Thursday, April 30, 2015

Women in Medicine: Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer

We’ve met some pretty impressive doctors so far in the Women in Medicine series. Emily Dunning Barringer was another early doctor who kicked it up a notch. She was the first woman to be appointed Ambulance Surgeon in 1904. Read about her in an article I wrote for mental_floss.  

Unreal Estate

Unread Book: An Uptown Funk Parody:



The Orange Public Library and Chapman University teamed up with Pogona Creative to make a music video for Nationa lLibrary Week. This is pretty clever! Don’t believe me? Just read! The lyrics are at the YouTube page. (via Neatorama)

What a Sale!

Yo Kitty, Drop That Beat!



Here we have a compilation of kitty videos in which groups of kittens keep the beat going with head bobs and synchronized sways. If you’ve never seen your cat do this, you aren’t playing with him enough! (via Tastefully Offensive)

Not a Bad Job

The Evacuation of Saigon



CNN commemorates the Fall of Saigon 40 years ago today by talking with Former Air America pilot Tony Coalson and Retired Marine Col. Gerry Berry, who flew helicopters during the evacuation. Read more about the evacuation here.

Girl, You Don't Need Makeup



Boy bands sing about love and perfection because that’s what girls like to hear. Amy Schumer parodies that trope when the boys sing “Girl, You Don't Need Makeup,” which is all sweet  and lovely until she takes her makeup off. Then they rethink their lyrics in a hurry! It’s funny, while at the same time it comments on one more way young women develop anxiety about their appearance. (via Viral Viral Videos)

Miss Cellania's Links

A Few Facts You May Not Know About the Emmy Awards. Eddie Deezen serves up TV trivia.

13 Trees That Seriously Need To Get Their Act Together. They just want to keep growing and take over the world.

The Forgotten Supervillain of Antebellum Tennessee. Isaac Franklin became fabulously wealthy on the backs of the people he sold.

The confused millennial's guide to Seinfeld.  Hulu just paid a million collars per episode for it, so it might be worth checking out.

See the ORBIS FLY kinetic light system at the Leningrad Center. It’s 1,089 colored light orbs dancing and changing shapes like you won’t believe.

The death that changed Nascar. Adam Petty was a fourth-generation race car driver …until his accelerator stuck.

The Mystery of Ann Bassett and Etta Place. Were they the same person, or just mysteriously resembled one another?

It seems the hotel min-bar is fading away. At first, it was a great idea for business travelers with expense accounts, but even they are more cautious about spending three times the retail price for a drink in today’s economy. (via Digg

And They're Off!

(via Fark)

Racism Is Real



Brave New Films presents some statistics that show how racist modern America is. No one is asking you to feel guilty about being white …if you’re white. But it’s time for a little understanding about the effects of discrimination. Dealing with it every day of your life is exhausting. (via Buzzfeed)

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

It's Fresh!

Stein - Einstein

Oops!

Miss Cellania's Links

Improbable Sex. Research into how good it is, how much energy it takes, and how much we spend going to the ER for a boner.

Yes, Black America Fears The Police. Here's Why. (via a comment at Metafilter)

12 Unusual City Slogans on Welcome Signs. (via mental_floss)

Let’s Play: The Shining is an Atari-style video game by Pippin Barr. Drive up to the Overlook Hotel, take a walk through the maze, bounce things off the wall because you’re bored, deal with writer’s block, ride your Big Wheel down the corridors, and defend yourself against an axe murderer. (via Daily of the Day)

A Movie Fan's Guide to the Marvel Universe. This will help you get started with the comics, for even more adventure!

21 Graduation Cakes That Do Not Get A Passing Grade. Proof that words “graduate” and “congratulations” are the hardest words in the baker’s dictionary.

The Free Love and Radical Genius of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. A new dual biography introduces us deeply and properly to the fascinating mother and daughter.

What beloved early YouTube stars look like today. Catch up with Gary Brolsma, Tay Zonday, Chris Crocker, and more.

What would our world be like without libraries? Maybe we should take stock of what we’ve got before it’s gone.

This is the new American starter home. Living in a shipping container for $600 a month may be a bargain if you’re determined to live in an expensive city.

