Clever name for a cookware store, huh? Wrong. This place sells tacos and birria. (via reddit)
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Cats Have No sense of Personal Space
You know it's true. They want to be around their person, all the time, up close and personal. It's quite sweet. They do not understand "computers" or "working for a living." The one that's complaining about the person in the bath is just trying to save them from drowning. As best he can.
Trump, Mamdani, and El Niño
Season 52 of Saturday Night Live began last night. I don't stay up that late anymore, so I'll be busy watching the YouTube replays of Weekend Update. They have a lot to catch up on. The opening skit once again features James Austin Johnson as Trump, with Ramy Youssef as New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani.
Blue Marble 2
Some years back, Kaplamino gave us a wonderful chain reaction called The Blue Marble. He followed that up with Blue Marble 2, in which physics and timing combine to make this chain reaction act like a pinball machine! What's really neat about this one is that Kaplamino gives us some insight on how the tricks are done. From the YouTube page:
The trick at 0:23 caused the majority of the fails. It had to be exactly in the right position and it was moving because of the vibrations of the trick above.
The air canon with the balloon was a big challenge to make. The rubber band squeezes the balloon around the straw to release the air in a specific direction. Then the hardest part was to find how to stop the air and deliver it when I want. It was too difficult to put something like tape at the end of the straw because it was either too clingy or not enough. The solution was to twist the balloon around the straw and block it in this position with a rope. In this position the air stays in the balloon until it untwists. I explain it because I think what exactly happened it's not easy to get when you see the video.
After this I built a timing catapult trick. I know I'm crazy because timing tricks are so unreliable, it was mostly based on luck but worked 80% of the time. It was so sensitive, just a little more dust or some hair on my table could make it fail so I had to clean it for almost every take.
Yep I used a fidget spinner again, I'm proud of this one, nice and almost never failed.
The big catapult was supposed to be a trick with fire (the plan was to build something with elements: fire, air and water). The marble was supposed to go up because of the explosion of a firecracker :p
But it was too risky, I know it can work (it worked 2 times) but with MASSIVE luck. It's impossible to predict how they'll explode. And it caused lots of others problems. The marble was burned and it wasn't rolling really well after that.
The shockwave can trigger other tricks and finally the debris from the explosions was falling all over the place and could block the marble at a later stage. It also burned the table and hurt my ears. So I gave up, but maybe you'll find this trick in a screenlink later ;)
About the water trick. Release the water was really easy, but it took me weeks to figure out what to do with it. You can't push something with it, not enough force ...Note that we get to see how slanted the table is when the camera pans near the window. There's not much slant at all... just enough. (via Laughing Squid)
So I taped a folded paper and when the water touched it, it got wet and unfold because of the weight :D But the marble also touches the water and gets wet. After that you can see that it moves slowly.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
The Flying Serpent
Despite the title, the 1946 movie The Flying Serpent is about a bird. A mad scientist, in this case an archaeologist, find the legendary Quetzalcoatl and imprisons it. He uses the bird by plucking a feather and planting it on his enemies. Quetzalcoatl must kill whoever holds the feather it to get it back. The movie is noted for the poor special effects puppetry and a plot ripped from an earlier movie. (Thanks, WTM!)
Luke Realizes What Happened
One thing that bothered viewers of the first Star Wars film, once they really thought about it, was how Luke Skywalker saw his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru killed and burned to a crisp, then ran off to find space adventures. No grief outside of a sad glance, no trauma over the death of the people who raised him from infancy. Yet he went crazy over the death of Obi-Wan, who he'd only known for a day or so.
Well, Luke wasn't all that smart or mature when we first met him. His later position as a Jedi hero was due to nepotism more than merit, as we eventually found out. YouTuber Embarrassed & Cold imagines a scenario in which Luke does have an emotional reaction to the loss of his family and home, but it happens in a most inconvenient time and place.
Lives of The Downtrodden in Early America
We learn a lot about the Founding Fathers and the movers and shakers of Colonial America, but what about the regular folk, and especially the poor people who left no records for us? Jon Townsend knows a lot about colonial America. Here he gives us details from the travel journals of Sarah Kemble Knight and surveyor William Bird, who wrote down the things they saw and the people they met. (via Digg)
Friday, September 25, 2026
The Coming El Niño Will Be the Most Powerful Ever
Don't panic just yet, but meteorologists and climate scientists are predicting that the upcoming El Niño weather pattern will be the biggest and most powerful ever recorded. That could mean storms, wildfires, mudslides, heat waves, drought, and the list goes on and on, depending on what part of the world you're focusing on. Such weather disasters used to cause millions of deaths, but we have a couple of things going for us, such as more accurate forecasting, easier travel, and better infrastructure. Still, when something is bigger and more powerful than ever, we can't really know how bad it will be until it happens.
El Niño happens when the ocean surface temperature is at least .5°C higher than normal. That's roughly 1°F. The Pacific already at 3.8°C higher than normal, and El Niño is just getting started. AsapSCIENCE explains what it all means.
Why a Language Map of the World is Impossible
The world has 193 countries, but around 7,000 languages. And these languages are less and less restricted to their region of origin, thanks to war and travel. For example, when my family gathers around the dinner table, the languages they can speak are English, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, Quechua, and Swahili. And those are only among four adults! But they speak English because we all know that one. So how would you assign languages to a place on a map? Going by a nation's "official" language is no help, because that often means nothing. Many nations have several, some nations have none, and some are a compromise. Things get really complicated when speakers of the same language use different dialects and cannot understand each other, and when different languages are so similar that you don't need to learn them. I once knew a Canadian woman who spoke Polish, and was surprised when she went to Ukraine and understood people speaking Russian.
The Map Men, Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, humorously take us on a tour of the world's languages, how they came about, and how they became so mixed up. Their conclusion? You can't put them on a map, for many reasons. There's a skippable ad from 4:18 to 5:52, but at least they make it obvious. (via Damn Interesting)
Miss Cellania's Links
Sordid revelations about the white-nationalist-themed Office of Remigration should galvanize Democrats: If they win power, they must try to shut it down. This is a real thing. See also. (via Fark)
Lamentations of a Dog Owner, Chapter 7: "The Taking of Thine Medicine." (via Everlasting Blort)
Georgia Tann Was Supposed to Help Orphans Find Homes. Instead, She Abducted Children Who Already Had Families and Sold Them for Profit.
Ah, nostalgia time. All these songs take me back to graduating from high school and settling in at college.
Soldiers can refuse to commit war crimes. Can AI? (via Damn Interesting)
The Only Navy Warship Authorized to Fly a Pirate Flag at Sea. (via Bits and Pieces)
Have you ever heard of Tobor the 8 Man? You can see the series at YouTube. (Thanks, Lars!)
This little girl is so good at chess that she has to do other things at the same time to keep the boredom down. Checkmate! (via kottke)
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