How many times have you moved house and used the "friend with a pickup" method instead of hiring professionals? I've done that, and now that I have a husband with a truck, it's payback time. Owen Weber produced this video disguised as a truck ad that's really a commentary on the process. -Thanks, Owen!
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
After tomato plants were taken back to Europe from the New World in the early 1500s, people in various places considered the fruit poisonous for the next two centuries. The reasoning behind the fear of tomatoes came from several sources:
1. Rich people ate tomatoes and then died. Their fancy pewter plates were later found to be the reason.
2. Scientists of the time classified the tomato as a deadly nightshade and a mandrake -both scary terms.
3. Tomato leaves smell awful, so one researcher pronounced the entire plant toxic.
4. Scary-looking worms infested tomato plants.
An article at Smithsonain's Food and Think blog explains each of these concerns, which lingered far into the 1800s, plus a bonus video containing a scene from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Kicki Holmén)
Mikesaurus at Instructables shows you how to make your own corn cob holders shaped like animals! It involves fitting plastic toys with plain cob holders, plus they are designed so they can be fitted together when not in use. Link -via Laughing Squid
Of course, if you'd rather skip the construction project and use corn cob holders shaped like bones, swords, or unicorns, the NeatoShop has them!
King Richard I of England invaded the island of Cyprus in the year 1191 as part of the Third Crusade. He ordered a castle built there, but it only lasted thirty years before an earthquake destroyed it, and it was never rebuilt. The site of the ruins turned out to be an amazing opportunity for archeological research -in its toilet!
As castles go, Saranda Kolones had a pretty poor run. But two University of Cambridge researchers recently realized that, precisely thanks to the castle’s short use, a priceless treasure had been left behind in the Saranda Kolones’ bowels. One of the centuries-old castle latrines (read: ancient toilet), they found, was still full of dried-up poo. That feces, they thought, could provide valuable insight into what kind of parasites plagued the former residents’ guts. And because only 30 years’ worth of waste clogged the ancient sewage system, those parasites could provide specific insight into what ailed medieval crusaders. The researchers rolled up their sleeves and collected samples from the dessicated cesspool.
They found plenty of parasites, almost 900 years later. They identify them for us, and describe how they would have affected the Crusaders, in an article at Surprising Science. Link
(Image credit: Anastasiou & Mitchell, International Journal of Paleopathology)
A subdivision just outside of Austin, Arkansas is in a tizzy about one neighbor who installed two toilets on poles high above the fence and signs that say "Trailer Park Coming Soon." Some residents complain that it has affected their property values.
"Who is going to buy a house where you see signs about a trailer park coming soon? It borderlines harassment. However, if you own property you can do with the property as you please," said Lonoke County Sheriff John Stoley.
Stoley said it all started with a disagreement between a property owner and the developer building homes adjacent to his land. What exactly upset the property owner is still a mystery, but in March, he placed two toilets on two approximately 20-foot poles and nailed spray-painted signs to his trees facing the developer's property with the words "Trailer Park Coming Soon."
Though neighbors claim they can't sell their homes due to the unattractive new displays, toilets in trees are not illegal.
"This is the city limits here. Where the signs are is in the county, and there is no ordinances prohibiting signs in the county on a property. It's not threatening. It's nothing criminal at this time," Stoley stated.
Neither the owner of the toilets not the property developer would make a statement. It's things like this that cause some people to sign draconian HOA agreements. Link -via Arbroath
Geeks and nerds will argue until the end of time about the difference between a geek and a nerd. After all, they are just words, and usage varies with context, community, and era. Burr Settles at Slackpropagation conducted an extremely nerdy (or geeky) word experiment by plotting the instances of certain words as they appear on Twitter, gauging how often each word appears near the words "geek" or "nerd" and plotted the frequencies on this graph. A noble experiment, to be sure, but you have to consider that Twitter itself is a community that does not necessarily represent typical geeks and/or nerds, much less all people who use the English language. Of course, you are free to classify such a quibble as either geeky or nerdy as you wish. The most sensible statement about the argument comes from xkcd, although your mileage may vary. Link -via the Presurfer
The latest parody song from the talented and hardworking Peterson Farm Brothers is a takeoff on "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" with the lyrics changed to reflect their real passion: farming. In this video, we also get a glimpse of their animals, including dancing cows! -via Viral Viral Videos
See more videos from The Peterson Farm Brothers.
