Let’s be real for one second: Twitter is going through some things right now. After the turnover to Elon Musk, the application has been experiencing some downfalls. From errors to Musk trying to capitalize on every single thing that made the platform popular anyway, it’ll be no surprise if Twitter will be abandoned should Musk and the people at the top continue to make bad decisions for its users. 

Probably seeing Twitter’s downfall as an opportunity, other social media apps have been popping into existence, trying to be the next Twitter. Meta has put their own into the game, launching Threads. Pitched by the company as a “friendly” alternative to Musk’s platform. In response, the billionaire simply posted that "competition is fine, cheating is not." 

Threads look and function similarly to Twitter. According to BBC News technology reporter James Clayton, the news feed and the reposting were familiar. If Twitter plans to sue Meta over this particular aspect, then they would have a hard time making their suit successful. This is because US copyright law does not protect ideas. Twitter has to prove that its own intellectual property, such as programming code, was taken by Meta. 

It turns out that Twitter has plans of taking this issue to court. Semafor first reported that Alex Spiro, an attorney for the company, sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta. In the letter, Spiro accused Meta of  "systematic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" to create Threads. "Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information," the letter says. "Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice."

Image credit: EPA

Here's a mega-list of funny films that will certainly give you ideas for what to watch this weekend. It's supposedly a list of "the funniest movie the year you were born" but I don't see how that makes a movie special among great films. All the listed movies that I've seen are indeed worth the time, and I want to check out some of them that I haven't seen. The funniest comedy of each year was determined by ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, with later movies also factoring in box office. Bonus: trailers are included.

Your opinions may vary, for the designation of "funniest," and even the categorization. I saw The Graduate during its initial run, although its been a long time, and I never knew it was supposed to be a comedy. For most of the years represented, it's hard to complain when you can't think of what other movies came out that year, but in 1987 I have to argue that Raising Arizona was much funnier than Moonstruck, which I also didn't realize was a comedy.

Check out all 73 films, one for each year from 1950 to last year, at Mental Floss.

What if you staged a robbery and no one cared? A man tried to rob a nail salon in Buckhead, Georgia, near Atlanta. But no one paid any attention to him as he demanded money. The guy behind the counter was on the phone, and the waiting customers just ignored him. What did he expect? It's a nail salon; they probably didn't have much cash, since people pay with credit cards, and there's no expensive merchandise to take. He obviously had no weapon, even though he held his hand in a bag like he was trying to fool them into thinking he might have. The guy managed to grab one woman's phone as she left, but since he was getting nowhere, he just gave up and walked out. Police are asking the public if they can help identify the suspect, but if they catch him, you can imagine the giggles when the jury is shown the security footage.  -via Boing Boing

They’re not poisonous, and their meat has been used in different kinds of dishes all over the world. The discussion has less to do with their edibility and more with their brains. The question on our minds is whether or not it is ethical to eat these eight-legged cephalopods. This is because they are known to be highly-intelligent sea animals, and just like us, have wildly varying personalities from individual to individual. 

According to marine biologist Dr. David Scheel, not really. The Alaska Pacific University has been studying these animals for over two decades, and if there is someone who knows these cephalopods well, it’s him. 

Dr. Scheel finds them more interesting alive than being a delicacy. However, he prefers it if people eat octopuses not because they are an exotic or weird treat they’ve never had before.  It’s not their uniqueness that should make eating them questionable, but what kind of relationship people had with these animals before they chose them for their next meal.

“So the biggest concern for me is the kinds of things that we do to the animals that we raise for food,” he tells Salon in an interview. “If you're getting your food out of the wild, that's the beginning of the interaction in a way, right? Whereas if you're getting your food from farmers who raised them, then the interaction has been going on since that animal was born.” 

Read more about his interview with Salon here. 

Image credit: Pia B

This parental duo was strolling in Victoria, Australia when they stumbled upon a rare sight under a tree. The father and daughter spotted an unusual gathering of red-bellied black snakes at the base of the large hollow tree. 

The two counted at least 12 of these deadly snakes. The animals also varied in size, ranging from 20 centimeters to around 1.3 meters. The walkers believed that there is a possibility that there were many smaller ones hidden from their sight at that time. A video of the larger snakes basking in the sun under the tree was posted on Facebook as well. 

