It takes a certain kind of person to even want to try this game. In 10 Typos, you'll be presented with a news article, and you must find the ten words that are misspelled. You will be timed, but you are only competing with yourself. You can't compare scores when the news articles are different lengths. If the same article comes up for you twice, there will be different words misspelled. You can read slowly and get them all, or you can read as fast as you normally do and your brain will sail right past typos. The goal is to find the sweet spot in your reading speed so that you see the typos without wasting time.

One thing that will make it easier for you is the scorecard on the right. If you are missing a word, you'll know it's between a couple of the words you already found.

What makes it hard is the fact that the articles are from British news sources. I didn't know I was going to have to proofread in another language! The first time I played, I wasted a lot of time correcting words that are perfectly cromulent in British English, but not in American English. The real misspellings are common words that are just mistyped. My fastest time was less than a minute, but that may have been an unusually short news article. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Roman Kraft)

I always thought that not plowing the streets in residential neighborhoods was a genius way to keep people at home on snow days, at least before everyone and their brother decided that owning a pickup truck or an SUV made them invincible. People look out their windows and assume all the streets are covered the way theirs is. Or you might get the idea that it's just laziness. But cities put a real effort into clearing snow from the streets, starting with the main thoroughfares and places like hospital entrances. It's just a lot more expensive and time-consuming than it may appear to us. Streets like the one to my house usually have to wait at least until the temperature rises, and by then the problem is solved on its own. Half as Interesting explains the factors that slow down snow removal in both cities and rural areas. If you live in, say, Texas, your town probably doesn't even have a snow removal system. This video is five minutes long; the rest is an ad. -via Digg

A Facebook page called Meow Incorporated exists to share cat memes and stories. Bored Panda selected 50 of their images to post in a ranked list. The picture above was understandably voted number one by readers. I expected the rest of the list to be filled with funny cats, and there are some, but they are mostly odes to cats from cat lovers.

And for good measure, a bit of poetry.

The Facebook group also has an associated Instagram page. So that's three links that should keep you busy for quite some time. I know I just spent way too much time at each of them.

You can also see cute cats and other animals at Supa Fluffy.

The 1950s are often ignored in history classes due to the relatively tumultuous events of the 1940s and the '60s. But it was an important time of transition across the world, with undercurrents building up that would lead to great changes. Some look at that decade as an ideal time of peace, prosperity, and conformity. Yet millions of veterans were dealing with World War II trauma and the folks at home who didn't want to hear about the horror. Women settled into suburbia, subsuming their aspirations to fit into the stifling ideal of the perfect housewife. Prosperity brought out the worst in those who were out for Number One. Opportunities for minorities that opened up during the war were rolled back. And everyone was nervous under the constant threat of nuclear attack as the Cold War escalated.

All these tensions were downplayed, both publicly and privately. However, Hollywood used them as a jumping off point for some of the most thought-provoking and creative movies ever, whether the result was drama, comedy, musicals, or science fiction. Slashfilm takes a look at the decade's 15 best films and how they illustrated what was really going on the 1950s. You'll look at movies you've seen in a whole new way, and learn about those you haven't seen and why you should pull them up for a watch.

Julie d’Aubigny was a singer and an expert sword fighter in 17th century France. Her father, who was also an expert swordsman, fought off all of his daughter's suitors until she did an end run around him by hooking up with his boss. D’Aubigny was also bisexual and fell for a young woman whose parents were so scandalized they sent their daughter to a convent. D’Aubigny responded by joining the convent herself and then burning it down to be with her lover. Oh yeah, she was also a married woman who dressed as a man.

