Hiroshima: The Instant After

A video documentary featuring a reconstitution of the nuclear explosion from the victims' point of view:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x9lwvImJqT0

In addition to stealing their crops...

They say the monkeys are more afraid of young men than women and children, and the bolder ones throw stones and chase the women from their farms.

Nachu's women have tried wearing their husbands' clothes in an attempt to trick the monkeys into thinking they are men - but this has failed, they say.

"When we come to chase the monkeys away, we are dressed in trousers and hats, so that we look like men," resident Lucy Njeri told the BBC News website

"But the monkeys can tell the difference and they don't run away from us and point at our breasts. They just ignore us and continue to steal the crops."

In addition to stealing their crops, the monkeys also make sexually explicit gestures at the women, they claim.

"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts. We are afraid that they will sexually harass us," said Mrs Njeri.

The Kenyan Wildlife Service told the BBC that it was not unusual for monkeys to harass women and be less afraid of them than men, but they had not heard of monkeys in Kenya making sexually explicit gestures as a form of communication to humans.

The predominantly farming community is now having to receive famine relief food.

Monkey misery for Kenyan women villagers

Over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes

"Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out, according to a new study, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes."

NewScientist article

Real-world person change event

From "A subject in a real-world person change event":

These videos show a subject witnessing a "person change" in studies reported by Simons and Levin (1998). In this clip, an experimenter approached a pedestrian to ask for directions. While the pedestrian was providing directions, two additional experimenters rudely passed between the initial experimenter and the pedestrian. During this brief interruption, the original experimenter was replaced by a different person. Even though the two experimenters looked quite different and had distinctly different voices, approximately 50 percent of the subjects failed to notice that they were talking to a different person after the door passed. Interestingly, those who noticed tended to be from the same social group (students) as the experimenters, and those who failed to notice tended to be older than the experimenters. To explore this in-group/out-group effect, we conducted a second experiment in which the same two experimenters were dressed as construction workers. By making the experimenters members of an outgroup for the younger subjects, we were able to reduce noticing from close to 100 percent to only 35 percent.

Original door study video
Construction worker door study

I never

Perhaps Paul Gascoigne, an English footballer, got it right. "I never predict anything, and I never will," he once said.

L’Inconnue de la Seine

In 1900, the body of an unidentified young woman, an apparent suicide, was pulled from the river Seine in Paris. Enchanted by the mysterious corpse’s beauty, a morgue worker made a plaster cast of the woman’s face. (...)
In 1958, the Inconnue was used as the model for the face of Rescue Annie, a popular CPR training mannequin still in use today. Hers is perhaps the most kissed face of all time.

L’Inconnue de la Seine

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Hey listen up to your local DJ
You better hear what he's got to say

There's not a problem that I can't fix
'Cause I can do it in the mix

And if your man gives you trouble
Just you move out on the double

And you don't let it trouble your brain
'Cause away goes trouble down the drain
Said Away goes trouble down The drain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQ0At6fo1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5c8GY5Q0VM

Indeep > Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva

"This is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen.
This is a video of 21 members of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe performing the Thousand-hand Bodhisattva dance;"

Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva

Thus argued that modern businessman is no different from a barbarian

... Following this line of reasoning, Veblen also concluded that businessmen were simply the latest manifestation of the leisure class. He noted that businessmen do not produce goods and services, but simply shift them around whilst taking a profit. He thus argued that the modern businessman is no different from a barbarian, in that he uses prowess and competitive skills to make money from others, and then lives off the spoils of conquests rather than producing things himself.

Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class

The Sinking of Japan

"This is a video of disaster scenes from the 2006 movie Sinking Of Japan (Nihon Chinbotsu). It includes volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. I edited all the disaster parts for your pleasure."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeJ6Cftc-E8

Two mammals that lay eggs

Two mammals that lay eggs: the Platypus and the Echidna

The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals. The “patchwork” appearance of the platypus is seen only by those who believe each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment.
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences13.html

Beware that the above link leads to a creationist website. From the same website, here's an ilustration of "Saturn, DNA, and Description of Ark.":
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/introduction.jpg

The Colossal Squids

Did these creatures fire people's imagination across the ages?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2910849.stm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0423_030423_seamonsters.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6357005.stm

Xkeban had a good heart

A legend of Xtabay (the female demon) tells us about two women who lived in a village in the Yucatán Peninsula. One was named Xtabay, but people called her Xkeban (which means prostitute, bad woman or who practices illicit love), the other was Utz-Colel (a good, decent woman).

