The crew was able to recover the drone. It will not be serviceable again, but the video card was fine. The footage is invigorating to watch and a reminder to stay out of Australia.
There’s something otherworldly about the pottery of Keiko Masumoto. This Japanese artist, who studied and worked in Kyoto, has become famous around the world for her groundbreaking ceramic sculptures that break out of traditional forms for pots and plates. Other creatures and structures erupt from them, often showing entire tiny worlds within inanimate pots.
This sign, simply saying "Tom McCleod Slept Here," appears on Interest 5 near Bakersfield in California. There are no buildings nearby, and no people to ask about it. It's been there since at least 2009, when it was captured on Google Street View. People have written about the sign, but everyone has the same question. Who is Tom McCleod? SFGate looked into the mystery, and found an urban legend with no evidence to support it -which may have been made up on the spot. They also found four men named Tom McCleod. The four Toms had heard about the sign, and have seen it, but none ever slept near that patch of highway.
The fourth Tom McCleod they got hold of lives in Texas, and provided about the only intriguing piece of information they ever got.
While he’s familiar with the sign on I-5, living on the border of Texas and Arkansas means he’s seen stretches of road that few Californians have driven.
And “Tom McCleod slept here” signs are in Texas and Arkansas, too, he says. Louisiana and Mississippi, as well.
But he has no idea who the guy is.
From that information, I have to believe that Tom McCleod is a sign maker. Or the pseudonym of a sign maker. Is this a "social experiment" or some kind of art? Could it possibly be advertising? It might just be a prank, one that others have emulated in other parts of the country. Read about the sign and the search for Tom McCleod at SFGate. -via Strange Company
When the British came to America, the explorers paved the way, and settlers came afterward, but the categories were blurred for a while. The earliest settlers were almost all men looking for adventure and possible riches in the New World. The Virginia Tobacco Company supported settlements in the Chesapeake Bay area while their crops were being developed. The men there suffered from a lack of women, so the company brought some over from England. The first shipment of brides was a disaster, as the woman who volunteered had little to offer, and apparently traveled to America out of desperation. The company needed to impose some standards, but still attract women ready for the unknown.
The Virginia Tobacco Company began to recruit women who knew how to make alcoholic beverages: beer, cider, and liquor. After all, it was an honest skill, and the settlers were suffering from a lack of grog. They didn't know how to make it because that was women's work. The women who were brought to the colonies in the 1600s were in high demand, not only as wives, but as providers of a stiff drink. It wasn't easy, as the materials available in the New World were different from what they were used to, but the women found a way to make it work. Read their story at Atlas Obscura.
New Scientist (paywall) reports that the US Navy has acquired a patent for a handheld device called AHAD. This invention has a long-range microphone that picks up people's speech and plays it back at a slight time delay which can disrupt the target from speaking intelligibly.
The delay--which is 200 milliseconds long--is timed in such a way that is not simply annoying to the speaker, but also, as a neuroscientist explains, actually prevents the target from being able to communicate verbally.
The range is limited to about 30 meters. It can affect only a small target area, which means that listeners may not understand why the speaker has become unintelligible.
I can't wait until this invention reaches the civilian market!
This mask design is now going viral and Sora News 24 is on the case. It combines the modern pandemic aesthetic of covering one's face while providing eye protection from bright lights. The shiny mirror exterior looks futuristic, which I guess is good enough until we get the flying cars that we were promised.
Occasionally we run across a story in which the government lists someone as dead when they are not. It's a nightmare for an individual who is suddenly thrust into a battle with a massive bureaucracy. And it happens more than you think- about 12,000 people a year are incorrectly listed as dead in the US alone! When the Social Security administration thinks you are deceased, everyone else does, too, including the DMV, your bank, your credit card company, etc. etc. Trying to prove you're alive by showing up in person doesn't cut it, because you could be an identity thief. Who are they going to believe, you or government documents? Half as Interesting explains the problem, but the "solution" is really just a punch line. -via Digg
The transportation research firm Skytrax crunched the numbers from 13 million customer surveys over the last two years to come up with ranking for the top airlines. There were 356 airlines represented in those surveys. The surveys asked about things like friendliness, ease of booking, seat comfort, meals, and in-flight entertainment. You can imagine that international flights were overly represented, since domestic flights don't have meals and entertainment these days, at least not in the US. It's not clear whether price was a factor in the rankings, but considering who came in at #1, the cost of tickets probably wasn't part of the equation.
