It is the end of January once again, and I believe that most of us by now have broken their resolutions from the New Year. This brings us to this question: why are old habits hard to break, and new ones hard to make? Dr. Radha Modgil explains to us the answer, and also tells us what it takes to create a new habit.
Check out the video over at BBC.
(Image Credit: ColiN00B/ Pixabay)
This is Chesnut. He is a photogenic cat who has his own Instagram account. His human, ChazaySSB, posted these pics of Chestnut smiling for the camera on reddit last week, and they became an instant meme. See, it looks as if Chesnut is telling a joke that he thinks is uproariously funny. So everyone began putting words in his mouth. Here are a few examples- click to the right to see them.
There's always another bad Dad joke that Chesnut can tell. See 21 of them at Bored Panda.
A buffet line can be tempting, and they are particularly handy when trying to expose young children to a variety of foods, but there comes a time when you have to ask yourself "Can I really eat $20 worth of food in one sitting?" A lot of people take an all-you-can-eat offer as a challenge, and it's a wonder that the restaurant can make any money at all. You better believe they have the numbers and risks down to a science. For example, they save on staffing compared to a full-service restaurant.
Self-service allows a buffet to bypass a wait staff, and all-you-can-eat dishes (which are generally less complex and prepped in enormous batches) can be made by a “skeleton crew” of line cooks.
“At a typical restaurant, a cook can service 25 customers per hour — and that’s at best,” says Joe Ericsson, a managing partner at the food consultancy Restaurant Owner. “In the same amount of time, a single buffet cook might be able to prep enough food for 200 people.”
Because margins are so slim, buffets rely on high foot traffic: At Golden Corral, a buffet chain with 498 locations in 42 states, dining floors are 5k-square-feet and seat 475 people. On a typical Saturday, it’s not uncommon for 900 diners to come through the door.
The amount of food served per customer is also broken down, with diners categorized by how profitable they are. Read the statistics of how buffets make money at the Hustle. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Zachary Crockett/The Hustle)
Bless the maker and His water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for His people.
Your understanding of human anatomy is obsolete. The spice has changed us. Refer to Mark's Basic Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach by Michael Lieberman and Allan D. Sparks for an update.
Crossing the street is one of the most frightening experiences I have in my life, especially when there are drivers who, upon seeing that someone will cross the street, will drive even faster than before.
I still find it difficult and frustrating to cross the street up to this day. Thankfully, there are those who will help you go to the other side, like this dog in Georgia, who acted as a crossing guard for the children.
Because of this heroic deed, the dog named Kupata (which means “sausage” in English) was honored by the Adjara Department of Tourism and Resorts with a "People's Choice" appreciation star.
They also helped build him a small wooden house in the place where he's been living for the last four years.
(Video Credit: Rusa oqruashvili/ YouTube)
Nansledan is a residential community in the southwestern corner of England. Residents of Nansledan have to abide by some rules, such as painting their homes and doors in certain colors, and no fast-food chains should be set up, only local businesses. It just happens that these rules must be followed because your landlord, the Prince of Wales, told you so. Having Prince Charles as your landlord in Nansledan is no surprise, as the community is a project taken by the Duchy of Cornwall, as The New York Times details:
Nansledan, which will eventually have about 4,000 homes, could be the most ambitious project undertaken in the 700 years of the Duchy of Cornwall, the patchwork of properties spread across England, covering more than 200 square miles, that provides an income to the Prince of Wales.
A dukedom within a kingdom, the duchy was created in 1337 by Edward III for his eldest son, Prince Edward (known after his death as the Black Prince, perhaps because of the color of his armor). Prince Edward became the first Duke of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales, but he was never king — he died, probably of an illness, at age 45 while his father was still on the throne.
Most of the time since then, the duchy has passed to the eldest surviving son of the monarch, who is also heir to the throne and holds the title of the Duke of Cornwall.