According to Kane Durrant, an ecologist at Wild Conservation, these snakes are gathered at the base of the tree not because they are mating, but because they are sharing a communal den over the winter months.“Snakes don’t go to sleep for the whole winter, they will come out periodically and bask in the sun, and also move around just to have a drink here and there,” Durrant told Yahoo! News Australia. “But usually they don’t venture very far from their den or from their hideout that they’ve found.

Image via Yahoo! News

It’s definitely saying hello to the world. Also, impressive marketing stunt!

The MSG Sphere in Las Vegas lit up for a few minutes, flashing cascading red and yellow lights with the message “Hello World” on the LED screen. Designed by Populous, the Madison Square Garden Sphere is a $2.3 billion project expected to be the world’s largest spherical structure once it opens in September. 

The structure is set to contain the world’s highest and most prominent LED screen, measuring 19,000 x 13,500 pixels. Set to open in September, rock band U2 will open up its Las Vegas residency in the MSG Sphere, and will perform on September 29 and 30. But let’s talk about its short stunt. 

A video of the sphere went viral online on Twitter. This was when the building was first ever revealed to the public. At first glance, it looks like someone just dropped a mysterious gigantic orb in the middle of the desert paradise. To other onlookers, with how the messages and images flash on the screen, it seemed like a rotating ball of lava. Pretty cool, but also a bit baffling. “First animation of the MSG Sphere this morning,” one of the users commented. “This is going to be the coolest building in the world.”

The MSG Sphere will contain 18,000 seats and an HD screen that spans up to more than three football fields. We may be looking at the next concert venue for big artists in the years to come.

Image credit: Twitter / @MichelR3764150

It happens quite often that old legends and folk tales turn out to have a grain of truth behind them, even if the details get muddied over time. We also read just the other day how classic archaeology can be very destructive, as in ruining a 1,000-year-old structure to find the 2,000-year-old structure underneath it. But new technology is finding a way around that.

In southern Mexico, in the city of Oaxaca, the much older Zapotec city of Mitla lies in ruins. In 1674 a Catholic priest described a bygone temple there as having four chambers above ground and four below ground in which the dead were buried. One of the underground chambers had a sealed entrance to the underworld, called Lyobaa. Spanish missionaries considered this heretical, so in 1533 they destroyed the temple and built churches in its place. The churches are still there, making exploration of the area impossible until now.

A collaboration of scientific and government entities have employed non-invasive geophysical methods to explore what may be underneath, and have discovered underground voids that indicate the chambers may still exist. Read about the ancient city of Mitla and the Zapotec temples at Ars Technica.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Marco M. Vigato/ARX Project)

Ready for a brain teaser? In this puzzle from TED-Ed, you are the protagonist in a Back to the Future scenario. You have to go back in time to set some things right, but apparently you are not meant to get it right, because you from the future, uh, your future, is also there. This time travel paradox can be a bit confusing, but I think you can find your way out of it, at least theoretically. We really don't have time-traveling Deloreans. If you want to solve the puzzle on your own, stop the video at two minutes in. They will give you the answer and explain it thoroughly after that.

If you get confused, I have a clue, but only if you need it. Show clue

Every year, Duck brand duct tape awards scholarships to high school students who make their prom attire out of duct tape. There's a $10,000 scholarship at stake for the winner in both the dress and the tuxedo category in the Stuck at Prom contest, plus $500 goes to the four runners-up in each category. The 2023 contestants are in, and they've been winnowed down to the top five dresses and top five tuxedos. Now you can help decide who wins! See the finalists at this page. Click on the name to bring up their story and more pictures. Clicking on the image indicates a vote, but your selection can be changed up until you register your vote with the button on the bottom of the page. You can vote for one dress and one tuxedo every day until July 12. But what of the contestants that didn't make the top ten? You can see eleven pages of them in a gallery here.  -via Boing Boing

Presentacion espectacular. pic.twitter.com/WBkdBwtSDP

— Solo para Curiosos (@Solocuriosos_1) June 25, 2023

A domino shot is exactly what it sounds like- a series of cocktails made by arranging one ingredient to fall into another and also initiate the falling of the next cocktail. You can buy special glasses to do it. Adding pyrotechnics is just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Ideal Tafarshiku is a mixologist at Studio 1806 in Pristina, Kosovo. A master of theatrics, he recently mixed 151 domino shots in one graceful move. These weren't just falling glasses- these drinks involved dry ice and burning alcohol on the bar (hence the music). Too bad the falling cocktails outran the fire. It's still an impressive accomplishment, and must have taken hours to set up. A few people pointed out that there are way more drinks made here than there are people in the bar, but it was done for the 'gram, and if it were a busy time of day, they would have never been able to set these up all the way around the oblong bar. The original video is here.  -Thanks, WTM!

