Did you know that water can turn into a disinfectant if electrolyzed? Regular tap water turns into a non-toxic disinfectant that’s capable of instantly neutralizing any microorganism or volatile organic compounds. Electrolyzed Water is capable of killing bacteria and viruses, and is certified by the FDA. Now you can get your hands on it through a small spray can. The EO Mini turns water into the solution, as Yanko Design details: 

Just fill its vessel with regular tap water and the EO Mini’s tiny electrolyzing system creates electrolyzed water in a matter of seconds. Most tap water comes with trace amounts of chlorine in it, which the EO Mini’s internal electrolyzer breaks down to create Hypochlorous acid – which gives the electrolyzed water its disinfecting abilities. A single button on the EO mini allows you to electrolyze the water (by holding it down for 3 seconds) and spray the EO Water solution on your hands, cutlery, handles, spectacles, smartphones, laptops, and even out in the air.

By shrinking the technology into something that’s small enough to fit in your pocket, the EO Mini allows you to carry your safety with you. It can be used at home to clean surfaces, or even outdoors, allowing you to quickly sterilize your hands, your mask, and even frequently-touched objects like the handle on the shopping cart or the keypad on an ATM. By eliminating the use of off-the-counter sanitizers, the EO Mini does two noteworthy things… It provides a healthier and more potent alternative that’s safe for humans and animals, all along while using any regular tap water, saving you money on sanitizers down the line!

Image via Yanko Design

Listen, it’s alright to be creative when it comes to designing your home. Sometimes though, there’s a limit to how creative you can be. Reader’s Digest shares some epic fails when it comes to DIY bathroom projects. From backwards toilet tanks to a showerhead tub faucet, scrolling through this compilation will either have you laughing so hard, or cringing. Check the full piece here. 

Image via Reader’s Digest

If you want to feel the thrill of action movies where protagonists would hack and program a moving vehicle, well this robot vehicle might be for you! While it isn’t like the big cars featured in films, the Sphero RVR is made for everyone ages 8 and up. The mini robot car can help level up anyone’s programming skills, from coding to hacking! 

Image via AutoBlog 

Artist and designer Sean Brown has created a collection of hand-tufted acrylic rugs that emulate the round disc shape of a CD. The Toronto-based artist included designs based on different albums such as   Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core, The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” and Jay-Z’s Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter. The rugs are available for $250 each, as Apartment Therapy details:  

Brown initially shared the designs on Twitter in April, and the tweet has since amassed over 90 thousand likes. In an interview with Vogue earlier this month, Brown cited the serendipitous “happenstance” of coronavirus quarantine as the inspiration behind the collection. “I don’t think it would have gone the same way if it was something I had deliberately set my sights on,” the designer said. “I think being at home allowed me to get in touch with my space, and how I could utilize that in my creativity in my art.”

Brown also said of the sentimental aspect of the collection, “I was talking to a friend and we were discussing how we don’t think it’s fair to judge art so harshly in the moment, because it can mean something so different to the following generations.” Musing on the always-changing landscape of music and hip-hop culture, Brown added, “You look back now, and people who are older now want things to go back to that, and they have a problem with all the Lils and the face tats and the dyed hair.”

Image via Apartment Therapy

It’s hard to keep control of your vehicle when it’s raining. This is why it is advised for us to slow down when it’s raining, to avoid accidents.

When this truck tried to park inside this garage, it seemed that the driver lost control of the big vehicle. But with an incredible amount of focus, godlike skill, great spatial awareness, and a little bit of luck, the truck driver manages to pull off a perfect drift. Let that sink in. A truck just pulled off the perfect drift. On a rainy day.

Watch the video at Reddit.

(Image Credit: u/ _asstronaut_/ Reddit)

Short answer: no.

Experts say that alcohol is just what it is: alcohol. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s tequila, beer, or champagne. But isn’t it true that the different types of alcohol have different effects? Experts have an explanation for that.

“Different types of drinks don’t have specific or consistent effects on behavior or mood,” says Nicole Lee, a psychologist and drug researcher at Curtin University in Australia. What can affect your response is the kind of experience you expect when you order a certain drink — which often turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

First, some basic facts: No matter your standard drink order, alcohol — or ethanol, chemically speaking — chips away at your inhibitions. “You have less control over your thinking and emotional centers when alcohol is on board,” Lee says. “If you are feeling a particular way, alcohol tends to amplify it.” When people regularly order a certain drink (say, wine or whiskey), they may erroneously assume that that drink explains the emotions they’re feeling.

