Have you ever had a brain fart and couldn't remember some common word or term that you needed to use? You can often get the point across by using whatever words might be close. That's how a peacock becomes a "disco chicken," or a cow can be called a "moo beast." In an AskReddit thread, people tell funny stories of folks communicating the best they can when the exact word escapes them. 

Couldn't remember groomsmen, went with dudesmaids instead.

I forgot the word for ‘exterminator’ so I used ‘ant exorcist’ instead.

It gets even better when people who speak English as a second language go all the way around the world for an English term they don't know. That's how a reindeer became a "Christmas llama." That's really odd, but you still know what he means. And you'll always remember it. Read forty of the funniest incidents of this sort of thing at Bored Panda.

Soon after YouTube debuted in 2005, the concept of "supercuts" took off. Some are works of art, some are specifically to drive a point home, and many of them made us say, "That took a lot of work!" We could imagine someone searching through countless hours of source material, looking for the clips they needed. That may have been true in the early days, but now there are tools to aid in the process, like search engines and video editing software.

In 2014, artist and educator Sam Lavigne built a tool called Videogrep that automatically makes supercuts. No, it's not as simple as, say, online image generators, but in the new tutorial Lavigne posted, the magic behind the search is revealed. It's subtitles.

Videogrep uses the timestamps in subtitle files to make supercuts of videos. It will automatically look for a few different types of subtitle files, including .srt files (the most common subtitle format), .vtt files (a common web-based subtitle format), or specially formatted .json files that videogrep can generate itself (more on this later).

That makes so much sense, you have to wonder why we didn't figure it out earlier (unless you already did, in which case you'll think I'm an idiot). The tutorial explains how to download videos, find subtitle files or make one, and make a supercut based on words. You can search for specific words or phrases or words ending in "ing." You can adjust the parameters to include an entire sentence, since subtitles have punctuation. That makes for a less-jarring supercut like this one. Or you can search for the most common words in a video. This would be a lot of fun for someone who knows what they are doing. Now if we can just figure out the trick to making dance supercuts...  -via Metafilter

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A post shared by Benedetto Bufalino (@studiobenedetto)

Here at Neatorama, we've long loved and admired Benedetto Bufalino's funny public sculptures, such as his cement mixer disco and his street sign skateboard. This artist adds whimsy and humor to urban life.

The latest project from Bufalino's studio in Lyons, France is this ping pong table. It's built around a bicycle for easy transportation between or even during games. It comes equipped with training wheels. I don't think that's because of his limited bicycling skills but the sheer weight of the table.

Bufalino rides it here in Esch-Sur-Alzette, a town in Luxembourg known for its vibrant art scene. He reports that he's already returned to France via bike, but not necessarily this bike.

There have always been tales of vast wealthy cities hidden in the Amazon rainforest. Explorers have died trying to find these cities, and the gold they supposedly contained. Conventional wisdom among archeologists was that the soil was too poor for agriculture, which was crucial for supporting large cities. Besides, they hadn't found any. It turns out that when a large civilization is wiped out or moves away, a rainforest will hide what they left. Trees and other vegetation sprout up, animals and floods leave their mark, and before you know it, all that's left are rumors. Oh, these places are still there, you just can't get to them.

Lately, concrete evidence of advanced societies in the Amazon has come to light. Deforestation uncovered some clues. Now a remote-sensing laser system called lidar has detected 26 urban centers hidden by the forest in southeast Bolivia. Two of them each cover an area three time the size of Vatican City! These cities contain pyramids, walls, elevated roadways, terraces, and buildings. The largest site, called Cotoca, belonged to the Casarabe culture, which flourished between 500 CE and 1400 CE. Their disappearance predates European invasion, and scientists don't know what happened to them. Read about the new discoveries at Nature.    

It's called "Period Crunch."

Intima, a company that makes menstrual products, such as environmentally-friendly period cups and Kegel muscle training devices, would like to normalize conversations about periods. Yahoo! News reports that the company has launched a cereal with little bits shaped like a human uterus. The cereal is, appropriately, raspberry flavored and stains milk red.

Period Crunch comes in boxes with diagrams of the female reproductive tract and conversations starters about menstruation. Intima argues that cultural forces prevent many women from talking comfortably about periods. Chatting about menstruation over breakfast could be a way to overcome these inhibitions.

