Comedian Dan Wilbur recently heard from a friend that one of his jokes had been published in Reader’s Digest. It was the first he’d heard of it, because the magazine had taken it from Twitter without contacting him. So he wrote an email to the editors, saying, in part:
When I heard my joke was featured, it made me feel good. Getting a joke printed in Reader's Digest is one of the few successes in my career that I can explain to my mom without needing to explain at length what people do on the Internet nowadays. So when I call my mom and tell her to look in September's Genius Issue of your magazine for my joke, the first thing she'll ask is why there's an @ symbol in front of my name. Then I'll have to explain that, well, I didn't really ask you guys to print it, nor did I get paid, and then she's going to ask me what, if anything, in comedy DOES pay, and then she's going to ask when I'm going to get a real job and settle down and have kids and why I drink so much, and that's just too much to deal with in one conversation, you know?
There’s a lot more to it, in which Wilbur informed them that the proper way to use Tweets was to retweet digitally (Reader’s Digest has a Twitter feed), or pay him for his work, or at least ask next time.
I never expected a response, but just three days later, I got a response from Features Editor Andrew Simmons saying “Just so you know, your email spawned a pretty heavy meeting that included editors, rights department, research department, lawyers, and a spilled cup of Starbucks.” I said thank you and offered him my condolences that he had to attend a meeting. He was very sweet and he was very happy to report that the magazine would be doing the right thing from now on.
And very soon, Wilbur received a check for $25! So if Reader’s Digest uses one of your Tweets, and you get paid, you can thank Wilbur. Read the entire story here. -via Digg
Some things are worth dedicating your life to. The problem is, some things require all that time, work, an dedication before you even know if it’s worth it. Still, I'd probably put "going to the moon" in the worthwhile category. Not that I know from experience or anything. This is the latest comic from Lunarbaboon.
Sunday will be the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, which began the reunification of Germany. For decades, people on the East German side were desperate to get across to West Germany and freedom from Communist rule. Many risked their lives to cross the border, and some came up with ingenious ways to do it.
East German acrobat Horst Klein made one of the most daring escapes over the wall in early 1963. Thanks to his acrobatic skill, Klein was able to turn an unused high-tension cable that stretched over the wall into his route. He moved hand-over-hand while dangling from the cable 60 feet over the head of patrolling guards, then when his arms became fatigued, he swung his whole body up over the cable and inched his way along. Klein’s dismount wasn’t particularly graceful – he fell off of the cable – but he landed in West Berlin.
The Furchester Hotel is a Sesame Street production for preschoolers in the United Kingdom. To promote the show, Cookie Monster is traveling to the UK to visit the hotel. He’s a little worried about the language difference. John Oliver tries to reassure him, but there are a few differences between British English and American English -one difference is very close to our blue friend’s heart. -via Tastefully Offensive
Sure, with its sprawling server farms, Google is probably the web’s most powerful entity. And everyone knows about the influence of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia. But to us, powerful means changing what we eat, how we vote, and the ways we kill time at the office. In no particular order, here are the 25 Most Powerful Websites.
1. Trojan Room Coffeepot: The Steamiest Webcam Ever
The first successful webcam wasn’t sexy, funny, or even all that interesting. It was a low-resolution camera pointed at a coffeemaker. In 1991, computer scientists at the University of Cambridge were tired of trekking upstairs for a cup of Joe only to find the coffeepot outside the Trojan Room lab empty. They set up a live video feed connected to a local network. When they made the page public, in 1993, it became Internet famous. As traffic swelled, the lab even added a lamp so international visitors could peek in after hours.
By luring millions of visitors, the coffeepot proved that anything can be hypnotic on the web. That opened the floodgates for slightly more engaging live streams: from the voyeuristic JenniCam to feeds of live panda cubs. But by 2001, the coffeepot’s 15 minutes had long passed. Researchers packed up the camera and moved to a new facility. The pot? It sold for $2,300.
2. Amazon: Serving the New Web Order
Amazon has changed the way Americans shop, but its most powerful offering doesn’t come in a box. Over the past few years, Amazon has quietly laid the groundwork for a cloud-computing takeover that could be even more far-reaching.
In 2006, Amazon started leasing out storage space on its massive server farms, saving companies the hassle of setting up expensive in-house systems. Amazon Web Services (AWS), as it’s known, helps some of the world’s biggest businesses run. Netflix uses it to stream billions of hours of video to consumers, while banks rely on AWS to crunch numbers from their massive databases. As Borders can tell you, don’t bet against Amazon’s ability to completely transform an industry.
