1/ Here is how the abomination that is the AT-ST came about. Spoiler alert, it comes down to compromises & mission creep.

"Initial Requirement: We need a small dropship deliverable armored sentry tower (ST) for forward operating bases with space for 4 sentries"

An early sketch: https://t.co/T4FRTI8hd0 pic.twitter.com/3oSp7xoCQS

— Jake Chapman 🇺🇸🚀 ✨🇺🇸 (@vc) December 8, 2022

The Pentagon Wars is a comedy film made in 1998 about the long and bizarre development of the US military's Bradley Fighting Vehicle. This long scene from the film summarizes the long design process of this combat vehicle ran hugely over-budget and failed to accomplish its central purpose:

The organizational culture of the Department of the Defense during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s as the Bradley moved from the drawing board to the battlefield is not unique. Jack Chapman explains in a long Twitter thread that the Galactic Empire, in its final years, demonstrated a similar paralysis of leadership that led to the invention of the AT-ST--a combat vehicle that was so inept that even Ewoks armed with Stone Age technology could defeat them.

-via Debby Witt

The office of the US presidency comes with a salary of $400,000 a year and some nice benefits, but that is far less than these accomplished folks could make in the private sector. We also know that running for office can really drain one's finances, as some congresspeople learn along the way. It's much easier to start out rich.  

In the early days of the US, a man did not become prominent among the Founding Fathers unless he had land and wealth. However, most of the wealth they had came from inherited land and by marrying up. In the middle part of our string of presidents, some initially poor men rose to the presidency. They amassed small fortunes by their work as lawyers, which paid well even when expenses were relatively low. In the more modern era, presidents could be rich or not all that rich going into office, but they will make tons of money in book deals and speaking engagements either before or after their term in office.

Buzzfeed made a list of the net worth of all 46 US presidents, and tells us where that money came from. The amounts are all converted to 2022 dollars for the ease of comparison.

(Image cedit: Pete Souza)

A throwaway pickup line goes completely off the rails in this video from Viva La Dirt League. She works in a video game store; he assumes she's into video games. So he tries a cheesy pickup line from a video game world. She doesn't seem the least bit interested, but her snappy comeback forces him into creative mode. His epic story stays true to canon even though he's making it up as he goes along. She soon determines that he is a genuine fantasy video game aficionado instead of a poser, and he's fast on his feet. But is that enough? Is she even attracted to genuine fantasy video game aficionados? His pride won't let him stop, or back down. If she doesn't find true love, at least she gets a great story. Notice that when it's all over, he still hasn't paid for his purchase.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

In 1950, Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters recorded the song "Mele Kalikimaka," which tells us about Christmas in Hawaii. The song instructs us to say the phrase as a Christmas greeting. The term first appeared in print in 1904, several years after the US annexed Hawaii. It grew in popularity as tourists from the mainland flooded into Hawaii for a tropical holiday. Hawaiians, then as now, were torn between welcoming those tourist dollars and mourning the loss of their kingdom. Today, some Hawaiians will sing along with the familiar Crosby song, while others hate the phrase. University of Hawaii linguistics professor Gary Holton tells us about Mele Kalikimaka.

So, what does it mean? “Nothing,” says Holton. “It’s basically gibberish.” Technically, it’s a borrowed phrase: a term in a foreign language, in this case English, transferred into Hawaiian using what linguists call the rules of phonotactics, or sounds available in that language, Holton explains.

Wikipedia breaks down how the term was coined.

The phrase is derived from English as follows:

Merry Christmas
    ↓ Every consonant must be followed by a vowel in Hawaiian. The T is removed, since it is already silent in English.
Mery Carisimasa
    ↓ C is not a letter in Hawaiian; the closest phonetic equivalent is K.
Mery Karisimasa
    ↓ R is not a letter in Hawaiian; it is equivalent to L. Y is replaced by E, the sound it already denotes in English.
Mele Kalisimasa
    ↓ S is not a letter in Hawaiian; the closest phonetic equivalent is K.
Mele Kalikimaka

Atlas Obscura has the story of Mele Kalikimaka, and a suggestion for a better way to say Merry Christmas in the Hawaiian language.

Some years ago, we introduced you to Whittier, an isolated town in Alaska in which almost all the population lives in one 14-story building, originally built as an army barracks. Margaret and Dom Varlamos were looking for a business opportunity in 1997, and found the Swiftwater Seafood Cafe for sale in Whittier, which in 2020 had a population of 272 people. The only way to reach Whittier was by boat, plane, or train. It couldn't be all that hard to feed a couple of hundred people, right? The Varlamos' freshly made fish and chips were a hit with the community. Then in 2000, the railroad tunnel was opened to automobile traffic, and tourists started to arrive. Word got around the state, and the cafe had lines out the door. This video tells their story, plus that of the town and what it's like to live with all your neighbors. -via Nag on the Lake

If you're not an angler, you might be surprised to see this kind of gruesome sign near fishing piers. When this one was posted at Reddit, it sparked a bunch of Three Stooges jokes. But a few folks helpfully explained why you need to poke the eyes out of a fish before throwing its dead body in the water.

