Penguins Should Fly All the Time; NASA Sets the Ancient Mayans Straight
We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. It's been a good week for penguins on domestic flights, Darren Aronofsky tests the devotion of his fans, and we get a rousing endorsement of Prince Harry from someone who knows him well.
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You know who had a good week? The penguins who flew from Atlanta to New York on a Delta flight Wednesday night, but got to sit up with the people. Not just any people: people in first class on a domestic flight that's only two hours. People, in other words, with miles. Then somebody grabbed a video of them hobnobbing with the other passengers and they're rapidly securing viral video fame. That's a good week. [JAWorthingtonRoth]
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You know who did not have a good week? Darren Aronofsky. He still hasn't settled on a Noah for that ark movie, and the new commercial he made for Kohl's starring Jennifer Lopez arrived to much head-shaking and people uttering, "Good grief man, you're supposed to be Darren Aronofsky." That's not totally fair, since it's a fine commercial, as Jennifer Lopez commercials go, but one does wonder if making that Wolverine movie in Japan would have been a better use of his talent. [Movieline]
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Kohl's "Classic. Remixed" from H.K. McCANN on Vimeo.
NASA, which once received attention for putting humans in metal containers and finding ways to blast them into outer space, is emerging as a one-stop source for dazzling time-lapse imagery and rudimentary-but-helpful explanations of basic scientific concepts. Now there's a thorough cataloguing of why the world will not be ending on December 21, despite what the Mayan prophecy would have you believe. This sounds snarky and unfair -- the Mayans aren't really around to defend their predictions -- but for now at least, NASA scientists like Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Objects Program Office have a pleasing touch and a remarkable ability to be spontaneously unironic. What you see is what you get: a slightly dull but pleasant rocket scientist explaining all the reasons the world will not come to an end on December 21. It's exhilarating. [NASA]
Prince Harry: swell guy. We've always suspected this, but now there's an actual video testimonial from an unnamed Jamaican soldier who trained alongside him. One day, we hope to have someone say that we're "jovial" but "stand for hard work." That's the balance, right there. It's impossible to overstate how happy this video makes us feel. [Jamaica Gleaner]