How Two Moms Had A Baby



Seven-year-old Sophia explains how two Moms can have a baby, like hers did. Mom did not know what she was going to say, but was glad she explained the nuts and bolts to her when the opportunity arose. Sophia did a good job! (via Buzzfeed)

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

8 Fictional Places (That Sound Real)

Science fiction and fantasy stories can inhabit worlds that we are familiar with, even though they have no basis in reality: Narnia, Middle-Earth, Westeros, Tatooine, etc. Then there are fictional nations inserted into movies, TV, comics, and other pop culture media that are vaguely reminiscent of real places, but the name is made up to avoid offense. You might remember a few of these eight such places I wrote about at mental_floss.

Disney Descendants



The Disney Channel has taken niche marketing and TV tropes to the next level in a new movie called Descendants. The tropes: make everyone a teenager, recycle classic characters from Disney princess films, make them “next generation,” slot them into stereotypical cliques, and give them a high school soap opera plot. Oh, and of course, the trope of redoing fairy tales in live action format. In Descendants, the children of Disney princesses and villains are all the same age and go to school together. When the “good kids” meet the “bad kids,” it upsets the natural order of things.

I have a feeling that viewers will be rooting for the more interesting bad kids. Disney apparently thinks so, too, as they have a video profile of each “villain kid” on the movie's YouTube channel. From comments I’ve seen, there’s bold dividing line by age between those who are excited to see this movie and those who expect a train wreck. Oh, and there are comparisons with Ever After High, which is a toy franchise based on the same idea, that spawned a webseries. Buzzfeed has pictures and a profile of each character.

Reptile Care

Miss Cellania's Links

That Movie Really Did Stink! The short-lived history of Smell-O-Vision.

The 20 Most Hilariously Cheap-Looking Monsters From Vintage B-Movies. They were once terrifying; now they are comedies.

Rush Hour 4: Face/Off 2 with Sean Combs and Byung-Hun Lee. If you’re going to make a useless sequel, you might as well mash two of them together.

Going Nielsen: 9 dramatic actors who should consider doing more comedy. It worked for Leslie Nielsen, who got a whole second career with Airplane!

Hear Johnny Cash’s Biggest Hits Played on Beer Bottles. Whiskey might have been more appropriate, but the Bottle Boys already have the instruments they need.

10 Artworks Made from Matchsticks. Great works are built one tiny stick at a time.

The New Jersey Cemetery Trapped in the 19th Century. A recent cleanup unearthed a hidden bunker with more history inside than anyone bargained for. 

Texas Sends Poor Teens To Adult Jail For Skipping School.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Old Folks

A Rant About Fashion



John Oliver tells it like it is on the HBO show Last Week Tonight. Contains HBO language.

On a related subject, you’ll enjoy the short film Unravel. When we discard clothing, those items sometimes go to others through charity or thrift stores, or sometimes to domestic recyclers. But a lot of old clothing from First World nations goes to India, where garment recyclers turn them into something useful. Along the way, the workers speculate on the garments’ original owners, which is hilarious. Unravel is an award-winning short film by director Meghna Gupta that shows what happens after you no longer want that shirt, dress, or sweater. Fifteen minutes long, in Hindi with English subtitles. (via Metafilter)


Sophie

Stephen Hawking on One Direction



Stephen Hawking appeared via remote linkup at the Sydney Opera House to answer questions about theoretical physics. The final question was a bit off-topic, but he ran with it, and laid out the theory of multiple universes in language even a young teenybopper can understand. (via reddit)

Miss Cellania's Links

13 Secrets of Ice Cream Science.

This Is How Single Women Should Behave, According To A 1930s Etiquette Manual.

What Each State Has More of than Others. (via Daily of the Day)

Celebrate the Goodfellas 25th Anniversary with a look behind the real life Lufthansa heist crew. They made great movie characters, but were horrifying friends and enemies.

Finals Week, As Told By William Shakespeare. The Bard had many words of wisdom, although they won’t help if you haven’t studied.

Schools Should Teach Kids To Think, Not Memorize. The problem is that critical thinking skills are hard to measure on standardized tests.

10 Striking Works of Larger-Than-Life Street Art. Fifty-foot humans will not be ignored.

Shipwrecks, Scurvy and Sea Otters: the Story of Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller. Marooned in Alaska for months, he passed the time discovering new animals.

