You Can’t Kill the Rooster

David Sedaris reads “You Can’t Kill the Rooster”—the greatest story in human history—about his brother Paul, aka The Rooster.





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Harry Smith's Collection of Paper Planes Found On The Streets Of NYC

Harry Everett Smith was a painter, anthropologist and collector of oddball items and groups of objects, including over 250 paper airplanes that he found on the street. He would pick up these lost paper objects and tag each one with the time and location of their finding.

He donated 250 of these paper airplanes to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in the eighties.



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Via Junkculture

Honda's History In Stop-Motion

Honda has teamed up with acclaimed animator PES - the man responsible for over 50 commercials for brands like Bacardi, Playstation, Samsung, and Orange - to create a stunning new stop-motion advert showcasing the company's 60 year history.



Via  HUH.

Blinged-Out Sea Turtle

Endangered hawksbill sea turtles have bio-fluorescent shells that reflect UV light as different colors (in this case red, yellow and green). Scientists believe this may help camouflage the turtles as they swim among reefs with lots of bio-luminescent animals at night. This is the first time that biofluorescence has ever been seen in reptiles.



Via Geekologie

This Is Cinerama!

Fred Waller laboured long on his dream of a motion picture experience that would recreate the full range of human vision. Cinerama was a motion picture process that used three cameras, three projectors and a deeply curved viewing screen.  This Is Cinerama debuted at the Broadway Theater in New York City on September 30, 1952.

Via Dr. Caligari's Cabinet

Ornate Parisian Mosaic Floors

Inspired by a trip to Morocco, photographer Sebastian Erras decided to capture the beauty of the ornate mosaics underfoot. Each shot within his Instagram account, Parisian Floors (@parisianfloors), is a cropped image of Erras’s own shoes and the surrounding tile decorations.

Via  Colossal

How To Get Your Hair In A Twist

 Improbable Research magazine collects, no surprise, improbable research. It may be good or bad, important or trivial, valuable or worthless but it's all real. Who knew that one could obtain a patent for hairdressing methods?

Neatorama has featured an article from the publication entitled Angular approaches to, or with, hair by Alice Shirrell Kaswell 

To use this invention, the hair to be manipulated is first combed and separated into a number of strands and the free end of each strand is engaged with one of the leaders to be drawn into and through one of the respective guide means. Each separate hair strand is thus led into the intertwined position of its guide with respect to the other guides and their hair strands. When all of the strands to be intertwined have been led into and through their respective guides their leaders are detached from the strands and the tubes are pulled longitudinally off of the free end of each strand to leave the several hair strands intertwined in the pattern that the guides originally occupied.

More hair twisting here .

11 actors play more than 100 Simpsons characters

This is why these voice artists make $300,000 per episode.

Fukushima Four Years Later

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was initiated primarily by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. In this photographic documentary Arkadiusz Podniesiński wants us to know that it is not earthquakes or tsunami that are to blame for the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, but humans. The report produced by the Japanese parliamentary committee investigating the disaster concludes that the disaster could have been forseen and prevented.

Podniesiński visited the area four years after the disaster. He reports on the ongoing decontamination and the people who have been displaced. He also tells us about Naoto Matsumura, a farmer who returned illegally to the zone to take care of the abandoned animals. It's a fascinating read.

The author and Naoto Matsumura with his animals

One of thousands of dump sites with sacks of radioactive soil

Yukiko Tajiri showing the house she lived in before the evacuation

More: FUKUSHIMA 

Robotic Hands Clap in Time to ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’

In 2011 robotic engineer Masato Takahashi of Keio University debuted two pairs of anthropomorphic  hands that clapped in perfect time to the Japanese version of the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. He crafted them from moulds of his own arms and called them Ondz. Creepy.



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Now You Know. Do Not Serve Me Pinot Grigio With Gorgonzola.

You're welcome!

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ThirstyConcrete

Topmix Permeable is a fast draining concrete pavement solution that rapidly directs stormwater off streets, parking surfaces, driveways and walkways.
A video of the material being tested in a car park shows the concrete 'drinking' 880 gallons (4,000 litres) of water in around a minute, with most of it disappearing almost as soon as it hits the ground.

Thanks Bruce!

Curiosity Cloud

Curiosity Cloud is part of a year-long collaboration between Mischer'Traxler and Champagne brand Perrier-Jouët called Small Discoveries. The installation at London's V&A Museum consists of 264 suspended blown-glass bulbs, each of which contains a hand-made model of an insect. It lies dormant when there's nobody around. But the bulbs light up and the insects inside start fluttering against the glass as soon as visitors get close.



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Bigass Gun Was Made to Shoot 100 Birds at Once

These ridiculous looking punt guns used to be common among commercial waterfowl hunters. What’s so special about this gun? It is capable of killing upwards of 50-100 birds in a single shot. The guns were mounted to small, often flat bottomed, boats known as “punts” and were used by market hunters who earned their living by bringing ducks or other waterfowl to market.Sportsmen who hunted for personal use of the killed waterfowl began advocating for hunting regulations and limits. Many U.S. states outlawed the use of punt guns by the 1860s but they are still legal in the United Kingdom, albeit under strict regulation,  and there are only a few dozen currently left in the U.K.

