Is the Look Really Worth the Pain?

When Dune: Part One premiered in Venice in 2021, Zendaya wore this unique and flattering designer gown. It looks soft, but it's made of leather. They actually made a cast of her body to form the dress. She had difficulty sitting in it, and spent the entire evening focusing on breathing.

That's a common story. When you see celebrity women on the red carpet or some other high-profile event, they are wearing one-of-a-kind fashions that make the wearer look good for pictures, even when the dress itself is ugly. What you don't see are women lying down backstage because they can't bend to sit, or fainting from not being able to breathe, or nursing the bruises on their feet when the evening is over. These women project the appearance of bodies we all wish we had, but it comes at a cost. Read 16 stories of celebrities that endured unnecessary pain to look their best on camera at Buzzfeed.  


A Short History of Global Coffee Consumption



We've all heard the story about the discovery of coffee, when an Ethiopian goat herder noticed his goats frolicking energetically after consuming coffee beans. Once the goat herder shared his discovery with the local monastery, there was no turning back. We don't know whether there's any truth to the legend, but we do know that coffee consumption began in Ethiopia. It was consumed in several ways. I sometimes distinguish coffee from tea in conversation by referring to one as bean water and the other as leaf water, but some early coffee was made by brewing the leaves of the coffee plant! The more fascinating story is how the beverage took over the world, and that history is documented. After all, what's better than a beverage that makes you happy without making you do stupid things you'll regret tomorrow? This TED-Ed lesson from Jonathan Morris follows the rise of coffee as both its flavor and its caffeinated effects got the entire world hooked.


The Stories of 10 Historic Blizzards

Grandpa will always tell you about "the blizzard of __," of which you kids have no concept. I tell my kids about the ice storm in February of '98, when the electricity was out for two weeks and we had to sleep in the kitchen after we burned all the wood we could find. Yet personal memories are nothing compared to scientific measurements and news stories. The end of the 19th century was particularly bad for blizzards in the US, but some of the most deadly blizzards happened elsewhere. In 1972, 26 feet of snow fell in southern Iran. Yes, feet. That happened as the country was undergoing a years-long drought! Around 4,000 people died, many of them frozen to death inside their homes. In 2008, blizzards killed hundreds of people in both Afghanistan and China. But the US still has more blizzards than anywhere else. As we approach the beginning of spring, look back at ten of the worst blizzards in recorded history at Mental Floss.


Coming Soon: Perfume That Smells Like McDonald's French Fries

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Rumors are circulating the internet with the exciting news that the Japanese division of McDonald's will soon offer perfume that will make you smell like McDonald's iconic French fries. The above image is from the official Twitter account of McDonald's Japanese branch, so it's probably true.

When do we gaijin get to enjoy such delights in the United States? I don't know. In the meantime, prepare for your dates by just smearing french fries on yourself.

-via Spoon & Tamago


NASA's Armored Vehicles

The M113 armored personnel carrier first entered service in the US armed forces in 1960 and remains in use by dozens of nations around the world. Among the agencies in the United States that used this venerable vehicle is NASA.

Yes, that's right: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration operated a few M113s from the 1960s through 2013 at the Cape Canaveral launch complex. Military historian Mark Felton explains that these vehicles served as part of an emergency system designed to get astronauts far away from a launch pad as quickly as possible.

If astronauts needed to escape, they would take zip lines for a quarter mile down to the ground, where a modified M113 was available. All astronauts were trained how to drive them. This modified M113 was heat resistant and had an enclosed oxygen system.

NASA used these vehicles until 2013, when they replaced them with the more modern Caimain MRAPs.


There's A Little Debbie Snacks-Themed Park in Tennessee

If you visit a particular park outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, you may ask yourself, "Is that really a 4-foot long Cosmic Brownie?" There's only one way to know for sure, and that's to take a bite.

