Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon during the Apolo 11 mission almost 47 years ago. He’s waited until now to reveal certain tidbits about the experience. And he did it in a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert called Moon Scoops.
Aldrin is 86 years old and he’s still got the “right stuff,” and a sense of humor. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Two men in Yeli, Guizhou province, China, show us teamwork at its best. Jia Haixia went blind sixteen years ago. His friend Jia Wenqi lost both arms in a childhood accident. Together they have planted 10,000 trees around their village.
In this video from Great Big Story, we learn of their commitment to each other and to the “green soldiers” that protect their village. In Chinese with English subtitles. -via Laughing Squid
The Governors Ball Music Festival is June 3-5 in New York City. Like many music festivals (as well as fairs, carnivals, and hospitals), the ticket is a wristband. These wristbands are made to be used once, and the only way to get them off is to destroy them. There is a certain subset of people who don’t realize this. Quite a few people got their wristbands in the mail and immediately put them on, not realizing that they would have to wear them for a month. So many that the festival organizers came up with a workaround.
To their credit, the nice people at Governors Ball have made a compromise for all those dummies already sporting too-tight and soon to be too-dirty bands: Those people who want to get out of their fabric prisons can simply cut the bands off and present them—along with a $20 idiot tax—at will call on the day of the fest and receive a new one on site.
See some of the Tweets that tell of the misery at the A.V. Club.
(Image credit: annabelle)
Disney’s stand-alone Star Wars movie about Han Solo in the days before he met Luke Skywalker is not scheduled to hit theaters until 2018, but the role has been cast. The scruffy-looking nerf herder will be played by Alden Ehrenreich, who you may remember from the movie Hail, Caesar!
Why did they select an actor so early? Because he will have a cameo appearance in the movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is scheduled to be ready in December of 2016. -via Uproxx
If you’ve been following along, you know that an online poll to name a UK polar research ship went viral, with the name Boaty McBoatface receiving by far the largest number of votes. However, the Science Minister declined to actually name the ship Boaty McBoatface. Today it was announced that the ship will be named the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Although not quite as funny, few would argue that the soft-spoken BBC broadcaster who taught us about nature doesn’t deserve the honor.
However, a small exploratory submarine that will be housed aboard the Sir David Attenborough has been named Boaty McBoatface, despite the fact that it is a submarine, and not a boat. Here’s to many years of scientific discoveries and blog posts ahead featuring the names Sir David Attenborough and Boaty McBoatface.
(Image credit: Natural Environment Research Council)
For over 140 years, the world’s premiere horse race has taken place in Kentucky: the Kentucky Derby, always the first Saturday in May. In that time, many traditions have grown up around the event: the roses, the hats, the Bourbon, and unique dishes served to people who come in from all over the world. You might want to try some of these out wherever you are in honor of the occasion. You know about mint juleps, but how about a Kentucky Hot Brown?
This open-faced sandwich was first served in 1926 at Louisville’s historic Brown Hotel and has since become a regional favorite, appearing on the menus of many local restaurants. Sliced turkey and bacon are layered on top of thick bread, then covered in cheesy Mornay sauce and broiled until the bread crisps and the sauce browns. The hotel still serves its signature dish to this day; re-create their recipe, or try a twist on tradition with this adaptation, which reimagines the sammy as a savory tart. If you’re looking to feed a crowd, hot-brown sliders are the perfect party-sized bites.
You’ll find plenty of other traditional Derby foods at mental_floss. Now, if you’re looking for traditional Kentucky food, just think beans, cornbread, pawpaws, blackberries, and Mountain Dew. Most Kentuckians are not wealthy enough to attend Derby festivities.
(Image credit: Flickr user Phil Denton)
There used to be a lot more public toilets in the UK. Oh, many of them are still there, they just don’t serve the same function as they once did. With the price of urban real estate at a sky-high level, these spacious former conveniences have been put to other uses. Such is the case with the Edwardian Cloakroom in Bristol.
Rather than selling off this Grade 1 listed Edwardian toilet in Bristol, the local council kept hold of it and, following conservation of the local area, turned it into an art-space.
Built in 1904 in a style typical to the area at the time, the toilet features individual Ladies and Gents blocks, which local artists are able to hire out free of charge to use as exhibition spaces.
Instead of tail-coated gentleman and well-to-do women, the black and white tiled floor and wood-panelled cubicles have seen visitors coming in to view pop-up shops, art shows, installations and even plays.
Such conversions are happening in other countries, too. Read about public toilets that have been turned into bars, restaurants, hotels, shops, theaters, museums, and even homes, at Urban Ghosts.
(Image credit: Flickr user mtx)
What’s the difference between a toddler and the Chief Executive Officer of your company? You have to go through the list; it’s pretty far down there. Both a toddler and CEO are convinced the world revolves around them, and they’re both right. This is the latest from Sarah Cooper at The Cooper Review.
When you go to a hospital to have a baby, you probably don’t have a clue how much it will cost. For one thing, most people don’t have a choice of hospitals. You go to the one your insurance will cover, and where your doctor has privileges. Or the only hospital in town. They charge what they want, and knowing won't change that. Johnny Harris and his wife Isabel wanted to get an idea of what the bill might be beforehand, but ran into problems -no one wanted to quote any numbers. It’s a secret!
