This kid is unreal.

“How different it was in the early 1900s, when blue was for girls and pink for boys. The Women’s Journal explained it thus: ‘That pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.’ DressMaker magazine agreed. ‘The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red).’ What prompted the switch is unclear, but it had been made by the time Adolf Hitler ordered the classification of homosexuals. Those deemed “curable” were sent to concentration camps and labelled with a pink triangle. This suggests that by then, pink was associated with femininity.”

[via BBC News]

“Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan with a life cycle in which it reverts to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation. Theoretically, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it effectively immortal.”  – Wiki Blurb

[via ZME Science]

Looks like bored Texas residents can put down their WOW, pack up their bridge games, and turn off the soaps, there’s a new diversion in town! Totally free citizen monitoring.  In partnership with the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition vigilant residents can now watch and report any illegal immigrant activity — all from the comfort of their homes.  So much for putting crowd sourcing to good use.

[via BoingBoing]

[via Holga]

1998 Pontiac Sunfire, printed adhesive sign vinyl, plastic sheeting, foam board, plexiglas, high density foam, concrete.

Kelly Jazvac

[via Vvork]

Sam Bassett

[via NotCot]

Frosty the snowman, though clean, crispy, and white nowadays, apparently has a dirty past.  Besides being appropriated by the ad industry, chasing ladies, and being a general punching bag, the jolly guy also had a drinking problem.

“There is also visible evidence in trade cards, beautifully illustrated pieces of paper that were the business cards of their day. Shop owners would leave them on their counters for customers and collecting them became a popular hobby. Like so many other advancements in the world — including the first photographs and early silent movies — the snowman was right there, showing up front and center. And more often than not — taking a beating. With the popularity of postcards by the turn of the century, it was no different; images of snowmen pelted with snowballs by gangs of scamps and wayward youths plowing their sled or pig-driven toboggans into snowmen (that’s right, there used to be pig-driven toboggans).

[...] To add insult to injury, the snowman somehow became a spokesperson for any product of an embarrassing sort, appearing in ads for every personal hygiene problem imaginable: dandruff, gas, hangovers, constipation, and bad breath Add this all up and you have a Frosty with a pretty shaken psyche. We literally built him up only so we could, apparently, knock him down and use him as a piñata. It’s no wonder the snowman turned to booze.”

Smithsonian

[via Boing Boing]

Over on the Make Blog Chris Connors posted about what he calls “meatricity,” human generated sources of electricity.  The comments though are the enlightening bit.  A number of readers discuss traditional conceptions of the “dirty” energy grid, the pros and cons of meatricity and more importantly the costs of implementation.  Sure, human powered everything sounds sweet in a naive super future kind of way, but creating the devices to harvest the energy, may or may not negate the collection altogether.  Until implementation is energy efficient though, it seems that tinkerers will continue to work away trying to find something that does work.

Make Blog

[I'll be out of town and away from my computer for a few days.  Spicy will return as usual after the new year.]

Vvork