An intact fish carcass will float. Even a fish that has been filleted will float when the head is intact. Poking the eyes out will release that buildup of gasses inside so the fish carcass will sink to the bottom. In the natural world, a dead fish will be consumed by other creatures pretty quick. One that floats will be food for birds, and one that sinks will be food for bottom feeders, like crabs. But in the natural world, a dead fish is in itself rare, as they more often are consumed before dying of other causes.

So this is only a problem when humans are involved, throwing away fish or partial fish they have caught. Floating fish either draw too many seagulls to populated areas, or else the floating decomposing fish cause a mighty stink. Now you know.

(Image credit: u/Bryllant)

When you flush a toilet, the violence of the water rushing through expels water droplets into the air that are so tiny we can't see them. But a new study from University of Colorado Boulder shines a light on the phenomenon- literally. Using laser lights and high-resolution cameras, they bring us a visualization of the kind of flush you get in a public toilet. This video involves a new toilet with only tap water in it.

The study found that these airborne particles shoot out quickly, at speeds of 6.6 feet (2 meters) per second, reaching 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above the toilet within 8 seconds. While the largest droplets tend to settle onto surfaces within seconds, the smaller particles (aerosols less than 5 microns, or one-millionth of a meter) can remain suspended in the air for minutes or longer.

These measurements came from the use of an optical particle counter. Toilets in most homes don't flush quite so powerfully, but they do expel particles. Closing the lid while flushing helps somewhat, but lids are rare in public toilets. And this is why I moved my toothbrushes inside a cabinet years ago. -via Boing Boing

Merle Oberon starred in many Hollywood films in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, and was the only Asian actress to have ever been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. But Hollywood didn't know she was Asian. Oberon was born in Bombay in 1911, when India was under British rule. When she broke into show business, Oberon let it be known that she was born in Australia to white parents and moved to India as a child. She wouldn't have been accepted as a leading lady if it were known she was mixed race (if you consider the British and Indians to be different races- this was really about color).

Oberon was an avid user of skin lightening creams, which contain what the FDA considers dangerous amounts of mercury. This could have contributed to her later skin and health problems. Oberon kept up the ruse about her origins almost all her life. She was invited to Hobart, Tasmania, and celebrated as a hometown girl, which caused her to almost have a breakdown. Even those closest to her didn't know she was born in India. They didn't know who her parents really were until after her death. It's possible that Oberon herself didn't know the full story. Read about Merle Oberon and the secrets she kept at Messy Nessy Chic.

The short documentary Dress a Cow takes us to the Canfield County Fair in Canfield, Ohio, where every year farmers bring their prettiest (and most patient) cow all gussied up to show off in the annual Dress a Cow competition. The cows are cleaned, groomed, and finally dressed in themed costumes for the big day. There are cows dressed as other animals, as Disney princesses, and as inanimate objects of some sort, leading one to think that maybe the selection of costume has something to do with the results. We don't really know, as the judges are just local judges, the kind that preside over courts. They have no particular expertise in the cow field. The judges and spectators are very appreciative of the contestants and their owners' efforts, because it's not easy to design a costume for a cow, much less dress one up! -via Nag on the Lake

In 1982, a Boeing 747 was being flown by British Airways from Kuala Lumpur to Perth on one leg of a London to Auckland flight. They were well over the ocean when strange things started happening. The passenger compartment started filling up with blue smoke, even though there was no fire detected on board. Then the crew started seeing bluish flickering lights. They recognized St. Elmo's fire, but had never seen it so strong.

Within two minutes, the situation suddenly went from strange to alarming as engine No.4 surged and flamed out. The crew immediately performed the engine shutdown drill, cutting off the fuel supply and arming the engine fire extinguishers just as they had been trained. But less than a minute later engine two also flamed out, followed almost immediately by engines one and three. The crew could scarcely believe it: all four engines had failed almost simultaneously – something which had never happened before on a 747. The mighty airliner, with 263 people aboard, had suddenly become the world’s biggest glider.

What the crew didn't know was that they had flown through a cloud of volcanic ash, thrown up by the erupting Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. Weather radar doesn't detect volcanic ash clouds. The ash did even more damage, as the plane's interior lost its pressure and the windshield became opaque. Should they drop to a lower altitude so they could breathe, or try to maintain altitude to make it to the nearest airport in Jakarta? How would they land if they can't see? Would they have to land a 747 on the water? Read the story of British Airways Flight 9 at Today I Found Out. 

