Beda Koorey of Huntington, New York is a serious Trekkie. She loves the franchise so much that when she owned a car, she got a custom license plate inscribed with the registry number of the starship Enterprise: NCC-1701 -- no bloody A, B, C, or D.
Koorey stopped driving four years ago and disposed of her car and its plates. But NCC-1701 is a popular custom plate request among Trekkies, so it's still associated with Koorey. She receives computer-generated traffic tickets in the mail when cameras see NCC-1701 in states where license plate records are not up to date.
We all recognize the image of Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the 14th century B.C.E. The limestone and stucco sculpture is 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) tall, with its original colors mostly intact. If the image is accurate, she was a beautiful woman. The visage matches other depictions of Nefertiti from the city that Akhenaten built, Tell el-Amarna.
The bust of Nefertiti resides in the Neues Museum in Berlin, a gift from German art collector James Simon in 1920. Simon did not find the bust, but he financed the German archaeological expedition that did. A team led by Ludwig Borchardt unearthed the bust on December 6, 1912, from a workshop identified as that of the sculptor named Thutmose. Borchardt wrote of the bust, "Description is useless, must be seen." The custom of the time was that Egyptian artifacts would be split between the archaeologists and Egyptian authorities, but there is some doubt as to whether those authorities ever got to fully see Nefertiti.
The ownership of the bust has been a sore spot between Egypt and Germany ever since. Even Hitler got involved, which is why to bust is still in Berlin. Read about the bust of Nefertiti and the hundred-year controversy over where it belongs at Smithsonian.
Have you ever been in for a medical exam of some kind and then decided that you wanted a second opinion? Sometimes you run into a doctor who has a biased outlook, or maybe you get the idea that he doesn't know what he is doing. In this case, it could well be both. This poor fellow just wants his vision checked, but it seems it's the optometrist who is looking for a second opinion. Just how clearly do you see these clues?
It's not the client's vision that needs to be checked as much as it is the doctor who needs to be examined. I guess a random guy who might or might not need glasses is as good a subject as anyone. And after all this, the poor fellow will be billed $150 or so for his vision tests, not counting the glasses. The doctor should be paying him! -via reddit
A popular saying goes, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." Perhaps this principle also applies to fire and firefighters, as well as crime and police.
In California, where wildfires routinely destroy whole neighborhoods, some homeowners are preparing to immediately respond to fire threats by acquiring personal fire hydrants. The Wall Street Journal (alternate link) reports that options include hydrants that connect to personal tanks with thousands of gallons of water held in reserve or municipal water supplies. Especially prudent hydrant owners also purchase long firehoses and the training on how to use them effectively.
It's a strong selling point in the home real estate market, as you can see in the Zillow listing for this newly-built mansion north of Los Angeles.
We now have an online app that uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to examine your photos and render judgement. Former Google engineer Vishnu Mohandas and friends harnessed this app to Google’s computer vision API to render a detailed description of what AI sees and can figure out about your lifestyle from the details most people just gloss over. It's called TheySeeYourPhotos.
Our friend at Geeks Are Sexy uploaded the photo above, and the machine, against all odds, determined that he is a geek. I'm sure you are shocked. You can read the complete breakdown of the photo here. I tried it myself and found that the app does not work with images that have an .HEIC suffix, but it works with .jpg, .png, and probably other formats. Depending on the photo, it might return surprisingly accurate and creepy details about you. Mind you, I don't know if the images you upload to this app are stored and how they might be used, so think twice before you try it with images of people who might not want that. I tried this app with a couple of personal photos that I don't mind releasing into the world. The descriptions are pretty wordy, so you can continue reading if you're at all interested.
Tom BetGeorge has a real challenge to outdo himself with his holiday light shows. This Christmas, the computerized lights are supplemented by projections, laser lights, and fireworks, too! The segment above is a medley of songs from the 1980s, from Survivor, Van Halen, Wham!, Eurythmics, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Journey, Fine Young Cannibals, Europe, Toto, Phil Collins, and Guns 'n' Roses.
BetGeorge moved to a more rural area in Linden, California, a few years ago with more room to put on his spectacular Halloween and Christmas light shows without bothering the neighbors. He also runs his own light show company. Here is the entire 23-minute show.
The full show begins with three Christmas trees who serve as masters of ceremony. The songs are as follows:
0:36 "Carol of the Bells" by Lindsey Sterling 4:03 "Satisfaction" by Benny Benassi 7:29 1980s medley 14:40 John Williams medley 20:01 "Wizards in Winter" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra
You might not know the name Henry Every, but he was the pirate who made sailors want to be pirates. He gave the occupation its romantic aura because in 1695 he pulled off the most lucrative act of piracy in history, and then got away with it.
Every went from a career in the Royal Navy to employment as a captain in the slave trade. His life of piracy began when he was first mate on a Spanish expedition that involved raiding French ships. Paperwork stranded his ship and crew for months, and they were not paid, and so finally mutinied, taking the ship off to a life of plunder. Every was a talented leader of the pirates. Each ship they raided brought more and more men onto his fold, which tells us how well governments and trading companies treated their sailors.
