The worst tourist mosquito experience I know is Roanoke Island in North Carolina, and the best is at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. But when you go to Walt Disney World in Orlando, you're too busy having fun to notice the lack of mosquitos. The theme park is built on a swamp in Florida, so what gives? The truth is that Disney goes to great lengths to control the mosquito population. Rob Plays explains how that happens.
YouTube has only been around for 13 years, but in that time has hosted some of the funniest, weirdest, most interesting short subjects you'll ever see. The ones that went wildly viral will be familiar to you, maybe all 100 of the ranked videos at Thrillist, which has embedded all 100 YouTube videos for your viewing pleasure. Stroll down memory lane with Charlie The Unicorn (99), Dramatic Chipmunk (84), Miss Teen USA 2007 (76), Trololo (68), Boom Goes the Dynamite (18), and many other viral videos you've forgotten about by now, but will make you laugh all over again. Then you can commence arguing about the ones they left off the list.
Penny restaurants were diners where you could get a decent meal without spending hardly any money. You could find them in some cities as far back as the turn of the 20th century, and they spread tremendously during the Great Depression. Penny restaurants were mostly run by charities, but the food wasn't free, because that would rob the transaction of its dignity.
T.M. Finney, who managed a St. Louis penny restaurant run by the local Provident Association, laid out the enduring modus operandi of charitable restaurants. “The aim of the scheme is to afford poor people to maintain their self-respect and reduce the number of beggars,” Finney stated.
At his establishment, every item cost a penny: A meal of half a pound of bread, soup, potatoes, pork and beans, and coffee only cost hungry customers five cents. Breadlines, where miserable hundreds waited hours for free food, were an all-too-common sight during the Depression. Penny restaurants were the dignified alternative.
Penny restaurants always appeared during times of financial trouble, but they reached their greatest prominence during the Great Depression. In 1933, unemployment was at 25 percent nationwide. A whole new cuisine of make-do was developing across the country, from starchy slugburgers to pork masquerading as higher-end chicken. At penny restaurants, food was simple and often meatless.
Some existing eateries got into the penny restaurant business as a hybrid, adding a section to their existing restaurant to serve the indigent. And at least one businessman could afford to give away free meals along with paid meals because the volume was so high. Clifford Clinton was some restauranteur, as one of his dining spots is still in business, although you can no longer get a free meal. Read about the rise and fall of penny restaurants at Atlas Obscura.
Two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley published a book that she'd been working on since she took up a challenge among friends to write a scary story. Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus was much more than a horror novel. It illustrated the march of science and the responsibility, ethics, and hubris of those who would dare create life, ideas that have resonated with readers for two centuries so far, even as science itself has changed greatly.
Two hundred years later, Arizona State University launched The Frankenstein Bicentennial Project — a cross-disciplinary, multimedia endeavor to engage the people of today with the timeless issues of science, technology, and creative responsibility posed by Shelley’s searching intellect and imagination. As part of the celebration, MIT Press published Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (public library) — Shelley’s original 1818 manuscript, line-edited by the world’s leading expert on the text and accompanied by annotations and essays by prominent contemporary thinkers across science, technology, philosophy, ethics, feminism, and speculative fiction. What emerges is the most thrilling science-lensed reading of a literary classic since Lord Byron’s Don Juan annotated by Isaac Asimov.
Reanimation! is a seven-part video series from Massive that features conversations with scientists about Frankenstein and the issues it addresses, produced as a companion piece to the annotated book. The first episode, A Bolt of Lightning, is an overview of the impact of Shelley's novel and the questions it raises for the philosophy of science.
Further episodes deal with the line between chaos and organization, the nature of life, the definition of consciousness and intelligence, the ethics of intervening in nature, and more. You can see all seven videos in the series at Brain Pickings. -Thanks, WTM!
The marketing has begun for the sequel to Wonder Woman. The title is Wonder Woman 1984, which tells us that the movie is set in that year, approximately 70 years after the first film, and well before Batman v Superman and Justice League. Gal Gadot Tweeted the picture above, showing us how the Amazon character's new costume will look. The basic design is the same as the leather she wore in the previous movie, with the metallic glitter of Lynda Carter's version. Chris Pine will return as Steve Trevor, shown here in his 1980s fashions.
