subways!

I have a special love of abandoned/disused subway stations, as they combine two things I love: subways and things that used to be Very Interesting and have now fallen into disrepair. Here are a few links of picture sets on this topic.

Paris stations

Abandonded stations from around the world - and in at least one case, a whole system.

London tube stations - I couldn't possibly pick just one to highlight!

prison tattoos, decision making, taxidermy

Your friendly Russian prison tattoo primer

America, meet your puppetmaster - How Eddie Bernays got you to buy books, wear hairnets, and eat bacon for breakfast

I don't know what to say about this taxidermy. Except it's amazing.

kid, pools, home

Possibly the most polite little boy ever.

8 very cool terraced pools

Possibly (probably) the world's narrowest home.

library songs, paradoxes, victorian surgeon

Song of the library staff and for good measure (ha!) Song of the cataloguer

11 "Brain Twisting" Paradoxes

One of history's most famous (infamous?) surgeons

Google, statistics, Kentucky

Google's data centers are oddly endearing, and cute to boot. I like #10, with the bike employees use to get around.

In 2011, the US was third best at liking the US.

There are more bourbon barrels in Kentucky than people.

river, subway, pictures

Could there be an underground river near the Amazon that is many times longer and wider?

The human body as a subway map. Just generally cool, but maybe also a way to introduce city kids to biology using something they're familiar with

Neat set of pictures - 25 are added quarterly to culminate in a best 100 of the year. I of course quite like this one

San Francisco

Great set of photos (two sets, actually) blending the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and current scenes of SF shot from the same place.
Part 1
Part 2

Bonus: The now-abandoned building that used to house a pool so large it was patrolled by lifeguards in rowboats.

molasses, vowels, con man, honda

I know it's weird to say this, but this is my favorite disaster, possibly because it's so strange. Or at least it's one of them, I have a fascination with disasters.

How Americans near the great lakes are changing the sound of English.

Allegedly at least, the smoothest con man who ever lived.

This guy drove 1,000,000 miles in his Honda. So Honda threw him a parade.

Roma, boards, secret pool

The homes of the wealthy Roma in Romania. Very interesting, particularly the bathroom thing.

A surprisingly interesting article about wooden pallets.

Awesome pictures of the Woolworth Building, including the pool(!) in the basement.

octopi

A series of awesome octopus videos - I'll post the link to the list rather than put them all up here. But here's a sample.

1948 Olympics, books

Some neat info on the state of the world last time London hosted the Olympics (1948) and a very interesting female athlete to boot.

Judging books by their covers - a six year old guesses what classic books are about by looking at the covers

olympics, olympics, olympics, pandas

How to ship Olympic horses

A Nigerian rower finished in dead last to a roaring Olympic crowd, having only learned rowing 3 months earlier.

An Olympic swimmer had never been in an Olympic sized pool

Why pandas are terrible investments

Legos, politician awe, drowned buildings

All the Lego sets, ever. *drools*

I know John McCain gets all the "badass politician" press, and he did have some very heroic wartime experiences. But honestly, Daniel Inouye should make the top of any badass politician list by far. In fact, he should BE the list. Check out paragraphs 3-5 here.

Amazing drowned buildings.

bleeding, sandbox, legos

What to call your period in other countries. Love the Danish one.

The most awesome sandbox bottom ever. So cool I'm not even previewing it here - click the link.

Repairing things on the street with Legos!

veggie shark, chicago

The world's only vegetarian shark.

The Chicago skyline. From Indiana.
This incredible photograph of the Chicago skyline by photographer Tom Adams was number one on the front page of Reddit a couple days ago. The striking view was captured from a beach in Porter, Indiana (approx. 1 hour drive from Chicago).
The body of water in the foreground is Lake Michigan and Tom took this photograph using a Canon 60D with a medium telephoto lens. He made a slight adjustment to the exposure in Lightroom.
The setting sun adds an incredible richness and colour to this photograph and it’s certainly one of the most beautiful the Sifter has seen in recent time. Full kudos to Mr. Adams on a truly stunning capture.
(http://twistedsifter.com/2012/07/picture-of-the-day-the-chicago-skyline-from-indiana/)

wife carrying, canadian borg

A brief history of the wife-carrying championship.

library, lego, military

what do you do with an abandoned walmart? move the town library in!

life-size lego forest in the aussie outback.

quite impressive, i must say. not long, i promise.

day/night, harry potter ON glasses

day to night is a very cool set of pictures where it all looks like one shot, but blends from daytime to nighttime.




Excellent video, very impressive.

photographer, apple

Robert Landsburg was a photographer who died at Mt. St. Helens, and used his body to protect his film.

