How would you make a modern street corner look like it was from in 1930? To find out, Insider talked to Rena DeAngelo, a master set designer who works at Eclectic/Encore Props. This company provides props and scene design for television and movie productions for many historical pieces that you've seen, such as West Side Story. 

DeAngelo has astonishingly detailed expertise in her field, addressing every visual aspect of a historical scene. It's a lot more than just finding the right cars for an era. The license plates on those cars are essential, too. The signs around a city are important, but DeAngelo also ensures that the materials used to create those signs and the fonts used on them are historically accurate. Watch and learn how much thought goes into the creation of scene that may last for only seconds on the screen.

-via Nag on the Lake

Mark Felton Productions is one of my favorite YouTube channels. Felton is a military historian who produces many videos describing little known events or aspects of military history, especially the World Wars. Among my favorites are his descriptions of the British plan to use atom bombs against Japan and what the Allies did with the bodies of executed Nazi war criminals.

In this video, Felton describes Thailand's contribution to World War I in Europe. Eager to prove to the great powers that Thailand was a modern nation, King Vajiravudh ordered the assembly of a military expeditionary force to France to participate in the final stages of the war, followed by the occupation of a portion of western Germany after the armistice.

Legit medieval unit of measurement: the ass-load. pic.twitter.com/hytzNQiEIp

— Dr. Renée Trilling (@ReneeTrilling) November 16, 2021

Dr. Renée Trilling is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her teaching and research emphases are in medieval English literature, so it is no coincidence that she discovered this passage in Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500, a scholarly anthology published in 2017. Her photo is from p. 119 of Dr. Lucy Donkin's contribution titled "Earth from Elsewhere: Burial in Terra Sancta beyond the Holy Land."

Donkin's passage here relates to the movement of dirt from the grave of Saint Peter by Saint Lolan, an 11th Century Scottish bishop. That's a long haul from Rome, but four well-built asses were up to the charge. 

-via Rebecca B

In Shakepeare's Twelfth Night, the insuffrable Malvolio reads from a letter stating that "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon 'em." Let us count this woman among the second category, for she must have labored for many years to achieve such facial athleticism. Let us hope that she is able to display her skills to even more demanding music, such as "Flight of the Bumblebee."

This video comes courtesy of the mysterious blogger Born in Space, who comments that everyone has a secret talent. What is yours? I share this woman's ability, although I need fishing hooks and line to do it properly.

Manfred Steiner grew up in Austria and attended medical school there before immigrating to the United States. He went on to become America's leading clinical hematologist while acquiring a second doctorate in biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Steiner eventually taught hematology at the medical schools of Brown University and the University of North Carolina.

As he approached retirement in his seventies, he contemplated following an old dream. As a young medical student, he had been fascinated by quantum physics, but had been unable to devote time to it. In retirement, Steiner was able to return to the passion of his youth. NPR reports that, at the ripe age of 89, Steiner has successfully defended his dissertation titled "Corrections to the Geometrical Interpretation of Bosonization." He now plans to publish that dissertation and continue his research.

-via My Modern Met | Photo: Nick Dentamaro/Brown University

The Right Honourable Jacinda Ardena, who serves as the Queen's Prime Minister of New Zealand, has weighty responsibilities as the head of a national government.

She is also a mother of Neve, a three-year old girl.

NBC News reports that on Monday, Ms. Ardena was delivering a national address through livestream about the state of the coronavirus pandemic in her country and her government's response to it. It was past Neve's bedtime, but she was having none of that. During the livestream, Neve interrupted the Prime Minister not once, but twice in an effort to overthrow the tyrannical shackles of the bedtime mandate.

During the second rebellion, Neve protested that her mother, like all politicians, is too long-winded when at the (virtual) podium. Ms. Ardena's mother, then visiting Premier House, the official residence of the Prime Minister, returned Neve to her bed.

-via Marilyn Bellamy

Most modern humans have at least one chin. Some of us are blessed with multiple chins. But only one actually has a solid bone structure behind it. Why?

Cosmos reports on a recent article published by Robert Franciscus in the Journal of Anatomy looking at evolutionary history of chins. One popular theory among physical anthropologists has been chins provide support to chewing as humans age and eat harder foods. But Franciscus and his colleagues found that longitudinal studies of bone growth in chins did not support this hypothesis.

What they propose instead is that human chins became prominent when early humans had higher levels of testosterone, which impacts bone growth, especially in the skull. As humans' aggressive behavior and testosterone levels dropped off, hormonal changes caused this large bone in the front of the human face to become sharper and angular--a chin.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Andrex99

Ray Chen, a master violist, was recently performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony in Benaroya Hall. During his solo, the E-string on Chen’s violin snapped.