Since 1952, that has been Prince Charles. At age 71, he has been in charge of the duchy longer than anyone before him (thanks to his mother, still reigning at age 93).
The duchy, which receives rent from tenants that include farmers, homeowners and shopping centers, earned 21 million pounds, or about $28 million, for the year that ended in March 2019, and Charles shared some of that income with his two sons and their families.
image via The New York Times
The Curiosity rover froze in place thanks to a software glitch. The multi-billion dollar rover has been operating on Mars since 2012. The unexpected glitch came in the form of the rover forgetting its awareness. Curiosity is designed to maintain an awareness of where each of its arms and implements are so it won’t damage them as it goes around Mars. On January 20, Curiosity lost this awareness, triggering a safety mode in which it ceases any movement, as SlashGear details:
According to Dawn Sumner, a Planetary Geologist at University of California Davis and one of the people working on the Curiosity project, that “body awareness” – also known as attitude – is checked before any motor on the rover is activated. That way, it stands a better chance of spotting a potential issue before it happens.
“When the answer is no – or even maybe not – Curiosity stops without turning the motor,” Sumner writes. “This conservative approach helps keep Curiosity from hitting its arm on rocks, driving over something dangerous, or pointing an unprotected camera at the sun."
It was that safety evaluation which was interrupted, with “some knowledge” of Curiosity’s attitude escaping it, Sumner explains. The rover did continue sending back information to Earth, and that allowed scientists on the ground to come up with a recovery plan. “The engineers on the team built a plan to inform Curiosity of its attitude and to confirm what happened,” Sumner says. “We want Curiosity to recover its ability to make its safety checks, and we also want to know if there is anything we can do to prevent a similar problem in the future.”
image via wikimedia commons
The new Star Wars series The Mandalorian takes a step away from how the usual Star Wars films were created. Instead of building massive and elaborative sets, Lucasfilm is using new Stagecraft technology. They are using a rear-projected LED screen to create a dynamic environment, essentially a real-time green-screen. New photos from the set showcase the Stagecraft technology at work, as SlashFIlm details:
Here’s a wide glimpse at the Stagecraft being utilized in the opening scene of The Mandalorian from the first episode. As you can see, the screen surrounds the entire set and allows the crew to shoot from any angle. The technology allows the screens to change how the environment looks based on how a scene is being shot.
So if the camera is panning along with a character (as above), the perspective of the environment moves as the camera does, recreating what it would be like if a camera were moving in that physical space. You can get a better idea of how this is achieved over here.
image via SlashFIlm
The coronavirus is an airborne virus that primarily infects a mammal or a bird’s upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract. First reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the aforementioned virus has infected people in China. As sick people from Wuhan traveled, the illness also spread in other countries, including the United States.
Belonging to the same family as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, which have killed hundreds of people almost two decades ago, the World Health Organization has named the newly discovered coronavirus as 2019-nCoV.
The question is, where did this come from? Some scientists say that the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra could be the original source of this virus.
More details about this over at Discover.
(Image Credit: Thomas Brown/ Wikimedia Commons)
Digital illustrator and graphic designer Kostis Pavlou reimagined well-known cartoon and comic characters and redraws them in a more mature way, from Marge Simpson to Popeye to Smurfette. Pavlou wondered what these characters would look like in a more adult style, and if they can become models even with their character design. Does his reimagined Marge Simpson look like a model to you?
(via Design You Trust)
image via Kostis Pavlou
Rolls-Royce revealed their plan to BBC about installing and operating power stations by 2029. The manufacturer is leading a consortium to build small nuclear reactors and install them in former nuclear sites. The company estimates they will build 10-15 stations in the UK. While these mini nuclear stations reduce costs, some people are against the idea of nuclear power, as BBC details:
But opponents say the UK should quit nuclear power altogether.
They say the country should concentrate on cheaper renewable energy instead.
Environmentalists are divided over nuclear power, with some maintaining it is dangerous and expensive, while others say that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 all technologies are needed.