50 years ago, the Apollo 17 astronauts captured an iconic Earth view of the “Blue Marble” as they set sights on the Moon. Today with #Artemis, this time-lapse footage showcases the Earth-Moon transit as @NASA_Orion captured our home planet and the Moon on flight day 13. https://t.co/H9oHsgiHfW pic.twitter.com/ZHIxYKnJy0

— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) December 7, 2022

When the moon comes between the sun and person looking at it, that's a solar eclipse. When the shadow of the earth blocks our view of the moon, that's a lunar eclipse. So when the moon blocks our view of the earth, would you call that a terran eclipse? Wait, how can the moon block our view of the earth? It happens when we send a camera to the other side of the moon, which is what NASA did with the Artemis 1 mission. On November 28th, while Artemis was looping around the moon, it set a record for the furthest spacecraft designed to carry humans (even though it wasn't carrying humans this time). That was 268,563 miles (432,210 kilometers). It broke the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. As for the eclipse pictured above, NASA calls it an "Earth-moon transit." I think terran eclipse is a better term, but that's just me.

Strangely, several commenters at YouTube called this video a fake because the moon is shown bigger than the earth, and we know that's not right. I wonder where they think the camera is? Read more about the accomplishments of the Artemis mission at Space.com. -via Damn Interesting

Here’s what we know about the Rosetta Stone: it’s a stone that is inscribed with a decree about all the good things Pharaoh Ptolemy V did for the priests and the people of Egypt. It’s also notable for the three different languages used to portray this message: Demotic, hieroglyphic, and Greek. 

That’s what all of us can say about it, whether it’s via a quick search on the Internet (which we are guilty of, it happens to the best of us, sometimes we don’t know the full details about this Stone except for languages) or stock knowledge. There are still things about the famous artifact that evade us, such as why was it built. Additionally, what does the stone actually say, word for word? 

Well, if you’re curious about that, Ilona Regulski has got you covered. Watch the curator of the Egyptian written culture at the British Museum in London as she walks viewers through the stone and its ‘decree’, issued during the Ptolemaic dynasty in 196 BCE here!

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Ever wondered where you can get all the sounds from the different aspects of life? Well, wonder no more with this unique collection!

Obsolete Sounds is an archive of sorts that is claimed by its creators as “the world’s biggest collection of obsolete and disappearing sounds,” contains over 150 different audio clips of rare and disappearing types. The collections houses rare clips from retro video games, recordings of old-fashioned transport, and plenty of mechanical sounds from outdated hardware.

Visitors to the online collection can find the classic Nokia ringtone from the 5120 model, the whirring of an old Seagate hard disk drive, the sound of an old 56K modem connecting to the Internet, and many, many other sounds. The high variety of odd sounds makes us question how did the creators of the library obtain all of these? 

According to the founder, Stuart Fowkes, they have collected sounds from over 1,000 artists in the world. That will certainly provide the library with such a wide range. Check out the Collection of Obsolete Sounds here.

Image screenshot via Obsolete Sounds

Space is a wide, vast nebula of different objects and phenomena that we might never uncover in our lifetime. Even if we develop our technology, again and again, there might be some things that we will never know about. 

The uncertainty of the unknown pushes experts to continue their explorations day by day. NASA, one of the most prominent astronomical organizations today, has consistently sent out different probes in various parts of space. One of them is on Mars. 

The rovers in the Red Planet have sent something interesting, though. Among the bricks of information and images, scientists have discovered a photo of an ancient “alien” statue. Scott C. Waring of UFO Sightings Daily discovered the artwork while zooming in on a large image released by NASA. He points out how one of the rocks looks like it isn’t a rock at all, but a statue with eyes, a nose, and a mouth. 

Take this with a grain of salt, of course, as there is no official statement concerning the matter. However, the CIA did once claim there were ancient civilizations on Mars. It’s best to look at the photo yourself and decide. Zoom into this large image where the sculpture is said to be, and let us know what you think!

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Well, this is certainly fascinating. On the surface, this incident just seems to be done by a woman who is crazy in love. 

A woman who lives in Brazil has defied all the odds of modern romance. Not only has she met, dated, and married a ragdoll that looks like someone’s mom DIY-ed them in just a few hours for a school project, but she also gave birth to their baby. 

You’ve read that right! A woman has delivered an equally ragdoll baby in an actual hospital, with an actual doctor overseeing the delivery. 

But the story actually starts when she brought home the doll and did a live stream on Facebook. Friends suggested naming the mysterious ragdoll boyfriend Marcelo, and that’s where it all started. 

The amount of people she pulled into this stunt is incredible. Her wedding day was grand and around 300 people showed up. Not only that, but she also got some free stuff from different corporations! 

Check out Kurtis Conner’s breakdown of the whole event in the video linked above. Personally, we believe it was a fun, harmless thing that everyone enjoyed. 

We’re definitely rooting for her, but we’re more curious as to how she was able to get the doctors on her side in pulling the birth of her ragdoll son!