(via Bad Newspaper)
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Chicago’s Best Worst Liquor
The terms people use to describe Jeppson's Malört read like a thesaurus entry for "awful." Yet people in Chicago love it. The kindest thing you can say is that it's an acquired taste. Distillery CEO Tremaine Atkinson explains how the distinctive liquor came about and how it got such a reputation. (via Nag on the Lake)
His Brand of Tea
Pay attention! One of these days, there won't be a purple box to guide you. That said, there's no time like the present to try something new. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
Dog is a the Victim of an Illusion
— David Harvey (@HumansOfLate) March 10, 2019
Poor puppy! Someone give that doggo a bone. (via Everlasting Blort)
Tweet of the Day
Bunny Fight Club 🐰🐰 pic.twitter.com/rWeJfelCC1— Loving nature (@L0vingnature) April 12, 2019
(via Everlasting Blort)
Monday, April 29, 2019
The Goose That Conquered America
Canada geese have a well-deserved reputation for their bad tempers, but I can tell you from experience that if you feed them, they become much friendlier. You might have noticed that there are more Canada geese everywhere now than when you were a child. The story of the Canada goose shows the danger of messing with Mother Nature. We over hunt, then we try to save a species, then it becomes invasive, and who knows what effects all those things have on other species. Vox brings us the story of these "homegrown honkers."
Colonialism as Mitosis
Single-cell organisms grow, engulf other cells, split, decline, and die. So do empires. Pedro M. Cruz and Penousal Machado created a visualization that illustrates the historical timeline of the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires as cells undergoing mitosis. You can see how this idea of independent countries really caught on over time. (via Everlasting Blort)
In Bed
Part of being a parent is developing the ability to explain things to children clearly and unambiguously. If she had left this ambiguous after the second panel, people would have complained. This is the latest comic from Lunarbaboon.
Nichelle Nichols for NASA
Nichelle Nichols portrayed communications officer Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series (and six later films). Her role as a professional black woman in a science fiction story was a breakthrough in 1966, and it took Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to convince Nichols of the importance of her influence. After the series was cancelled, she volunteered to recruit women and minority astronauts for NASA. This film from 1977 is one of the recruitment pitches she made, introducing the space shuttle program to potential new astronauts.
The program was a success. Among those recruited were Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, and United States Air Force Colonel Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, as well as Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ronald McNair, who both flew successful missions during the Space Shuttle program before their deaths in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. Recruits also included Charles Bolden, the former NASA administrator and veteran of four shuttle missions, Frederick D. Gregory, former deputy administrator and a veteran of three shuttle missions and Lori Garver, former deputy administrator.(via Boing Boing)
Miss Cellania's Links
Gold Star widow "shocked" by new tax bill on sons' survivor benefits. Her young sons are now in the 37% bracket.
History's Forgotten Pioneer: The First Native American Doctor.
What to Do About the Open Floor Plan You Hate.
The price change of insulin in the past 20 years.
Why Doesn’t the United States Use the Metric System? Spoiler: we use it more than you think.
The Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss. May Day brings a peculiar spring ritual in a village in Cornwall. (via Strange Company)
Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary. Meanwhile, PBS's Reconstruction hits the mark.
The Fossils That Inspired Alien. The xenomorph was quite otherworldly, but still resembles creatures of earth, some that roamed earth millions of years ago and others that still exist. (via Real Clear Science)
5 History Myths Everybody Believed For Far Too Long.
A blast from the past (2013): 10 TARDIS Dresses for Fancy Occasions.
Play That Funky Music Rammstein
Can Rammstein get funky? You betcha! It takes a little help from Wild Cherry, Megadeth, and Metallica, but the combination ends up perfect for a disco dance. This clever mashup is from DJ Cummerbund. (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
Just walked in to the kitchen to this scene and suddenly feel like I’m about to hear my position is being eliminated as part of a company-wide restructuring pic.twitter.com/CsTbbSXEgP— Jay Willis (@jaywillis) April 24, 2019
(via Nag on the Lake)
Sunday, April 28, 2019
The Home Robot
The 1946 vision of what an automated home assistant would look like. At least this one doesn't tell Google everything you do! (via Dark Roasted Blend)
The Matrix on the Cheap
The Matrix is a classic science fiction action film, made on a budget of $63 million, which was astronomical in 1999. Studio 188 goes out of their way to prove you can recreate the special effects, props, and settings without spending a lot of money. (via reddit)
Dangerous Fields
I was looking for where paleontology fell on this graph, but I suppose it's too far to the left, Jurassic Park notwithstanding. The right side is actually kind of comforting. While Princess is thinking about studying gerontology, I get visions of Gothgrrl being eaten by a tiger or trampled by an elephant. It's the latest from Randall Munroe at xkcd.
