Would you buy a car from this man? If car ads were honest, they’d tell us stuff we already know. This video from Cracked focuses on the money, but I’d also add the part about badgering potential customers who just want to look around, and the surprisingly large number of car salesman who still think a woman cannot select or buy a car on her own.
It doesn’t have to be this way. I always buy cars from private owners. They are already taking a loss, and really need to unload to get rid of insurance costs. The seller still makes more on a private sale than they would trading it in. My brother bought his last few cars from eBay: he saved money even when including travel expenses. -via Viral Viral Videos
Chuck Inman and Lauren Oiye are champion tandem surfers. I guess if you’ve developed the incredible balance necessary for surfing, you may as well harness that balance further. See several more of their videos at Daily Picks and Flicks.
Brown Recluse spiders (Loxosceles reclusa) are tiny but deadly. However, they don’t go around biting people as a habit, and they don’t live all over the U.S. The fear of being bitten by one is akin to the fear of plane crashes, Ebola, or shark attack: the consequences are bad, but the odds of it actually happening are smaller than you think.
A study was done about ten years ago to see how bad people were at identifying Brown Recluse spiders. People, focusing on people who should know or claimed to know, were asked to send in their spiders. Brown Recluse spiders were submitted from 49 of the US states and from Canada. They exist, however, in only 17 states and not at all in Canada. There is a spider that lives in California, a very common house spider that had never been properly studied. It does look a bit like a Brown Recluse. So many of those were sent in (California is NOT one of the 17 states Brown Recluse spiders live in) that spider experts were able to use the collection of those spiders, not Brown Recluse but some other species, to do the first major study of its anatomy.
Bits of Dental Fear “Good Teeth, Bad Teeth, and Fear of the Dentist,” Richie Poultona, et al., Behaviour, Research and Therapy, vol. 35, no. 4, April 1997, pp. 327–34. The authors, at the University of Otago, New Zealand, explain that:
[Our] intriguing finding suggests that relatively brief dental treatment occasioned by low levels of dental disease may result in the incubation of dental fear in some individuals.
Dental Fear: Comparing Apples and Oranges “Effects of Pleasant Ambient Fragrances on Dental Fear: Comparing Apples and Oranges,” Alexander Toet, Monique A.M. Smeets, Elly van Dijk, Davina Dijkstra, and Lieke van den Reijen, Chemosensory Perception, vol. 3, nos. 3–4, December 2010, pp. 182–9. The authors, at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, explain:
Previous studies showed that orange odor reduces the anticipatory anxiety and improves the mood of patients waiting for scheduled appointments in small dental practices. We replicated these previous studies in the setting of three large dental clinics. In addition, we investigated whether another pleasant fruity smell (apple odor) is similarly associated with reduced anxiety.... Statistical analysis showed no significant difference between the responses of patients in each of the three experimental groups. We therefore conclude that orange and apple odors have no effect on the anticipatory anxiety or mood of patients waiting for scheduled appointments in large dental clinics.
You’ve heard of villagers in Europe putting pigs or goats on trial in the Middle Ages. It turns out that a lot of those stories were made up out of whole cloth for one reason or another. Yet some are true, although the details are few. What were they thinking? Did people back then really think that livestock were capable of guilt or understood the proceedings of a trial? Ah, no. Beasts accused of murder were sometimes sentenced to death after a fact-finding trial. Others were prosecuted as a species, but that was often in ecclesiastical court.
Most complaints against smaller animals leveled for infestation or destruction of crops ended up in some sort of excommunication from the church, or official ecclesiastical denouncement. Evans explains that this was largely done as an effort to make people feel better about exterminating them. Since even weevils, slugs, rats, and such were considered God’s creatures, the devastation they inflicted was likely part of his plan, so to just destroy them would be to act against God’s will and creatures. Of course if they were tried in a church court, and excommunicated (or condemned in the case of animals and insects), that could mitigate guilt.
Comic author Grant Morrison opined about the new Wonder Woman movie franchise, wondering how the Amazonian became so warlike, when Diana Prince was always dedicated to justice and peace. The truth is, Wonder Woman has been many things. Diana Prince has gone through a lot of changes in her 73 years in comic books.
