They're icons of a great era in the history of New York City and a staple of film scenes from the Big Apple. And now they're gone. The city government began removing payphones in 2014 and replacing them with kiosks that offer Wi-Fi and mobile device charging. There are now 2,000 such kiosks across the city.
That conversion project is in its final phase. CNBC reports that the final payphone kiosk at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fiftieth Street in midtown Manhattan has been removed. It will be placed on display at the Museum of the City of New York as part of an exhibit on life in that city before the computer age.
Let's say that you need to transport your pet somewhere, such as the veterinarian's office or the local public library. You would like to keep both of your hands free to, say, open doors or fight off the undead. You could wear a pet carrier backpack, but those look dorky. A far more distinguished look is this pet carrier made by Ari Serrano who creates streetwear for modern needs.
Nicole Pesce is a concert pianist of the highest caliber. She's been at work since early childhood, having memorized over 500 songs by the age of 7. Now, as an adult, she's personally composed over 300 and is famous for her comedic performances reminscent of the late Victor Borge.
In this concert delivered in 2011, Pesce imagined what the classic tune "Happy Birthday" would sound like if it had been written by famous classical composers. She mixes up that song with Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Chopin's "Military Polonaise", Brahms's "Lullaby", Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", and a Mozart piece that I can't name.
For the final bit, Pesce imagines Mozart performing it while very drunk. Quite athletically, she plays the piano while upside down. Pesce takes her inspiration from a particular scene in the film Amadeus.
Rejection, whether is from a job or a date, can be painful. But sometimes, when it happens, the person turning us away can be kind about it.
David Attenborough, a British broadcaster most famous for creating and narrating nature programs, such as Life on Earth, has a public reputation as a gentleman. He does not casually cut down people who seek his aid.
James Mielke, a producer for the video game design studio Limited Run Games, once attempted to enlist Attenborough as a voiceover artist for the game Jupiter & Mars. That's an underwater, immersive VR experience, so Attenborough would be an ideal narrator.
Attenborough thanked Mielke for the invitation, but demurred. He doesn't do fiction narration in order to maintain a specific public image. But he let Mielke down gently.
Japanese YouTuber Kurahito Craft made a completely functional and sturdy cushion entirely out of wood. the screenshot above illustrates how. By cutting notches into opposing sides of the columns, he used the material's natural flexibility to create springs. When all 60 wood springs are bound together and capped, they combine into a flexible cushion that doesn't break under pressure.
To put his design to the test, Kurahito stood on the assembled cushion with his full bodyweight, as well as gradually reduced the number of springs down to only four. So as long as the springs are prevented from flipping sideways, they hold up well.
In the days before MP3 players, building a music library required physical media. One popular option for decades was vinyl records. You needed a good collection to entertain yourself and guests.
It was so important that even the White House had one.
The Washingtonian shares the story of John Chuldenko, one of the grandsons of former President Jimmy Carter. He heard from former First Lady Rosalynn Carter that the White House possessed a little known record collection. As a music enthusiast, he had to learn more.
Thus began Chuldenko's discovery of the forgotten vinyl library. He used his connections and his research skills to track down this library and its history.
In 1973, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) curated and donated a collection of 1,800 records to the White House. It was their representation of the music of America. Then the RIAA updated the collection in 1981 with even more records. But, over time, it was neglected and forgotten in the vast archives of the White House.
In 2010, Chuldenko got the opportunity to examine this collection. He brought along a film crew in the hope of recording footage for a documentary:
“With every box, there was this new treasure inside,” Chuldenko recalls. “I knew what was in there on paper, but it’s different when you actually hold these records. They had never been played. It was like walking into a record store in 1979. They were absolutely pristine.”
At one point, they decided to listen to a politically charged punk-rock landmark: the Clash’s self-titled 1977 debut. “I’m so bo-o-ored with the U-S-A!” Joe Strummer snarled—a chorus that had almost certainly never rattled the walls of the presidential residence prior to that moment. “We put that on,” Chuldenko says, “and it was just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m playing the Clash . . . in the White House!’ I mean, what an incredible protest record. And it’s not like I brought it myself. I am playing the White House’s copy.”
Chuldenko recorded this event, but never got enough funding to create the documentary. He still has the footage, though. Hopefully, with increased attention, he may be able to produce it. Or, better still, a current or future President could open up the collection for a loud party.
As Alex is fond of reminding me, it is because of me and me alone that Neatorama has a virtual dress code. Pants are mandatory and said pants must "extend to at least the knees and not be skin-tight". The incident that led to the proclamation of this dress code could have been avoided if I had access to this custom application by YouTuber Everything Is Hacked.
He previously made a keyboard-like interface that can be controlled with facial expressions and, in fact, used it to make this particular Zoom modification. The application detects the area of your body below the waist and superimposes virtual pants upon it. You can change the color of your virtual pants but, the programmer stresses, you cannot turn sideways without the virtual pants virtually falling off.
As a backup plan, consider wearing pants and virtual pants during your work Zooms.
