(via Bad Newspaper)
Monday, June 30, 2025
5 Uniquely American Summer Traditions
Summer traditions are different in the US, because our summers are so hot and so different from winter. In Britain, you won't find block parties, parades, and backyard swimming pools. Laurence Brown goes over them in his sardonic style. I'm old enough to remember when we played horseshoes at picnics, but cornhole is much easier and safer. There's a 90-second skippable ad at 1:50.
Amendments: The Musical!
John D. Cundle made a new song that parodies a Schoolhouse Rock song. It's not a comedy, nor is it political, just a modern take on a civics lesson suitable for kids and people who don't know anything about the US Constitution.
Closer to Touching the Sun
How close can we actually get to the Sun? We've been sending probes to the sun since 1951, and have learned a lot before each probe failed or stopped communication. The Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, has the record for the closest approach while still functioning when it got to 3.8 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) from the sun on June 19, 2025. The probe is nearing the end of its planned mission, but since it's still in good shape, NASA plans to let it continue orbiting the sun until next year when they decide what to do with it next. The TED-Ed lesson explains how we've come this close to touching the sun without melting.
Miss Cellania's Links
James Garfield - president for only 200 days. Yet he was a really interesting man.
Dangerous And Dumb Stairs. Nice to look at, but you don't want to use them.
Jews were barred from Spain’s New World colonies − but that didn’t stop Jewish and converso writers from describing the Americas.
In a Word: The First Dollar. To break from the British pound sterling, America chose a word with Bohemian roots. (via Damn Interesting)
Dogs really love weddings.
With Their Bravery During World War I, These Daring American Women Doctors Proved Their Might to Folks Back Home.
The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state’. (via kottke)
The Silky Anteater: The Life of the Tiny, Nocturnal Tree-Dweller.
Fox Gets a New Tunnel
Kristen build a new tunnel for her pet fox Riot. Riot loves it! Castiel, the German shepherd, can't even fit into the tunnel, but Riot can zip right through and even turn around inside it. Here, he's having a great time irritating Castiel with his tunnel shenanigans. Watch Riot play tag and peek-a-boo and have the time of his life! See more of Riot and his animals friends at Instagram. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Peculiar Pyongyang
Pyongyang is the capital city and crown jewel of North Korea. Its massive skyscrapers and glittering neon makes it resemble other capital, but it lacks the chaos and crowds that other cities have. Little Big World shows us Pyongyang from above, in fast forward, and mostly in tilt shift mode. The otherworldliness of it is softened by some goofy sound effects that will make you smile. (via Nag on the Lake)
Star Wars Meets Miami Vice
This music video mashup is silly and completely generated by artificial intelligence, but it's also intriguing. Miami Vice introduced the rest of the country to stylish cops in pastel suits who clubbed along the coast of Miami. Here we have familiar Star Wars characters doing the same thing without even a thought of overthrowing the Empire. They're not only young, but most of them are quite hot. Not Yoda, of course, he's just cool. When you recall the saturated neon colors and glowing skin of the real Miami Vice series, the AI sheen fits. The algorithm's abilities to render familiar faces out of pure fantasy is a bit unnerving. There's one scene at about 3:06 where I couldn't decide whether the man was Mark Hamill or Hayden Christiansen. The face is a blend of both, which is eerie, considering their characters' relationship in Star Wars.
Nicest Car Horn Ever
Mark Rober customized his car horn to make three different sounds for different purposes. One is a "courtesy honk" that doesn't sound nearly as rude as a regular horn. Wait until you hear the others. Rober shares how he did it, too, with lots of links at the YouTube page to the parts he used, and even a WAV file for the sound. (via reddit)
Quiet Quitting
Is it really that the employees aren't motivated, or is it that you just really treat them as pets?
Saturday, June 28, 2025
When You're Really Bad At Saying No
Some people would rather suffer great unpleasantness than say "no" to someone. It's because they fear even greater unpleasantness if they were to say "no." But look at what might happen!