More details about this over at Discover Magazine.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: VViktor/ Pixabay)

There may have been a lot of mistakes and blunders from both players in this chess game, but you don’t need a perfect chess game in order to tell a great story.

Adding some visual effects and memes, YouTuber Alphamaxnova1 (White) retells the endgame of this casual chess match in a humorous, but emotionally moving way.

The link to the full chess game here.

(Video Credit: Alphamaxnova1/ YouTube)

July, 26, 1714. The Løvendals Gallej, an 18-gun frigate, was sailing off Lindesnes (a municipality in Norway), flying the Dutch flag, when it came across a British-flagged ship. That ship was De Olbing Galley, a 28-gun frigate made available by the Royal Navy to Sweden.

As the two ships approached each other with caution, the Løvendals Gallej suddenly raised their true flag, and the other ship opened fire. The battle between the Løvendals Gallej, captained by Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskjold, against De Olbing Galley, captained by Bactmann.

Both ships suffered heavy damage as they shot at each other. But the Løvendals suffered more than the De Olbing Galley, because of Wessel’s aggressiveness. His ship was already running out of ammo… but he still wanted to continue the duel. And so,

...Wessel had a boat lowered and sent with a white flag. The Englishman thought it was to negotiate the surrender but he was stunned when he heard the true proposal of the adversary—Wessel wanted a shipment of gunpowder and cannon balls to continue the battle.

Obviously the proposal was not accepted but they did toast together and exchange compliments. Then, given the battered state of the two ships, each one went their own way.

After this battle, Wessel was court-martialed upon the demand of Frederick IV, King of Denmark.

It was carried out in November [of the same year], and he was accused of revealing information to the enemy about his precarious situation and of putting a crown ship at risk by attacking a better-armed adversary. However, the audacious sailor was acquitted in less than a month when he successfully argued a section of the Danish naval code which mandated that fleeing enemy ships had to [be] attacked no matter the size.

And if he was already audacious in that battle, he was more audacious this time as he approached the king and even asked for a promotion, which he received, surprisingly.

Such is the life of Wessel. Full of confidence and audacity.

Learn more about this his life over at Amusing Planet.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

In 1987, paleontologist Stan Sacrison discovered the first bones of this gigantic specimen. The said specimen stands 13 feet (4 meters) high at the hip, and it stretches 40 feet (12 meters) long from its snout to its tail. The creature, which was named Stan, after the paleontologist, was a Tyrannosaurus rex. Now, the dinosaur is for sale.

On October 6, Stan will be a headline act of Christie’s Evening Sale of 20th Century Art, where he’s expected to sell for at least US$6 to 8 million. There are rumblings that he could go for more than that however, meaning he might nab the crown for highest amount ever paid for a dinosaur fossil. That record is currently held by the T-Rex Sue, which was sold for $8.3 million back in 1997.

While there’s no telling where Stan might end up, it would be sad to lose such a spectacular scientific specimen to a private collector. Hopefully, he gets picked up by or donated to an institute or museum, so the world can continue to marvel at this ancient wonder.

Learn more about the dinosaur over at New Atlas.

(Image Credit: Christie’s/ New Atlas)

The popular view of Roman Emperor Nero is that of Peter Ustinov’s performance in Quo Vadis. People who know nothing else of Nero know that he fiddled while Rome burned. While that might be true, it doesn't tell the entire story. We think of Nero as a cruel sociopathic tyrant because of the stories that followed him all these centuries. Most of them are quite embellished, if not totally made up.

But what if Nero wasn’t such a monster? What if he didn’t invent the spectator sport of throwing Christians to the lions in the Colosseum? What if he wasn’t the tyrant who murdered upstanding Roman senators and debauched their wives? Indeed, what if the whole lurid rap sheet has been an elaborate set-up, with Nero as history’s patsy? After all, we have no eyewitness testimony from Nero’s reign. Any contemporaneous writings have been lost. The ancient Roman sources we do have date from considerably after Nero’s suicide in A.D. 68. The case against Nero, then, is largely hearsay, amplified and distorted over two millennia in history’s longest game of telephone. Besides, no one really wants to straighten out the record. Who wants another version of Nero? He’s the perfect evil tyrant just the way he is.

John Drinkwater is the author of a new Nero biography, in which the Roman emperor appears to be a run-of-the-mill ruler, a young man who preferred to write poetry and sing than deal with politics. He did have his mother killed, but the story of Nero obliviously letting Rome burn was nonsense. Nero was no angel, but neither was he the despot he's been portrayed to be. Read what the historians say about Emperor Nero at Smithsonian.

