manuscript, for example, North urges those who might see themselves as ugly to strive to be inwardly beautiful, to defy nature. He uses a succession of words to make the argument, including “proportion,” “glass,” “feature,” “fair,” “deformed,” “world,” “shadow” and “nature.” In the opening soliloquy of Richard III (“Now is the winter of our discontent …”) the hunchbacked tyrant uses the same words in virtually the same order to come to the opposite conclusion: that since he is outwardly ugly, he will act the villain he appears to be.
“People don’t realize how rare these words actually are,” Mr. McCarthy said. “And he keeps hitting word after word. It’s like a lottery ticket. It’s easy to get one number out of six, but not to get every number.”
Rather than straight up ripping off George's book scholars believe the book must have been an endless source of inspiration for the Bard of Avon, something which he consulted often while writing his plays:
“It’s a source that he keeps coming back to,” said Mr. McCarthy, a self-taught Shakespeare scholar, during a recent interview at his home in North Hampton, N.H. “It affects the language, it shapes the scenes and it, to a certain extent, really even influences the philosophy of the plays.”
In reviewing the book before it was published, David Bevington, professor emeritus in the humanities at the University of Chicago and editor of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (7th Edition),” called it “a revelation” for the sheer number of correlations with the plays, eclipsed only by the chronicles of Holinshed and Hall and Plutarch’s “Lives.”
Martin Meisel, professor of dramatic literature emeritus at Columbia University, said in another review that the book is “impressively argued.” He added that there is no question the manuscript “must have been somewhere in the background mix of Shakespeare’s mental landscape” while writing the plays.
Read Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare's Plays here
It seems odd that someone would make a list of times SpongeBob SquarePants went too far, because his bizarre jokes and slapstick brand of comedy seem to go too far on every episode.
But apparently WatchMojo went through every episode of SpongeBob to show us that the wacky cartoon about a little burger flipping buffoon sometimes goes even farther than too far, the skits becoming a bit too unsettling.
There was the time Squidward got off on murdering papier mache versions of SpongeBob, the time Plankton wore Sandy's discarded "pelt" as a suit, and the time SpongeBob popped Mrs. Puff, making her unable to puff up again- which made her want to murder him.
These episodes made me crack up, but the target audience's parents were probably less than thrilled to find their kids watching such sick and twisted toons!
Despite the good they're built to represent many churches are downright scary places, especially the older and creakier ones that look more like a horror movie set than a place of worship.
But creaky or not there are few churches creepier than St. George's church in the Czech Republic, a dilapidated old church parishioners refused to step foot in after the roof fell in during a funeral in the 1960s.
Hoping to bring the church back to life Czech sculptor Jakub Hadrava figured out a way to make the long abandoned church into a tourist attraction- by adding a bunch of creepy hooded figures and turning it into an art installation.
Now the church has the creepy look, the creepy and deadly backstory and a bunch of creepy sculptures of hooded "ghosts" hanging around, doesn't get much creepier than that!
-Via design you trust
People say "you're never too old..." about things most seniors don't want to do, but when it comes to cosplaying the cliche is true, because you're never too old to dress up like one of your favorite pop culture characters.
Just ask Shirley Chua from Singapore- Shirley is 70 years old yet she started cosplaying as Chun-Li from Street Fighter and her other favorite characters in 2011, right after she told her son "Mama would like to cosplay".
Since then Shirley has embraced the art of cosplay and even loves to make her own costumes, and as you'll see in this video from The Good Guyde she fits in with the Con crowd just as well as any young cosplayer.
-Via Geeks Are Sexy
The food you get at a restaurant tastes different than homemade by design, because why would you pay restaurant prices for food you can make at home?
This difference in flavor often come from the chef adding way more salt, fat or spices than you would ever add at home, but sometimes restaurant flavor is the result of a simple cooking trick like pressing a dimple into your burger before cooking it.
This video by Bright Side reveals 14 Cooking Secrets Used By Restaurant Chefs, including the secret to cutting the perfect slice of cake (hold knife under hot water before cutting) and how to pick the perfect lemon (the thinner the peel the more sour the lemon).
