Laurence Brown usually makes videos comparing British and American language, customs, and geography. But so much has happened to him suddenly over the past few months that his slice-of-life videos are even more compelling. He has become an American citizen, bought his first house, and his father died. All these things crashed into each other and Brown had to get a passport in a hurry. This could have been a nightmare, but the worst part of it was Brown's anxiety. A couple of months after the fact, Brown explains the procedures and the trepidation he felt in obtaining his first US passport in order to attend his father's funeral. It wasn't so long ago that we were told to get passports at least six months before travel, so it could have been much worse.

Railroad crews were doing maintenance work on the Staplehurst Bridge in Kent, England, on June 9, 1865, and had taken up some of the rails. A train wasn't warned in time to stop, and only partially crossed the rail-less bridge when the middle cars of the train plunged to the river below. Renowned author Charles Dickens was in the third car, which was being pulled downward by the car behind it. However, the coupling snapped and left Dickens' car hanging precipitously.

Dickens ran to the fallen cars to help the injured and the dying. The bridge wasn't high, but the fallen cars were smashed. Ten people died, and more than 40 others were injured. Dickens had come very close to dying himself, and the experience horrified him. He was probably also at least somewhat concerned about the publicity, since he was traveling with his mistress. Dickens hated riding trains for the rest of his life, and he died five years later to the day. Read about the Staplehurst rail crash and what it did to Charles Dickens at Mental Floss.

I turned my bed into a sled. Please don't try this at home haha - we planned things as safe as possible! What a wild ride! #mnwx #minnesota #Minneapolis #snow #snowstorm #bedsled pic.twitter.com/5YlrXuiKGr

— Tanner Charles 🌪 (@TannerCharlesMN) February 24, 2023

It looks like Tanner Charles misunderstood the phrase "sleigh bed" as an activity instead of a style. While the streets of Minneapolis were quiet due to lots of snow, he took a ride behind a truck without even getting out of bed! Charles took his bed outside, set it on four snow discs, and attached two nightstands. He even rigged up the lamp to light up for more bedroom authenticity.  

You can see this stunt from another angle at Instagram. Charles managed to finish the escapade without being arrested, but was at one point followed by a snow plow. His ride ended after about a mile when the bed frame broke. -via Fark

Modern dentists don't have to worry about the possibility of exploding teeth, except in their nightmares. But somehow W.H. Atkinson knew of three cases in his 40-year dental career. The three people involved may not have been regular patients of his before the explosions; they all seemed to have put off dental help when they needed it most. The first case was in 1817, when a man experienced a toothache so bad that he was driven to distraction trying to relieve it. After a day of worsening pain, the tooth exploded with an alarmingly loud sound, and he experienced immediate relief. In 1830, a woman had a similar experience. When Atkinson experienced a third case in another woman in 1855, he wrote up all three cases in an article for the American dentistry journal The Dental Cosmos. While Atkinson has some harsh words in his paper for dentists who expect their patients to endure such pain, he doesn't offer any report of follow-up care for any of the three patients. One has to wonder if the roots of the shattered teeth were extracted.

In any case, Atkinson's cases were not the only reports of exploding teeth in the 19th century. It doesn't seem to have happened since 1920, except for one case involving baby teeth that had already fallen out. We don't know why teeth used to explode, but there are several theories. It may have something to do with the difference between dental care in the 19th century and more modern times. Read more about the possible causes of exploding teeth at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Wellcome Images)

Preying mantises come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. They are masters of camouflage, and the orchid mantises (Hymenopus coronatus) that live among colorful flowers are gorgeous, delicate little creatures. But they are also skilled predators, waiting for the insects that come to pollinate those flowers. Amateur wildlife photographer Pang Way captures the beauty of the preying mantises of Malayasia's rainforests in all their glory.



How does Way get these photos? He uses a macro lens and a soft lighting box, but that's just the technical aspects. The magic is in how he finds these insects and gets them to look at the camera and pose for him. Maybe he takes a hundred photos for each one he keeps, but it seems like magic anyway.



Way doesn't just photograph preying mantises. He aims to document many different species of insects and arachnids as they face the destruction of their environment. See an extensive collection of Pang Way's mantises at Design You Trust. -via Nag on the Lake

It's true that Generation Z, or Zoomers, don't drink as much as their parents did at that age, but those who do have refined the art of binge drinking to a viral recipe called BORG. It stand for "black out rage gallon." The recipe is simple: fill a gallon jug halfway with water, add as much vodka as you think is proper for you, and then use a flavor additive, such as MiO, Pedialyte, or your favorite energy drink. You will probably see this recipe as not so different from other cheap cocktail mixtures that college students have been using forever, like vodka mixed with Kool-Ade, Gatorade, or Tang.  

