Typewriter Collector's entire YouTube channel is worth browsing, as it's filled with lovingly restored and often strange typewriters. This particular one is Toshibia BW-1182 from the 1940s. The horizontal cylinder contains Chinese, Japanese, and English characters. YouTube commenter amontoval describes the arrangement:

They're arranged phonetically by most common "on-yomi" (or kun-yomi in some cases) according to the kana syllabary (many homophones, of course). Can't see the whole circumference of the cylinder but at about 0:30 it's clear that the order doubles back at the ring of mathematical symbols. Red characters help parse the readings. Last character to left of equal sign can be pronounced "kin" (exert) and the first character in next row "gin" (silver), then "ku" (suffer) in red followed by "kuu" (sky, empty), "kuma" (bear), "kun" (teachings, meaning [also the kun in kun-yomi]), "gun" (group), then "kei" (system) in red followed many, homophones of "kei". It's the same order in which (mostly compounded character) words in a normal Japanese monolingual dictionary for Japanese speakers would appear.

-via Nag on the Lake

We know how devastating forest fires can be. We also know how hard it is to extinguish underground coal fires, which can burn for decades. In between those two disasters is the underground peat fire, called a zombie fire. Zombie fires can burn for years and spread unnoticed into new areas, ruining the environment as they go.

Just ask the firefighters who battled North Carolina’s Evans Road Fire in 2008, which simmered through swampy peatland. Engineers ended up pumping 7.5 billion liters of water from lakes to flood the area. It took seven months to drown the fire.

If you’ve got a big air tanker that can drop huge amounts of water on a zombie fire, good for you. But it’s not going to work. “No one fights smoldering fires, which are massive, with air tankers,” says Rein. “If they do, they’re doing PR. They’re telling everyone, ‘Don’t worry, we have it!’ But they don’t. They don’t. When I see these airplanes in a smoldering fire, I know they are completely desperate.”

That’s because deluging a zombie isn’t guaranteed to quickly kill it. Say you’re pumping massive quantities across a peatland like firefighters did in North Carolina. That doesn’t mean the water is getting to the right places as it trickles underground. “It creates a channel, and the fire in that channel is suppressed, but then the water doesn’t go anywhere else,” Rein says. Other parts of the fire can fester untouched. And so the zombie lives on.

However, scientists have developed a new weapon in the battle against zombie fires. Read how it can work at Atlas Obscura.

Alex and Junior at Tammy's Oberlin Hobby Farm are exploring a seesaw. For the goats, it's just practicing their balance, but they'll eventually learn how fun it is. We don't know for certain that it's Tammy recording and laughing, but her giggles are contagious. -via Boing Boing 

And, specifically, Angostura bitters. That's a particular type and brand of bitter liquor from Trinidad and Tobago. Bitters are liquors that are traditionally served as aids to digestion. Do they work? I don't know, but folk medicine traditions say that they do. That's the crux of our story today.

Nelsen's Hall, a bar on Washington Island in Lake Michigan, faced a serious problem during the Prohibition Era. Its primary means of doing business--serving alcohol--was now illegal. But it was legally permissible to offer liquor for medical purposes. Atlas Obscura describes how bar owner Tom Nelsen took advantage of this loophole:

“During Prohibition, Tom got a pharmaceutical license so he could legally sell bitters,” says Sarah Jaworski, whose parents have owned Nelsen’s since 1999. This loophole wasn’t quite the same as that used by doctors who prescribed alcohol during Prohibition. Rather, the bitters were classified as a “stomach tonic for medicinal purposes” instead of alcohol, meaning that a doctor’s prescription wasn’t required. “Medicinal tinctures are usually taken in smaller doses, but since Angostura bitters are 90 proof, he was able to legally sell it as a tincture,” she says. “He just sold it as shots.”

Tom’s tonic proved to be extremely popular among locals, many of whom apparently suffered from previously undiagnosed stomach ailments. In fact, customers who kept Nelsen’s open for the entirety of Prohibition are directly responsible for the pub being the oldest continuously-operating tavern in Wisconsin.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Nelsen reopened all bar services. But a taste for bitters stuck with the locals. It continues to this day. Customers at Nelsen's Hall remain the largest consumers of Angostura bitters. Drinking a shot gains you entry into the Bitters Club. Custom dictates that you're not a true islander until you've had yours.

Images: Nelsen's Hall, Google Maps

The bucket truck in Santa Rosa, California caught fire after the crane had already lifted a worker up. Now he unable to escape the fiery inferno except taking a long, dangerous jump to the ground.

That's when truck driver Efrain Zepeda sprang into action. He drove his truck next to the conflagration so that his trailer was positioned beneath the bucket. The trapped worker was then able to drop down to the top of the trailer and escape.