Luckily, they had insurance, and the insurance company haggled the bill down after the birth. A person without insurance would be stuck with the entire bill, and hospitals rarely negotiate prices with individuals. The “good” news is that if they think you won’t be able to pay the bill, you’ll be sent home within 24 hours. As expected, the comments under this video are full of Europeans shocked that Americans have to pay to have a baby. -via Viral Viral Videos
This is a male specimen of Jackson’s widowbird (Euplectes jacksoni), native to Kenya and Tanzania. Both the male and female are a dull brown color, except during mating season. That’s when the male grows a glossy coat of black feathers, and a ridiculously long tail. At Atlas Obscura, you can see a gif showing how hard it is to fly with that tail. But what this bird wants to do is hop!
In addition to primping up their appearance, the rest of the Jackson’s widowbirds’ mating ritual is quite elaborate. A male widowbird will create a little stage for his dancing performance by clipping down the tall grass to form a three-foot-wide circle and defend the territory from other males. He’ll leave a small patch of grass in the center of the circle as a platform where he will proceed to hop up and down. You can see the widowbird in the video jumping up repeatedly to show off the length of his tail while singing a soft call to lure females.
Now, what lady widowbird could resist such a performance?
(Image credit: Francesco Veronesi)
Walt Whitman was a distinctive and provocative poet of the 19th century. At the height of his fame, as he faced old age, Whitman became an advertising icon. He didn’t seek it out, and he wasn’t even consulted. He didn’t profit from in, either. And the products that were sold bearing his name or face had little to do with the poet himself. It started with cigars. Whitman didn’t smoke.
During the Gilded Age, new industrial technology, particularly in chromolithography and tin-stamping, caused an explosion in product branding and advertising with colorful product labels, tin boxes, and tin signs. This new era of marketing meant familiar literary characters and beloved authors could be used to drum up excitement for an unknown products.
So when cigar maker Frank Hartmann bought the Spark Cigar Factory in Camden, New Jersey, in the late 1880s, the celebrated local bard was an obvious mascot. By 1890, his company introduced its Walt Whitman brand of cigars. But Hartmann wasn’t the only entrepreneur to have this idea: At least a few companies in the cigar manufacturing center of Binghamton, New York, started offering their own Walt Whitman cigars around the same time. The branding arrived as Whitman was facing his mortality and doubting whether Americans were truly touched by his life’s work. When Whitman disciple Horace Traubel presented the poet with an 1890 envelope advertising Walt Whitman cigars, he reported that Whitman exclaimed, “That is fame! … It is not so bad—not as bad as it might be: give the hat a little more height and it would not be such an offense.”
But that was just the beginning. Whitman’s name, image, and/or quotes were used to sell calendars, coffee, applesauce, gum, hotels, whiskey, and a slew of other products. Collectors Weekly talked to ephemera collector Ed Centeno about Whitman and his allure with advertisers, and looks at the life of the poet, too.
(Image: courtesy of Ed Centeno)
An animated graph of Billboard’s top songs from Polygraph lets you watch the top five songs rise and fall over time. Not only that, but it plays the number one song while it’s at the top! This covers the years 1956 to 2016, so you can select a great year for memories and just let it play. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. You might want to to analyze the movement or something. This is cool. There are a few glitches in the 1950s, but the '60s really rock. And so do all the other years. -via Metafilter
Some major hoteliers are harnessing technology to cater to their guests without having to hire extra staff, and along the way, they can save room, time, and energy. If you’re used to doing everything with your phone, you’ll want to visit these someday.
Developed by Caesars Entertainment, the LINQ offers hotel rooms control entirely by the WeChat app. This includes adjusting the lighting, opening and closing the curtains and changing the temperature on the thermostat without getting up from the bed. These smart hotel rooms are catering to the overseas Chinese guests. When you first arrive in the hotel room, you simply scan a QR code to instantly download the app which operates under a WeChat official account.
This collaboration between Caesars and WeChat is one of many in operation that is being used to study foreign markets for additional opportunities. Caesars is planning to construct and ecosystem that leverages WeChat in future hotel rooms to provide the ultimate hotel experience.
These hotels are obviously not for everyone. I find the idea of a hotel chain knowing that much about me to be a bit creepy. Besides, I don’t have a smartphone. There is a hotel on the list that provides iPads in each room for those who don’t have a smartphone. Still, that doesn’t make anything easier for older people who are not quite computer literate. But for globetrotting technophiles, these inns are the wave of the future. See all five hotels at Money Inc.
The Broadway musical Hamilton won a Grammy, a Pulitzer Price, and just this week received a record-breaking 16 Tony nominations. But you really know you’ve arrived when you get a Star Wars mashup on YouTube.
Set to the tune of Hamilton’s opening number, “Alexander Hamilton,” the song explains Luke Skywalker’s entire life that we know so far. -via mental_floss
If you prefer your Hamilton/Star Wars crossovers with less staging and more celebrities, check out Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda and JJ Abrams performing the song Miranda composed for The Force Awakens.
Viva Frei took his GoPro to a park in Montreal to record the friendly squirrels. One got bold enough to take the camera! The squirrel jumps up in a nearby bush, but when he sees the man coming for his camera, the squirrel takes off and finds a bigger tree.
Does he get the camera back? Duh, you’re watching the video. -via Tastefully Offensive
