(via Bored Panda)
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
The Disastrous Downfall of KFC
As a Kentucky native, I can tell you that in the 1960s and '70s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was something to behold- quick, delicious, and fairly local. It may have been "fast food," but it wasn't a burger to eat in your car. Rather, you picked up a bucket full of chicken to take home to the family, along with potatoes, gravy, and rolls. Instant Sunday dinner! Then Colonel Sanders sold his creation and spent the rest of his life complaining about what the corporate bean counters did to ruin his signature dishes. The quality of the food sunk item by item, and the name changed to KFC. The chain decided to be real fast food, and concentrated on a range of new items you could eat while driving. The prices soared and the portions shrunk.
Of course, there was a lot more involved than that, and hardly any of my opinions in the above paragraph are addressed in this video from Weird History Food. KFC suffered from corporate trades and mergers, over-expansion, ridiculous promotional stunts, and most of all, competition from other chains that specialize in fried chicken. Yet they still make money, and this video explains how.
My Border Garden
There used to be a house between mine and my neighbor's house, back when no one had cars. It was crowded, and that house was eventually demolished. The lady next door owned that property, which went right up to my driveway. When she died, a couple of flippers bought her property. I made a deal to split that extra yard, because they needed some remodeling money. With a new property line drawn, I plowed a border garden on my side. A new family bought that house, and erected a fence. So I've been gradually widening the border garden and planting perennials. The garden begins with daffodils in February, but they are only impressive as a welcome sign of spring coming. The tulips shown above pop up in March. That's when I start going outside every day just to admire the garden, because if those flowers are going to bloom, I owe it to them to take a look every day. In April, the irises take over.
Then in May, I have sweet Williams, but they aren't tall enough to dominate the border garden. That's okay, because I have roses blooming in front of the house.
Day lilies bloom through June, and they are spectacular.
Other lilies, pink, red, and yellow, join them in July. The year this picture was taken, the yellow ones dominated.
Later in summer, I have four o'clocks, zinnias, and hollyhocks, but it's the morning glories climbing the fence that really stand out in August.
By September, the sedum is blooming. Some years I am lucky to have marigolds, but they don't stand out much among the foliage.
The sedum, morning glories, and marigolds may last through October if the weather is nice, but usually by then I am gathering seeds and planting more tulips for next year.
Camel Eats a Cactus
When you live in the desert, you evolve to eat what's there. Watch this hardcore dromedary munch down on a prickly pear cactus with 6-inch spines! And you thought Captain Crunch made your mouth sore. Apparently, camels have protrusions inside their mouths containing keratin that are tough and flexible like plastic that enables them to deal with just about any food source they come across. They are also ruminants, so everything gets chewed up more than once. (via Boing Boing)
But Why?
This seems awfully familiar for some reason. It's a comic from Zach Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Monday, May 18, 2026
You Make Me Wait
Oh, the agony! It's been five minutes since Frugit got a treat. He might not survive.
Digital Water Clock
Dutch YouTuber Strange Inventions found a real deal- 65 little bottles for just €6.50. What to do with them? How about designing a digital clock, using bottles of colored water for pixels? It sounded like a good idea at the time, but this project ended up taking 210 hours of work and €580 ($680) in parts. The finished product is pretty, and impressive because it actually works, but as a timepiece it's pretty hard to see the numbers unless you squint. The real entertainment value is in the part of these projects that you usually skip- the build.
He had no previous project to draw from, and had to figure out each component on his own. That meant failure after failure, and buying more parts at each step. And since he was working with water, there were constant leaks that had to be fixed. Each successful step only revealed problems in the next step. But once he had invested some time and money, he couldn't stop until he got it right.
This is YouTube, and around here, we appreciate stupidity and esthetics.By the end of the video, you feel so sorry for the guy that you have to applaud. Kind of like the way you applaud your child at their awful first band concert because you don't want to destroy their enthusiasm after they've worked so hard. (via Born in Space)
Miss Cellania's Links
Why The Guardian’s new article about New Orleans feels like ‘a modern day redlining of an entire city.’ (via Damn Interesting)
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson disagreed about the American Revolution’s meaning even as they lay dying.
A clueless kid doesn't realize how movies work, but the comments reveal that young people are growing up without being able to distinguish fiction from reality on their screens.
Fun with glow sticks. Slightly NSFW.
Neanderthals may have drilled out a cavity 59,000 years ago. Pulling the tooth would have been easier, but apparently this worked.
The Prohibition-era "medicine" that left people paralyzed. (via Strange Company)
Real-life Snuffleupagus found swimming in the Great Barrier Reef. It's a hairy new fish. (via Fark)
Most people don’t know what they don’t know, but think they do – correcting your metaknowledge can make you a better teacher and learner. (via Damn Interesting)
How to Cook for 10,000 People
Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Delhi's biggest Sikh temple, welcomes everyone, no matter their station or religion, for a meal. The kitchen is open 24 hours a day, and is supplied and staffed by volunteers. Chapatis, dal soup, potatoes, and more, all for around 10,000 people every day. Anyone who visits can volunteer for simple jobs to help out the production if they want to. Besides a temple and kitchen, the complex also houses a school, hospital, hotel, and a library. (via reddit)
Threats of Grandeur
Grandpa's playing with the AI image generator again. And a lot of people are okay with this. (via Fark)Dr Evil.
— Mark Chadbourn (@chadbourn.bsky.social) May 17, 2026 at 5:07 PM
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Sunday, May 17, 2026
Star Wars Secrets
I don't know about younger viewers, but those of us who watched all the Star Wars movies in order of their release have always been baffled by the implications of retconning. It was bad enough that the secrets kept in the first movie, then revealed in the second and third, made it clear that Lucas was making it up as he went along.
Every time a new prequel came out, the effort to bring classic characters back only screwed with the timeline and ruined the logic of the first movie that captured our imaginations. "New" characters turned out to have been there all along. More implausible connections between them were revealed. Sure, Lucas explained that the droids had their memories wiped between the prequels and the original trilogy, but that doesn't work for a Wookiee. Or for Obi-Wan Kenobi, who knew everything all along, but refused to reveal anything actually useful. Matthew McCleskey gives us the spoiler version that might have been. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Denali's Puppy Cam
Motor vehicles are prohibited in Denali National Park in Alaska, except for buses that shuttle visitors through a limited area. Rangers patrol on foot, horseback, in helicopters, or with dogsleds. For more than 100 years, Denali has raised sled dog puppies in their own breeding program in conjunction with reputable Alaskan breeders. On March 30, sled dog Spark gave birth to six puppies in the park. Some of these will be swapped with other litters from breeders, and four that show the best qualities of a sled dog will grow up to be official Denali canine rangers. The puppies are named after national parks: Sequoia, Mammoth, Rainier, Teton, Mesa, and Acadia. They are now six weeks old, and you can peek in on them anytime with the Denali Puppy Cam! Keep in mind that Denali is four hours behind the Eastern Time Zone. If the puppies are asleep, scroll down to read about Denali's puppy program. (via Metafilter)
A Graduation Classic
This cake introduces a new graduate to the realities of life. You want, but you can't have. From Cake Wrecks.
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