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
by Philip O’Leary
Boston College
For those working with the Celtic languages, the definite article looms large. The problems it creates are in no way balanced by the fact that the Celtic indefinite article creates no problems at all because it doesn’t exist. I recently finished co-editing the two-volume Cambridge History of Irish Literature. After five years of work, I and my colleague Margaret Kelleher saw the end in sight, particularly when Cambridge announced they would provide the index. That index, imposing in its length and detail, duly arrived. With its arrival, the end of the project quickly receded from our field of vision, to be replaced with another six months of work -- almost all of it the result of the Irish definite article (or articles, as will soon become clear).
That definite article in the singular is An, and when we looked at the proofs of the index for the first time and saw that the letter “A” went on for several pages we knew at once what had happened -- entry after entry began with An. All would need to be rerouted to their proper places under the initial letter of the following noun.
(Image credit: Flickr user One Tree Hill Studios)
An vs. An, and Worse
Nor was the job to be that simple. First of all, there were also a few entries misplaced under the English definite article “An” and under the Irish interrogative particle An (as well as titles in the interrogative misplaced under the initial letter of the word following this particle in various titles).
Moreover, Irish has a vocative particle A, which created further confusion for the indexers, who understandably enough saw it as an indefinite article and accordingly ignored it as they alphabetized those entries. Needless to say, the plural form of the definite article, Na, created its own chaos down the road in the “N” section of the index. And, to add to the confusion, since this was a history of Irish literature from its beginnings, it, and its indexers, had to deal with earlier forms of the language (and of the definite article, which can appear as – and this list is by no means complete – in, int, ind, a in the singular and ind, in, int, inna, na in the plural.
All bad enough, but it gets worse.
Macho, Rex, Maya, Dave, Bella, and George all come when their names are called. Twiggy, the cat, couldn't care less, as cats will. All the animals are from shelters or rescue groups. -via Tastefully Offensive
Navy Corpsman and redditor Tokyomaneater69 found four newborn bunnies in a hole near their dead mother. He took them back to the barracks and hand-fed them each four times a day until they started to jump out of their box, at which time they went to a wildlife shelter. The four were named Steven, Raymond, Vaughn, and James. He scheduled their feedings around his workday and luckily had no barracks inspection while the rabbits were there. See more pictures and videos linked in the reddit thread. Link
Theo, a part-Siamese cat in Ipswich, England, is a kleptomaniac, although he would probably describe himself as a "collector." Paul Edwards and girlfriend Rachael Drouet began noticing things around the house that they did not recognize. First it was cat toys.
Mr Edwards said things "escalated" after that.
"We've had things like muslin cloths, fluffy pens, a USB phone charger cable, a child's piece of art which they'd obviously spent most of the morning making - a glorious thing with lots of different colour feathers and leaves stuck to it, lots of things.
"We've got some other neighbours who have young children and quite like the cat so [they] had encouraged him into the house."He started stealing things from them and it kind of went downhill from there."
Edwards says his neighbors are mostly understanding, and has set up a Facebook page to post the stolen items and reunite them with their owners. Link -via Arbroath
You've seen those reality TV shows in which someone goes away for a week and some expert team comes in and organizes/redecorates/remodels their home. That's the way I felt when I saw Neatorama's Pinterest site! Jill Harness has remodeled, reorganized, and added a lot of things that make our Pinterest boards easier to see, use, and share. Tell your Pinterest friends about the changes, and get ready for more "Pin to Win" contests coming soon from Neatorama! Link
Would you wear this pair of stockings? This picture has gone viral on China's Sina Weibo social networking site as an answer to sexual harassment, although the reaction is laughter and quips that they may attract more attention than they repel. Link
I can't think of anything more intriguing and terrifying than the description that comes with this video.
Bored of being in a dark room, she flips on the light, opens the door and bails.
This particular episode takes place at 1am.
This is why we keep doors locked with her around. We don't need her harassing the neighbors.
And yes, Julius is female, with a male name. Wanna make something of it? -via Metafilter
Two of the most popular things on the internet are robots and cats. So wouldn't it be wonderful to have a robot cat? Researchers at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EFPL) have developed a prototype robot that walks and runs like a cat. They say it is very stable and fast.
"This morphology gives the robot the mechanical properties from which cats benefit," explains EPFL's Alexander Sproewitz, "that's to say a marked running ability and elasticity in the right spots, to ensure stability. The robot is thus naturally more autonomous."
There is one problem I see …that thing does not have a head! It will be hard to become attached to and serve a feline overlord who can't even turn his nose up at you. -via The Week
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