Erin Hudson of Afton, Iowa, grabbed her camera when someone spotted a cow eating the family's mail right out of the mailbox! That's not something you see every day. Or any day, for that matter. Video contains NSFW language.
The cow acted like she knew she'd done something that wasn't permitted, but she did not want to give up that sweet tasty junk mail! -via Tastefully Offensive
Dishwashers are amazing appliances, even if they never did anything besides washing dishes. But the possibilities for other things are endless. You can use them to wash things that aren't dishes. You can cook in them. You can heat things in them. And when it stops working entirely, there are many ways to re-use its parts. And some of the hacks in this list are completely unexpected.
16. RIPEN AVOCADOS.
A restaurant worker on Metafilter spilled the beans on his employer's trick for force-ripening avocados: Throw them on the top rack of the dishwasher for a cycle.
21. BUILD A HAND-CRANK GENERATOR.
If your dishwasher dies but the motor is still serviceable, it may just help you survive the zombie apocalypse—or, more likely, help you charge your electronics while you're camping. If you're handy, making the motor into a pretty powerful little generator like this is a snap.
Now, if you are considering cooking in a dishwasher, you should check out which recipes work and which do not. Find those and all the dishwasher hacks in a list at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Flickr user Sandor Weisz)
The new trailer for Deadpool 2 is out, but the joke is that some post-production work has yet to be completed, specifically concerning Cable's arm. So Deadpool has to take matters into his own hands to get the trailer completed. Contains NSFW language.
The blurb from 20th Century Fox tells us more about the upcoming film.
After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.
Deadpool 2 will be in theaters May 18. -via io9
The more you look at this photograph, the more details stand out. There are 17 men, all engaged in some activity: pointing a gun, boxing, cutting hair, playing a musical instrument, reading a paper, enjoying whiskey, or staring at the photographer. That photographer was Fred Tyree, who took the picture in 1906 in Patarau, New Zealand. The men were workers at the Prouse and Saunders Flaxmill, where they harvested flax six days a week, and posed for the picture on a Sunday. Charles Anderson was intrigued by the photo and dug up what he could find about how it came about. He pieced together the lives the flax mill workers and the long, arduous journey Tyree took to Patarau.
That night he would rest at a tiny settlement manned by workers of Prouse and Saunders. Perhaps, Hindmarsh went on, Tyree would have joined in on the Saturday evening festivities, pleased to make it in time for the workers’ one day off a week the following day. Tyree would have drank beer with them, ingratiated himself so by the following day they were more than eager to indulge the photographer in a staged image.
Sunday morning would have been spent setting the scene beside one of the camp huts. A pirate flag was hoisted as a backdrop, bundles of flax carefully placed. Tyree would have choreographed every detail before finally climbing under the hood of his camera. Those 17 men posed in rock-still formation – one reading a newspaper, two pretending to box, another pointing a rifle at a stuffed kiwi, the cook standing proud in his whitest apron while a boxer drained a bottle. Some men bore tools, others washed clothes, three men played musical instruments.
Then, it was done.
Read the story of the most badass photograph ever taken in New Zealand at The Spinoff. -via Metafilter
The 2002 film We Were Soldiers was based on the true story of the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam. The Americans were new to the country, and a US battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (played by Mel Gibson) is drawn into a trap that leads to an extended bloody battle. While some details of the story were changed for the film, the result is a movie that captured the realism of the Vietnam War better than those that came before. If you've seen We Were Soldiers, you'll want to find out some of the offscreen trivia about the movie.
10. One of the original soldiers that survived perished in the 9/11 attack.
Lieutenant Rick Rescorla was the head of security for Morgan Stanley. He died while making sure that all the company’s employees were evacuated from the building.
9. There were Vietnamese actors in the film that had been in the North Vietnamese army.
The feelings this movie brought back had to have been extremely intense, not to mention it must have brought up a lot of memories.
There's more to learn about We Were Soldiers at TVOM.
Elon Musk had a big day on Tuesday. His company SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket, which deployed his personal red Tesla into orbit around the sun. How's he going to get home? Ah, yeah, just call Tesla and have someone bring him another. Or maybe he can strap a couple of his flamethrowers to his back and use them as a rocket pack. Or take a rocket; they've got a few extra laying around at SpaceX. This comic is from Ice Cream Sandwich Comics. -via reddit
Teeth are a marvel of nature. They are engineered to crush what we eat without breaking, and to last a lifetime (as long as we keep them fairly clean). Each species of mammal with teeth has developed teeth shapes to deal with the kind of food they eat. Teeth are crucial in identifying fossils and give us a clue as to what food a fossil species ate.
This TED-Ed video takes us through the structure, function, and evolution of teeth. We should all appreciate them before something goes wrong with them -take it from someone who just spent a year undergoing dental reconstruction. -via Digg
There are two kinds of people in this world: extroverts who socialize with others, and introverts who prefer to be alone. Except that isn't true at all. The rift between the two is way more complicated, and you can't really peg someone into one of those labels that easily.
Life Noggin walks us through these types, introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts. -via Laughing Squid
The Mississippi Delta was destined to become the site of a big city. The Mississippi River was the method of transport for raw materials, people, and supplies for a large part of the U.S. and New Orleans became its sea port.
Three hundred years ago this spring, French colonials first began clearing vegetation to establish La Nouvelle-Orléans on the meager natural levee of the Mississippi River. At most 10 to 15 feet above sea level, this feature accounts for nearly all the region’s upraised terrain; the rest is swamp or marsh. One Frenchman called it “Nothing more than two narrow strips of land, about a musket shot in width,” surrounded by “canebrake [and] impenetrable marsh.”