Planning a trip to Japan means choosing what kind of experience you'd like to have while you're there- you can go full urban in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, go see all the wonderful nature in Kyoto or hop around and combine the two.
Either way, if you're planning a trip to Japan you should check out this TopTenz article that reveals 10 Must-See Tourist Attractions in Japan so you'll know which way you want to go.
You could go visit the wonderfully relaxing "onsen ryokan" hot spring hotels all over the country and unwind, or get wild in the city and see the famed Akihabara and Harajuku districts in Tokyo.
If you're looking for something a bit different why not visit some of the last remaining feudal castles like Matsumoto Castle pictured at the top of the post? Add Maruoka Castle and Matsue Castle to your itinerary and you've got a feudal fairy tale trip in the making.
And if you're planning on visiting Japan with your kids, or you're just a kid at heart, then you may want to check out Tokyo DisneySea, which looks amazing and quite different than all the other Disney theme parks.
Train horns are made to be heard from miles away, and while they serve a potentially life saving service on trains the smaller versions people put on their vehicles are just there to annoy and get attention.
So builders who like to play with train horns try to make as much noise as possible with their creations, building larger and louder horns until they've constructed something so loud it should be illegal.
But this leaf blower-powered 55-gallon train horn built by Barrett Crook is well beyond illegally loud, like hear it booming in the next state loud!
-Via Laughing Squid
Cathode ray tube televisions totally revolutionized the world of home entertainment when they first debuted back in 1934, and they were the norm right up until "flat panel" technology replaced CRT for good in the early 2000s.
But even though CRT has gone the way of the VCR there are still millions of sets out there, many of them in full working order, and if CRT enthusiasts like Chi-Tien Liu and Ian Primus keep up their good work the CRT TV will never go extinct.
Chi-Tien Liu fixes up discarded CRT TVs and rents them out to museums and filmmakers, keeping these "relics" of TV history alive so they won't become lost in the mists of time:
The first floor of CTL Electronics — whose clientele includes the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, and other museums across the country — is lined with a rich mix of vintage TVs, from tiny boxes to big, looming screens. In his bedroom upstairs, Lui has a 1930s mechanical television, an early image transmission system that passed light through a spinning metal disc. In his workshop, there’s a grid of old screens that once sat inside the Palladium, an iconic New York nightclub that closed in 1997. “They used to have 16 of these, rotating in the club — everybody danced underneath,” Lui recalls. “When they went out of business I took all the equipment back. And right now, I’m restoring them.”
And even though people think he's crazy IT professional Ian Primus goes around picking up CRT TVs from whoever wants to get rid of them, in part because he sees them as the best TV for retro gaming:
Primus says he doesn’t just hoard old TVs; he uses them constantly in his daily life. “I don’t have an LCD computer monitor, and I don’t have an LCD TV. Everything is CRTs,” he says. “I know I’m crazy.” Most new devices exclusively support current TVs, including one of Primus’ newer tech purchases — Nintendo’s NES Classic — which, ironically for such a retro-looking device, only features a modern HDMI adapter. But it’s still possible to use adapters with many of them. As long as that’s true, Primus says he’ll probably stick with CRTs.
“I’m not going to try to be one of those guys who says, ‘Yeah the picture on a CRT is better than the LCD,’” he says. But he likes the deep blacks and high color contrast and the sturdiness of old hardware. Primus, like Lui, is also helping keep CRTs available to the people who can’t do without them. In his case, that’s the retro gaming community.
Read Inside The Desperate Fight To Keep Old TVs Alive at The Verge
It's not hard to chisel away at a block of stone and make something that resembles a human form, but it takes a true master to create photorealistic sculptures in marble, a master who often begins their training at art school.
However, some incredibly gifted (and lucky) people are born with the skills of a master sculptor within them waiting to emerge, and after a few lessons and a little practice they can sculpt better than people who have spent years training.
Jacopo Cardillo, aka Jago, is one of the lucky ones, and at just 30 years old this Italian sculptor dreams of being the next Michelangelo- and might actually live up to his dreams despite being virtually self-taught.
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