Why We Can't Exterminate Coyotes
We hear a lot about endangered species and how we should protect them and their habitats. We've also heard a lot about invasive species that cause us problems. Coyotes are neither of those. They are native to the US, and they are thriving. Actually, the coyote population is exploding. Wildlife biologist Cameron Duke of Minute Earth explains how that happens. Killing a coyote is liable to produce more coyotes! This is because of a quirk in coyote culture (which is more than just ordering from an ACME catalog) and biology. The upshot is that it is impossible to exterminate coyotes. This video is only 2:16, since they get right to the point, and the rest is advertising.
Chocolate Water
My parents, who didn't forbid soda pop but never had it in the house, either, used to call Yoo-hoo "chocolate water." They said if you want chocolate milk, we'll mix up some. They didn't understand the pull of a cold glass bottle in the grocery store. Or maybe they did. Anyway, I don't recall ever drinking a Yoo-hoo, despite the fact that it's rather popular where I am from.
The main idea behind Yoo-hoo was that it resembled chocolate milk without having to be refrigerated. Sure, stores put it in the refrigerated drink section, but that was right before you bought it. That eliminated the possibility of making it with fresh milk. Yet people loved it- from baseball players to the pope. Weird History Food goes through the history of Yoo-hoo and reveals what's really in that bottle. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
New York City, Then and Now
The New Yorker put together a side-by-side comparison of New York City in the 1930s and how it looks today. While there are plenty of changes (not to mention New York is now in color), there are a lot of things that remain from 80 years ago.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Dolores at Work
Sunflowerstardust does a character named Dolores who works in the HR department for The Empire. She's become pretty well know at conventions where she harasses some cosplayers and recruits others. This video is a highlight reel from three years of cons.
These Magic Words Are Real!
Words have been imbued with magical powers ever since we invented language. Spells, incantations, and magic words are all used for storytelling, religion, and a lot of entertainment. The fact that we have words to communicate with is fairly astonishing in itself, so it's no wonder that words can be thought of as supernatural, because after all, they do affect reality. Words can inspire, charm, or hurt people, and they can't be taken back. Words make up vows, testimony, propaganda, education, laws, and history, and all those are pretty important. Dr. Erica Brozovsky of Other Words goes through the history of magic words, and then explains how words are still used for their power to change reality.
Miss Cellania's Links
This 1857 Plumbing Riddle Might Break Your Brain.
Lessons from Australia's use of algorithms to detect welfare fraud become more relevant in the age of AI. Poor people became poorer and some committed suicide. (via Boing Boing)
A broken arm leads to "medical gaslighting." Pedantry alert: technically, gaslighting is not the proper term for this situation, but she was still done very wrong.
Remembering the Heyday of Japan’s Silent Film Narrators.
Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues.
15 of the World’s Funkiest Fungi.
My Priceless Summer on a Maine Lobster Boat. Luna Soley reflects on a time of loneliness, hard work, and natural beauty. (via Metafilter)
A Ranked List of The Most Shocking Moments On Shown on Live Television.
Caught Red-Handed
You won't find a more literal illustration of the title Caught Red-Handed. But Emma is not going to readily confess to an obvious transgression. Paul Ross shared this cute video of his daughter practicing for her future political career. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Preparing Delicious Meals for 100,000
A few years ago I posted a video about how Sikhs at Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi feeds 10,000 people a day. Don't bother watching that, because they are much busier now, feeding 35,000 a day and up to 100,000 people a day during religious holidays. New machinery helps a lot. Yes, you can eat free, but you should leave a donation. (via Metafilter)
Bear Freed from Plastic Lid After Two Years
Imagine spending most of your life with a plastic lid stuck around your neck. A black bear in Michigan was spotted with the lid on a trail cam in 2023, when he was just a cub. A search at the time proved fruitless. Over the next two years, he surprisingly carried on normal life carrying the lid. In May, a local landowner spotted the bear and called the Department for Natural Resources, who responded quickly. According to Vice, the bear was lured into a humane cylindrical trap, then tranquilized while the lid was cut away. The bear weighed 110 pounds, which is normal for a two-year-old bear, but he had a bald spot around his neck. He wandered back into the woods, now marked with an ear tag that shouldn't interfere with his life the way a huge lid would. (via Damn Interesting)
Electrocuting a Watermelon
Your Fourth of July picnic will surely have a watermelon, but what if a storm suddenly blows in? Greg Leyh of Lightning On Demand is an electrical engineer with a voice made for The Muppet Show. His talents do not extend to summoning lightning, but he has a 40 kilojoule high voltage capacitor bank that he wanted to test, and a watermelon is a visually interesting way to do it. In this video, he sends 160 megawatts of electricity through the melon just to see what happens.
