You know a lot about Spongebob Squarepants: he lives in a pineapple under the sea, he is absorbent and yellow and porous, and his best friend is a starfish named Patrick. But how much do you know about the TV show Spongebob Squarepants? And haven’t you, at one time or another, wondered how they came up with such a bizarre cartoon concept? Of course you have. Well, here’s a start:

1. THE IDEA FOR THE SERIES WAS FROM AN ACTUAL MARINE BIOLOGIST

Stephen Hillenburg has a degree in natural resource planning with a marine resources emphasis, and he used to teach Marine Biology at the Orange County Marine Institute. Hillenburg also liked to draw, and created a comic book called Intertidial Zone for the Institute, which starred an early version of SpongeBob. When he worked as creative director for the Nickelodeon animated series Rocko's Modern Life, fellow animators saw the potential appeal of SpongeBob.

2. SPONGEBOB'S ORIGINAL NAME WAS SPONGEBOY

And the show's title was initially SpongeBoy Ahoy!. SpongeBoy was a copyrighted name for a mop, however, but Hillenburg made sure to keep the "sponge" in the name of his protagonist as he was worried that children might mistake him for a block of cheese.

From there, you get twelve more facts that add up to the story of Spongebob Squarepants, the series, told at mental_floss.  

Fifty states, fifty-two recipes: The New York Times looked for Thanksgiving dishes from each state (plus D.C. and Puerto Rico) that say something about the state or its unique cuisine. Russian Salmon Pie makes perfect sense when you’re in Alaska. In Arizona, they put chiles in the cranberry sauce. Some recipes incorporate pioneer or Native American foods, while others reflect the immigrants that settled the state. More likely, you’ll see recipes that incorporate the local meat or crops. Try to guess what recipe will  represent your state before you look -but be sure to check them all out, because something new at your Thanksgiving table is always welcome.  

Thomas Richner is a Star Wars fan. A crafty Star Wars fan with some spare time. He spent 140 hours building an elaborate replica of the Millennium Falcon out of cardboard, internal structures and all, and it look just like the real thing. He even photographed it in front of a green screen so he can add effects! Oh, you say the “real thing” is a cardboard model in front of a green screen? Well, then of course this is exactly like the real thing! See a series of photographs that follow the build process.   

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Screen Junkies go ahead and say the things everyone thought about The Little Mermaid when we first saw it a quarter-century ago. Yes, it’s an Honest Trailer. It all boils down to: this young lady makes terrible decisions. In that, it was a lot like the earlier Disney Princess movies. -Thanks, Andrew Valdes!

The Peak Performance adventure racing team from Sweden competed in an adventure race in Ecuador. The team of Staffan, Mikael, Karen, and Simon finished the race in 12th place -pretty good, considering they weren’t used to the altitude- and also came back with a new team member, a dog named Arthur.

The team first encountered Arthur on the muddy trekking – the second last stage. They tried to send him off a few times but he always showed up beside the team again as they made their way through the trekking. In the beginning it went well, but when it became muddy he was having problem and the team had to help Arthur through some of the deepest mud.

Arthur followed the team all the way to TA9 and waited with the team. But then he suddenly got very worried and stressed as he realized the team would get out on the water. The organization gave the advice not to bring dog Arthur out on the last leg – a dog in the kayak didn’t seem like a great idea – and the team was going to follow this advice.

Mike, Simon, Staffan and Karen put their kayaks down in the water and set off, but Arthur refused to be left and started swimming. This was too heartbreaking for the team, and Mikael helped Arthur up in the kayak. This led to standing ovations from everyone on the shore, seeing the five (!) team mates set off.

Later, they revealed that Arthur was their constant companion after they gave him a meatball. Swedish meatballs are powerful stuff. A translation from the group’s Facebook page says they are working to take Arthur home with them to Sweden. -via reddit

(Images credit: Krister Göransson)

Lawrence Horn was the chief engineer behind “the Motown sound.” He built, used, and guarded the sound mixing equipment used for hits by The Supremes, The Jackson 5, and The Four Tops, among others, in the 1960s. Horn built a reputation and a good life that included a wife and three children. But the good times didn’t last: his son was completely disabled, and Berry Gordy sold Motown in 1988. Horn was edged out of the sound room, and fell on hard times. Meanwhile, his now ex-wife was in charge of a hefty settlement from the hospital for his son’s disability.   

In the spring of 1992, Thomas Turner heard a knock on the door of his Detroit home; it was his cousin Lawrence Horn. Horn told Turner about his money issues, about the overdue child support payments and the narrow L.A. apartment he was relegated to, and how Mildred had all the money and he had none, and the $1.7 million trust fund in Trevor’s name. Turner handed Horn a business card, one that had the phrases “spiritual adviser” and “House of Wisdom” printed on it. It was for a self-described minister named James Edward Perry.

“Give Mr. Perry a call,” Turner said to his cousin. “He helps people.”

On March 2nd, 1993, Perry entered Mildred Horn’s home and killed her, her disabled son, and the child’s caretaker. Uproxx tells the tale of the events that let up to that night, and how Perry and Horn were linked to the murder.

(Image credit: Mike McLean, Al Abrams)

The city of Gondar was founded in the early 17th century by Emperor Fasilides in Ethiopia. The royal family were previously nomadic. For 400 years, the stone palace and walled enclosure have stood as the city grew around it -including 44 churches. The palace complex is now open to the public, but if you can’t make it to Ethiopia anytime soon, you can read about the city’s history and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas. -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr user Matthew Goulding)

In 1862 the new Bureau of Internal Revenue began taxing whiskey as a means of funding the Civil War. The tax rose for years until the government’s take was more than the the value of the liquor, and distilleries went underground to avoid it. Avoiding the tax was so profitable that even when the rate was cut, it was avoided at all cost. For a couple of years, both the moonshiners and the revenuers got completely out of hand in the Vinegar Hill section of Brooklyn.  

