by Grania
Good morning!
Today’s birthdays:
Actresses Sally Field (1946), Thandie Newton (1972), Emma Stone (1988); Garry Gross, American photographer (1937 – 2010), and Catherine Crier, American journalist and judge (1954).
The best I can do for birthday-related music this morning is this one from La La Land, a movie which I haven’t seen, but I think is generally regarded as okay judging from the accolades heaped upon it. The singing, not so much…
On this day in history:
1528 – Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European to set foot in the area that would become Texas.
1860 – Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th President of United States.
1913 – Mohandas Gandhi was arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.
1944 – Plutonium was first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
1947 – Meet the Press, the longest running television program in history, made its debut.
Hili is doing some soul-searching. I wonder how long this new state will last.
Hili: I’m astonished by the conflict of interests.
A: Whos interests?
Hili: The mice’s and mine.
In Polish:
Hili: Zdumiewa mnie sprzeczność interesów.
Ja: Czyich?
Hili: Myszy i moich.
The Random stuff on the Internet Category:
This probably makes more sense before you have your coffee.
If you’re British or lived in one of Ye Olde Colonies and grew up reading the Ladybird books, you may recognise this style of illustration.
Mimicry
Gorgeous shot of a jellyfish and hitchhikers.
Footage of a rarely seen squirrel.
An angry mongoose (but not a necessarily wise one)
A cautionary tale by Matthew Inman
An optical illusion
And a different illusion of sorts
Not the smartest dog in the world, but quite an adorable one all the same.
Everyone’s hilarious today.
Music of the night
And finally, a rabbit for no apparent reason
Hat-tip: Matthew
64 Comments
9 hrs ago [today from a Brit POV] @ 0328 hrs GMT 06/11/18 [2228 hrs ET 05/11/18]…
The Parker Solar Probe
Solar Mass Ejaculations Observermade closest approach to Sol [perihelion] at 343,000 km/hr, simultaneously breaking the record for the closest & fastest human-made object to Sol. It will make a further 23 solar perihelions, using Venus to bleed speed at the top of the ‘hill’ on 7 occasions, so it can drop down closer & closer to Sol upon each return to perihelion.December 2024 is the planned closest/fastest approach of all, 690,000 km/hr ~ that’s fast enough to travel Earth to Moon in half an hour whereas the Apollo program vehicles took approx 70 hours. EVEN MORE NERD INFO HERE
P.S. The probe name honours physicist Eugene Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.
Cool stuff. Brings to mind the story The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury. A favorite author of mine. The story is about a science expedition to the sun to collect a cup of star-stuff, a golden apple. There is also a collection of Bradbury short stories with the same title which is an excellent collection.
And of course the the title phrase was taken from a William Butler Yeats poem, The Song of Wandering Aengus, a favorite poet of mine.
A nice poem. It appropriate at my age.
Everyone knows the 406 goes to Reigate, not Redhill.
Too true! But Reigate and Redhill are very close to each other.
Of course! I was stumped for the fourteenth.
You didn’t include the clock did you? I’ve worn a Goofy watch for the last 20+ years that runs the same direction.
I think I have 12, including the clock
Are you looking at the whole pic? The post misses the bottom of the frame.
Got them all now.
Nope. Only 13 unless you count the car driving on the right and thew bus driving on the right as two separate mistakes. Or maybe the car doesn’t have a driver, only a passenger on the back seat.
No brakes on the bicycle? Though that isn’t necessarily a “mistake”, like the backwards clock dial, it is unusual.
Shadows are wrong too (carriage shadow is opposite direction from canopy shadow)
Does that make 14?
I don’t think the lack of brakes on the bike is necessarily a mistake. There are bike like that that don’t have brakes.
I’m not convinced about the shadows although I would say that the shop canopy doesn’t seem to be casting one at all.
In the UK bikes must have a front brake, two brakes in fact, unless a fixed rear wheel. Since when I don’t know.
No pedal and crank on bike
@Frank I found on the Twitter feed a photo of a bike that looked exactly like the one in the drawing. It had no brakes and a fixed wheel (albeit not a round one).
Hopefully that link is correct.
Mistakes are relative to the original. (I had that problem as a kid.)
I love the Wolves .
+1
The ‘music of the night’ sounds woke up my kitteh out of a sound sleep. His eyes grew round as saucers. I had to go over to his bed, pet him and tell him everything is okay.
True, but this was the mass production stage. The discovery of Pu was done in Berkeley in 1940, by (Nobel laureate) Glenn Seaborg and his team. Due to the fear that the Nazis might use it, the discovery wasn’t published until after the war.
La La Land: Wow – Emma Stone’s voice is wobbly – pity Lee Marvin isn’t taking parts these days. The musical got lots of approving reviews – the orchestration sounds very retro – I guess it’s introducing a new generation of westerners to the weirdness of film musicals.
