John Green has a delicious topic for this week’s mental_floss video. He’s talking about regional foods, and if you haven’t lived in those places, you probably don’t know how good they can be. Then again, if you’re talking about chitlins, or what John calls “chitterlings,” you can count me out. Hoppin' John is heaven, but the Garbage Plate is what I call the plate we put all the scraps in -right before it goes in the compost bucket. I might need to try the Spam sushi, however. The comments at YouTube are full of dishes that are left off the list, but this one is priceless:
Also, lutefisk is supposed to be steamed post-lye and served with butter. Theoretically it's flaky and delicious. My family commonly says that the last Minnesotan who knew how to properly make lutefisk died 100 years ago.
I have a bone to pick with the title. Frito Pie may be best if eaten in Texas, but it's good wherever you eat it. Which of these is your favorite?
Where do Americans shop? In chain stores, of course! Love 'em or hate 'em - chain stores are a fact of life in most parts of the United States of america.
Kaitlyn Wells of MarketWatch took data from Morgan Stanley's annual retail atlas to create a series of maps delineating the different chain stores that dominate the retail landscape of the nation's shopping habits. Morgan Stanley's data lists 119 of the country's largest retail chains and their locations across the states.
Take a look at the shopping maps of the United States:
Hollywood is dancing all around to avoid saying that the reason there is no Wonder Woman movie is because she’s a woman. Dorkly is responsible for punching a hole in another excuse. Would you go see a superhero movie starring a female? Be honest, because the future of Wonder Woman, Black Widow, and other super comics heroines will hinge on your willingness to part with $20 or so to see them in theaters.
Muscle Dancing is one of those strange videos that makes you wonder why the heck it was ever made, or what the stars were hoping to accomplish, besides driving the ladies wild!
Muscle Dancing is a unique video clip to say the least- it was taken from a Winnipeg public access show called Winnipeg Babysitter that aired back in the 70s and 80s, and even though it is virtually devoid of muscles, and the dancing looks like the trailer park version of Magic Mike, you gotta applaud these two cavalier fellows for their high self esteem and winning smiles! *grin*
Here’s a sweet little song by IFHT about correcting a pet peeve of the internet generation. Honestly, I spend a big part of my day watching videos and deciding which ones are good enough to post on Neatorama. I can’t tell you how many times the wrong orientation caused me to discard a video that would otherwise be posted. Vertical orientation just adds a layer of difficulty to the viewer. Too bad the people who really need to learn this won’t see this video. -via Tastefully Offensive
Jessica Dance is a model maker and prop builder in London. She can make just about anything that involves fabric. Her entire gallery is worth exploring, but I'm particularly enamored of what she calls "The Comfort Food Series." Like the English Full Breakfast pictured above, they look delicious. But they're made of knitted wool, so may want to add some extra flavor to make them truly palatable. Perhaps sriracha.
There was a show which aired in Japan from 1998 to 2002 that made the Truman Show look like Romper Room, and attempted to answer the question- can one live only on winning prizes?
The show was called Susunu! Denpa Shonen, and it starred a Japanese comedian named Nasubi who "won" the privilege of being trapped in a studio apartment with no clothes and no supplies for a year and a half, forced to win a million dollars worth of prizes from magazines and other media if he ever wanted to get back to his normal life.
Unbeknownst to the star of the show his every move, 24 hours a day, was broadcast to a Japanese audience who couldn’t get enough of this voyeuristic experiment in delicate torture TV.
Miles O'Brien was a recurring minor character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was an NCO who ran the main transporter room. He was in that room, alone, for long, long periods of time. Cartoonist Jon Adams suspects that O'Brien felt unfulfilled and deeply depressed. He has created a series of comics showing O'Brien's lonely existence in that room. They are funny! You can read the first one here.
Eventually, O'Brien was promoted. He became Chief of Operations on the space station Deep Space 9 on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. That's awesome, right? No. For seven years, the writers of that show played a constant game of "How can we destroy O'Brien's life this week?" One of the more inventive responses was to lock him in prison for 20 years.
Medical schools hire actors to pretend to have certain ailments. Medical students then attempt to diagnose those afflictions. Ryan Jones, a medical student at the University of Virginia, examined one of them, Jim Malloy.
Malloy was pretending to have an aortic aneurysm. Jones noticed that he was doing a very convincing job of it. He showed all of the symptoms of an actual aortic aneurysm.
Sometimes medical schools hire people who have real medical problems in order to make these simulations more realistic. But this was not one of those times. Jones informed the attending physician, who suggested that Malloy get further tests.
Malloy did so and later had surgery to correct the problem in his heart. By calling early attention to the problem, the medical student had saved his life.
Teenagers Austin, Connor, and Trevor Bartz of New Brighton, Minnesota, built this giant snow shark in their front yard. It took 95 hours of work to complete it, and they even installed lighting so people can enjoy the horror at night! But the brothers have experience: they've built huge snow sculptures before, a pufferfish two years ago and a walrus last winter. See more pictures of the finished shark at 22 Words and at Buzzfeed.