The idea is that a gallon of BORG should last you all day. The reality is that college students often mix up a gallon and take it to a party. The danger in this trend is the same as with any type of binge drinking: 1. dying of alcohol poisoning, 2. causing a car wreck, and 3. kickstarting a life of alcoholism, among other possibilities.  

However, some folks are looking at BORG as a "wellness trend" or a "harm-reduction strategy." What? For one thing, the water is supposed to keep you hydrated, but we know that's not how binge drinking works. The other idea is that each person keeps to their own gallon, to reduce the danger of a spiked or roofied drink and the danger of sharing germs. It's sad that those things are even considerations. And you wouldn't be surprised if BORG sharing begins after a few drinks at a party.

The real upside of BORG (for us) is that gallons often get labeled with a pun name to tie it to its owner.

Jason Borg
Heisenborg
Borgzilla
Borger Patrol
All Aborg
Pablo Escoborg
Borger King
Borganizational Skills
Borgasm

-via Metafilter

Experience: I gave birth to the world’s ‘8 billionth baby’ https://t.co/conNZAQsDq

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 24, 2023

On November 15th last year, the world population crossed to over eight billion people. Most people who read about it wondered in the back of their minds just who that eight billionth person would be. Now we know. Her name is Vinice, and she lives in the Philippines.

Several new babies in different parts of the world were designated to be the symbolic eight billionth person, but Vinice has become the best known. Her mother, Maria Margarette Villorente, was in labor and on the way to the hospital in Manila as midnight approached on November 14th. The hospital staff turned them away, because the facility was already full! So Maria and Vincent went to another hospital in the San Andres area of the city. Representatives of the Philippines Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) were already at that hospital to welcome the birth of the eight billionth person. Vinice was born shortly after midnight on the 15th, and was immediately lavished with a huge cake, baby supplies, and toys. Maria was obliged to give an immediate interview. It was a total surprise for the couple. Read the story of how Vinice came into the world of eight billion people with much fanfare at the Guardian.  -via Damn Interesting    

LEGO makes a very special kind of brick that can shoot objects out forcefully. These spring-loaded shooters work on the same simple principle as a ballpoint pen that clicks open and shut. Simple, but still fun. And like any cool toy, someone will go way overboard with them for our entertainment. Brickstory Builds collected 400 of these shooter bricks, and just as many projectiles to shoot out of them. How many different ways can he fire them en masse? Who is he going to shoot them at? Anyone who has 400 shooters will have plenty of LEGO figures to select from. He starts with a tower, then a train attacking Star Wars droids, and moves to ever more elaborate artillery constructions until he goes up against a truly menacing monster.

I used to lament how LEGO went from basic brick sets that required imagination to make anything to complex sets that make one thing and you have to follow pages of instructions. But there will always be people who think outside the box, literally, to brings us nonsense like this.  -via Born in Space

The "w" in the English language is an outlier. It is the only letter with a name that's more than a syllable long (it has three), and the only one in which the name is a visual description instead of its sound. Yeah, it would make sense to call it wuh, but it's a bit too late for that. Furthermore, its description doesn't make sense in type. It looks like a double "v." The conundrum is the basis for a children's poem from 1885.

    “Excuse me if I trouble you,”
    Said V to jolly W,
    “But will you have the kindness to explain one thing to me?
    Why, looking as you do,
    Folks should call you double U,
    When they really ought to call you double V?”

    Said W to curious V:
    “The reason’s plain as plain can be
    (Although I must admit it’s understood by very few);
    As you say I’m double V;
    And therefore, don’t you see,
    The people say that I am double you.”

But if you want the real answer, you have to go back to the time when the Latin alphabet collided with the English language in the 7th century, and had to make accommodations for sounds that did not occur in Latin. For the "w" sound in Old English, they used two letters. And those were "u"s. For example, the word "wonder" was spelled "uundra" in Old English. The process of this sound becoming a "w" in English is a bit more complicated. For instance, there was another letter, "ƿ" (or wynn) that tried to take its place, but was ultimately discarded. You can read up on the evolution of the letter "w" at Grammarphobia. -via Strange Company 

The annual Mister Global beauty pageant for men was held a couple of weeks ago in Chaing Mai, Thailand. The winner for 2023 is Juan Carlos Ariosa, from Cuba (shown above). Contestants from 39 countries competed in tuxedos, national costumes, and itty-bitty swimsuits. The most interesting part of the pageant is the national costume competition, because let's face it, all these guys are hot and it would be difficult to judge their looks against each other. Below is the representative from Haiti.



