This is not such much of a war as it is a friendly competition- on the sports field, meaning that everyone takes it too seriously. People who try to explain history, culture, and economics like to compare people born in different eras as stereotypes, but it's really hard to pigeonhole millions at a time. In this game, or tournament, it's the Boomers vs. the Millennials vs. Gen Z. What about Generation X? As usual, no one is paying any attention to them. Foil Arms and Hog do the play-by-play with every stereotype possible making a play. The thing is, we are too busy trying to catch all the jokes to comprehend that we don't even know what sport this is. I assumed it was a ball game, with each side taking territory on the field, but the reference to "battle royale" at the beginning and "weapons" at some point implies that it's a down and out fight. A good time was had by all.
What was the original purpose of this recessed cabinet 5' up the wall in my dining room?
byu/Dry-Philosopher-8633 inOldhouses
Redditor Dry-Philosopher-8633 asked about this strange little home feature on the subreddit Old Houses. It's a recess in the wall with a door. They store things in it, but what was its original purpose? There were plenty of guesses, including the original fuse box, laundry chute, milk or ice door, phone nook, or a kitchen pass-through (the kitchen is on the other side). But it's five feet up from the floor! Well, maybe it was a safe, a liquor cabinet, or a gun cabinet, too high for children to reach. There were also some really imaginative joke guesses, like where the gnome lives, and where you leave your urine sample.
But when we learned that there is a chimney behind the recess, the original purpose became clear. This was where a stove pipe was attached to the chimney so it could vent to the outside. My house has a shelf where the water heater vents into a chimney, and the main chimney has two shelves that could have been original vents for something or other, but they are in the basement and don't need to be prettied up. So now we know. These days, it's just a perfect place to keep things away from the children.
Scientists Uncovered a Blow From the Past: 17th Century Brains Contained Cocaine https://t.co/4JhdOiJEPz
— Popular Mechanics (@PopMech) August 22, 2024
There are around 200 species of Erythroxylum plants that produce cocaine, all native to South America. Chilean mummies that go back as far as 3,000 years have been found to contain traces of cocaine, but use of the drug elsewhere didn't become common until coca was synthesized into cocaine hydrochloride salts in the 19th century. Conquistadors brought coca to Europe, but its spread has not been well documented. A new report in the the Journal of Archaeological Science tells of a team that analyzed the preserved brains of cadavers interred in a crypt in Milan, Italy, and found cocaine. These people had been buried on the grounds of the Ospedale Maggiore, a 17th-century hospital.
The researchers had previously found evidence of opium in the same crypt, implying that the hospital had used both drugs, one from Asia and the other from South America. However, cocaine did not appear on the hospital's pharmacy list, which could mean that the cocaine was used recreationally. Read about this discovery at Popular Mechanics. -via Damn Interesting
Henry Talmage Elrod had a troubled childhood, both of his own doing and through bad luck. He had to drop out of college when his father died, so he joined the Marine Corps in 1927. Elrod learned to fly, but had a problem with testing. He got so nervous under supervision that he flunked his pilot's test, so badly that he wasn't given another chance until a new commander was assigned. Even then he had to take the classes and training all over again. Elrod passed the test this time, just barely.
Without the pressure of testing, Elrod was a great pilot. He was promoted to Captain, and was transferred to Hawaii in 1940. He and his commander led a team of 10 other pilots flying Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighter planes to Wake Island, about halfway between Hawaii and Japan. That was on December 4, 1941. Four days later, Wake Island was attacked by Japan, just a day after the Pearl Harbor attack. The enemy destroyed eight of the 12 planes and killed most of the personnel. The Japanese returned on both December 10th and 11th, but this time Elrod gave them his all. Read about the early World War II battles that left Elrod with the permanent nickname "Hammerin' Hank" at Military History Now. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: US Navy)
Godzilla Minus One but it’s Cookie Monster. pic.twitter.com/K9Pur6kKZl
— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) August 22, 2024
The historical drama Godzilla Minus One recounts the 1945-1947 struggle of postwar Japan against Godzilla. With very few military forces available let alone permitted, a handful of sailors gallantly stood between the monster, created as a result of US atomic testing, and the people of Japan.
The most famous scene in the film shows the climactic battle as Godzilla chases a decrepit minesweeper. This alternate version by filmmaker Matthew Highton replaces Godzilla with the more fearsome Cookie Monster.
You may recall previous work of Highton's that we have featured, such as his recreation of The Simpsons introduction and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer introduction with stock footage.