Here is the hero, Efrain Zepeda. Glory to his name and to his house.

-via Debby Witt | Photo: Estes Express Lines

Would you like to look like a dish scrubber? How about a bottle of floor cleaner or a can of mackerel? Then Felipe Cavieres, a fashion designer in Chile, has the perfect selection of clothes for your new look. You, too, can show the people around you that you have the fashion sense of a steel wool pad.

The Rosicrucian Order was founded in the early 1600s. The order is a system of study to understand natural laws. The organization had to operate in secret to avoid persecution during its initial years. Surprisingly, after centuries, the secret society is now on different online platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube. Now, anyone can become a member: 

"Anyone can be a member and we have moderators who make sure that somebody who's not a member is not joining in order to sell their product or something like that," Scott said. "So the main thing is we want people to feel welcome and included and just to be able to observe what Rosicrucians do and how we approach the world."

The Facebook page the Rosicrucian Order AMORC, which anyone can like and follow, has more than 300,000 followers. The largest private Rosicrucian Facebook group, which you have to ask to join, has 17,000 members. Not all of the followers are members of the Order, and it's mostly a place to do what you do on any other community-based Facebook group: set up meetups, post quotes written in cursive script on stock image backgrounds, and argue playfully in the comment sections about the artistry of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Then there are the dozens of pages made for Rosicrucians in specific areas, which, Scott says, are really where the power of Facebook lies for them. "The strength of Facebook is it connects people locally," Scott, who joined the Rosicrucian Order in 1993, said. 

Image via Mashable

Yikes. IT teacher Richard Glenn threatened pupils and took some to a strip club during a school trip. The 55-year-old was one of the leaders of a group of 16 to 18-year-olds who went to Costa Rica in July 2019. Glenn has displayed a lot of inappropriate behavior, such as getting drunk with pupils, allowing one or more underaged pupils to drink alcohol, and taking students to a strip club, as BBC details: 

His actions included:

Drinking with pupils

Allowing one or more pupils to drink alcohol despite being under the legal age of 18

Threatening to "kick the head in" of one pupil and "kill" another

Telling one pupil: "I'm not in trouble - you'll be in trouble"

After being aggressive to one pupil, he kissed the boy's forehead and told him "you're all right"

Taking one or more pupils to a strip club

Acting aggressively towards the woman leading the trip when she tried to help him back to his tent

Exposing himself to the woman in a shared hotel room, although it was agreed this was not "malicious or sexually motivated"

The panel said his behaviour "placed one or more pupils in his care at risk".

It added there was "no malice or sexual intent" in taking the students to the lapdancing club, but Mr Glenn admitted it was "inappropriate and unprofessional" for him to fail to control the situation.

Glenn has been arrested and banned from teaching for three years. 

Image via BBC 

Meet Strength In Numbers, a beer with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 57.8%. The beverage, dubbed as the ‘world’s strongest beer,’ is made by BrewDog in collaboration with Schorschbräu, a German brewer that funnily enough, BrewDog tried to beat in a ‘strongest brew’ competition. So how do these brewing companies produce the eye-watering beer? Shortlist has the details: 

BrewDog uses the traditional Eisbock method. This is when freeze the beer, remove chunks of ice (water) until you’re left with the concentrated high ABV liquid.

To give the beer a bit of a spin, it features a blend of BrewDog’s Death or Glory, an ice distilled Belgian golden ale that’s been sitting in whisky casks for 10 years.

Because of the exclusivity and rarity of the beer, it costs a whopping £28.95 a bottle - but just think about the bragging rights when you get hold of a bottle.

BrewDog has a long history of brewing high ABV beer. Its most famous is Tactical Nuclear Penguin, an imperial stout that clocked in at 32%.

It also created Sink The Bismark (41%) and End of History at 55%. All of these are brewed in the same way using the Eisbock method.

Image via Shortlist

Talk about recycling second-hand shirts! Popular sneaker brand Converse has collaborated with vintage store Beyond Retro to create a limited edition summer-themed sneaker collection made from salvaged Hawaiian shirts. Each pair in the collection is unique, with its own distinct textures, patterns, and shades: 

Both Beyond Retro and Converse sourced Hawaiian shirts from across the U.S. to reassemble them into vibrant uppers for a Chuck 70 High and Chuck 70 Low sneakers. According to the companies, the project diverted over 7,000 tropical shirts from ending up in a landfill.

To make the upcycled look more obvious, each sneaker opts for a duo-panel design, with each side mismatching the other. While each pair’s look differs, many of the sneakers sport vivid shades like orange, yellow, and red alongside patterns like tie-dye, leafy graphics, and floral prints.