Photo: Intima

Several years ago, we were teased with the idea of Diego Luna returning to the Star Wars universe in his role as Cassian Andor, one of the heroes of Rogue One. Finally we see that it's a sure thing, as the TV series Andor is scheduled to land on Disney+ on August 31. It's a prequel to Rogue One, not only an origin story for Andor, but also about the formation of the Rebellion, when everyday people could no longer take the abuses of the Empire and decided to stand up for their rights. Luna not only stars in the series, he is the executive producer. We will also see a young Mon Mothma, played by Genevieve O'Reilly, and Forest Whitaker will appear as his Rogue One character Saw Gerrera. The cast also includes Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough, and Kyle Soller. First announced as a 12-episode series, Andor has since been expanded to two seasons, and possibly more. Let's hope so, because this two-minute teaser is intriguing.    

An active volcano with sharks inside seems like the premise for a SyFy movie, doesn't It? And we've made fun of such movies many times. But this story is real, and NASA and marine biologists have evidence. The Kavachi Volcano is an active, completely underwater volcano near the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. By "active," we mean it erupts quite often since its discovery in 1939. Large eruptions occurred in 2000, 2007, and 2014, with smaller eruptions in between. If it's on a seven-year schedule, there's no surprise in Kavachi erupting on May 14, 2022. NASA's Landsat 9 satellite captured images of the underwater plume. 

Meanwhile, life has been thriving inside Kavachi's volcanic crater. Sulphur-loving microbes that seek hot water have been observed, and sharks, too! Both hammerhead sharks and silky sharks have been seen living in the crater since 2015, and there are pictures. When bait was lowered into the crater, sharks swam up from the depths of the active crater to retrieve it. Don't they know it's supposed to be too hot and acidic for them to live in? What the sharks know is that there are other tasty species of fish also living in the crater.



Unfortunately, we have no reports actually showing the sharks being ejected from the volcano during the latest eruption, or whether they survived. The SYFY version will probably show it in detail.  

By the way, there is already a movie called Sharkcano, but since it was a National Geographic documentary shown on Disney+, it wasn't all that heavily promoted. We can assume there were no sharks shown ejecting from an exploding mountain.

The many Star Wars films introduced us to strange new worlds, with names like Yavin, Tatooine, Endor, and Ahch-To. These are all inspired by, and filmed in, beautiful and exotic earthbound locations (Bespin being a notable exception). After all, they are just movies. But time marches on, and the film shot at those locations is up to 45 years old now. What are those places like now? Unfortunately, some have had a pretty dismal time coping with the fame brought by an appearance in Star Wars, with fans traveling there as if they were on a pilgrimage. But that's not the only problem.

Ahch-To is suffering from too many tourists, partially because of its Star Wars fame. Mustafar, being geologically active, is in danger of sliding into the sea. Tatooine has seen some terrorists move in. Yavin was damaged by partiers. And the forest moon of Endor is no more, a victim of industry. Read where all these places are and what's happened to them since their Star Wars appearances, at Cracked.

The guy from The Action Lab (previously at Neatorama) cuts his hand with a plastic butter knife and manages to draw blood. Or does he? This is the magic of chemicals. He's got different chemicals on each side of the knife, and they combine when he presses it against his hand. The combination of ferrochloride and potassium thiocyanite makes the blood, and then the addition of sodium fluoride makes it all turn transparent again. You might think this is genius way to do fake blood for a movie scene, but honestly, the cost of the chemicals is probably much more than what you'd pay for professional fake blood packets. But hey, it might be worth it to impress your kids someday. -via reddit

One peculiarity of the US Army is the naming of military bases after generals who actually fought against the United States. But that is coming to an end. A commission, called the Naming Commission, was tasked with coming up with new names for nine posts: Fort Benning, Fort Gordon, Fort Bragg, Fort Hood, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Pickett, and Fort Lee. The commission is made up of eight retired officers and historians. The new names are taken from war heroes and barrier breakers, except for Fort Bragg, which will be renamed Fort Liberty. The new names are:

Fort Moore, after Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore. Hal Moore co-wrote the book We Were Soldiers Once, and Young, about his experiences in Vietnam. Julia Moore helped create a casualty notification team.

Fort Walker, after Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War surgeon and spy and the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.

Fort Cavazos, after Gen. Richard Cavazos, the Army’s first Hispanic four-star general. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in Both Korea and Vietnam.

Fort Gregg-Adams will be named for Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams, who both rose through the ranks to become military supervisors during World War II, despite the segregation of the military at the time.

Fort Barfoot, after Tech. Sgt. Van Barfoot, Medal of Honor recipient for his actions in World War II.  

Fort Johnson, after Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a member of the Harlem Hellfighters in World War I. His heroic actions were recognized by the French, but he was not honored by the US until long after his death. Johnson received the Medal of Honor posthumously in 2015.