Those two narrow strips of land were not enough for the growing city, so engineers went to work to make more land, by draining swampland and diverting water. The result of all that work is that now 50% of the city is below sea level. Read how this happened at The Atlantic.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
"You may or may not ever see a male nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan, but I hope you do."
-Helen Gurley Brown to female
Cosmopolitan staffers, 1971.
In 1972, after a decade and a half in the business, Burt Reynolds was finally on the brink of stardom. Now 36, Burt had been an actor since the late 1950's.
His first movie was Angel Baby in 1961. Since then, he had appeared in several mediocre to bad films (usually typecast as a Native American) and had either starred or had recurring roles in three TV series- Gunsmoke, Dan August and Hawk. Burt claims he was "the first actor in history to be in a cancelled TV series on each of the three networks" (CBS, ABC and NBC).
But the sweet smell of success seemed to finally be wafting Burt's way. He had just wrapped on the film version of James Dickey's powerful novel Deliverance. Burt was heavily counting on this major release (co-starring Academy Award nominee Jon Voight) to finally put him over into "grade A" films and roles. He knew he had done his finest acting to date in Deliverance.
Burt Reynolds was also by this time gaining a reputation as "a personality." He enjoyed making the rounds of the TV talk shows, especially The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Unlike many good-looking actors, Burt displayed a quick wit and a very keen sense of humor. Because he was so naturally funny and quick on his feet, Burt became the first non-comedian Johnny Carson ever asked to host The Tonight Show in his absence.
One night early in 1972, after he had finished filming Deliverance and was awaiting its release, he was hosting The Tonight Show. Appearing with him on the show was Helen Gurley Brown, editor of the popular women's magazine Cosmopolitan and author of the best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl. On the show, he and Helen started bantering back and forth.
Girl Scout cookies are not made from real Girl Scouts, but the first cookies they sold were made by real Girl Scouts. The sole recipe, published in 1922, was for sugar cookies, simple and fairly cheap.
But simplicity was likely necessary, as the scouts baked the cookies themselves. According to the Girl Scouts, this recipe was distributed to 2,000 scouts in the Chicago area who likely needed something quick, simple, and inexpensive to sell. The ingredients for a batch of six to seven dozen cookies clocked in at 26 to 36 cents, which in today’s money is less than six dollars. The scouts could sell a dozen cookies for about the same amount, making a tidy profit.
Things changed over time, and the Girls Scouts eventually abandoned the baking part to focus on the business part of cookie sales. Read the story of the first girl scout cookies at Atlas Obscura.
SpaceX launched the most powerful rocket on earth from Cape Canaveral today. The Falcon Heavy contains 27 engines producing five million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The launch was conducted from launchpad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, which SpaceX has leased from NASA, the same launchpad that Apollo 11 and the space shuttle used. The payload on this unmanned flight is Elon Musk's personal red Tesla car, which the rocket will deploy into an orbit around the sun -if everything goes as planned.
The two side boosters returned to earth in a beautiful simultaneous landing. The third center booster did not land as planned on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The Falcon Heavy mission has been years in coming, and the successful launch puts the private company SpaceX ahead in its plans for taking a manned mission to Mars. You can read more about the Falcon Heavy mission at The Verge. As of now, the rocket is in orbit. You can follow the rest of the mission in a livestream from SpaceX.
How much fun could a 12-foot inflatable beach ball be? Sol Coastal sells one through Amazon, if you want to start saving up for summer fun. But reviewers let us know that it takes a long time to inflate unless you have a powerful air compressor. For his review of the product, Reid Hamlin told a story.
We took this ball to the beach and after close to 2 hours to pump it up, we pushed it around for about 10 fun filled minutes. That was when the wind picked it up and sent it huddling down the beach at about 40 knots. It destroyed everything in its path. Children screamed in terror at the giant inflatable monster that crushed their sand castles. Grown men were knocked down trying to save their families. The faster we chased it, the faster it rolled. It was like it was mocking us. Eventually, we had to stop running after it because its path of injury and destruction was going to cost us a fortune in legal fees. Rumor has it that it can still be seen stalking innocent families on the Florida panhandle. We lost it in South Carolina, so there is something to be said about its durability.
So far, 2000 people have found this review helpful. -via reddit
The continuation of the Star Wars saga in the Disney era went through a lot of changes from concept to screen. JJ Abrams revealed his original storyboards for The Force Awakens, which had a different opening scene. No, it wasn't Luke's hand falling through space, but a more expository look at Jakku.
Animator Tim Gray made the above video, based on J.J. Abrams’ own unused storyboards, which mirrors the opening of A New Hope to satisfying effect. The familiar scene has smaller ships being tailed by a looming Star Destroyer, but then it flips the script: They’re actually tugging the decrepit ship along to its final resting place on Jakku, where scavengers like Rey will inevitably harvest it for parts.
They did the right thing in going with a real battle to open the film. As the prequels taught us, action always trumps explanation.
Artists, writers, content creators, everyone down the grocery store stock clerk and Mom making dinner, we all put our hearts and souls into what we do, because it's what we do. A little appreciation goes a long way, even when it's very little appreciation. We will take what we can get, so we should spread that appreciation around at every opportunity. It means a lot to those on the receiving end. This is the latest comic from Sarah Andersen at Sarah's Scribbles.
