The result of 2 years of labor by a master craftsman is this majestic model of the Enterprise from the original Star Trek series. Kretschmer Kreativ shaped this extraordinary duplicate of the 11-foot model that prop masters built for the series and now housed at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. You more images and detailed descriptions of the build process here.
It must be absolutely awe-inspiring in person.
-via Instructables
(Photo: Seulgreat)
Which Pokémon would taste the best? This is the source of long speculation by fans of the game and anime franchise. But it's remained speculation because first you've gotta catch 'em all.
An enterprising company in South Korea is getting started on actual research. Kotaku reports that you can buy Pikachu meat patties. You can order them online or in restaurants.
What does Pikachu taste like? Apparently like pork.
-via Technabob
(Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum)
Internet conspiracy theorists are buzzing with excitement about a grave sculpture dating back to about 100 BC, probably from the Greek island of Delos. It's been passed around various collectors for the past few centuries, but is now housed at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The museum says that the woman is opening a "shallow chest" held by a servant girl. A more fanciful argument is that she's using a laptop computer with serial ports. Both hypotheses, however, are incorrect. YouTube commenter TheSerbTube has figured out what the woman is doing:
-via Geekologie
The seventh rule on the Evil Overlord List says:
When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
See also: rules 3, 4, 6, 16, 38, 46, and 52. The Evil Overlord List is filled with practical advice for everyday life, not just strategic counsel would-be villains from television and movies.
This supercut by Jukka-Pekka Bohm shows how common this trope is. In at least 88 movies, villains and heroes express regret that they did not immediately slay enemies at the first opportunity. You can find a complete list in the comments at the video link.
Content warning: foul language.
-via VA Viper
It's like the climactic scene of a movie.
St. John of the Cross School and St. Cletus Catholic School faced off at at Immaculate Conception High School in Illinois in the basketball game to decide the champion of the Surburban Parish League. The score was tied at 28. The clock ticked down.
Just as the buzzer rang, Jack Hlavin of St. John of the Cross hurled the ball across three-fourths of the court toward St. Cletus's basket. It swooshed through perfectly, delivering the victory to St. John of the Cross and its newest hero, Jack Hlavin.
Appropriately, the crowd erupted in delight at this amazing shot.
Three young women go out for a drive. You may think that they're all siblings, but they're not. There are two sisters and their mother in the photo. Which one is the mom?
Kaylan Mahomes tweeted this photo of herself, her sister, and her remarkably young-looking mom. They look like triplets, but they're not. Can you figure out which is which?
Would you like to avoid dying a horrible death from an infection while staying in the hospital? Then you'd better grow a beard. According to a study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection, men with beards are less likely to develop Staphylococcus aureus infections. Men who shave expose themselves to needless danger by cutting themselves, thus increasingly the likelihood of infections. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The study examined the faces of 408 healthcare workers, with and without facial hair.
While the results were overwhelmingly similar for bearded and non-bearded healthcare workers (bacteria colonisation was, on the whole, low), where there was a difference between the two groups, the bacteria species were more likely to be found in men without facial hair.
But there's more! Your beard, which is a greenhouse for microorganisms (or very large organisms, if you don't clean it), could be used to develop new types of antibiotics. The bearded Michael Mosley of the BBC talked to Dr. Adam Roberts, a microbiologist:
Adam managed to grow over 100 different bacteria from our beards, including one that is more commonly found in the small intestine. But, as he quickly explains, that doesn't mean it came from faeces. Such findings are normal and nothing to worry about. […]
Penicillin was originally extracted from Penicillium notatum, a species of fungus. The microbe-killing properties of this fungus were discovered by Alexander Fleming when he noticed that a fungus spore, which had accidently blown into his lab from researchers further down the corridor, had killed some bacteria he was growing on a petri dish.
So could our mysterious microbes be doing something similar? Killing fellow bacteria by producing some sort of toxin?
Dr. Roberts is absolutely certain that this development is inevitable:
"Yes," says Adam extremely cautiously. "Possibly."
-via Jonah Goldberg
(Image: Monty Python's The Life of Brian)
When you're negotiating the price of something, you should offer a precise amount, not a round number. The other party is more likely to accept your bid. Proposing a round number signals that you don't really know the value of the good being priced. Carmen Nobel explains the Harvard Business Review:
Here’s an easy tip for anyone negotiating to buy a car, a house, or even a company. When you make an initial offer, don’t bid with a round number like $10,000 or $1 million or $15 per share. Rather, bid with a more precise number, like $9,800 or $1.03 million or $14.80 per share.