Wonder Woman was by no means the first female superhero, but she was perhaps the first who was designed to function primarily as a social message. Her creator, psychologist William Marston, intended her to be an antidote to what he had decided was "comics' worst offense... their blood-curdling masculinity." By this, he didn’t really mean that comics were too violent or stereotypically masculinized, but rather that they lacked all the elements that Marston saw as the “tender, submissive, peace-loving” feminine ideal.
In a world where so many cats get by on their looks alone, Hamilton is doubly blessed. Hamilton was born with the most magnificent facial markings a cat can ask for. What a mustache! Hamilton, or Hammy, doesn’t mind posing for lots of pictures. His Facebook page has plenty of them, and of other cats who have great mustaches, too. His Instagram account has even more photos. -via reddit
Katherine Walker was married to the lighthouse keeper at Robbins Reef Light, between Manhattan Island and a Staten Island. John Walker developed pneumonia and died in 1886. His last words were “Mind the lights, Katie.” And she did. For thirty years. She immediately took over her husband’s duties at the lighthouse while government authorities searched for a new lighthouse keeper. They did not believe that Katie, at 4’ 10” and 100 pounds, could do the job, but no one else wanted to. After nine and a half years as lighthouse keeper, she was finally given the official appointment.
Her life on Robbins Reef was focussed: the light was everything. She did not neglect her children, however, and every school day rowed them a mile each way, weather permitting, to Staten Island. In fact, in addition to helping with his academic studies, she trained her son Jacob to be her assistant, a form of on-the-job career training. (He later became keeper of the light when his mother retired.)
But the light was her reason for being and vital for shipping. Many vessels had been gutted on the dangerous rocks, laying close alongside the deep water channels leading up the Hudson and into the Staten Island/New Jersey docks. In her tenure, Kate was credited with some 50 rescues. The most rewarding, she recalled, came one winter night when a schooner crashed onto the reef. Five men were cast into the cold seas. Launching the small boat she used to ferry her children to school, Kate bravely rowed through the surging wreckage and rescued all five. All safely aboard, one of them asked "Where's Scottie?" Searching in the dark she caught a glimpse of a small dog and hauled him aboard, too. Back at the light she wrapped Scottie in a towel and forced him to drink warm coffee. The men left the next day and the skipper returned three days later to claim the dog. As the captain climbed down into his waiting boat, Scottie looked up into Kate's eyes and whined. "That's when I learned dog's could weep," she said, "there were tears in his eyes."
Katie Walker retired in 1919 after 33 years of faithfully attending to Robbins Reef Light. Read Walker’s story at SailNorthEast.
Five years ago, Robert Krulwich of NPR told us about the billions of bugs that lived high above us in the atmosphere. Now there’s an even newer, stranger ecosystem found much higher: bacteria, fungi, and viruses that are swept up to the edge of outer space and orbit the earth miles above our heads. They survive up there, often for long periods of time, and many of them come back to earth from “the high zone” still alive.
Some bacteria have been in this high zone so regularly or for so long that they’ve adapted to life in the sky. Some species develop pigments that mimic sunscreen; some, says the New York Times, feed only on cloud water; and some can reproduce within clouds.
Scientists call this new family of creatures-in-the-sky “high life,” and it is a biological zone with its own rules. Up there is not like down here.
The conditions are so extreme (cold, lack of oxygen, solar radiation, etc.) that scientists are having to rethink how microbes live and die, and maybe come back to life. Which upends what we think we know about life and death. Read about these high zone microbes and their high life, such as it is, at Phenomena.
At first it seemed like death from natural causes. Marcus Tomby, an investigative reporter, was found slumped over his desk at the Times, victim of a heart attack. And then the security director from the Fordham Arms apartment building came forward.
"Mr. Tomby lived at the Fordham," he told the lieutenant in charge. "He did a lot of dangerous reporting and used to joke about being knocked off some day. When I heard about his death, I reviewed the tape from the security camera in his hallway. Look."
A fuzzy image popped up, showing a red-haired, bearded man leaving the Tomby apartment and pulling closed the door. As he walked towards the camera, he lifted his hand to his face and adjusted his ring. "That's from this morning's tape. Marcus lives alone and that isn't him."
The lieutenant immediately contacted the Times. "Yes, Marcus was on a story," explained the editor. "He suspected Metro Carting of illegally dumping toxic waste. He said he had an inside contact and was preparing a dynamite expose."
