(via Bad Newspaper)
Monday, May 31, 2021
The Accidental Rush for Anthrax Island
Gruinard Island in Scotland was once a British biological warfare testing area. But that's just a prelude to the story Tom Scott tells us about the island and what happened decades later in 1986. The story doesn't even have much to do with anthrax and nothing at all to do with biological warfare. In fact, it might make you grin.
Memorial Day in a Picture
Can any picture illustrate to price of freedom better? This was taken by Frank Glick at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota a few years back. The story behind this photo is really interesting. (via reddit)
Blood On Black Wall Street: The Legacy Of The Tulsa Race Massacre
100 years ago today, the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, also known as Black Wall Street, was destroyed.
Lockdown Aftermath
Click to the right to advance the comic. After you get to the end, you realize that she makes all kinds of sense, but the question should have given us another option, like not resenting them at all. This comic is from Tom Hunt at scarecrowbar.
Miss Cellania's Links
Rare Vietnam War images from the winning side, 1965-1975. (via Metafilter)
The Exorcists Who Are Battling Black Lives Matter. Across the country, right-wing Catholic clerics are weaponizing their rites to own the libs. (via Digg)
The Air Conditioned Village. It's the reason you have central air now.
Remembering the London Refuge for South Asian Nannies Far From Home.
Harry Cat, the Lazy, Husky Hero of Remsen Street. (via Strange Company)
Horse goes into water for the first time!
How to Become an Art Expert.
To Be More Tech-Savvy, Borrow These Strategies from the Amish. (via Damn Interesting)
A blast from the past (2015): Lurid Lucy and Other Statues from Movies and TV.
The Angels Of Sainte Mere Eglise
A fitting song for Memorial Day, from Larry Whitler.
This is a song I wrote that tells the story of Private John Marvin Steele who was a Paratrooper in World War II and fought in the battle at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, France, in Normandy, on D-Day. Pvt. Steele's parachute became caught on a church steeple and he remained there for several hours while witnessing his comrades being shot out of the air.
Tweet of the Day
A woman's work is never done. (via Everlasting Blort)菓製婦は見た pic.twitter.com/2UI53CfUJJ
— Tatsuya Tanaka 田中達也 (@tanaka_tatsuya) May 22, 2021
Sunday, May 30, 2021
Make You a Believer
I recall playing this song from Sass Jordan about twenty thirty years ago, and I even put it on cassette so I could listen to it outside of work. It's a good thing, too, because it was never a hit. And that was just plain wrong.
Why Are Mules Sterile?
A mule is a not a species, but a hybrid of a horse and donkey. Mules don’t reproduce because horses and donkeys have different numbers of chromosomes, but that doesn’t tell us much. SciShow explains why those chromosomes can pair up for one generation, but not two. Still, while mules are at a disadvantage in producing their own genetic descendants, they make pretty good surrogate mothers.
Library
Admit it, if you weren't already familiar with the concept of a library, it would be hard to believe. We should take advantage of this wondrous institution more often. This comic is from Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet.
Punctuwool
Have you ever considered how hard it would be to herd clouds? You've got to let them have fun every once in a while, or you'll loves control over them. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tweet of the Day
(via Nag on the Lake)People building monsters out of discarded Cicada 🪰 shells has now become my new favourite thing! - HolG pic.twitter.com/3m3uCxfZDg
— TheRotatingChair (@RotatingChair) May 19, 2021
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Ten Seconds to Run
Who would have ever conceived a mashup of "Nowhere to Run" by Martha and the Vandellas with "Ten Seconds to Love" by Mötley Crüe? Bill McClintock, that's who.
Brood X
Click to the right to advance the story. Brood X is the name of the cicada infestation this year, 17 years after they all went underground. This presentation from Trying Times Comics will explain their life cycle.
A Different Lens
It’s a montage of eyes from movies, for a purpose.
A short film presented at the Society of Camera Operator's Lifetime Achievement Awards on February 19th, 2012 to benefit the Vision Center at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Edited by Bob Joyce.(via TYWKIWDBI) https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/
Tweet of the Day
(via Nag on the Lake)“Owners of small pets have outfitted little dogs and cats in spiked collars and armor-like vests to keep them from becoming bird food” for bald eagles https://t.co/JmnCvyhWtV pic.twitter.com/n0YGain4yn
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 15, 2021
Friday, May 28, 2021
Procrastiworking
We all do it, but the trick is to procrastinate without stressing about it. The older you get, the easier that is to do. Missing a work deadline doesn't seem all that bad compared to the other stresses in my life. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
Possibly the Biggest Error in Baseball History
Javier Báez.
