Beer production goes back thousands of years, and its been an important part of human culture ever since. How much do you know about the history and production of beer?
At a London brewery in 1814, a vat containing more than 100,000 gallons of ale exploded, sending the beer rushing down the street through poor residential areas. It destroyed two houses and one pub, killing nine people in the process. However, one of those people only had himself to blame. When the beer settled into the gutters, people, enticed by free booze (even if it did have bits of road in it), rushed to the streets to drink it. A gentleman indulged a little too much and died from alcohol poisoning the next day.
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Not all mythological creatures are as impressive as dragons or sasquatch; some are downright weak, not worth the publicity, or way too easy to explain. Take the Flatwoods Monster:
Another of these possibly alien types, the Flatwoods Monster appears to be someone’s hellish vision of a nun, mixed with alien effects budget of the final season of the original Star Treck. Standing 10 feet high, with bulging eyes, a heart shaped red face, and in a pleated green skirt, the Flatwoods Monster terrorized a group of preteens, who couldn’t decide if it had short stubby claw arms or not, when later asked. It reportedly made a shrill hissing noise, and glided around. You know what else has a shrill hiss, heart shaped face, glides, and could easily be misconstrued by terrified 12 year olds? A barn owl.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Pop artist Sam Carter’s Birth of Zbornak is inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus as well as the TV show The Golden Girls. The recently passed Bea Arthur is featured at the center in her role as Dorothy Zbornak. The painting is quite detailed, and if you’re foolhardy enough to look at an enlarged image, you can even observe the varicose veins on her legs.
Link via Popped Culture
The American TV musical show Glee was just released in Japan. This video is a commercial for it, featuring the Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler Akebono Taro singing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
via Topless Robot
The Chaos is a poem often used to demonstrate how difficult it is to pronounce words in English, as the spelling and pronunciation varies so. It was written by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, who first published it in 1909, then revised and lengthened it several times before his death in 1946. More lines were added posthumously. The Spelling Society published The Chaos in its entirety. Here are the first few (and the easiest) lines:
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
The poem is now 274 lines long, meant to be read out loud. How much of it can you manage before mispronouncing something? Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
GoPro HD – Skimboarding In A Storm! from Patrick Lawler on Vimeo.
High riptide warning, watercraft advisory, flash floods, tons and tons of rain, extreme danger! These are all words that David doesn’t really pay attention to…
In Patrick Lawler’s video, aside from the fun attempts at skimboarding some decidedly unskimmable water with mixed results, there’s a scene at 1:08 where the camera’s monopod (which was crafted from a broom handle) does something amazing, and I can’t quite figure out how they did it, but it rocks.
Photo: Sam Javanrouh
Sam Javanrouh’s blog, Daily Dose of Imagery, features his photography, one image per day. Today he posted many great photos he’s taken which all fall under one tricky umbrella of shooting – people on the street. People can be unpredictable when it comes to being photographed; Sam tells of friends who have had gear broken and suffered injuries at the hands of their subjects. But on the flip side, being a great photographer is often about seizing the moment and forgoing polite introductions. Sam on the photo above:
When I took this I was almost certain that I didn’t even have a sharp photo. But when i saw it later I liked it. So no way to ask her now. I won’t be selling this image for stock use. And if she ever contacts me and tells me she’s unhappy about it I’ll take it off the site. Street photography is all about the fractions of a second. You have to take the shot when you think you have it (to be precise, you take the shot just before the moment. Good photographers can see the future.
And on this one, he remarks, “I still have a hard time sleeping at night, thinking what will happen to me if I’ve seriously pissed off the dark knight.”
Photo: Sam Javanrouh
Link, and… as Sam says, Happy Shooting!
Despite the many opportunities for research in the oceans, the surfaces of those seas tend to get rough. Ships being tossed around tend to do less research, so in 1962 the Office of Naval Research helped to develop the Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP).
FLIP can be used in either a drifting or moored mode, based on the science requirements, and FLIP can remain on station in the vertical position for substantial periods of time. For research requiring a stationary rather than drifting platform, a deep moor capability has been developed.
This 350 foot long contraption is towed out to the open ocean, and flipped 90° to the vertical position to become a stable spar buoy. The 50 or so feet that juts above the waterline becomes the crew operations area, where research can be carried out in stable, calm conditions.