-via John A Konrad V
A classic Hollywood story tells of a modern, but not too modern, archaeologist exploring an ancient Egyptian tomb, while more nefarious characters tag along just to rob these ancient graves of the treasures wealthy Egyptians were buried with. Nothing good can come of that scenario, since there is a curse associated with this tomb. But that's fiction, and was inspired by the discovery of King Tut's tomb with all its fabulous treasures in 1922. The real story of Egyptian grave robbing goes back to antiquity.
See, the reason the discovery of King Tut's tomb was such a sensation was because of the surviving burial goods. Other tombs didn't have so many valuable treasures because they'd already been plundered, often soon after burial. An upper-class or royal burial required the work of many people, like stonecutters, builders, craftsmen, undertakers, security guards, and an awful lot of porters. These workers were often quite poor, and saw no reason not to help themselves to buried goods. One of the ways Egyptians tried to protect these tombs was by attaching a curse, so thousands of years later, we have a ready-made horror film plot. Read the history of the wholesale plunder of Egyptian tombs at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Mark Fischer)
When we say that someone talks like a sailor, that usually refers to their swearing. But in reality, we all do it. The English we use today is awash with jargon originally used by sailors, and we can't fathom why. It likely had to do with large crews on long sea voyages who got used to all those nautical terms, and when anchored on land they kept using them. Their children learned the ropes and by and large continued until these terms infiltrated English permanently, the way they infiltrated the first half of this sentence.
Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky of Otherwords (previously at Neatorama) tells us about the seafaring origins of a ton of words, including, strangely, "blog." I like the cut of her jib. Before this video is over, you'll know why so much of a sailor's language became standard parts of English, and you won't be at all surprised.
One of the more common ways people are scammed out of their money these days is through gift cards. That may sound bizarre, since buying goods with a gift card just adds another layer of work for a scamming ring. But that extra work is well worth it for the safety of the scam, because the transactions involved are anonymous.
In the story of Mae, a real victim who doesn't share her last name, the elderly woman was frightened into withdrawing her savings from her bank, and using it to buy bitcoin. She didn't understand bitcoin, but did as she was told, then the transaction failed because someone at the other end recognized a scam. So the scammers directed Mae to buy gift cards. Mae was never told to give the cards to anyone, because all the scammers needed were the serial numbers or barcodes.
See, retailers rarely have any idea who buys gift cards. They also have no idea who is spending them. And gift cards are not regulated the way banks or credit cards are. In fact, gift cards are exempted from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's consumer protection rules for fraud. Retailers object to regulation because they made money off these cards. But it provides an extra layer of privacy for the scammers. Read what happened to Mae, and how gift cards are the perfect route for separating people from their life savings at the Conversation.
(Image credit: Mike Mozart)
Not long ago, the guys from Planting Peace heard of an elephant that was abandoned in the woods in Laos. Joy was 31 years old, and had spent her life working as a logging elephant. But now she was too old and had health concerns, so they chained her to a tree. One of the organization's missions is to rescue elephants, so they wanted to help Joy. They sent Aaron to get her, and he led Joy out of the logging area to her new home at MandaLao Elephant Conservation, a retirement home for elephants in Laos. This shelter welcomes tourists because they pay for the elephants' upkeep, but they never offer elephant rides or train the elephants to do stunts.
I'm sure you noticed the lump on Joy's shoulder. Elephants rarely get cancer, so it is probably an abscess. The shelter has a veterinarian, and Joy will get the care she needs. You can keep up with Joy at MandaLao Elephant Conservation's Instagram page.
It was bad enough when fictional stories brought back characters that had died. All they had to do was make their death a dream, or the character into a ghost, or switch to an alternate universe. Or just put them in a prequel. That trick may be annoying, but it's mostly harmless and done to please the audience. But it's a totally different thing to use actors who have passed on in real life to resurrect a popular character.
Many of us were surprised and somewhat disturbed when Rogue One used images of Peter Cushing, who had died 20 years earlier, to recreate the character of Grand Moff Tarkin. Cushing obviously had no control over the use of his face. Actor Guy Henry played Tarkin's body, but you have to wonder what will happen to Hollywood when actors are no longer needed and we just see the faces of Hollywood past over and over. The same technique was used in Superman Returns, The Flash, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. And we see it again in the new movie Alien: Romulus. There's also the creepy technique of using computer technology to make older actors look young again, but at least that is done with the involvement of the actor. Read about the rising trend of casting actors even after they die at Den of Geek. Note: the article contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus, and possibly other films you haven't yet seen.
