Multiple-awarded pianist Hayato Sumino, known professionally as Cateen, shows us that a simple tune, when delivered to the hands of a master, can be turned into a musical masterpiece.
Sumino’s take on the nursery rhyme starts off as a simple one, then turns into Mozart-like music, then ragtime, and then becomes Lizst and Chopin-like. The music ends in a style similar to Tom & Jerry.
Sumino started playing the piano at age three.
Awesome!
(Image Credit: Cateen/ YouTube)
Last week, a strange metal object reminiscent of the monoliths from the book and movie 2001 appeared in a Utah desert. Its origin and purpose were unknown to local humans who investigated.
The state Bureau of Land Management now reports that the monolith has inexplicably vanished without a trace. In a Facebook post, the BLM makes it clear that it wants nothing to do with the possibly alien object:
The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff’s office.
-via Instapundit | Photo: Utah Bureau of Land Management
In the front is an urchin with a fedora at a rakish tilt. Bringing up the rear is a friend wearing a pork pie hat. It's trendy among aquarists (people who maintain aquaria) to dress up sea urchins as fashionable dandies. All that's necessary to look right is a 3D printed hat (although you may need additional clothing before going outside). Sea urchins habitually cover themselves with objects to protect themselves from predators and excess light, so they'll gladly take the hats.
One hobbyist named riosouza describes his own 3D printed urchin hats:
After seen my sea urchins carrying snail shells, rocks on their back I decide to read more about it.
Studies reviewed the possible reasons would be to protect themselves against predators and/or full-spectrum light source, mainly against UV rays.
Then I decided to do a quick design for a 3d printed hat, and for my surprise they absolutely love it.
Since I replace the rocks and shells from their back with the hats, they never let it go, and I was astonished to see they moving the hats towards the light source. Which leads me to the conclusion they certainly use it against excessive UV rays.
-via My Modern Met | Photo: /u/VanillaBean5813
Lockdowns are still implemented in various places across the world. If you’re someone who lives in one of those places, then it probably means that you've had plenty of time indoors these past months, and this probably means that you’re not getting the same amount of Vitamin D that your body makes when you get sunlight.
Not only is this a problem because a Vitamin D deficiency can lead to bone deformities such as rickets in children, and bone pain caused by a condition called osteomalacia in adults, according to the NHS…
With that in mind, should you begin to take vitamin D supplements? Public Health England (PHE) would say yes.
Public Health England (PHE) has issued guidance in which it encouraged the public to consider taking vitamin D supplements. It says: “It's important to take vitamin D as you may have been indoors more than usual this year. "
Learn more about Vitamin D and how essential it is to the body over at Independent.
(Image Credit: Pixabay)
#TheSuiteLifeOfNoah #funnykid 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/jPko5CTeCs
— Blair Monique Walker (@Blairmonique) November 22, 2020
Like many of us, preschooler Noah is working from home. He's had to set up a home office that allows him to work without being disturbed by noisy family members. His mom, Blair Monique Walker, found that office inside a cabinet. It becomes necessary for him to be firm about his work time and shoo her out.
-via Born in Space
Redditor jonny00490 heated, shaped, and then glued the cable of a Nintendo controller into the shape of Pac-Man and his nemesis Blinky. It looks like a simple craft, but took a long time to perfect:
I did it in lots of small stages. Warm the cable a bit so it can more easily be bent into a rough shape and let cool, then I glued it down in prob 2 inch sections.. glue takes 24hrs to harden fully so I'd weigh that section down then come back for the next bit. That's why it took so long.
Get it? It's a challah loaf shaped like a turkey.
Twitter user Joshua H. Pollack, if I understand him correctly, makes a challurkey every year, gradually improving his craft.
Professionally, Pollack is "a leading expert on nuclear and missile proliferation, focusing on Northeast Asia." So it follows that baking is his side gig.