However, the industry is confident that mini reactors can compete on price with low-cost renewables such as offshore wind.
image via BBC
Tinder will unveil a new feature that lets its users alert the authorities if they need help or are in danger during a date. Tinder will partner up with Noonlight, a safety app that tracks people’s locations and sends the information to emergency services when the user alarms the trigger in the app. If a user hits the panic button in Tinder during a date, it will alert a certified Noonlight dispatcher, who will then notify the authorities. Buzzfeed news has more details:
Once a Tinder user opts in to Noonlight, they have the option to add a badge to their profile.
Tinder CEO Elie Seidman told the Journal, “I liken this to the lawn sign from a security system."
"It serves as a deterrent if people feel comfortable putting it on their profiles," a Tinder spokesperson added to BuzzFeed News.
Though location sharing may be a privacy concern for users, the Tinder spokesperson said users will be sharing that data with Noonlight, not the dating app itself.
"Noonlight does not share or sell any data, and we only use data to get you help in the event of an emergency," Addy Bhasin, a Noonlight spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.
Bhasin said users have the option to turn location sharing on and off when they choose.
"So when you go on your date you can turn it on, and when your date ends you can turn it off," she said.
image via Buzzfeed news
A video on Twitter has left fans and casual viewers of the TV show The Late Late Show with James Cordon segment Carpool Karaoke aghast. In the segment, James Corden drives around LA and sings along with a celebrity guest. Apparently, they are being towed by a bigger truck as they sing along! While this video left people to speculate and feel betrayed that the host of carpool karaoke doesn’t really drive the car, a statement from the show clarified that he does drive some of the time, and he doesn’t on the rare occasion where producers feel that it is unsafe to drive.
Saw James corden and Justin Bieber filming carpool karaoke and this is why I have trust issues — he isn't even driving! pic.twitter.com/bkP9moGJmu
— Zoli ⚡️ (@zolihonig) January 23, 2020
(via Cosmopolitan)
image screenshot via Youtube
A new role-playing game has been released, where you catch adorable elemental monsters and fight against other players’ own elemental monsters. No, this is not Pokemon, this is Temtem. While having similar elements to Pokemon, the game is also an MMO. You can also fight against fellow players of the game around the globe! Geek.com has more details:
The game’s focus on double battles, something we wish Pokemon embraced more, aids cooperation. And Temtem’s arguably harsher stamina system, limiting how many powerful moves the monsters can use on each turn, amps up the competitive factor.
Obviously, a Pokemon MMO is something a lot of folks want to check out. So Temtem’s servers are currently swamped. But things are getting steadier as the game continues its early access run on PC before hopefully moving to consoles.
image via Geek.com
Utah is home to a lot of rock art, carved and painted by North American tribes on the red, sprawling canyons and cliff faces. These people depicted war, hunting scenes, animals, maps, and early calendars on the rocks. These thousands of pieces of art have yet to be recognized and protected by the government. Utah’s rock art has been vandalized and damaged, and is at a risk of being destroyed completely. The National Park Service wants each site (where the rock art lies) documented separately. This tedious process will take a long time and effort, as Hyperallergic detailed:
“They said they had to do a single nomination for every site,” Loftin told the Salt Lake Tribune. “For [the BLM archaeologists] to go back and do this for each site would be a huge chunk of work they don’t have the time for.”
“We need to say this has national significance, and it’s what makes Moab special.” Pam Baker told the Salt Lake Tribune. “The process is too labor intensive for the BLM to do on their own. Once we were here full time, we recruited others to help, dozens of people.”
The National Park Service says it recognizes the historical significance of Moab’s rock art, but since new leadership has taken over, surveyors are requiring more consistency across the sites’ documentation and a more thorough description of their importance.
The BLM plans to resubmit the sites for listing on the registry even though it will take thousands of hours and significant manpower. Many people think this delay in protection could lead to further vandalization and destruction of the sites.
image via wikimedia commons
