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Thursday, December 8, 2016 – 09:56
If you’ve ever played a session of the classic Nintendo 64 game, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, chances are you probably ended up humming afterwards. Music is a huge aspect of the game’s story, and playing the ocarina unlocks key parts of the journey. So it’s fitting that the music from the game will soon be showcased with a two-record vinyl set.
iam8bit and Materia Collective teamed up to create Hero of Time: an hour-long arrangement based on the video game’s original soundtrack by Koji Kondo.
In January, the 64-part Slovak National Symphony Orchestra will record the music for Hero of Time, which was arranged and composed by Eric Buchholz. Buchholz is no stranger to the music from the Zelda franchise: He’s put on video game concert tours around the world including The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony.
The two 180-gram vinyls’ presentation will also pay homage to the original game, with a color scheme based on green and purple rupees and a navy sleeve designed by Ryan Brinkerhoff, which will feature what iam8bit’s store describes as:
…a die-cut Ocarina window on the jacket’s front, a majestic gatefold featuring both Light or Dark sides, and, of course – the finishing crescendo of a shimmering, gold foil-stamped triforce on the back.
You can pre-order the collector’s item on iam8bit’s online store and get sneak peek of what it will sound like with this synthesized mockup:
This isn’t the first video game soundtrack to get the vinyl treatment. iam8bit has also tackled classic games like Battletoads and Ratchet & Clank, and newer titles like No Man’s Sky, Broken Age, and Monument Valley.
[h/t Engadget]
December 9, 2016 – 6:30am
In every office yankee or white elephant swap, there’s always that one gift everyone’s clamoring to steal away. Maybe it’s too practical or too unique to leave up for grabs. No matter what you have in mind, any item on this list is sure to be a winner at your company’s holiday party.
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Though virtual and augmented reality are slowly becoming more mainstream, the technology is still enough of a novelty to be a smash hit with your coworkers. Anyone with an Android or iPhone between 4 and 6 inches tall can use this. Users simply slip their device in the plastic headset and immerse themselves in one of the many VR and AR apps out there to choose from. Unlike some other low-cost VR goggles this one doesn’t use a strap, so your glasses-wearing office-mate can still get the full experience. Once they’re done it folds up into a compact, pocket-sized package.
Find It: Amazon
The best drinking games are the ones that don’t require you to remember any rules. With Beeropoly, the instructions are printed right on the pine wood board. Players take turns rolling the dice and move their bottle cap pieces to the corresponding squares. Each square gives instructions for mini-challenges, like “Never Have I Ever” and a dance competition. The last person standing is responsible for finishing the community cup in the middle of the board.
Find It: Uncommon Goods
Sometimes you can’t beat the classics. This cult game includes 550 cards ranging from awkward to absurd. Each round the funniest card match-up wins. If you bring this to your office swap just be prepared to break it open before the party ends.
Find It: Amazon
Some wine lovers are fine with waiting for their drink to aerate before taking a sip. Others believe the best wine is whatever they can drink as soon as possible—this gift is designed for the latter group. The Nicholas VinOair aerator uses a dual oxygen chamber to pull out air with twice the vacuum power of leading competitors. The spout doubles as a wine pourer and drip stopper, while the rubber ring in the center creates an airtight seal.
Find It: Amazon
For the office nerd: Here’s an out-this-world tool for storing their next big presentation. This R2D2 USB drive holds up to 4 GB of data. When it’s not plugged in to a computer it stands upright, which means it can be used as a delightfully geeky desk ornament.
Find It: Amazon
Is it a good idea to enable your office-mate who loves to blast music without headphones? Probably not, but it’ll be fun to watch the rest of your coworkers struggle to keep this from them. The 3.3-inch-by-2.6-inch device includes a 3-watt speaker and a built-in microphone for making hands-free phone calls. It works wirelessly up to 30 feet from the source and lasts for 10 hours on a single charge.
Find It: Amazon
The funky vegetables in this growing kit can brighten up even the dreariest desk lunch. Each box comes with seed packets for five unique crops: purple carrots, red Brussels sprouts, stripy tomatoes, yellow zucchini, and multi-colored Swiss chard. Also included are five pots, peat blocks, and plant markers as well as instructions for “sowing and growing.”
Find It: Amazon
This festive trinket is four gifts in one. Attached to the ornament are L’Occitane’s luscious shea butter hand cream, shea butter ultra-gentle milk soap, and shea butter ultra-rich body lotion. After ringing in the new year with radiant skin, owners can save the decoration to hang on their tree next year.
Find It: Amazon
Pouring perfect cocktails doesn’t require professional bartending experience, or even fancy measuring tools. All it takes is a glass with a handy cheat sheet printed on the side. This set of 8-ounce glasses includes vessels for four cocktails: a mojito, a salty dog, a whisky fix, and a bloody mary. Just add the ingredients according to the instructions printed on the exterior then let the imbibing begin.