Redbox arrives in video store heaven! But the afterlife isn't all that great when Redbox meets its predecessors. Could this be video store hell?
The movie rental business follows the course of technology and culture. A rental business thrives until someone else has a better idea, then it dies, and the cycle continues. The current "winners" are video-on-demand and streaming services, but one day someone will figure out how to make that model more convenient or more affordable or better in some way. Redbox, on the other hand, was a victim of mismanagement. The vending machine for movies has been in bankruptcy court for some time. On July 10, they went into Chapter 7 liquidation, which means that all 26,000 Redbox kiosks are defunct. Matt Mitchell single-handedly illustrates how the cycle of video rental businesses works when one company after another leapfrogs to the top with a better idea and then dies. The truth comes out when they all meet in video store heaven.
In March of 1933, the US was sinking further into the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt took office, and Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. It was also the month the Aryan Book Store opened in Los Angeles. It had a restaurant, meeting room, and beer garden on the first floor, which wasn't unusual for bookstores, which were seen as meeting places for intellectuals. This one had a distinct agenda, which they never hid. After all, Americans knew little about Nazis then, and certainly had no idea what their activities would lead to. New customers would be given a free newspaper and were introduced to the group Friends of New Germany. They would be told about antisemitism and anticommunism, which were treated as the same thing, because people suffering from the dire economics of the time would need someone to blame.
Other Nazi bookstores opened in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and the Aryan Bookstore moved to a larger location. American authorities paid little attention to these propaganda outlets, because they were busy fighting communist ideology, and the Nazis were anticommunist. Read about the Aryan Book Store in an excerpt from The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss at LitHub. -via Damn Interesting
All Star Wars fans know what inspired George Lucas' imagery in designing the bad guys. This week, that concept seeped into the real world in a strange little episode in London. The German navy corvette Braunschweig was in Britain, not doing its normal stealth operations, but on a training operation. While transiting upriver on the Thames, the crew stood on deck as the ship passed through London, with the most appropriate (or inappropriate) music playing on its loudspeakers. You will easily recognize "The Imperial March" from Star Wars, also called Darth Vader's theme.
A spokesman from the German navy told the BBC that there was no message implied in the song selection, and that the boat's commander has free rein to select the music. This shows that the reputation of Germans having no sense of humor isn't true- they just don't laugh at jokes. However, it would have been funnier if the Braunschweig was traveling under its own power instead of being towed backward upriver. -via Ars Technica
When you think of television programming for Halloween, of course you think of The Food Network. That may sound strange to you (it did to me), but the cable channel and website has been very much into Halloween for years. The Food Network has released its Halloween programming plans for 2024, appealing to both foodies and Halloween fans.
Halloween Baking Championship will return for its tenth season on Monday, September 16th. It's a baking competition series with a Halloween theme that should end by October 31st.
Halloween Wars is a competition show pitting eight teams against one another. The teams each include a pumpkin carver, a cake baker, and a sugar artist, and they create Halloween displays. The season premiere will be on September 22 at 9 PM Eastern time. Leading into the premiere will be a special called Road to Halloween Wars at 8 PM.
The competition called Outrageous Pumpkins, with 14 of the nation's top pumpkin carvers, will return on September 29th. There's also a special titled Kids Baking Championship: Scary Good that will premiere on Monday, October 7th. Some of the channel's regular series will have Halloween-themed episodes as well. These shows could be inspirational, if your Halloween plans include hosting parties or impressing the kids with spooky treats. -via Halloween Daily News
The fine line between male and female intelligence. 😂
— Figen (@TheFigen_) August 19, 2024
pic.twitter.com/p4RlfazsVI
This is a pretty simple party game. The object is to have everyone on the team pass through a hoop without letting go of each other's hands. Which team can do it the fastest? These folks divided up into teams by sex, and the women blew the men away in their efficiency. Some claim that it's because the women are smaller than the men. Sure, I'd like to see all these men trying to walk through this hoop in a hurry. Others argue that at least one of the women has seen this trick before. That could be true, too, but it really boils down to the fact that men tend to think they already know something or can figure it out on their own, while women tend to be more collaborative in solving problems.
We don't know where this party is, but the source Tweet is in Turkish, so that would be a good guess. Or maybe not, since the people in the video are speaking Spanish (thanks, And now you have a good idea for a game at your next party, but you'll let the other team go first. -Thanks WTM!
Update: This is the Gonzales family from Miami, during a Valentines Day party. Read more about this episode here. The original video is at TikTok.
