Video: Smart Bird

Clever bird .󾮗󾮞Thanks to Mr Hui share the video 󾌸

Posted by Alice Ball on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

I'm a bit fascinated by how smart this bird is.

Animals constantly amaze me.

Cool Thing Of The Day: Skylight Opens Up Second Floor

We have finished the install of the new balcony Velux in Staines... What a great way to give you that bit of extra space in your loft conversion!

Posted by Vampbox.com on Thursday, August 20, 2015

Matt Baume On 70s/80s Sitcoms And The Homos

In a very worthwhile 7 minute history of the portrayal of gays on sitcoms in the 1970s and 1980s, Matt Baume tracks how gays slowly gained visibility (and a voice) on TV.

When did TV first permit joking while gay? I've been combing through sitcoms to figure out when queers stopped being a scary threat, and were allowed to be real people with love lives and funny punch lines. Here are just a few of my favorite early gay characters on sitcoms.

As Baume states at the end, a 7 minute video can't provide enough time to cover all the good and bad of the gay 70s and 80s. I am a bit surprised he skipped over Showtime's Brothers which featured an openly gay lead character that was memorably positive.

But, again, how much can you fit into a web video?

Very good watch here.

Little Girl Faces Down Anti-Gay Street Preacher

A little girl named Zea faces down a fire and brimstone street preacher, at a festival in Columbus, the day after the SCOTUS marriage equality ruling.

Bless the young. She's is not backing down to the anti-gay nutjob.

Good on her.

Forward.

How To Sound Smart While Saying Nothing

I was just discussing this dynamic with someone this week. A few words, gestures, timing - it can all add up. To nothing :)

At TEDxNewYork, Will Stephen sounds smart saying nothing.

It is virtuoso nonsense.

The professional comedian has studied many, many presentations to figure out just what makes a speaker sound brilliant (hint: it has a lot to do with tone, gestures and pauses) — even if their message is not.

(source)

Two minute film: "I Forgot My Phone"

Brilliant two minute slice of life/reality/depression.

Quintuple threat (actress/comedian/musician/tap dancer/awesome person) Charlene deGuzman stars in I Forgot My Phone — a short film she wrote about life in these modern, soul-sucking, smartphone-saturated times.

I love what's captured here. I feel this way often when going out with friends.

I have a slew of friends I could list here that may or may not know that they could be these folk.

Just, yeah...

Hyper-polyglot Tim Doner speaks nearly 20 languages

Prodigy hyper-polyglot Tim Doner, 17, has been teaching himself languages since he was 13. He now speaks nearly 20 languages.

Pretty amazing, and smart. Interesting how he feels speaking languages brings him closer to those cultures and countries.

(h/t JMG)

Arvind Mahankali wins 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee

Congrats to Arvind Mahankali for winning the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee!

Arvind is an eighth grader at Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School in Bayside, Queens. Arvind will receive $30,000 cash and a $2,500 savings bond.

Check out when he gets his last word. Looks like he knows he's got it, doesn't he?

And how about that American Idol/Miss America confetti at the end! Good for you, Arvind!

(h/t Andy Towle)

College student designs shirt that goes 100 wearings without washing

Here's a success story for you.

You know how jeans can take a lot of wearings between washing?  You know how shirts CAN'T take a lot of wearings between washing?

Well, here's how college student Mac Bishop fixed that.  He made a shirt you only have to wash once a year.

From Huffington Post:

Along with two friends, Bishop, 24, founded Wool&Prince, a fashion startup in New York City that sells just one product. Its fine-spun wool button-down shirt is supposed to last for 100 wearings without needing a wash.

Bishop is clearly is onto something. In recent weeks, Wool&Prince has become a sensation on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site. The craze over the company's 100-day shirt started on April 22, when Wool&Prince launched its campaign with a goal of raising $30,000. The startup ended up raising more than $290,000 in less than 10 days, and now the company has capped its production run in order to keep control of the project, Bishop said.

Bishop's inspiration for the 100-day shirt came from his pants. "Guys love their jeans, [which] are low-maintenance, but there was not an option like that for button-downs," he explained in a phone call with The Huffington Post, "like something guys don’t have to worry about."

The secret behind the shirt's durability is finely spun wool, like the kind that would be used in an Italian suit. Wool doesn't get smelly -- unlike, say, a poly blend -- because it doesn't absorb sweat, which can lead to stinky bacteria growth in a garment.

With its new funds, Wool&Prince will produce 3,000 shirts at a factory in Shanghai and sell them for $98 apiece. But there's bad news for consumers interested in buying one: The 100-day shirt is already sold out due to pre-orders.

What do you think? Would you buy a shirt that goes 100 wearings without a wash? Leave a comment below.

Guy solves three Rubiks cubes while juggling them

Pretty amazing.

I can't even solve one Rubiks cube...

Rock on.

(via AmericaBlog)

Super easy way to separate egg yolks from egg whites

Don't worry - no translation needed.

Now, how simple is that?