People said Xkeban was sick with lust and gave her favors to every man who asked her. Utz-Colel was virtuous and honest.

Xkeban had a good heart and kindly helped the poor, sick and homeless, and also the animals abandoned for being considered useless, by giving up the jewellery and fine clothes she got from her lovers. She wasn't a haughty woman, neither did she say bad things about people. Xtabay humbly received the insults and humiliations from the people of her village.

On the other hand, Utz-Colel was cold, full of pride, harsh of heart and easily disgusted by the poor.

One day, Xtabay was not seen anymore. Days passed and a fine delicate perfume was smelt all over the village. People found it came from Xtabay's house, who had died there, alone.

Utz-Colel said it wasn't possible, that perfume couldn't be that of such a vile and corrupt body, nothing but decay and stench could come out of her. She argued that had to be bad spirits demon still trying to tempt men. If that is the odour of a dead prostitute, mine shall be incredible when I die, said she.

A few people buried Xtabay, feeling pity for her. The next day, her grave was covered with beautiful flowers of a delicate perfume.

When Utz-Colel died, the entire village attended her funeral, they remembered her virtue and honesty. To the amazement of the crowd, an intolerable stench came out from her grave.

The flowers growing on Xtabay's grave were named Xtabentún.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtabay

Lee Perry - I am the Upsetter

A correspondent found him recording an album for Joe Gibbs in late 1981: "At the studio Lee had any number of small children who fiddled with instruments, the board, and headphones with alarming proficiency while the session went on. Occasionally Lee would space out and his wife would take over, doing much of the actual work. While singing, Scratch had laid out before him and around him the following items: Sagittarius horoscope, a small gold-painted statue of a lion, a set of hand exercise grips, a book on Buddhist yoga, a note pad full of lyrics, several Lee Perry records with weird phrases scrawled on the covers, a hammer, a pink plastic airplane, a grater, a book on space oddities and a couple of other objects that were beyond identification. He had a gym bag in the corner full of other personal talismans which I did not investigate. (...) -- Interview here

Video here.

Milky Way

As a guide to the relative physical scale of the Milky Way, if the galaxy were reduced to 130 km (80 miles) in diameter, the solar system would be a mere 2 mm (0.08 inches) in width.

There is a unicorn in the garden

In UPA's garden, that is...

The cartoons done by this company were among the most cherished by Surrealist film critics Ado Kyrou and Robert Benayoun. The two rejected the realist approach and anthropomorphisms of Disney’s films. Kyrou thought that: "Disney and his studios, after their promising beginning quickly foundered, became facile and remainded mired in bourgeois sentiment. Disney has been called the ’La Fontaine of the cinema’ and he surely deserves this ignominious title." (Le Surréalisme au cinéma)
http://ombresblanches.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/storm-over-disneyland/


See videos: Unicorn in the Garden, Gerald McBoing-Boing, and Tell Tale Heart.

The first lunar landing

According to the passengers themselves. A list of artificial objects in the moon.

I don't actually know Tom that well.

"The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale"
-- Stanley Kubrick

"The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes"
-- Stanley Kubrick

"I don't actually know Tom that well."
-- Stanley Kubrick

I'm glad we caught you at home

I'm glad we caught you at home
Ah - could we use your phone
We're both in a bit of a hurry
We'll just say where we are
Then go back to the car,
We don't want to be any worry.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PyB_1wjbc_s

The Long Forced March

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution

The Size of the Matter

http://www.plime.com/recommend.p?pid=464&confirm=true&lid=7884

Sacrifice of a Young Aztec

But to the Aztecs the most important and emotive sacrifice was that of a young Aztec. This was accomplished by recruiting a handsome young volunteer and letting him live a luxurious life for a year. This youth would represent Tezcalipoca on earth; he would also get four beautiful women as his companions until the day came for him to die. He would continually go through the streets of the city playing his flute. On the appointed day of the sacrifice, the Aztecs would hold a feast in Tezcatlipoca’s honor. Then, the youth would climb the pyramid, break his flute and surrender to the priest who would sacrifice him. This was one of the more solemn festivities of the Aztec. Sahagun compared it to the Christian Easter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

What's happening to our Sun?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070206.html