Month: September 2016

Hang out with a horse, hike a glacier, and watch the Northern Lights in the land of fire and ice.

There’s nothing quite like curling up and relaxing in a cozy bed. Mashable reports that RSPCA Victoria recently asked local pet owners to donate their old pet bedding to the shelter, to give the cats and dogs a soft place to sleep as they wait to be adopted. In the video above, the shelter animals receive their new beds—and they couldn’t be more overjoyed. Their reactions, which range from genuine tail-wagging excitement to mild curiosity, are sure to warm your heart—and make you want to curl up for a cat nap, yourself.

[h/t Mashable]

Banner Image Credit: RSPCA Victoria, YouTube

Though the animated series and cult hit Gravity Falls wrapped in February after just two seasons, the show’s devoted following is more dedicated than ever. Thousands of people joined in creator Alex Hirsch’s Cipher Hunt over the summer, completing an international scavenger hunt that culminated in the discovery of a statue of the show’s supervillain. And those same fans made Journal 3, a real-life manifestation of a key book in the series, a New York Times bestseller in a matter of days.

We talked to Hirsch and Rob Renzetti, co-authors of Journal 3, about the book, the show, the scavenger hunt—and where they get all of their fabulously weird ideas.

Journal 3 is packed with hidden info and ciphers to unravel—so much, in fact, that there’s no way fans have found it all yet. Can you give a hint to something no one appears to have discovered?

Alex Hirsch: The internet never ceases to impress me. For all the talk about how the upcoming generation has a short attention span, the moment you give these kids a riddle they drop everything and suddenly work together in perfect harmony like a military-level SWAT team to crack the code. It’s incredible. That being said, sometimes fans are often so focused on code-cracking they miss what’s in plain sight—the actual text of the journal! There are connections in there that even the savviest fans still have yet to notice.

Journal 3 reveals new details about most of the major characters, like Ford’s Smash Mouth tattoo and the fact that Soos glues on his chin hair. How much of that existed as character development during the series, and how much backstory did you create just for the Journal?

Rob Renzetti: Alex could probably give you a more encyclopedic answer to this question. I think a lot of Stan’s backstory was something that he had in his back pocket during the whole run of the series. Other smaller things were definitely invented for the book. The chin hair bit was something I came up with as a throwaway joke that I thought said a lot about Soos. 

AH: I’ve had the backstories for many of these characters in my head for a long time. Especially Ford and Bill, and how Bill played to Ford’s ego and almost destroyed the world in the process. Of course we still improvise and invent new things along the way. That’s the fun of writing—finding chances to surprise yourself. Ford’s tattoo was a surprise to me, too—courtesy of our awesome illustrator Andy Gonsalves.

One of the fun things about the Journal is that we get to dive deeper into some of the episodes. For example, Ford chronicles a few of the other dimensions he experienced while he was in the portal. What inspired those? In particular, the “M” dimension stood out to me as something that must have a story behind it.

AH: While writing season two, we wanted to send our characters through the portal into the multiverse but never found a way to quite make it work with our storyline. There were tons of drawings and jokes we came up with during our brainstorms—including the annoyingly pointless M dimension. We loved the idea of someone as scientific and rational as Ford having to fight his way out of what was essentially a Sesame Street segment teaching you about the letter M. It would drive him insane.

RR: The M Dimension came out of an unused story where Mabel went through the Portal and the Pines needed to go search for her. We were brainstorming ideas for alternate dimensions and the M Dimension was the most delightfully silly thing we could imagine.

Much has been made over how much creative control you were able to retain even though Disney’s Standards and Practices is presumably pickier than most. Was there anything you really had to fight for? Did you lose any of those battles?

AH: One day I’d love to release a coffee table book of all the crazy notes I got from Disney Channel’s S&P and legal department. To give you a sense of what I was up against, one time I was told, “Make sure the target that Wendy throws a dart at doesn’t resemble the target from the store Target.” To which I had to reply: “The target isn’t the target from Target. The target is a target.”

Welcome to my hell.

Was anything vetoed from the Journal?

RR: I don’t remember any idea that we came up with being vetoed or changed. Disney Publishing is particularly awesome that way.

AH: Disney Publishing has been incredible. They didn’t give me a single note on this journal. They understood the tone of the show, believed in my vision, and more importantly, trusted the intelligence of our audience. Working with them has been a dream come true. I wish the gatekeepers in kids TV were as savvy and in tune with the audience as those in Publishing.

