This hilarious headline appeared in the print edition of the East Oregonian Saturday. I think they’re ascribing super powers to pitcher Pat Venditte. Or “amphibious” fits into the space easier than “ambidextrous.” Or it could be a sly reference to a Yogi Berra quote: “He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious.”
The truth is that headline errors like this happen all the time, and some of them go down in history. There are quite a few ways it happens; some that can’t be fixed easily and others that will cost someone their job. Read about them in an article titled Regretting the error: A life in newspapers at Roamin’ Gnomials. -via Metafilter
These cats love their big tails. You could say they are quite attached to them! Here’s a compilation of cats showing off a bit, or just enjoying the magnificence of their posterior appendage. -via Tastefully Offensive
Fears. Phobias. Is there any one of us who won't admit to at least one? Sure, it's easy to find everyone else's rather silly, but if it's our own, it becomes deathly serious. Here are some fears and phobias of the great and famous.
George Washington and Hans Christian Andersen were both terrified of being buried alive. Before Washington died in 1799 he made the attendants promise to wait two days before burying him. Reputedly, Andersen always wore a sign around his neck whenever he slept, informing whoever read it that he was only sleeping, not dead.
One day, Henry Ford was fiddling around with a microscope. He had a close look at sugar crystals and he was horrified by their sharp points. He swore off sugar for the rest of his life, fearing it would slice up his internal organs.
Phobias can be quite ironic. Yes, it is true that Walt Disney, who gave us the immortal cartoon character Mickey Mouse, was actually afraid of mice.
And Bela Lugosi, movies' immortal Count Dracula the vampire, was terrified of blood.
In the 1940's, Howard Hughes was bit on his manhood by a dog. For the rest of his life, he had a fear and phobia of dogs.
Richard Nixon was terrified of hospitals. He believed if he entered one, he would never come out. When he had a blood clot in 1974, he refused to go to the hospital. Finally, when he was told that if he didn't go, he'd die, he grudgingly agreed.
Frederick the Great was so terrified of water, he couldn't take a bath. His servants would clean him off using dry towels.
Stage fright is one of the most common phobias. Barbra Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Gracie Allen, and Sir Laurence Olivier all suffered from severe cases. Donny Osmond's was so severe, that when he was performing in a play, he thought he was going to pass out.
Alfred Hitchcock was terrified of eggs. He never ate an egg in his life and refused to be around them. Hitch also had acute fear of heights (inspiration for Vertigo?) and open spaces (inspiration for North by Northwest?)
Ernest Hemingway feared telephones. It stemmed from his fear of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. (Hmm... that one doesn't sound so irrational, does it?)
We get it, Americans are loud, fat, cheap, always eating, drinking, wearing pajamas in public, and worst of all, they have American accents! But we smell like freedom. -via reddit
So many people loved the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes because they related to the small child who lived out his fantasies with his ever-loyal stuffed tiger Hobbes. Of course, Calvin was much more clever than we were at that age. According to Libby Hill, Calvin’s fantasy world was a retreat from the real world he didn’t fit into.
For as much as the brain of a child is growing and changing and maturing, for as many distractions as the world provides to developing minds, kids aren’t stupid, particularly children as highly sensitive and attuned to the world around them as Calvin. Disappearing into his own world is a coping mechanism for dealing with a world that seems to have little patience or place for him. His isolation breeds fantasy, which breeds isolation, which does him no favors at school or at home. To be a lonely child in the world means creating your own fun, your own friends, your own magic.
Another television season has come and gone, and despite the critics hailing so many of the newer shows as a sort of TV Renaissance, I managed to not see any of them. But maybe I should. There’s an entire crop of strong female characters with a wide variety of personalities and roles. Let’s see how a few of them charmed audiences in the past year.
Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)
Amy Santiago has always been a hardworking, dedicated detective since Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s very first episode, but in Season 2 of the FOX comedy, she got to show off her fun side while being “Six Drink Amy” and on many other occasions. Melissa Fumero’s committed performance, along with the show’s sharp, funny writing, allowed for Amy to be more flexible and spontaneous when it came to life, showcased by her friendship with Gina and romance with Jake. Amy has always been a good character on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but she became a great one this season.
Bonnie Bennett (The Vampire Diaries)
Someone who hasn’t always been a good character is The Vampire Diaries‘ Bonnie Bennett, as she’s been used more as plot device than an actual person. However, that all changed in Season 6, when Bonnie was trapped in the prison world with Damon before being left there alone. The result was the series shining the spotlight on Bonnie and finally giving her some agency as she underwent a long and difficult journey to not simply survive but find her way back home. Bonnie’s never been more entertaining or interesting than she was this year on The Vampire Diaries, and I hope she continues to be in the Elena-less Season 7.
I’m pretty hard to impress these days, so if I see a picture on the ‘net that makes me laugh, it’s worth sharing with y’all. And this one made me laugh. It’s one of 16 pictures in a roundup of cats rejecting, or in some cases enduring, unwanted affection from humans. Two out of three cats at my house are the same way. They may put up with hugs because we feed them, but they won’t pretend to like it. -via Daily of the Day
Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, The Martian is based on the best-selling novel by Andy Weir. Matt Damon is stranded on Mars and must figure out how to survive long enough for rescue, if he can even get a distress signal out.
The trailer appear to give away way too much plot information, but I still want to see the movie. I see that Sean Bean is in it. I bet he dies. -via Geeks Are Sexy
It sounds like a joke to be declared dead when you are very much alive, but if it’s the Social Security Administration that makes the mistake -possibly with just a typo- it can cause all sorts of problems for the living. And it could be years before you even find out about it.