No shop security shutters
A slimmer Nikai mastering howling as a pup in 2014:
He’s only a young lad, but his left lower fang looks broken – build him a new one?
Her left lower canine tooth was missing even back then.
Thanks for the wolves!
(An unusually doggy day today in these parts!)
While the cat’s (Jerry) away, the dogs will out.
I was dubious about La La Land, but friends dragged me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Gyllenhal was terrific. Seems I saw it right after The Orange Idiot was elected and it was a pleasant counterbalance.
Whoops🙀 I meant Ryan Gosling (I always seem to mix him up with Jake G.)
I very much liked it as well. And the beginning and ending were especially good, I thought.
I’ve always been a dog sympathizer, much to Jerry’s displeasure. 😉
/Grania
😃
Apparently, I missed the positive reviews of La La Land. The ones I saw read like these two: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/06/la-la-land-criticism-race-gender-jazz-awards; and https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-empty-exertions-of-la-la-land. And there’s something about that ‘iconic’ photo that turns my stomach but I can’t pinpoint why.
But, Jenny, have you seen the movie? Some of these critics need to “lighten up”, imo. I generally prefer edgy over sappy, but I was thoroughly caught up in this.
No, I admit that I haven’t watched it and I’ve been influenced by the reviews. I was prejudiced against it from the jump because Amour has been so cruel to me that I can’t abide watching romantic films,without wanting to stab myself.
I just don’t like those kinds of films. I want a killer robot to make an appearance in the middle & kill all the characters.
Now that’s a pleasant though…
Ryan Gosling is a pretty robotic actor. He didn’t kill anyone though, unless they died of boredom.
Maybe he could suddenly turn into his character in Bladerunner II.
The Guardian’s film criticism is terminally unreadable and mostly consists of woke uselessness.
Richard Brody, the film editor at the New Yorker, is tendentious and partisan—he’s decent when discussing work by his pet filmmakers and awful when pseudo-rationalizing his hatred of much else.
Last movie I saw wS LaLa Land. Parts of it very very good but other parts were very sappy.
The dog in the carriage looks very st ease and comfy. More people should take their dog strolling.
Yeah. I liked it overall. Don’t want to see it again.
Yes, amusing but forgettable.
It was well done and had its moments, and the leads did a credible job despite not being professional singers or dancers, but it never lived up to the promise of its bravura opening production number on the LA freeway.
It’s not the kind of movie I’ve spent more than a minute or two thinking about since the day I saw it.
That’s a strange ground squirrel. The ones I am familiar with have very small tails which makes sense since a large one would get in the way when burrowing in the ground. Perhaps this one lives on the ground but doesn’t dig a burrow? It is obviously also at home in the trees so perhaps it is misnamed.
Whatever the heck it is, it’s really cool and crazy looking. I’m surprised someone hasn’t marketed a facsimile as a plush toy or made it a character in a cartoon.
Yes. Same for that Mandarin Duck in Central Park. It looks more like a toy than a live animal.
See La La Land! Great movie! I didn’t expect to like it, however the acting was awesome, the story was appreciable! Something different to see when you really can’t be in a mood for anything in particular! 🙂 ❤
The video of the mongoose: did it end at that point because the next thing the lion did was break its back with a swipe of its paw and then eat it for lunch?
I was worried about that too but I suspect the mongoose is right next to its burrow. They have extremely fast reactions so I’m guessing they can avoid a lion’s paw swipe easily.
Right near the end a lioness thumped the mongoose solidly.
It didn’t seem to bother the mongoose much so I’m not sure the blow was that solid.
Mongoose are kinda like honey badgers…
I wonder if the crabs are parasites or mutualists or …
Look at that cute rabbit reading so intently! I’ve read speculations about Mediaeval iconography that rabbits represent innocence so people doodled them as murderous for the LOLz. I’m not sure what’s going on with this rabbit but it’s cute.
Speaking of kittehs, mine was a pain in the patootie “helping” me install a new Chromecast device on the TV..
Yes, installing electronics is not their forté. They are excellent at destroying them, though.
Too much vocal advice and paws-on “help”.
My old cat kept the local small-appliances repair guy in business by consistently chewing the cord on the iron.
Same with many humans. 😉
True. In fact, I just destroyed a brand new, expensive TV set after only one week of use. I guess I was projecting my grief onto the feline world.
Oh no! How did the TV meet its demise?
No cats involved. I was just trying to shift
it a few inches on its shelf and my thumb pressure on the edge of the screen was enough to crack it. It’s a complete loss.“
Ugh. Though at least now you can intimidate everyone with your unusually powerful thumb.
Karate thumbs. Remind me not to challenge you to a duel.
Srsly, that should just not happen. A TV should be tougher than that.
cr
I agree! And my thumbs are not that strong.
I think I’m pretty much Ryan Gosling-ed/Ryan Reynolds-ed out these days. Take a break for a while Ryans. Too many damn Ryans everywhere.