The Cipher Hunt was such a fun, interactive way to keep fans involved. Where did you get the idea?

AH: I spent 90 percent of my childhood playing SNES and N64, and my favorite games were the ones packed with secrets. I remember spending one summer being utterly obsessed with trying to get the legendary unreachable “Ice Key” from Banjo-Kazooie. What was so brilliant about that item was that it was literally impossible to get and just was there to torture players. Or so people thought. Until years later, someone discovered a code that let you find it. I remember thinking that if I ever had a chance, I wanted to create something that gave fans the same feeling. A last mystery after the game is over. Something so hard to find it reaches legendary status. Launching the hunt and watching the fans team up all over the world to find the clues was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.

Do Mabel and Dipper’s names have any special significance?

AH: I imagine that [their] parents see themselves as slightly counter-culture and chose purposefully archaic names just so their kids would stand out among the 12 Chrises and 14 Jessicas in Dipper and Mabel’s preschool.

You’ve talked a lot about the real-life inspirations for many of the main characters, but I haven’t seen much about where McGucket came from. I thought it was interesting that Journal 3 showed that not only was he once a genius, he was actually the voice of reason before he got fed up with Ford.

RR: McGucket started as a throwaway joke character in “Gobblewonker” and just grew and grew in importance as the series went on. It just made sense to us that a character with such scientific and technological skill would be tied to the creation and the creator of the Portal.

AH: McGucket originally started out as just a wacky stereotypical hillbilly and a chance for me to scream into the microphone. (He was originally called Old Man McGuffin, which is a literary trope meaning something unimportant that sets a plot in motion.) But when our writers got deeper into the story we discovered that there was an exciting opportunity to connect him to our characters’ pasts and destinies. I’m very glad we did—giving Ford a friend humanizes him, as well as deepening the tragedy when they part ways.

What’s next for you both?

AH: Right now I’m developing a few different projects for a few different places, but it’s too early to comment on any of them. Like Grunkle Stan, I like to stay a man of mystery until the right moment to fleece rubes emerges once more.

RR: I’m serving as executive producer on a new show for Disney TV called Country Club created by the very talented Houghton brothers. It’s about a country family’s oversized adventures in the Big City.

Finally, a question from Lydia, my superfan 6-year-old: “Where do you come up with all of the weirdness?”

AH: I didn’t come up with the weirdness. I was born in it. Molded by it.

RR: There is an unlimited supply of weirdness in the weird world around you and inside your weird self. Lots of people try to ignore it and lots of people try to stamp it out. But the best people allow themselves the freedom to be weird. Be the best, weird person you can be.

We’ve previously covered the work of Olena Mysnyk—a Ukrainian artist who creates special bookmarks that make it look like various literary characters are being (adorably) squished between the pages of your book. Her first series featured the feet of iconic characters like the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz and Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit.

The artist has since branched out to non-book characters and has now set her sights on the Pokémon franchise. The new collection features the bottom halves of Pikachu, Meowth, Squirtle, and Charmander (Bulbasaur once again gets left out, likely because of its awkward frog-like shape). Each bookmark is lovingly handcrafted with polymer clay, and you can check them out along with the rest of the bookmarks on The Bazaar.

[h/t Design Taxi]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

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The right lamp can add ambience, charm, and a warm glow to any room. And for anyone that likes a little light to help them read, draw, and work on projects, a dependable lamp is essential for your home or office. Take a look at 14 quirky lamp designs that you can pick up today.

1. HOUSE; $80

This clever little lamp doubles as an oversized bookmark shaped like a house. When you’re done reading, you can place your book over the lamp to create a roof for the house-shaped light. As long as you use the correct bulb, the lamp will make an excellent light to read beside. You can turn the house on and off using a switch on the cord.

Find it: Amazon

2. BUNNY; $79

This adorable rabbit is the perfect addition to any nightstand. The porcelain lamp comes with a softly-glowing LED bulb that doubles as a little cotton tail.

Find it: Amazon

3. GLOWING UNICORN; $17

Illuminate your room with the magic glow of a unicorn. These fun, squishy lamps give off a green, pink, or white light with the help of an LED bulb and AAA batteries. The little light can fit right in the palm of your hand, making it perfect for portability.

