Photographer Michael Paul Smith creates photos of 20th century America that look utterly convincing but are actually carefully staged photos of his 1/24-scale dioramas. The dioramas prominently feature models from his collection of die-cast cars, as well as his own exacting replicas of buildings, signage, and other pieces of Americana. For added realism, he often photographs his dioramas outdoors, using forced perspective to realistically incorporate surrounding buildings and scenery into his images. Remarkably, he uses a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. For more on Smith’s incredible diorama photos, see this Fstoppers interview. We previously posted about Smith’s work back in 2010.
Crate stacking is a game. The objective is to stack as many upside-down plastic milk crates as possible and stand on the top. Come try it out at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire this Sunday in Oakland.
Earlier this year, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, six former members of the United States Congress (including a former United States Senator) listened to over 30 hours of expert witness testimony in five days. The weeklong event was called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, and the topic of the hearings was the events and evidence indicating that an extraterrestrial presence has been traveling to earth and engaging with the human race. For UFOlogists and X-Files fans, the event was the wettest dream imaginable—the most concentrated body of evidence regarding extraterrestrial life ever presented to the press and the general public at one time.
For the last few years, Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, an ex-MMA martial athlete turned filmmaker and artist, has been interviewing what he called “cosmic whistle-blowers,” people who have been at high levels within the US military and intelligence organizations. He’s currently in production of a few films documenting his work, one of which is titled Truth Embargo. The film follows three major individuals—a journalist, a historian, and an activist—as they put their entire careers on the line to prove the existence of not just one, but multiple types of alien life forms, and the government's attempts to hide this from the public. Jeremy was nice enough to send us over a few clips, which are completely insane.
This week, I called him up to talk about aliens, and to be honest, I’m still pretty skeptical. I seriously doubt that aliens are beaming down to Earth and anally probing Southerners on the regular, or that they’re somehow in cahoots with the US government building a death ray. Jeremy never really offered me any solid proof, just a lot of “if I showed you what I’ve seen, it’d blow your mind” sort of thinking. That said, I’d probably self-immolate if I thought humans really were the only living creatures in an empty universe, so there better be something up there, if for no other reason than to put this gibbering, blubbering species out of its fucking misery.
VICE: Hi Jeremy. Do you believe in aliens? Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell: [Laughs] I no longer have the luxury of disbelief. Humanity is being engaged by non-humans—whether our minds can handle that fact or not is an open question. The realization that we are not alone is only the beginning. If you’d been witness to the testimony at the Citizen Hearing, it’s pretty compelling evidence for an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race when you listen to this stuff for a week at the National Press Club, two blocks from the White House.
At the citizen’s hearing, what kind of proof did you hear of the existence of Aliens?
So much. We have astronauts telling us that they’ve seen ships out in space, we have military pilots ordered to engage mile-wide craft on record, on radar. You can see the radar reports. You have guys that ran the minutemen missiles, this is on record documented by our military—in one incident, 10 missiles were shut down systematically by a glowing red disc hovering over the silo shooting a laser beam down inside. When you sit for a week in the National Press Club and hear these passionate people who’ve been holding these secrets for decades, secrets of what they saw and what they know. Some of these witnesses were admittedly part of the government’s disinformation programs.
How come the US seems to have a monopoly on this information? Were the Soviets being contacted during the Cold War?
Forget the Cold War. There is a global phenomenon of contact that has been going on since the beginning of recorded human history.
[Laughs] OK.
There is a rich history of government documentation regarding this issue. There’s mountains of government-documented evidence of non-terrestrial craft that has been invading our airspace. Some governments, like Brazil, Mexico, France, and England, have released some of their files. America just started doing this, in an almost comical way. The question is, who controls it? We have teams that are designated for crash retrieval globally. But who’s controlling it? I don't know, but it seems like the US has a pretty strong monopoly on this stuff since at least World War Two.
When was the first moment that changed your mind and made you a believer?
Well, I’ve never seen a huge craft in the sky, but there have been a few personal experiences that have confirmed to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are being engaged by non-humans, and that the government knows about it. Honestly, my mind was changed very slowly, through a methodical accumulated history, as well as through a few specific sources over the years. Anybody can connect the dots if they want to. I’ve always been fascinated by the extraordinary beliefs and experiences of highly credible individuals, like the men and women who spoke at the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure. These are highly trained professionals: astronauts, military pilots, FAA officials, researchers, even the past Defense Minister of Canada. These people aren’t crazy—they’re highly trained professionals, some of whom we've entrusted to have their fingers on the nuclear weapons of our country.
Since you started working on this film, certain information has come to light, especially about what went on at Area 51—it wasn’t anything extraterrestrial, they were testing the U-2.
No, that’s a huge bluff. What you’ve heard is that the government informally announced that Area 51 exists by not redacting its title in official documents. My mentor, investigative journalist George Knapp, announced the existence of Area 51 and has been reporting on it since the late 80s. The U-2 was a huge part of what happened at the facility, sure. But it's a joke that this was the entirety of what went on. They’re just propagating a fake story that all that happened at Area 51 was related to the testing of U-2s and Stealth Fighters. I know this to be false. I have spoken with numerous credible individuals from the inside.