Find It: Amazon
Everybody may be working for the weekend, but these playful pencils are a good reminder that there’s something worth celebrating every day of the week. This multi-colored set has all the bases covered, from #sundayfunday to #flashbackfriday. It even includes a bonus #mondaymotivation pencil in addition to the #mancrushmonday one, because at the beginning of the work week we all deserve a little something extra.
Find It: Etsy
The work-mate who’s been brown-bagging their lunch for years will thank you for this one. This set of plastic pots includes two airtight containers that stack neatly on top of one another. A carrying strap secures the components together, and an attachable spork makes for easy eating whenever hunger strikes.
Find It: Uncommon Goods
December 9, 2016 – 6:00am
In Memoriam: Pictures From John Glenn’s Incredible Life. A true American hero.
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Real Christmas Trees Or Fake Ones — Which Are Better For The Planet? The answer may surprise you.
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The Year in TV: The 15 Best Performances of 2016. The best actors no longer find television a step down from movies.
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The Marx Brothers’ Early Career. They were refined in the crucible of live vaudeville shows.
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“BRAAAM!”: The Sound that Invaded the Hollywood Soundtrack. Its story is that of the evolution of the movie score.
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Celebrity Copycats: What It Takes to Be a Star Impersonator. A resemblance won’t be enough to land the job.
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Airplane Etiquette. Just because your seat reclines doesn’t mean that you have the moral right to do it.
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7 Great Places with Horrifying Names. Worth going to, if only for the purpose of telling people where you’re going.
December 9, 2016 – 5:00am
Antlers may look like an accessory, but they’re actually weapons. Males of the deer family—moose, deer, elk, and reindeer, to name a few—grow the large, bony structures to scare away (or in severe cases, fight off) romantic rivals trying to woo their mates. In the video above, created by YouTube video series Deep Look, host and writer Amy Standen explains how the animals grow the massive appendages, and why they need to sprout new ones each year.
[h/t The Kid Should See This]
Banner image: iStock
December 9, 2016 – 3:00am
Recently, Sally Butters got to experience something few dog owners whose pets go missing ever do. Her dog, gone for nine years, finally found her way back home, as The Sacramento Bee reports.
Gigi, a toy poodle, disappeared from Butters’ Florin, California home during a 2007 robbery. After so many years of fruitless searching, the 78-year-old dog owner assumed Gigi was dead, but she still kept a missing pet sign on her front door.
In late November, a stranger found the 13-year-old, 4-pound dog wandering around in a nearby Sacramento neighborhood, and took the clearly neglected dog to the vet, who shaved her matted hair and took care of her ear infections. When vet hospital workers scanned Gigi’s microchip, they found Butters’ contact information.
The owner and her missing dog were finally reunited early this month.
[h/t The Sacramento Bee]
December 9, 2016 – 1:00am
(Banner image courtesy of iStock)
December 9, 2016 – 12:00am
Honda is getting ready to take car and driver interactions to a whole new level. The Japanese automaker has announced plans for an electric vehicle called the NeuV, which will be powered by artificial intelligence and its own “emotions,” The Next Web reports.
Honda is calling the NeuV’s type of A.I. technology an “emotion engine.” The automobile giant has teamed up with telecommunications company SoftBank to develop a series of sensors and cameras, which will work to read a driver’s emotions, then engage with him or her in conversation. Simply put, Honda wants drivers to form a deeper emotional attachment to their cars, allowing people and the machines they rely on to “grow up” and share experiences together.
The NeuV is fully automated and designed with commuters in mind. Honda plans to unveil the ambitious concept car at CES 2017 (Consumer Electronics Show) in early January, as part of their broader “Cooperative Mobility Ecosystem”-themed exhibit.
[h/t The Next Web]
December 8, 2016 – 6:30pm
Pioneering astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn has died, according to a statement from Ohio State University. The 95-year-old had suffered various health problems recently, and was being treated at the university’s James Cancer Hospital. Glenn, who in 1962 became the first American to orbit the Earth, also became the oldest astronaut to go to space, taking a space shuttle trip at the age of 77, while still a member of the Senate. (He retired from Congress a year later, in 1999.)
Here are a few tidbits of wisdom from the man whom NASA calls “a true American hero.”
“If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest,” he said in the 1997 announcement regarding his donation of his personal papers and artifacts to Ohio State University, which eventually named its public affairs college after him. He went on to give the school’s commencement speech in 2009, telling students that “we are more fulfilled when we are involved in something bigger than ourselves.”
“If this cynicism and apathy are allowed to continue to fester, it will not only be dangerous, but in our democracy it will be suicidal,” he said upon the creation of the John Glenn Institute of Public Service at Ohio State. He went on to become an adjunct professor there, teaching late into his life.
Glenn tells the story of climbing a giant sycamore in his childhood in his memoir. “Every time I climbed that tree, I forced myself to climb to the last possible safe limb and look down,” staring down the 55 feet to the ground. “Every time I did it, I told myself I’d never do it again. But I kept going back because it scared me and I had to know I could overcome that.”
