YouTuber Walking Bass Piano Man is a master of the jazz piano, as demonstrated by numerous jazz renditions of popular songs, including the works of Bon Jovi, Ben E. King, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
In this video, they take the iconic opening theme to Sesame Street and play it over and over again, incrementally jazzing it up. Starting at level 1, it's not that different from what you'd see on television. But by the time that Walking Bass Piano Man gets to level 8, it's a jumping melody that flies across the keyboard faster than it seems two hands can manage.
Way before electricity, city officials saw the benefit to lighting up the street so that people could find their way around. When electricity was in its infancy, some towns took the easy way- instead of replacing hundreds of gas lamps, why not just built one tower, or several for bigger cities, and make them very tall? Electricity produced enough light for people to get around, even from a very tall tower. As far as the electrical mechanism goes, they were primitive, but they worked. Eventually, cheaper, safer, and more efficient electric streetlights were developed, and these "moonlight towers" were replaced. Except in Austin, Texas. Austin decided to keep the towers as part of the city's personality, although they have been restored and rebuilt. The city still has 29 of their original 31 towers. Tom Scott gives us a rundown on the towers, how they worked, and what they look like today.
The UK Biobank study is a long-running study of 467,354 people in the United Kingdom who have been documenting their eating habits, among other data, since 2006. A new study took data from that large population and studied those who changed their eating habits at different ages, particularly those who switched from processed foods to a healthier, more natural diet.
The results showed that people who switched from unhealthy eating habits to healthier regimens added up to ten years to their lives. Those who had average diets to begin with showed gains as well, although they were lesser because those people were healthier to begin with. The age at which one began eating a healthy diet made a difference, but even people who began eating better in their seventies showed longevity gains of four to five years.
To many Americans, and later, to the rest of the world, the death of President John F. Kennedy was a big blow to the nation's morale. People had high hopes for the young president, and many expressed their support more than just at the polls. So, it came as a surprise when he was suddenly shot right in front of the public.
The letter expressed his mother's grief over the situation. It's a short letter, only four paragraphs long, but Weir felt what his mother must have been going through while she was writing the letter, as he read it, with tears in his eyes, for the first time, in front of WMUR 9's camera crew.
The letter reads:
"Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.
Dear Weir,
As you are sleeping now in your crib upstairs, you are too young to realize that a great tragedy has taken place in our United States of America.
The President of these United States, John F. Kennedy, has been assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
You will one day read about this in your history book. Know that he has been, we feel, a good, honest, and devoted young president. He has been energetic and tireless in his quest for lasting world peace.
What a pity that one of his own people should take it upon himself to destroy this vital man.
Lovingly, your mom and dad"
(Image credit: Weir Lundstedt/WMUR, public domain)
Having these anatomical features actually causes them pain and suffering such as difficulty breathing and eating which could lead to more serious conditions like overheating or cardiovascular stress. The British Veterinary Association has issued several statements expressing their concern over the popularity of these breeds, and they urged people to reconsider a different breed or a crossbreed instead.
Although there's some debate on whether mixed breeds are healthier than pure breeds, data from a study has shown that out of 24 genetic disorders, there is a higher incidence of 10 genetic disorders in pure breeds than in mixed breeds with only one disorder being higher in mixed breeds. The rest are equally distributed.
In fact, some of the more famous pets online actually had health problems. Lil Bub and Grumpy Cat both had genetic mutations that caused them to look funny, but in reality, they were going through some painful conditions. Lil Bub had osteoporosis and died of a bone infection, while Grumpy Cat had dwarfism and died from urinary tract infection.
Despite being the carriers of the deadliest diseases known to humans like ebola, SARS, MERS, and even some precursor of COVID-19, bats rarely get sick or even get cancer. This has become the subject of increased research interest for scientists, as bats may hold the key to how we can combat pandemics and possibly how to treat deadly human diseases as well as slow aging.
Scientists have now begun to receive heavy funding to research bats. From sequencing their genomes to studying their immune systems, many researchers have turned to bat biology for possible answers to pandemics, and possibly cancer although many say it will still be a long time before a cure for cancer or COVID-19 can be found in bats.
