The following article is from the new book Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader.

Do you remember when microwave ovens became standard fixtures in American homes of the 1970s? If you do, you may also recall how cookbooks of the era were filled with recipes for dishes that really had no business being cooked in a microwave. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear…

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Microwave oven technology has been around since 1947, but it took 20 years for manufacturers to figure out how to make microwaves small enough and cheap enough for the home kitchen. The earliest models, sold to restaurants and commercial kitchens, cost $5,000 ($52,000 in today’s dollars), weighed more than 700 pounds, and were as big as refrigerators. Many of the restaurants that bought microwaves used them to reheat already-cooked dishes that had gone cold.

By the mid-1960s, microwaves were small enough to sit on a kitchen counter and cost around $500 ($3,400 today). That was still a lot of money (a 1967 Ford Mustang cost just $2,400), and to entice consumers into buying them, manufacturers and appliance dealers promoted them with a lot of hype. They claimed that microwaves could do anything that conventional ovens could do, in only a fraction of the time, and with much greater convenience. An entire industry of microwave-related products—including cookbooks, cookware, and specially formulated mixes for pies, cakes, casseroles, and other foods sprung up to feed the public’s fascination with these new devices.

This comic from Emily McGovern at Emily's Cartoons sent me down an internet wormhole, but I learned a few things. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is indeed in Scotland. And indeed, it makes no sense that students from Scotland would have to travel to London to catch a train to school. But as the wiki states, "The precise location of the school could never be uncovered because it was rendered Unplottable." Maybe the roundabout route for Scottish students is a way of keeping the location a secret, you think? That may be it. The Hogwarts Express train was inaugurated in the 1850s as a way to transport students to the school without drawing the attention of Muggles.

Could a parent in Scotland just drive their student to Hogwarts? No. According to the wiki, "the Ministry decreed that students would arrive to school on the train or not attend at all." Just like Muggle schools, there are rules that don't make sense. But a dedicated train doesn't conceal the fact that on September first, a large contingent of schoolchildren arrive at Hogsmeade Station in Scotland and are whisked away to the school. Apparently, the folks in Hogsmeade do not travel all that much. Check out McGovern's Tumblr site, where you'll find a substantial series called My Life as a Background Slytherin. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Americans, and indeed the Supreme Court, have been arguing for two hundred years about the Founding Fathers' original intent when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. The truth is that the language of the Constitution is rather vague in some areas, and not easy to apply to modern scenarios that the writers never dreamed of, such as the use of the internet. They also probably never envisioned that the U.S. would grow to over 300 million people. The weird ways of the Constitution have already given us some "what ifs" in our TV shows, like Scandal, Veep, Designated Survivor, and House of Cards. But there are other scenarios and crises to explore. Someone should write a movie.

Suggested title: Reprisal

Suggested plot: After the military finds itself stymied while fighting a group of terrorists in international waters, Congress decides to authorize a privateer—essentially a government-approved pirate who can go after the bad guys for his own gain.

Dream casting: Nicolas Cage

The constitutional background: Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. The Constitution allows Congress to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,” which are basically permission slips for private boats to fight pirates on behalf of the United States.

What scholars think: “I could imagine a show about some new pirate threat somewhere and the government deciding to fight them with these private boats, which of course would have charismatic and daredevil captains,” said Jay Wexler, a constitutional law scholar at Boston University.

Spoiler alert: Letters of Marque were more important before the U.S. had a standing navy. Then-Rep. Ron Paul floated the idea in 2009 when Somali pirates were a problem, but even if Congress went along it would probably decide pretty quickly to go back to using the military.

There are six other potential movies, each dealing with a Constitutional loophole laid out at TIME. -Thanks, John Farrier!

Why are these window labeled as Ancient Lights? You can see the signs in quite a few places in London, and other cities in England. The reason is an urban planning law that dates back to 1663.

‘Ancient Lights’ or the ‘Right to light’ is an English property law that gives house owners the right to receive natural light from and through a window if that particular window has been receiving light uninterrupted for 20 years. Once a person gains the right to ancient lights, the owner of the adjoining land cannot obscure them, such as by erecting a building, raising a wall or planting trees. In the past, neighbors with right to light have sued neighbors on grounds of ‘nuisance’ for obstruction of light, and have won in courts of law.

The law has gone through changes, and in modern times the amount of natural light a person is entitled to has been a subject of study. But why are the signs mounted on the windows? Considering the value of property in London and other cities, you can imagine that the lots adjoining these buildings have been considered for building purposes many times. A sign deterring such plans is much easier than having to go to court again and again. Read about Ancient Lights and see more pictures at Amusing Planet. -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Mike Newman)

People Are Awesome looked back at all the great videos of folks doing impressive things over the past year and put them all together together for you. These athletic young people show off amazing skills while having the time of their lives.

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The activities themselves are pretty offbeat. There are two guys playing ball while skydiving. A fellow hits a golf ball, aiming for his buddy's mouth. Several people, unaware of each other, use inner tubes as targets of one sort or another. Some I can't figure out what they're doing, but they are all awesome. -via Tastefully Offensive

Throwing a going-away party for an employee who quit is a nice gesture. Getting a cake specially decorated is even nicer. But those cakes don't always have nice things to say. Yeah, it's all in fun, because if the quitter's colleagues were really angry, they'd throw a party and not bother to invite him. Take a look at 30 clever going away cakes that range from sweet and sentimental (those are in the minority) to rude to bordering on vicious. Some contain NSFW icing text. -via Pleated-Jeans

Professional boxing, professional football, professional basketball, professional wresting. One of these things is not like the others. Pro wrestling is performance art, following a script for the audience's entertainment. It wasn't always like that. In the early 20th century, wrestling was a legitimate competition like any other, with rules and challengers hoping to beat the champions. And it wasn't nearly as fun as the modern version.  