If these were the only guns manufactured today I suspect we would see a reduction in crime involving firearms.



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120-Year-Old Wedding Dress Passed on to 11 Brides

Pennsylvania bride, Abigail Kingston, was the 11th bride to wear a 120-year-old wedding dress that has been passed down through her family from generation to generation. The dress is so fragile that even after 200 hours of  expert restoration, she was still only able to wear it to the cocktail hour.
The first bride to wear the dress was Mary Lowry Warren, who was married in it in 1895. The last bride to wear the dress was her mother, Leslie Kingston, who was married in 1991.

Abigail Kingston

Mary Lowry Warren

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Got Three Minutes? Take a Tour Of Paris.

Maxime Gaudet captures a whole lot of Paris in his video, Paris in Three Minutes, using hyperlapse and real-time footage.

Paris in 3 Minutes - Hyperlapse Experimentation from Maxime Gaudet on Vimeo.

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The Soundtracks of The Man Who Fell to Earth

Casting a pop star in a movie has always been a gamble, but from his flamboyant stage personas to his album covers that imitated the glamour of old Hollywood, it was inevitable that David Bowie would end up on the big screen. It was also probably inevitable that his first starring role would be that of an alien.

Video Essay: The Man Who Fell to Earth from Film Comment on Vimeo.

Read the Video Essay
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Luigi Visconti

Luigi Visconti's Crossroads series is mostly focused on capturing the crumbling facades of Havana. Some of the most beautiful buildings are positioned at crossroads and on show across multiple vantage points.

Via Blort

Fragments of Nature Encased in Resin

You can keep summer going all year round with these beautiful botanical jewelry pieces by Oregon-based artist Sarah Smith. Each piece is handmade and takes up to three weeks to complete.

Smith's pieces are available for purchase through her Etsy shop.
More:  My Modern Met

Get Creative With Your Eyebrows

Mix 'em up for extra fun!

Pie Comic by John McNamee

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My God It Talks!

The Voice Operation Demonstrator, or VODER for short, is the first electrical speech synthesizer operated through a keyboard. Developed by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs it was demonstrated at the 1939 New York World's Fair and the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. A writer from The New York Times saw the device demonstrated at the 1939 World's Fair and declared "My God it talks!"



Difficult to use and to operate, VODER nonetheless paved the way for modern speech-generating devices.

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Keyboard Waffle Iron

Chris Dimino designed a concept keyboard waffle iron in 2007 for a group art exhibit. The idea was so popular on the internet that he started a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 to make the concept a reality.

Finally the keyboard waffle iron is ready to be shipped to nerdy waffle enthusiasts. Bring on the syrup!



More: Mental Floss

11 Sets of Twins, One Kindergarten

There are 191 students this year at Long Island’s Lynbrook Kindergarten Center, and 22 of them  are twins: one set of identical twins, seven sets of twin brothers and sisters, two sets of fraternal brothers and one pair of fraternal sisters. Principal Ellen Postman starts all the twins in different classes so they can develop their own identities and make new friends.

HERRING & HERRING (fashion photographers Dimitri Scheblanov and Jesper Carlsen) has published a photo gallery of the twins in NYMag.

More: NYMag

Can You Do This?

Stoneskipper does his thing at Lake Paran in Bennington, Vermont.



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Café Pushkin

In 1999 a Franco-Russian artist and restaurateur Andrei Dellos, and his chef Andrei Makhov, opened Café Pushkin in a historical Baroque mansion o,n Tverskoy Boulevard. Guests can reserve their tables in the pharmacy hall surrounded by antique medicine bottles and scales, or in the Library, sitting amongst explorer’s globes, telescopes and rare copies of anything from Shakespeare, Dickens, Voltaire and Dante to Pushkin himself, Tolstoy and Russia’s greatest storytellers. They can choose from a menu both Russian and French, inspired by historic recipes and adapted to modern times.

More:Messy Nessy Chic

The Cartoon Guide to Vertebrate Evolution

Albertonykus drew this wonderful guide for us. You can buy the print here.

"Animals that have been colored in are extant species. Age ranges represent known fossil record and do not include ghost lineages. The animals placed along the branches (instead of at the tips) are all based on real taxa that approximate the likely ancestral morphology of certain groups, but I have left them unlabeled to prevent propagation of the misconception that we can identify whether said taxa are the actual ancestors of those groups. Absolutely nothing is to scale."

More: DeviantArt
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Pizza Slicer/Fork

This 2-in-1 eating utensil has the functionality of a pizza slicer with the practicality of a regular fork. I use my greedy little hands when I gorge on pizza, no utensils required, but this would be perfect for tidy types who like to eat their pizza with a knife and a fork

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Teeny Weeny Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls is a tourist attraction that is close to my heart and also close to my home - I do my grocery shopping there.
Joerg Daiber of Little Big World gives the Falls the tilt-shift/timelapse treatment, turning the popular tourist destination into a miniature version of itself.



