What if it had been Disney that had scooped up the Harry Potter property in its infancy? What would have become of these dark “kids” movies (the latest of which I have not yet seen)?
Perhaps something like this?
Perhaps not.
(Found posted by a friend on Facebook. It’s like I don’t even try anymore…)
I am relatively certain that this is the first time I’ve ever seen an actual photo of an actual organ grinder and an actual monkey, outside of a cartoon and (perhaps) a movie.
It’s from a series of photos of organ grinders posted at One Way and reposted at Poemas del rio Wang. There are some really fantastic pictures, but I picked this one because it had “Hamilton” on it.
I watched this, and then I immediately ran to the work coat closet and stole a plastic hanger — and then to a coworker’s desk, where I rooted through his coin cup until I found a quarter.
I then marched to the centre of the newsroom, announced that I was going to try a magic trick that I had just seen on YouTube, and proceeded to fail miserably. Thrice. So I switched hangers. Failed thrice again. Retreated back to my desk in ignominy.
Sigh. Back to work.
(via tdw)
Would you like to have a home computer that looks like the one from Star Trek? Of course you would — and this guy has coded up what looks like a skin for his operating system that does just that, based on the LCARS system from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Now, I happen to have a 17″ touchscreen that’s just waiting for me to do something with, and I think I may have found my something.
I hope this guy releases the source code.
This one’s for my friend Dallas.
(via MeFi, which puts it as “yesterday’s future … here today”)
It is with great sadness that I report Leslie Nielsen has passed away.
One of the greats. Truly.
A Klein bottle is like a Mobius strip in three-dimensions, but that’s not really accurate because a Mobius strip is actually a two-dimensional form expressed in three dimensions, and the Klein bottle is actually a four-dimensional form expressed in three dimensions.
Essentially, the inside of the bottle is also its outside. If you were able to perceive the Klein bottle in four dimensions, it wouldn’t plunge into itself (there would be no self-intersections).
The “no inside, all outside” of the bottle is what makes it cleverly perfect for opening a beer bottle. Or, as Bathsheba Sculpture puts it:
The problem of beer That it is within a ‘bottle’, i.e. a boundaryless compact 2-manifold homeomorphic to the sphere. Since beer bottles are not (usually) pathological or “wild” spheres, but smooth manifolds, they separate 3-space into two non-communicating regions: inside, containing beer, and outside, containing you. This state must not remain.
A proposed solution Clearly the elegant course is to introduce a non-orientable manifold, which has one side and does not divide 3-space. When juxtaposed with the beer-bounding manifold described above, it acts to disrupt the continuity thereof, canceling the outdated paradigm of distinction between interior and exterior. This enables the desired interaction between beer and self.
Implementation The Klein Bottle Opener shown above is an example. It is palm-sized, durably constructed in stainless steel, effective, and blissfully ergonomic.
Q E D You need one.
You can buy these, at Bathsheba Sculpture. And they actually work. But they are a jaw-dropping $78, which is insane for a bottle opener, but I suppose the price is actually fairly reasonable for a fourth-dimensional object.
(via Scienceblogs)
Do you often find yourself without a martini? Do you ramble about your house, surrounded by empty mint tins that you can’t bring yourself to throw out? Perhaps one of those problems could help solve the other one!
In this innovative solution to the modern cultural frowning on “martinis for breakfast” you can surreptitiously make yourself the gentleman’s drink in just about any environs.
I would have two suggestions: A reusable glass — perhaps a flat, folding plastic cup like an Orikaso dish. And, perhaps keeping a couple of mints in the tin could help camouflage your post-martini breath.
I remember, when I was a boy, that someone gave me a Guide to Spying as a gift once, and it included instructions for making a full-on secret message-writing kit and hiding it in a cigarette carton.
It just never occurred to me that a 10-year-old carrying a cigarette case would be a tad conspicuous.
(thanks, Cameron!)
