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John Locke's Pancake Recipe

I think that it's fair to say that John Locke (1632-1704) is better known for his contributions to philosophy than to the culinary arts. This English Enlightenment philosopher is famous in modern times for advancing liberal* politics and an empiricist approach to epistemology.

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A Parade for One

Dave Larson loves his dad. Orville Larson of Rosholt, Wisconsin, is 90 years old and in hospice care. Dave posted an invitation at a community Facebook group for people to come by and give his dad an experience he'd really appreciate.

He had a love of old cars and motorcycles. In his younger years he raced motorcycles and has many trophies.  Him and his late wife, Mona, traveled all over the States on a bike even. We were wondering if we could get some riders together to meet this coming Sunday downtown Rosholt at 3 pm this Sunday July 31st and go past his place in town slowly. We will have him up and sitting at the end of his driveway for him to watch.  Please help us make this a great day for our Dad. Ha also loves old cars, so if you have one please feel free to join in.

Larson expected maybe 20 people to come by, but almost 400 vintage motorcycles and cars showed up!




Orville Larson was very moved by the parade, and even got to ride in a sidecar before it was over. A good time was had by all. -via Fark

(Image credit: Dave Larson)


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Guard Cat Prevents Burglary

Bandit lives with her human, Fred Everitt, in Tupelo, Mississippi. At about 2:30 AM on July 25, Bandit began loudly meowing in the kitchen. Then she ran to Everitt's bed, pulled the comforter off of him, and clawed at his arms.

Everitt woke up to investigate what was going wrong. That's when he saw two men just outside his back door. One had a handgun and the other had a crowbar. Everitt immediately retrieved his own gun. By the time he returned to the door, the two men had fled.

Bandit, despite her name, demonstrated a deep aversion to thievery and loyalty to her human. Everitt attributes his safety to her quick thinking.


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How to Build a Child-Friendly Flamethrower

In my home, we have a whiteboard that we use as a running shopping list. One of my daughters occasionally writes "flamethrower" on it as a joke (I think). I've never gotten her one because they're horrifically expensive, but now I may have an option courtesty of Action Movie Dad.

Daniel Hashimoto is a highly skilled digital effects artist. He uses his abilities to place his own children in tense, action-packed movie scenes. He also adds raptors to movies because raptors are always cool.

For his latest project, Hashimoto attached a tube of light, fire-colored fabric to a leafblower. The result is a flamethrower that the kids will enjoy without causing too much property damage.


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The Cheese Zombie -- A Sandwich Invented in a School Cafeteria

Gastro Obscura introduces us to the Cheese Zombie, which is a sandwich native to Yakima, Washington. The origin story, according to a 2013 article in the Yakima Herald-Republic, is that a cook at a local public school cafteria invented it in the late 1950s.

Which cook created the sandwich depends on who you talk to, as there are multiple claimants to the honor. But all of the stories say that a school received a huge excess of government-provided cheese. It was too much cheese to use productively in the normal menu, so the cook invented what would become known as the Cheese Zombie.

To make a batch of Cheese Zombies, lay out slices of cheese between two sheets of dough, then slice into individual squares. Brush the top with melted butter and then bake.

The result was so delicious that schools and restaurants in Yakima continue to make it to this day. It's especially popular to eat Cheese Zombies on Halloween for reasons that remain a mystery to me. Perhaps it's because of the spooky name.


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A Train Runs Through This Soccer Stadium

The Čierny Hron Railway is a historical railway that operated between 1908 and 1982 in Slovakia. It was originally built to support logging operations in the Carpathian Mountains but was later provided passenger service. In 1992, it was reopened for tourists who want to experience a bygone age of rail travel.

Modern passengers get to experience a slow, scenic ride through a forest and, if they time the ride carefully, a quick view of a soccer match. That's because a soccer stadium was built around the original line and the train passes through it.

As you can see, the players don't stop just because there's a train on the field.