At the Bathroom Reader Institute, one of our goals is to make readers look at the world in a new way. After reading this article, you'll also be listening in a new way. Listening to what? To sounds that seem real …but aren't.
WHAT'S NEW IS OLD AGAIN
Have you ever heard of a skeuomorph? Pronounced SKEW-a-morf, it's a feature that's been added to a new version of a product that, while not functionally necessary, makes consumers more at ease with the new technology. For example, the "PLAY" button on your DVD player has a little arrow on it that points to the right. There's nothing inside a digital player that actually moves to the right, but there was on old VHS tape players. The arrow remains because consumers are used to it.
When it comes to sound, skeuomorphs are a big deal: If a product doesn't sound right, it can be very tough to sell to consumers. Companies employ sound designers -not unlike the sound engineers who work on Hollywood movies- to ensure that every noise a product makes will be pleasing to the ears. Sometimes it's for nostalgia's sake; sometimes for safety …and sometimes for more nefarious reasons.
* Digital cameras: For more than a century, film cameras had mechanical shutters that clicked when the shutter button was pressed. Digital SLR cameras have a similar electro-mechanical shutter that also clicks, although not as loudly. But what about cell phone cameras and small point-and-shoots? They, too, have shutters, but they're so small that the sound they make is barely audible. So manufacturers have added fake shutter sounds to let the picture-taker know that a picture has been taken. Many people find the feature annoying, and some camera models allow you to change the sound to a beep. A few models even allow you to turn the sound off altogether.
However, there's a movement underway to mandate that these fake shutter sounds not only remain, but that they become louder. Reason: to prevent creepy voyeurs from secretly snapping photos in locker rooms and dressing rooms. In 2009 U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) drafted a bill called the "Camera Phone Predator Alert Act" which would "require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken." In Japan and South Korea, the governments have urged camera makers to keep the fake shutter noise to deter people from secretly taking pictures up women's skirts (apparently a problem in the Far East). So far, camera makers haven't complied, and King's bill went nowhere, but the shutter noise issue remains controversial.
* Car doors: When you closes a steel car door, it's loud. In recent years, safety and emissions standards have forced auto makers to use lighter materials, resulting in new doors that sound more like toys. Because most people equate a lower pitch with power, and a higher pitch with weakness, auto engineers have redesigned car doors with dampeners and other materials in order to replace the tinny "tink" with a much more satisfying "thunk."
Peruse this photo series by German photographer Kilian Schönberger and you’ll see why the Brothers Grimm were inspired to set their dark and creepy fairy tales in Middle Europe. The land fairly oozes spookiness, and looks like the perfect setting for a horror movie, or the next Silent Hill game.
Kilian’s photo series was inspired by the stories he heard as a child, and the fact that he grew up looking at such a lonely, beautiful landscape, but the real wonder of his photo series is the fact that he is colorblind and has to have a friend check the image colors for him before he has them printed.
Eleven-year-old Trinity Rhoades of South Jordan, Utah, played a game of hide and seek with her sister and cousins Tuesday. Trinity decided to hide in the washing machine, but once in, she couldn't get out.
Her sister and cousins tried remedies they recalled from cartoons. First they used butter to lubricate her legs. Then they tried using peanut butter. Then they resorted to ice, which only left the girl cold, so they then poured warm water over her. The children finally called Trinity's mom, who called emergency services. They found the girl not only stuck in a washing machine, but "wet, cold, and covered with condiments."
They eventually had to cut the dryer from the top of the combo unit, and Trinity was freed. She has some bruising on her legs, but is otherwise uninjured. -via Arbroath
This happens every year. We get a wonderful batch of video Christmas greeting sent to us right before the holiday. But 1. there's not enough hours left in the day to post them one at a time for your Christmas enjoyment, a 2. some people are suffering from Christmas overload already. So here we have our mega-list of the nicest, funniest, and cleverest video greetings from all over in one list! See them all if you've got the Christmas spirit, or save for later if you are too busy right now. You might find the perfect video to send out to your friends and relatives for a last-minute Christmas card!
A Slow Motion Christmas (YouTube link) Did you make gingerbread men this year? Be aware that when no one is looking, they can be total menaces! FinalCutKing made this slow motion video as a Christmas greeting. -Thanks, Zach King!
Goats Singing Merry Christmas (YouTube link) These goats are singing their Christmas greetings to you, through the magic of editing! Eleven seconds of silliness -and the rest of the video is an ad. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Decor Amore (vimeo link) A Christmas greeting from Bruton Stroube, which I believe does photography and videos. In a world where Christmas decorations come to live while no one is watching, a Nutcracker falls for an angel.
You've heard of the placebo effect, of course, but the converse has been observed as well. CGP Grey explains the "nocebo effect." When pharmaceuticals started being advertised on TV, under regulations that the side effects had to be advertised as well, I predicted that those side effects would become more common because of the nocebo effect. I don't know if there are any studies on exactly that, but I know some people who seem to develop every possible side effect when trying a new medicine. There are links to quite a few studies and stories on the nocebo effect at Metafilter. Grey is holding a discussion on this video at reddit.
