Our buddy Alex over at Neatorama showed us yesterday's the Image of the Day at The Cellar. This is Thailand, where a Thai animated movie called "Kan Kluay" has been released, and these Mahouts - elephant drivers - have gathered to watch. I must confess I've never been to a drive-in theater (and I'm not talking the elephant kind). But I did find out how Richard Hollingshead started the first drive-in theater back in 1933. According to Mary Bellis, here's how it happened: He... READ ON
Check out the blog of this team of MIT students. They built this 40 foot tower to win the mini-skyscraper competition in MIT's Department of Architecture.  What value does a moving skyscraper have? Movement allows for improved structural performance under certain conditions. Within this project, actuators were not used for their usual application -- to stabilize a structure -- but instead to bring an interactive element of surprise and fun to our miniskyscraper. Instead of (over)dimensioning for a... READ ON
There's an interesting article at Wired about the crazy cost of moving a major work of art. The article claims that when the Mona Lisa was moved to its more prominent spot in the Louvre last year, it cost 3.2 million British pounds to move it. And it was only moved several meters! Here's how it worked when they moved another of da Vinci's paintings, Lady With the Ermine, from Poland to San Francisco: The painting was shipped by air -- accompanied by two armed couriers who sat in first-class seats on... READ ON
Mind Hacks linked today to a page with some really interesting pictures of old over the counter products that contained cocaine, opium, morphine and other now illegal substances. Here's a bit from the Department of Psychology at the University at Buffalo: During the mid to late 19th century, many manufacturers proudly proclaimed that their products contained cocaine or opium. A few, like Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup for infants which contained morphine, were more guarded in divulging their principal... READ ON
Seems like Steve Jobs must be if iPods are now more popular than beer on COLLEGE... READ ON
 DNA evidence has apparently linked a Miami accountant to Genghis Khan. I love the fact that when the man then tried to think about what he and the Mongol warrior might have in common, he concluded that it must be leadership skills because, as he says "When I practiced as a CPA I ran the department."  Okay, so I'll give you two facts and you can take a moment to create your own accountant jokes:  According to legend, when Genghis Khan was born in the latter part of the 12th... READ ON
For the last few years, we've read story after story about the potential benefits of green tea. And if you Google "benefits of green tea," there's no shortage of companies telling you why you should drink it and do plenty of other things with it. Which is why I'm actually soaking in a tub of the stuff as I write this. Pretty soon the green tea market will hit $1 billion annually. Crazy. Newsweek did an interesting bit last fall on how the craze got started. It's amazing how this... READ ON
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The new issue of mental_floss (May/June) has an article about the bizarre history of 3rd-party politics. And one of the parties we highlight in there is the short-lived American Vegetarian Party. As we pointed out in the article, the party was formed in 1947 by 84-year-old restaurant owner John Maxwell. In addition to promoting vegetarianism, they also campaigned against liquor, tobacco and medicine?!?! It's not any surprise that they didn't exactly win the hearts of Americans. But even if they... READ ON
We did our weekly CNN Headline News segment this morning on rising gas prices, because there's almost nothing else in the news. And I know I posted a gas fact yesterday but here's an interesting fact to put the US gas consumption in perspective: If California were a country it would consume more barrels of gasoline than any other foreign country. California by itself! The state consumes about 373 million barrels annually and the US as a whole consumes about 3 billion barrels. But since today's... READ ON
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Neuticles are synthetic testicles for neutered pets. The tagline: "It's like nothing ever changed."
