Music systems, which those of us of a certain age just call “stereos,” started out filled with vacuum tubes, then went to transistors, and finally computer chips. What’s the difference, and which is best? There are a lot of factors involved. The leap from tubes to transistors meant smaller, safer, longer-lasting, and less power-hungry components.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, electronics manufacturers started bailing on tubes because solid-state components were all the rage. In part, it was because the electronics industry wanted something new to sell (sound familiar?), but transistors represented a major improvement over tubes, even if it was a hassle to replicate their linearity, for the simple reason that unlike tubes, solid-state components did not wear out.

“Tubes are it, tubes are the ultimate, but tubes are completely messed up,” Hansen says. “They wear out the minute you turn on a piece of equipment.”

But did those stereos, speakers, and amplifiers lose something in the process? Many audiophiles say that the quality of sound was much better with vacuum tubes. An article at Collectors Weekly runs down the history of sound amplification, the difference between tubes and transistors, and whether it ultimately matters in the experience of fine music.

The Rubik's Cube's 41-year history is full of twists—quintillions and quintillions of them.

At 29, Ernö Rubik was too old to be playing with blocks. But the Hungarian professor of architecture couldn’t help himself: He was fascinated with shapes and spent much of his free time building and perfecting 3-D models. In 1974, a particular project had him stumped. For months, he’d been working on a block made of smaller cubes that could move without causing the whole structure to fall apart. So far, each attempt had failed. The evidence was strewn all over the two-bedroom apartment he shared with his mother.

One spring day, a frustrated Rubik left the apartment and wandered the streets of Budapest. He followed a gentle bend in the Danube River, a path he had walked countless times before. At one point, he stopped to listen to the water lapping ashore and looked down at the polished round pebbles that lined the riverbank. Suddenly, his heart started racing.

The solution was right at his feet: If individual blocks hinged on a rounded core, they could move freely while maintaining the shape of a cube. Rubik raced home and created a prototype held together with paper clips and rubber bands—a structure consisting of 21 smaller cubelets, adhered to a rounded interlocking mechanism. “It was very emotional,” the inventor told CNN in 2012. And that was long before he realized the device’s potential to torment millions of people the world over while making him incredibly rich.

Rubik’s solution was really “only a starting point,” he later remembered. Having marked each side with different colored stickers, he gave the block a few twists and watched it devolve into a chaotic collage. “After only a few turns, the colors became mixed,” he wrote in an unpublished memoir. “It was tremendously satisfying to watch this color parade.” Before long, Rubik decided to reset his cube. “[It was] like after a nice walk when you have seen many lovely sights you decide to go home; after a while I decided it was time to go home.”

It took Rubik a month of trial and error to find that way home.

Comedian Chris Farley was cast as Shrek and recorded almost all his lines before he died in 1997. He was replaced by his SNL colleague Mike Myers, and quite a bit of dialogue and art was changed to accommodate Myers’ appearance and voice.

(YouTube link)

Here is a a sample of Farley's recorded dialogue over Shrek storyboards in a video. -via Digg 

Seventy years ago today, August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the world's first atomic weapon
on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II. Those events ushered in the nuclear era.

Digg has a list of links to articles about the first atomic bombing.

Neatorama also has some essential reading material on the subject.

A Thousand Cranes

The Unluckiest Train Ride

Nuclear Quotes: The Crew of the Enola Gay

Photo Collection: The Aftermath of Hiroshima

The Long Shadow Of The Manhattan Project

Jon Stewart has made fun of Arby’s on a regular basis for years on The Daily Show. Arby’s took it rather well, and in fact sponsored last night’s episode. That meant a couple of custom ads for the occasion.

(YouTube link)

You can see the other, called "Arby's Last Sandwich," at Uproxx.

Tonight is Jon Stewart’s final appearance as host of The Daily Show.

(YouTube link)

Did you know we have a satellite orbiting a million miles from Earth? That’s beyond the orbit of the Moon. The image here was captured last month by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the DSCOVR satellite. It shows the “dark side” of the moon that is not visible from Earth, although it is lit by the sun in the images.

EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates, providing scientific observations of ozone, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in the atmosphere. Once EPIC begins regular observations next month, the camera will provide a series of Earth images allowing study of daily variations over the entire globe. About twice a year the camera will capture the moon and Earth together as the orbit of DSCOVR crosses the orbital plane of the moon.

