Redditor siamak1991 says this orange came from his cousin's tree. It's kind of strange looking. In fact it kind of reminds you of something else, doesn't it? What does it remind you of? Continue reading, and you'll probably be able to identify what nightmare this orange induces for you personally.
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Men have worn loincloths under their clothing for the biggest part of clothing history. But in the last couple of centuries, underwear became more standardized, then more competitive, and finally became sexy. Hunter Oatman-Stanford talked with Shaun Cole, author of The Story of Men’s Underwear, about how skivvies have changed since the 19th century.
Certainly by the 1880s, there were advertisements, and by the 20th century, there were masses of adverts. The earliest ones tend to be quite text-based, but that was common with all advertising of that era. When you started to see images being included, there were a number of companies using classical statues with undergarments superimposed over them, or dressed people holding underwear up in front of them to avoid this public negotiation with a semi-clothed or naked body. However, by 1907, for example, B.V.D. was advertising its coat-cut undershirts, which are shown open in illustrations so you can actually see the man’s chest.
Most brands, like Wright’s and Dr. Yeager’s, were going with the idea that underwear was hygienic, allowing your body to breathe. The concept of cleanliness appeared quite often in adverts specifically targeted towards female consumers, the wives and sisters and mothers, though the language was often about ease of cleaning the garments. But you also started to get this idea of comfort as well, how a man should be comfortable in his underwear.
By the 1950s, advertising imagery of underwear was everywhere. You still had the hygienic element to some extent, but there was a move in American advertising toward this idea of the family man. It was a postwar, McCarthy-influenced idea about the role of the man as the father and the head of the family. Often, there was a sort of sporting element in there, with fathers and sons playing basketball or boxing or those kinds of things. There was a lot of sporting imagery in underwear. Of course, it wasn’t just about promoting a sporty body: It was a justification for presenting a man semi-clothed, a legitimate means of looking at a man.
Read about boxers and briefs and how advertising determined what men wore underneath it all at Collector's Weekly. Link
You know how it goes, and you've probably been in this situation yourself at one time of another. When someone's had a little too much to drink and they try to tell a joke, everyone laughs, not necessarily because the joke is funny, but the way they tell it is a bit screwy and often full of giggles. Adam Patch took advantage of the situation and recorded his wife telling a silly joke, then made a fine cartoon to illustrate it. -via Uproxx
W00t! It's time for another collaboration with the always-excellent What Is It? blog. Can you guess what this thing is?
Put your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like. Please do not post any web links or URL - doing so will void your entry. You have until the answer is revealed on the What Is It? Blog tomorrow.
Two prizes: the first correct guess and the funniest yet wrong one will win a T-Shirt from the NeatoShop.
IMPORTANT: Please write your prize selection alongside your guess, so visit the NeatoShop and take a look around. If you don't write your prize selection, then you don't get the prize. I think you'll like the selection of funny t-shirts and science t-shirts -or even t-shirts of your favorite blogs and websites.
For more pictures of this item, see the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: the pictured item is a Russian Soyuz 28 Navigation Unit, it was used to determine Latitude/Longitude, Landing Position, and Orbit Angle of Landing during flight. Read more about it and see more pictures at the What Is It? blog. The first with the correct answer was Anker, who wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The prize for the funniest answer was from Rks1157, who said "Russia's version of Google Earth. Works by splicing it into a phone line. It is a the mobile version of the device. It attaches to a car battery." Unfortunately, he didn't specify a t-shirt. Thanks to everyone who played this week, and thanks to the What is It? blog.
Americans all learn in school that Jamestown, Virginia, was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. We also learned that times were tough, especially the winter of 1609 in which almost 90% of the colony died. And now we have evidence in the skeleton of a 14-year-old girl that some colonists resorted to cannibalism.
“The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete,” says Douglas Owsley, the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who analyzed the bones after they were found by archaeologists from Preservation Virginia. “Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull in half. A penetrating wound was then made to the left temple, probably by a single-sided knife, which was used to pry open the head and remove the brain.”
Researchers still don't know if she was murdered or had already died. The skeleton is the first physical evidence of cannibalism, although written records had described the gruesome act of desperation. Read the complete story at Smithsonian. Link -Thanks, Perrin!
(Image credit: Smithsonian Institution/Don Hurlbert)
You might love the TV show Arrested Development, but how well do you know the series and the characters? Take today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss and find out -then let us know that you're a real fan, and a good observer as well. Hey, I scored 27% and I've never seen the show! Link
Saturday is May the 4th, as in "May the Fourth Be With You." Some people call it Star Wars Day. Be prepared by learning to draw a cartoon C-3PO, with a short tutorial from Andertoons. It's easy once you get the steps down! Link -Thanks, Mark!
