Alan Bellows of Damn Interesting is offering up a browser game that may drive you crazy. The object is to diffuse a bomb by flipping levers in a certain order, but there are 28 levers and if you make one wrong move, the whole building explodes. I don't know what happens if you win, because I've blown up the building every time so far.
The occasion for the game launch is to commemorate an article published exactly five years ago about an incident that occurred exactly 40 years ago. In August of 1980, a mysterious machine appeared in the back area of Harvey's Wagon Wheel Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It was a metal box with 28 toggle switches on its face. A nearby note explained that it was a bomb. The writer demanded three million dollars to be delivered in an extremely convoluted way, or the bomb would be detonated. Examination proved the device to be quite complex, and unable to be moved safely. Before long, authorities involved included the bomb squad from the local sheriff's office, plus "FBI Special Agents, the local Fire Chief, the state Fire Marshal, a military bomb disposal squad, representatives from the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, and scientists from both the Naval Surface Warfare Center and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory." As far as the delivery of the ransom, well, the very complexity of the instructions caused that operation to go awry. The Zero-Armed Bandit is a fascinating true story that would make a good movie.
Aimee Hartley believed that she knew how to breathe. After all, that’s what she has been doing all her life. Aside from that, she was also a yoga teacher, and yoga is a practice which involves breathing exercises.
But then she took a lesson with a breathing coach, who told her where she was going wrong. He pointed out she wasn’t taking the air into her lower lungs but was, she says, an “upper chest breather. He then taught me this conscious breathing and I felt my lower belly open, and I felt myself breathing a lot better after just one session. So I then became fascinated by how we breathe.”
Now, Hartley is a Transformational Breath Coach, passing on to people what she had learned about breathwork.
These are exercises that promise to help us become better breathers, which, it is claimed by practitioners, can transform our physical and mental health by improving immune function, sleep, digestion and respiratory conditions, and reducing blood pressure and anxiety (or transporting you to a higher realm of consciousness, if that is your thing).
There is little high-quality research to back up many of these claims, although it has become widely accepted that diaphragmatic breathing (engaging the large muscle between the chest and abdomen to take bigger, deeper lungfuls of air) can reduce feelings of stress and anxiety – and the NHS recommends this for stress relief.
So how do we breathe well? See the steps over at The Guardian.
(Image Credit: alfcermed/ Pixabay)
In normal times, we are amused at the phenomenon in which people have a nagging question in their everyday lives which they try to solve in the geekiest manner possible. We call that "overthinking." In 2020, people have more time to indulge in those personal missions. Ethan Rosenthal is a physicist and a data scientist in New York City, so he's had plenty of time to think about his favorite sandwich, made with peanut butter and bananas.
I start a peanut butter and banana sandwich by spreading peanut butter on two slices of bread. I then slice circular slices of the banana, starting at the end of the banana, and place each slice on one of the pieces of bread until I have a single layer of banana slices. Every time I do this, the former condensed matter physicist in me starts to twitch his eye. You see, I have this urge, this desire, this need to maximize the packing fraction of the banana slices. That is, I want to maximize the coverage of the banana slices on the bread. Just as bowl-form food is perfect because you get every ingredient in every bite, each bite of my sandwich should yield the same golden ratio of bread, peanut butter, and banana.
If you were a machine learning model (or my wife), then you would tell me to just cut long rectangular strips along the long axis of the banana, but I’m not a sociopath. If life were simple, then the banana slices would be perfect circles of equal diameter, and we could coast along looking up optimal configurations on packomania. But alas, life is not simple. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and banana slices are elliptical with varying size.
So, how do we make optimal peanut butter and banana sandwiches? It’s really quite simple. You take a picture of your banana and bread, pass the image through a deep learning model to locate said items, do some nonlinear curve fitting to the banana, transform to polar coordinates and “slice” the banana along the fitted curve, turn those slices into elliptical polygons, and feed the polygons and bread “box” into a 2D nesting algorithm.