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 27, 2021
El Mago.
The Magician. pic.twitter.com/yZX7HgUFCU
The Pirates infield was not on their game yesterday. There were two outs in the third inning when Javier Báez of the Cubs got a hit. First baseman Will Craig only had to tag the base, but he did not. The rest of the play needs a Yakety Sax soundtrack. See it from different angles here. If you don't know how baseball works, here's a layman's explanation.
The Cubs ended up beating the Pirates 5-3. This video induced Mefites to reminisce about the dumbest play they remember from their Little League games.
Miss Cellania's Links
This Sign is Memorable for All the Wrong Reasons.
Images of Japanese Mascot Characters Getting Stuck. (via Everlasting Blort)
Are Democrats sleepwalking toward democratic collapse? “I’m not sure people appreciate how much danger we’re in.”
Leigh Brackett and The Empire Strikes Back You Never Saw. (via Digg)
Not Just a Scandalous Heiress, She’s a Forgotten Early Ally of Black Lives Matter.
Average Person Thinks They Can Survive for Two Weeks in the Wilderness. But they can't build a fire. (via Fark)
The slimy, smelly, gelatinous goop called "sea snot" comes and goes in normal times, but now it is seriously gumming up the works in the ocean waters around Turkey, affecting swimming, fishing, and more importantly, killing the plants and animals of the delicate ecosystem.
Cat Burglar.
A blast from the past (2017): 11 of the Most Delicious Reuben Sandwiches in the U.S.
The Graduation Song
Rhett & Link have a song especially for those of you graduating from high school and looking forward to being adults in the real world. Good luck, because you'll need all the luck you can get! (via Daily of the Day)
Tweet of the Day
While this technique is disgusting, ground beef with macaroni and cheese can be a good meal. But you have to brown the beef and drain the grease before you combine it with the macaroni! Otherwise, you'll have undercooked beef with an entire layer of grease on your dinner. (via Gizmodo)I am tired pic.twitter.com/9CGzRFoMQv
— kiwuan💧 (@wuankidd) May 25, 2021
Thursday, May 27, 2021
What Are You Doing With Your Life?
A lot of us spend out whole lives trying to figure out what to do with our lives. Meanwhile, we are growing up, working to make a living, and looking forward to retirement. Sometimes you need to step back and look at your life from another perspective. Kurzgesagt isn't going to tell you what you should do with your life, but they have some statistics to help you understand how important your time really is. (via Kottke)
Crying
Young humans don't know what they don't know. Some lessons are better put off until they are a tad older. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
Life Stages
This makes sense, except for those of us who are getting old and have no more money than we ever did. However, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that time is the most valuable thing we will ever have. This graphic is from Matt Shirley.
High-Heeled Roller Skating
I gave up wearing high heels many years ago, because they are just not worth the pain. I also gave up roller skating not long afterward after a particularly painful fall when I stupidly wore my daughter's trick skates that didn't have brakes. I can't even imagine trying to roller skate in high heels, but Marawa makes it look easy. (via Everlasting Blort)
Remember 1986
This is apparently a series, in which they mix songs from the year, and alas, this is the oldest. Still, 1986 brings back a lot of memories of a certain radio station I worked at. (via mental_floss)
Tweet of the Day
(via Buzzfeed)Marriage is strange, you pick a side of the bed on the first date and that becomes the only side you will ever sleep on for the rest of your life.
— Lazor (@Lazor2828) April 8, 2021
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
When Black Friday Comes (You Know I'll Seek and Destroy)
The latest mashup from Bill McClintock mixes "Black Friday" by Steely Dan with "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica. There's a couple of extra songs in there, too, as usual. Strange how well this works.
Social Studies
There are a hundred other things we should be teaching our kids, but in my experience (which was a long time ago), those highlights got repeated every year because so many kids couldn't retain anything. This graphic is from Matt Shirley.
The Ride of the Valkyries
Enjoy this amazing lip-sync performance by The Divas In Drag Italian Opera Company. The company is only two guys, who were bored during lockdown and created this video. (via Boing Boing)
Marble Machine Medley
Ooh, neat, a vintage toy with a self-contained marble run! But that's just the beginning of this compilation of kinetic artworks, each offering a new twist, like intricate shapes, multiple paths, clever return mechanisms, bells and whistles, and motorized returns. These aren't antiques. LittleBall Creations hand-solders amazing marble run sculptures out of copper wiring, which gives them a lovely vintage look, but it's the clever designs that get us hooked. If these were for sale... we couldn't afford them. See more of LittleBall Creations' sculptures at Colossal. (via Everlasting Blort)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Secretary Who Turned Liquid Paper into a Multimillion-dollar Business. (via Nag on the Lake)
New sign in Albuquerque references unpaid bill by Trump campaign. (via Fark)
What Happens When Americans Can Finally Exhale. The pandemic’s mental wounds are still wide open. (via Metafilter)
The Hidden Reason Processed Pet Foods are So Addictive. (via Damn Interesting)
"If a person reads TYWKIWDBI regularly, they will learn something." Minnesotastan goes deep into the singular "they."
