Art
aardvarchaeology | May 10, 2010
Rock art in southern Scandinavia generally dates from the Bronze Age and depicts boats, long war canoes with lots of oarsmen. Here are some recently found ship panels at Casimirsborg in northern Småland, the new big dot on the country's rock-art map.
Although rock art is some of the most intriguing source material Bronze Age people left behind, we have a perennial problem tying it into its wider societal context and understanding it. There are few examples of rock-art motifs repeated on bronze artefacts, and few examples of rock-art located in or near other kinds of Bronze Age remains such…
grrlscientist | May 10, 2010tags: Shining, The Shining, parody, satire, humor, funny, Something Awful Goon, streaming video
I've watched this video many times before and have always been impressed by how a horror film can be recast as a comedy simply through careful choice of narrator and which scenes to include in a trailer.
grrlscientist | May 8, 2010tags: Brontë Sisters Action Figures, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anna Brontë, historical figures action figures, silly, fucking hilarious, humor, funny, television, streaming video
This amusing video was a fake television commercial by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. Its educational value was somewhat suspect. It was (unfortunately) never aired.
grrlscientist | May 7, 2010tags: Total Eclipse of the Heart, humor, funny, satire, fucking hilarious, William Shatner, Lin Yu Chun, streaming video
Just in time for silly Saturday: this is for all you Star Trek and Whitney Houston fans: William Shatner and Lin Yu Chun perform a hilarious rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on the television show, Lopez Tonight.
pharyngula | May 6, 2010That in future speaking engagements, unauthorized photography should be prohibited.
grrlscientist | May 6, 2010tags: David Cameron Met a Black Man, UK politics, conservative party, humor, funny, comedy, satire, art, streaming video
This video is for all my friends who are voting in today's General Election in the UK. According to my observations (admittedly, as an outsider), David Cameron is a proud member of the "it sucks to be rich" political party.
This political music video is by Tim Ireland and uses the tune 'Common People' (written by Jarvis Cocker, and covered here by Ben Folds, Joe Jackson and William Shatner) to help make its point.
grrlscientist | May 5, 2010tags: Prometheus and Bob, behavior, space alien, caveman, humor, funny, comedy, animation, art, streaming video
This is another look at the continuing adventures of a space alien and his pet human. In this amusing video, the space alien, Prometheus, attempts to teach the caveman, Bob, about wheels.
cagapakis | May 5, 2010My semester in MIT's course on Documenting Science Through Video and New Media has drawn to a close. I've had a wonderful time and learned a lot about how films and science are constructed by different people in different times for different reasons. Most of all I've learned about how challenging it can be to put together an interesting narrative and present a point of view while at the same time ensuring that the science being explained is honest and clear to everyone. I've recently gotten the chance to watch two great recent science documentaries outside of class, Naturally Obsessed and…
aardvarchaeology | May 1, 2010
Bronze Age Scandinavians believed that the sun was pulled across the sky in a chariot by a horse. They built models depicting this out of cast bronze. A well-preserved one has been found at Trundholm on Zealand, and fragments remain of one from TÃ¥gaborg in Scania. They also depicted the motif on burial razors and, rarely, rock-carvings.
The other day (when I found some humble cupmarks), my friends Roger Wikell and Sven Gunnar Broström found the first sun-chariot carving on Sweden's east coast: at Casimirsborg in SmÃ¥land. They are working there with fellow rock-art authorities Joakim…
grrlscientist | April 28, 2010tags: Prometheus and Bob, Breakfast, behavior, space alien, caveman, humor, funny, comedy, animation, art, streaming video
This hilarious video shows the space alien trying eat breakfast with Bob, who is more interested in grabbing an eagle egg from a tree-top nest. Unfortunately, the birds are not cooperating.