According to a recent study of mergers and acquisitions, investors who offer “precise” bids for company shares yield better market outcomes than those who offer round-numbered bids
“It turns out that if you make a precise bid, the targets are more likely to accept it, and more likely to accept it at a cheaper price. And with cash bids, they’ll generate a more positive market reaction,” says Matti Keloharju, a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and co-author, with Petri Hukkanen, of the paper Initial Offer Precision and M&A Outcomes.
-via Marginal Revolution
(Image): CBS)
This is a fascinating question tweeted by Venkatesh Rao which I encountered through economist and polymath Tyler Cowen.
The question flips over the classic "What book have you read that has most influenced your life?" into a different realm. What text as more subtly influenced you simply by being present in your society? Cowen responds:
I suppose if you haven’t read the Bible or Quran those are easy answers, but let’s say you have.
I’ve only read snippets of Mein Kampf, so that has to stand as a contender. But has the book really influenced and shaped my life? Maybe you can attribute the relevant marginal product to the life of Hitler, with the book being intermediated by Hitler himself. Therefore I am not sure that answer is true to the spirit of the question.
How about a training manual of some kind, which perhaps my early teachers read but I have never seen or even heard of? Might my mother have read Dr. Spock or other parenting books? That would be my best guess.
Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care greatly altered (or reflected a developing trend) in American parenting. Many adults would have been necessarily influenced by it, so that's a pretty good pick. Cowen's normally very intelligent commenters also have great suggestions, including Isaac Newton's Principles of Natural Philosophy and the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
How do you respond?
(Photo: HGTV)
Timber Kings is a reality TV show about Pioneer Log Homes, a business in British Columbia that builds log homes from local timber. They can build more than just houses. They also make cars, as they demonstrated with this race car built from a single log of Western Red Cedar.
The Cedar Rocket, as the car is named, recently secured the Guinness World Record as the fastest motorized log at the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Arizona by reaching 47.64 miles per hour. Bryan Reid, Sr., the owner and founder of Pioneer Log Homes, drove the Cedar Rocket himself. He called the experience of building and driving this unique racer the "one of the top ten achievements" of his life.
(Unrelated photo via Kārlis Dambrāns)
Deputy Sheriff Seth Hopp of Monroe County, Florida found a car with all 4 doors open, but no one inside. When he approached, the heard knocking coming from inside the trunk. He ordered whoever was inside to come out. "I can't!" replied a voice from inside the trunk. The Sun Sentinel reports:
"I opened the trunk and a...male emerged," said Hopp. And the male had an unusual explanation for his predicament.
After going for a walk on the beach, Moore told the deputy, "he was looking for the keys to the vehicle and had accidently fallen in the trunk while searching for the keys. The trunk then closed on top of him."
What happened to Moore's keys remains unknown. The deputy may have opened the trunk using an in-car release, said Monroe County Sheriff's spokeswoman Becky Herrin.
Surprisingly, drugs were involved:
During his interview with Hopp, Moore told the deputy he had in the car a pill bottle containing marijuana.
-via Christina H. Sommers
Simone Giertz is a brilliant inventor who has changed the way we live our daily lives with gadgets that are now essential parts of modern life. She's the person responsible for many of the technological conveniences in your home, such as your kitchen chopping machine, your slapping alarm clock, your breakfast serving machine, and your tooth brushing helmet.
Her latest wonder--which will hopefully soon be available to consumers--is the lipstick machine. Do you find it troublesome to put on your lipstick every morning? It's just one more chore that Giertz has taken off your to-do list with this gadget that does the job for you.
As it's been said before: droids are slaves. C-3PO is too cheerful about the experience, but R2-D2 isn't. He lets the biological characters know what he thinks about them all the time. They just can't understand him, which is probably a good thing. R2 takes all the risks, does all the work, and gets little of the credit. It's no wonder that he eventually snaps.
-via The Mary Sue
How do you keep your nail polish bottle balanced while brushing your nails? Here's a clever invention that is a lot simpler than growing a third arm for the task. Liz and Mark invented Tweexy, a wearable bottle holder. It's like a ring pop, but less tasty.
The inventors first measured 250 bottles of nail polish to gauge the range of sizes, then designed a flexible silicone cup that would hold the largest number of them. Slip the bottle inside, then the Tweexy onto your fingers. Little wings on the ends make it easier to switch the Tweexy from hand to hand with wet nails.
-via Contemporist