High School Edits At Least 80 Girls' Yearbook Photos to Cover up Their Chests. And their shoulders, too!
Office of Inspector General says ICE under Trump Administration deported hundreds of parents without letting them know they could take their kids with them. (via Fark)
What Archaeology Tells Us About the Ancient History of Eating Kosher.
A blast from the past (2015): Women in Medicine: Dr. Anandi Joshee.
Cat and Ducklings
This video from RTÉ Radio 1 shows a cat in County Offaly, Ireland, suckling ducklings along with her own kittens. Isn't that amazing? Well, from what I can see, the ducklings are not nursing, although they may give it a try after seeing the kittens do it. After all, ducks don't suck. But they sure are craving some snuggling from the mama cat. What really is amazing is that a video from a radio network has no audio. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Spider-Man on Family Feud
Bully Maguire is an entire genre of internet videos that set Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker into various worlds other than Spider-Man. The latest entry is a genius Mork mix of Maguire answering Steve Harvey's questions on the game show Family Feud. This works better than it has any right to. (via reddit)
The Long-Forgotten History of the British Moon Spacesuit
The UK government's space program began in 1952, and has always emphasized unmanned flight, mainly to launch satellites. But decades earlier, there was a private entity called the British Interplanetary Society that advocated for manned space travel. In the 1940s, they even produced a space suit for intrepid travelers to wear while collecting moon rocks! It looks bonkers, considering what came afterward, but was quite clever for its time. By the way, the British Interplanetary Society is still going strong.
Superheroes
Click to the right to advance the comic. Everyone has an ability that makes them different. Good luck making a movie or comic book out of most of them. This comic is from Tom Hunt at scarecrowbar.
Waterproof Water
The guy from The Action Lab just blew our minds. Fumed silica is a desiccant, meaning it can keep things dry. It can even make water droplets hydrophobic! So what if you put those hydrophobic water droplets in a blender? The first thing you might think of is that this could be an amazing money-making toy, but alas, fumed silica is not healthy for the lungs. The video above is just the most amazing minute of this full presentation.
(via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
(via Buzzfeed)My husband told me to dress nice because he was going to take me somewhere really expensive.
— Sarcastic Mommy (@sarcasticmommy4) May 6, 2021
I swear to God, if it’s the Lowe’s lumber aisle, it’s over.
Tweet of the Day
(via Nag on the Lake)Overhead video of trаin rolling through Maeklong Railway Market, Bangkok. Six times a day vendors quickly fold up their awnings as the train slides through. pic.twitter.com/Lhfxn0eere
— Scott Kerr (@scott_kerr) May 16, 2021
Monday, May 24, 2021
Monday Links
What Happened to Napoleon’s Penis?
You've heard of three-dimensional chess, but how about one-dimensional chess? (via Neatorama)
Scientists Shot Tardigrades From a Gun to Test a Theory About Aliens.
Turns out Isaac Asimov, father of robotics, was also the father of 100 “lecherous limericks.” (via Nag on the Lake)
The real reason American parents hate each other. A lack of support splits parents into warring factions. (via Metafilter)
The Beecher-Tilton Scandal of 1875: A Shocking Event. The ones who paid the price were not the ones who actually had the affair. (via Strange Company)
The Olympic Star Who Just Wanted to Go Home. Tsökahovi Tewanima held an American record in running for decades, but his training at the infamous Carlisle school kept him from his ancestral Hopi lands
Why Prosecutors Need to Prepare the Country for Donald Trump’s Trial. If the former president is charged, Americans will be shocked. (via Digg)
A blast from the past (2017): 9 Amazing Underwater-Themed Restaurants.
Drive Deplorably with Steven Spielberg
One Minute Galactica made this using the audio from the 1949 educational film You're Driving 90 Horses and creatively-edited video from the 1971 made-for-TV movie Duel, starring Dennis Weaver and directed by 24-year-old Steven Spielberg. (Thanks, Nick!)
Sunday, May 23, 2021
A Natural Body of Liquid
We've all been there. You can't enjoy a real body of water without sharing it with unseen creatures. This comic is from Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet.
