Category: Culture

A unified theory of Supermanness

A scientist have finally figured out Superman. He was, until this point, a riddle wrapped in an enigma. A blue and red enigma. Why do superheroes wear tights? Is it for mobility or aesthetics?

This new study, by a guy named Ben Tippett, started by debunking commonly held misconceptions about the Kryptonian.

“Siegel et al. Supposed that His mighty strength stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result, gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet of krypton would therefore endow Kal El with more efficient muscles and higher bone density; explaining, to first order, Superman’s extraordinary
powers. Though concise, this theory has proved inaccurate. It is now clear that Superman is actually flying rather than just jumping really high; and his freeze-breath, x-ray vision, and heat vision also have no account in Siegel’s theory”

The report found that Superman does not have many powers – he in fact has one power that manifests in different ways.

“We conjecture that all of Superman’s powers come from His ability to alter the inertial mass of objects in his immediate vicinity or with which he is in personal contact.”

The findings were supported by convincing diagrams.

Nobody likes Beck

Glenn Beck is a bizarro Christian shock jock in the US. Atheists hate him.

He praised Muse on his show this week. A representative from Muse apparently emailed him asking him to retract. He was going on about how Muse are libertarians who don’t want a one world government.

Beck retracts his endorsement at four minutes and twenty six seconds into the story.

Robobama

And we worry that K-Rudd might be robotic. Check out the amazing consistency of Obama’s smile.

Barack Obama’s amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Breadwinners

Sandwiches are great. Bread + Filling = Great idea. They’re great. They’re the reason the expression “the best thing since sliced bread” was coined. Why else (other than toast) would you slice bread?

Well. Now you can figure out if you’re being ripped off by that cafe that wants you to pay $14 for a BLT with this sandwich calculator.

From BoingBoing.

And then, since we’re in the mood, why don’t you check out the winner of a recent “BLT from scratch” competition… here’s the post that set the rules

“From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.”

The winner was an American chef living in Sydney… here’s the concluding post from the competition.

Here’s his winning sandwich – but the best bit is the photographic flow chart he made (and the fact that he harvested his own salt from the ocean)…

A Rube awakening

The pinnacle of Rube Goldberg machine technology is the breakfast machine. That’s what we’re all aiming for. Here’s one that delivers a complete breakfast – courtesy of a Gizmodo feature

And here’s a video of the thing in action.

Lose lose

What’s worth more – the aliens you slaughter in computer games or the files on your computer?

I guess you can find out if you want. By playing this game. That deletes a random file on your computer for every alien you kill.

“Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted. If the players ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted. Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player’s mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land? Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?”

You can, if you’re game, try it here… if I wanted to wipe a hard drive this would be pretty fun…

I don’t recommend it. Watch it in action below.

lose/lose from zach gage on Vimeo.

One take wonders

One take videos are impressive. This one has the best elements of one take direction and “flashmob” audience participation.

It’s not quite Forrest Gump in one minute. But it’s impressive.

How to rob a bank – Swedish style

Bank robbers are a misunderstood breed. They’re nothing like the bogans in Two Hands… Hollywood was closer in the movie “How to Rob a Bank…” that I reviewed a while back.

A very professional gang in Sweden did it this way (and got $150 million in the process):

  1. Dressed as ninjas
  2. Stole a helicopter
  3. Abseiled onto the roof of the building – which was essentially a money storage facility, the kind Scrooge McDuck used to bathe in.
  4. Smashed through the glass pyramid on top.
  5. Used explosives to access the money.
  6. Climbed back up the ropes.
  7. Escaped.

But that’s not the best bit. The best bit is that they delayed the pursuers by:

  1. Putting sharp stuff all over the road outside the depot.
  2. Putting a bag marked “Bomb” outside the police station’s helipad, which had to be investigated and the helicopter staff were evacuated.

Two men have since been “questioned” by police, it seems they’re not the actual robbers but may have been involved. The best quote in the story about the robbery is this one from a criminologist:

“They are definitely no amateurs.”

You think?

True persecution

Atheists have a bit of a siege mentality going on when it comes to being a persecuted minority in the US. But they’re not the hardest done by… that’d be the Jedis…

“The founder of the Jedi religion inspired by the Star Wars films was thrown out of a Tesco supermarket for wearing his distinctive brown hood.”

Imagine if that was someone wearing a burka.

He got upset, and took them to court. Here’s the report.

Tesco’s response was priceless. A prime example of treating a fool according to their folly:

“But Tesco hit back in the spirit of the epic space saga and claimed that the three most well known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods.”

Five not so essential skills

Kottke has a list of essential skills for living (ages ago, I’m clearing out my queue)… you should read it.

Here’s my list of not so common skillz that I’ve decided are important.

  1. Write a haiku – they come in handy for classy SMS invitations. Limericks are also useful.
  2. Make dangerous things that impress children – glove guns are a classic.
  3. Pull apart a piece of technology, try to get it working again, then turn it into a piece of art.
  4. Learn to tell dad jokes – this is an important skill – I don’t recommend starting with the tractor joke, but learn it to punish people.
  5. Get a party trick. You never know when you might need to save your life by performing some sort of miraculous and spontaneous piece of entertainment.

Share your non-essential skillz in the comments.

How to choose your next favourite band

With a quick and easy flow chart… (some words may slightly offend)…

From here.

Human Tetris

These guys get style points for getting the piece shapes right, and getting the theme music spot on too.

Thanks to Scooter, whose blog seems defunct so I won’t link to it in order not to get your hopes up.

Block knock offs

An artist/photographer named Mike Simpson has taken a series of classic photos and recreated them using lego. Check out the gallery here.

He’s done everything from major political and cultural events…


Through to sport…


Teens like Wikipedia too

If the 100 most read wikipedia articles of 2009 teach us anything it’s that teenage boys use the online encyclopedia just like teenage boys have always used dictionaries… to look up rude words. You’ll notice that various articles about sex and genitalia made it in.

Here’s the list.

Of course it also features dead celebrities, living politicians, and some movies.

The lights are on

In America the furthest point between two McDonalds restaurants is 145 miles by road. If you plotted every golden arch on a map it would look like this…

And we know this thanks to this guy, via Strange Maps.