However, the costumes ranged from sublime to baffling. The readers at Bored Panda have judged and ranked all 39 contestants in their costumes, which you can see here. The contestant from the Philippines drove his costume in. 

If you want to see the entire pageant, it's up at YouTube, or you can see just the costume parade, or the swimsuit competition if you prefer. We won't judge you.

(Images from Mister Global at Instagram)

In 1937, February 20 to be exact, composer and bandleader Raymond Scott recorded a jazzy tune called "Powerhouse." You might not recognize the name, but you know the song. Raymond Scott never wrote music for cartoons, and never even watched them, but he sold the publishing rights to his catalog to Warner Bros. Music in 1943. Carl Stalling used "Powerhouse" in 40 classic Warner Bros. cartoons. The first part of the song lent itself to frantic chase scenes, and the second half became known as "assembly line" music due to its industrial, rhythmic beat. Stalling used it any time a factory assembly line was part of a cartoon.

pic.twitter.com/YCvWCV9V2N

— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) February 20, 2023

Even after Stalling, the tune that had become so familiar has been used in cartoons over and over, in The Ren & Stimpy Show, Animaniacs, The Simpsons, and even in the Cartoon Network's promotional bumpers. For the song's 86th birthday, Cartoon Brew has assembled a collection of cartoons that use "Powerhouse," plus the story of the song, and even a video of the Raymond Scott Quintet performing it in 1955. -via Kottke

Experts tell us to use up your spices within a year or so because they lose their flavor over time. Then we get this story in which saffron still smells like saffron after being underwater for 527 years!

The remains of a burned and partially buried shipwreck were first discovered in the 1960s off the coast of Sweden. In the 2000s, experts suspected it might be medieval. An archaeological survey began only in 2019, when the ship was determined to be the Gribshunden, a ship belonging to King Hans of Denmark and Norway. The ship caught fire in 1495 as it was moored off of southern Sweden, and there it has been ever since.

One of the remarkable finds inside the Gribshunden is the remains of 40 kinds of foods and particularly spices that are still recognizable after all this time. They came from near and far and were the expensive kinds of spices a king would own. Experts believe they were carried on the ship to impress Swedish authorities as Hans was on a mission to unite Sweden with Denmark and Norway under his rule. In that, he was successful, even without his flagship, although he used strong arm tactics rather than consent.   

The spices found include ginger, clove, peppercorns, dill, mustard, and caraway. The saffron mentioned above comprised 13 ounces of the spice, which costs around $50 per ounce even today, and was more expensive in medieval times. Read about the 500-year-old spice rack found aboard the Gribshunden at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Mikael Larsson and Brendan Foley/PLOS One)

The Pope's Exorcist is a horror film based on the career of Father Gabriele Amorth, the official exorcist at the Vatican from 1986 until his death in 2016. Amorth claimed to have performed more than 50,000 exorcisms, even after rejecting 98% of the cases referred to him. The movie was adapted from Amorth's two memoirs, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories. It stars Russell Crowe as Amorth and Franco Nero as the pope, presumably Pope John Paul II, although he wears a beard in the movie. While it is unclear how closely the supernatural horror film follows the books, we can guess that a lot of mustard was thrown on the visuals and action scenes.  -via Digg

Marketing departments love to use the power of the internet to crowdsource decisions, but they tend to not learn from history. Or even research the history of such polls. The classic example is when a British research ship was to be named by online poll. The overwhelming favorite name was Boaty McBoatface, but they didn't give that name to the ship. However, Boaty McBoatface became an enduring meme and a metaphor for internet polls that weren't thought all the way through. Boaty McBoatface is a great name, after all. Other naming polls and crowdsourcing projects have been worse.

But every once in a while, even a joke result works out just fine.

Read 12 other instances of internet polls gone wrong in a pictofacts list at Cracked.

Ryan George (previously at Neatorama) illustrates a few things that TikTok culture has done to the internet video experience. The platform was set up to make remixing videos easy for people who've never done that before, and they've taken off with it, doing weird stuff that you'd never have predicted. The platform assumes that everyone holds their phone vertically to take videos, which they do and I still don't know why. The robotic voiceovers, the text right over what you want to see, and the out of context music can also be annoying. Also, if you watch videos at the TikTok site, you have to be really careful where your cursor is or a new video will start without notice. Also, they won't embed properly on some other platforms -like this one.

But the kids like it, and TikTok has a couple of things going for it, like that fact that the videos are shorter and way less festooned with ads compared to YouTube. Despite its length, the video is only 3:45; the rest is an ad. -via reddit