Saturday Night Live Finale
Last night was SNL’s season 46 finale. For the opening, the cast looked back at the weird year they spent producing comedy during a pandemic and a residential election.
Beat The Cheat
Australian magician and comedian Nicholas Johnson invites you to a games party in which he cheats his way through every game. It won't take you long to figure out how it's done, but even afterward there's some weird stuff that will make you scratch your head. Not that scratching your head helps you think better. The title of this video is Can you name all the games and beat the cheat? but I think that is to distract you from the shenanigans going on. The Tetris song is by the group Flap! (via the Presurfer)
Saturday, May 22, 2021
Incredible Balancing Stunt on Top of the Empire State Building
Safety precautions in 1924 aren’t what they are today. (via Damn Interesting)
Lion Opens Car Door
Have you ever been to one of those safari parks where the animals are relatively free while you drive through to see them? I hope you have enough sense to keep your car doors shut, and now you know why you are encouraged to lock them as well. (via Boing Boing)
Looking Back and Forward
When you're blue, think about the wonderful life you had before, even if it wasn't so wonderful, and think about the future, when you'll forget how sad you are now. Does this make any sense? No, but that's the way it is. This comic is from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Nap Flowchart
That's the way it is. Plus, since I'm both a night owl and an early bird, there are times I desperately need a nap, but someone has an emergency at 2PM, or that's the only time I can get an appointment. And on the days I'm with my mother, there's a long list of things I can only get done when she's asleep, so no nap for me! This graphic is from Matt Shirley.
Perfect Peel at the 11foot8+8 Bridge
The railroad over the infamous 11' 8" underpass in Durham, North Carolina, was raised eight inches in 2019, so now it's called the 11'8"+8 bridge. We thought that might be the end of a years-long string of videos in which unwary truck drivers collided with the bridge or peeled off the top of their trucks. However, the underpass is still claiming victims. Earlier this month, a rental truck was caught on video as it perfectly peeled off the truck roof. The driver didn't even stop -and he barely slowed down! (via Geekologie)
Maru and the Drain Plug
What's fat cat Maru doing these days? Here he is in the bathtub, but there's no water. He's discovered that the tub plug goes round and round, but it doesn't come out. (via HuffPo)
Tweet of the Day
The Linda Lindas at the Los Angeles Public Library. (via Metafilter)Don't mess with The Linda Lindas.
— L.A. Public Library (@LAPublicLibrary) May 20, 2021
Watch the full concert: https://t.co/Usv7HJ1lLR pic.twitter.com/pKZ5TKDdiA
Friday, May 21, 2021
The Windows Update Song
Some days you hate your computer, and some days your computer hates you. They are fragile little creatures, and if you don't treat them just right, they will turn on you and exact revenge- by forcing an update! (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Vaccinated
When I got my second shot, my daughter asked what I wanted to do first, of those things I couldn't do before. Go to church? I can't, I'm at Mom's house on weekends. Travel? No, Mom needs me and I'm broke (those two things are related). Eat at a restaurant? No, they're still at half capacity and so busy with takeout orders that it takes hours to get fed. See friends? I don't have any besides those on the internet. Go to a movie? I can't think of any new movies I want to see. Get a haircut? Ding ding ding! And so I did, and it's short enough so that I don't have to get another for at least a year. But even though getting vaccinated didn't change my life all that much, the thing that makes it all worthwhile is that I don't have to worry about it anymore. This comic is from Randall Munroe at xkcd.
Are Viruses Alive?
Viruses are incredibly weird, as they exist on the edge of our definition of life. The problem is most likely our definition of life. If we expand definition to include viruses, then we have to include other obviously non-living things like artificial intelligence and living things that aren't organisms, like prions. But viruses are currently the edge case in the argument, as SciShow explains. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Miss Cellania's Links
Goodyear’s Illuminated Tires. Neothane tires were pretty, but they were never safe.
When congressman Devin Nunes’s father and brother sued a reporter for implying that the family dairy hired undocumented workers, they should probably have anticipated that they’d have to prove that their employees were all legal. Oops. (via Fark)
14 TV Characters We Never Actually Saw. Strangely absent: Carlton the doorman.
Gowns, balls and underlying racism. Historical
costumers of color navigate a hobby centered on a history that excludes
them. (via Metafilter)
French Polynesia’s Teti’aroa Has Been an A-Lister Retreat for Centuries.
Lucky Ducky gets even lazier and greedier! The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
The Strange 1945 Bobbi-Kar. The reason they went out of business will be a surprise. (via Everlasting Blort)
A blast from the past (2015): 9 Parrots You Should Meet.