Link (Marine Physical Laboratory) Photo: Dept. of Navy
Bernard H. Pietenpol had a dream. He wanted to make an airplane accessible to the masses. So in 1928, with only an eighth-grade education, he set out to design and build a simple, inexpensive plane. The result was the Pietenpol AirCamper, and his family is still selling the plans for it, just in case you’re in the mood for a weekend project.
Hobbyist Chuck Gantzer was in such a mood, and at the link, you can see in-process photos of the construction of an AirCamper, as well as of the completed airplane in flight.
Link via Make | Pietenpol AirCamper Website | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Sound engineer Henry Dagg built an enormous pin barrel harp with 11,520 holes that can be selected for different compositions. He calls it the “Sharpsicord.” Here is his performance of Paul McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road.”
If there’s one food that most people in China simply haven’t developed a taste for, that would be chocolate. Given that China represents over a billion potential customers, that simply won’t do, according to the chocolate industry (if there’s such a thing).
So, what do they do to promote chocolate? Behold the World Chocolate Wonderland, the world’s first theme park where everything is made out of the sweet stuff.
Damian Grammaticas of BBC News takes a look:
Up to 80 tons of chocolate was used in the creation of World Chocolate Wonderland, organisers said. The exhibition also boasts a life-size replica army of chocolate terracotta warriors, chocolate flowers and a chocolate car.
Link [Flash video]
While it isn’t exactly new, security experts issued a warning over the rise of "ransomware" – a type of computer malware that hijacks your computer and and won’t let you use it unless you cough up the dough:
Turning hijacked computers into cash is still hard work for most computer criminals. They’ve got to trick the infected PC into sending spam, then trick a recipient into buying a useless product — or they have to steal online banking passwords, log onto a victim’s account, bypass the bank’s money transfer fraud controls, and so on.
It’s much easier to just demand cash directly from infected users — a crime that’s the Internet’s equivalent of kidnapping.
"Give me all your money or your computer gets it-" is the basic proposition. [...]
Luis Corrons Granel, a researcher at Panda Security, said use of ransomware by criminals is exploding — 25 percent of all rogueware in the past quarter involved a family of intimidating products named "TotalAntivirus.” It demands that users pay $50 for two years, $79 for a lifetime license. [...]
To an average user, most rogueware would be indistinguishable from other standard antivirus products. They look like fully functional software, showing Windows-like screens for firewall settings, file scanning, and every other tab you’d expect from standard antivirus products. “Total Security” even lets users choose their language — English, Spanish, and German are offered.
What better way to start off a geek fight than to ask who is the greatest movie or TV robot/android? Curtis Silver of Geek Dad did just that by comparing Data from Star Trek, to just about every other android.
For example, just to add fuel to the raging Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate:
Data vs. C3PO
C3PO can understand and translate around six million different forms of communication. Mind you, he was designed and built by a young boy. While the Midi-chlorians might have been high in young Skywalker’s bloodstream, they didn’t help him build a droid with much of a backbone. Meanwhile, in a galaxy far far away Dr. Soong was busy creating a sentient android of his own with not only a backbone, but a badass positronic brain. It’s never made clear how many languages Data can speak, but one has to assume the number is just as high as C3PO. Advantage: Data
What do you think? Who’s the best robot/android that ever lived (well, in sci-fi anyhow)?
How well do you know your computers, operating systems, and peripherals? Find out with this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. They’ll give you a question, and you decide whether they’re talking about an Apple computer, or an IBM clone type computer that uses Windows. Or neither. I scored 80%! Link
The authors of an article in Focus magazine, a BBC publication, took a look at statistics in 35 countries to rank those nations according to their tendency towards the seven deadly sins. Australia was found to be the most “sin-prone” nation, with the US coming in second. Canada, Finland, and Spain rounded out the most “sin-prone” rankings.
Topping each of the sin categories were South Korea (lust), the US (gluttony), Mexico (greed), Iceland (sloth and pride), South Africa (wrath) and Australia (envy).