Why the Berlin Brandenburg Airport Has Never Had a Flight
A couple of the stereotypes about Germany are efficiency and engineering, but this story shows the opposite. Construction began on the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport in 2006, but it has yet to land a plane. Half As Interesting tells the Story.
Tweet of the Day
Love this dog 🐶🤣— Pic (@pep_vilamala) April 11, 2019
pic.twitter.com/Wyd2ByizIS
(via Everlasting Blort)
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Dandelions
Dandelions are a welcome sign of spring, they are edible, they sustain honeybees until other crops flower, they stabilize topsoil, and they piss off unfriendly neighbors. That's a win all around. (via reddit)
Thanos the Geek
This comic gives an IT flavor the the avengers story, but has no spoilers, because the guys at CommitStrip hadn't seen Avengers: Endgame yet when they wrote it. Even if they had, this is not what would have saved the day.
Potoooooooo
Potoooooooo was a thoroughbred racehorse the won 30 races between 1776 and 1783. He was sired by the undefeated Eclipse. However, his long-lived fame mostly comes from his name. You can better understand the name if you see it written Pot-8-Os. This newspaper clipping from The Washburn Leader in North Dakota was published in 1915. (via Strange Company)
Seven Science Cakes
"Edu-cake yourself" with these science cakes from So Yummy. Get the recipes and instructions here. (via Nag on the Lake)
Tweet of the Day
After her big sister got approval to wear a "Frozen"-themed costume to bed, this little girl in Alabama wanted to wear a costume, too.— ABC News (@ABC) April 25, 2019
She picked a hot dog. https://t.co/QETbOm1jOE pic.twitter.com/AXCFzgyUjZ
(via Digg)
Friday, April 26, 2019
Vince Gilligan on Writing Breaking Bad
Fans of Breaking Bad are familiar with the origin of the story: Vince Gilligan was commiserating with a writer friend about the lack of work during the writer's strike, and the friend suggested making meth in an RV. They didn't so that, but the idea became Breaking Bad. There's certainly more to the story than that. Behind the Curtain compiled various interviews to produce an oral history of sorts that explores how Walter White evolved from a normal science teacher to a man addicted to money, risk, and power. It was a radical idea for TV, which turned into a devastating character study over the years. (via Laughing Squid)
Pusic's Toilet Paper Room
You recall how the Russian cat named Pusic is very affectionate and very much spoiled by his family. Like many cats, he loves to play with toilet paper. So his humans lined an entire room with toilet paper for Pusic to play in!
Avengers Endgame Retro
What if the new movie Avengers: Endgame came out forty years ago? Darth Blender took existing footage and the narration style of yesteryear to imagine what it could have been like. And if we were actually watching this in the 1970s, we would have liked it! The latest edition of Marvel's Avengers have plenty of precursors from movies and TV, but they don't quite resemble what we've grown accustomed to from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (via Digg)
Miss Cellania's Links
Every 2020 candidate's 404 error page, ranked.
The Companies Disney Owns. Click to enlarge the graphic here so that you can read the details. (via Digg)
Men and Their Cats. A dog may be man's best friend, but there's nothing cuter than the bond between a man and his cat.
Gonna make a video...
Forced to Divorce: Americans With Disabilities Must Choose Marriage or Health Care. And you wonder why people live together instead of getting married.
Ken Jennings Revealed the One Wager You Can’t Make On Jeopardy!
How the Secret Service decides which presidential candidates to protect.
The Girl Who Jumped Out of a Pie and Into a Gilded Age Morality Tale. In case you've ever wondered where that girl-in-a-cake trope started.
A blast from the past (2008): 10 Odd Things Swallowed, with X-ray Evidence.
In The Navy
A group of Vikings pillage and plunder while singing the Village People song. A clip from The Muppet Show.
Tweet of the Day
best werewolf transformation of all time 😂😱 pic.twitter.com/2glYc0GJxa— Ally Scherrer 👽 (@AllyScherrer) April 14, 2019
(via Everlasting Blort)
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Very Thin Ice
Believe it or not, the video series called Autotune the News is ten years old. To celebrate the occasion, Andrew Gregory of the Gregory Brothers went back to Autotune the News #2 and expanded on the segment with Kate Couric that includes the phrase "very thin ice," and made an entire song about it. (via Metafilter)
Robot Chicken Presents the Best of The Avengers
As the new movie Avengers: Endgame is opening at theaters around the country, you might have a hard time getting tickets this weekend. No matter, we have a roundup of Robot Chicken's skits featuring the Avengers and other Marvel heroes to ride us over. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Temperatura Perfecta
You don't need the English translation to understand this comic about trying to find the perfect way to sleep. But if you do, read it at Geeks Are Sexy. The comic is from doodleanddo.
Spend the Night Inside a Potato
The Idaho Potato Commission used a six-ton, 28-foot-long manufactured potato to promote their 75th anniversary. The big potato went on tour for six years, and now has been replaced with a new model. Instead of destroying the original, tiny house developer Kristie Wolfe turned it into an Airbnb rental!