Find it: Amazon

4. DINOSAURS; $41

Here’s something cool for our UK readers: Origami-style dinosaur lamps. You can get a glowing T. rex, Triceratops, or Diplodocus, each with a little LED light inside. The polyresin lights come with a UK plug, but if you really want to use it state-side, you can always buy an adaptor.

Find it: Firebox

5. STACKING BLOCKS; $25

This LEGO-inspired light encourages you to build your own lamp. The base works as a power source, so as you click on bricks, they begin to glow. Each brick stays lit for 15 minutes, making it an excellent nightlight for people who fall asleep quickly.

Find it: Urban Outfitters

6. ANIMAL BUSTS; $20

If you want something more humane than real taxidermy in your house, consider one of these hangable trophy lights. Available in deer, elephant, or buffalo shapes, they offer a stylish ambiance to any room. They’re motion-sensored, so they turn on for 20 seconds every time they detect movement. The glowing animals run on watch batteries and can be hung with screws or magnets.

Find it: Firebox

7. SKULL ILLUSION; $16

This light might look three-dimensional, but it’s actually completely flat. This unique lamp is made from a thick acrylic sheet and is powered with an LED light, along with etchings on the plastic that create the illusion of a 3D skull. With a touch of your finger, you can change the lamp color to red, green, blue, white, yellow, pink, or sky blue.

Find it: Amazon

8. SUPER MARIO QUESTION BLOCK; $35

Finding a question mark block while playing any Super Mario Bros. game has always been a delight (especially when you get a fire flower), so why not bring that same feeling home with you? These special lights capture the magic of the Mario world without having to pick up a controller. The block can be turned on and off by giving it a little tap, and when you boop it, it even plays the classic sound effect (ba-ding!). It’s powered by three AA batteries or a miniature USB cord.

Find it: ThinkGeek

9. R2-D2; $60

This amazing desk lamp is modeled after everybody’s favorite astromech droid from the Star Wars franchise. The officially licensed product is the perfect desk lamp to shed light on whatever project you’re hard at work on.

Find it: ThinkGeek

10. SPILLED PAINT; $27

This playful lamp makes it look like a floating bucket is dumping paint onto your desk. The bucket handily doubles as a lampshade, and a lightbulb can be screwed inside.

Find it: Amazon

11. QUARTZ; $120

Having a chunk of agate in your room might look cool, but wouldn’t it be more useful if it gave off some light? This lamp is made with a mixture of agate, glass, and plastic to light up any room with a little style. The hollow crystal comes with a lightbulb and cord that turns it on and off.

Find it: Modcloth

12. FLAMINGO MARQUEE; $36

Marquee lights are most commonly used for letters, but they’re also a lot of fun in animal form. This one is particularly impressive as it is made of pink metal and holds 11 LED lights that make the flamingo glow.

Find it: Amazon

13. LEVITATING LIGHT BULB; $350+

Guests will be amazed by this lightbulb that floats in the air, seemingly ignoring the laws of gravity. The magic trick is actually the work of magnets that keep the lightbulb floating. An electro-magnetic base powers the light bulb through the air, so there is no need for any wires. A simple tap of the finger can turn the light on and off, and when there isn’t a lightbulb floating over the base, it can also be used to charge a smartphone.

Find it: Flyte

14. GIANT HORSE; $8583

If you find yourself in a Brewster’s Millions situation (or you’re Joey Tribbiani), this pricey horse lamp is for you. The 56 pound horse—named Ramsay—is made of polyester corpus and covered in a matte black finish. As you might have noticed, a lamp sits on top of the horse’s head that fits an E26 bulb.

Find it: Lumens

The University of California, Davis is about to become the go-to authority on coffee science in the United States. With a $250,000 grant from Peet’s Coffee & Tea—the Berkeley-founded company that served as the original inspiration for Starbucks’s business model—it’s starting a multidisciplinary research center to study the art and science of coffee, according to SFGate. 

In a press release, the university announced that researchers at the center will study the microbiology of green coffee fermentation, the chemistry of roasting and brewing, the sensory science of drinking java, and the consumer psychology of how people buy their beans and cups o’ joe. The $250,000 grant from Peet’s Coffee will establish a Peet’s Coffee Pilot Roastery to research coffee in the post-harvest stage. The center will also offer short technical classes for baristas and other coffee professionals looking to up their game, and there will likely be other industry-funded research in the works. There will be research fellowships available, so be sure to brush up on your coffee chemistry, or revisit that thesis proposal on the connections between coffee and running to the bathroom.