He doesn’t stop playing, though. First, he signals the conductor that he has a problem. Then, in a smooth motion, at a good break in the music, he swaps instruments with the concertmaster (which, I gather, is a title for the first violinist). The concertmaster then swaps with the second chair next to him, who swaps with the fourth chair. Meanwhile, Chen is powering up with his borrowed instrument.

-via Twisted Sifter

ABC Store Clerk: I'll need to see some age verification.

Me: AT&T was the only telephone company. They owned the phone in my house and rented it to us. You dialed a number with an actual dial that turned and made a series of clicks by...

Clerk: Here's your package. Please go. https://t.co/DG5RRhUsYU

— Kwisatz Haterade (@jason0x21) November 6, 2021

Celebrity librarian Jessamyn West introduced me to a new meme on Twitter. Imagine that you're trying to buy alcohol and the liquor store clerk wants to verify that you are at least 21 years old. Aside from showing your state ID card, what could you say that would definitely date you?

Elastigirl, one of the main characters from Pixar's The Incredibles movie franchise has notably wide hips and a muscular behind. Or, at least, certain especially attentive people noticed this while watching the movie.

Personally, I watch The Incredibles for the plot.

Elastigirl is not alone. Like the mother from Dexter's Laboratory, she has "Hartman Hips." YouTuber fullcomma explains that this is artistically necessary and, in fact, tasteful.

Animators must reasonably convey the differences between sexually mature and immature bodies. Elastigirl, a middle aged mom, is precisely the former. Violet Parr, a teenage girl, is definitely the latter. The two must be differentiated.

Animators could give Elastigirl large breasts, but a very busty character would likely be seen as sexualized in our culture and thus inappropriate for a children's cartoon. Giving her wide hips, on the other hand, expresses that she is a full grown woman without arousing purient interests by viewers. Thus the audience can enjoy the film for the storytelling alone.

-via Twisted Sifter

He’s tall, mysterious, and a great listener. He’s a bit scary, which a lot people find hot. It’s no wonder that this woman fell in love with the 12-foot tall skeleton from Home Depot.

Anthony DiMieri’s short film “My New Boyfriend” tells the story of a young woman played by Chiara Gerek. After living for several years in New York City, she’s dated all sorts of men, but can’t find anyone serious—and anyone she wants to be serious about. Then she met the 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot and her life changed.

-via Laughing Squid

In other news: read an interview with Lance Allen, the product executive at Home Depot who invented the 12-foot tall skeleton.

-via Amanda Brennan

In one of the best scenes in one of the greatest comedy series—Yes, Minister—Sir Desmond Glazebrook explains to Sir Humphrey Appleby that, yes, he does carry a copy of the Financial Times with him. But that doesn’t mean that he actually understands it.

(In case it's not clear, the Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.)

Fortunately, the 404 error page of the Financial Times is far more comprehensible to those of us with a passing familiarity with economics. Or, if you’re like me, just smile and laugh when you see other people around you doing likewise. It will be less awkward.

-via Kottke

The common joke is that, eventually, advertisers will be able to buy space in your dreams to sell you stuff. We haven't arrived at that future yet, but we are making progress.

Apple Insider, a website that keeps up on the latest news about that corporation's products and services, notes that Apple recently received a patent for a product called "Apple Glass." It isn't simply a wearable augmented reality projector. It's a "direct retinal projector." This machine would use the human eyes themselves to experience the visual overlay.

So although it's not quite at the level of a holodeck on Star Trek, it is conceptually similar to the synaptic stimulator on the Star Trek:Voyager episode "Equinox."

-via Dave Barry | Image: USPO

I have not, unfortunately, been able to find the name of this amazing athlete. He should be famous, given the extraordinary feats he demonstrates in this video. 

It's not just being able to lift the barbell and a pair of 45-pound plates over his head. Such athletes would be thick on the ground in any gym. But that he can do so on a slackline shows phenomenal core strength and balance.

Who is he? Perhaps the uniquely shaped spire in the background could clue us into at least where he is located.

A suggestion: watch the video with the sound muted.

-via Born in Space

Norsonic Nor277 tapping machine for generating footstep sounds for building sound transmission testing. pic.twitter.com/SQdx1yFd3T

— MachinePix (@MachinePix) October 24, 2021

*slaps fender*

Yessir, this here is a top-of-the-line tapping machine. Barely any taps on it. The previous owner would just use it to tap a few beats on Sunday. You’ve picked the best bargain on the lot.

Why do you need a tapping machine? And, specifically, why do you need the Nor277 tapping machine? Because you need to test the acoustics of an area using a realistic simulation of footfalls with hard-soled shoes. It’s equipped with 5 tapping hammers tapping up to 10 taps per second. It weighs only 22 pounds and can be run from a battery for the off-road adventures that you’re so fond of.

The price? Step into my office. Let’s make a deal.

-via @lazerwalker