These images were taken between 3:50 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. EDT on July 16, showing the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America. The North Pole is in the upper left corner of the image, reflecting the orbital tilt of Earth from the vantage point of the spacecraft.

The far side of the moon was not seen until 1959 when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned the first images. Since then, several NASA missions have imaged the lunar far side in great detail. The same side of the moon always faces an earthbound observer because the moon is tidally locked to Earth. That means its orbital period is the same as its rotation around its axis.

Read more about the DSCOVR satellite and the images it takes at NASA. -via mental floss

It’s a combination -or abomination- that had to happen sooner or later. People go nuts about anything with pumpkin spice flavor in the fall, and Peeps are more popular than ever. Now those two things are together at last. Float that marshmallow in your hot cocoa!

The sweet little marshmallow blobs will land just in time for the ever-earlier start of pumpkin spice madness season on August 31st, but only at Target or from the Peeps online store. In other words, you'll be slurping PSLs and munching on pumpkin spice Peeps in no time. No pumpkin spice is safe.

Peeps will also be available in caramel apple and candy corn flavors as well as pumpkin spice. -via Time

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

[ed. note: Lucille Ball was born on August 6, 1911. Today would have been Lucy’s 104th birthday.] 

Who doesn't love Lucy? We can all argue about favorite movies and best actors and finest directors, but when almost anyone is asked "Who is the funniest lady in the history of television?" the answer is pretty much unanimous.

Lucy was a brilliant comedienne, and her classic TV series I Love Lucy has undoubtedly been seen by more people, around the world, than any show in history. Okay, let's take a look at the legendary redhead (one of John Belushi's supreme idols, by the way) the one and only Lucille Ball…

* She used to work as a soda jerk (jerk-ess?). She was fired because she kept forgetting to put bananas in banana splits.

* Lucy was born a brunette. She later was a blond model. It wasn't until she was pushing 30 that Lucy first dyed her hair the world-famous red color. She became a redhead to appear in the 1943 movie Du Barry Was a Lady.

* She modeled under the name Dianne Belmont (after the Belmont racetrack.) She usually modeled heavy fur coats because she was so excessively thin as a young girl.

* Lucy had no eyebrows. For her first movie role in Roman Scandals (1933) she shaved her eyebrows off. (She played a slave girl.) They never grew back.

Parents can’t play favorites; that’s pretty much a given. However, kids haven’t learned the value of a white lie or the social conventions they support. This is the latest from Lunarbaboon.

(YouTube link)

John Green’s understudy Craig guest-hosts this week’s mental_floss List Show. It’s about famous cases of outrageous heists. Please excuse any typos; my keyboard decided it doesn’t want to work for me anymore.

Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 List celebrated its 57th anniversary yesterday, although the magazine had published song lists earlier. Billboard itself is over 100 years old, and was founded as a different kind of magazine, one with a mission that reflected its name: an advertising trade periodical, focused on circuses.

According to a history written by his grandson, Roger S. Littleford, Jr., the founder of Billboard, William H. “Bill” Donaldson, built the magazine to serve an entirely different need. Donaldson worked for the family business, a Newport, Kentucky-based lithography shop that churned out advertisements and posters for the circuses, fairs, and other traveling shows that criss-crossed the country. Donaldson realized that most of his clients—the managers and owners who ordered the posters, and, especially, the billstickers tasked with staying one step ahead of the shows and pasting the posters to every available surface—lacked permanent addresses, and thus were unable to communicate with each other.

In 1894, Donaldson started to spend his nights and weekends putting together Billboard Advertising, a trade publication dedicated to gathering all the news that might be relevant to his more itinerant peers. The first issue, published that November, had eight pages of relevant tidbits, laid out in columns like “Bill Room Gossip” and “The Indefatigable And Tireless Industry of the Bill Poster.” Now the “advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents, and secretaries of fairs,” as the issue categorized them, could pick up a magazine at a newsstand anywhere in the country and know what to expect on the opposite coast.

The magazine went through a lot of changes since then. Read all about it at Atlas Obscura.

