Forty years ago today, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed humans on the moon. Amazing. We should really go back… if we still know how.
Category Archives: Amazing Things
Film: Story About 4-Inch Alien in Pakistan is Sheer Genius
Whether this video news report is real or fake, whether the story is made up or not, it is sheer genius. It is a remarkable modern day fairy tale that expresses almost everything you need to know about our questionable human condition. While repairing an old house somewhere in Pakistan recently, some children found a tiny alien woman walking around. These well-adjusted children immediately understood this tiny creature to be a terrible threat, so they stoned it until it fell down and remained motionless. Then they put her in a bottle for a while and eventually threw her onto some very hot bricks. Following this brutalization of a 4-inch female, flocks of onlookers arrived, at which point the locals decided to bury the dead alien in a hole in order to protect the community from hysteria.
Well, I don’t think the tiny aliens will be interested in returning to Pakistan, that’s for sure. But they can certainly come to Los Angeles where they will be warmly welcomed and given tiny outfits from Giorgio Armani.
I heard about this via Xeni at BoingBoing.net.
Amazing Pictures of Space Mission to Hubble
These are incredible, huge, and crystal clear photographs of the May 2009 shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope is the greatest astronomical instrument ever devised and this is its last repair. The mission was very dangerous because the Hubble orbits in an area with a high density of space junk. A rescue mission was actually waiting on the ground with another shuttle in case the main mission ran into trouble. These pictures are fantastic.
Bob Dylan Walks with Ghosts
Bill Flanagan at Times Online has an interview with Bob Dylan. They talk about Dylan’s impressions of Barack Obama’s writing in Dreams of My Father. It seems that Dylan considers the president to be a pretty good writer, capable of making readers think and feel at the same time. He thinks Obama says some ‘profoundly outrageous things.’ I always enjoy the slightly argumentative way Bob Dylan answers questions. So often, when an interviewer thinks something is obvious, Dylan says, ‘not exactly,’ and goes on to carefully explain how the interviewer is wrong.
Dylan talks about ghosts in the American South:
It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web – some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest.
Then this:
BF: Are you a mystical person?
BD: Absolutely.
BF: Any thoughts about why?
BD: I think it’s the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I‘m more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.
BF: But the album is all about love – love found, love lost, love remembered, love denied.
BD: Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.
Anyone who talks that way is definitely going to be able to sell me some music. I will be all ears and I will walk around for months trying to find those ghosts. If he says they’re there, then they are.
Film Crew Turns Homeless Man Invisible
In Düsseldorf, Germany, a film crew equipped a homeless street vendor with a camera and projector outfit that made him nearly invisible to the passers by. It’s a really nice little film and the effect is much more effective than I thought it would be.
International Space Station Fly Around
Here’s a video taken from Space Shuttle mission 119 as it flew around the International Space Station. The video has been sped up. It’s an incredible view of the earth turning below the space station which can be seen in great detail.
World’s Largest Model Railroad
Well, if this isn’t the most insane thing I’ve seen in several years! This is a simply unbelievable video of the Miniatur Wunderland model railroad in Hamburg, Germany. It is the largest in the world at 16,146 square feet with 10,000 railroad cars running on 6.8 miles of miniature track. Construction of the railroad is still underway, with a scale model airport due to open this year. Good grief! Total mind-blowing insanity!
