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I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything. He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life . He said, “ People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let's look at a few examples. ”
Kurt Vonnegut explains drama
If you watch enough television shows and movies, then you might even start to notice that a bunch of the same props are used over and over again. I first noticed this with a magazine prop in various television shows including Married With Children, which featured a gum advertisement on the back cover. Someone on Reddit recently put together a compilation of photos from various television shows, commercials and movies, showing how one newspaper prop gets around and is reused, and reused again. I don’t know the story behind this prop newspaper, but I assume it was created as a royalty free prop for television shows.
LOL: The Recurring Prop Newspaper
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.
An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It
O p A r t Illusion design works that look like op art. Please note that this page could make you feel sick. "A pulser"
Op art
Robots born with the sole purpose of solving the Rubik's Cube are nothing new , but we're pretty sure we haven't seen one crack the code in under a dozen seconds before. The Cubestormer, which is built from a myriad Lego Mindstorm kits, recently took hold of the famous block and lined up every color without breaking a sweat. Oh, and did we mention that it took less than 12 seconds? It's worth noting again, either way. Hop on past the break and mash play to have your mind blown, not to mention your own intelligence insulted. See more video at our hub!
Lego Cubestormer robot solves Rubik's Cube in sub-12 second whirlwind (video)
Piston-engine airplanes in the movies are unusually subject to engine failure. This failure mode is unique to filmdom - engine coughs, keeps running. Hero doesn't notice. Then it stutters, catches again. Hero notices, taps gas gauge, turns lever.
The Movie Cliches List, part 1
The 5 Most Widely Believed WWII Facts (That Are Bullshit)
They say history is written by the winners, but the truth is even stranger than that. In reality history is often written by popular opinion, or wishful thinking, or crass politics. That's why so much of what we hear about an event like World War II--whether from textbooks, movies or something you overheard a smart-sounding guy say--is just plain bullshit.
s fridge 3.0. Play with my magnetic words.
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In the video above, which is making the viral rounds: a San Francisco police officer who IDs himself as "Officer Schwab, (badge number) 2099" arrests a skateboarder identified as Zach Stow, after Stow calls the officer a "fckng dck." Over at metblogs SF, Richard Ault says the officer's understanding of SF skateboarding codes is wrong . An article about the incident is here at the SF Chronicle . My two cents, as someone who is neither a lawyer, nor a skateboarder: taunting a police officer by calling him a "fckng dck" is about as dumb as it gets, but that does not give the officer the right to threaten to break the guy's arms, or arrest him for -- what was it, in the end, failing to carry identification?
San Francisco police officer arresting skateboarder: "I'll break your arm like a fckng twig."
The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
T he Bible tells us that God created Adam and Eve just a few thousand years ago, by some fundamentalist interpretations. Science informs us that this is mere fiction and that man is a few million years old, and that civilization just tens of thousands of years old. Could it be, however, that conventional science is just as mistaken as the Bible stories?