(via reddit)
Friday, September 20, 2024
Phonics vs. Whole Word Reading
When I started school in the 1960s, the two first grade classes were part of an experiment. Class A, which I was in, learned to read by the phonics method. Class B was taught by the whole word method, or cuing as its called in this video, but we knew it as the block reading method. The two classes were kept separate until the 7th grade. I don't know what the findings were, because I was well out of school before I learned of the experiment. But all the top students in high school were from Class A. Dr. Erica Brozovsky looks at both these methods of learning to read, where they came from, how they differ, and how they are turning out all these years later.
A Capella Bohemian Rhapsody
A cappella covers of pop songs, bluegrass covers, yodeling when the mood strikes. Here we have all of that, when the Spooky Men's Chorale performs Queen's operatic rock anthem "Bohemian Rhapsody." They say they always try to do something surprising to end their shows, and this time they raised the bar pretty high. The Australian group has been together more than 20 years, but has yet to pay in the US. This performance was recorded at Fairport Convention’s Cropedy Festival last month. (via Laughing Squid)
Miss Cellania's Links
Patton Oswalt Just Made Star Trek's Most Beloved Aliens Terrifying. Introducing sentient tribbles.
America’s long history of anti-Haitian racism, explained.
50 Pictures Of Pure Positivity To Make Your Day A Little Better.
Common Threads: The Rise (and Rise, and Rise) of the Mini Skirt. (via Damn Interesting)
The Time Andrew Jackson Won the Vote But Lost the Presidency. Winning both the popular vote and getting the most electoral college votes wasn’t enough for Andrew Jackson to win the 1824 election.
The Grocery List Collection has almost 4,000 discarded grocery lists. It appears no one can spell mayonnaise, yoghurt, or even bananas. (via Messy Nessy Chic)
The Death of the Minivan. It was a perfect vehicle. (via Kottke)
A Blast from the Past (2015): 6 Ways to Celebrate the Autumnal Equinox. That will be Sunday.
The Staten Island Ferry Disaster Memorial and Museum
Warning: this video contains NSFW language.
Do you recall the Staten Island Ferry Disaster of 1963? The news flew under the radar because it happened on the morning of November 22, and the media became overwhelmingly focused on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But now there’s a memorial and a museum dedicated to the memory of the disaster and those who lost their lives. From the memorial page:
Do you recall the Staten Island Ferry Disaster of 1963? The news flew under the radar because it happened on the morning of November 22, and the media became overwhelmingly focused on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But now there’s a memorial and a museum dedicated to the memory of the disaster and those who lost their lives. From the memorial page:
It was close to 4am on the quiet morning of November 22, 1963 when the Steam Ferry Cornelius G. Kolff vanished without a trace. On its way with nearly 400 hundred people, mostly on their way to work, the disappearance of the Cornelius G. Kolff remains both one of New York’s most horrific maritime tragedies and perhaps its most intriguing mystery. Eye witness accounts describe “large tentacles” which “pulled” the ferry beneath the surface only a short distance from its destination at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan. Nobody on board survived and only small pieces of wreckage have been found…strangely with large “suction cup-shaped” marks on them. The only logical conclusion scientists and officials could point to was that the boat had been attacked by a massive octopus, roughly half the size of the ship.You can find out more about the memorial and the attached museum at its website. You can even get a memorial t-shirt. Residents of Staten Island were surprised by the sudden opening of the memorial, but that’s to be expected, because it was 53 years ago. It also didn’t happen. The story is hoax by artist Joe Reginella, a Staten Island native who has been handing out brochures for the memorial. The memorial does exist, if you can find it, but the museum does not. The ferry Cornelius G. Kolff existed at one time, but was not attacked by a giant octopus. The t-shirts, of course, are real. The brochures, t-shirts, and the actual statue depicting a ferry being devoured by a tentacled monster will go a long way toward perpetuating the urban legends city dwellers like to tell tourists. (via Metafilter)
Tweet of the Day
Which quote is the most popular?We tried to hand out “tone down the rhetoric” signs at the Trump rally yesterday. pic.twitter.com/GxXAD7kNPt
— The Good Liars (@TheGoodLiars) September 19, 2024
Thursday, September 19, 2024
The Story of Christine Jorgensen
Christine Jorgensen was not the first person to undergo gender transition surgery, but she was the first that most Americans knew about. She was a media sensation when she returned from Denmark as a woman in 1952. Although she had people flocking to meet her, she had to be terribly lonely being a pioneer in that day and age. (via Metafilter)
Milo
Milo and his fireplace
byu/ThaanksIHateIt infunny
Lest anyone think that Milo isn't the most spoiled cat on the planet, he has his own room. And he has his own fireplace. What else could he possibly want? It seems obvious to anyone that Milo wants his human Erika to turn his electric fireplace on for him. Milo is a very good communicator. But Erika is busy recording the sequence and does not respond as promptly as a cat expects. So he finally resorts to taking a bite of her leg. That's when he gets what he wants, and this is a mistake. It tells Milo that a bite will get him what he wants, so next time he might use that move first. You can see more of Milo and his sister Poppy at Instagram.