Well … that’s funny!
That’s the package you’ll get it you order a T-shirt from Ballet Cats. Frankly, I like it.
Warning: Sometimes the Ballet Cats website has music that starts auto-playing. I hate that. But their packaging is still funny.
(from Lost at E Minor)
Move over, Angostura, there’s a new bitters in town. Actually, Angostura bitters have always been subject to competition — there’s no secret to making bitters, except they’re all secret recipes.
Unfortunately, in the decades as I was growing up, it seemed like everyone decided that bitters would no longer be a necessary ingredient if you were going to make yourself a cocktail — when they are, in fact, the most essential ingredient.
Now, though, it seems there’s a bitters revolution. I read more and more about them in magazines and on websites. I still can’t find them for purchase anywhere in my hometown, of course, but the Internet will help — I can buy ‘em online for $8 a pop. There are different brands, too.
But then I stumbled across Bittercube.
You’ve heard of micro-breweries? You’ve heard of boutique wines? You’ve heard of craft distilleries making small-batch vodka, whisky and other spirits?
Make room for artisanal bitters. Ira and Nick, of Bittercube, have been pushing the envelope of bartending since they got started in the biz. And that included making their own bitters. Now, they’re offering these bitters for sale.
They’ve got blackstrap bitters, orange bitters — even cherry bark vanilla bitters. You can buy all six of their flavours in a variety pack for $48. Or you can buy single bottles through Cocktail Kingdom.
But what really intrigues me is this offer:
Bittercube takes Bitters commissions …. If you have a specific flavor profile you would like to see implemented in a one-of-a-kind bitters … Bittercube can work alongside you to create a custom set of Bitters.
Whoa.
Sure, it’s aimed at restaurants and bars — but I’m sure they say that just because you would have to buy a lot of it. There’s no reason a group of friends, or family, couldn’t decided they wanted a custom bitters, and I’m sure they’d listen.
In the meantime, while I try to whip up enthusiasm amongst my cocktail-drinking friends and family, there’s that $48 variety pack.
Now, for me, I think $48 is a little steep to spend on bitters. But, luckily, I don’t think that $48 is too steep for you to spend on me! Hey — it includes shipping!
Ok, this is a cheat. It isn’t really a short film, but part of a longer work.
On the other hand, I’m tired and this makes all sorts of sense to me. Plus, it stands on its own and it is hilarious.
There’s something to be said for humor that is smart and funny and doesn’t instantly go for the easy fart joke. (Not that I don’t like the occasional fart joke…)
Well, isn’t this an interesting set of numbers, as Americans celebrate Black Friday deals that are so extreme they’re drawing shoppers from this side of the border in droves. According to a study of West Michigan’s Kent County commissioned by a local-shopping advocacy group, if you spend $100 at a locally owned store, between $68 and $73 of those dollars will stay in your community, to recirculate and be used to invest in things that are near, and perhaps dear, to you.
The story is different if you shop at a store that’s not owned locally — perhaps a chain or a big-box store. Some of the money sticks around, through wages and taxes, but far fewer — only about $43 of every $100 you spend.
That’s because non-local stores are much less likely to spend money on things like local advertising (the design and printing will be down at HQ) or local services like accounting. And, I’ve previously read that big box stores like to tout their donations — they do sometimes give big money to lots of local charities. But even if they give 10 times the amount a local store would, what if they’ve put 15 stores out of business?
I don’t always shop local — in fact, I love perusing deals online, and I’ve ordered plenty from websites. Sometimes it’s something that I just can’t get in my own hometown — a specific poster or funny T-shirt, for example. But other times, I’ve felt no compunctions in ordering a computer or a flat-screen TV from an online retailer, where I can save hundreds of dollars at a pop.
Sure, if bothers me, sometimes, that the money won’t be going to my local town — that it won’t help invest in a livable community, just by circulating around and around — but I can’t always justify the extra cost, especially on a big-ticket item.