Apple stores have a very precise setup, to get you to touch their stuff. Because touching = wanting = buying.

water, college, gone

12 unusual lakes. by which i mean ones that boil, and ones that nobody's ever seen.

Meet the man with 29 college degrees.

Very cool things that no longer exist.. but once pretty much defined their neighborhoods. I'd go see most of these.

judgement, hoax, college

A website where you can vote if other people are normal.

That whole uncontrollable acceleration by Toyota Priuses back in 2010? Yeah, it was faked.

St. Olaf's College in Minnesota has a weird spirit song. But weirder are the actual lyrics.

ambulance chasing, stealing, Venus

Ambulance chase road race - not just for shady lawyers anymore!

10 terrible bizarre stolen things Including a woman's lawn. seriously yall, just the lawn.

Venus transit surprise. don't worry, the video's short.

commencement and captains

27 bits of wisdom from 2012 commencement addresses Sample: “I’m going to get in trouble for this. I know, for your whole life, people have said, ‘Be yourself.’ I’m telling you: not yet.” - Robert Smith (NPR Correspondent): Reed College, OR


Is it just me, or does Sisko look like a vampire?

Gaydar & bottles

Gaydar is real, and was shown to exist in a scientific study.


Cool pictures of seemingly impossible objects in bottles

nuclear testing, photos of london, letters of last resort

Photos of London reflected in puddles.

Letters of last resort are carried by British nuclear subs, and detail what to do in the event the government of Britain is no longer functioning. "According to Peter Hennessy's book Secret State: Whitehall and the cold war 1945 to 1970, the process by which a Trident submarine would determine if the British government continues to function includes, amongst other checks, establishing whether BBC Radio 4 continues broadcasting."

(Mostly) unseen photos from 1955 atomic tests in Nevada. This whole area sort of fascinates me, along with the fact that visitors to Las Vegas used to have atomic test picnics and watch the blasts.

light bulb, mcdonald's mansion, ginormous dog

At Clifton's Cafeteria, someone left a light on. For 77 years. During renovations of the Broadway eatery, a neon lamp that was switched on during the Great Depression is found behind a partition. The owner estimates it's generated more than $17,000 in electric bills.


The most attractive McDonald's in the US?

The biggest dog in the world, George!

molasses, clouds, drowning and profit

The Boston Molasses Flood. My favorite man-made disaster.

I don't even know what to say about this collection of cloud pictures. They're pretty much all this incredible.

Very important for those around water, especially kids and water: DROWNING DOESN'T "LOOK LIKE DROWNING"

TIL that George Lucas thought Close Encounters of the Third Kind would be a bigger hit than Star Wars and Steven Spielberg thought that Star Wars would be bigger and they bet each other 2.5% of each other's total profit and that Steven Spielberg still recieves that 2.5%.

we demand time travel

I'm in Chicago for work (since Wednesday), but here's a picture I found. And love.

Men's hats, Star Trek doctors and camels. Well, just the one camel.

Who killed men's hats? Includes interesting comparison photos.


Leonard McCoy, Julian Bashir and the Emergency Medical Holographic program from Star Trek are doctors. They are not many, many things. This video lists all of those disclaimed occupations.



Camels must be damn patient animals.

Six generations of daughters, I am the Walrus

Analyzing the Beatles' weirdest song: I am the Walrus


Six generations of daughters! In one photo! And an article at the link.

legal gay marriage, trekkies, secret town

11 countries where gay marriage is legal On June 8, 1901, Elisa Sanchez Loriga, dressed as a man and using a male alias, married her girlfriend Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Once the truth was discovered (and published in two newspapers) the women lost their jobs, were excommunicated, and had to flee the country in order to escape arrest. Despite all this their marriage was never annulled, making theirs the first recorded gay marriage in Spain’s history.


We're Trekkies and we know it


Great set of pictures: In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government acquired 70,000 acres of land in Eastern Tennessee and established a secret town called Oak Ridge. More info about the photography from the U.S. Department of Energy: Most of them were taken by Ed Westcott [pictured above], who was the only person allowed to photography the Oak Ridge reservation during the Manhattan Project. Aside from documenting the operations of the project, he spent a lot of time capturing everyday life within the 70,000 acre top secret city. All of the photos with people were meticulously posed.

Vintage Red Cross, Bach-loving Japanese and Ellis Island

Vintage Red Cross photos Which apparently I cannot preview here. But they're neat, I swear.


10,000 singers belt out Ode to Joy. A good explanation of why 10,000 Japanese people would do so is here. IMHO, the good part starts at about 6:45, unless of course you enjoy the entire piece of music.