-via Art Nouveau Deco


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The Hungarian Angel Makers

The small, quiet, Hungarian village of Nagyrev had no doctor or clinic or even a midwife. In 1911, Zsuzsanna Fazekas arrived and offered midwife services, and so she became the village's only medical practitioner. No one knew much about her, but she ministered to the women of Nagyrev for years, and gained their trust. Fazekas listened to their problems with their husbands, and she knew how to perform abortions. In a time and place in which marriages were arranged and divorce was almost impossible, she could help the women of Nagyrev with a supply of arsenic.

Fazekas' reputation quietly spread until women from the surrounding villages began coming to seek her advice. When Fazekas' activities came to the attention of authorities in 1929, the extent of her crimes was astonishing. There may have been as many as 300 deaths. Read about Zsuzsanna Fazekas and the Angel Makers of Nagyrev at Amusing Planet.


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Comparing Words in Four Germanic Languages

Four native speakers allow us to compare words in English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans, all languages that descended from old German. Yes, Afrikaans is an offshoot of Dutch, but it's still in the same family. The words are very similar, but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to follow a string of them in conversation outside of a language you know. It seems to me that English is the outlier in these words, but that may be because I am a native English speaker and do not know any of the other languages. Or it may be because English has incorporated so many words from other language families. As it is, the biggest complaint about this video is the use of an American flag for the English language. Do you think they should have used the Canadian flag or the New Zealand flag? The speaker is definitely American. -via reddit


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Food for Humans, from Fancy Feast



Fancy Feast canned cat food is like crack for cats. It has taught my cats how to tell time. And now Fancy Feast wants us humans to experience the joy its products give our feline friends. The cat food company is teaming up with New York City trattoria Gatto Bianco to serve a special Fancy Feast-inspired dinner for two nights. To people. But only a few people, as the trattoria only has four tables, and only eight couples will be served on August 11 and 12. The promotion is to introduce the company's new line of cat food flavors called "Medleys."   

But since the restaurant is so limited, Fancy Feast has released the recipes for the dinner for everyone to try at home. The options are salmon and vegetables, beef short ribs and mashed potatoes, and two desserts. The recipes were developed by Fancy Feast's in-house chef Amanda Hassner and restaurateur Casare Casella. Spoiler: cat food will not be found among the ingredients in these recipes. -via Metafilter


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The Accidental Carbonated Geyser



Well, whaddaya know, Tom Scott is in the United States, which means a lot more videos to come that will feature some Neatoramanaut's home town. He sends us a report of a strange geyser in Soda Springs, Idaho. It's not a natural geyser, but an accidental side effect of drilling a well to supply a city pool. And it shoots seltzer water into the air! I guess you've have to expect that kind of thing in a town named Soda Springs, which sits on top of a reservoir of carbonated water. No one there feels the need to buy a SodaStream. At any rate, the geyser at Soda Springs erupts more regularly than Old Faithful, but that's not natural, either. The story of Soda Springs is a strange tale of a natural wonder regulated by human intervention.

As an aside, there's a shot at one minute into the video of some buildings, and one building in the middle has an extention that looks like a cartoon chicken to me. Can you see it? Or is that just me?


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Conjoined Twins with Fused Brains Successfully Separated

Bernardo and Arthur Lima are three-year-old craniopagus conjoined twins, meaning they were joined at their heads. They have never been able to stand, walk, or look directly at each other until now. The Brazilian boys have been completely separated after a 27-hour operation headed by surgeon Noor ul Owase Jeelani and assisted by a team of nearly 100 people, including surgeons from the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London via virtual reality. Bernardo and Arthur have been living at Instituto Estadual do Cerebro Paulo Niemeyer for more than two years preparing for separation, and surgeons have been practicing by virtual reality.

The Lima twins are now the oldest twins with fused brains to have ever been successfully separated. That they survived the surgery is remarkable, but their heart rates and blood pressure surged after the operation, and only returned to normal when the boys were reunited with each other days later. They are now recovering together, and face at least six months of medical therapy. Read more about this case at BBC Tech.


