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GamesArchive for July, 2011
In Nantes, a city in the western part of France, giants roam the streets. Towering over humans, a trio of giants including an adult man, a female child and a dog journey through the city peacefully, attracting crowds along the way. It’s a performance by a puppet troupe called Royal de Luxe. The company has become famous for putting on enormous puppet shows that use actual cities as a giant puppet theater. The result is awe-inspiring. Click through to watch a video of the performance.
Have you ever started researching something cool and come across something even better? As I delved into yesterday’s post, I spied a truly mind-blowing tidbit: In April, the marketing firm that partnered with Reed Street Productions to put together the “Run for Your Lives” 5K race instituted the world’s first zombie marketing division. I would say “my head just exploded” or something like that, but I think the zombies would like that just a little too much. So, who are these guys?
Last week, I attempted to make my first lasagna. No particular reason I’d never tried to scare up a lasagna from scratch before, it had just never really crossed my mind. I was short on kitchen staff during the majority of the process, but I did have some preflight assistance. Unfortunately, much of that helpful chopping went largely forgotten after the Great Noodle Screw-up of 2011 went down. More after the jump.
Although the golden age of rodeo lasted from 1919 to 1929, says the National Cowboy Museum, that cowgal style has stuck around both on and off the ranch since. popped in and out of fashion long after.
The Nintendo 3DS system debuted last March. Almost a year before that, the company unveiled the 3DS to throngs of video game industry professionals and journalists at the 2010 E3 event. But despite that initial, breathless reaction, things have not gone well for the handheld system. According to this press release from the company, Nintendo sold a 3DS to “more than 830,000 people in the U.S. alone.” Keep in mind that Apple’s iPad hit one million units sold within 28 days of its launch. The original iPhone took about twice as long to hit the million unit milestone. Five months after launch, the 3DS is still more than 100,000 units shy of that mark. Now Nintendo is taking steps to boost that number.
If you like your zombies more “28 Days Later” than “The Walking Dead,” then you’d probably love something like the “Run for Your Lives” 5K race. If you’re wondering what competitive running has to do with zombies … well, not much, unless you’re running from them, of course. This October, however, 10,000 brave runners will test that theory by running a standard 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) race that just so happens to be riddled with undead creatures that want to eat them.
It’s easy to overlook the power of lies. While truth-telling is mentally and physically a normal activity, lying forces us to fake typically subconscious inflections and movements. We construct facts to fabricate a false page of reality and then — via our incredible memory-prediction framework — project that false page of reality into the past or present. In doing so, we remake our own perceived reality and/or that of another.
I adore this Vimeo video by Gioacchino Petronicce. He puts a microphone right up to the mouth of those background sounds you hear while you’re traveling, but sorta don’t notice. That is, until one day you’re watching a video like this, and you hear those sounds again.
Click over to hear ‘em.
From Intelligent Dance Music to Auto Tune popstars, electronic music is everywhere, but what’s really happening in the musical space where humans and machines come together? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I discuss the authenticity, creativity and future of electronic music.
The 1989 James Woods/Robert Downey Jr. drama True Believer was tepid, scoring a 6.7 out of a possible 10 rating on IMDB. That makes it a slightly above-average movie, statistically speaking. But it’s possible you or someone like you considers it one of the greatest legal dramas of the second half of the 20th century. And if you’re enough of a true believer that you can infect 10 percent of the population with your belief, then that’s exactly what True Believer is.
So goes the reasoning in the findings in a study of the spread of ideas conducted by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in Troy, New York (go Engineers). The research found that a reliable threshold of 10 percent exists in any of three types of social networks for an idea to thrive. When below 10 percent of a population holds a belief its spread is minimal, arrested. As one of the researchers put it: “It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority.” At or over that 10 percent threshold, however, and the belief spreads like wildfire.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Have a Coke and a Smile
- The Latest in Frugal Lodging: Camping in Somebody Else’s Backyard
- The Painted Beauties of Bucovina
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Space Music: DJ Food and ‘The Search Engine’
- Stuff to Blow Your Mind: Hug it Out
- Space Music: Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Film Music Video in Orbit
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
- Tips for Using Bluetooth in the Car
How-to Stuff
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
- How to Know When It’s Time for a New Pet
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 36: Now Available in 3-D
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 35: Let’s do brunch!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 34: Play it again, Sam
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