Willie Witte presents a recursion video of his hands. There is no computer-generated images here, just obsessive editing. But the real question is, how did he take those pictures? The note on his left hand to buy more ink is a nice touch. -via Boing Boing
A post at reddit asked the question "What is the creepiest thing your young child has ever said to you?" There are over 12,000 responses! And more are being added even now. Buzzfeed culled some of the weirdest to present to you, including a couple that hint at reincarnation. If you are intrigued by them, you might want to go back and check out the original thread for more creepiness. Link
Police in Newtown, Connecticut, investigated a report of suspicious activity at a vacant house in Sandy Hook. What they found was certainly unusual, but not exactly criminal.
Newtown Police Lieutenant Richard Robinson said that an investigation found that someone had left between 200 and 300 one-gallon plastic jugs filled with urine within the house, which is located on the west side of Route 34, between Johnny Appleseed Drive and Sherman Street. Although unusual, the matter does not constitute criminal activity, he said.
State police had referred to Newtown police a report that suspicious activity had occurred at the house, Lt Robinson said. While investigating on the evening of April 25, Newtown police determined that someone had forced open a rear door at the house, he said.
After finding the large number of jugs of what was then an unknown brown liquid substance within the house, town police contacted the state police’s narcotics unit to determine whether there was some illegal drug aspect to the situation.
After it was determined that the jugs contained urine, an environmental cleanup company came to dispose of it. The house, which which had not been "officially" occupied for some time, was condemned due to deteriorating conditions. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Shannon Hicks)
This is a sweet film. In Omelette, a loyal dog does everything he can to help his depressed master, whatever the cost. Filmmaker Madeline Sharafian said,
I wanted to make something that focuses on how meaningful it is to make food for someone you love. My family's lives practically revolve around cooking for each other, so it's a theme that I'm deeply attached to. I hope you enjoy it!
We know how awful the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard is, but what if your nails were chalkboards? A new nail polish aims to do just that. The Chalkboard Manicure kit includes a layer of polish that, when dry, acts as a chalkboard surface, plus chalk pens in four colors, and a clear coat in case you want to seal your artwork. Or you can erase and change the "chalk" designs. Link
The Run for the Roses is this coming Saturday. For the occasion, the group Kentucky for Kentucky commissioned Louisville artist Rachael Sinclair to create a poster paying homage to Hunter S. Thompson's classic report "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" from 1970. The characters, analogies, and concepts from Thompson's piece are represented by silks on the poster, from Colonel Sanders to Inbred Bloodlines to Acid Trip. If only the actual field were this colorful! Only 200 limited edition prints are available. Get a closeup look at the details at Kentucky for Kentucky. Link -via Deadspin
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
by Ami Ben-Bassat, Israel
Revital Ben-David-Zaslow, Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University
Shimon Schocken, EfiArazi School of Computer Science, IDC Herzliya, Israel
Yossi Vardi, Israel
Figure 1. The SNAP system in a feed-forward action. In keeping with the systems engineering principle that interfaces between modules should be transparent, the back end’s yoke is connected to the front end’s shell with a piece of transparent scotch tape, not visible in the image. (Image credit: Herbert Bishko.)
“If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” (Mario Andretti)
We describe an experiment in which a Giant African Snail, acting as a data transfer agent, exceeded all known “last-mile” communications technologies in terms of bit-per-second performance, adding to the many paradoxes of broadband communications.1 We discuss the unique motivational and guidance systems necessary to facilitate snail-based data transport, and observe with satisfaction that in a society that worships the fittest, fastest, and furtherest, the meek and the slow can sometimes outperform all known competitors, giving rise to the new and exciting field of sluggish data networks.
The History of Snails as Communications Agents
The use of snails as data communications agents was not considered before now. As we show in this paper, the negative attitude towards using snails in communications networks is an example of bounded rationality2 impeding bold and creative engineering. Snails are widely assumed to be slow animals. Yet the literature on sluggish speed is surprisingly limited, and few have actually bothered to measure and record it formally. Further, reported gastropod speeds vary widely with species3 and circumstance, ranging from 0.0000233 to 0.00284 meters per second.4
(Image credit: Alexander R. Jenner)
Another cognitive limitation that hindered the employment of snails in data transfer is what we term a data linearity bias. As it turns out, most data communications experts are trained to think of a data stream in terms of a linear and logical flow of bits. And yet in reality, many massive data stores like CDs and DVDs are physically organized in circular formats. Owing to their spherical geometry, when such data stores fall on a flat surface they tend to roll like wheels for a short distance and then wobble and come to a rest-- a phenomenon that went completely unnoticed in the computer science and electrical engineering literature.
In sum, we observe that most data communications experts (i) are bound to think of snails as inherently slow, mindless, and stand-alone creatures and (ii) seem to ignore the wheel-like geometry of CDs and DVDs. It is therefore not surprising that the immense data transport potential embedded in slug-empowered traction has not been realized thus far.
The very idea of cats voluntarily doing aerobics is so silly, you have to watch it. This is an ad for Friskies Temptations cat treats, but the video was uploaded by the record company for the song "I Don't Wanna Dance" by Alex Gaudino featuring Taboo. -via Daily of the Day
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