My advice to smart, hungry college grads: Be born rich. That will give you more advantages than education in the modern job market.

8 Towns that are Numbered. Not just with zip codes; these are named after numbers.

Cat Tells a Joke

(via Fark)

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Cake Mix with a Bonus

First Base

Model

Rabble

Trench and Maple



Trench is the guitarist; Maple is his dog and collaborator. Watch them play sweet music together in this collection of Vines. (via Tastefully Offensive)


Gloating

President Obama’s Anger Translator



The highlight of the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last night was the part where Obama brought in his “anger translator” to give some emotion to his normally dry reports on current events. “Luther” is played by Keegan-Michael Key of Key & Peele. As the speech progresses, it turns out that Obama doesn’t really need someone to illustrate his anger all that much. How he kept a straight face during this, I’ll never know. 

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Clickbait Movie

(via b3ta)

Hillsdale

The Accused

(via reddit)

What if Man of Steel Were IN COLOR?



The 2013 Superman movie Man of Steel was in color, alright, but it was muted and dark, trying to emulate the look of The Dark Knight. But what works for Batman doesn’t necessarily work for Superman. VideoLab adjusted the colors to look more like the real world, which makes a real difference, don’t you think? At least its much easier for someone with less-than-optimal eyesight to follow. (via b3ta)

Friday, April 24, 2015

Not Valid on Sunday

Downton Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Valet



How about a Star Wars fan film made by actors in another series? James-Collier got the actors of Downton Abbey to shoot this between work on their main series. The first episode is free, but subsequent episodes will cost you a donation to Chilterns MS Centre for children with multiple sclerosis. Read more about it at Neatorama.

Women in Medicine: 5 Firsts in Their Nations

As we read last week, Dr. Anandi Joshee was the first Indian woman to receive a Western medical degree. In another chapter in a series on women in medicine, let’s meet some other pioneers who were the first women doctors in their countries, in an article I posted at mental_floss.

Miss Cellania's Links

Elvis Presley, the Voracious Reader. Eddie Deezen looks at the King’s chosen reading material.

The Lessons We’ve Learned From Our Boomer Moms. As a Boomer Mom who still has minor children, I wonder about what they will take from y example.

Redesigning the World's Most Remote Human Settlement

The First Blood Transfusion. In 1667, a transfusion of blood into a human was proposed, but since the donor usually died in the animal experiments, it was decided to use the blood of a sheep.

Star Wars: 10 Unsung Heroes Behind A New Hope. Thirty-eight years later, it’s time they got some appreciation for their contributions.

19 Dramatic Animals Who Think All The World's A Stage. That prairie dog has nothing on these creatures.

7 Teen Movies Based On Shakespeare That Would Make Him Roll Over In His Grave. Maybe, but a good story will be adapted for almost any purpose.

At the First Rock Festival, Pianos Fell From the Sky. Country Joe McDonald and others talk about the Great Piano Drop of 1968.

 11 Super-Sweet Extreme Dessert Combos. You may need an insulin shot after reading this.

Top 10 Cat Superpowers!



Chris Poole’s cats Cole and Marmalade illustrate how they are better than everyone. In fact, they have super powers! Of course; all cats do.

As an aside, every time I hear about Cole and Marmalade, that song goes through my mind: “Cole and Marmalade for tea, sailing ships upon the sea…” (via Tastefully Offensive)


Thursday, April 23, 2015

I'm So Broke



Well, just how broke are you? Sometimes it helps to put things in perspective in you want to see the big picture. Yeah, I know, the fact that other people have it worse -and there’s always someone who has it worse- doesn’t mean you don’t have a money problem. But not being able to afford a large frappuccino  isn’t a problem, as College Humor points out in this video. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Possessed by Mickey Mouse

Mis Cellania's Links

A Note to Miss Cellania Readers: I have been alerted that links from this site are being redirected to an ad site -at least for one reader. Is this happening for you? Please leave a comment and let me know.

10 Hilariously Cheesy Fast Food Training Videos. From 1978 to the current era.

13 Beautiful Fields Of Flowers Around The World. A feast for your eyes to begin the day.

I Tested The Bed Bath & Beyond Return Policy. After reading this, I can understand why they recently tightened up the rules.

