Cracked latest "pictofacts" competition is about costume design. Movie and TV show designers put way more thought into what characters wear than the audience will ever notice. But the most subtle details make for great trivia later.
Some of the entries are obvious, some are disputed, and some are just plain cool.
Check out all 28 pictofacts about costume details at Cracked.
Barbecue is a high art form in Texas, having been practiced and refined by lauded masters for generations. Only the most diligent, gifted, and dedicated of practitioners can become pitmasters. Ennis High School in Ennis, Texas wants its students to accomplish greatness, which is why it is one of several high schools the state to operate a varsity-level barbecue team. WFAA reports:
Horticulture teacher Tommy Copeland helped start his team at EHS after discovering an annual state tournament in Burnet where over 100 schools compete. “When we tell people about it, they’re in disbelief at first,” Copeland said. “Then they say, ‘Wow, I wish that was around when I was in school--I would have been on that team,’” he said with a laugh.
At Ennis High, the barbecue team is like a Texas hybrid of metal shop and home economics. The students fabricate and weld their own cooker together then use it to compete.
Copeland and other vocational teachers assist the students in learning how to be pitmasters. Teachers or instructors aren’t allowed to help students during cook-offs, and they’re judged on best beef brisket, pork ribs, ½ chicken, best beans, dessert, best pit, most school spirit, and best t-shirt.
-via Glenn Reynolds
Photo: WFAA
The Scripps National Spelling Bee had not just one winner or even two co-winners for 2019. It has crowned eight co-winners.The contestants spelled forty-seven words correctly, after going through five consecutive perfect rounds.
"Champion spellers, we are now in uncharted territory," bee pronouncer Jacques Bailly told them in announcing the decision to allow up to eight winners. "We do have plenty of words remaining on our list. But we will soon run out of words that will possibly challenge you, the most phenomenal collection of super spellers in the history of this competition."
The bee's rules called for no more than three spellers to share the title. The possibility of four or more winners wasn't considered before Thursday. Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director, said bee officials developed a contingency plan for multiple champions after gauging the spellers' performance in the earlier final rounds.
The winners, six boys and two girls from Alabama, California, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, ranged in age from 12 to 14 and dubbed themselves "octo-champs." The winners were:
Congratulations Octo-Champs! via-CBS News
Image Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP
Forty-nine children from all over the world get together for the song "Lean On Me." The unique way they illustrate the lyrics is amazing. Zippy Portugal commissioned this video to celebrate International Children's Day (June 9). Yeah, it's an ad, but it doesn't seem like one. -via Metafilter
Japanese artist Meetissi 3D prints detailed models of the Internet's most famous dogs and cats, such as this cubical cat. Most especially impressive are Meetissi's models of cats and dogs that have been photographed in motion and then left permanently in that state through the 3D printer.
Instead of just being a place filled with parking lots, Exposition Park in LA will be revitalized with new additions to the park which the management believe would make the area more like an actual park, where people stroll, exercise, relax and sit while admiring the beautiful sights surrounding the place.
“It’s sort of chaos right now,” said Billie Greer, chair of the Master Plan Committee for the board of directors of Exposition Park. “We have to remember that people should be able to come to the park, not just to go to a museum or a stadium. But to exercise. To walk. To sit. To dream a little bit and enjoy the outside. We need some quiet places and some beautiful places.”
Officials have commissioned a new master plan timed with the most significant park additions in decades: MAD Architects’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is under construction and will float above the west edge of the park; Frederick Fisher and Partners’ new wing for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which will serve as a new entrance facing the Lucas Museum; and ZGF’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a permanent home for the (soon-to-be upright) Space Shuttle. Also of note: USC’s ongoing $270-million renovation of the Coliseum.
(Image credit: MAD Architects/Lucas Museum of Narrative Art)
Thelma Smith, who has lived in her Ladera Heights residence for 30 years, will soon be evicted after receiving a notice from her landlord who issued it because his daughter will be moving into the place after graduating from law school.
Smith was given three months to evacuate but not having any other place to stay, she doesn't have any choice because it is legal for landowners to evict their tenants for the purpose of providing housing to their relatives.
Under Los Angeles’ Rent Stabilization Ordinance, a landlord can legally evict a tenant to accommodate a relative’s housing needs. But the city law indicates that if the landlord’s units are of comparable housing, the last person who moved in would be the first person forced to leave. That regulation is meant to protect low-paying tenants from being targeted.
In greater L.A. County, where a temporary rent stabilization policy for unincorporated areas went into effect in December, the law is weaker.
For now, Smith, who recently celebrated her birthday, is asking help from friends and family who would be able to accommodate her once the time comes for her to vacate her premises. She has until June 30.
(Image credit: Wynter Eddins/Go Fund Me)
Don't get me wrong, for any book lover, any bookstore would be a joy to scour through and peruse. What seems like a mere few minutes has actually been several hours once you dive into the wonderful world of books.
But there's something about going through a used bookstore that new ones couldn't aspire to replicate. Perhaps, it's the history or the musk of the books.
Maybe, it's the fact that the books they house have passed on from one hand to another, bringing with it the joy and the sentiment of reading. Whatever it is, there's always bound to be something for everyone.