Since 1980, it has maintained the Death Master File, a database of more than 86 million deceased, SSN-holding Americans. When you are medically recorded as dead, you are included in this master file and your SSN is retired, disabling any future use; a few weeks later, Medicare, the IRS, law enforcement, and employers essentially “scratch you out of existence.”
In 2011, the Office of the Inspector General conducted an audit of the Death Master File, and found that, from May 2007 to April 2010, 36,657 living people (12,219 per year) had been prematurely added, nulling them legally dead. After probing deeper, officials estimated that between 700 and 2,800 people were erroneously declared dead every month since the list’s inception. Over the file's 35-year history, the Inspector General suspects that more than 500,000 Americans have been affected.
Affected how? If you receive Social Security benefits, those will stop. Banks won’t let you open a new account, and can freeze funds on your existing accounts. Potential employers, landlords, insurers, and service providers will think you are an identity thief. And identity thieves can really mess things up for you. Read about the dangers of paperwork premature death at Pricenomics. -via Digg
With Jurassic World opening this Friday, it only makes sense that Sesame Street would make a Jurassic Park parody, putting Cookie Monster in the place of John Hammond. He manipulates prehistoric cookie material to grow a giant cookie! What he gets is a huge gingerbread figure that somewhat resembles Barney the Purple Dinosaur- which is plenty scary if it’s chasing you!
If you’re tired of hearing “Uptown Funk,” then just turn down the volume and watch this lady dance. Shirley Clements is a teacher at Panorama Ridge Secondary School, in Surrey, British Columbia. She’s organized and staged a local dance contest for 19 years, and this past January was her last such show. This special performance was in honor of her retirement.
The World Video Game Hall of Fame is a new hall of fame that will be part of the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, which also houses the National Toy Hall Of Fame. The first round of classic video games were inducted last Thursday, selected down from a field of fifteen.
Joining "Pong," launched in 1972, "Doom," from 1993, and 1985's "Super Mario Bros." are arcade draw "Pac-Man" (1980); Russian import "Tetris" (1984); and "World of Warcraft" (2004), which has swallowed millions of players into its online virtual universe.
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The inaugural hall of fame class was recommended by a panel of judges made up of journalists, scholars and other experts on the history and impact of video games. They chose from among 15 finalists that also included: "Angry Birds," "FIFA," "The Legend of Zelda," "Minecraft," "The Oregon Trail," "Pokemon," "The Sims," "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Space Invaders."
The Hall of Fame is accepting nominations for the class of 2016 until next March. -via the A.V. Club, where you’ll find delightfully eccentric descriptions of each Hall of Fame game.
The following is a series of articles from The Annals of Improbable Research.
by A.S. Kaswell, with Jessica Girard, AIR staff
People say “There is only one Einstein,” but of course that is not so. In 2005, the official, “Einstein Year,” when everyone celebrates Albert Einstein, let us not forget some of the other Einsteins.
Einstein’s Pork Carcass Composition Equations Albert Einstein has a signature equation, e=mc2, which predicts how energy relates to mass. M.E. Einstein of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, has a whole set of equations, which predict pork carcass composition. M.E. and several collaborators published a series of studies -- seven of them so far -- in the Journal of Animal Science. Their “Evaluation of Alternative Measures of Pork Carcass Composition” appeared in 2001. It is a minor classic in the history of pork production prediction literature.
Einstein’s Turkey Sperm Quality Analyser Einstein is also known, of course for the doubly-seminal “Utilisation of a Sperm Quality Analyser to Evaluate Sperm Quantity and Quality of Turkey Breeders.” It was published in 2002 in the journal British Poultry Science.
The Pot of Einstein Anyone with access to a good library can check out Einstein on cannabis. Albert Einstein never published any research papers about cannabis, at least not formally. But Rosemarie Einstein did. In 1975, she and two colleagues at the University of Leeds investigated the use of cannabis -- and alcohol and tobacco, too -- by 300 young persons at a university.
Rosemarie Einstein and her team carefully protected the students’ confidentiality. In their study, which appeared in the British Journal of Addiction, no student is named. Even the university is not identified. The report speaks of it only as “a provincial university,” leaving readers to speculate, perhaps feverishly.
The scientists discovered how many of the students used pot, alcohol, tobacco, or any combination of the three. Or, to be more specific, they discovered what the students said they used. According to the survey forms, some students smoked their cannabis, others ate it, still others drank it. Many said they avoided cannabis altogether. Only a minority claimed to smoke tobacco; and none reported eating or drinking it. “Only two students had never tried alcohol,” the report says, “although a total of 13 do not currently drink.”
This scientists also discovered something they had expected: that students cannot be relied upon to answer surveys.
The kids are named Annabelle, Elton, Cecilia, Delilah, Brooklyn, Jagger, Iggy, Adele, Sassafrass, Bessie, Gemini, Yukon, Ella, Denali, Louis, Sherlock, Watson, Rhubarb, Monty, Winifred, Maria-Cristina, Pedro, Smudge, Buttercup, Duncan, Tully, Rigby, Gus, Clive, Otis, Charlotte, and Harper. I couldn’t even count them, much less keep up with that many names! Here you see them take a run with the humans while their goat moms take a dinner break. They will soon be sold as pets or milking goats. -via the Presurfer
Kids have a lot of questions about life because it’s all new to them. Author Mira Jacob is East Indian and her husband is Jewish. Their 6-year-old son has a lot of questions about color, ethnicity, and Michael Jackson, with whom he is obsessed. In an excerpt from her forthcoming book Good Talk: Conversations I Am Still Confused About, she shares some of her son's more memorable questions and comments. Altogether, he seems like a pretty cool kid. See many more panels at Buzzfeed.
