There are 265 Apple stores in the U.S. (none near me, of course), and that means lot of employees with stories to tell. Some of the things that go on in Apple stores might reinforce your belief that Apple is a cult, if that’s what you think, but the loyalty-building customs are not much different from other companies. And the way they look at customers will not surprise you. But this fact stood out to me:

6. THEY LOVE SEEING VINTAGE DEVICES.

It’s not all about the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. Most employees have seen their fair share of super old Apple gear. “I had one lady who brought in an Apple IIe,” Eric says. “I used that in middle school.” Products that have not been manufactured for more than five are labeled “vintage” and anything that was discontinued more than seven years ago is “obsolete.” Apple Store employees can’t order parts for these gadgets, but they don’t mind giving them a once-over. “It’s amazing what people will keep,” Eric says. “It goes to show the support and the viability of the products Apple produces that you can see things that are 10 to 12 years old [and] people are still using them.”

I drive a 26-year-old car and live in a 109-year-old house. The idea that something just a few years old is “vintage” and you can’t get parts for it is beyond my understanding. I still have trouble believing that my 2009 Mac Mini will no longer support the applications my kids use for school. Sigh. But there’s a lot more about Apple stores and their employees you’ll want to read at mental_floss.  

This is not a movie set, or anywhere near one. This is not Asgard. Redditor GavinWakeUpCall posted this picture, taken by a friend, of a scene at the Broken Yolk Cafe in San Diego, where Comic Con is going on. These guys have Thor and Loki down to the smallest detail, even the not-talking-to-each-other part. I wonder if the waitress had any trouble moving Thor’s hammer to set their plates down. And another question: what do Norse gods order at a diner?    

The producers of the upcoming Star Wars film were ready for the crowds at Comic Con with this video filled with images, clips, and commentary from the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

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There were 6,000 fans squeezed into Hall H to hear from JJ Abrams, producer Kathleen Kennedy, and writer Lawrence Kasdan. Then the majority of the main cast showed up, too, including Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill. The session ended with a surprise concert of Star Wars music from the San Diego Symphony at the Embarcadero Marina Park South. -via Laughing Squid

Barry Cox runs a business in New Zealand called Treelocations that specializes in transplanting and moving trees. He also has a beautiful three-acre sculpted garden. The crowning glory of the garden is the Tree Church, a chapel made of living, growing trees! The trees used are:

    Alnus Imperialis – Cut Leaf Alder  (Roof Canopy)
    Leptospernum – Copper Sheen. (Walls)
    Camelia Black Tie
    Acer Globosum
    Thuja Pyramidalis

The church and grounds are open for tours (during the summer), and available to rent to weddings and other special events. See more pictures of the church at Colossal. -via Everlasting Blort

Have you ever wondered what an education at Hogwarts would be like if it were an American school? You just have to think about what makes our public schools uniquely American. But don't think too hard. Dorkly gives us a glimpse in a series of panels that address the important parts of an education. I had a hard time deciding whether I should use this one or the Scantron panel as an example.

As has become traditional, the trailer for the new season of The Walking Dead debuted to a packed audience at Comic Con, and now to the rest of us.

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The new season will premiere on October 11 with a 90-minute episode. Continue reading for more information, and a look at Fear the Walking Dead.

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Little Neo is 25 days old in this video. She’s had her eyes open long enough to know that Mom is the bomb, and a kitten can learn by copy-catting what Mom does- even when she doesn’t understand why. Keep doing that, Neo, and you’ll learn to cat just fine. One day you’ll look in the mirror and realize that you not only act like Mom, but you look just like her, too! -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Aaron Murray and his wife are having a baby -their fourth- so how does he react? By writing and recording a little song about it, to the tune of “Shut Up And Dance” by Walk the Moon.

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Then whaddayaknow, his brother Aaron’s wife is pregnant, too! So that’s two more Murrays- and a lot of joy all around. -via Viral Viral Videos

KFC and Turner Broadcasting are marketing to Comic Con attendees by dressing Colonel Sanders up in various common cosplay getups! Wifi-enabled statues of the Colonel have been placed around San Diego in various costumes, inviting passersby to hook up to the hotspot.

Once you spot one of the Colonels and connect to the wifi, you’ll be directed to a co-branded KFC and Robot Chicken digital hub at www.adultswim.com/KFC to check out KFC and Robot Chicken custom content. If you take a photo with the statue(s) and send it out onto social media withh the hashtag #colonelsanders, you could win a free Robot Chicken t-shirt.

You’ll find a map of where the statues are at the Comic Con blog. Is this genius or just plain insane? I knew met the Colonel a few times, and I bet instead of spinning in his grave, he’s chuckling at this. -via Metafilter

Conan O’Brien knows how to take a road trip in style! He and Andy Richter drove down to San Diego on the Fury Road to attend Comic Con.

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Conan is cosplaying as the Doof Warrior, guitar and all. He even made snacks along the way! No doubt we will see updates about his adventures at the con. -via reddit

The 1990s ushered in a Renaissance for Disney films, when the mouse produced some of the best animated movies ever: The Lion King, Lilo & Stitch, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, Mulan, and more. This supercut by indrancole3 includes movies from 1986 to 2002 to show how Disney got its new groove.