Welcome to WONDER WOMAN 1984, Steve Trevor! #WW84 pic.twitter.com/BCLARdVuTu
— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) June 13, 2018
Pine's casting would have been difficult to maintain as a secret, so they made Trevor's return into a marketing tool. The big question is how they will explain it. Wonder Woman 1984 is now in production and is scheduled to hit theaters on November 1, 2019.
The Wild Canadian Year is a five-part TV series about Canadian wildlife. Sam Ellis' assignment for the show was to film a Canada lynx in its natural habitat. Not an easy task, as remaining invisible is a big part of a lynx's lifestyle. But over time, Sam tracked and got to know a cat he called Mad Max. He spent 76 days trying to get some good footage of Max hunting. So here we have a videographer following a cameraman following a lynx following rabbits for more than two months, so let's appreciate the result.
James Cameron interviewed George Lucas for his TV series James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction. There was more discussed than made it to air, and the rest of the interview landed in a book, and now we know about what would have happened in the third Star Wars trilogy if it had followed Lucas' ideas. We can be very happy that didn't happen.
“[The next three ‘Star Wars’ films] were going to get into a microbiotic world,” he told Cameron. “There’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Lucas admitted, “Everybody hated it in ‘Phantom Menace’ [when] we started talking about midi-chlorians.” In terms of his storytelling, Lucas regarded individuals as “vehicles for the Whills to travel around in…And the conduit is the midi-chlorians. The midi-chlorians are the ones that communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force.”
Lucas is confidant that had he kept his company, the Whills-focused films “would have been done. Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did ‘Phantom Menace’ and everything, but at least the whole story from beginning to end would be told.”
But thankfully, it was not to be. Lucas instead retired and sold Lucasfilm. So no matter how much you dislike any of the new Star Wars films, you can just tell yourself it could have been so much worse. Read more at IndieWire. -via Ars Technica
(Image credit: Flickr user raymond twist)
It seems like I spent the entire decade of the 1980s sitting in a movie theater. Even if you weren't born then, you've probably figured out from watching movies on TV that the '80s were a golden age for comedy, action, and science fiction movies for young adults. Illustrator Scott Park (previously at Neatorama) has designed a poster he calls EIGHTY2, or "80s", with 80 characters from 57 different movies from that decade. You'll recognize them all, even if you can't quite name them all. You can see a larger version of the image here, and buy a print here. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Chris Poole brings us a cute Fathers Day greeting in which his cat Marmalade expresses his thoughts. Say it with me now: "Awww." See more of Marmalade and his buddy Cole in previous videos. -via Laughing Squid
When the new Iroquois Theater in Chicago opened in November of 1903, it was advertised as "absolutely fireproof." On December 30th, between 1700 and 2,000 people, mostly mothers and children on holiday break, attended a performance of the comedy Mr. Blubeard, starring Eddie Foy. There were only 1600 seats, but tickets were sold for others to stand during the play.
As the show began its second act at 3:15 that afternoon, a spark from a stage light ignited nearby drapery. Attempts to stamp out the fire with a primitive retardant did nothing to halt its spread across the flammable decorative backdrops. Foy, dressed in drag for his next scene, attempted to calm the increasingly agitated audience. He ordered the orchestra to continue playing as stagehands made futile attempts to lower a supposedly flame-retardant curtain, but it snagged.
It was soon apparent that the fire could not be contained. Audience members bolted from their seats toward what few exit doors they could find, but most were obscured by curtains. They were further stymied by metal accordion gates, firmly locked to keep those in upper levels from sneaking down to pricier seats during intermissions. The terrified patrons – an estimated 1,700 with many more standing ticket holders clogging the aisles - were funneling through scant few chokepoints. Quickly the scene had changed “from mimicry to tragedy,” as one survivor said. Watching from the stage, Foy wrote in his memoirs, he saw in the upper levels a “mad, animal-like stampede – their screams, groans and snarls, the scuffle of thousands of feet and bodies grinding against bodies merging into a crescendo half-wail, half-roar.”