Every built a fleet and allied with other pirates, and set upon a Mughal fleet that included the Ganj-i-Sawai, Emperor Aurangzeb's treasure ship laden with gold, silver, gems, and women slaves. The estimated take was between £325,000 and £600,000, a lot of money in 1695, which was the largest pirate plunder in history. That led to giving Every another distinction, as the first target of a global manhunt. Every's exploits ended up in newspapers, songs, literary works, and plays, giving piracy an exciting and romantic reputation. Read what Henry Every did to establish the Golden Age of Piracy at Amusing Planet.
On December 7, 1941 -- 83 years ago today -- US Navy Seaman Second Class John C. Auld died in battle while serving on the USS Oklahoma. He was one of 2,403 American servicemen who fell that day.
CBS News reports that, three years later, the Navy was able to recover bodies of many of the fallen sailors from the Oklahoma. In 2015, the Department of Defense studied DNA from the sailors' bodies to determine their identities. Now it has notified the family of Auld that they have identified his specific remains. These were interred yesterday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is his obituary.
-via Ed Driscoll | Photo: Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Colossal introduces us to the works of Caroline Dewison. Her website appropriately named A House of Wonders is filled with wondrously detailed tiny dioramas of scenes from nature. They are little worlds filled with the elements of nature . . . and the supernatural. Or at least the weird. This automaton, for example, presents aliens vessels circling over a lovely tree-lined lake.
This supreme act of gallantry and masculine virtue took place at the Fort Severn First Nation on the shores of Hudson Bay in northern Ontario. BBC News reports that a polar bear attacked the man's wife. He responded by leaping on the bear, which then turned to attack him. The bear mauled the man's legs and one of his arms. A local hunter then shot the bear several times, which retreated into the woods and died.
This heroic husband is badly wounded but expected to survive.
A polar bear expert advises against lying down if attacked by a polar bear. You must fight back to have any chance to survive.
Insect metamorphosis is astounding. We know that a caterpillar is the larval stage of a butterfly or moth. When they form a chrysalis and change into an adult, all their cells are ripped apart into a mass of living goo, which then reorganizes into a butterfly. Now, neurobiologists who study humans cite evidence that our memories are coded by the connections between neurons in our brains. When these brain cells are separated as they in butterflies, one would think that the process destroys all the caterpillar's memories -but it doesn't! There might be something in the neurons themselves that retains memory, or in the chemicals that make up the brain, or there might be something in the process of metamorphosis that we don't yet understand. It could also be that insect brains are just way different from mammal brains.
What else is amazing is how they figured this much out. What kind of memories does a caterpillar have that we can study? Tom Lum of SciShow explains the research into insect brains and metamorphosis. There's a 45-second skippable ad at 3:30.
Have you ever seen this piece of equipment? Redditor trsuco spotted it in a restaurant and asked the server, who, displaying a strange lack of curiosity, had no idea what it is. Then he turned to the hive mind for identification. Even after I saw the answer, I couldn't find another example elsewhere. Maybe I'm not using the correct search term, because this can't be the only existing one.
Coldplay has a new music video coming out, and the teaser for it is longer than the song. That's because the video for "All My Love" from their current album Moon Music, will star actor, dancer, comedian, and singer Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke turns 99 years old on December 13th, which is when the video will premiere. This "director's cut" video, directed by Spike Jonze and Mary Wigmore, is not only a preview of the song, but also a love letter to Van Dyke, his family, and his career. At 98, Van Dyke stills dances, and rather than being depressed about his age, he laughs at it.
You won't want to miss the part at 5:45 when Chris Martin composes an impromptu song about getting old. What does he know about it? He's only 47, half of Van Dyke's age. The lyrics are at the YouTube page. -via Laughing Squid
Steve Tanner is a scholar who has, for fifteen years, been exhaustively studying the trash cans available to guests at Disney resorts and parks around the world. His site dubbed Magical Trash examines how Disney's park designers choose trash cans to convey specific messages (aside from putting your trash into them) or accept merely practical goals of waste management.
Above are trash and recycling bins at the DreamWorks Land district of Universal Studios Florida. Shrek, Trolls, and Kung Fu Panda are the core franchises featured and the bins are appropriately decorated with motifs for those intellectual properties. No detail is too small to deserve attention.
This past September, Guillaume Blondel, an archaeologist, led a team of students excavating a Gallic site near Dieppe, France. His group was not the first to dig at this location associated with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul. BBC News reports that these modern scholars found at the site a message sealed in a glass bottle left by a previous archaeological team in 1825. Their message, when translated into English, reads:
P.J Féret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations here in January 1825. He continues his investigations in this vast area known as the Cité de Limes or Caesar’s Camp.
Historical research forms that a local leader named Féret did indeed excavate the site.