-via Super Punch
Never get close to an emu, it can be a tragedy, not a gag! An emu is a very dangerous and aggressive bird. A meeting in the forest with it, especially with a female who has a cub, can be deadly to humans. With a blow from the central toe, an emu can easily rip a stomach or break a limb! Thanks to strong legs, the emu can reach speeds of up to 55 km per hour in the forest, making steps up to 3 meters!
Cleveland — Brendan Ring did not expect that the man who just ordered a beer, which cost only $7.02, would give a tip of $3,000. Thinking that there was a mistake, Ring, the owner of the restaurant, ran after the man.
“I ran after him and he said no mistake we will see you when you reopen!”
Ring said the man wished him well and told him to share the tip with the four employees who were working brunch service.
Awesome.
(Image Credit: Brendan Ring/ Facebook)
Eleven countries declared the year 1882-1883 as the “International Polar Year,” to encourage and highlight exploration of the far north. Those nations launched 14 expeditions to the Arctic, one of which was the Greely Expedition. Led by former Union officer Adolphus Greely, the expedition consisted of 25 men who set up a science observation station at Ellesmere Island near northern Greenland.
Things seemed to be going well, but the ship route to Ellesmere was only accessible for a short time during the summer. The rest of the time, ice blocked the passage, and ships ran a substantial risk of being trapped and broken if they tried to pass at the wrong interval. The expedition’s success depended on ships being able to reach the party with supplies and refreshed rations each August. One ship was due to re-supply the team in August 1882, and another would bring them home the following summer. Neither ship arrived—one could not pass the ice, and another sank after being crushed.
Depending on one shipment of supplies per year is a disastrous plan, especially before instant global communications. Read about the rescue of the Greely Expedition, a story sparked by the discovery of a caribou sleeping bag that P.T. Barnum saved from the incident, at Atlas Obscura.
There are angry ladies all over Yankee Candle’s site reporting that none of the candles they just got had any smell at all. I wonder if they’re feeling a little hot and nothing has much taste for the last couple days too.
— Terri Nelson (@TerriDrawsStuff) November 24, 2020
The earliest symptoms of COVID-19 we heard of were cough and fever. Then word spread that many victims reported a loss of their sense of smell. All these months later, symptoms vary widely, from none to severe, and the disease affects people in so many ways that many are infected without even knowing it. So is it any surprise that people who purchase scented Yankee Candles may be upset that they can't smell them?
Kate Petrova saw the Tweet by Terri Nelson and went to work crunching the numbers.
Could it be because of the COVID-related loss of smell? To investigate, I plotted the reviews of the 3 most popular unscented candles on Amazon*, and the difference was quite striking 3/n
— Kate Petrova (@kate_ptrv) November 27, 2020
*One thing to note: fewer reviews are available for unscented candles than for scented ones pic.twitter.com/D9NdknJJAU
Petrova has more graphs that show a striking correlation between complaints over scentless candles and the spread of COVID in the US. Read the rest at Twitter or at Threadreader. -via Metafilter
Ah, Supreme. The streetwear brand that many people have been hunting down to collect (and flex, really). Supreme’s limited launch drops have increased its value and worth, and a lot of people are hyped to get any product from the streetwear brand (they even managed to sell a brick). This man’s collection of Supreme T-shirts is expected to sell for millions at an auction, showing the worth behind the brand. Vancouver-resident James Bogart has a curated collection of every single shirt from Supreme:
Bogart’s Box Logo Collection, comprised of 253 pieces released over 26 years and obsessively curated over five, is considered the first complete archive of Supreme tees in existence.
“I’ve been doing this non-stop for the last six years, obsessively,” Bogart said. “It obviously started just as a complete passion. I absolutely loved it, I loved everything that the brand stood for. I loved the brand identity. I loved the secrecy behind it. And more than anything, I really loved the hunt.”