.@Outkast #HeyYa in the weather! #outkast #andre3000 @BigBoi pic.twitter.com/JIFbpRyJua

— Adam Krueger 💯 (@AdamKrueger) June 6, 2023

Adam Krueger is a television meteorologist in Houston, Texas. The common joke in Houston is "If you don't like the weather, just wait a moment." The weather is always volatile, except for the constant heat. Krueger thus has a lot to say while reporting from CW 39 News.

He has a lof fun on the job and his novel presenting style encourages many Houstonians to pay attention to his reports. Krueger finds ways to work song lyrics into his broadcasts. Embedded above is, for example, is "Hey Ya!" by Outkast.

On his Instagram page, you can find similar reports with "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars, "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, and "Bust a Move" by Young MC.

Theodore Roosevelt never knew what to do with his daughter Alice. On February 14, 1884, Roosevelt's mother died just hours before his beloved wife Alice died. He could not face raising the daughter she had borne two days earlier, nor could he bring himself to speak her name, which was the same as her mother's. Baby Alice was sent to live with her aunt, and only became part of the family when Teddy remarried and then had five more children. But Alice was always the odd one out, never getting along with her stepmother and always rebelling.

As a teenager in the White House after Roosevelt became president, Alice continued her contrary ways, by interrupting presidential meetings, drinking, driving around with boys, and smoking on the roof. She became a media star when her debutante ball was held at the White House, and the papers began following her every move. She was called everything from a guttersnipe to a princess, but she refused to conform to expectations. President Roosevelt thought he had the problem of Alice figured out when he began sending her overseas as an informal diplomat, but instead of keeping her out of the national headlines, her foreign antics continued to draw the press. Read the story of the First Daughter who refused to play the part at Messy Nessy Chic.    

(Image credit: Théobald Chartran)

Any time I've admitted that I like the smell of gasoline, the reaction from people around me makes me less likely to ever admit it again. I don't seek it out, and I certainly don't sniff it, because that just always seemed dangerous. But I think I agree with the reasons SciShow gives for my long time enjoyment of that smell. And those other folks? Well, gasoline doesn't smell the same to everyone. If it smelled like fish to me, I would probably feel differently. This video is a mere 2:45 long; the rest is an ad.

Embed from Getty Images

"It belongs in a museum!" But does it, really? That's one of the questions modern archaeologists confront when they study ancient artifacts. The world's most famous fictional archaeologist, Indiana Jones, has his newest and confirmed last movie in theaters, which brings up the question again- how accurate are these moves to archaeology? Each of the Indiana Jones films has led real archaeologists to decry the simplification of their painstaking research and the depiction of magical powers in ancient artifacts, but Bulgarian archaeologist Petar Parvanov writes about the facets of archaeology that the Indiana Jones films get right.

First, the movies point out in a spectacular way how destructive archaeology can be. They also highlight how cultural artifacts have been used for political purposes. And there's the question of what really belongs in a museum, and who gets to decide who those cultural or even sacred artifacts really belong to. Parvanov has examples from the movies and from real life archaeology that illustrate each of these ethical questions about studying mankind's history. -via Smithsonian

Apparently, he saves up more through this method!

Bill, a graduate student from the University of California, has shared his story on a viral Reddit post claiming he survived living in Los Angeles and commuting to Berkeley University in California. "I knew I would go back to LA after graduation because I want to go back to my previous employer once I graduate," he said in a viral Reddit post titled ‘I survived living in LA and commuting to Cal by plane over the past academic year to save on rent, AMA.’

He noticed that the student housing near his university was worth $1,600 per month (without the utilities), and should he rent there, he would be required to stay for twelve months even though his program only lasts for ten. He believed he didn’t need to stay close, as his course didn’t require him to be on-site every day. 

He further explained that he purchased his tickets months in advance, and he can cancel flights the night before if his schedule changed because he has elite status with airlines Alaska and Southwest. “This is probably one of the craziest (things) I've done in my life," he said. "And I'm so glad I made it through, without missing ANY classes, that itself is a miracle."

Image credit: Vincent Lebis