UC Davis already offers a popular course in coffee and chemical engineering called Design of Coffee. It has a proven track record in beverage science, considering it’s had a wine and food science research center since 2008. The university hasn’t said when the new coffee research labs will open, but since it has to renovate a 6000-square-foot building to make room for the roastery, a sensory analysis lab, and other office and research spaces, it might be a while. 

In the meantime, you can take the more delicious research route and just try the best coffee shop in all 50 states. 

[h/t SFGate]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

Don’t miss an episode of mental_floss on YouTube—subscribe here! Images and footage provided by Shutterstock. Here’s a transcript courtesy of Nerdfighteria Wiki:

1. Did you know that the screenplay for Groundhog Day was inspired by vampires?

Danny Ruben, who wrote it, has cited his main inspiration as being Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat, which made him think about vampires who were just like normal people except they lived forever.

2. There’s a famous moment in Jurassic Park when the entire car shakes, including a glass of water, before the T-Rex shows up. Director Steven Spielberg actually came up with this idea after listening to an Earth, Wind, and Fire song in his own car.

He had his bass turned up all the way. The shaking car gave him the idea.

3. Speaking of Spielberg, let’s talk about the inspiration for one of my favorite films, E.T.

The alien was designed by a special effects artist named Carlo Rambaldi. Spielberg gave him photos of Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Carl Sandberg, and some elderly people during the Great Depression.

A painting titled Women of Delta also shaped E.T.’s look, but the biggest influence on his appearance was Rambaldi’s pet cat.

4. Oh yeah, one more Spielberg fact. This is more of a behind-the-scenes thing, but Spielberg and his crew nicknamed the shark in Jaws, Bruce. He was named after Spielberg’s attorney, Bruce Ramer.

5. E.T. wasn’t the only alien film influenced by art. The chest-burster in the 1979 movie Alien has an appearance that was inspired by a 1944 painting by Francis Bacon titled Three Studies for Figures at the Base of Crucifixion.

6. And Christopher Nolan came up with some of the ideas in Inception based on the art of M.C. Escher. You can see one of his designs while Arthur and Ariadne walk around a dream city.

The paradoxical Penrose Stairs are also used in Escher’s art. Nolan even named a character Maurice Fischer, which sounds very similar to Maurits Cornelis Escher.

7. The house in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho was inspired by a painting titled House by the Railroad, which was painted by Edward Hopper in 1925.

Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano once said, “I told [actor Anthony Perkins] that I felt that Norman Bates, if he were a painting, would be painted by Hopper, and he agreed.”

8. Similarly, director Robert Zumekis wanted the town of Greenboro, Alabama from Forrest Gump to resemble paintings by Norman Rockwell. He even recreated Rockwell paintings for certain shots.

Like when Forrest waits to see the principal of his school, the image looks almost identical to the painting Young Lady with a Shiner.

9. Christopher Nolan’s brother Jonathan wrote the screenplay for The Dark Knight Rises and he said that the film was based on parts of A Tale of Two Cities. Both stories contain—spoiler—secret societies, secret identities, an orphaned woman looking for revenge, and faked deaths.

Gordon also quotes the novel in the film. There’s even a character in Dark Knight Rises named Phillip Striver just like Striver in the Dickens novel.

10. The relationship between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs was inspired by the real-life relationship Detective Robert D. Keppel had with serial killers including Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgeway.

Keppel and Bundy exchanged tons of letters while Bundy was in jail and Keppel even got Bundy to confess to more crimes. The Silence of the Lambs was actually a book first, for the record.

11. And another famous movie character inspired by a real person—The Dude in The Big Lebowski. The Coen Brothers met a film producer named Jeff Dowd while trying to distribute their film Blood Simple.

They also got story inspiration from another real-life person, a script consultant named Peter Exline.

12. A very different real man who inspired a movie is a Mexican priest with a stage name Fray Tormenta. In 1973, he started doing lucha libre wrestling in order to financially support a local orphanage.

He retired in 2011, and from that amazing true story, we got the mediocre Jack Black movie Nacho Libre.

13. A few popular films were inspired by lesser known anime movies. Like it’s believed that Darren Aronofsky got a lot ideas for Black Swan from the anime Perfect Blue.

