World’s Strangest

More than almost any series (apart from Star Trek, perhaps), the term “fan following” seems to have been invented for Doctor Who. As the series prepares for its 50th anniversary in 2013, it’s worth noting some of the more prominent fans. As it’s a British institution, UK fans have reportedly included rock legends Ringo Starr [...]

Jetpacks have long been a staple of American futurism: we believe that soon, just down the line a bit, we’ll be able to strap on a jet-powered backpack and fly to work. But, decade after decade, no jetpacks. At least not at my house. The “Where’s My Jetpack?” notion is such [...]

You never know which little role is going to lead to the first big one. Here are the defining moments that helped 11 stars of classic TV shows to land their first major breaks: 1. Mary Tyler Moore Mary Tyler Moore had fired the imagination of many TV-viewing young men in the late 1950s when she had [...]

Presidents & Politicians What’s with presidents and High Noon? 1. Barack Obama – The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) When Katie Couric asked then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama what his favorite movie is, he replied, “Oh, I think it would have to be The Godfather. One and Two. Three not so much. That saga — I [...]

In this short video, photographer Nick Moore shows us what happens to flame when it’s exposed to a speaker vibrating at 60 Hz. Although you can’t see the effect easily at regular speed, when the video is shown in slow motion, there is a clear pulsing action as the speaker pushes and pulls the [...]

Now let’s watch what happens when you take a blob of mercury and subject it to different audio frequencies. Spoiler alert: the mercury forms geometric shapes and appears to dance. This is slow-motion footage (with music added, not the tones the mercury is reacting to — we’ll get to those original tones [...]

Alan Moore is known as much for his writing as for his grouchy disposition, and generally hates the Hollywood treatments his works have received so far, which is why I think making his own movies is a brilliant idea! Alan is working with his friend Mitch Jenkins on “a multi-layered, multi-episode narrative created by Moore and [...]

In this five-minute video, photographer Nick Moore shows us how to build and photograph your own micro-forest fire, using strike-anywhere matches in a workshop setting. While the building-the-rig portion may seem slow at first, it becomes fascinating when the camera shifts into slow-motion and fast-motion, as appropriate for the length of each task. [...]

This post was planned long ago as a followup to The Rise of the Flapper, which looked at some of the reasons for the iconic lifestyle many young women adopted in the 1920s. Some famous flappers were role models, either in real life or in the movies or other entertainment venues, and others only became [...]

Liverpool artist Rowan Stocks-Moore created a series of beautiful posters of classic Disney movies, most with some kind of optical illusion included. See ten of them at TQS magazine. Link -via Metafilter