What makes a good TV theme song? Is one good because it's memorable, because it's a repurposed classic, because it illustrates the show well, or because the creative department made awesome graphics for the intro? Using all these criteria, Vince Mancini ranked the 25 best TV theme songs.

The list includes old classics, awful shows with good theme songs, shows you didn't watch, and shows you've never heard of. The comments are full of differing opinions, and theme songs the author "forgot" or was unaware of. Yeah, sure, this is all opinion, but it also gives us an opportunity to relive those shows because the theme song videos are embedded. -via Digg

This footage of a smoke screen was taken around 1923. A plane dropped a curtain of titanium tetrachloride to obscure the ship's exact location and movement from the enemy. In World War II, this was used to protect Allied ships from enemy fire, as Japanese naval radar technology was only in its infancy. Meanwhile, American ships were more likely to employ radar to locate target ships that were out of sight. -via reddit

The Victorian era was when colonialism and the Industrial Revolution collided, and the fashion was to collect interesting objects, or any objects at all, to stuff one's home with. Disposable income led to rampant consumerism, and an obsession with "things." The Sambournes were an example, if not the epitome of this consumerism.

One of Punch’s best-known cartoonists and illustrators, Edward Linley Sambourne, and his wife, Marion, occupied a house at 18 Stafford Terrace in London’s Kensington and Chelsea Borough. They moved in as newlyweds in the 1870s and lived there until their deaths four decades later. Preserved as a museum, 18 Stafford Terrace stands as a temple of well-appointed late-Victorian comfort, most of its original objects still in situ. Marion’s diaries chronicle the life of the house and keep a running list of its contents, including more than 550 pieces of furniture. Her art- and furniture-loving husband spent a lifetime adding to the domestic load. The museum website suggests his acquisitive tendencies caused his spouse agitation: The master of the house attended auctions and sales until he died, a habit that added “ever more objects to the interiors, often to Marion’s despair.”

One detail, plucked from Marion Sambourne’s diaries by Shirley Nicholson for her book A Victorian Household, staggers me: The family owned 66 upright chairs. Many were used in the dining room and drawing room, as one would expect, but ten found their way to the master bedroom and another ten more occupied the day-nursery.

This apparently wasn’t considered over the top for the time.

While Britain was the prime example of consumerism at the time, and the reason we call it the Victorian Era at all, examples of runaway acquisition could be found all over the world. Read about the rise of "things" at Literary Hub. -via Strange Company

Today, we have self-heating cans of soup, that use a chemical reaction to produce heat. It's not a new idea. In fact, a recipe from 13th-century tells us how to do it.

To cook meat without fire....

Take a small earthenware pot with earthenware lid of the right size. Then take another pot, also earthenware, also with a suitable lid that fits well. This should be five fingers deeper than the first, and three fingers bigger round. Then take pork and chicken, cut them into nice pieces, get good spices and put them in, and some salt. Take the little pot with the meat in and put it inside the big pot. Set it upright, cover it with the lid and seal with damp, sticky soil, so nothing can come out. Then take lime that has not been slaked [quicklime], put it in the big pot full of water, but take care that no water gets into the small pot. Leave it alone for as long as it takes to go five to seven leagues. Then open your pots, and you will find your meat well and truly cooked.

The part about timing the cooking hints that this method might be used while traveling, in a wagon or boat, when no fire would be possible. The same technique, with differences in technology, has been used in the centuries since, which you can read about at Old & Interesting. -via Metafilter

(Image source: Google patents)

Most institutions are now investing in online journals or platforms for accessibility. Sure, it’s easier to find research papers and academic journals that can aid us in our studies, but what happens when institutions stop paying for web hosting or the platform’s service? There’s a high risk that the research stored within those services or platforms will disappear. Archivists at the Internet Archive are hard at work preserving open-access journals permanently, as Vice details: 

Between 2000 and 2019, nearly 200 open-access journals and the research papers they published have vanished from the internet, according to a new study published on arxiv preprint server. Nine-hundred more inactive, open-access journals are also at high risk of vanishing in the near future, the researchers found. 

Of the 176 journals they identified, around one-third vanished from the web within one year of the last publication, taking their articles and research down with them. 

Since 2017, archivists at the Internet Archive have worked to preserve open-access journals permanently. "Of the 14.8 million known open access articles published since 1996, the Internet Archive has archived, identified, and made available through the Wayback Machine 9.1 million of them," Brian Newbold at the Internet Archive wrote on Tuesday. 

To expand those efforts, IA launched the Fatcat editable catalog with an open API for anyone to contribute open-access scholarly works, as well as a new platform for searching through those archives

Image via Vice