Two thousand soldiers had just attacked the neighborhood, targeting moonshiners who were evading taxes on a colossal scale. Since the federal government couldn’t exactly audit the underground operations, it demolished their operations. That morning, November 2, 1870, battalions under the command of Colonel John L. Broome arrived by boat from nearby forts. Guided by the revenue assessors, they left the Brooklyn Navy Yard at 9am and marched through the narrow streets armed with muskets, axes, and crowbars.

It was the latest in a series of raids known as the Whiskey Wars. Illicit distilling had become so widespread, and gangs so violent, that revenue officials and cops needed military backup. One of the first “battles” came in October 1869, when100 army veterans found nine stills after a knife-and-fist fight in an alley. Its success led President Ulysses Grant to authorize more forceful raids, using the army and navy if necessary. The next battle, at dawn two months later, included 500 artillerymen, who landed on the East River by tugboat and wore white-ribbon Internal Revenue badges. They axed barrels and spilled the contents, gushing a stream of rum into the street. Tubs discovered underground were pumped empty. By afternoon they had destroyed stills that could produce 250 barrels of liquor—worth $5,000 in taxes—a day.

Read about how the Whiskey Wars came about, and how they ended, at Smithsonian.  

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The latest episode in the tiny hamster series from HelloDenizen sees our little friends eating their Thanksgiving dinner. They get mini-tart-sized pies, cranberry sauce from a thimble, and a turkey that I would guess is made of tofu. Hamsters are vegetarian, after all! They are adorable as they (and their bunny friend) eat their dinner wearing tiny Pilgrim hats! -Thanks, John Wilson!  

Pixactly is both a game and a quiz that tests your knowledge of graphic space in pixels. You are challenged to draw a box of specified pixel size, both horizontally and vertically. The game keeps track of how many pixels you are off over five attempts.

You’d think I would be good at this after nine years of blogging, but no. My score the first time through was 584. Maybe I can blame that on the fact that I zoom in and out for different websites, depending on the text size. So I tried again and cheated by taking a screenshot, which displays pixel size, before guessing. I got my score down to 136 that way, which is still worse than any graphic artist. You will do better! -via Metafilter

In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary crowned “selfie” as the Word of the Year. The year before, it was “gif.” Now the folks behind the dictionary have announced the 2014 Word of the Year, and it’s “vape.” Vape is a verb meaning to use an electronic cigarette, although it can also be used as a noun for the e-cig itself. The word is an abbreviation of vapor, and was coined in 1983 in reference to using a hypothetical inhaler as a cigarette substitute. With the introduction of e-cigs, the word took off significantly in 2009.   

As e-cigarettes (or e-cigs) have become much more common, so vape has grown significantly in popularity. You are thirty times more likely to come across the word vape than you were two years ago, and usage has more than doubled in the past year.

Usage of vape peaked in April 2014 – as the graph below indicates – around the time that the UK’s first ‘vape café’ (The Vape Lab in Shoreditch, London) opened its doors, and protests were held in response to New York City banning indoor vaping. In the same month, the issue of vaping was debated by The Washington Post, the BBC, and the British newspaper The Telegraph, amongst others.

“Vape” is still new enough that my autocomplete doesn’t recognize it. Other words that were considered are listed at the OxfordWords blog. -via Gamma Squad

(Image credit: Flickr user Daniel Riquelme)

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The a cappella group Straight No Chaser teamed up with actress Kristen Bell to bring us a Christmas song for the interconnected wireless gadget generation. "Text Me Merry Christmas" works on two levels: on the one hand, it’s a sly poke at modern communication customs. But it’s a catchy tune that totally speaks to those who would cherish the perfect text from someone they love. Whether this makes you laugh or makes you share your earbuds will all depend on how old you are. That said, Kristen Bell should look into a career as a pop singer; between this and Frozen, her voice is shining brightly. The song is available for download on iTunes. -via Buzzfeed

There are many ways to hide the body, but passing a murder victim off as 2,600-year-old royalty is one few would have thought of. In 2000, a dealer was trying to sell a mummy for $11 million. It had a sarcophagus and engravings in an ancient Persian language declaring the body to be that of a Persian princess, the daughter of King Xerxes. But if was a hoax.

The mummy of the Persian Princess generated a lot of international interest because no remains of the Persian royal family had ever been found and mummies are not generally found in Iran. At one point the mummy caused diplomatic tensions between Iran and Pakistan because both countries claimed ownership. But months later, after examinations by experts in ancient Persian script, CT scans, chemical testing, and carbon dating, the mummy was not only declared a fraud, but there was also evidence that she may have been a modern murder victim.

Read how they came to that conclusion, and what they know about the body so far, at Atlas Obscura.
 

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As fans look forward to Mockingjay Part One, Cinefix gives us some trivia about The Hunger Games franchise. We’ll learn about the special effects, the cast, and how it might even be called a “low budget film” in some circles. -via Tastefiully Offensive

George Corney built a fluid dynamics simulator that makes for a beautiful web toy. Just run your cursor across it, as you’d run your finger trough a tray filled with liquid. You can change some parameters if you want to experiment. Wait long enough and more colors will appear. Just don’t stare at it too long, or you’ll suddenly be late for something! -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Skunk Bear)