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Six Loopholes People Used for Drinking When and Where It's Illegal

When people really want to do something, they will find a way around the law. America found that out in a spectacular way during Prohibition in the 1920s, so much that we rescinded the 18th Amendment by passing the 21st Amendment. Alcohol consumption is still regulated, more so in some places than others, but there are plenty of legal loopholes. If you restrict liquor sales to restaurants, suddenly all bars become restaurants. If you can only make wine at home for personal consumption, there will be plenty of folks willing to sell you the instructions, the tools, and the "materials" used to make it. When the only way you can get booze is by prescription, doctors will write them freely for friends and important people. You get the idea. Read about six of these clever loopholes people have exploited in their quest to wet their whistles at Cracked.

(Image credit: Przemek Pietrak)


Everything You Need to Know About Title Drops

A "title drop" is when the name of the movie is said in the movie's script. When it comes, it can seem momentous or awkward or, on a few occasions, even natural. You know that some movies don't have a permanent title when shooting begins. Sometimes a good line becomes the title instead of the other way around. But it often seems forced.

Dominikus Baur and Alice Thudt analyzed 73,921 movies going back to 1940 for title drops. Only about a third of them have a title drop in the actual movie dialogue, so that's 26,965 movies. They identified 277,668 title drops, which is an average of more than ten per movie! But... some movies are extreme outliers, like Barbie, which says the word "Barbie" 267 times. That makes up for many movie like The Fellowship of the Ring, which has those words exactly one time. Documentaries and biopics tend to have a lot of them, because they are often named for the subject. It's the same for fictional movies named after the main character.

But the deep dive into the data of title drops goes much deeper. What are the highest rated movies with title drops? Where do those drops occur? In which decade are title drops most common? What are the longest title drops? (Hint: it's 17 words long!) There's even a searchable database so you can look up your favorite movies and find out if and where it has a title drop. -via Metafilter


"Rumor Clinics" Battled Disinformation in World War II

Rumors, gossip, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are nothing new. People have a tendency to believe the most outlandish things, particularly when they are fearful, such as during wartime. In World War II, Axis powers did their best to spread fear and disinformation among Allied countries, even those on the home front in America, far from the battlefields. But Axis propaganda was greatly supplemented by the homegrown rumors that spread among civilians. At least back then, they spread more slowly without the internet. Some rumors were about the war itself, about fictional defeats and secret missions that destroyed morale. Others were plain disinformation, such as the one that urged people to destroy their victory gardens. And many of these rumors blamed the evils of wartime on oppressed groups, exploiting existing prejudices.

American newspapers and magazines fought back against these rumors by publishing what they called "rumor clinics," in which they revealed rumors and fact-checked them. The federal government used a different tactic, as they believed even printing the rumors would spread them. Federal authorities instead just published the facts without repeating the rumors themselves. Information to combat disinformation, in other words. Read about the rumor clinics that attempted to set the record straight at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)


Believe It Or Don't: Danny DeVito is Wolverine!



Who is the most illogical person to portray a superhero? The same person who portrayed Arnold Sharzeneggar's twin brother, Danny DeVito, so why not make him an an X-man? Corridor Digital edited DeVito's character Frank Reynolds  from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia into the world of the Wolverine movies. Contains NSFW language and partial nudity, but that's from the TV show, not the movies! His origin story is included, and Frank reacts about the way you'd expect him to. It works well, but you have to wonder about the mind who came up with this idea in the first place. It had to start with one realization while listening to the dialogue of It's Always Sunny, and then led to excruciating research to find more places to use DeVito's character. -via Born in Space


The Literal Translations of U.S. Place Names

Do you know where your state or hometown got its name? Or the original meaning behind it? Some have pretty wild stories. Manchester is a name that means "breast-like hill," but you might not find such a landmark in New Hampshire because that city was named for the city in the UK, where there was such a hill when it was founded as a Roman fort in 79 CE. Kansas City was named for the Kansas River, which was named for the Kanza people, which means "people of the South wind." And Kansas City, Kansas, was named after Kansas City, Missouri, even though it's in Kansas state. And speaking of Kansas, Topeka means "a good place to dig potatoes."

