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Lectures for a New Year: Mary Roach is an Awesome Space Nerd

Mary Roach is thoroughly awesome: she's funny, whip-smart, and well-read. In other words, she's one of us. Roach is the author of Stiff, Spook, Bonk, and most recently Packing for Mars; in this lecture, Roach tells stories about space (mainly from NASA), including exactly the kinds of questions we all have about space: what's it like to be there? Does it smell weird? How does food work? What if you get mad at your fellow astronauts? And of course, what's up with the toilets?? Topics: funny (and... READ ON

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Jim Henson's Rediscovered 1963 Robot Film

"The machine is busy digesting vast oceans of information in a single, all-encompassing, gulp. INTERRUPTION! INTERRUPTION! INFORMATION ALERT!" -Computer H14, in a 1963 film made by Jim Henson for The Bell System (now AT&T). This film is a piece of Henson ephemera -- a three-minute work created by a young Henson for a business seminar in Chicago. From the archive page: The organizers of the seminar, Inpro, actually set the tone for the film in a three-page memo from one of Inpro's principals,... READ ON

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A First-Person Elevator Simulator (FINALLY)

What's the best setting for drama, awkwardness, and first-person online video games? Yes, an elevator. If you don't have a real elevator available, why not play Elevator: Source, a "co-op elevator experience" in which a group of players hang out in an elevator as it travels between floors in a surreal building, stopping periodically to show players what's on the floor outside the elevator. Some floors contain kittens in space, others are infested with dinosaurs, and still others do unexpected things... READ ON

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Lectures for a New Year: Parrots, the Universe, and Everything

Today I've got a doozy of a lecture for you. I present what is likely Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams's last public appearance -- he died of a heart attack on May 11, 2001, mere days after this talk at UC San Diego was filmed. This is a man in the prime of his life, about to be struck down. And he is cracking wise throughout, telling truly wonderful, engaging stories, but with a shattering message: just as our world is being pulled together by information technology, we are... READ ON
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15 Awesome (or Awesomely Bizarre) Christmas Cards

Most store-bought Christmas cards feature Santa and his reindeer, Christmas trees or religious iconography. Here are some people who went in another direction. 1. Murphy’s Law is in full effect around the holidays. Here, Michael Herb manages to emphasize this sentiment by showing just how wrong a Christmas photo can... READ ON

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The $6,400 Remote-Controllable "Toilet of Tomorrow"

In case you missed the new hotness back in October, I have bad news: your toilet is obsolete. BEHOLD, THE TOILET OF TOMORROW! The Kohler Numi is a Smart Toilet aimed at the US market, but reminiscent of Japanese supertoilets. It sports a heated seat, foot warmer, lights, a music system, a retracting bidet gizmo...it even has a remote control. Oh, and it detects when you approach it and opens its lid, as an invitation to, um, participate. Are you freaked out yet? In a lengthy review for the New York... READ ON

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15 Muppets Auditioning For Other Roles

Steve Murray over at The National Post had fun imagining what Jim Henson’s crew has been up to since the release of the last Muppets film 12 years ago. Turns out, they’ve been busy auditioning for other roles! My favorite of the bunch is Sam The Eagle as Don Draper. What's... READ ON

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On Christmas Shopping and Siri

This is my first post written with the help of Siri. Let's see how well she does. Now, you might wonder how various commas and periods and ?'s get into this post and it's really quite easy: all I have to do is say "period" at the end of a sentence. And a period appears. Or "question mark," and one appears at the end of sentence like this? I like the idea of a hands-free post. It does mean that I will have to go back and do some minor editing. But, I can write a post on my way to work, on my way to the... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Guy on a Buffalo

Sometimes dumb internet videos transcend their dumbness and become truly wonderful. This is the case, in my humble opinion, with the instant classic Guy on a Buffalo, a four-part series in which footage from the 1978 film Buffalo Rider (apparently now in the public domain) is combined with a sort of rambling singing narration by Jomo Edwards of The Possum Posse. "Why would I want to watch that?" you might ask. "Because this guy is riding a frickin' buffalo," I'd tell you. I can't explain why I find... READ ON

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THAT IS ALL, John Hodgman's Final Book of Complete World Knowledge

Photo by Brantley Gutierrez. John Hodgman's third and final book of complete world knowledge, That is All, hits bookstore shelves today, 11/1/11. I hope you'll buy a copy, because you'll need it when Ragnarok occurs. Oh, You Haven't Heard of Ragnarok? That is All is predicated on the premise (ahem, CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE) that, starting quite soon, we will enter a pre-apocalyptic period leading up to the end of the world, or to be more specific, Hodgman's "COMING TOTAL ULTRACOLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATION... READ ON

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