Not only did National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen get to swim and take photos of a 12-foot leopard seal in the Antarctic without being eaten, he actually got to witness the soft side of this deadly creature.

I slipped into the water, terrified of what might happen, and I swam up to this leopard seal. My legs were shaking and I had dry mouth. Right away she dropped the penguin. She came up to me and she opened her mouth … and her head is twice as wide as a grizzly bear’s head. She’s huge. She took my whole head and my camera inside her head and did this threat display.

But then the most remarkable thing happen. She went off and got me a live penguin. She came up and she started to feed me a penguin. She kept letting these live penguins go and the penguin would shoot past me and she’d look disgusted as she go by me. She did this over and over.

And then I think she realized that I was this useless predator in her ocean, probably going to starve to death and I think she became quite panicked and she got me weak penguins then dead penguins …

Taking vintage typewriters and turning them into sculptures without using any kind of glue, welding or soldering may sound impossible, but not for Jeremy Mayer who has created these amazing typewriter sculptures by using cold assembly methods.

More info: Jeremy Mayer

Winners in bold.

Chicago Bears AT San Francisco 49ers
Atlanta Falcons AT Carolina Panthers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers AT Miami Dolphins
Detroit Lions AT Minnesota Vikings
Jacksonville Jaguars AT New York Jets
Cincinnati Bengals AT Pittsburgh Steelers
New Orleans Saints AT St. Louis Rams
Buffalo Bills AT Tennessee Titans
Denver Broncos AT Washington Redskins
Kansas City Chiefs AT Oakland Raiders
Seattle Seahawks AT Arizona Cardinals
Dallas Cowboys AT Green Bay Packers
Philadelphia Eagles AT San Diego Chargers
New England Patriots AT Indianapolis Colts
Baltimore Ravens AT Cleveland Browns

The Navajo language is incredibly complex, with syntax, tonal qualities and dialects that render it unintelligible to outsiders. A spoken language, it has no alphabet or symbols, and is used only in remote Navajo areas of the American Southwest.  For these reasons, it was selected as a code language during World War II by the U.S. Marines.

In 1942, Japanese translators and codebreakers were regularly intercepting U.S. military communications and sabotaging U.S. plans in the Pacific.  Philip Johnston, a white man who was raised on the Navajo Reservation, convinced Major General Clayton Vogel, commanding general of the Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, that the Marines should recruit Navajos to transmit important military communications.

From the Naval Historical Center:

“In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training.

…The developers of the original code assigned Navajo words to represent about 450 frequently used military terms that did not exist in the Navajo language. Several examples: ‘besh- lo’ (iron fish) meant ’submarine,’ and ‘dah-he- tih-hi’ (hummingbird) meant ‘fighter plane’…

Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers’ primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios…Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, ‘Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.’”

For decades after the war, the contributions of the Navajo code talkers were not publicly acknowledged, because of the continued value of their language as a secure code. The code talkers were finally honored at the Pentagon in 1992, and the Navajo code talker exhibit is now a regular stop on the Pentagon tour.

Of the approximately 400 Navajos who trained as code talkers, only about 50 are still alive, most of them living in the Navajo Nation that includes part of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.  Today, for the first time, a group of 13 code talkers will take part in the Veterans Day parade in New York City.

I’m sure everyone has seen the wonderful Google tributes the past week. Sesame Street premiered on November 10th, 1969. Today, it turns 40. While I am not necesarrily a big Sesame Street fan, I am a huge Jim Henson fan. So, in the spirit of 40 years of Jim Henson’s Sesame Street, here are some related links that are worth looking at:

• The 101 Muppets of Sesame Street.
• 8 Memorable Sesame Street Celebrity Cameos.
• Today’s anniversary episode features guest star Michelle Obama.
• The Cookie Monster Interview.
• Big Bird Sings at Jim Henson’s Funeral.
• Google Sesame Street logos.
• Sesame Street Wikipedia (for all the background information you never knew).

Three computer scientists at Colorado University programmed several Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to act like Pac-Man and the ghosts which chase him. Jack Elston, Cory Dixon, and Maciej Stachura did so in order to demonstrate the unmanned aerial system that they are developing.

More info: link

source: Black and WTF

Week 9. Bills, Browns, Raiders, Rams, Vikings, and Jets on the bye. Winners in bold.

Washington Redskins AT Atlanta Falcons
Arizona Cardinals AT Chicago Bears
Baltimore Ravens AT Cincinnati Bengals
Houston Texans AT Indianapolis Colts
Kansas City Chiefs AT Jacksonville Jaguars
Miami Dolphins AT New England Patriots
Green Bay Packers AT Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Carolina Panthers AT New Orleans Saints
Detroit Lions AT Seattle Seahawks
San Diego Chargers AT New York Giants
Tennessee Titans AT San Francisco 49ers
Dallas Cowboys AT Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers AT Denver Broncos

Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Historically, Blue Note has principally been associated with the “hard bop” style of jazz (mixing bebop with other forms of music including soul, blues, rhythm and blues and gospel). In 1956, Blue Note employed Reid Miles, an artist who worked for Esquire magazine. The cover art produced by Miles, often featuring Wolff’s photographs of musicians in the studio, was as influential in the world of graphic design as the music within would be in the world of jazz. Under Miles, Blue Note was known for their striking and unusual album cover designs. Miles’ graphical design was distinguished by its tinted black and white photographs, creative use of sans-serif typefaces, and restricted color palette (often black and white with a single color), and frequent use of solid rectangular bands of color or white, influenced by the Bauhaus school of design.

With The Wu-Note Project, Logan Walters redesigned the classic Wu-Tang Clan albums in the fashion of this Blue Note design. Amazing.

The Wu-Note Project: link

Artist Karen O’Leary of North Carolina cuts paper by hand to create these stunning street maps. Shown here is a photo of her New York City map cutting.

“four paper panels, each panel measures approximately three feet by four feet (overall dimensions, six feet in width x 8 feet in height) and exposes city blocks of brooklyn, manhattan, queens, and the bronx.. city blocks were cut by hand and forms a delicate paper art. only one original panel of each exist.”

She also has completed cuttings of Paris and London.

View more New York City images here: link
View Paris images here: link
View London images here: link
View her Etsy store here: link