WordTips looked up and researched the history and the meaning of all 50 US states, plus each state capital, and for good measure, 179 of the country's biggest cities. You can enlarge the above map of the state and state capital names at WordTips. You'll also find maps of the major cities by region with their name meanings, and read some of the better stories, too. While many place names came from Native American languages, some place names were appropriated then re-translated. Honolulu was originally called Ke ʻAwa O Kou (the harbor of Kou), but British Captain William Brown named it Fair Haven when he arrived. It reverted to the Hawaiian language, but kept Brown's impression by becoming hono (port) and lulu (calm). My hometown was named after the guy who founded it, but hey, it's still a story. -Thanks, Taylor Tomita!


Could a Nuclear Submarine Survive in Space?

How could humanity quickly create a functional long-duration interplanetary spacecraft? In the science fiction novel Vorpal Blade, authors John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor propose converting a ballistic missile nuclear submarine for that purpose. And these authors have not been alone in suggesting that the qualities of submarines might carry over to the voids of space.

Could it work? How long would the crew of a nuclear submarine survive in space? Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist and the cartoonist behind xkcd, looks at the physics involved in this scenario. The crew would eventually die, but not because of the reason you might first suspect.

-via The Awesomer


An Honest Trailer for the Best Picture Nominees 2024

The 96th Academy Awards will be announced this coming Sunday night, March 10. There are ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and Screen Junkies has a word to say about each one of them. They are not necessarily good words, but it is SFW. You can tell when they really like a movie, yet they can always find something to poke fun at.

There are only nine entries, because Barbie and Oppenheimer are combined into one, as they are essentially the same movie with a different tone. While I haven't yet seen any of these movies, there is a big chasm between the ones I've written about enough to feel familiar with and those I'd never heard of before the nominations were announced. The short vignettes on the Best Picture nominees are followed by a few quick supercuts of what they have in common, and an inexplicable segment about The Beekeeper.


Count the Circles in the Coffer Illusion

Can you count how many circles are in this image? No? Can you see any circles at all? What seems to be a series of rectangular boxes does contain circles, but you have to look for them, because there are no curved lines in the image. Try concentrating on the vertical bars and ignore the horizontal bars for a minute. If that doesn't help, look at this visual aid at imgur. Still can't see them? That's okay, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.   

The Coffer Illusion is not named after Dr. Coffer, but for the appearance of decorative panels in a door, called coffers. This illusion was created by Anthony Norcia, psychology professor at Stanford University. It was a finalist in the 2006 Illusion of the Year competition. While there are explanations for the visual perception involved, they all mostly boil down to the fact that we identify what we are looking at quickly, and once that identification is made, we have a hard time shifting our brains to see something different. -via Digg


Your Mispronounced Words Explained and Excused



Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky (previously at Neatorama) makes us feel a little better about mispronouncing words. First, we are not alone, and there are quite a few words that the majority of us mispronounce, which over time will lead to our way of saying them becoming correct. That's how language evolves, after all. And second, there are common and logical reasons why we don't just intuitively know how to pronounce a word. The rules for English have more exceptions than it has rules, so even native speakers can't keep up all the time. Then there are times when a mispronunciation actually communicates what you mean better. For example, I know how to pronounce schadenfreude, because I looked it up, but it always comes out scootin fruity. You may laugh, but you also know what I'm saying.

While watching this video, I realized that I don't ever recall hearing anyone say the word "dour" out loud, correctly or incorrectly. I don't even use it, but when reading it, I imagined it pronounced "dower." That's a word that we have plenty of other, easier terms we can use instead, like stink-eye or RBF. The comments under the YouTube page for this video are full of amusing stories of mispronunciations. -via Geeks Are Sexy






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