The homicide sergeant glanced around the bedroom. It was a far cry from the obsessive neatness of the rest of the house. There were broken fixtures, scattered furniture, and a crunchy coating of shattered picture glass covering the carpet. "Quite a fight," he muttered. On the bed lay the body of Reece Cutter, a sales rep just returned from a business trip. He'd been stabbed through with an ornamental sword torn down from the bedroom wall.
The victim's brother was contacted at work, halfway across town. Earlier in the day Broderick Cutter had picked Reece up at the airport. "As soon as we got in, Reece went up to his bedroom and unpacked everything. We talked. Then I had to get to work. My shift starts at seven. Reece's wife was coming over later. Marjorie wanted Reece to sign divorce papers, but he kept refusing. I guess she doesn't have to worry about that now."
Charlene Tyner was half-awake when she heard it, coming from downstairs, the sound of spilling coins. She checked the time—2 A.M.—then rolled over and went back to sleep.
In the morning, when Charlene walked into her kitchen, she immediately noticed the theft. The jar in which she kept her collection of silver dollars was completely empty. That's when she recalled the late night sound. And that's when she saw the refrigerator. It was askew, the only thing out of center in the perfectly maintained kitchen.
Charlene knelt down and reached into the narrow space between the refrigerator and the cabinet. "At least they didn't get them all," she thought as she pulled her arm out. Two silver dollars, all that was left of her prized collection. The irate housewife quickly raised the alarm.
"All right, Mr. Darden." The Automobile Club operator read back the information. "Your car has a flat. You have a spare, but it's in your trunk and the trunk lock is broken. You're pulled over on Route 5. I'll have a tow truck out to you immediately."
Alex Darden flipped shut his cellular phone and shivered in the night air. Maybe he'd get lucky. Maybe someone would come along before the tow truck arrived.
The tow truck driver found the car easily enough. He saw the flat tire, still on the wheel, and the jack on the ground beside it. Next he saw the blood on the jack, and finally the body. Alex Darden, middle-aged businessman, had been robbed, then bludgeoned to death.
As luck would have it, the highway patrol had been conducting a sobriety check half a mile west of the murder scene. One of the officers had taken down license numbers, and before long, the police were focusing on three motorists who had passed by before the tow truck's arrival.
At 10 A.M. exactly, the gates to the zoo were flung open. A handful of the early visitors headed directly for the penguin house. The kids raced in to get the best view of the glass-enclosed habitat and nearly stumbled over the corpse. It was Cheryl Hammaker, a zoo employee, dressed for work and wearing a plastic feeding apron. She'd been strangled.
The medical examiner took the body's temperature, leading him to estimate that she'd been dead for well over 12 hours. "Makes sense," the zoo director said. "The penguins are fed three times a day: when the handlers get here at eight, then at noon, and finally around six, right after we close." He checked the victim's feeding apron, still filled with small fish.
"That's probably when it happened," a detective agreed as he sniffed, smelling just the faintest fishy odor. "Right before last night's feeding."
Cheryl had been a conscientious worker, arriving early and leaving late. She lived close to the zoo and kept to herself. "I'd just promoted her to department head," the director said. "With her own set of keys. Two other people were up for the job. They got pretty upset."
Two years ago, the Pretenders' Ball had been the scene of an assassination. Last year, an arsonist destroyed the royal archives. These political crimes, carried out by the rebel forces, were becoming a regular part of the Grand Duchy's annual costume ball. The chief of police pleaded with the prime minister to cancel this year's event. Naturally, he didn't. For added security, though, he did change the location to Duchy Park, a floral wonderland surrounded by a high, unscalable stone wall.
Upon entry, Robin Hood's arrows were confiscated, although he was allowed to keep his bow and quiver. David had to give up his slingshot and Goliath handed over his club. Mary Poppins kept her umbrella, but Death turned in his scythe. Even the clown was searched. One guard held onto his big bunch of balloons while another checked inside his oversized shoes.
The festive nighttime ball went on as scheduled. The music played, the costumed revelers danced, and champagne corks popped. Something else popped, too—a small derringer pistol.
The victim this time was the Grand Duchy's chief of police, dressed as a Chicago gangster, the only guest actually allowed to carry a weapon. His body was found in the middle of a hedge maze, the gun in his shoulder holster untouched.
"Shot in the back," Death (the royal physician) reported. "Very small caliber. Anyone could have sneaked in a gun that size."
In what was becoming another annual tradition, the guests lined up to be frisked.