A great set of photos from Ellis Island

nazis, exploding spacecraft, and finding a teacher

A stockbroker named Nicholas Winton brought 669 Czechoslovakian Jewish children to England, saving their lives. He refused to take credit for his deed until his wife found a scrapbook of the children that he saved and gave it to the BBC. He turns 103 this year.

To counteract the next item, here's a more happy story about a guy trying to apologize to his teacher 39 years later.

The Challenger astronauts are widely acknowledged by experts and NASA itself to have been alive and likely conscious until the crew cabin hit the water - 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the explosion. (I ended up wanting to read this whole series of articles, so if you'd like to go to chapter 1 I've made it much easier.)

Salt, M*A*S*H, cows and Brits

Deep below the Mediterranean island of Sicily, thousands of tons of salt are excavated every year. The mining leaves behind miles of tunnels that are “vaulted alabaster corridors” under any available light. See a great set of pictures here.

Robert Altman directed the original MASH movie, and made $70,000 for doing so. His 14 year old (at the time) son wrote the lyrics to the theme song, Suicide is Painless, and made over $1m. Because I live in Wisconsin: The Atlantic has a more-interesting-than-you’d-think article about the genetic science of producing both cows and bulls that drive the efficiency (and profitability) of the dairy industry to ever-greater heights. Did Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie invent Google? Well maybe not but ask the right questions and Google can give you a lot of the same information.

boobs, creeps and ants

Olivia Hussey, the actress who played Juliet in the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, wasn't legally able to attend the 18+ premiere due to its nudity, even though it was her breasts that were shown. (See the trivia section.)

Turns out there's a reason that creepy people give us the creeps.


pictures of ants being awesome.

Snow, llamas and apples

65 foot snow corridor in Japan. The pictures are awesome.

Guard llamas! Apparently they are very effective at protecting sheep from coyotes.

Make a puzzle out of an apple. Delight and amuse children.. or childlike friends :)

side note: google needs to stop pushing g+ integration into every single product. it makes stuff suck, and you cant force people to use your social network.

The Beatles refused to play segregated venues in 1964. Well, and after that too. But in the (US) South in 1964, that was a big deal.

Your excuse is invalid: First grader without hands wins penmanship award. No joke.

Scathing reviews of works now considered classic My favorite, about Fred Astaire: "“Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” –MGM Testing Director’s response to Astaire’s first screen test"


How child birth became industrialized.

This blog is barely off the ground, and I fear I will be taking a short hiatus sometime in the next few days. We're stripping/priming/painting our kitchen cabinets and dang does that take a lot of time. Not to mention we have way too many cabinets.

George Washington was voted Britain's greatest military enemy. Really Brits? Not Hitler?


10 cool bridges from around the world. well, you probably won't think they're all cool, but some definitely are.

videos!

one plain old link: Adult Lactose Tolerance is not an Advantageous Evolutionary Trait


the whole thing is a bit long, but still interesting




Excellent ad.

one last titanic post

Why do we love the Titanic?

The report, commissioned by the United Nations Conference on Happiness (yes, that exists), contains over a hundred pages of musings on world happiness. Here’s an ultra-abridged version of the findings.

Your fingers prune in water to help you grip stuff better.

Boy lost at 5 uses Google Maps 25 years later to find his family

oh those Europeans

Sweden's new gender neutral pronoun

Topless female duelists. In Victorian England.

Favorite quotes

These are a few quotes that I deeply enjoy.  Or more precisely that, for the most part, deeply amuse me.

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

I don't object to the concept of a deity, but I'm baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.

Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.

My ultimate goal is to reach a certain level of adulthood where I can afford to be a child.

We're all creepy and can't get girls. That's why we fight robots.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

Some people might get obsessed with figuring out how they wound up on the F train in drag, with no bag and only one shoe, but that's not my style. What's done is done. I'm sure I had my reasons.

Seriously, go look at the first one.

Architectural Stationery Vignettes
Company stationery used to be way cooler, and feature a lot more buildings.  To wit:

The Titanic's Haute Heroine, The Countess of Rothes
...among the ship’s renowned, moneyed travelers, only the Countess was renowned and moneyed—and titled.

Why do old books smell?
admit it you've wondered.  posted by one of my favorite sites to look for old/obscure/out of print books at reasonable prices

Octopi are creepy

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6474/
TLDR: Octopi are smart, and terribly interesting even if you're kind of creeped out by living jello.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/11/hate-groups-associated-with-wal-mart-stores/ 
TLDR: The more Walmarts a county has, the more likely it is to have active hate groups.


http://www.neatorama.com/2012/04/12/the-laroche-family-on-the-titanic/
TLDR: There were four black people on the Titantic,  two parents and their children.