The Big Idaho Potato Hotel, which will cost $200 a night plus $42 in taxes and fees, is for couples. With 336 square feet, it includes a queen-size bed, two easy chairs, an elk antler chandelier, a small sink, lights, heating and air conditioning, and a beverage cooler. There’s a separate bathroom that looks like a miniature steel silo with a round corrugated steel tub, a walk-in shower and sink and toilet.The accommodations will be rented out beginning at the end of May. Read the story of the Big Idaho Potato Hotel at the Idaho Statesman. (via Thrillist)
The hollow interior of the Big Idaho Potato was used to store supplies and T-shirts, Spuddy Buddy stuffed animals and other promotional items during the cross-country tours. Wolfe added 8 inches of spray foam insulation to hide the frame, hooked the potato up to well water and a septic tank, and is readying it for electricity. She carved out two nooks next to the head of the bed and space for the sink and beverage cooler near the door at one end. She installed a wood floor.
Miss Cellania's Links
Baby T. rex For Sale on eBay.
Ochre Jelly has taken the next step in his LEGO career, by designing and selling LEGO kits! His store is called Bricks of Character. Buy them on Amazon, or through his Etsy shop.
Obstruction of Justice in the Mueller Report: A Heat Map. Lawfare shows how the evidence fits together for a dozen instances of obstruction.
The Story of Simon and Theo. Two cats who watched each other from afar will finally meet today.
The Yodeler Who Sued Yahoo. Wylie Gustafson took lesser pay for the iconic yodel because he was told it was only a regional ad. (via Metafilter)
The Last Great California Hippie Commune is still going Strong.
The Great and Powerful Special Counsel of OZ... Revealed!
30 Of The Funniest Tormund And Brienne Memes.
A blast from the past (2012): 8 Female Fighters of World War II.
Tweet of the Day
we’re going to be thinking about this chicken wearing pants all day and probably tomorrow too 🤯🤔— UPROXX (@UPROXX) April 24, 2019
pic.twitter.com/4TruWmALr4
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Stop Asking Women To Talk About Being Women
One of these days, journalists will treat women as the news subjects they are, instead of some kind of weird anomaly. Sure, there's a place for discussions of gender politics, but they apply to both men and women. In most settings, though, being the "odd one out" isn't all she's about. Especially when it's more fun to talk about candy!
Where to Eat
The trick to solving the age-old problem of getting two or more people to agree on where to eat is... making the problem less important than something else. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Titan of Terror: the Dark Imagination of H.P. Lovecraft
What is it about the stories of H.P. Lovecraft that give you chills you never knew were possible? He takes you out of the real world, and sets you in a place where you cannot figure your way out, because it's not anything like the world we know. So a lot of that fear is the fear of the unknown, of being stripped of control. Learn about the man behind the horrific sense of dread you feel while reading an H.P. Lovecraft novel in a TED-Ed video from Silvia Moreno-García. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
An Honest Trailer for Howard the Duck
Back in 1986, Marvel Comics came to the screen in the epic Howard the Duck, which was a miserable failure at the box office. I saw that movie in the theater. It was weird, creepy, and not at all entertaining. I cannot imagine anyone watching it twice. It's a bit late, but Howard the Duck finally gets an Honest Trailer. Meanwhile, the new Marvel movie Avengers: Endgame opens this weekend. My, they have come a long way since Howard the Duck!
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Self-Referential Objects
If you're not sure what a self-referential object is, you will as soon as you see them. A can opener that you need a can opener to access. Fire extinguisher-shaped candles. The apology label looks useful as a sticker to put over sale prices when the sale is over -things I have learned in retail. (via Boing Boing)
Fantasy Travel Guide
Some things are the same the world over, even in the lands of fantasy. This is from the webcomic Swords. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Rogue Auger Drill
Okay, you're trying to drill a hole for ice fishing, and you let go of the drill, but it doesn't stop. What do you do? If you just let it run until it's out of gas, it will be at the bottom of the lake first. These guys got lucky, but really, how would you have stopped it? I thought of throwing a rope at it, letting it get tangled. Ice fishermen should have a rope, right? But I've never been in that situation, so maybe you have a better idea. (via Digg)
Miss Cellania's Links
15,000-square-foot Underground Bunker for Sale in Las Vegas. And it can be yours for a mere $18 million! (via Nag on the Lake)
Kitt Bennett's Horizontal Murals. A figure that covers a couple of acres is not easy to visualize in the small space where you stand, but it looks good from ten stories up.
25 Bonkers Landlord Stories.
Trump’s Washing Machine Tariffs Stung Consumers While Lifting Corporate Profits. New research shows how a move meant to aid domestic manufacturers instead padded profits and raised prices on a wide variety of laundry items.