1. Qatar Airways 2. Singapore Airlines 3. ANA All Nippon Airways 4. Emirates 5. Japan Airlines 6. Cathay Pacific Airways 7. EVA Air 8. Qantas Airways 9. Hainan Airlines 10. Air France
Note to self: when naming an airline, use a "Q" without a "u." You may have noticed that no US-based airline made the list. There is a separate ranking of North American airlines, which you can see at CNBC. -via Digg
We know that quite a bit of what Americans see as Chinese food is not really Chinese. In China, you won't get fortune cookies at the end of a meal, and you won't find General Tso's Chicken on the menu, either. And now we learn that the ubiquitous folding takeout box we are so familiar with isn't Chinese, either!
The design was patented by an American named Frederick Weeks Wilcox in 1894. But the box wasn't for Chinese takeout at all. Its purpose was to carry oysters. The oyster pail was designed to be waterproof, easy to assemble, and able to allow steam to escape from the top. When it was invented, oysters were sold all over New York City, because they were plentiful and therefore affordable. The transition to carrying Chinese food in them happened due to changes in the oyster market and in the rise of Chinese restaurants occurring at the same time. Today, it's hard to think of anything else when we see that small folded paper box with its distinct bucket shape. Read how the Chinese takeout box came about at The Dieline. -via Kottke
Roboticist Simone Giertz loves to assemble jigsaw puzzles. And if you've spent lockdown time on one, then you know that they take up a lot of room. Giertz applied her genius to this problem and designed an elegant table that is perfect for jigsaw assembly. Yes, there might have been simpler solutions, but Giertz says, "...I was, like, no, let's make it more complicated and overengineered than that."
It was two gearing systems taken from bicycles. The first rolls the top on and off. The second lifts and lowers the surface. So in addition to protecting the puzzle from damage during the long assembly process, the table space remains useful for other purposes.
Here is a long, often funny video illustrating the demanding build process.
From our new Picto network of sites, here are some extra neat posts:
The 2021 Federal Duck Stamp Contest had a rule that the entries must have a hunting theme, but didn't specify who is hunting whom, so an artist drew this clever image: The Hunting Duck.
The Traveler Statue is a middle-aged guy asleep on his travel bag in Orlando International Airport that has been missing his flight since 1986.
Now something sweet: an edible cherry blossom tree made out of candy floss by the MilkCake Man.
These neat posts are brought to you by Pictojam (science & tech), SupaFluffy (cute animals!), Pop Culturista (everything pop-culture) and Homes & Hues (our home decor site). Please check 'em out!
J. Kenji López-Alt, a professional chef, has spent years studying the fine art of boiling eggs. Although he written about the subject in the past, López-Alt is updating us with the latest research.
And, yes, he means data-driven research. He's not speaking from just anecdotal experience.
López-Alt informs us that the age of the egg doesn't really matter, nor does adding vinegar or salt help make the eggs easier to peel. What does help is setting the eggs in the water after it's boiling to prevent the white from fusing to the shell. He also suggests using a needle to puncture the air pocket to relieve pressure inside the egg during cooking.
In this demonstration video, López-Alt demonstrates his perfect 9-minute eggs, which peel cleanly and without any difficulty.
From 1961 to 1989, the Berlin Wall separated the city into sectors controlled by Communist East Germany and by West Germany. West Berlin was completely surround by East Germany, but was considered part of West Germany as agreed when the country was partitioned by Allied forces after World War II. For decades, people risked their lives to cross into West Berlin. Many were shot, but others were successful. Of several clandestine tunnels dug underneath the wall, Tunnel 57 was the deepest, at 30 feet below ground. It led from a backyard outhouse to an abandoned bakery in West Berlin. In October of 1964, a daring escape took 57 East Berliners through the tunnel, but not without bloodshed.
Andreas Springer was one of the 57 people who escaped by crawling several hundred feet on all fours through the narrow tunnel. For decades he rarely spoke of how he got out of East Germany. Now 78 years old, Springer tells us about that fateful night in an article at Atlas Obscura.
Personally, as a coffee lover, coffee stains on mugs are not really a big problem that I have. Maybe it’s because I use instant coffee, or because I’m blind and I haven’t noticed the stains yet. Either way, if coffee stains in mugs are a big problem for you, The Kitchn’s Ever Meister might be of help!
Meister tested five different methods for clearing said stains in order to find out the most effective way. Check the results of her experiment here!
Australia is sometimes called "British Texas". That's fair, but I'd like to propose that Florida is "Australian America," if for no other reason than due to the extremely dangerous wildlife.
Florida Man Roy Bonilla recorded video of fellow Florida Man Eugene Bozzi capturing an alligator by maneuvering it into a trash can. Toward the end, the gator fights with all his might to escape. Bozzi did not, though, kill and eat the gator (they taste like fish, by the way), but instead rolls the trash can down to a lake to set it free.