More than 600 people died in the stampede and conflagration. An investigation showed that required safety features were either nonexistent or non-functioning, and the overall design of the building impeded escape. The scandal of the Iroquois Theater fire led to the development of independently-powered exit signs and doors that open from the inside only. Read about the disaster and its aftermath at Smithsonian.
If you're stressing out about something specific, you know what's causing you to lose sleep. When you don't know what's causing it, the stress only increases like a snowball rolling downhill. This TED-Ed lesson from Dan Kwartler goes into the mechanisms that disrupt your normal sleep cycle. -via Digg
The question was, "Professors of Reddit, who was the dumbest student you ever had and what was so dumb about them?" It was followed by almost 6,000 comments. Some of them are unforgettable.
One of my students told me he was going to be 21 when he graduated high school. I asked him why. He explained that he ages TWO YEARS every year. He is 15 turning 16 so that is 2 years. He is probably right that he will not graduate HS til age 21, but not for the reason he mentioned lol -soulsista12
I didn’t believe any student was dumb - he/she may only have needed the right motivation.
Until I met RJ. RJ was dumb. RJ didn’t realize that the chicken we eat was the same as the animal. RJ was 21 at the time. -tapehead4
Happened in the first week of a college anthropology course:
Prof: "Let's list a few basic differences between modern humans and animals"
Student: "We have a heart beat" -PubScrubRedemption
You can read a ranked list of some of the stories at Bored Panda, or read them all at reddit.
(Image credit: Flickr user duluoz cats)
You might not know the name George Wythe, but he was one of the 56 delegates that signed the Declaration of Independence. He was the first American law professor, and the school of law at the College of William & Mary is named for him. Wythe is also notable for the mysterious way he died.
Many believe Wythe was murdered by his no-good, addicted-to-gambling grand-nephew George Wythe Sweeney (who stood to inherit). One morning in 1806, Wythe fell violently and inexplicably ill. So, too, did Lydia Broadnax and Michael Brown, both of whom had had breakfast at Wythe's home. Broadnax was his long-time cook (and his wife's slave before being manumitted by Wythe following his wife's death). Brown was a free mixed-race teen, who lived in the Wythe household. Wythe had been tutoring him in Greek.
Brown died first. Wythe was ill for many days, during which he insisted that he had been deliberately poisoned, before finally dying on June 8th. Broadnax recovered from her illness. Interestingly, the doctors weren't as sure as Wythe about poison diagnosis.
Read about the investigation and the trial, which may leave you with a bad taste, at Reason. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Billy Hathorn)
Remember New Coke? The reformulation of Coca-Cola in 1985 was a huge disaster for the company, although the controversy itself was advertising. But innovation in soft drinks goes on, and only seven years later, the company's North American president, Doug Ivester, introduced a new product with a large dose of pomp and circumstance. However, this promotion was not all that it appeared.
The product was Tab Clear, a new version of the sugar- and calorie-free diet drink first introduced in 1963. While it retained its bubbles, the liquid was transparent, an obvious nod to rival Pepsi’s introduction of Crystal Pepsi earlier that year.
Publicly, Ivester boasted that Tab Clear would be yet another success in Coca-Cola’s long history of refreshment dominance. But behind the scenes, Ivester and chief marketing officer Sergio Zyman were convinced Tab Clear would be a failure—and that is exactly what they hoped would happen. Flying in the face of convention, the launch of Tab Clear was deliberately designed to self-destruct.
The idea behind Tab Clear was a genius marketing move on many levels, but still reads like a super villain scheme. Read the story of the motivation behind Tab Clear at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Flickr user Kevin Trotman)
In the latest video from Condé Nast Traveler, we watch people from around the world count the same stack of dollars. On the surface, it looks like most of them are doing it the same way, but when you look closely, there are variations that would be hard to replicate once you've learned your own way to count cash. Too bad we don't get to practice as much as we should. And you have to wonder whether these ingrained habits will fade away as we move closer to a cashless society. -via Boing Boing