So, the numbers in this chart allowed me to quantify the savings of shopping non-local against the investment of shopping locally. Yes, these are numbers specific to West Michigan, but I’m going to presume that they are at least somewhat applicable in a more general sense.
Even if I shop at a non-local store, the chart reassures me that $43 of every $100 I spent is going to stay at home. But I could have a nearly 60 per cent greater impact by keeping my money at home — an extra $25 to go around and around in my community.
Let’s crunch the numbers — if I’m a committed shopper at non-local stores, I would need to spend $158.14 in order to have the same impact as spending just $100 at a local store would have.
Alternatively, if I spend just $63.24 at a local store, I would have the same local impact as spending the full $100 at a non-local store.
Or, let’s say we split the different. If I spend $50 at a local store for every $50 I spend at a non-local store, I’ll end up investing $55.50 back into the local economy. That’s significantly higher than if I spent it all non-locally, and yet it still lets me save a fair bit of money if local stores charge more. That’s especially true if you pick and choose where to spend your money with care — spend it at local stores where the price differential is least, for example, or where the local investment is greatest.
When I buy local, I try to buy things that actually make a difference. Coffee beans ain’t exactly local where I live, but I try to buy fair trade coffee from a local shop. I try to patronize farmers’ markets. I try to buy from a local bookstore downtown (though I find I’m reading fewer books and more stuff online). I even try to go to a local mechanic, when I can, and not a chain.
There’s more about the dramatic increase in economic activity when you shift to a local store here, if you’re interested. The chart and link to the study is here.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
This lesson is about to change my life:
Russian men drink vodka shots. They drink vodka with gusto while making loud breathing noises. They drink vodka as if their manhood depended on how loud those noises are. After these shots, Russians eat. They eat small morsels of food, chewing pensively, their gaze directed inward like that of a woman in late stages of pregnancy. In fact a good prix-fixe Russian dinner is a twenty-course affair, seventeen courses of which are hors d’oeuvres in small portions. During such dinner a Russian may down seventeen shots followed by seventeen different hors d’oeuvres while giving seventeen toasts. ….
The social purpose of rapid-fire vodka shots is to get as much alcohol in you as quickly as possible to get the party going. The gastronomical purpose of drinking vodka at dinners is to enhance the flavor of the food. Vodka is 40% ethyl alcohol, which is an ideal solvent for the small-molecule chemicals that give food its taste. Most of the taste is sensed not by the tongue but by the nose, and alcohol dissolves the flavor components and vapors and delivers them to their destination, making the food taste stronger.
On the Barnes and Noble Review site, a Russian doctor proffers a six-step process for optimal vodka consumption. It starts with breathing out, and ends with breathing in. It promises to enhance your enjoyment of both vodka and all the food you enjoy it with. I cannot wait to try it.
The village of Trundle, in Australia, is trying to attract new residents with an intriguing offer — $1/week rent for a full farmhouse. This is similar to other things that I’ve seen rural small towns try, but the twist on this one is that the cheap rent comes with a catch. You, the tenant, are responsible for fixing up the place. And the rent is only fixed at $1/week for three years.
There are seven farmhouses up for rent, and the village is hoping that you’ll also sign on to be filmed for a documentary about the project.
You can scroll through a gallery of photos from each of the farmhouses — that’s one of them, above — and see that you could probably move right in. Although some of them look like they need a significant amount of refurbishing, it’s nothing that a relatively handy person couldn’t handle.
The village is located about 400km inland from Sydney, and had a population of about 750 in the 2006 census. Could be an interesting place to move, if you’re so inclined! They’re looking for families with small, school-aged kids and they ask that you send along a photo.
Learn more at the website they’ve set up.
There is not a single one of these movies that I would not watch. Also, damn if I don’t not love double negatives!
The posters are by Matt Ranzetta, and I think he’s still making them, so check out his site.