In his 2000 memoir, Glenn recalled the 24 years he served in Congress and the 9400 votes he cast. “Each had contributed in small or large measure to the painstaking march of our democracy,” he reflected. “I could not have asked for anything more rewarding.”
As he made history as the first American to see Earth from orbit, his response was simple: “Oh, that view is tremendous,” he said over the radio.
“The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math, and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel,” he said as the spokesperson for National Space Day in 2000.
Glenn often demurred when asked about the fame he achieved in his life. “I figure I’m the same person who grew up in New Concord, Ohio, and went off through the years to participate in a lot of events of importance,” he once said in an interview. “What got a lot of attention, I think, was the tenuous times we thought we were living in back in the Cold War. I don’t think it was about me. All this would have happened to anyone who happened to be selected for that flight.”
“You fear the least what you know the most about,” he said in the two months of continuous postponements that preceded his historic 1962 flight. As his orbiter, Friendship 7, reentered the atmosphere, he worried his heat shield had come loose, and he could see fiery chunks flying past his window. But his words to his capsule director were calm and cheeky. “My condition is good, but that was a real fireball, boy,” he said upon landing in the ocean.
“There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety,” he told the surviving family members of the space shuttle Challenger astronauts after the deadly 1986 explosion, comforting them immediately after the disaster. He went on to say that “the seven brave heroes were carrying our dreams and hopes with them.”
December 8, 2016 – 6:00pm
Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain
It’s a literary mystery: Nearly 200 years after it was published in New York’s Troy Sentinel, we still don’t know who really wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
When it first appeared in the newspaper on December 23, 1823, there was no name attached to it. It wasn’t until 13 years later that Clement Clarke Moore, a professor and poet, was named as the author. A story emerged that a housekeeper had, without Moore’s knowledge, sent the piece—which he had written for his kids—to the newspaper, and in 1844, the poem was officially included in an anthology of Moore’s work.
The problem? The family of Henry Livingston, Jr., claimed their father had been reciting “A Visit From St. Nicholas” to them for 15 years before it was published. Here’s the view from both sides.
Livingston’s Dutch background is a key component in this mystery. His mother was Dutch, and many references in the poem are as well. For example, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is likely where we got the popular names for Santa’s reindeer—there seems to be no reference to their names prior to the poem. A couple of the names have skewed slightly over the years; instead of Donner and Blitzen, the latter two reindeer recited were called “Dunder” and “Blixem,” the Dutch words for “Thunder” and “Lightning.” (These days, the spellings have changed slightly to “donder” and “bliksem.”)
According to proponents of this hypothesis, Blixem first became Blixen to better rhyme with Vixen, and then, in 1844, Moore changed it to the more German Blitzen. Dunder would become Donder, and then, in the early 20th century, was changed to Donner to match Blitzen’s new German name. (Clement Moore proponents counter that the original editor of the poem may have altered the names to better fit a pseudo-Dutch framework, and Moore was simply changing them back to the original.)
Also piling up in the case against Moore is the fact that at least four of Livingston’s children and even a neighbor girl said they remembered Henry telling them the tale of St. Nick as early as 1807. They even said they had evidence—a dated, handwritten copy of the original poem with revisions and scratch marks all throughout. Unfortunately, the house containing this gem burned down, taking the Livingston family’s proof with it.
When a professor from Vassar analyzed poetry by both authors, he declared that there was virtually no possible way Moore could have written “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” According to the professor, the style of the Christmas favorite was completely different—both structurally and content-wise—than anything else Moore had ever written. But the anapestic scheme used matched up with some of Livingston’s work perfectly.
Earlier this year, a New Zealand professor wrote a book where he tackled this question by applying complex statistical analysis to works by both authors. He found that “if we did not know whether the poems in Moore’s manuscript notebook were by him or by Livingston, our full range of tests would, in combination, categorize every one of them as much more probably Moore’s. In this they contrast sharply with ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ which is consistently associated more closely with Livingston.” But the Moore camp usually argues that these studies are constructed in such a way that they would always discount Moore, especially through ignoring works like “The Pig & The Rooster,” which is anapestic. The Livingston camp dismisses it and another anapestic poem by saying, “If Moore wrote ‘The Night Before Christmas’ he displayed in it a facility that deserted him in his efforts in the same meter both at about the same time and a decade later.”
Aside from the obvious fact that Moore stepped forward to take credit first, one big key seems to be his relationship with Rip Van Winkle author Washington Irving.
In Irving’s A History of New York, he referred to St. Nick as “riding over the tops of the trees in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.” And “when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose,” he got in his wagon and disappeared.
Familiar, huh? Clement Moore being good friends with Irving might help explain some of the Dutch references in the poem—Irving was quite involved in the Dutch culture and traditions of New York state.
There’s still no definitive proof for either writer, though. To this day, it’s just one family’s word against the other’s. Clement Clarke Moore is the author who usually gets the credit for the classic, and it will likely remain that way unless Livingston’s descendants can prove otherwise.
A version of the piece originally ran in 2012.
December 8, 2016 – 5:45pm