Although still in its infancy, research into bat biology has had a breakthrough when Dr. Thomas Zwaka, a stem cell researcher was able to turn bat tissue into pluripotent stem cells, which means they are capable of transforming into other kinds of cells.
Of course, the ethical decision would be to exhaust all other options that don't sacrifice human life, at least from a humane standpoint. However, the question is whether one is willing to risk letting the whole crew die and failing the mission or sacrificing one's life for the sake of the mission and their fellow astronauts' lives.
So far, not much has been published on this subject, but the Weinsersmiths did find a book written by Dr. Erik Seedhouse titled Survival and Sacrifice in Mars Exploration, which not only discussed the topic of astronaut cannibalism but also stated in detail how exactly to go about it.
Still, if we were to go by legal precedent, there was one case of four seafarers whose ship capsized, and after being stranded for more than a week on a dinghy without any sign of rescue, decided to kill the youngest and weakest member of their crew, in order to survive. They were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
From bloodbaths and betrayals to incest and illegitimate children, the history of kings, queens, princes, and princesses have always been fraught with spicy controversies which we, commoners, find both shocking and intriguing. The idea that the royals are the paragon of class, elegance, stature, and proper conduct no longer holds true, if it ever did. Much to our consternation, they are humans just like us, and equally susceptible to the foibles of ordinary human life.
Still, we hold them in high regard, if only as the symbols of what once was and the ideals that they should represent. However, in time, all things that have been hidden from public view come out, but unlike our bag of bones, theirs are just weightier being the figurehead of their nations as well as constantly being under the scrutiny of the public.
Although much talk has come about the British royal family, with Prince Harry and Meghan's self-exile and more recently, a bit of a spat between Prince William and his father, King Charles III, there are more scandalous royals throughout the world. There's Prince Frederik of Denmark's supposed affair with Genoveva Casanova, the dubious financial affairs of King Juan Carlos of Spain, the philandering exploits of Prince Albert of Monaco, and the familicide of Prince Dipendra of Nepal because of his family's objection to a marriage with an Indian princess.
The process by which Merriam-Webster's team of lexicographers choose the word of the year is simple. They look at how many hits and searches words receive, and among the words in the pool, they pick the one that represents the zeitgeist for that year. Last year, it was "gaslighting". And perhaps, it's no surprise then, that the word of the year for 2023 is "authentic".
In choosing the word, Merriam-Webster removes certain words that constantly get looked up like "love" and "affect". They also filter out words which people playing word games search in the dictionary from time to time. What they look at are unusual spikes in searches for certain words such as "EGOT" after Viola Davis' unofficial induction into the club, when she won a Grammy, or "X" when Elon Musk had changed Twitter's name in July.
This year, the rationale behind "authentic" was not from a particular event, but rather due to the continued and constant interest people have placed on the word. Perhaps, the pervasiveness of AI these days may have contributed to people's curiosity for what it means to be "authentic". Maybe the fact that we are constantly inundated with false information and fabricated facts online and even in the real world, provided impetus for lookups of the word.
One evidence as to the extent of our search and need for "authenticity" may be reflected by some other runners-up for word of the year which include "doppelganger" and "deepfake", which was also quite prevalent last year.
No matter what reason people may have in searching for the meaning of the word "authentic", this might just be a message that we, as a whole, are either lacking in authenticity or trying to be more so but are falling short.
Twin brothers Pat and Sean Kelly are musicians and DJs for private events in Philadelphia. When you mix music on the fly, you get a feeling for what works together, and an awful lot of songs work together. You know sometimes you get a song stuck in your head, and it reminds you of another song that uses the same chord progression, and then that song is stuck in there as well. Take this to the limit and you've got magic, especially if you've got a brother to sing with. They call this medley "My Brain at 3:59am – A Mashup." Twenty songs in one minute, divided by two singers, means each song gets about six seconds, but that's long enough for you to know what song it is, and now you've got an entire mashup stuck in your head. If you hear any songs you don't know, there's a list of them at Boing Boing.