Well... what really happened there?
Area 51 appears to have been a place where some of the most secret aeronautics and propulsion projects were manifesting. The public ones were the U-2 and the Stealth Fighter. There’s a secret complex built into the side of a mountain at Papoose Lake called S-4. This is where we hold and have test flown a number of non-terrestrial craft.
Why does the government want to hide this?
Some people say the American public wouldn’t be ready for it, or that religion would crumble. All that’s bullshit. The people at the highest level have told me that there’s nothing that would harm us. The true architects of the secrecy aren’t the governments of the world, but the visitors themselves. If they wanted to be revealed, fully and openly, they would reveal themselves. But there are of course those who believe we aren't able to handle the truth because it's much bigger than religion or anything we could possibly imagine, and we might not like the answers to our quesitons. After what I've learned, I can't rule that out. But I believe knowledge is power, and the holders of the secrets have no right.
It’s clear that you’re convinced of the existence of extraterrestrials. How will you use your film to convince people of this belief?
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. It doesn’t work to tell someone we’re being engaged by aliens, and have been since the beginning of human history, or that extraterrestrials may have modified our DNA and had a hand in orchestrating our culture, language, writing, and religious belief systems. You don't just say that to someone because it means nothing. But if I do my job right with this film, what I will convey is that serious, credible, and often military individuals have put every shred of their personal credibility on the line in order to tell the public that reality is extraordinarily different than what we’re being told. I hope to allow people to be open enough to construct their own architecture of understanding, which could become a more permanent facet to their character.
Truth Embargo will be released later this year. For now, head to TruthEmbargoMovie.com
The Norwegian town of Rjukan will get direct winter sunlight for the first time this year thanks to a technology that was first suggested 100 years ago.
Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of a garbage band called Pearl Jam, fell down on Tuesday night while performing in a garbage city called Philadelphia, on the band's 23rd anniversary of making garbage music. He's OK. [Via @chunklet]
Shreddies are a line of underwear for men and women designed to filter out the smell caused from flatulence. Using Zorflex, the activated carbon also used in chemical warfare suits, these undies are meant to help “sufferers of digestive disorders such as IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), Crohn’s disease, Colitis and food intolerances” by filtering out their body’s noxious odors. We have previously written about flatulence deodorizer pads that stick to your underwear.
Shreddies flatulence filtering underwear features a ‘Zorflex’ activated carbon back panel that absorbs all flatulence odours. Due to its highly porous nature, the odour vapours become trapped and neutralised by the cloth, which is then reactivated by simply washing the garment.
by Adam Clark Estes on Gizmodo, shared by Shep McAllister to Lifehacker
You can always use more memory cards. Whether you're a weekend warrior with your DSLR or a music hoarder on your smartphone, these bite-size bits of storage tend to fill up quickly, and they're easy to lose at that. So take the chance while you've got it, and stock up on Sony memory cards at Amazon. They're mad cheap today.
It's been a big year for pot, with the states of Washington and Colorado both legalizing the drug for recreational use and many more proposing legalization or already allowing it for medical reasons (or just looking the other way). And now, for the first time ever, a majority of Americans are in favor of weed's full legalization.
Not to spoil the ending, but, let's just say, given that this video was uploaded yesterday, and yesterday was Monday, it's fairly safe to assume that this cat does actually hate Mondays.
While visiting Shiner Distribution in the UK Eric took some time to look through a few of Shiner's vintage boards. The experience was a step back in time to the 1980s.
Dear Lifehacker, Now that Apple has finished OS X Mavericks, I've looked over the features and I'm not sure if I should upgrade. I don't know if any of the changes would really help and I don't want to introduce new bugs and software incompatibilities. What do you think: should I upgrade now, never, or later on?
A trio Boy Scout leaders in Utah claim they were merely performing a "civic service" when they decided to destroy a unique rock formation that had been overlooking Goblin Valley State Park for the past 20 million years.
When local news anchors around the country learned that Mike Myers and his wife Kelly Tisdale were expecting their second baby, they all had the exact same reaction.
Professional sad man Morrissey had a memoir in the works, but then he didn't, but then he did, and today the British contrarian's self-portrayal was finally released in Europe. Weighing more than a pound, the 480-page doorstop is an instant classic—that is, according to Penguin Classics, an imprint historically reserved for educational materials like Little Womenand cornerstones of civilizations like the Iliad, which added Morrissey's Autobiography to its illustrious ranks by publishing this indulgent monster. Naturally, arbiters of literary standards are miffed. ( "I'd like it to go to Penguin," Morrissey said in 2011, "but only if they published it as a Classic.")
While visiting Shiner Distribution in the UK Eric took some time to look through a few of Shiner's vintage boards. The experience was a step back in time to the 1980s.