The First Plastic Surgery Patient
The first real plastic surgery was the reconstruction of Walter Yeo's face after he was badly wounded in World War I. Dr. Harold Gillies found Yeo to be a good candidate for a surgical technique he had developed involving skin grafts, but had never been used for a wounded face covered in scar tissue. It wasn't easy. The technique worked, but Yeo's treatment took years to complete due to infection. We've come a long way since then with, for example, surgical gloves and masks. Gillies improved his grafting technique and was able to repair the faces of many other war veterans with even worse damage. A hundred years later, we've seen quite a few complete face transplants that can restore drastically injured people to a semblance of normal life.
Miss Cellania's Links
Gottfried Mind, The Raphael of Cats. He was also called the Swiss Cretin. (via Nag on the Lake)
Mostly, this Secret Masonic Order Just Wants to Have Fun. That's the Shriners.
T-Minus: 10 space stations of the future. (via Big Think)
Sarah Connor redefined the female action hero forever.
The Haitians, of Springfield, USA. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Earth may have had a ring system 466 million years ago. (via Gizmodo)
Ultra-Rare Copy of the U.S. Constitution, Found in a Filing Cabinet, Heads to Auction.
Physicists discover “hidden turbulence” throughout van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Tweet of the Day
46 years ago today, WKRP in Cincinnati debuted on CBS.
— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) September 18, 2024
From episode 1, when DJ John Caravella transformed into Dr. Johnny Fever, and WKRP became a rock and roll station. pic.twitter.com/1RIpjcNNTx
On September 18, 1978, the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati premiered on CBS. I only missed the anniversary by a few hours.
In 1982, I was between marriages and staying with my parents. I didn't know what to do with my life, but I needed a job. Watching TV with the family one night, we laughed at WKRP and my dad said, "You have a deep voice and you know a lot about music; you should work at a radio station." The next day I went to the local station but they didn't have any openings. But they knew of one that did, way up in the mountains. The day after that I went to that station and they hired me, which started me on a 24-year career of "town to town, up and down the dial." I was astonished to learn how accurate WKRP was, from the many managers who only had the job because his parents owned the business to having to interrupt an hour of rock 'n' roll to deliver an agricultural report. Sadly, WKRP ended its last season only a couple of months after that incident.
Two Handed Snake sings "Trust in Me"
Mike Phirman does a snake puppet that lip-syncs (if a snake had lips) to the song Sterling Holloway sang in The Jungle Book. Actually, he doesn’t even have a puppet -he’s using just his two hands! It’s a trick that’s as mesmerizing as the animated sequence, simply because he’s so good at it. (via reddit)
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Beneficial Viruses
We were once afraid of bacteria, but then we found out that there are beneficial bacteria that battle harmful bacteria. In fact, we carry around plenty of bacteria that help our digestive systems work, which we call the human biome. And when we developed antibiotics, we no longer had to be so afraid of even harmful bacteria. But viruses are different, and we have no medicines to kill them, just vaccines to prevent their diseases. A lot of science later, we know there are tons of viruses that won't harm us, because they specialize in harming bacteria. Now we know that human bodies are teeming with viruses all the time, which is called the human virome. Like the biome, these colonies of viruses are crucial to our survival. Kurzgesagt explains how your virome works.
"Weird Al" Yankovic and the Songs He Parodied
"Weird Al" Yankovic has been writing and performing parody songs since he was in high school, and was once a regular on the syndicated radio show Dr. Demento. His first single was "My Bologna," a parody of "My Sharona" in 1979. Since then, he's been stealing the thunder of pop artists by making their songs into comedy, but they all love it. In those 45 years, he's had a string of songs that you can't help but think of every time you hear the hit song it was made from. And your kids think you are just being silly in singing the wrong lyrics. (via Laughing Squid)
The 2024 Nikon Small World in Motion Competition
The Nikon Small World in Motion Competition shows us the marvels of microscopic videography, and they have announced its winners for 2024. First place went to Dr. Bruno Vellutini of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics for a time-lapse of the embryogenesis of a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). You can see the mitotic waves created when its cells divide.