This all happened before D’Aubigny turned twenty. As an adult, she became an opera singer known as La Maupin, achieved nationwide fame, and continued her adventures in killing people or sleeping with them. It got to the point where the king of France felt the need to pardon her. Twice. It is astonishing that such shenanigans were tolerated at all in the 1600s, but Julie d’Aubigny was admired by many for her sheer outrageousness. Some envied her, while others just enjoyed the entertainment she provided. And, of course, many were outraged. Read the story of La Maupin at Rejected Princesses. -via Metafilter

Humans, and many other animals, evolved to seek out and enjoy anything sweet, because the sugars those foods contain provided us with much-needed calories and energy. That's a useful adaptation because in the natural world, sugar is relatively rare and comes in fruits and other plants that also provide us with other nutrients. But humans found a way to process sugar into its purest form, and we went wild for it. That's not healthy, but it is lucrative. The money to be made in sugar production led to some shady, deceptive, and downright cruel episodes in history. Even today, when we know that sugar is bad for us, it's hard to get away from it, even by giving up candy, soda, and sweet treats. Food products that aren't even supposed to be sweet contain sugar, and it's difficult to find alternatives without it. That's because those who profit from those products know we are evolutionarily wired to prefer anything with sugar in it.

To call Nims Purja an accomplished mountain climber would be a severe understatement. In 2019, he climbed all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter (26,000 feet) and above peaks in six months and six days- a speedrun never even considered before. In 2021, he led the first successful expedition up K2 in winter- without bottled oxygen. He's been to the top of Everest a half-dozen times. Purja's feats were chronicled in his book Beyond Possible and in the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible.  

Purja has been criticized for being a dedicated self-promoter, a social media influencer who relies on simplistic motivational aphorisms to promote his brand. But Purja's most personal business venture is based on a novel but welcome innovation: his Himalayan climbing guide company, Elite Exped, employs and partners with Nepalese Sherpas and pays them at least as much as Western mountain guides are paid, making the most skilled guides into rich men. Read a profile of Nim Purja, known as Nimsdai, and how he turned the sport and business of extreme mountain climbing on its head at GQ. -via Digg

"Your Horoscope for Today" was an song from Weird Al Yankovic's 1999 album Running With Scissors that was never released as a single. You probably remember that album best for the song "The Saga Begins," which told the story of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Augenblick Studios, who worked with Yankovic on several previous projects, gives "Your Horoscope for Today" a new animated video that Yankovic released this week. The video makes the fast-paced song much easier to follow, even if the predictions under your star sign are pretty dismal. But that's just yours; everyone else's horoscope is pretty darn funny. Honestly, I never imagined Ernest Borgnine ever looked like that naked. But I can relate to playing an endless game of whack-a-mole all day long.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

It's a well-known stereotype: a man going through a midlife crisis often buys a sports car, preferably an expensive one. We've also heard the joke that a fast car (or a big truck, in some circles) means the driver is compensating for something. Those stereotypes must have inspired the design of an experiment by four British scientists. The subjects were 400 men between the ages of 18 and 74, who were told this would be a test about recalling facts and details. They manipulated them into thinking their penis is either larger or smaller than average, by telling the men, among other "facts," a false statistic for the average penis size, which no man can resist comparing to their own. Yes, it's true that there may have been outliers among the subjects, but the false information would still affect their relative ranking of their own size. Afterward, they asked each man how much they would like to own a sports car, among other consumer products.

The study, available as a preprint, found that men rated sports cars as more desirable when they were made to feel like they had a small penis. Furthermore, the effect was more pronounced if the subject was over 30 years old. Other "facts" that were meant to raise or lower the subjects' self-esteem had no effect on the desire for sports cars, or any of the other consumer goods they were asked about. The only significant correlation they found was between perceived penis size and sports cars. Alrighty then.

(Image credit: Ank Kumar)

Imagine The Simpsons if the show was a live-action sitcom starring Tom Selleck as Ned Flanders and Christopher Lee as Mr. Burns. The rest of the cast members are not quite as recognizable, but they fall somewhere in that uncanny valley between the new and the familiar, between the real and the unreal. The Pharaoh Nerd used the artificial intelligence program Midjourney to create an introduction for the animated series with a somewhat human-looking cast. This opening credits scene is designed to look like a typical 1980s sitcom, with the theme from Full House as a soundtrack for some reason. It actually works better than it has any right to. The Pharaoh Nerd titled this video "The Simpsons as an 80's Sitcom." Maybe someone should tell him that The Simpsons was an '80s sitcom, back in the 1980s. -via Digg

Have you always wanted to be an influencer? The Washington State Department of Natural Resources is looking for a few good people. Maybe even more than a few.