Read how he did exactly that, in excruciating detail, in a study of the optimal way to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich. You could say it's bananas. -via Metafilter
There's a nude model in this photo. Do you see her?
The International Garden Photographer of the Year has several competitions every year focusing on garden, plant, flower and botanical photography. Their main competition is open for entries until October 31. Other contests are held throughout the year, and recently they announced the winners of their macrophotography competition. First Place went to Bruno Militelli of São Paulo, Brazil. The picture of a rainbow lily above taken by Ecaterina Leonte was selected as a finalist. The tiny frog below was taken by Barbora Polivkova and won a commendation.
See all the stunning winners and finalists at the competition's website. -via Kottke
If you visit the Olomouc Museum of Art in Czechia, be sure to check out an installation mounted on the outside of the building. It's a sculpture by David Černý of a thief attempting to escape from the museum with stolen artwork. Atlas Obscura fills us in on this funny work of art:
The robber has a famed sculpture of Karel Nepraš in his bag, a tribute to the late Czech sculptor. The statue moves along the ledge once every hour. The voice used for the statue is that of well-known Czech singer David Koller, who is Černý’s friend.
The sculpture moves occasionally and can shout at passersby.
Photo: Michal Maňas
Want to open your door without using keys but don’t want it to be obvious? If your answer was yes to that question, then you might consider having this smart lock called Level Lock that looks like a regular lock.
Some smart locks, like August, Kwikset and others, have distinctive hardware that’s visible from the outside. Billed as an “invisible smart lock,” Level Lock was designed with discretion in mind, according to a statement from Level Home. The lock itself looks like a key lock, but in fact can open by the touch of a finger, a vocal command or with a programmable keycard. You can also give others access to your home through the Level app, and approved guests can gain entry using their phone as a key.
The stainless steel deadbolt hides a CR2 battery within it, which can hold a charge for up to one year, according to the statement. Level Lock’s accompanying app, HomeKit, can connect with both iOS and Android devices.
Unlike other smart locks, such as August, which costs $150, this smart lock is more expensive, costing $329.
I wonder if the accompanying app will remind you when the battery’s low. I also wonder what will happen if the battery runs out.
Well, what do you think?
(Image Credit: Level Home/ Engadget)
Jamie Rust had nothing to do during the lockdown, and so he just decided to improve upon what he likes to do: BBQ. And so, when he, along with some mates, took on the Restaurant Challenge by Altons BBQ World, Rust gave it his best shot. The contest was simple: “replicate classic dishes from some of the biggest chains around, such as KFC, Nando's and Pizza Express.”
… he didn't hold back, forking out £60 ($78) on the ingredients to make his own Big Mac, fries, Filet-O-Fish and apple pie.
In preparation, the dad-of one said he went down to his local branch which supplied him with the packaging so it looked a touch more authentic.
He said: "I cooked 99 percent of the whole menu, made my own Maccies uniform, and even made a custom Lego toy that looked like me with a set of tongs and a BBQ.
"The Sausage and Egg McMuffin and Chicken Legend were identical! Everything else was better than Maccies because of the fresh ingredients and seasoning."
Rust won with a score of 9.9/10. But the battle does not end here, as there’s still the second round, where he hopes to step things up a gear.
The McDonald’s menu took him 18 hours to make.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: LADbible/@bro.n.slo)
What does Queen Elizabeth II eat? How many meals does she have in a day? What is her “guilty pleasure”? What kind of food does she like? What kind of food does she hate? How does she act when she doesn’t like the food? The Queen’s former chef, Darren McGrady answers all of these questions in this article over at Independent.
(Image Credit: NASA/ Bill Ingalls/ Wikimedia Commons)
At first glance, this might be a toy that you would give to your child. But on second glance, you’ll notice that it comes with a cord which you can attach to it, and then you realize that this isn’t a toy — it’s a fully functioning mini iron. Sold by Japanese company Piera, this tiny appliance costs ¥1,078 (around $10.17).