Via TwistedSifter

Celebrities Photographed in the Styles of Iconic Photographers

For his new photo project and book titled Basel in Portraits, Swiss photographer Lucian Hunziker took portraits of 59 celebrities in the iconic styles of 59 different famous photographers of the past 150 years.

The subjects are residents of Basel, Switzerland and I've never seen most of them before but the photographic styles of Henri-Cartier Bresson, Andy Warhol, Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz, Edward Steichen, Diane Arbus and Man Ray are unmistakable.

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AP Wire Confuses Yogi Berra with Yogi Bear

Phew! For a minute I thought Jellystone Park had lost its most beloved resident.

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The History Of The Treadmill

I have a love-hate relationship with my treadmill.  No, actually it's all hate. Running on it makes me look and feel like some red, sweaty turnspit dog. The fact that treadmills were made to exploit and torture prisoners into providing labor to power mills comes as no surprise to me.

Conor Heffernan and Yukai Du team up for Ted-Ed to tell the history of this torture device.



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Everbright Giant Interactive Light Board

Everbright from Hero Design is the grandchild of Lite-Brite, one of my favourite toys - only it's bigger and hipper and doesn't have tiny parts to lose. It's being marketed as a tool to make workplaces more effective



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What People With Anxiety Actually Hear

These comics by BuzzFeed’s Charlotte Gomez depict different everyday scenarios wherein people are saying one thing and those with anxiety hearing another.

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A Foggy Morning In Niagara on The Lake

Routard launches France travel guide for refugees

Frustrated by the French government's lack of response to Europe's refugee crisis, the producers of
France's famous Routard travel guides have created a free guide especially for refugees.
4,000 copies of the guide will be distributed to FNARS, an organization representing refugee assistance centres across France. Copies will then go to people who need them.

More: The Local

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Hundreds of Ventriloquist Figures Up For Auction

The largest privately owned collection of ventriloquist figures in the country is going on the block. They belong to Dan Willinger, who spent 30 years putting the group together. Some of the figures date back to the late 1800s, while others are from the 2000s. There is a wide price range, from a few hundred dollars to well into the thousands. One named Happy Hazard is expected to fetch $40,000 to $50,000.

The figures will be auctioned in two groups, with the first happening Sunday and the second in October. The entire collection is expected to bring in $400,000 to $500,000. 

Does anyone else think they're incredibly creepy?


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Dama di Salumi

How to serve cold cuts



Check out more interesting food presentations here.

Wearable Maps of 80 Cities

Using data from OpenStreetMap, graphic designer Alex Szabo-Haslam’s line of Citees shirts depicts nearly 80 cities around the globe.

T-shirt, $38 pre-order on Kickstarter.More: CityLab

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The Selfie Stick/Spoon Hybrid

What next? Cereal brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch has announced a new product called the Selfie Spoon. It’s a selfie stick with a spoon for a handle that’s designed to help you take pictures of yourself while you're chowing down.

If you don't mind looking like a total doofus you can have one. Just pay for shipping and handling and you'll be taking photos of your own tonsils in no time.

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Vancouver Never Plays Itself

Vancouver is the third biggest film production city in North America, behind Los Angeles and New York. And yet for all the movies and TV shows that are shot there, we hardly ever see the city itself. Tony Zhou talks about the techniques filmmakers use to make shoot locations like Vancouver (Zhou's hometown) look like New York, India, Chicago, Shanghai, and San Francisco in the finished films.



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Animation Hotline

Animation Hotline is looking for new stories, poems, insights, questions, visions, quests, drunkalogues, lists, memories, passions, current events, opinions, secrets, truths, lies, or anything else you want to talk about in one minute or less.

Presented by Dusty Studios, the hotline is an open telephone number that anybody can call to leave a voicemail message, and messages are then selected to animate using the voicemail as audio.



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RCMP Get Tough On Youth Crime

Mounties from the southern Saskatchewan detachment got wind of a weekend party involving local youth and posted about it on Facebook. They warned the students they could face hefty fines if there were any laws broken, such as underage drinking or littering.

They also said officers from the detachment would show up with chips and salsa.

It turns out they weren't kidding

More: CBC News

A Trip Through Père Lachaise Cemetery

"Paris Lifelapse", a haunting video by French filmmaker Mathieu Stern, takes the viewer through the lanes of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Lifelapse - Paris Cemetery Timelapse / Hyperlapse from Mathieu Stern on Vimeo.

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Hitchcock's Rear Window Set In Miniature

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window set has been miniaturized by artist and anthropologist Dr. Louise Krasniewicz. Designed at 1/12 the scale, the Rear Window model provides a detailed look at the fictional 1954 Greenwich Village set. This intricate model, is on display at D. Thomas Fine Miniatures in Hastings-on-Hudson through November 25th.

Photos: Patch.com

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