This streamer spent two weeks building a giant Oreo in the hit sandbox video game Minecraft. The player, NomALlama built the structure with all the constraints of a survival run. He used up 46,727 blocks of concrete, and a lot of candles (to keep the mobs from spawning). As for his next masterpiece, the streamer explains that he is never doing that to himself again.
Image via PCGamesN
The song "Creep" by Radiohead is a classic, but as far as I know, it's never been done honky-tonk style. The YouTuber we know and love, There I Ruined It (previously at Neatorama), has fixed that with a performance by Tommy Yorke and the Radiohead Boys. While the cognitive dissonance might make you laugh, the music is actually quite good. And the best part is the video editing. You may or may not recognize the background singers, but the lip-synching is astonishing; it must have been a lot of work. Don't miss special appearance by Conway Twitty, Loretta Lyn, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, and some stars that don't sing. Go ahead and listen to it, the F-bomb is censored. -via reddit
Most of the industrial spills we hear about are dangerous because of traffic disruptions or the toxic nature of what was spilled. While floods are dangerous, industrial accidents rarely have enough liquid to drown anyone. But the London beer flood of 1814 not only drowned people, the biggest danger was the sheer explosiveness of the brewery's failure.
The Horse Shoe Brewery was one of London's biggest. It participated in a game of one-upmanship to see who could boast the largest beer fermentation vats. These ever-bigger vats were made of wood held together by iron hoops. The Horse Shoe Brewery's biggest vat held 18,000 barrels of beer. When it suddenly failed on October 17, the force was great enough to wreck the vats beside it. Combined, they sent 323,000 imperial gallons of beer surging, with enough force to break through the brewery's brick wall and into the neighborhood. Eight women and children were killed by the ghastly accident. Read an account of the beer flood at Amusing Planet.
CS Lewis describes his new book to JRR Tolkien pic.twitter.com/agaxO9TBqW
— Eleanor Morton (@EleanorMorton) December 17, 2021
Comedian Eleanor Morton has a lot to say about the writing quality of The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.
To be fair, this matchup is drastically uneven. J.R.R. Tolkein was so committed to the task for his novels that he invented languages and composed lengthy histories to provide a narrative backdrop for The Lord of the Rings. Lewis grabbed a scattering mythological and folkloric elements like was he wandering through a narrative version of the Golden Corral while still tipsy from a late night meeting of the Inklings.
In his defense, Lewis was attempting to compose an allegory akin to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress rather than an epic fantasy series like The Lord of the Rings. These are very different writing tasks.
Content warning: foul language.
Some cultures tend to celebrate military victories, weddings, holidays, sports victories, and/or random events by firing guns into the air. This includes the United States. These events can be extremely dangerous just because firearms are present, and even more so when the participants are already inebriated, but when someone is just firing towards the sky, what's the harm? As physicists will tell you, what goes up must comes down, even though they weren't all that sure ablout it when firarms were first developed. Those bullets will have to come down somewhere, and it's almost impossible to determine where that will be ahead of time. Debunked explains the physics of shooting into the air and the consequences of falling bullets. The ad in the middle is about 1:15 long, and can be fast-forwarded. -via Digg
🥫 This is what an American food section looks like in a grocery store in Ireland. Well, to be fair, the Irish food section at my local grocery store is jus that box of Lucky Charms.
🤣 2022 got you down already? If you need a laugh, check out the Best News Bloopers of 2021.
🎬 These completely made-up Star Trek episodes are better than the real episodes!
📷 Best selfie ever: Man takes selfie with a snowy owl.
🌎 Tired of the view outside your window? Here's how to make a fake window with LED screen to display live views from around the world.
Photo: u/yozzeralloy
🐇 Follow the White Rabbit and take the red pill!
From the NeatoShop: Save up to 20% off all 😂 Funny T-Shirts and Cute & Kawaii T-Shirts
More neat stories from our new sites: Pictojam, Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, Supa Fluffy and Homes & Hues. Please check 'em out!
You might have noticed that there are fewer diet sodas in stores. This is not a supply chain issue (at least not in most places) but a production decision. While manufacturers are making and selling less diet soda, they are producing more "zero sugar" sodas. What's the difference? Mainly the words.
The word "diet" technically only means what one consumes, but consumers are used to "diet" meaning fewer calories so that you can lose weight. It has a connotation of a poor self-image and a regimen of deprivation. Who wants that? Younger consumers (i.e. Millennials) prefer to "eat healthier" instead of going on a diet. Less sugar is a draw for them, even if the same artificial sweeteners are used.
So is there a difference between "diet" sodas and "zero sugar" sodas? The ingredients may vary slightly, and some people consider zero sugar brands to more closely resemble the original sugary soda. The actual difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero is explained here. Read about the shift in consumer preferences and the labels that cater to them at All Recipes. -via Digg
(Image credit: Ben Schumin)
Modern hospitals are designed to use the latest technology and systems for providing top-notch health care efficiently to as many people as possible. In the US, those systems assume short stays and unlimited resources. Those assumptions do not always translate well to other parts of the world. The country of Rwanda has been busy growing and modernizing since the genocidal war of 1994, and in 2008 was ready to build new hospitals. However, existing hospitals built with Western architectural designs were not working, and a new approach was needed.