So just how small is the Mini Iron, as it’s officially (and very appropriately) called? 10 centimeters long by 6.5 wide and 6 tall (3.9, 2.6, and 2.4 inches). If those numbers are too tiny to be meaningful to your mind’s eye, here it is next to an iPhone 7.
Staff over at SoraNews24 tested the product over some shirts. Know what they found out over at the site.
(Image Credit: SoraNews24)
Yunomine Village, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan — The sun had not yet risen, but the kitchen staff of this traditional Japanese Inn, called Ryokan Adumaya, is already busy preparing their local specialty for their guests.
In one corner of the brightly lit kitchen, Jitsuo Shinka was stirring a large pot of rice porridge, nimbly scooping it in his ladle and gently letting it spill back into the mixture. As the porridge came to a boil, a thick, slightly yellowish foam built up that threatened to spill over the rim of the metal pot.
We all know that porridge is a common dish in many places, so what makes this porridge stand out from the others? The answer is found in the water used.
… it is made with water from Yunomine’s ancient onsen (natural hot spring).
[...]
According to local residents, cooking with onsen water does not radically alter the taste of food, but it does make it milder in flavour. Unlike regular tap water, it also has the benefit of keeping meat tender, even if you cook it for a long time.
Know more about this Japanese village, as well as the properties of the hot spring water, over at BBC.
(Image Credit: Michiyo Nakamoto/ BBC)
Detroit — Had she regained consciousness a little later, her blood would have been drained and she would have been embalmed. Thankfully, this young woman, named Timesa Beauchamp, who was declared dead, opened her eyes at the funeral home just in time before any of this could happen.
The Southfield fire department acknowledged it was involved in a bizarre set of events Sunday that began when a medical crew was summoned to a home where a 20-year-old woman was unresponsive.
Paramedics tried to revive the woman for 30 minutes and consulted an emergency room doctor, the department said.
The Oakland County medical examiner’s office said the body could be released to the family without an autopsy, according to the fire department.
But then came a startling discovery at the James H. Cole funeral home in Detroit: The woman was still alive more than an hour later.
More details about this story over at AP News.
That was close!
(Image Credit: Pixabay)
One of the most common problems that teens and adults have to deal with is acne. It is a skin condition present in many places around the world, affecting millions of people. It is said that up to 50 million Americans are affected by acne annually. But what is it, really?
Here’s what actually happens in your skin to form a zit: A hair follicle becomes clogged with natural oil, known as sebum, along with dead skin cells and bacteria. This is accompanied by inflammation, part of the body’s immune response, which is what causes the redness and swelling. The more sebum and bacteria, the more acne. But then things get tricky.
Part of what makes acne so difficult to treat is that there are many contributing factors. Hormone fluctuations spur many acne flare-ups. So, changes in women’s hormones during menstruation, pregnancy or menopause makes acne more common in women.
Unfortunately, there is no cure for acne. But there are many ways to reduce their occurrence on your face.
More details about this over at Discover Magazine.
(Image Credit: Kjerstin_Michaela/ Pixabay)
Like Bilbo Baggins said, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door." Just stay inside. If not, then a smoking tire may slam into your house.
Ben Stentz, the homeowner, should at least be grateful that the stray tire rung his doorbell. That was good manners.
-via TYWKIWDBI
As a means of helping photographers make money, Google Images is trialling a “Licensable” tag on image results. This tag is a project that the company has been working on since early 2018. To strengthen the photographer’s claim on their photos, Google has removed the “view image” button that lets users download high-res images straight from the search results and added metadata to the search results. The licensing button is a new addition to their efforts, as Fstoppers details:
In order to have the licensing option appear alongside your image within a Google Image search, the licensing information needs to be specified on your website.
A link is then provided which guides users to more information about how to license. The feature is still in testing mode and is yet to be rolled out – although anyone who currently owns their own photo website can input the licensing information for their photos through metadata.
Image via Fstoppers