If you just want to see the electrical strike, skip to the three-minute mark. The explosion is shown in slow motion and then in a close-up so you can see how the interior of the melon lights up as the electricity hits. Then melon guts and water are gloriously flung to the horizon, or as Leyh says, "The melon has achieved a high state of division." In other words, he blew it up real good. (via Born in Space)
Improving Parking Compliance, One Terrified Driver at a Time
How many Russian bodybuilders does it take to make you park in a legal space without encroaching on others? The Russian group called Stop a Douchebag patrols the streets of Moscow enforcing parking and traffic laws, mainly by shaming the perpetrator. Recently, they got a little help when the bodybuilders of BodyMania stepped in to do their part. They add a little incentive for scofflaws to fall in line. As you can see, it worked, even when they had to take matters into their own hands. Compliance shot way up when these guys arrived in a group! (via Boing Boing)
Osprey
I thought this bird was in trouble for a little bit. Turns out he's just getting the job done.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Hits from Seven Decades Crammed into One Song
TikTok star turned pop singer Logan Alexandra had fun singing snippets of 50 different pop songs, arranged in the order of the decade they were hits. Set to a dance track, they all mesh pretty seamlessly. The songs aren't the way you remember them, but you will recognize them. Or at least, you'll recognize the songs from your youth, since that's the way music works. For the video, she changes her clothing for each decade from the 1960s to the 2020s.
Switchel
This drink is made with apple cider vinegar because 19th century farmers didn't have access to lemons. Lemonade is why no one drinks switchel anymore. But if you want to try it, here's the recipe.
Miss Cellania's Links
This is a neat Dungeons & Dragons story about a character named Jerry the Alchemist. This was posted in response to the question: “Have you ever played as an alchemist? Or any character who uses chemistry to his advantage?”(via Geeks Are Sexy)
Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice. The Onion sent copies of this article to all the members.
The first trailer for the remake of The Toxic Avenger. It's vioent, gross, and contains NSFW language.
I Was the Guy Kicked Off Taxi After the First Season. An interview with Randall Carver, who played John Burns on the classic 1970s sitcom.
Iconic ‘Dragon Man’ Skull Offers First Glimpse of What a Denisovan’s Face Looked Like, New Genetic Studies Suggest.
Elon Musk and His Doge Pals, in "School of Grok." The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Stretch Goals: Reed Richards’ Popcorn Bucket Has Us Feeling Inappropriate Things.
A shark scientist reflects on Jaws at 50. (via kottke)
Billie Jean (Wild West Cover)
Samuraiguitarist gives us Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" as a spaghetti western theme. (via Boing Boing)
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Angry Corpse
a
From 1920. I wish the rest of the story was included. (via Undine)
Update: The rest of the text has been found, and is in the comments. Thanks, Karl!
Dancin' with The Action Kids
Look at those scandalous dance moves by barely-covered young women! What has the world come to?
This is a 1965 clip from the TV show Where the Action Is, a series aimed at teenagers, produced by Dick Clark. The dancers are Pete Menefee and the Action Kids, who appeared in every episode. The song is "Keep on Dancin'" by The Gentrys.