See the videos of all five winners at the competition gallery, and see the honorable mentions, too. (via Gizmodo)
Batman vs. Batman
Batman v Superman was not as well received as expected. How to improve on that? Screen Rant had a genius idea: Batman against Batman. Specifically, Batmna played by Christian Bale vs. Batman played by Ben Affleck. Oh yeah, Michael Keaton gets thrown into the mix, too. And George Clooney. Did you see Val Kilmer? I didn’t. Anyway, Batman vs. Batman would be a much more evenly matched fight, and probably pretty dirty, too. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Tweet of the Day
(via Buzzfeed)Am I high or is this air conditioner unit stargazing with her legs out the window right now pic.twitter.com/ygWYeadoFy
— xtian (@AOWTOUDOUZAT) September 7, 2024
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Viola and Mandolin
He'd never had a cat before, and didn't really want one, but she volunteered to foster a cat for Flatbush Cats. The first cat they were assigned was a mother cat with three kittens. Fostering cats for a rescue organization is a wonderful thing to do, but it often ends in failure. "Failure" in this case means that they don't manage to be a temporary family because they have to keep the cats. That's why organizations are always on the lookout for more volunteer foster parents. In this case, two of the kittens, Viola and Mandolin, are now permanent pets, and their non-cat dad is now a cat person. Viola and Mandolin are very much loved, as you can see at their Instagram gallery.
The Solar Death Ray
Skyscrapers with curved glass look really cool, but they can hide a dangerous feature- solar convergence, also known as the solar death ray. Any kid who ever tried to start a fire with a magnifying glass understands that bending the sun's rays into one spot magnifies the heat. This famously happened with two skyscrapers, Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas, and the skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street in London. Both have concave glass that converge sunbeams into deadly spots that vary depending on the position of the sun. The confounding part of the story is that both buildings were designed by the same architect, Rafael Viñoly. This video is only eight minutes long; the rest is an ad. (via Digg)
Miss Cellania's Links
Rare Penguin Wins Bird of the Year Competition, Fair and Square.
Why a Japanese Shogun Brutally Executed 55 Catholics in 1622, Driving the Country’s Christians Underground. Now, that's persecution.
The overlapping lives of historical figures, from 1200 to present. A big chart with a lot of people. (via Neatorama)
Waking up with a bang? It could be ‘exploding head syndrome.’ (via Damn Interesting)
The Ocean is Full of Wonders We Barely Understand. Sponges are one of them.
Shaving of the Dead: 1890. (via Strange Company)
A Bank Converted Into a Home, and it's for sale.
31 Myths and Legends to Prime the Pump for Halloween.
Tiny Lasagna
Watch this guy, or his fingertips, prepare the tiniest lasagna you ever saw! He boils the pasta, browns the meat, grates and mixes the cheese, and then layers it all into a matchbox-sized baking pan.
The finished product is about one bite of lasagna for a human, but it bet it was one delicious bite. The video is from Jay Baron of Walking With Giants, a channel that has plenty of miniature cooking videos. (via Metafilter)
Tweet of the Day
Someone has to carry the snacks.The penguin with the orange backpack.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/UBDxI1TO3y
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) September 15, 2024
Monday, September 16, 2024
Bonnie and Simba
Simba and Bonnie are smart dogs. They belong to Olga Jones, who is a British dog trainer, and they have been trained so well that they have achieved five Guinness World Records! Simba hold the records for the most coins deposited into a bottle by a dog in one minute, the fastest time to traverse between five standing bars by a dog, the most clothes hung on a washing line by a dog, and the most bottles deposited into a recycling bin by a dog in one minute. Simba and Bonnie together hold the record for the fastest time to complete 10 side leapfrog jumps by two dogs.
