Your Daily Posterous Spaces Update

	July 8th, 2012 DIY Eye of Sauron [video] Posted about 21 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! When the mercury creeps into dangerous zones, the freedom of summer becomes absolutely stifling, but if you’re on the hunt for some really cool projects for kids to do this summer, why not throw them J.R.R. Tolkien’s way to satisfy the reading itch and whip up an Eye of Sauron to cover science? These LED Bubble Wrap Balls are one of the projects from the Children’s Museum of Houston, and all you need are a coin battery, an LED, a piece of bubble wrap, tape and scissors to shed a whole new light on a dull afternoon. With a little creativity, that Halloween costume could be done by August. It’s not the best project for those with little ones who like to eat things and we’re a little surprised anyone would leave bubble wrap unpopped, but perhaps this will keep the kids from giving you the evil eye for one more day. Embedded media -- click here to see it. Full story at Instructables. DIY fun. Beat the heat with a mermaid tail [video] Posted about 20 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! If that bikini isn’t garnering the attention you crave poolside, it’s time to step it up a notch with a Swimmable Mermaid Tail from Etsy user Monika Naumann. These stunningly realistic looking Mermaid Tails were inspired by my 3 daughters and their love of all things Mermaid! They are created to fit your unique size and include a comfortable, durable and sturdy custom made mono-fin. They are made to SWIM IN as the material used is top of the line swim fabric. Colour currently available are; green, red, blue, orange and fushia-pink. Just because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it isn’t so doesn’t mean we have to stop dreaming. Embedded media -- click here to see it. Full story at Etsy via Laughing Squid. Livin’ the dream with Etsy. 7 political disagreements settled with fists and hair-pulling Posted about 19 hours ago by mental_floss to Holy Kaw! Anyone with even a fleeting relationship to political news these days has probably noticed that partisan bickering in the U.S. Congress has reached a bit of a crescendo of late. So we got to thinking: When do politicians just give up on the vitriolic rhetoric and throw a punch? The answer: more often than you’d think. Here’s a list of our favorite instances—both historical and contemporary—when schoolyard tactics have made an appearance in the marbled halls of congresses, parliaments and legislatures worldwide. 1. A hairpiece saves the day In February 1858, with the debate over slavery in full swing, pro-slavery Congressman Laurence Keitt called anti-slavery Congressman Galusha A. Grow a “black Republican puppy,” and then attempted to choke him. Grow’s and Keitt’s friends quickly piled on, until nearly fifty members of the U.S. House of Representatives were choking one another, throwing punches, kicking and pulling each other’s hair. The free-for-all ended after a wild punch from a Wisconsin representative sent a Mississippi representative’s hairpiece flying. When the Mississippian accidentally replaced the wig backward, both sides started laughing and tensions eased. 2. Who throws a shoe? Former Taiwanese lawmaker Wang Shu-hui, that’s who. Shu-hui made a name for herself in 2007 when television cameras caught her throwing what appears to be a black slip-on at the speaker of Taiwan’s legislature during a heated debate. It got better when the speaker, eschewing the high road, threw the shoe back at her—at which point the entire legislature erupted into what can only be described as a mass tussle. 3. Crossfire At a commercial break during a political talk show in Ukraine, Parliamentarian Nestor Shufrich walked right up to Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko and did what so many of us have wanted to do when we’ve seen politicians talking on TV: he punched him in the face. According to this clip, which captures the aftermath of that satisfying sucker punch, the congressmen continued to egg on the interior minister, who refused to punch him back. Congressmen Shufrich must have gotten his cue from his fellow parliamentarians, who erupted into a brawl a year earlier. See the rest at mental_floss. All the top stories from mental_floss. 9 regular people who became memes Posted about 15 hours ago by mental_floss to Holy Kaw! We may never know the true identities of Annoying Facebook Girl and Good Guy Greg, but we do know a little bit more about the people who inspired these memes. 1. College Freshman As a first-semester freshman, Griffin Kiritsy agreed to do an interview for Reader’s Digest, complete with a photo shoot on the UNH campus. “No big deal,” he said. “I can pose for a few snapshots.” The images ended up in other articles (mostly boring) about freshman life and college finances. Then the Reddit community got their hands on the one that will forever be known as College Freshman, the inept and ill-informed young adult who is almost always killed while attempting new things. In a recent Reddit chat, Kiritsy admits that many of the memes mimicked his first year of college, saying “the laundry jokes, the bragging about parties I went to, and all of the dying ones happened to me.” He also reports that being a meme hasn’t had any real negative effects on his life: “I plan on being the College Freshman until… I die.” 2. Suburban Mom Carly Phillips is a romance novelist and mother of two (and a few pets). In May 2011, her author photo was appropriated for the Sheltering Suburban Mom series… a fact she learned just recently, thanks to a Redditor who posted a link on her Facebook fan page. When someone explained to her that her image was used to make jokes about uptight, hypocritical and sometimes racist mothers, Philips says her “initial reaction was horror and fury and hurt.” After she was told that the joke wasn’t about her, but about overly protective moms who don’t practice what they preach, Phillips said she felt a bit better about the whole thing. “I never want anyone who sees it to think that I, the real mom/person … believes any of that stuff, especially the derogatory, inflammatory, prejudiced things in there.” Especially since she’s the ‘cool mom’ who let her kids watch R-rated movies and stay up too late. 3. Skeptical Baby In November 2011, Dave, Rhiannon and their son Mason took a trip to the Museum of Natural Sciences, where they had some family photos taken by photographer Jarod Knoten. They came out so well that Dave posted one to Reddit. Within hours, Dave’s son Mason was the star of his very own meme. Skeptical Baby just can’t believe the things people with object permanence have to say about anything. The joke usually follows the “You mean to tell me…” format, but there are a few variations. See the rest at mental_floss. All the top stories from mental_floss. World's oldest purse is simply beastly Posted about 13 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! Turns out fashion hasn’t gone to the dogs, it’s come from them if a recent find in Germany is anything to go by. Found near the city of Leipzig, archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the world’s oldest handbag from between 2,500 and 2,200 BC. The foundation material of the bag has been lost to decay but what remains are the more than 100 dog teeth that provided the bling. “It seems to have been very fashionable at the time,” said Harald Staueble, senior archaeologist at Germany’s Saxon State Archaeology Office. “Not everyone was buried with such nice things—just the really special graves.” No doubt the Stone Age version of PETA had a field day over this one. Full story at National Geographic via Incredible Things. Prehistoric fashion. 14 definitions of a "classic" Posted about 13 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! There has yet to be an English classroom where the words “Why are we reading this?” have not been uttered and answered by the phrase “It’s a classic,” but what earns a book this distinguished honor other than the fact the school district already owns a set? Italo Calvino attempts to answer this question in his 1991 book Why Read the Classics? with these fourteen definitions, but we’re not sure you’re going to convince your old English teacher that 50 Shades of Grey fits the bill no matter how many times you read it. The classics are those books about which you usually hear people saying: 'I'm rereading…', never 'I'm reading….' The classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them. The classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual's or the collective unconscious. A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before. Full story at Brain Pickings. What makes a great book? Photo credit: Fotolia Sent by Posterous. Change your email settings or unfollow. Other questions? We'd love to help.