Movie Posters from Ghana
Movie distributors in Ghana rarely use the original posters, preferring to design their own to accentuate the features that appeal to their audiences. That means highlighting the violence of the film, even when there isn't any. Notice all the blood in Star Wars, despite the fact that the movie shows no blood. The same applies to Groundhog Day.
The Wayne's World poster has everything, but no Wayne. It's headlined by Alice Cooper, who had a small and benign cameo.
Confounding that custom, The Godfather, which has plenty of violence, gets a poster with a cat. Why not?
Cat is a Trash Collector
Gonzo brings his family gifts that he finds. It's all trash, but he puts a lot of love into it. Derek fitted Gonzo with a camera to find out where he goes and gets all this trash, and found out that he's been trying to woo a neighbor's cat, with little success.
Hotter Than a Highway to Hell With the Devil
As the US is experiencing a dangerous heatwave this week, master mixer Bill McClintock has been busy mashup up songs. Most of it is a mix of "To Hell With the Devil" by Stryper, AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," and "Hotter Than Hell" by KISS. There are also appearances by Pantera, Motley Crue, Dokken, Def Leppard, Vixen, Blue Oyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Van Halen, and another song ("Hell's Bells") from AC/DC. McClintock said he got carried away after someone requested two of the songs. There's a list at the YouTube page, and all the songs reference fire, burning, hell, and/or the devil. If you're hot, this will only add fuel to the fire.
Outside Cat
Brother Bill has three inside cats. This is his outside cat. Now you know why the other three are inside.
Late Stage Capitalism
Face it, nobody ever wanted to work. But we did anyway, and what do we get? This comic is from Pizza Cake.
Monday, June 23, 2025
The 10 Commandments of Southern Summers
I was looking forward to summer for so long, and now that's it's here, we have temps in the 90s every day for the next week. And I'm not even technically in the South! Matt Mitchel has some advice for newcomers and information for those who don't know what summer in the South is like.
Lost at Sea
It's not at all like Gilligan's Island, when you're out at sea on a boat, and the boat capsizes, crashes, or quits working. You might then be swimming, or if you're lucky, find yourself on a life raft. All you can see around you is sea, and even if you have navigational skills, you probably have no real means of propulsion. It's still happening today. Weird History has a dozen stories of people who were lost at sea. Some succumbed quickly, while others survived weeks or months before being found. Some were never found. At least one is suspected of being a murder of some sort. Even if you are no longer afraid of sharks, these stories are enough to make you want to stay safely on dry land.
The Worst Jobs in Star Wars
Everyone wants to be part of the Rebel Alliance, but not everyone can be an X-wing pilot or a Jedi warrior. There are plenty of other jobs for those without extraordinary talents. How would you like to be assigned as a tower guard on Yavin 4? If you don't make your way into the Rebellion, you might end up being Jabba the Hutt's masseuse. It's the same for those everyday guys who are caught in the employment of the Empire. Some jobs, even on the Death Star, are quite specialized and therefore boring.
In an animation made with Unreal Engine, we get a glimpse at what we might be doing in the Star wars universe. AFK brings us this short as part of their For the Empire series. This video is only 2:40 long, the rest is an ad. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Miss Cellania's Links
Mark Twain Was Born as a Journalist. Samuel Clemens had plenty of reason to launch his pseudonym, meaning he had plenty of enemies. (via Strange Company)
The Man Who Invented the Modern Zoo Tested Out His Ideas on People First.
Boys just wanna have fun.
Once Considered Passé, Hybrid Cars Roar Back as a Best-of-Both-Worlds Powerhouse. (via Slashdot)
45-year mystery behind eerie photo from The Shining is believed to be solved. (via kottke)
Christian Nationalists Dream of Taking Over America. This Movement Is Actually Doing It. (via Metafilter)
The Bizarre Tale of the Orca II, the Stunt Boat from Jaws.