Of course, some question the research methods and the results. Link -via Simply Left Behind
NASA’s Spirit rover {wiki} landed on Mars in 2004. After its planned 90-day mission, the rover kept on working for another six years. Last May, it became stuck in soft soil and could no longer rove, but continued analyzing the Martian environment. Now NASA has decided to put the rover into hibernation mode at least until temperatures rise on Mars, which could be six months.
Despite the science that can be done at the site, the probable end of Spirit’s career as a mobile unit seemed discouraging to JPL rover driver, Ashley Stroupe. A week and a half ago, the rover team changed their approach to getting the rover unstuck and experienced much greater success.
“We had a tremendous amount of hope,” Stroupe said.
In the end, though, they ran out of time. Now, their main task is positioning the rover to capture the greatest amount of solar energy possible: The rover is currently tilted south, away from the sun in the northern sky. If they can reduce the tilt, Spirit may be able to periodically communicate with Earth throughout the winter. If they can’t, it will be a long, silent winter for the robot.
The image above is a portion of a fitting tribute to Spirit at xkcd. Link
Ten Word Wiki describes itself as “an encyclopedia for the ADD generation.” The site is like Wikipedia, but all entries are limited to ten words. Since there aren’t that many entries yet, you may want to browse the “recent changes” tab. Here is the entry for “pie”.
A savoury or sweet gloop, usually lumpy, encased in pastry.
And for “Lance Armstrong”.
Inspirational unibollocked cycling legend. Singlehandedly invented the rubber wristband industry.
Humor is encouraged, so browse at your own risk. Link -via b3ta
A British cat that was run over by a car has received the first complete feline knee replacement surgery. After twelve weeks of hospitalization and unprecedented veterinary procedures, Missy the cat is back at home with her family:
The new total knee replacement implant for the other leg was designed by Dr Fitzpatrick, Professor Gordon Blunn and Mr Jay Meswania of OrthoFitz Implants.
It is made of two parts which are linked together with a hinged mechanism so that the knee ligaments – which had all been shredded – would no longer be required and the knee could no longer dislocate.[...]
The three-inch long implant is made out of stainless steel and is bonded to the thigh bone and the shin bone using cement
The design phase was particularly challenging for the prosthetist because human knee replacements need only accommodate walking, but a joint for a cat must assume that the user will try to run and jump.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Bancroft Media
Charlie Brooker is a journalist and comedian. In this video, he pokes fun at the former profession by illustrating how television news is structured according to a standardized style that tries to impress the viewer without necessarily being informative. Content warning: some NSFW language.
via reddit
I usually avoid niche photo blogs because so many now are just asking for people to pose in a certain way and submit a picture, but this one tickled my funny bone. Hot Chicks with Storm Troopers offers photo evidence that Star Wars nerds dedicated enough to dress as Storm Troopers can and do attract women. Link -via Buzzfeed
Manolith has a list of fifteen people the editorial team says cheated and faked their way into fame and fortune. Some of them have been in the news in the past few years, but others stretch back into history. Among their choices (to no small degree of disagreement in the comments) is Bill Gates, whom Monolith alleges:
The problem is, Bill Gates was never successful in his attempt to build an operating system back in 1980. He paid a man named Tim Paterson $50,000 for his shaky but working operating system, QDOS, which was a rough clone of an already established OS called CP/M, written by Gary Kildall. Gates polished QDOS into a finished product, renamed it DOS, slapped Microsoft on the disk labels and licensed it to IBM in what would become the start of a very lucrative career for an individual of very mediocre technical talent. The rest is blue-screened history.
Cartoonist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal describes nine people that are unfortunately on Facebook. He’s been on a roll lately, adding new content to his archive of cartoons about every four days.
Combine the imagination of a five-year-old with the talent of a professional comic artist and you get Axe Cop. Malachai Nicolle comes up with the stories and his 29-year-old brother Ethan Nicolle {wiki} draws them. The result is wonderful! Anyone who’s ever had, or ever been, a five-year-old storyteller will get a real kick out of this. Link
The Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, Florida is where people can swim with the well cared-for marine mammals, but it’s much more than that. It’s a rescue operation for not only dolphins, but sea turtles, manatees and other Florida Keys species. When the dolphins aren’t busy with that, or doing their research, they maintain an informative blog, where they post videos of themselves like this one. Amazingly smart creatures.