Accidentally glued myself to a crocodile while attaching a radio transmitter. #fieldworkfail

— Agata Staniewicz (@AgataStaniewicz) July 30, 2015

Scientists are using the new Twitter hashtag #fieldworkfail to tell stories about the screw-ups and unforeseen events that happen when you’re doing research in the field. It's like the opposite side of the Tweets that made us envious under the hashtag #BestFieldWorkPic. There are already quite a number of Tweets, with more being added daily.

Set padded leghold trap near house for jackal. Catch lion. #fieldworkfail

— Rosie Woodroffe (@RosieWoodroffe) July 31, 2015

Many are so intriguing that you want to hear the rest of the story. The Atlantic contacted the researchers about the Tweets posted above to find out if Staniewicz was still glued to a crocodile and what Woodroffe did with the unwanted lion. You’ll also see more favorite #fieldworkfail Tweets in the article. And check out the ongoing Tweets -some have pictures!

Finding out the ground was not as stable as appeared #Askja #Fieldworkfail camerawoman took pic instead of helping pic.twitter.com/k3n9Y5Unne

— Alison Graettinger (@AlisonGraetting) July 30, 2015

-via Metafiter

Somewhere in L.A., Whole Foods executives are laughing at all of us.

A photo posted by Marielle Wakim (@marielle.m.n.o.p) on Aug 3, 2015 at 8:03am PDT

I thought buying bottled water at the grocery store was crazy, but this product takes marketing to a whole new level. At least the name is accurate: it certainly contains asparagus and water. That’s it. For $5.99 a bottle. But it was only available at Whole Foods for a limited time, because oops.

Contacted by The Hollywood Reporter, a representative for Whole Foods' Los Angeles region explains: "There's been some miscommunication around this product. It was meant to be water with the essence of vegetables and/or mushrooms to be used as broth (similar to a bone broth), which are typically made over a long period of time soaking in water."

"The product was made incorrectly and has since been removed from the one store, Brentwood, where it was carried," the rep continues. "We would love your help clarifying that this product is not available and was removed from the Brentwood store as soon as this issue was brought to our attention."

You might get the idea that Whole Foods is just pushing the envelope to see what people will buy. If you want real asparagus water (although I don’t understand why anyone would), you open a can of asparagus and pour the water out. -via reddit

(Image credit: Marielle Wakim)

After the picture of the iWheel went viral last week, the wheel’s creators at George Fox University IT Department were inundated with requests for a video. So we now get to see the iWheel in action.

(YouTube link) 

University systems administrator Mike Campadore had hoarded iMac boxes for quite some time and recently received his 35th and 36th box from a newly-installed university computer lab.

On his first attempt, he left the Styrofoam inside the boxes, but it made the wheel too heavy. Even without the extra weight, he estimates the finished product weighs 120 pounds and is nearly nine feet tall.

Finally, on Friday, July 31, Campadore asked IT coworker Rich Bass to help him complete the wheel. The two then rolled it out onto the campus quad and made a call to the university marketing department, which sent a photographer. The initial Facebook post was successful, but when a former student shared it on Reddit, the iWheel went viral.

Oh, and that’s when the Photoshop jokes started rolling in. You can see those, as well as the full story of the iWheel, at the Bruin Blog. -Thanks, Rob Leslie!  

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

It was Friday, August 8, 1969, around 11:30 in the morning. The Beatles had wrapped up recording what was to be their 12th and final album a few days previously. Although it wasn't opened stated, all four pretty much knew and realized this would be the final-ever Beatle product.

In trying to name the album, the titles Four in the Bar and All Good Children Go To Heaven had been thrown around. The Beatles almost decided to call it Everest, not so much in reference to the famous mountain, but to the brand of cigarettes their engineer Geoff Emerick smoked. (Geoff puffed away on Everest ciggies during the Fab Four recording sessions.)

The idea went so far that the boys even toyed with the idea of flying to Tibet and posing for a cover photo at Mount Everest. It would have been a cool photo op, but Ringo Starr hated to travel and didn't want to go anywhere and it was the Beatle drummer who came up with the final title- Abbey Road, in reference to the address of the recording studios the Beatles had used for the past seven years.

Iain MacMillan, a freelance photographer and friend of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, had been chosen to snap the cover shot. A policeman closed off traffic at the crosswalk (called a "zebra crossing" because of the striped surface). MacMillan was given the extremely ungenerous time limit of ten minutes to snap a good shot.