We're hiring influencers and by that I mean firefighters who influence the forest to no longer be on fire.

— Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources (@waDNR) January 18, 2023

People are jumping at the opportunity.

Thank you for your service

— Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources (@waDNR) January 18, 2023

And offering some outside-the-box solutions.

Can't believe we haven't tried that tbh

— Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources (@waDNR) January 18, 2023

There might even be some subterfuge going on in the hiring process.

Slip me some cheese curds, and I'll move your application to the top...

— Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources (@waDNR) January 18, 2023

Whether this results in a surge in applications, it sure has made the Washington DNR popular among Twitter users. Other government agencies are jealous.

Um...totally stealing this idea.

— SGVmosquito🦟 (@SGVMosquito) January 18, 2023

The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District could probably uses all the help they can get to find recruits. Check out all the replies in the viral Twitter thread. -via Fark 

(Image credit: National Agricultural Library)

Akkodha has an answer to everything, and it's "okay." But that's not the only way she's agreeable. She's pretty, affectionate, and an all-around sweet cat. That alone would be enough for her to be a Instagram star, but her command of the English language clinches it. When everything's "okay," what else needs to be said? Maybe just an indication of where Akkodha lives on the internet.  -via Laughing Squid

Comprehensive smart green lighting systems can save a ton of money for large institutions. When Minnechaug Regional High School in Massachusetts built a new high school in 2012, they equipped it with a computerized system to control all 7,000 lights in the 248,000-square foot facility. The lights would automatically dim when less light was needed, and turn off at night. What could possibly go wrong? In this case, everything. In 2021, nine years after the system was installed, the software crashed. And the lights have been on ever since.

1. The company that installed the lights has changed hands several times.
2. No one currently at that company was familiar with the software. But they found someone eventually.
3. The software cannot be fixed.
4. A new system would cost $1.2 million.
5. The system could be patched with hardware, but the parts have been backordered from China for a year. You know, supply chain issues.

Meanwhile, the people of the school district are wondering about the electricity bills, and teachers have to remove classroom light bulbs to show a film. The story of the lights at Minnechaug Regional High School reads like a situation comedy or a snowball rolling downhill. -via Fark 

(Image credit: John Phelan)

Every time we revisit the Voyager spacecraft, we confront statistics that are hard for the human mind to grasp. The intrepid space probe Voyager 1 has been traveling for more than 45 years, and is now more than 23 billion kilometers (14.817 billion miles) away, in interstellar space. It's still communicating with earth with its 1970s technology. That technology might be obsolete, but it was built to last. Sadly, the programming involved is no longer being taught. After taking amazing pictures of our solar system for a decade, Voyager's cameras were turned off in 1990. There's more than one reason why they won't be turned on again, but the ability to do so is a testament to the durability of vintage hardware.

Also, if you recall the launch of the two Voyager probes, this will make you feel old. The video has a one-minute ad starting at the four-minute mark. -via Geeks Are Sexy

A collective refusal to do business with someone is an ancient tactic, but it finally got a name in 1880. Charles Cunningham Boycott owned some land himself in Ireland but also worked as the land agent to the 3rd Earl of Erne, who owned a large amount of land, on which tenant farmers made their living. Boycott was a ruthless landlord, levying fines against the farmers and raising their rent even in years of crop failures. The farmers formed a league for collective action in 1879. In 1880, their pleas for rent relief went unheeded, and several families were evicted from their farms.

The league then organized a personal shunning of Boycott. No one would deliver goods to his home, no one would provide services like laundry, and no one would harvest his crops. People even stopped greeting him on the street. Read how the scheme played out and how Boycott's name became a verb we use to this day at Amusing Planet.