Futility Closet tells the true tale of four men who went adrift in the Pacific for 49 days in 1960. Soviet barge T-36 originated in the Kuril Archipelago on the eastern end of the USSR. When a hurricane hit, the barge battled to avoid being thrown up on land. After the eye of the storm passed, the barge crew battled against being blown out to sea, and ran out of fuel doing so. The radio was ruined. A search was launched, but when some debris from the barge was found, Soviet officials declared the barge and crew had sunk.
The four sailors, ages 20-22, had a three-day supply of food and hardly any fresh water, so they were reduced to drinking the rusty water used for engine cooling and eating leather. They were picked up 49 days later by the US aircraft carrier Kearsarge, which was traveling from Japan to San Francisco. If this story intrigues you, you can read an expanded version with photographs at Wikipedia. -via Nag on the Lake
While Boston Dynamics keeps working on Atlas, their humanoid robot, and Spot, the quadruped that actually does real world jobs, Disney is concentrating on building robots for their entertainment value. Does it surprise anyone that they are the ones giving us real life droids? A few weeks ago, they took their new droids out for a test run at the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge theme park at Disneyland in California. These bipedal self-learning robots don't look all that useful for the real world, but they are impossibly adorable and are ready to show off their personalities, which is perfect for the immersive fantasy of Disneyland. They look like a cross between an AT-ST and Wall-E. See what else they can do.
Look for the souvenir toy version coming back from the theme parks soon, and in stores by next Christmas. Disney is also working on non-Star Wars free-roaming characters with soft, expressive faces for their other theme parks. -via Metafilter
Ellen Baxter of the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMA) has finished her hard work in restoring a 16th-century portrait of Isabella de Medici. She was the daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.
Her artwork was actually concealed beneath a 19th-century overpainting depicting what is assumed to be her mother. Baxter undertook a laborious process of restoring the years of damage through inpainting with tiny brushes. She also used pipettes of varnish and solvent. “You have to …tell her she’s going to look lovely,” she stated.
The conservator was brought into the project after Louise Lippincott, the CMA’s former curator of fine arts, ran across the work in the museum’s basement storage. Lippincott, who thought that the art was “awful” let Baxter look at it for her second opinion.
Baxter had a hunch that something wasn’t right, and an x-ray confirmed her initial read on the situation, which was extra layers of paint over the original artwork. After the confirmation, Baxter then proceeded to carefully strip the dirty varnish and other layers until the face of de Medici could be seen. “I’m not the artist. I’m the conservator,” she further explained.”It’s my job to repair damages and losses, to not put myself in the painting.”
We don’t want you to get arrested on your vacation!
France is a beautiful country filled to the brim with various cities and towns that you can enjoy, as well as lots of tourist attractions that will be a treat to the senses. But be careful– France is also notorious for its quirk laws that make visitors puzzled.
Did you know that the country has strict rules on what you can wear to public pools and beaches? If you want to take a dip in a public bathing area, the law requires you to wear specific items of clothing. To elaborate, men need to wear either un slip de bain (trunks) or un boxer (tight shorts) and in some areas, swimming caps.
Loose-fitting or baggy shorts are prohibited, as France considers it to be unhygienic. And before you come at us with pitchforks, this isn’t a new rule — it can be traced to date back to 1903. "Small, tight trunks can only be used for swimming. Bermudas or bigger swimming shorts can be worn elsewhere all day, so could bring in sand, dust or other matter, disturbing the water quality," Emmanuel Dormois, a head pool attendant in Paris' 11th arrondissement, told The Guardian.
Being a civilized, sensible, and well-informed people, the Japanese have an appreciation for Texas. Twitter user @chairmanwon, a hobbyist gunsmith from Texas, discovered this on his ongoing journey through Japan.
He reports that his hosts, upon learning that @chairmanwon and his wife were Texans, took them to a Texas-themed bar. Everyone there dresses like Texans (or how they imagine that we dress) and the bar itself looks like a Texan honky-tonk.