3. Women in Refrigerators: Savior of Superheroines
In 1999, writer Gail Simone noticed an unsettling trend in comic books: a disproportionate number of female superheroes were being killed, maimed, or depowered, compared with their male counterparts. So she created Women in Refrigerators, a database of heroines who had met untimely demises. The name comes from the Green Lantern’s girlfriend, who was stuffed into a fridge after being murdered by one of his nemeses.
Simone did more than just chronicle these grisly ends. By giving writers the opportunity to respond, she created an important forum for discussing sexism in the art form. The site opened the doors to similar critiques about the disproportionate attacks on gay and lesbian characters. Soon, the phrase “women in refrigerators” became shorthand for problematic depictions of women across pop culture. It also helped Simone become part of the solution. In 2007, she became the first female writer to helm DC’s Wonder Woman in the title’s 66-year history.
4. WebMD: Spawn of a New Affliction
Before the Internet, getting a medical diagnosis required consulting a trained professional. That changed in 1996, when WebMD debuted the Symptom Checker, a catalog of conditions that nervous web browsers could peruse for hours. The problem, of course, is that self-diagnosis isn’t quite the same as visiting someone who owns a stethoscope. As a result, the site fomented a brand-new malady: cyberchondria—Internet-induced hypochondria.
Just how needlessly alarming can the web be? Fewer than 1 in 50,000 people have a brain tumor, but according Psychology Today, enter the word headache into a search engine and you’ll find that 25 percent of the results point to brain tumors as a probable cause. That explains why a 2008 study confirmed that 40 percent of people who use the web to self-diagnose end up suffering increased anxiety.
What makes WebMD stand out from the pack? As The New York Times noted, its click-friendly alarmist tone makes it chum for cyberchondriacs. And the strategy pays—in 2010, the site generated more than $500 million in advertising profit. Great for WebMD. For the sufferer of the common cold? Not so much.
5. Islendingabok: Cousin-Kissing Prevention
As a tiny island nation with just 300,000 residents, Iceland’s gene pool is dangerously shallow; discovering that your hot date is a not-too-distant cousin is a distinct possibility. In 1997, a team that included deCODE Genetics solved the problem with the site Islendingabok.
Citizens enter a potential mate’s name into the Book of Icelanders, and the site parses 1,200 years’ worth of genealogical data to determine how closely related they are. But what if you meet someone at a bar and don’t want to spoil the moment by firing up your laptop? Islendingabok has an app for that. Just tap phones with your prospect, and wait for the all-clear. As the tagline cheerfully advises: “Bump the app before you bump in bed.”
The annual heartwarming Christmas ad from John Lewis, a British department store, is here. This one features a little boy and his best friend, a penguin named Monty. The upside is that this is a cute story. The downside is that the Christmas shopping season has apparently begun already, and we are barely into November. -via Viral Viral Videos
In the 19th century, Joseph Merrick was exhibited in a freak show. In 1979, his story became a Broadway play, and then a movie in 1980. Now it’s going back to Broadway, with Bradley Cooper in the title role. Merrick was known as “The Elephant Man” because of his multiple deformities, but underneath he just wanted to be treated like anyone else. He died in 1890, and scientists have tried ever since to pinpoint what caused his disabilities.
Various diagnoses have been theorized, starting with Merrick’s own folk belief that the problems were due to his mother being frightened by an elephant when she was pregnant with him. While that cause may be safely discarded, the correct one is hard to pin down.
I recall being taught during my medical education that a likely diagnosis was neurofibromatosis type 1. A disease typified by tumors arising from nerve tissue, those with neurofibromatosis can develop skin lesions, spinal curvatures and large heads. During my pediatric residency I was involved in a very sad case of a severely affected young man, who had a large cranial mass that gave him an appearance similar to Merrick’s. That they shared a diagnosis seemed quite plausible to me.
However, the current thinking is that Merrick may have suffered from Proteus syndrome. Named after a shape-shifting Greek sea god, this very rare (fewer than 500 known cases) syndrome causes unchecked growth in some parts of affected individuals’ bodies, leaving other areas normal.