You might think that these records were established only because these two dogs are very good at these tricks. Guinness entries usually include the previous record holder, and there aren't any for these records. But don't let that detract from what good dogs these two are. (via Laughing Squid)
How to Keep a Conversation Going
Learning to hold a decent conversation with someone you don't know all that well takes practice. It's harder than ever when we are still emerging from a few years of pandemic isolation and have spent those years online or on the phone. If I were to put on my Mom hat, I would advise someone to stop thinking about yourself or the impression you're making, because no one cares. Focus on what the other person is saying, show interest, and make them feel like what they are saying is funny, important, or at least worth knowing. They will love you for it. YouTuber brinyheart goes into more detail from the perspective of a young adult who hasn't learned the skills of making conversation. Remember, practice makes perfect! (via The Awesomer)
Miss Cellania's Links
The Winners of the Ocean Photographer of the Year Awards 2024.
What's the significance of a hand pulling an ear?
The 365 Most Famous Quotes of All Time. (via Kottke)
Scrambled Maps is an addictive game. Every day you'll find a different city grid and your mission is to put the blocks in the right order.
Kamala Harris Struggling To Button Pantsuit After Month Of Hanging Out With Tim Walz.
Don’t Take Advice From a Habsburg. Eduard Habsburg (who we met earlier), with the help of his royal ancestors, wants to fix your marriage, your soul, and your politics. (via Strange Company)
Canada's Little-Known Imperial Ambitions.
The Flickering Portal to a Forgotten World of Personal Screens. Remembering the Kinetoscope and the Mutoscope.
TV Doctor Reviews TV Doctors
Ken Jeong of the sitcom Dr. Ken is an actor, but he’s also a medical doctor, unlike most TV doctors, who only play one on TV. Here he gives his reviews of fictional doctors from movies and television, from Dr. Oz to Dr. House to Dr. Pepper. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Busy Doing Nothing
A song that should be Reddit's official anthem
byu/Amaruq93 infunny
A clip from the 1949 movie A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, featuring the talents of Bing Crosby, William Bendix, and Cedric Hardwicke. (via reddit)
Goats See a Ghost
This happened at a goat farm in the city of Kepez in Turkey's Antalya Province. The livestock manager was puzzled to arrive and find that the goats had not eaten their food. A search through the security footage revealed why. One goat had a feed bag stuck on his head. This odd sight terrified the other goats. They ran and made noise, which frightened the goat, because he couldn't see what threat they were bleating about. So he ran, too, trying his best to keep up with the herd. That only made the panic in the pen spiral out of control. This is a sequence that cries out for "Yakety Sax" as a soundtrack. (via reddit)
You Can't Ripen a Pineapple
A pineapple will turn yellow if you let it sit for a few days after purchase. You may think that is the fruit ripening, but in reality, it's the fruit actually declining. The host of this video from MinuteFood explains that a pineapple will just get worse as you let it "ripen" on your counter, with disappointing results. Some fruits will further ripen after picking, while others will not, and there's a way to remember which is which, but even then pineapple is an exception that we just need to remember. Non, if we could only tell how long a pineapple has been sitting in the produce bin, we'd be able to judge them better. By the time this video is through, you'll want to make a fruit salad with fresh pineapple. The video is only 6:30; the rest is an ad.
Best Funeral Ever
Let this be a reminder to always listen to a song all the way through before you download it for your own purposes, lest it turn out to be a techno dance remix. (via reddit)
Tweet of the Day
(via Buzzfeed)Quiet please… Lemon Raspberry Loaf is sleeping pic.twitter.com/pqvfb57AkO
— John Donoghue (@JohnDonoghue64) September 8, 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Trump, You're FIRED!
I can understand if you are sick of parody versions of "We Didn't Start the Fire," but this one by Shirley Șerban is full of it. Full of reasons that we can't have Donald trump in any kind of power anymore. And it still barely scratches the surface.
