flickering pictures

Sand animation is the art of storytelling through continuously created and recreated images in sand, and there may be no one better at it than Kseniya Simonova. In the video above, she steals the show on Ukraine’s equivalent of the America’s Got Talent TV show, and has the judges and audience in tears as […]

[Read more →]

Probably not. But tell that to this guy.
Jay Weidner at Reality Sandwich compares the cinematic style of Stanley Kubrick’s work to the famous moon landing footage, and says he’s convinced beyond any doubt that Kubrick was enlisted to show up the Russians, NASA stole flying saucer technology from the Nazis, and JFK was assassinated […]

[Read more →]

When I stumbled across a brief history of bartitsu on the Web, I assumed it was a Simpsons joke at best or a ninth-rate Shaq-Fu clone at worst. But as it turns out, bartitsu is a legitimate blend of jiujitsu, sumo wrestling, French kickboxing, stick fighting, and other martial arts. And despite all […]

[Read more →]

Yes, it’s a rock. But a lot of people want it. Here’s why.
The creatively named island of Rockall sits just northwest of Ireland and south of Iceland in the Atlantic Ocean, and unless you to listen to BBC shipping forecasts, it’s a safe bet you’ve never heard of it. At about 83 […]

[Read more →]

If Joe Higgs’s “There’s a Reward” doesn’t send shivers up your spine, you don’t have one.
Widely regarded as the father of reggae, Higgs grew up in Kingston’s famous Trenchtown ghetto and was a major influence on a generation of reggae musicians, including some guy named Bob Marley. He died of cancer in December 1999 […]

[Read more →]

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the six-second drum loop that forever changed the face of modern music. Plucked from the middle of “Amen Brother,” a 1969 B-side version of the Winstons’ Grammy-winning “Color Him Father,” those six seconds shaped drum and bass, hip hop, jungle, and a huge chunk of the music […]

[Read more →]

A neat new U.S.-based news service called the Global Post has started covering events around the world, with an emphasis on regions that traditionally fly under the mainstream radar and a novel insistence that its reporters must live full-time in the countries they cover. It’s too early to say if it’ll live up to […]

[Read more →]

Population of Washington, D.C.: 572,059
Number of people attending Obama’s inauguration: 2,000,000+
Wow.
Update: The Toronto Star created a word cloud from Obama’s acceptance speech, and it turns out he didn’t use the word “evildoer” a single time.
Image via New York Times.

[Read more →]

Throughout the rebel armies and refugee camps of the world, Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s name has come to symbolize struggle against oppression, and his face just might be the most recognizable on the planet. The fact that Che advocated nuking New York and brutally slaughtered his own men on the slightest suspicion of disloyalty, and […]

[Read more →]

Born on January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley would have been 74 years old today. Other notable events on this day:

1835: For the only time in U.S. history, the national debt is exactly zero dollars. Today’s debt is just over $10.6 trillion, or about $35,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

1867: […]

[Read more →]