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If you were a child during that era (or even if you weren’t), you’ll love this brief interlude as a chance to indulge in the feelings you had when you first saw these movies. -via Uproxx

The history of the roller coaster is more than a little loopy.

Q: WHO INVENTED THE ROLLER COASTER?

When Russian daredevils got bored sledding down hills in the 1600s, they decided to ramp things up. Literally. They started building “flying mountains”—elaborate five-story ice ramps with drops as steep as 50 degrees. The sleds were originally made from hollowed-out blocks of ice, but when the French built their own version in 1804, they added a track and wheels. The crude attraction didn’t have any safety features—and the wheels had a reputation for flying off—but those hazards actually boosted attendance! By the 1840s, centrifugal railways featured the first loop-de-loops, flipping riders around a perfect circle that created g-forces three times stronger than most modern coasters.

Q: HOW LONG CAN YOU RIDE A ROLLER COASTER?

In 2007, Richard Rodriguez spent 17 straight days and nights riding roller coasters in Blackpool, England. He ate, drank, and slept on the rides, only taking a five-minute break every hour to shower, use the bathroom, or change clothes. (To get shut-eye, he padded the seat with foam rubber and popped in earplugs.) Five years later, Rodriguez spent 112 consecutive days on a coaster, but this time he took the night off when the park closed.

Q: HOW MANY ROLLER COASTERS CAN YOU RIDE IN ONE DAY?

Freedomland, U.S. A. was a history-based theme park in the East Bronx. Attractions included numerous boat rides, the San Francisco Earthquake ride, and a recreation of the Chicago Fire -with real fire that kids helped extinguish.

Billed as the world’s largest amusement park when it opened on June 19, 1960, Freedomland was quickly nicknamed the “Disneyland of the East.” Spread across 205 acres, the park dwarfed the actual Disneyland. For weeks prior to its debut, newspapers ran fervent articles hyping Freedomland’s ability to serve 50,000 hamburgers and hot dogs per hour, its eight miles of navigable waterways for river rides, its 8,500-car parking lot, and the 5,000 original costumes worn by its historical re-enactors.

The cost was just as newsworthy. “Twenty-two movie spectaculars could be produced for the investment in Freedomland,” The New York Times marveled. The $65 million price tag “is also equivalent to 195 top-budget Broadway musicals or 130 hour-long TV spectaculars.”

Twenty-five thousand people, breathless with anticipation, jammed the opening-day celebration.

But Freedomland declared bankruptcy in 1964. Was it rising ticket prices? A sign of the times? Or was it a conspiracy between those who wanted the valuable New York real estate for other purposes? Read about the rise and fall of Freedomland U.S.A. with an overview of other failed theme parks at Atlas Obscura.

(Image source: Mike Virgintino collection)

Singer Janis Joplin died of a drug overdose in October of 1970. Can you believe that was almost 45 years ago? The very last song she recorded was “Mercedes Benz.” It was written in a hurry for a lark, sung a cappella, and only added to her next album after her death. It was a catchy tune that anyone could sing, and most people could relate to, since a Mercedes and a TV and a night on the town all cost too much money. Joplin first performed the song in August of 1970 at the Capitol Theatre in New York. Bob Neuwirth tells what happened.

On the bootleg recording from the concert, she says from the stage: “I’d like to do a song of some significance, now. I just wrote it at the bar on the corner, so I don’t know all the words yet. I’m going to do it Acapulco,” which had been my funny way of saying “a cappella.” I think she decided to sing it to further impress Geraldine and Rip.

Janis stomped off the beat and began belting out the lyrics, the way she had done at the bar. The band soon tried to fit in as best they could, and then they reprised the last verse. What’s interesting is that the second verse doesn’t include the “Dialing for Dollars” line. She must have added it later before recording in the studio in L.A., since it’s not on the Harvard Stadium bootleg either.

The story of how the iconic song came about is told in an oral history at, believe it or not, the Wall Street Journal. -via Metafilter

Mad magazine would make fun of anyone who was in the public eye, but some of those public figures had no sense of humor. In 1957, the target of one of the magazine’s articles was the FBI and its director, J. Edgar Hoover.

In a memo dated November 30, 1957, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified as “A. Jones” raised an issue of critical importance: "Several complaints to the Bureau have been made concerning the 'Mad' comic book [sic], which at one time presented the horror of war to readers."

Attached to the document were pages taken from a recent issue of Mad that featured a tongue-in-cheek game about draft dodging. Players who earned such status were advised to write to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and request a membership card certifying themselves as a “full-fledged draft dodger.” At least three readers, the agent reported, did exactly that.

Mad, of course, was the wildly popular satirical magazine that was reaching upwards of a million readers every other month. Published by William Gaines, who had already gotten into some trouble with Congress when he was called to testify about his gruesome horror comics in 1954, Mad lampooned everyone and everything. But in name-checking the notoriously humorless Hoover, Gaines had invited the wrong kind of attention.

A visit from the FBI elicited an apology from the magazine, but the Bureau did not seem to realize that you can’t calm a nest of hornets by poking a stick at it. And thus began a back-and-forth battle between the feds and the humor magazine that lasted years.