Ace Ventura in Middle-Earth
Can you imagine Jim Carrey's goofy movie character Ace Ventura in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? He's all kinds of excited about putting his life in danger to save the realm. The fellowship would be better off kicking him to the curb, but I guess they keep Ventura around for laughs. YouTuber Your_Kryptonite7 used five different movies to make this mashup, which meshes rather well considering the silly premise. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
7 British vs. American Pronunciations You Didn't Know About
Laurence Brown has lived in the US for 16 years and is now an American citizen, but if he ever lost his accent or British pronunciations, we would be disappointed. Americans like to pronounce words the way they are spelled, because that makes sense. But some words are spelled differently in British English, so Americans just take out the letters that aren't needed or don't make sense. Still, Brown has had a great time arguing with his wife over why things are pronounced the way they are, because both sides of the pond are pretty casual when it comes to how we pronounce simple vowels. This video has a one-minute skippable ad at 3:13. (via Laughing Squid)
Mercury in Retrograde
Most of the time when you hear the words “Mercury in retrograde,” it’s someone talking about astrology. Mercury in retrograde is an astrological phrase that somehow explains all kinds of bad things happening, if you believe in astrology. But retrograde is a real phenomena for planets in orbit. It just doesn’t mean all that much when you understand it. “Retrograde” conveys the idea that the planet, whether Mercury, Mars, or whichever, is moving backwards. Planets do not move backwards. But they can appear to, which is an illusion Joss Fong explains here visually. Mercury does it about four times a year! No wonder astrologers depend on it so much. (via Laughing Squid)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)Pets imitating their owners
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) August 25, 2024
pic.twitter.com/1CEEHG6Kqz
Friday, September 13, 2024
Four Kinds of Teachers
The kids have gone back to school again, and it occurs to me that this year is the first that I don't have any children in school in a quarter-century. Yeah, they grow up fast, but they stay in school as long as they can. Anyway, a video from Charlie Berens completely captures the gym teacher, the cool teacher, the art teacher, and the substitute teacher in every school. They are exactly the same as they were 50 years ago when I was a student- I can even name them. You know these folks, even if you haven't been to school in a long time.
A Gloriously Happy Dog
Mia was taken in as a puppy by Beldi Dog Refuge in Morocco. Her back legs are paralyzed, possibly from an encounter with a car. Mia ended up in the Netherlands with a family who loves her and proved she can get around just fine without her back legs. This video is less about that and more about her efforts to make friends with her housemate Dino, an adult male cat who had a hard time putting up with the puppy's shenanigans. These frenemies eventually settled into a relationship. You can tell the cat loves her even though he has to keep up appearances. Now that Mia has wheels, there will be no stopping her! You can read Mia's story and keep up with her further adventures at Instagram.
A Bike Flip on a Moving Train
Here's a bike stunt that has never been done before, either because no one thought to do it, and if they did, they couldn't afford to make it happen. Enter Red Bull. Polish cyclist and world champion Dawid Godziek will show us some bike tricks including a flip on a moving train. He and his brother Szymon Godziek designed and built the run on top of ten cars from the Polish State Railways. The locomotive here is high-tech and can maintain a steady slow speed in order to load cargo from hoppers without stopping and starting. That allows Dawid to get used to the physics of performing on a moving train, and helps keep him in the shot. (via Metafilter)
Miss Cellania's Links
Drunk Worms, Dead Trout, and Milk-Spewing Cows: The 2024 Ig Nobel Prize Winners.
The 2024 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is online now. (Thanks, Brittany!)
When a Glacial Dam Burst, an Alaskan Town Was Hit With a Sudden Flood. From Alaska to Peru and the Himalayas, glacial lakes are suddenly breaking free and causing deaths and millions of dollars in damages.
John McFall Is Breaking Barriers as the World’s First Parastronaut. Paralympian and surgeon John McFall is redefining the astronaut image and proving that space travel is achievable for people with physical disabilities. (via Kottke)
News of the Times: Another U.S. School Hit by Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
A House for Sale with Character. Lots of them. (via Digg)
6 Infamous Unsolved Bank Robberies. Keep in mind that just because these schemes worked once, that doesn't mean they will work again.
Ancient Roman military camp discovered in Swiss Alps. (via Damn Interesting)
What Researchers Learned From the World’s Oldest Cookbook.
Real Life Space Invaders Using Drones
For GeekCon 2016, a team led by Tomer Daniel engineered a game of Space Invaders for the real world. Okay, there are computers involved, but the game play itself takes place outside of a computer. The targets are Arduino-enabled drones with LEDs, the weapon is a laser that turns itself off momentarily after firing, the movement is supplied by a twenty-foot rail underneath the player’s seat, and the drones turn out their lights when they get “hit.”
Read more about how they did it at Hackaday. A good time was had by all. (Thanks, John Farrier!)