Seven surface tension experiments. Physics Girl gives us lessons for kids and party tricks to impress your friends.

Why we should be lowering not raising the retirement age. It would free up jobs for younger people, and strike a blow against income inequality.

8 Underground Rivers. And the stories of how they became buried.

Try giving your name to Starbucks and see how they mangle it at the generator What’s My Starbucks Name? (via Laughing Squid)

The Skin I’m In: I’ve been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I’m black. (via Metafilter)

In 1851, A Man Picked Two Unpickable Locks and Changed Security Forever.  (via the Presurfer)

$23,660-a-Year ‘Executives’ Will See a Raise From Obama Rule. Or at least work fewer unpaid overtime hours. (via Fark)

French Kiss

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Happy Birthday, Princess!

It's been such a busy day that I almost let it pass without posting an important personal milestone. My older daughter, the one I called Princess quite a few times, turned 18 today. She can now sign contracts, write checks, register to vote, etc. etc. Where did the time go? Now I have to get used to her being an adult. Happy Birthday, Princess!

Victory Haircuts

What Dogs Really Do When No One's Watching



Set up a camera to check on things while you aren’t home, and you’re liable to find out that when the cat’s away, the mice will play! Or in this case, the dogs. This compilation from the Dodo shows that dogs just want to have fun. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Miss Cellania's Links

Ig® & Beyond: Bees, Fish, Music, and Whiskey.

15 Things You May Not Know About Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Anthony Sullivan and Richard Adams got married in Colorado in 1975. The INS didn’t take too kindly to their request for Sullivan to receive U.S. citizenship.

1.5 Million Missing Black Men.

Adorable Snapshots of Stray Puppies Who Stole the Hearts of Soldiers in Afghanistan. Prepare to melt

Imagining a World Without Work. Machines have taken over many of our jobs, so why are we working so hard?

10 Rules of Gym Etiquette People Are Constantly Ignoring. You can remain completely blameless just by skipping your session today.


The Photos That Changed The Boston Marathon Forever.

Cassey Ho Photoshopped Herself With A “Perfect” Body To Prove How Ridiculous It Is. No matter how she made herself look, someone was ready with criticism.

Canada Lynx: The Ghost Cat of the North. Specially adapted for snow, how will they deal with climate change?

It's Spring!

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Height

It's All Going to Pot



"It's All Going to Pot" is the new duet from Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Apprarently when Merle sang “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee,” he didn’t mention that’s why he moved to Nashville! The song is from the upcoming album Django & Jimmie. (via Tastefully Offensive)  

9 Parrots You Should Meet

When you hear the word “parrot,” you probably think of the classic green bird that sits on a pirate’s shoulder in the movies. Parrots are not a single species, nor a single genus, nor family, but an entire order of birds called Psittaciformes. There are around 372 species of parrot, and they vary greatly. Let’s take a look at some that you might not normally think of as parrots, and some that are just plain spectacular, in a list I posted at mental_floss.

Photograph by Moosh via Wikimedia Commons // CC BYSA 3.0

Lil Bub’s Workout Routine



The cat Lil Bub welcomes Michelle Obama to her “talk” show, in which our favorite little cat shows off her exercises. This is truly sweet, especially when you realize that Lil Bub, as a special-needs cat, once couldn’t walk or climb stairs. She’s living quite an active life these days! (via The Daily Dot)

Jimmy Jones

Scientists at Work Make Us All Envious





Did someone ever tell you -possibly in school- that science is boring? Maybe parts of it can be, but real scientists get to experience things the rest of the world can only marvel at. After you’ve spent years sitting in class, the payoff is when you get to study our beautiful Earth up close and personal.

On Monday, zoologist Michelle Jewell proposed that scientists share photographs of their field work, and the response has been awesome. I picked out a few of my favorites to share here, but there are plenty more, and they are still rolling in at Twitter. You can see them all under the Twitter hashtag #BestFieldWorkPic.  (via The Daily Dot)







Pie to the Face Game



A man plays Pie Face with his grandson. The game is a bit like Russian Roulette, but the worst that can happen is you could get whipped cream thrown on your face. It’s a simple slice of life, but the laughter of these two is so infectious, it will leave you with a smile on your face! Original video by Sharon Boswell Obrien. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Miss Cellania's Links

An Arresting History of the Police Car. Once again, Detroit led the way in automotive innovation.