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The World War II Airdropped Minibike

During World War II, Britain wanted to ensure that its special forces troops who parachuted behind enemy lines had the ability to travel quickly away from the drop zones and to their mission destinations. In The Famous James Military Lightweight, motorcycle historian Peter Miller explains that the folded-up Welbike motorcycle had to fit inside a 15-inch wide drop container and weigh only 70 pounds. A trained soldier could get it working within 11 seconds.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was eventually dissatisifed with the utility of the Welbike, but it soon became popular with airborne troops and saw use during Operation Market Garden in 1944. Various British firms produced 3,853 Welbikes. One is on display at the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.


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Hootie & the Blowfish Play a BBQ Restaurant



Jonathan Dickerson shared a VHS home movie of his family's bluegrass band playing at a restaurant in Houston more than a quarter century ago. On one particular night, some strangers from the audience were invited to perform for the crowd. Dickerson told the story when he posted the video to reddit.

This was 1994 or 1995 at a place called Hickory Hollow Bbq in Houston, TX. Tootsie was the lead singer/string bass and throughout the night she noticed a group of guys that seemed to really be into the show. She guessed they were musicians and invited them up, having no idea who they were. Even when Dean Felber (I think?) told her they were Hootie and the Blowfish it meant nothing to her or to anyone there except maybe one or two in the audience.

Fast forward a week or so later. My aunt, uncle, and cousin came home for a visit. We were all sitting around my grandparents' house when they put this tape in the VCR. I grew up around bluegrass, old country, and folk music. Practically everyone in the family is musical, something us kids took for granted. So when the video started we rolled our eyes and made fun of their flame outfits. Everyone else mostly talked over it when suddenly there's that unmistakable voice of Darius Rucker (who we all assumed was named Hootie at the time).

This was a time when you couldn't go anywhere without hearing them and it blew my mind that my uncle and cousin didn't understand how big this band was. It's not that we were fans, but we certainly knew them and probably had their songs memorized just from them getting constant airplay. My cousin is the goofy one who backs them up with the mandolin. If I remember correctly, he felt they weren't getting a good reception at first so he thought he'd help them out. My uncle is the one who loans his guitar to Darius.

That's about it. I'd nearly forgotten about it but was at my parents this weekend digitizing some of their old home movies and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

Yeah, a brush with fame like that is way more interesting when it's almost purely accidental. Rucker and Felber were just having supper before performing at another Houston venue. It also says something about the fleetingness of fame that some of the commenters at reddit are too young to know who Hootie & the Blowfish are.   -via reddit


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An Autonomous Snack Car is Making Its Rounds

It's the convergence of three modern innovations: self-driving vehicles, temperature-controlled vending machines, and food delivery. Kyocera Communication Systems has launched an automated snack vending vehicle in Chiba City, Japan. The small automobile carries neither driver nor passengers, but machines full of hot and cold beverages and snacks such as candy and gelatin through the city that already loves the convenience of vending machines. So far, it is moving during business hours around shopping centers, office parks, and condominium complexes in Chiba City, ready to take your money via smartphone. The vending machine on wheels travels at nine miles an hour, and does not yet have a specified schedule, because you never know when a large crowd of people will want to get something to drink, and the little robot car will have to go restock. Read more about the innovative vending car and see more pictures at SoraNews24.  -via Fark


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RIP Nichelle Nichols

Trailblazing actress Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed communications officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek, passed away Saturday of natural causes.

When “Star Trek” began in 1966, Nichols was a television rarity: a Black woman in a notable role on a prime-time television series. There had been African-American women on TV before, but they often played domestic workers and had small roles; Nichols’ Uhura was an integral part of the multicultural “Star Trek” crew.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called it “the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black woman in television history.”

In fact, it was King who convinced Nichols of the importance of her work on Star Trek. Nichols also broke ground for television's first scripted interracial kiss. After Star Trek, Nichols worked for NASA to recruit women and minorities as astronauts, engineers, and administrators.

Nichelle Nichols was 89.


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