There’s a certain beauty to a used bookstore. Though authors make nothing from the sale of used books, I can’t be alone in thanking donators and sellers for the chance encounters I’ve had with authors among the stacks that I never would have heard of otherwise.
A new bookstore, shiny and edgy, can’t quite meet my romantic expectations (not that it stops me going in and buying buying buying), and the slight murk of the fantasy and sci-fi sections of a delightfully characterful haven for cast-offs never fails to make my heart beat faster.
Aisling Twomey shares some of her experiences with used bookstores and the different ones she has been to on Book Riot.
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Going shopping at your local grocery store can simply be a dull routine but it can also be interesting and downright hilarious. Huff Post has gathered several tweets from consumers as they share their experience shopping at Kroger on Twitter.
*moves the most expensive cuts of beef to the top shelf*
— James Breakwell, Exploding Unicorn (@XplodingUnicorn) December 17, 2013
*shouts, “The steaks have never been higher!”*
*gets escorted out of Kroger*
If there is a Kroger's on Elm Street anywhere, I hope they never hire a guy named Freddy. That would be a nightmare for sure.
— Tim (@Playing_Dad) January 21, 2014
(Image credit: Smarty9108/Wikimedia Commons)
The way we see ourselves changes as we grow older and experience more of the world. As we mature, we become more attuned and settled with our identity, more or less.
In a study conducted by researchers from the University of Reading led by Emily Hards, they wanted to know exactly how teenagers see themselves, what their self-concept or self-image is, and how that affects their construction of the self.
In all, the participants provided 6,558 self-descriptions or self-images. After removing any redundancy, the researchers calculated that the teens came up with 443 different ways of describing themselves.
Overall, researchers found that teenagers often described themselves in terms of their traits and personal characteristics which they say is consistent with how teenagers are still building up or developing their self-image.
They compared these results with those from a previous study of young adults. They found that these adults associated themselves more with their social roles rather than traits.
(Image credit: Raw Pixel/Pexels)
If you're producing a TV show that takes place any time in the past, there's a real danger of anachronisms. The internet was all over Game of Thrones for allowing water bottles to remain on scene during filming more than once. But that's a production error, and easy to miss. Many shows have contained anachronisms in the writing itself, which may be easy to overlook, but someone in the audience will know.
Another show replete with historical inaccuracies is M*A*S*H, which followed an army medical unit serving during the Korean War. That war took place between 1950 and 1953, while the show lasted 11 years; as you might guess, some inaccuracies popped up. Among them: Various characters mention the movie Godzilla, which didn’t come out until 1954. During season 4, Radar reads an issue of The Avengers that didn’t come out until the 1970s. In the season 5 episode “Movie Tonight,” Radar’s John Wayne impersonation pulls from a movie (McLintock!) that wasn't released until 1963.
Read about nine other "oops" moments in TV history at Mental Floss.
Yup. You’ve read it correctly. Your iPhone is secretly talking to things. And it’s something way scarier than the paranormal. Through his sleuthing, Geoffrey A. Fowler of the Washington Post found out that in just a week, his iPhone has reported and given data to about 5,400 hidden app trackers. If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what would.
On a recent Monday night, a dozen marketing companies, research firms and other personal data guzzlers got reports from my iPhone. At 11:43 p.m., a company called Amplitude learned my phone number, email and exact location. At 3:58 a.m., another called Appboy got a digital fingerprint of my phone. At 6:25 a.m., a tracker called Demdex received a way to identify my phone and sent back a list of other trackers to pair up with.
And all night long, there was some startling behavior by a household name: Yelp. It was receiving a message that included my IP address -— once every five minutes.
Our data has a secret life in many of the devices we use every day, from talking Alexa speakers to smart TVs. But we’ve got a giant blind spot when it comes to the data companies probing our phones.
You might assume you can count on Apple to sweat all the privacy details. After all, it touted in a recent ad, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” My investigation suggests otherwise.
IPhone apps I discovered tracking me by passing information to third parties — just while I was asleep — include Microsoft OneDrive, Intuit’s Mint, Nike, Spotify, The Washington Post and IBM’s the Weather Channel. One app, the crime-alert service Citizen, shared personally identifiable information in violation of its published privacy policy.
This isn’t just an issue on iPhones, but on Android smartphones as well.
(Image Credit: Pixabay)
The Pudding presents to us a map of the United States, but in a different light. Names of famous people like Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, and Dwayne Johnson, are displayed along with the cities and towns they are associated with.
Check out the People Map of the United States and see the famous persons whom you share the town with. Note: Some are criminals.
In Ahmedabad, India, temperatures are reaching 113°F. That's too much for a car's air conditioner to combat. So according to some guy on Facebook (let's be clear about how well this story is sourced), a local woman smeared cow poop all over her car to insulate it from the heat.
It's not that hot in Texas yet. But it will be within a month. And we have plenty of cows in the area. So I guess I should get to work verifying this hack, especially as I'm driving my wife's car today.
-via Weird Universe
Photo: Rupesh Gauranga Das
The Craigslist seller outside of Bakersfield, California had bought the replica Oscar Mayer Weinermobile for fun. He used it as his everyday transportation. That was fun for a little while. But no longer:
The Weinermobile as a daily driver was a novelty and enjoyable for about a week. Now I suffer.
How much has he suffered? Enough to get the odometer up to 110,400 miles.
-via Dave Barry