Changing bed linens will take three times as long when you have a cat. You may as well regard it as entertainment instead of a chore.

Scientists have found a new species of frog that looks just like Kermit. A series of side-by-side pictures shows that it’s true.

Is This the World's Most Interesting Border Crossing? Between Ecuador and Colombia, you’ll find topiary sculpture, gothic architecture, and miracle sites.

Mabel Stark: The Lady with the Tigers. She was mauled many times, and kept coming back for more.

After the Doolittle Raid in World War II, the Japanese took their vengeance on the Chinese who aided the raiders. Warning: this is disturbing.

Obamacare takes root in Appalachia, to mixed reviews. Consumers love it, but hospitals and pharmacies are busier and would rather get cash. (via Fark)

An Oral History of Airplane! (via Metafilter)

Take a minute to learn some useful things. (via reddit)

Breakfast Line

Homemade Mini BB-8 Droid



Everyone is quite taken with the new-style droid from the forthcoming film Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. It just looks so cool with its little head balancing atop a rolling ball body! Industrial designer Christian Poulsen saw it as a challenge. After seeing a video of the 3D version on stage at Star Wars Celebration, he decided to make one -in only a day. How did he get the head to stay on while the body rolled around? Magnets. The secret here is that he started with a Sphero ball, which is a robotic ball controlled by phone apps. The device inside is weighted so that it doesn’t roll with the ball.
   
Poulsen posted a tutorial on the process, in case you want to make your own. But if you are not so technically-inclined, Sphero is teasing the story that it will make a BB-8 to sell. (via the A.V. Club)

Monday, April 20, 2015

Herpes Pizza

(via Bad Menu)

Batman v Superman: Retro Style



The Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice teaser trailer was barely out to the public before Bobby Burns began remixing it to feature Christopher Reeve and Adam West in their iconic superhero roles. The audio from the teaser remains the same. This makes it clear that while we can imagine Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill as having nefarious intentions underneath their public personas, it’s hard to look at our old-school heroes that way.

This could have starred George Reeves as Superman, but then you’d get into the color vs. black-and-white mixing problem. And the fact that only us old folks would have appreciated it. (via Time Newsfeed)

Tea Time

John Oliver on Patents



The doomsday video from earlier was just a funny sketch from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Here’s the meaty party of last night’s show, about the patent system in the U.S.

Merger Anniversary

John Oliver’s Doomsday Video



John Oliver was not impressed with CNN’s Doomsday Video, and made an effort to improve upon it. Oliver apparently does not care for marching bands. His alternative video for the end of the world features humanities greatest hits, a few bloopers, and of course, cats, hosted by Martin Sheen. This is from the HBO show Last Week Tonight. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Miss Cellania's Links

Keep Calm and Carry On. The story behind that poster you see everywhere -and its variations.

Centuries of Italian History Are Unearthed in Quest to Fix Toilet. (via Boing Boing)

Past Lives: Remembering 12 of History’s Greatest Test Pilots & Early Aviation Pioneers.

Does Silicon Valley Have a Contract-Worker Problem? The thing is, it’s not just Silicon Valley.

Transgender Man Leads Men's Health's Competition for Cover Model. (via Digg)

A great story about a date that goes a bit unexpectedly. Contains adult subject matter.

The 19 Best Artificial Intelligence Characters in Movies. Real life can hold a candle to them -and that’s probably a good thing.

10 Grocery Store Etiquette Rules. Don’t leave that package of meat in the magazine rack -that’s just wrong.

Stereotype-Busting Women In Historical Fiction. Because why would be want to read about those who conform to expectations?

Fixing America's broken prisons. More and more Americans are questioning the wisdom of putting so many people away -more than any other nation.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Spam and Pancakes

Oh, that Dave!

Catholic Priest Watches New Star Wars Trailer



Father Roderick Vonhögen is a huge Star Wars fan. He wrote a book called Geekpriest, and has a podcast. Here, he records his reaction while watching the new teaser trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. It’s two minutes of pure joy and excitement. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Hot Water



How many horrible things can a cat do in the bathroom while you’re taking a shower? All of them, apparently. At least if it’s Simon’s Cat.