grrlscientist | April 25, 2010tags: What Would Jesus Do?, Axis of Awesome, music video, religion, cults, mind control, offbeat, beliefs, comedy, fucking hilarious, streaming video
Yesterday, I ran a video that featured the Australian comedy music group, Axis of Awesome and their take on the science of popular music. Today, just in time for Sunday sacrilege, I am sharing another of their music videos; "What Would Jesus Do?", performed live, during Good News Week.
grrlscientist | April 24, 2010tags: The Four Chord Song, Axis of Awesome, Jordan Raskopoulos, Lee Naimo, Benny Davis, funny, comedy, silly, humor, fucking hilarious, streaming video
This amusing video investigates the science behind popular music: Australian comedy group 'Axis Of Awesome' performs a sketch from the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival where they play parts of popular songs to demonstrate their claim that popular music contains only four cords that are rearranged. Somewhat.
Footage courtesy of Network Ten Australia. More information about Axis of Awesome.
pharyngula | April 22, 2010Tycho and Gabe seem a tad peevish that Roger Ebert has dissed video games as art — he says video games can never be art, which may be a bit excessive. Still, I read Ebert's explanation, Penny Arcade's cranky dismissal, and aserious advocates counter-argument, and you know, I tend to think Ebert is mostly right. It might be because I'm a "wretched, ancient warlock" too.
I think video games can contain pieces of art — artists participate in their creation, after all — but art isn't the intent, the performance is. A basketball game is not art, no matter how well somebody plays; it's as physical…
sciencepunk | April 22, 2010Rhizome has a cache of incredible 1980s-era Soviet animations of American science fiction stories. Quite fittingly for Earth Day, here is Ray Bradbury's "Here There Be Tygers" as imagined by Russian animators. The hyper-synth music is especially awesome. неимовеÑно!
More wonderful animations of stories by the likes of Stephen King and Robert Silverberg can be found at Rhizome.
grrlscientist | April 21, 2010tags: Prometheus and Bob, behavior, space alien, caveman, humor, funny, comedy, animation, art, streaming video
What happens when a space alien tries to 'edumacate' a caveman? This video is hilarious (as are all the others in the series) and no one dies, or (to the best of my knowledge) says anything vulgar, although Bob (who sounds suspiciously like Homer Simpson) does lose his hair ... Hrm.
grrlscientist | April 19, 2010tags: Watch a National Geographic Bird Illustrator at Work, field guides, books, bird art, illustrator, National Geographic, Jonathan Alderfer, streaming video
See harlequin ducks come alive on paper in this time-lapse video featuring National Geographic bird expert and illustrator Jonathan Alderfer.
grrlscientist | April 17, 2010tags: Hevisaurus, Viimeinen Mammutti, Finnish Dinosaur Rock, Tavastia Klubi, Helsinki Finland, music video, humor, funny, silly, streaming video
Finnish Dinosaur Rock aimed specifically at the under 5 crowd -- now why don't they do fun stuff like this in Germany??
Hevisaurus played live at the Tavastia Klubi in Helsinki, Finland. Guess where I wasn't in November 2009??
grrlscientist | April 16, 2010tags: 5th Annual Book Cart Drill Team World Championship, Wagner, Ride of the Valkyries, 2009 American Library Association Annual Conference, Oak Park Public Library Warrior Librarians, Chicago, Illinois, library science, humor, funny, silly, streaming video
This is a very special video that is well suited to Silly Saturday. In fact, if this video doesn't convince you that you want to be a librarian when you grow up, well, you're beyond all hope and probably are a nascent alcoholic.
h/t: Faculty of 1000.
grrlscientist | April 15, 2010tags: Rick Rolling NYC's A Train, music, a cappella, NYC Life, New York City, A Train, travel, cultural observation, cities, University of Oregon, On The Rocks, The Green Room, Never Going to Give You Up, streaming video
Watching this video of a group of West Coast guys singing a cappella on the A train made me want to cry because I miss NYC, its subways and all the fun people I experienced while riding the A train. I would like to suggest to these guys to try rick rolling the A train between 59th and 125th street instead so they aren't interrupted by the conductor and people having to climb…