We already knew that the principle photography for the seventh Star Wars film had wrapped, but when Disney announced that fact, they also unveiled the name of the movie. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will hit theaters in little over a year, which leaves plenty of time for editing, re-shooting, overdubs, and added lens flares. It also gives fans plenty of time to speculate on what the title means. I hope it doesn’t mean we have to talk about Midi-chlorians. I don't think Obi-Wan ever mentioned those to Luke. -via Uproxx
NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst play with water on the International Space Station. They even slip a GoPro camera inside the water ball! Maybe “slip” isn’t the right word, as you have to be careful not to get water droplets bouncing all over the place. It's not so easy to let go of the water, either. The footage of the water sphere is more interesting than the footage from the water sphere. You can have fun with the simplest things, if you happen to be in the most complicated environment man has ever devised! -via Digg
I checked all day yesterday for a new comic from Doghouse Diaries, but it never came. This morning, we have an explanation. One of them has become a father for the first time, ten days before the due date! I believe it’s Will, because Raf is already a father and Ray is active on Twitter and hasn’t mentioned a birth. Congratulations from your friends at Neatorama!
This is the previous comic, which us about something every parent knows, but it has a sort-of easter egg. Can you spot the error in the comic? Strangely, it was the first thing I noticed.
To be honest, this is an demonstration of how NOT to make sparkling wine with a Soda Stream carbonation machine. You aren’t supposed to do it. But Larry G and his son Noah thought it would be a great idea, especially while Mom’s not at home. And of course, their first attempt uses red wine, which leaves permanent stains on …well, you will see in the video. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
The Acme Foundry Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been in business over 100 years, but it was only this week that a graffiti artist gave them the appropriate art for their entry. On Monday morning, employees arrived to find someone had mounted cardboard cutouts of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner to the building. The company produces iron pieces, which may possibly include anvils.
Business manager Monica Sweeney said Acme's employees all found it to be very humorous. In fact, they have thought about adding a roadrunner and coyote to their building for years, but a mystery artist beat them to it.
“We see and appreciate the humor,” Acme said in an email to Fox 9. “It is the best graffiti that anyone has ever done to our building.”
Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin & Hobbes, drew a new comic, but you won’t see it in the funny pages. The wordless 15-panel comic was drawn for this year’s Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. Watterson won the Grand Prix award from the festival last year for Calvin & Hobbes.
In an interview, Watterson said he drew his latest comic without text in order to break any language barriers. “Telling a story only in pictures is one of the great strengths — and greatest pleasures — offered by comics,” Watterson said.
Watterson rarely releases drawings since he retired the comic strip in 1995.
Redditor Rcrowley32 said, “My daughter had a very specific birthday cake request 'animals wearing birthday hats, having a party'. I think I managed to pull it off.” The birthday girl also asked for strawberry cake with whipped cream frosting, so that’s exactly what she got. It’s a serious challenge to fulfill such specific requests, but mothers get a lot of satisfaction from accomplishing it. These are some real party animals!
In 1860s Prussia, Minister President Otto von Bismarck and Progressive Party leader Rudolf Virchow (who was also a scientist) were political rivals in the Prussian legislature. A particularly nasty argument over funding for the navy in 1865 left von Bismarck feeling humiliated by Virchow.
At the end of a particularly severe attack, Bismarck felt himself personally affronted, and sent seconds to Virchow with a challenge to fight a duel.The man of science was found in his laboratory, hard at work at experiments which had for their object the discovery of a means of destroying trichinæ, which were making great ravages in Germany. “Oh,” said the doctor, “a challenge from Prince Bismarck, eh? Well, well, as I am the challenged party, I suppose I have the choice of weapons. Here they are!” He held up two large sausages, which seemed to be exactly alike. ” One of these sausages,” he said, ” is filled with trichinae—it is deadly. The other is perfectly wholesome. Externally they cannot be told apart. Let His Excellency do me the honor to choose whichever of these he wishes and eat it, and I will eat the other.” Though the proposition was as reasonable as any duelling proposition could be, Prince B.’s representatives refused it. No duel was fought, and no one accused Virchow of cowardice.
It seems like a clever response by Virchow, and we don’t know what would have happened if von Bismarck had called his bluff. In fact, the story seems altogether too good to be true. Skulls in the Stars tracks down the documentation of the incident, and along the way gives us the scary lowdown on the Trichinella spiralis parasite that terrified the people of Europe. -via Science Chamber of Horrors