These Sandhill Cranes Have Adopted a Canada Gosling, and Birders Have Flocked to Watch the Strange Family.
Young Orangutan Escapes from his Mother
A juvenile orangutan at the Jersey Zoo was caught trying to establish his independence from his mother. She was not having any of it. The scene played out like a sitcom, and got an appropriate soundtrack. The dialogue is not difficult to imagine.
Mom: Come along, Junior, let's go.
Kid: Aw, Mom! I wanna play some more!
Mom: But it's time for lunch.
Kid: But I have having fun!
Mom: Don't you want some nice greens so you'll grow big and strong?
Kid: Haha, you can't catch me!
Mom: why you little… come back here!
Kid: Haha!
Mom: I swear, you are just like your father!
(via Tastefully Offensive)
Sunday, June 22, 2025
He's Starting To Speak Like an American
Not really. Laurence Brown will always have an English accent, but he has learned some American pronunciations. there's a 70-second skippable ad at 3:04
Iced Coffee
I'm not sure whether this story is about communication or about coffee. The joke is that Zak Toscani doesn't know, either.
Beam Me Up, Sulu
A group of friends in California watched the original Star Trek in reruns and cosplayed as the starship Enterprise crew. As college students in 1985, they made a Star Trek fan film, years before such things became common on the internet. Stan Woo had always admired the character Lieutenant Sulu for bringing Asian representation to TV, and decided to shoot the moon and ask actor George Takei to appear in their movie. Takei agreed! We don't know (yet) why the film wasn't seen for so many years, but the 24-minute movie Yorktown: A Time to Heal was finally released in 2022. You can see it at YouTube.
The story of how Yorktown: A Time to Heal came about 40 years ago and took so long to be seen is the subject of a new feature documentary, featuring Eugene Roddenberry, Jr. as executive producer. Beam Me Up, Sulu will premiere at the Raindance Film Festival on June 25th and will play in select theaters afterward.
Loki's Hiding Place
This Bengal cat is aptly named Loki, because he's both clever and mischievous. He likes to play hide and seek. This video captures Loki's favorite hiding place -in the dresser! Once he shuts the drawer, you'd never think to look for him there! Unless he purrs with satisfaction, of course. Loki's owner, josht1212, says they closed this room off to him after the video was made, because they're not sure if he can get out of the drawer on his own. I bet he could. (via Laughing Squid)
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Baggage
Three girlfriends are checking their baggage. At an airport? Well, it looks that way, but things are not at all ordinary here. They are warned to dispose of all bottles, but one woman has a bottle hidden deep inside that she'd honestly be better off without. We cling to what is familiar, even when it holds us back. This wordless story seems scary, but in the end, what is exposed and discarded leaves the world a better place. I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot, but do read the small print as you watch this.
Baggage is an award-winning short written and directed by Lucy Davidson at The Aardman Animation Studio Academy. (via Nag on the Lake)
Every International Flight Seat Map
I've only gone on one overseas trip, and it included a leg that was 16 hours long. It was too excited about the destination to pay attention to the motivations of all the other passengers, and too tired to sleep. Plus we had no cell phones, so we had to do with one big TV screen per compartment and enjoy the view with only our eyes. The bright spot was the food, since we had an Asian option for every meal. After that trip, I've never had food offered on a plane flight. This chart is from Matt Shirley.
Dizzy
I'm yall lol & can't STOP laughing at all!!! pic.twitter.com/ItarwS6ITu— Chris Rainey (@crainey3) June 21, 2017
What fun! (via reddit)
Picard's Situation
— Marti Lawrence (@marti-l.bsky.social) June 17, 2025 at 8:28 PM(Thanks, Marti!)
Friday, June 20, 2025
Electric Bill in the South
Jerry Wayne Longmire got his electric bill, reflecting the heat of a Texas summer. The shock and misery causes him to wax poetic in the style of novelist William Faulkner. And like Faulkner, it's long-winded but quite emotive. You can feel his misery through the words. (via Neatorama)
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