But professional wrestling began to change in a way unlike anything ever seen in sports history. While boxing had known to be fixed from time to time, and the “Black Sox Scandal” had briefly tarnished Major League Baseball, no legitimate sport had ever made the full transition into what the WWE now calls “sports entertainment”—fully scripted, predetermined matchups, with chosen champions.

That change didn’t happen overnight. But wrestling historians look to one match, which completely altered pro wrestling’s history: Lewis vs. Munn, Kansas City, Miss., Jan. 8, 1925.

“That really kind of put the stamp on it,” [National Wrestling Hall of Fame director Kyle] Klingman said. “This completely changed the landscape of professional wrestling.”

So what happened at the match between champion Ed “Strangler” Lewis (pictured above) and college football star Wayne “Big” Munn? Read the story of the wrestling match that changed everything, and how it played out over time, at Atlas Obscura.

Look at this homemade cardboard cat castle! Just look at it! It's got rooms, stairs, a ramp, a balcony, plenty of holes and doors (some even slide), drawers, a basement to crawl under, and a turret that's shaped like a dragon's head, teeth and all!

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Dinni the cat loves his new digs! Sam and Natalia, together called prefabcat, have closeup photos and more details about the Cat Ark at their website. Previous towers Sam built for Dinni are impressive, too. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Here's a story about a high school student who may have found a kindred soul, but doesn't know who it is and time is running out because it's the end of the school year. What can you do? Also, there's something going on in this story that might surprise you, a twist ending, as it were.

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Watch the video before you go read an article about this story at Adweek. I don't want to give too much away here. -via Metafilter

Redditor boomboomsaIoon found this light bulb in the attic of his workplace. It's an Aerolux neon bulb, the light rose model. Aerolux bulbs were manufactured from 1938 to 1974, and this one is estimated to be from the 1940s. Here what it would look like in a working lamp.

Commenter syco54645 has an Aerolux model with violets inside.

See a video of the bulb in action here. You can still buy new light bulbs with sculptured filaments, but they don't have that lovely vintage look.

Darren Wallace (previously at Neatorama) is a video effects artist in Melbourne, Australia. Here he brings us some "bonus scenes" from the upcoming Star Wars movie Rogue One.

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Now admit it, you knew all those scary things in the Star Wars universe had to have some embarrassing failures, off-duty goofiness, and hobbies. We won't see them the movies, but when we get a glimpse, it's golden. -via Tastefully Offensive

What most Americans remember of the Black Panther Party are the stars of the group: Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver. But of the thousands of Black Panthers, two thirds were women, working behind the scenes, running the social programs of the party. Author Judy Juanita was one of those women. She joined the Black Panther Party in its early days in the mid-1960s, and tells us what drew her to the group.

In the ’60s, people were looking at end-of-the-world scenarios with the atomic bomb and the Cold War. “Tricky Dick” Nixon got elected during this period, and the Vietnam War was ongoing. Women who were graduating college, Hillary Clinton’s generation, were saying, “I’m not going to have any children because I don’t want to bring a child into this world.” That was the most popular type of valedictorian speech at the women’s colleges at the time.

People had a very anti-government sentiment—we weren’t expecting the government to respond. No, all of those changes happened gradually over the next couple of decades. They didn’t happen right away. Instead of being frustrated, people had an attitude of resistance. The government was the antagonist. The American counterculture, we were the protagonists.

That’s really what the ’60s were about: We were good students. We said, “Wait a minute, something’s not right here. We’re not getting the complete story.” The desire to get the complete story came from the Civil Rights Movement and then the Vietnam War. Blacks wanted to investigate, “What’s happening with our civil rights?” And the white kids were coming out of the “Mad Men” era and saying, “Something’s not right here. We’ve been carrying on war like this continuously, using the great phrase ‘Manifest Destiny,’ and we’ve been slaughtering people since forever.” After World War I and World War II, we could question, “Wait a minute, what was so great about the war? What about the people who died?”

Get a short course on the Black Panther Party from insider Judy Juanita, in an interview at Collectors Weekly.

A while back, a hilarious little story by wakeupontheprongssideofthebed made it to reddit (and probably other places, but that's where I saw it). Comic artist Dami Lee at As Per Usual saw it, too and has properly illustrated it. The best puns are the real groaners, because you will remember them.  

DJ Earworm is back with his annual mashup of the biggest pop hits of the year. The 2016 version continues a trend that aging folks know well -every year the music gets less recognizable. But it's got a good beat; I can dance to it.

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If you don't know the individual songs, it sounds like one coherent song, which just speaks to DJ Earworm's editing skills. If you know them, you can easily hear his editing skills. The song list is at the YouTube page. -via Metafilter 

The top ten baby names of 2016 are nothing to write home about, as they are very close to the lists for 2015. The top six girls names ranked the same, and the top eight boys names are the same, but in a slightly different order. But that's not the big story here. Let's take a look at what names a little further down the list gained popularity in 2016. According to Buzzfeed, it appears pop culture played a part, because Tyreese, Hershel, and Carol all rose in popularity, thanks to The Walking Dead. The Netflix show Stranger Things may have played a part late in the year, as Dustin, Mike, and Joyce all rose. Banner and Harley made astonishing leaps in popularity. But it's not just pop culture: Hillary rose 64% and Ivanka was up 39%. See the top 100 names of 2016 for both boys and girls at BabyCenter. -via Uproxx