Many hospital patients in Rwanda battle tuberculosis and other highly communicable diseases. They were spreading antibiotic-resistant microbes to each other while waiting to be seen. Ventilation systems used in Western hospitals were prone to breaking down, repairs are hard to come by, and they were often disabled to save power costs. Another problem was isolated inpatients in closed rooms with few staff members and even fewer monitoring devices.
To tackle these problems, architect Michael Murphy looked back in time, to Florence Nightingale's writings on how hospitals should work. He incorporated many of her ideas into the design of a new hospital in Butaro, which is now being copied across the country. Read how hospital design can be adapted for local conditions at Fast Company.
Recycling is good, but re-using items instead of manufacturing new things is even better for the environment. Mannequins are made of fiberglass, which won't decompose and is notoriously difficult to recycle. Roz Edwards sort of fell into the business of putting mannequins back into use in one way or another. The ones that are useable are refurbished and sold or rented. Others go into a mountain of fake body parts where people can take as much as they can in 15 minutes for £75. They not only go back to the fashion industry, but are used in movies and music videos, art projects, and holiday decorations. Oh yeah, and then there are those folks who put one in their car to discourage dangerous people from approaching (which is good) and to use the carpool lane (which is bad). Even totally ruined mannequins are good for a scary Halloween tour! It's creepy and crazy, but Edwards' project Mannakin has turned out to be a viable business. Tom Scott shows us how the weirdness works.
I keep my Instagram follows pared down to a short list so that I make best use of my social media browsing time. @AnokhiMehndi in the West Midlands of the UK is definitely worth following. She's one of the stars of Henna Instagram and this video is an example of why.
Her post doesn't explain exactly why this piece sparkles, but I gather that incorporating glitter into henna dye is a thriving practice. Here are the sparkly arms of @Bharathi Sanghani_Mendhi, who is an accomplished bridal henna artist in her own right.
Just look what you can do with an oscillating fan and some household junk! Well, maybe not you, exactly, but someone did, and we are trying to figure out why. This might be an art installation of some kind, or it might be someone's lockdown project. While the idea of automating the fun of blowing bubbles seems a bit sad, this weird machine is mesmerizing to watch. The YouTube page has no information and no comments, but they titled this video "Delicate balance." However, nothing is really balanced; it's all held together by clothespins and clamps and weighted to the ground by a cinder block. So.... nothing about it makes any sense at all. This is what the internet was made for. -via reddit
New Year's Day is sometimes called Public Domain Day. We librarians make special note of it because certain works lose copyright protection and thus become easier to share with patrons. Starting this year, many famous works of literature are now in the public domain, including A.A. Milne's classic work of children's literature Winnie-the-Pooh.
What else is now in the public domain? Book Riot lists many famous works, including The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway, My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather, and The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Lawrence of Arabia.
Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain mentions these books and also sound recordings, including classic jazz recordings, as well as movies, such as Moana (the 1926 Samoan documentary) and Rudolph Valentino's The Son of the Sheik.
Take a look and see what you'd like to add to your personal collections.
Photo: Sheila Sund
Redditor /u/minecolas1 brings this interesting photo to our attention. Why does this grocery store offer standard sliced bread loaves sliced horizontally instead of vertically?
Redditor /u/Phantom_Wapiti offers an answer. A popular Quebecois dish at Christmastime is a pain sandwich. That makes a little more sense when you learn that "pain" is the French word for bread. This food consists of various deli mixes, such as egg salad, chopped ham, or chicken salad, layered between slices of bread arranged like a layer cake. Cream cheese is the most common "frosting". Chop off a slice and serve it with a fork.
Dhaka muslin was made in Bengal, now Bangladesh, for thousands of years. This fabric was so fine, light, and transparent that it was considered a national treasure. Around 200 years ago, it revolutionized fashion in Europe, as stylish women such as Joséphine Bonaparte and Jane Austen ditched their heavy, wide dresses in favor of the Empire-style muslin chemise, which could be scandalously thin. Dhaka muslin was made by skilled artisans in a 16-step process taken on seperately by villages around the city of Dhaka. The cotton fibers used were so fine that thread counts of 800 to 1200 per square inch could be achieved and the muslin would still appear diaphanously thin. But it's been 100 years now since Dhaka muslin was produced this way. The British Empire killed the industry, artisans turned to other fabrics, and the unique cotton plant that produced the fiber went extinct. An effort is being made to reproduce Dhaka muslin, but they're not quite there yet. Read about Dhaka muslin and what happened to it at BBC Future. -via Nag on the Lake
The point where the Fahrenheit and Centigrade temperature scales meet is -40. Once you get that cold, a degree here or there makes little difference because you do not want to be out in it. Winter is a lot colder than that in Yakutsk, Russia, the coldest city in the world. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Yakutsk was −64.4 °C (−83.9 °F). It also has the distinction of being the city with the greatest temperature differential, because the short summers can be quite warm. Yakutsk is where cold weather is a way of life for most of the year. If your car isn't in a heated garage, you leave it running all the time. You learn early how to dress for the weather. And when you want to impress people, you do some crazy experiments to show how fast things will freeze.
Kiun B has a bunch of videos about living in Yakutsk, the cold weather, and her Sakha culture.
