Health Ledger’s Inspiration fot the Joker?

Few performances are as memorable as Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight and this video might just be his inspiration for the character:

Now Kotaku and Newsarama have tipped us to a 1979 interview of Tom Waits which is eerily similar to The Joker’s voice, inflections, and mannerisms. Thinking Heath Ledger’s inspiration for The Joker may have been Tom Waits isn’t as far-fetched as it seems. The two worked together in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a movie which took so long to develop that it’s conceivable the two could have met at some point before The Dark Knight filmed.

A then 29-years-old Tom Waits can be seen shambling, smirking, and being captivatingly weird in a 1979 Australian talk show hosted by Don Lane in the video below. Skip to 1:30 to see the start of the interview.

[Via Uproxx]

Probably the most brilliant thing a parent can do… really ever

This will be happening in my house no question. How did parents not pick up on what coffee shops have been doing for years any sooner?!

so freakin excited gif

I’m just so FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!

all pop music sounds the same says the study of uhh no shit

So now what everyone knows is… official I guess?

(Reuters) – Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.

Researchers in everywhere ever Spain used a huge archive known as ears the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.

A team led by everyone with ears artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Institute of Duh Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.

“We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse,” Serra told Reuters. “In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations – roughly speaking chords plus melodies – has consistently diminished in the last 50 years.”

They also found the so-called timbre palette has become poorer. The same note played at the same volume on, say, a piano and a guitar is said to have a different timbre, so the researchers found modern pop has a more limited variety of sounds.

Intrinsic loudness is the volume baked into a song when it is recorded, which can make it sound louder than others even at the same volume setting on an amplifier.

The music industry has long been accused of ramping up the volume at which songs are recorded in a ‘loudness war’ but Serra says this is the first time it has been properly measured using a large database.

The study, which appears in the journal Scientific Nondiscoveries Scientific Reports, offers a handy recipe for musicians in a creative drought.

Old tunes re-recorded with increased loudness, simpler chord progressions and different instruments could sound new and fashionable. The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year should take note.

 

Most terrifying GIF ever?

Heeeeeeeeere’s Ricky!

I feel like this would start a really great caption contest…

11-yr-old Stowaway and the Olsen Twins

So an 11-year-old boy managed to board a flight ON HIS OWN from Manchester to Rome… without a passport, ticket, or boarding pass.

Here’s the deal:

Authorities are still trying to figure out just how an 11-year-old boy managed to board a Jet2.com flight from Manchester to Rome without any form of identification or a plane ticket.

“I take any breach of security, very, very seriously,” Transport Secretary Justine Greening told the BBC. “So we are now investigating with Manchester Airport and, indeed the airline, to find out exactly what happened.”

Liam Corcoran was shopping with his mother at Wythenshawe Civic Centre yesterday when he suddenly took off, ending up at Manchester Airport nearly three miles away.

He then attached himself to a family and followed them through five security checkpoints, not once being asked to show ID or a boarding pass. Once on board the plane, Liam grabbed a seat and went unnoticed by flight crew until passengers alerted the captain to the unaccompanied minor.

He was flown back to Manchester and reunited with his mom last night.

“The boy went through full security screening so the safety of passengers and the aircraft was never compromised,” said a Manchester Airport spokesman. “He was with a large group of other children, he appeared to be in a family group – for whatever reason he wasn’t checked. It was our responsibility – we absolutely have to answer for that. This was a young lad on an adventure.”

Several airport staffers and Jet2.com crew members have been suspended while the investigation is ongoing.

Sounds fishy to some but NOT TO ME! To explain how this happened I bring your attention to a similar incident that happened to a set of sisters from San Francisco in 1992.

Michelle and Stephanie Tanner have had a boring summer, but are excited when a postcard from they’re older sister, D.J., mentions that she will be bringing home a big surprise when she arrives home from Barcelona. An hour later, the airplane with D.J. and her quirky but lovable best friend, Kimmy, on it will be landing at San Francisco International Airport. At the airport, the big surprise turns out to be nothing more than D.J.’s new boyfriend Steve Hale, who was also in the summer study program. Michelle and Stephanie were hoping that the surprise would be better than this and that D.J. would at least act like she missed them, because D.J. was gone for 8 weeks – How rude! Still at the airport, Michelle and Stephanie meet members of the International Young People’s Choir, and the choir is going to Auckland, New Zealand. Stephanie falls for Terry, the Australian member of the choir. Terry invites the girls to come aboard the airplane and meet the choir, so they take Terry up on the invitation because they believe that D.J. wants nothing to do with them because all D.J. cares about is Steve. Before Michelle and Stephanie can get back off of the airplane, it takes off. Airport security realizes that the two girls are enroute to New Zealand and are able to alert their father, Danny that the girls are heading to a foreign country all alone but it’s all good because they’ll be on the next plane back to San Fran. They get back safely and everyone hugs and D.J. apologizes for being a hateful troll ignoring her sisters and they all hug and laugh about the absurdity of the situation.

So basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s obvious that, hungry for attention, Mary Kate and/or Ashley Olsen and/or Jodie Sweetin made their way to the Manchester airport, seduced this poor little 11-year-old boy, and convinced him to board the plane to Rome. And Obama helped.

 

Celebrities Read Mean Tweets

Jimmy Kimmel asks celebrities to read mean tweets directed at them and it’s…. perfect. Correction: it would be perfect if Kristen Stewart could manage to act well in a measly 10 second segment but NO, that’s too difficult.

Really though, this is a great idea and I want more of this.

Video Games by Boy George

By George, I think love it, Boy George!

Featuring the gorgeous Angel Rose and the equally gorgeous Cesar Polini, a story of young love in bleak Britain. This story is to be continued so watch this space! Produced by Kevan Frost in Bromley 2012.