Game of Thrones is all about the memes now.
This Was Supposed to Be a Story About a Bizarre Anti-Vaccine Rally and a Sedated Bear. Then It Got Weird.
A Newcomer's Take On Disney World. Everyone there works very hard to make it all about you.
The Dyed-Blue Cats of Midtown Manhattan. Margaret Owen loved the color blue, and thought her cats would look good if they were blue, too.
Before Jell-O, Colorful Gelatin Desserts Were Haute Cuisine.
A blast from the past (2014): 8 Parasites that Create Zombie Animals.
Cracks
This video short called Cracks aired on Sesame Street in the mid-'70s. Jon Armond was six years old and found it traumatizing. But he never saw the short again, and never encountered anyone else who remembered it ...until the rise of the internet. There he found many other people in his situation, who remembered the short but after it disappeared weren't sure if they had imagined it. Together they searched for information on the clip.
But they still couldn’t find the video itself, and Children’s Television Workshop, which produces Sesame Street, was of no help at the time. Still, after making inquiries, Armond eventually got a fax from an unknown, untraceable number promising to send him the copy of “Cracks,” as long as he agreed never to screen it in public, post it online, or send it to anyone else. Armond signed the agreement, and six months passed before he found a manila envelope in his mailbox with a DVD inside. The note read: “We trust this completes your search.” There was no return address, no postmark, and no postage.Daniel Wilson of the Lost Media Wiki received an email copy of Cracks in 2013, just as mysteriously, but made from a different copy. Since he signed no agreement as Armond did, Wilson uploaded it to YouTube. Slate has the story of the lost and found Sesame Street video in a podcast. They even found the woman who recorded the audio for the short. (via Metafilter)
Tweet of the Day
How is this possible— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 20, 2019
pic.twitter.com/rmVbQVNFeh
(via Digg)
Monday, April 22, 2019
The Sculpture That Looks Like A Real-Life Cartoon
Tom Scott visits Gibbs Farm in New Zealand, which is a huge private sculpture exhibit. The most famous work there is Horizons by Neil Dawson, a giant illusion that looks like a simple drawing. But this short video is more about Gibbs Farm than any any one piece of art. It's a unique place, that's for sure!
The Fish by PES
The latest stop-motion masterpiece from PES, The Fish, illustrates what is happening to the marine ecosystem by showing plastic garbage turning into a fish. It's an ad for the Protect Paradise project, created for Earth Day. (via Laughing Squid)
Miss Cellania's Links
Big Cats in Britain? There have been 155 big cat sightings reported to authorities in the past three years alone! (via Boing Boing)
A History of Racial Injustice. Presented as a calendar of historical news. (via Everlasting Blort)
How One of America’s Biggest Pastors Became a Drug Runner for a Mexican Cartel. (via Digg)
A Brief History of Cooties.
The question was posed to Askreddit, "Parents of reddit, what's the funniest reason you've been called into school to collect your child?" Buzzfeed has a list of the 19 funniest stories, and you can read the entire reddit thread here.
What Great White Sharks Are Afraid Of.
London Sewers Clogged with ...Concrete! (via Gizmodo)
Trying out the new inversion table.
Noam Chomsky on the Perils of Depending on Mueller Report to Defeat Trump. (via Boing Boing)
A blast from the past (2008): 6 Utterly Loyal Dogs.
Sun City
A 1985 collaboration by dozens of musical artists to protest apartheid in South Africa. You can read the story of Steven Van Zandt's project Sun City at Wikipedia. If you are young, you'll want to learn about apartheid, too. The song never got much airplay due to the mixing of genres and the criticism of President Reagan's policies, but it was a favorite of mine.
Tweet of the Day
The vet told my dad on the phone (??) that his dog had to be put down and he’d come to his house and do it. My dad dug the dog’s grave AND LET THE DOG WATCH. Then the vet came and checked the dog and said it was a false alarm. Oops! Dog’s fine! Everything about this is insane. pic.twitter.com/sFXKVDk5Vz— Franklin Hardy (@franklinhardy) April 18, 2019
Franklin Hardy managed to pull us in several directions emotionally with one Tweet. And how did the dog feel about this misadventure? This response may have pegged it best.
Dog:— S.I. Rosenbaum (@sirosenbaum) April 18, 2019
TODAY WAS SO AWESOME WE DUG A BIG HOLE I DIDNT EVEN KNOW WE WERE BOTH INTO DIGGING HOLES WE HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON
You can read the entire Twitter thread here. (via Metafilter)
Sunday, April 21, 2019
The Photography Pioneer Who Faked His Own Death
In the 1830s, several people independently figured out how to capture images permanently -which we call photography. Hippolyte Bayard did it in France, but got very little notice. Here's his story, including how he produced the first staged fake photo, in which he showed his own dead body. (via Digg)
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