Fort Novosel, for pilot Michael Novosel, Medal of Honor recipient for his actions in the Vietnam War with the US Army, after serving in World War II and Korea with the Air Force.  

Fort Eisenhower, after Dwight D. Eisenhower, who led Allied forces in World War II and served as president of the United States.

Read more about each of these namesakes at Task and Purpose. Then you'll want to go to Wikipedia and read even more about them. -via Metafilter

Humans were busy killing each other many thousands of years ago, before they had the ability to leave written records about it. How do we know this? Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of warfare all over the world. It's all in how you read the clues. For example, a burial ground in the Nile Valley in Sudan dating back 13,500 years shows that burials were spread out over time, but of 61 bodies examined, 45% show evidence of violence by other humans. This indicates an ongoing struggle, possibly for dwindling resources. In Germany, several hundred were left unburied in one spot around 1200 BCE. Isotope analysis shows that many of them had traveled from elsewhere to do battle. In Australia’s Northern Territory, 10,000-year-old cave paintings depict people fighting each other. In Syria, actual weapons were found, clay pellets shot from slings that could pierce walls, dated to 3500 BCE. Read a roundup of ten prehistoric battle sites from all over the world, and what they tell us about ancient warfare at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Flickr user Jon Connell)

Americans know Pinocchio, the wooden boy, mainly as a cute character in a Disney movie. Students in college literature classes are surprised to learn how rich and complex the original version is, and how very Italian it is. Carlo Collodi first wrote Pinocchio as a series of magazine stories beginning in 1881. In his version, the tale begins with a block of wood that talks, and becomes a puppet in the hands of a poor woodcarver who dreams of making some money with a carved puppet that talks. Pinocchio himself is less of a cute, naive kid and more of a brat who gets into trouble constantly.

Collodi imbued his story with plenty of political satire, poking fun at the rich and powerful and warning the common folks of their evil intentions. The author spent his younger years fighting to unite Italy into a single nation, and his later years promoting education for the masses amid a push for literacy in the country. Pinocchio suffers massively for his contrary ways- he was burned, hanged, thrown into the ocean, and jailed during the series. Once he was actually killed, but was brought back by magic due to popular demand. Eventually Pinocchio learns to buckle down and become a good student, but he also learned some street smarts along the way.

Smithsonian takes us to the village of Collodi, which Carlo Lorenzini used as his pen name, to see the influences the environment had on the birth of Pinocchio, and what the delinquent puppet means to the village today.

The Sony film Morbius, based on the Marvel comic book, had such an intriguing premise, but the execution was dismal. A scientist/doctor conducts experiments, hoping to cure his own blood disease and in the process turns himself into a reluctant vampire. How could that go wrong? According to Screen Junkies, the movie is a confusing mess because they cut so much out of it that would have explained what we are watching. What's left are action scenes highlighting special effects that aren't all that good. While the film opened well and made a profit, the audience dropped steeply after its first weekend. The critics lauded Jared Leto's performance in the title role, but conceded that the plot was a confusing mess. Morbius has a score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's a pity, because that story could have made a deeply thoughtful film in the right hands.   

「どうやら自分がどんなに暴れても、この物体の針が ┛（9時）にならなければゴハンは出てこない」という法則に気付いたネッコ。
人類が成し得なかった「時を早める」という禁忌に挑戦し、そして散りました。 pic.twitter.com/qL8rDMtqWG

— ミカサにゃんの飼い主 (@MikasaLove611) May 16, 2022

What's going on here? The cat is pawing at the clock, which seems innocent enough. But his human, Japanese Twitter user @MikasaLove611, insists his intentions are nefarious.

The cat has learned that the human does not present food until it is 9 o'clock. The clock must have a particular appearance for the human to provide food.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. By altering the appearance of the clock, the cat can move forward to 9 o'clock, or at least convince the human that it is now feeding time.

Time Cat could use his powers to be a superhero. But Time Cat is a cat and is thus unconcerned with the affairs of humans who are not directly involved with feeding him.

-via Super Punch

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A post shared by nm (@nicolemclaughlin)

Artist Nicole McLaughlin jokingly suggests that you "take a picture it'll last longer." She's famous for repurposing old objects as articles of clothing, leading to unusual combinations, such as the tennis ball hat, the croissant bra, a volleyball purse, and the Oreo slipper.

Her latest creation gets us ready for the summer heat with a bikini made from Canon camera cases. The straps provide all of the elastic flexibility that you need if you haven't gotten beach body ready yet. The built-in pockets are no doubt helpful, as one still needs to carry sunscreen, keys, and money while on the beach.