The tongue and laces of each sneaker don’t boast a Hawaiian print, instead donning a clean cream hue. Despite their lack of pattern, both the tongue and laces are made of 100 percent recycled materials, keeping in check with the sustainable aspect of the shoe. Rubber toe caps and midsoles match the upper’s cream accents.

Image via Input 

The simple question of why rabbits remain so small opens a pathway to a big part of evolutionary science. Since certain species of animals only exist in small sizes, while some exist in big and small sizes, one might ask: what causes some animal species or taxonomies to have carrying sizes? Researchers from Kyoto University explored this topic in evolutionary science by studying rabbits, ungulates, and lagomorphs: 

They found that once lagomorphs reach around 6 kilograms (about 14 lbs) in mass, they're at a competitive disadvantage to ungulates.

The researchers point out that there are other factors that come into play once lagomorphs become too big to operate at optimum capacity: competition from other animals from the same clade and increased danger from predators.

However, it's the ungulate comparison that seems to have had the most effect in this case. The research feeds into two contrasting ideas about how species evolve: the 'red queen' hypothesis, which ascribes most importance to species competition, and the 'court jester' hypothesis, which says abiotic forces like climate changes have the most impact.

According to the research, it seems that the red queen model is the one that's most significant here, against the backdrop of abiotic forces that aren't anything to do with animal competition.

Image via wikimedia commons 

Back in 2012, we were introduced to a miraculous development that was supposed to make our ketchup slide out of the bottle with no waste. We haven't seen much about the technology since then, but now there's a campaign to roll out LiquiGlide for toothpaste tubes.

Today LiquiGlide, the company spun out of MIT’s Varanasi Research Group to develop ways to manufacture and commercialize the technology, announced a new $13.5 million round of funding. But more importantly for consumers, the company also revealed a new partnership with Colgate, which will be introducing a new recyclable toothpaste container that leverages LiquiGlide so that every last drop of the product can be squeezed out with minimal effort. If there’s a mangled tube of toothpaste in your bathroom that’s still filled with impossible to reach product, you’ll understand why this is so exciting.

Read how it works and see a demonstration at Gizmodo. I wasn't aware that getting the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube was a real problem since we went from metal to plastic tubes, but if you are really concerned about wasted toothpaste, notice that Colgate's advertising gif shows a person squeezing out about four times the amount of paste you need to brush your teeth.

Food artist Manami Sasaki, who is internet famous for her elegant slices of decorated toast, says that:

I feel that breakfast, which wakes up our senses for the day, and shoes, which take us to the exciting world outside, have something in common . . .

Run, don't walk, to or with this sandwich to fuel you through the day. It's completely edible, vegetarian, and made with several different types of bread.

-via My Modern Met

In 1897, mail delivery in New York City sped up tremendously when a system of pneumatic tubes was laid underneath the streets. The same technology that allows multiple lanes at a bank's drive-through was harnessed to deliver messages and some surprising goods in the city in those same kind of cylinders.  

At 24-inches long and 8-inches wide, these cylinders could hold up to 600 letters. A team of 136 “Rocketeers” and dispatchers made sure the
system ran smoothly, transporting upwards of 95,000 letters per day.
The original tubes were less than a mile long, from the old General Post Office to the Produce Exchange. It quickly grew to cover both sides of Manhattan Island with a crosstown line. Extensions were added to the Bronx and Brooklyn using the Brooklyn Bridge. There is even a rumour that a popular Bronx sandwich shop used the system to send their sandwiches – the real submarine sandwiches! It took only 20 minutes for a canister to travel from the General Post Office to Harlem. A 40-minute mail wagon route was reduced to 7 minutes.

There was at least one case in which a cat was sent through the tubes, causing astonishment that the feline survived the trip. The New York pneumatic mail system ran until the 1950s, when it was discontinued due to the high expense of maintaining it. Read about the days of tube mail at Messy Messy Chic.

The Academy Awards were bestowed on the movies of 2020 on April 25th. As per custom, the annual Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies) were announced the night before. If you think the Oscar nominations are full of movies you’ve never heard of, the Razzies took that even further. You have probably heard of Borat Subsequent Movie-Film, which was awarded two Razzies, but those were only because of Rudy Giuliani. The rest of the movies flew under our radars in a year that theaters were mostly closed. A film called Music led the awards with three Razzies, followed by Absolute Proof and Borat: Subsequent Movie Film with two each, and 365 Days and Dolittle each received one award. The year 2020 itself garnered a special award as “The Worst Calendar Year EVER!” Celebrate the worst in film by checking out all the awards at the Razzies site. Scroll down past the winners to see the nominees in each category from other movies you’ve never heard of.