He claims that he didn’t borrow from it, but there are exact shots in both that are identical. Plus, both films feature an intense mother character and a frightening doppelganger.

14. The Wachowskis, on the other hand, acknowledge The Matrix was influenced by anime. To sell the film, they even showed Ghost in the Shell to producer Joel Silver and said they wanted to make it with real people, specifically Keanu Reeves.

15. Speaking of classic action films, The Fast and the Furious started with a magazine article. That just makes perfect sense. In 1998, Vibe magazine published a piece called “Racer X” by Kenneth Lee about illegal street racing in New York. Director Rob Cohen heard about it and was inspired to make the first film.

16. A Nightmare on Elm Street was also inspired by an article. During the late 1980s, the LA Times published a series of pieces about mysterious deaths among immigrants from Southeast Asia.

Allegedly, young men were dying in the middle of the night due to nightmares. This was how Wes Craven got the idea for the famous horror franchise.

17. Sometimes inspiration can come from someone’s own family. Dan Aykroyd has spiritualists in his family, which is part of the reason why he wrote Ghostbusters.

His great grandfather was a renowned spiritualist. Aykroyd’s father and grandfather had other jobs, but they maintained an interest in the paranormal, which got passed down to Dan.

18. And another ghost movie, The Sixth Sense, was inspired by the director’s family. M. Night Shyamalan does a cameo in this film as a doctor. He did that as an homage to his family because a lot of them are physicians.

19. Moving on to a famous movie moment whose influences are debated: the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman’s character tells John Travolta, “Don’t be a” and then draws an invisible square with her hands, which appears on the screen in the form of dots.

We’re not sure exactly where Tarantino got the idea for this moment, but it was a popular trope in TV and film at the time. Before Pulp Fiction came out, it appeared in The Flintstones, The Muppets, and Loony Tunes cartoons.

20. There’s also a moment in Pulp Fiction that you might think is inspired by the Bible, but you would be wrong. Samuel L. Jackson’s character quotes Ezekiel 25:17 before killing someone, but what Jackson says isn’t anything like the actual Bible verse. That’s because it’s actually a quote from a 1976 film titled The Bodyguard, which also referred to it as Ezekiel 25:17.

21. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is another movie inspired by movies. It’s believed that Kubrick watched pretty much every space movie he could get his hands on before making this film, and critics have noticed many similarities between his finished film and the 1960 documentary Universe.

He even tried to hire one of its directors, who turned down the job. Special effects artists on Universe did work on 2001, though, and the narrator of the documentary, Douglas Rain, was the voice of HAL.

22. For The Shining, Kubrick also got inspiration from another movie. In the 1921 film The Phantom Carriage there’s a scene where a door gets broken down by an ax-wielding person. There’s no doubt this influenced Kubrick.

23. There’s a huge estate in Villanova, Pennsylvania known as the Ardrossan Estate, and a famous family lived there in the early 1900s. The 360-acre property and the daughter of the family, Helen Hope, inspired playwright Phillip Barry to write The Philadelphia Story. And that eventually became a film.

It’s said that Hope once received four marriage proposals in a single day, which may sound familiar to you if you’ve seen the movie.

24. Another film inspired by a mansion is the classic Disney movie Beauty & The Beast. The film’s animators based the Beast’s castle on one in France called the Chateau de Chambord.

25. Pixar animators also took inspiration from real-life locations while designing the school in Monsters’ University. They visited UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.

You can definitely see the parallels in the finished product, too, like Troll Bridge resembles the bridge at Harvard that goes over the Charles River. There are archways in the outdoor areas that look a lot like the ones on Stanford’s campus. And the amphitheater is reminiscent of the one at Berkeley.

26. Finally, the Millennium Falcon was created as an emergency. The original design of the spaceship was dropped because it was too similar to the spaceship from the movie Space: 1999.

George Lucas told the designers to make a completely different ship, and he didn’t care if it looked like a flying saucer, so that’s what they did.

You may have seen “floaters” in your vision, especially if you look at a blank wall or a bright blue sky. What are they? And should we be worried about them? What about visual snow, phosphenes, and the blue entoptic phenomenon? Although you may not recognize all the names, chances are you’ve seen most of these at some point—and now Inés Dawson will explain them in depth. Enjoy:

If you want more detail on this topic, or video isn’t your thing, read this blog post by Dawson going into vastly more depth. For more videos from Dawson, check out her channel Draw Curiosity.