Seriously though, the DRC is top tier when it comes to places like this. Here’s a snip from Hannah’s five star review on Yelp:
After an afternoon at this terrific research center, I learned more about dolphins than I ever thought I’d know. We came here as a group, with the BF and his parents. For $20 a person, you get admission, which allows you to walk through the center and watch the public shows. The place is very low key – it’s obvious that all their money goes towards taking care of the dolphins,and not on frills.
Link (Photo: DRC)
A Tesco grocery store in Cardiff, Wales, has recently banned customers who shop in their pajamas or barefoot:
The signs are placed at the entrance to the store, on the city’s outskirts.
They read: "To avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted)."
The spokesman said: "We’re not a nightclub with a strict dress code, and jeans and trainers are of course more than welcome. We do, however, request that customers do not shop in their PJs or nightgowns. This is to avoid causing offence or embarrassment to others."
What do you think? A sensible precaution or just the fashion police running amuck?
Can you get fired over a slice of cheese? Apparently so, if you work at McDonald’s!
The waitress was fired last March after she sold a hamburger to a co-worker who then asked for cheese, which she added.
The fast-food chain argued this turned the hamburger into a cheeseburger, and so she should have charged more.
The fired employee sued, and won:
The fast-food chain had argued that the waitress – who was employed at a branch in the northern town of Lemmer – had broken staff rules prohibiting free gifts to family, friends or colleagues.
But the court said in its written judgement: "The dismissal was too severe a measure. It is just a slice of cheese," reports AFP news agency.
Putting Weird Things in Coffee is a food blog about one man’s quest to find tasty and unusual ingredients to put in coffee beyond the traditional cream and sugar. These include salmon, blue cheese, and peanut butter. Pictured above is a mixture that he did not invent: juustoleipä, a Finnish cheese made from reindeer milk, that is often dipped in coffee before eaten.
What unusual things have you mixed in your coffee?
Link via Amanda Bensen (who notes that her family used to brew coffee with reindeer bones)
Good advice, right? Because you wouldn’t want a typo in something permanent. J. Harker, a graduate student in the classics, often gets requests for English to Latin translation by people who want to get tattoos. He has a blog post describing the various errors that people make when attempting to translate a language that they don’t understand, and pictures of the inked results. The text above translates as “He is better as I appear hated on behalf of what I am than as I appear I like on behalf of what not I am.”
Neatorama readers may remember Lakshmi Tatma, the little girl who was born with eight limbs due to a headless parasitic twin. The twin was surgically removed two years ago. Lakshmi is now four years old and has started school, but her physical problems are not over.
Six months after the complex operation to remove Lakshmi’s parasitic twin, doctors discovered she had developed scoliosis, or a curvature of the spine.
Without a complex operation to correct her spine doctors have warned her back will be forced into increasingly severe deformities as she grows, possibly leaving her disabled.
Separately, Lakshmi requires an operation to ‘detether’ her spine after it was discovered she was born with abnormal tissue connecting the spinal cord to her nervous system.
In a further operation orthopaedic surgeons must perform a procedure to ‘close her hips’, which are set too far apart and result in an unusual ‘gaited’ walk.
The charity that looks after Lakshmi’s progress is stretched to its limit, so a fund has been set up for her future operations. Link -via Digg
Popular Mechanics tracked down the stories of the longest, deepest, most expensive, and weirdest tunnels ever built. They all have interesting stories behind them, and some have innovative features, such as the 15-mile-long Laerdal Tunnel in Norway.
Driving through a windowless tunnel for 20 minutes can get a bit monotonous, so a team of psychologists and engineers focused on retaining driver concentration. “The psychological reaction of a person in a tunnel is very important … it makes the difference between people accepting the facility or simply just avoiding it,” says Youssef Hashash, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois, who has worked on 10 different tunnel projects. “Given the length of this tunnel, you need a carefully designed environment and lighting system.” Some solutions used in the Laerdal tunnel include bright blue lights and subtle curves that keep drivers engaged. Most important, though, is the fact that the tunnel is divided into several different sections, breaking up the drive and creating the impression that commuters are traveling through a handful of smaller tunnels.
Link -via Unique Daily
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