INCREDIBLE MOMENT: Boynton Beach police sent this video out in the hopes to honor the people who got out of the car to help the woman who had a medical episode while driving. https://t.co/5XDUhTg570pic.twitter.com/2o6G9d6MJP
WPTV News reports that a driver in Boynton Beach, Florida, passed out while stopped at a busy intersection. The car kept rolling forward. Another driver noticed and jumped out of her own car in the middle of heavy traffic to try to stop it. More people joined her and surrounded the car at great risk to their own lives in an effort to stop it.
Eventually, they are able to smash open a window with a dumbbell, unlock the car doors, and get to the driver. Among these rescuers was a nurse who attended to the driver until firefighters arrived on the scene.
This is Victoria Island in Canada's arctic far north. It's the eighth largest island in the world. The island almost entirely uninhabited except for the town of Cambridge Bay because the weather is considered a bit chilly by Canadian standards.
There are many lakes on the island, most of which are unnamed, including this one.
Within this unnamed lake is an island.
On that island is a lake. And in that lake is an island, which measures about 4 acres in size.
So it's what Atlas Obscura calls a "third order island". Josh Calder discovered it on Google Maps in 2007. It's one of two such islands. The other is a volcanic caldera lake island in the Philippines.
This island has no name. I suggest that Canada name its third order island after George VI, the third King of Canada.
What do you think Canada should name this geographic oddity?
Joe Porter is a master percussionist who teaches his art at the University of Lethbridge Music Conservatory in Alberta. He does orchestral work, but doesn't limit himself to that form, as he also plays Brazilian, Japanese, Tahitian, and Caribbean percussion instruments.
In this short video, he runs through a rapid succession of instruments with songs that you'll recognize. He plays a few bars from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" on the hammered dulcimer, Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" on the steel pan, AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" on the slapophone, Metallica's "Master of Puppets" on the flairdrum, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication" on the vibraphone, and Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" on the marimba.
Check out Porter's YouTube channel for more percussion covers of music from The Avengers, Minecraft, Naruto, and Encanto.
Sora News 24 keeps us up to date on the latest news from the sumo world. A new, mysterious rising star is emerging in Kashiwa, a city on the outskirts of Tokyo. He's the 16-month old son of Akiyoshi Nagai, the chairman of the local sumo federation.
The toddler's father has clearly been training him aggressively from birth. He's grown up in the stable and has been studying these master athletes carefully even before he could walk.
Now that he can walk--sorta--the kid is ready to enter the ring. Watch has he throws his much larger opponent back with a single palm strike, tossing the huge man head over heels.
The Saudi General Authority for Statistics is running an ad gently asking people to stop inviting census takers into their homes for coffee and meals. pic.twitter.com/X7E5bKt9id
— ممنوع الوقوف على الأطلال (@WhiteShemagh) April 28, 2022
Saudi Arabia is famous for its hospitality. Guests must be treated very well and must never leave with an empty stomach.
This presents problems for census takers with the government's General Authority for Statistics. They need to collect information, then move on to the next house.
The news website Morroco News says that the agency created this ad to gently remind people that census takers are at work. They appreciate all offers of coffee and meals, but must keep on the go.
Redditor /u/Sensitive-Shoe2040 offers a translation of the dialog--if you really need one. The census taker's body language conveys enough of the story.
Candice Kloss, who is pictured above, has high standards for romance. If a man wants to date her, he needs to deliver the intellectual goods.
The Sun reports that Kloss has an IQ of 136, which puts her within the top 2% of the population. Her favorite topic is behavioral economics, but she's willing to talk about a wide variety of subjects.
Kloss works as a model, which leads some men to underestimate her intelligence. So as a screening tool, she gives a written IQ test on first dates. Candidates must score at least above average and prove through conversation to "be exceptionally smart in at least one subject."
Simone Giertz, a roboticist and general-purpose genius, introduces us to her latest and perhaps simplest invention: a Phillips-head screwdriver ring. This is handy, as one occasionally needs a Phillips head in one's daily adventures. It could also serve, I suppose, as an improvised weapon, as it adds a bit of spiciness to punches and backhand slaps.
Hopefully Giertz will also offer the ring with various sizes of Allen keys, as access to a common size could be helpful for some people.
Giertz notes that she shaved off the hair on her knuckles to make this video, so we should be grateful not only for her invention, but her sacrifices that she made to promote it.
If your immediate answer is "to create the false impression that an impoverished country with a failed economic system is actually prosperous", you'd be correct. But the complete answer is more complicated.
Rakesh Krishnan Simha writes in a 2017 Russia Beyond article that in 1967, the Soviet government created the country's first and only advertising agency. The Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev ordered that this agency, the Eesti Reklaamfilm (ERF), focus on consumer goods. All Soviet companies must spend 1% of their revenue on advertising.
Many companies didn't produce consumer goods. But that didn't matter. They still had to spend a full percentage point of their revenues on advertising. So they often made up products and ads for these imaginary products. If these ads helped bolster the notion that the Soviet system actually worked for Soviet citizens, so much the better.
These video commercials became wildly popular with the Soviet people, who sought access to televisions in order to watch them. One of the most popular TV programs was a weekly 20-minute block of advertisements that aired every Saturday.