Tweet of the Day
(via Buzzfeed)omg that’s like their beyoncé https://t.co/6IxnTeQMxi
— z̵s̴a̶ ̸z̸s̶a̴ ̷g̸a̷b̴o̶r̴t̵i̷o̵n̴ (@zsazsagabortion) September 7, 2024
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Nostromeow
In the 1979 movie Alien, we were transfixed by the xenomorph that went through different and terrifying life stages, and we were shocked when all the actors we'd heard of were killed off, leaving Sigourney Weaver to be the last survivor, along with the ship's cat Jones. Everyone liked Jonesy, and wanted him to make it out alive. So what if we made the whole cast into cats? Well, maybe throw in some dogs, a pig, and a turtle. (via Geeks Are Sexy) https://www.geeksaresexy.net/
Chickens Carve a Pumpkin
If you are going to start carving Jack O'Lanterns in September, let's hope you have a lot of pumpkins, or else a lot of resin to preserve them with. That didn't stop Bre Ellis, who has pumpkins and chickens and knows how to use them. Ellis scraped the thin rind off of a pumpkin at strategic spots, unleashing the aromatic lure of the fruit underneath. The chickens pecked and pecked at the parts that smelled good until they had eaten their way through. The result was a grinning, glowing Jack O'Lantern! (via Laughing Squid)
Carpentopod
Giliam de Carpentier built a 12-legged coffee table that walks across the floor. The "how" is quite interesting. He started by writing a computer program that generated different designs for wooden legs that could walk. The program also tested each design for "fitness" along the desired kinetic parameters, and with those results generated more designs until the design evolved into the optimum leg Carpentier was looking for. Then he designed the table around a device with 12 legs, six on each side, which was the best for moving smoothly and for steering in different directions.
All the components were modeled by computer and tested, tweaked, and finally carved out of laminated bamboo. Next, electronics were installed to power the table and control it remotely. If you are into computer design or woodcarving (or both!), you'll want to read Carpentier's process in designing what he calls the Carpentopod. Carpentier is not building these to sell, but he will share the plans. (via Boing Boing)
Ping Pong Carnival
How many ways can you make table tennis into a form of entertainment? Well, there are trick shots, but that’s just the beginning of the silliness Takkyuu Geinin (which means “table tennis entertainer”) put together. I have to admit, the parts with the long-suffering girlfriend are my favorites. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Tweet of the Day
(Thanks, WTM!)This puppy had to take some medicine and threw the most adorable tantrum we've ever seen. 12/10 pic.twitter.com/Sdj5WVD5IL
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) August 22, 2024
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
How Snakes Hijacked Our Brains
They way one species evolves will affect other species around it, which is called coevolution. You see this happening in predators and their prey, as they both adapt to the other's adaptations. Jaida Elcock calls these instances of coevolution "evolutionary arms races." This video gives us examples in the American cheetah, moths with audio camouflage, cuckoos that lay designer eggs, and the snake detection hypothesis. That last one involves humans, who have had a fraught relationship with snakes since forever. Even Genesis tells us to avoid snakes. There's a 50-second skippable ad at 2:44.
Mystery Solved
Scooby-Doo always ended the same way, but no one cared. Now we know why. This comic is from Ellen Woodbury at PizzaCake Comics. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
You Can't Outsmart a Genie
The Arabian legend of the genie has always fascinated us. The main idea of having a wish granted forces us to come up with our own three wishes, making us focus on what our real priorities in life are. The stories of this trickster character often reveal that the person making the wishes will get what they deserve instead of what they want. The genie can take a wish too literally, or too broadly, or grant it with all the problems that come with it, or mess it up in whatever way he chooses to keep you from getting what you desire. That has given us a thought experiment of sorts, to come up with a way to word a wish perfectly to ensure that the genie cannot trick us out of it or punish us with unintended consequences. This guy finally gets his chance, and he thinks he's ready with the perfect scheme. He's got a lesson coming, and it's that you cannot outsmart a genie. There's a reason the original stories all had the same moral, and it was "don't be greedy."
Miss Cellania's Links
Saturday Night Live Announces Cast Changes for Season 50.
Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris for president.
12 Sports Mascots That Inspire Fear, Not Fans.
An obvious but cute song parody. (via Metafilter)
The Mississippi Spoon Gallery in Davenport, Iowa has more than 10,000 rare and historical spoons, and a spoondelier. (via Boing Boing)
The Golden Age of Offbeat Arctic Research. (via Ars Technica)
For many years I have been posting little observations online. What you may not know is that for many years, artists have been illustrating them - for no reason other than they wanted to respond. (via Nag on the Lake)
Driverless semis could be months away.
Worms
In this Polish animation, worms get their kicks from watching traffic go by. A film by Zbigniew Lenard.
Tweet of the Day
(via Everlasting Blort)Shadow play by Scotdronepic.twitter.com/DsMrERf32E
— Ramin Nasibov (@RaminNasibov) August 21, 2024
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
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