The hunt took him all over the world. Most of the pieces were acquired through the secondary market, or from secretive collectors. As a 17-year-old, Bogart flew to London to meet a Supreme buyer with a shirt he’d never seen: a rare, green tee with a red box, released in 1996. Bogart’s friends and fellow collectors didn’t even know it existed: Supreme has never released an official archive. The process of creating one himself, and reaching a consensus with the rest of the community, took years.
They said it couldn’t be done.
“A lot of people who have helped me and contributed towards this collection and sold and traded with me over the years, they told me that this was impossible to do,” Bogart said.
Image via Vancouver Sun
Listen, 2020 is a really rough year. It’s been hell for everybody, physically, mentally, and emotionally. With the stress this year has given us, some of us are trying to find joy in other places, such as books, video games, or television shows. Personally, one of the things I’m thankful for keeping me sane this year is Animal Crossing: New Horizons.It came at a point when I really wanted to escape, by any method, to pass the time. Gizmodo’s io9 team writes about the pop culture that helped them cope with the year. What media has helped you cope this year?
Image via Gizmodo
The McDonald's McRib, a sandwich that has 70 ingredients but no rib meat, was first introduced in 1981 and wasn't much of a hit. But in the years since, it has established a cult following, and when it returns to the menu sporadically, those fans come out of the woodwork. That scheme is both accidental and deliberate, and understanding it requires a lesson in McDonald's business model, supply-chain logistics, and marketing.
This brings us to the McRib- a confluence of several people’s work and an accident of history. To wit, it exists because McDonald’s underestimated the demand for Chicken McNuggets and needed an additional item to offer to balance things out a bit.
The goal of a restaurant like McDonald’s, when adding a menu item, is either to bring in new customers that would not have eaten at a McDonald’s or to get existing customers to choose a higher margin item than they would have otherwise ordered. To do this, McDonald’s will test and then roll out new foods.
When a menu item is successful, like the Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets, McDonald’s needs a steady stream of ingredients to support the demand. It must also be at a price that leaves them a large enough margin to justify the work involved.
Enter the Chicken McNugget, which was a hit, but they couldn’t source enough chicken to meet demand. To the extent that new patrons were lost because they were turned away when they didn’t want a burger, McDonald’s was facing an opportunity cost. It needed to find an alternative dish that this new group liked or loved as well. To solve this, they turned to their new Executive Chef Rene’ Arend.
That explains how McRib got its start, but the story of its continuing return and disappearance is explained at Today I Found Out. Hint: it's not random; it just appears that way to customers.
(Image credit: Evan-Amos)
When we go to a high altitude, have a tough workout, or hold our breath, we feel that we’re running out of oxygen. But what goes on inside our body when we experience this feeling? This recent study in the European Journal of Applied Psychology holds some answers to the question.
The study is very straightforward, taking measurements of heart rate and oxygen levels while volunteers hold their breath, and it offers a revealing picture of how the body copes with a shortage of oxygen—and what can go wrong.
The research was performed at Ghent University in Belgium, by Janne Bouten, Jan Bourgois, and Jan Boone… They asked 31 volunteers (17 men, 14, women) to hold their breath for as long as possible three times in a row, with two minutes break each time. Typically people get better and better in repeated breath holds, in part because their spleens are squeezing more oxygen-carrying red blood cells into circulation. During the third and final breath hold, they took continuous measurements of parameters including heart rate, oxygen levels in the brain, and oxygen levels in the leg muscles.
Humans, like other mammals, have a “diving response” that kicks in when you hold your breath, with the goal of making sure your brain always has enough oxygen. As the researchers point out, if your circulation stops abruptly, you’ll be unconscious within 30 seconds and suffer irreversible damage within two to ten minutes. The diving response is enhanced if your face is submerged in water, but it happens even on dry land. Your heart rate drops, and the blood vessels leading to non-essential parts of the body like your leg muscles constrict in order to redirect crucial blood (and oxygen) to the brain.
Learn more about this study over at Outside Online.
(Image Credit: Pixabay)
