You already know the answer to this question: 1. It's dangerous, and 2. it doesn't work. But you want to see someone demonstrate it, right? And who better than Lauri Vuohensilta (previously), the Finnish madman who will try anything?
"...and definitely don't do this. You are going to see soon why."
Oh yeah, we need another quote here.
"Mushroom cloud is always good thing to have on nice summer day."
They end the video by burning their sauna, as one does. -via Digg
In the early Christian church, different sects interpreted the scriptures in many different ways. The second century Adamites based their culture on Adam and Eve, and lived their lives as if they existed before sin. That meant no clothing, no marriage, and no laws. They might even be seen as ancient hippies. Another thing they had in common with hippies is that they annoyed the surrounding establishment, Christian or otherwise.
Adherents of an early Christian group in North Africa between the 2nd and 4th centuries, this forgotten society lasted longer than America is old, and was also revived hundreds of years later in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages. Various factions in Bohemia also took up the doctrines of this obscure sect, but were met with firm opposition from the mainstream churches. The Bohemian Adamites took to the practice of parading naked through towns and villages, preaching that God considered exclusive marriage to be a sin. They lived in lawlessness, maintaining that such concepts of monogamy would never had existed but for sin.
Historian Norman Cohn explains that “in this sect free love seems to have been the rule. The Adamites declared that the chaste were unworthy to enter the Messianic kingdom … The sect was much given to ritual naked dances held around a fire. Indeed, these people seemed to have spent much of their time naked, ignoring the heat and cold and claiming to be in the state of innocence enjoined by Adam and Eve.” The sect was also often criticised for “never thinking of earning their own living by the work of their hands”.
Despite occasional revivals, the Adamites were pretty much squashed out of existence all at once. Read how that happened at Messy Nessy Chic. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Rolf Kranz)
Consumerism is what drives the economy in a capitalist society, so buying more stuff is a good thing, right? Not always. Buying more stuff than we can afford can ruin one's personal finances. Many of us end up with way more stuff than we need. All that unnecessary stuff takes a lot of energy and resources to produce, and getting rid of it overflows our landfills. So why do we buy so much stuff?
An easy story to tell is that marketers and advertisers have perfected tactics to convince us to purchase things, some we need, some we don’t. And it’s an important part of the country’s capitalistic, growth-centered economy: The more people spend, the logic goes, the better it is for everybody. (Never mind that they’re sometimes spending money they don’t have, or the implications of all this production and trash for the planet.) People, naturally, want things.
But American consumerism is also built on societal factors that are often overlooked. We have a social impetus to “keep up with the Joneses,” whoever our own version of the Joneses is. And in an increasingly unequal society, the Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up or, ultimately, are left fighting for scraps.
That drive to keep up with the Joneses and display our status with consumer goods hasn't followed an even trajectory, as our references (meaning the people we want to keep up with) have gone through changes. Sociologist Juliet Schor explains how our buying habits have changed with the times and why at Vox. -via Digg
You've seen videos of cats vocalizing while they eat. This one, however, has a definite melody in his voice. South African musician The Kiffness noticed it, and turned it into a song.
A simple duet between a man and a cat. As you see, he couldn't help but incorporate Ievan Polkka into the mix. The "Balkan remix" went viral, and before you know it, musicians from all over the world were joining in. Continue reading to see what they did with it.
Are Americans obsessed with sharks? Well, in 1975, Jaws defined what we now call the summer blockbuster. And Shark Week still draws audiences more than 30 years after it began. But the real obsession with sharks began earlier, when Americans were put in real danger from sharks. That wasn't their greatest danger, because we're talking about World War II. But it was the time that millions of Americans were introduced to ship travel in the armed forces, where surviving an enemy attack could lead to yet more danger.
Local newspapers across the country transfixed civilians and servicemen alike with frequent stories of bombed ships and aircraft in the open ocean. Journalists consistently described imperiled servicemen who were rescued or dying in “shark-infested waters.”
Whether sharks were visibly present or not, these news articles magnified a growing cultural anxiety of ubiquitous monsters lurking and poised to kill.
The naval officer and marine scientist H. David Baldridge reported that fear of sharks was a leading cause of poor morale among servicemen in the Pacific theater. General George Kenney enthusiastically supported the adoption of the P-38 fighter plane in the Pacific because its twin engines and long range diminished the chances of a single-engine aircraft failure or an empty fuel tank: “You look down from the cockpit and you can see schools of sharks swimming around. They never look healthy to a man flying over them.”
There were some fairly terrifying incidents of ship attack survivors being eaten by sharks, drawn by the blood of the wounded and the dead. Read about the rise of shark fear and how it lingers all these years later at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting
Paints, dyes, and other colorants have been very important in history- particularly those colors that are hard to manufacture. Red was among those up until Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas and found native industries cranking out red dye from the cochineal insect.
Spain, realizing it had a precious product, cornered the market on cochineal red. It became one of their most valuable exports from Mexico, second only to silver. They even put laws on the books to protect cochineal—and the mysterious bug that created it. “You couldn’t take gold or silver or cochineal out of Spain, without authorization, on pain of death,” Greenfield says.
The country also had strong censorship policies to control information about cochineal and keep it from other countries. For years, Europeans remained unaware that the dye came from an insect. Many wondered if the dried cochineal that formed dyes was some sort of plant or animal. Once the secret source of Spain’s coveted dye eventually got out, it wasn’t long before Europe’s monarchies were plotting ways to fight—and kill—for it.
Read the history of cochineal red and how it took Europe by storm at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez)
Until recently, there were only 27 species of trapdoor spider, which are found all over the world. However, it's been 50 years since any new species of the genus Ummidia were described, and the technical tools for examine the species (meaning DNA) has come a long way. Rebecca Godwin and Jason Bond from UC Davis have now reworked the spiders' taxonomy and have reclassified and named 33 new species among spiders that have already been studied. You can imagine the opportunity for naming this presented.
U. neilgaimani, U. gingoteague, U. rongodwini, U. okefenokee, U. richmond, U. macarthuri, U. colemanae, U. rosillos, U. mercedesburnsae, U. paulacushingae, U. waunekaae, U. gertschi, U. timcotai, U. gabrieli, U. pesiou, U. rodeo, U. huascazaloya, U. anaya, U. cuicatec, U. brandicarlileae, U. riverai, U. frankellerae, U. hondurena, U. yojoa, U. matagalpa, U. carlosviquezi, U. varablanca, U. quepoa, U. cerrohoya, U. quijichacaca, U. tibacuy, U. neblina, U. tunapuna.
You might recognize some of the names. U. neilgaimani is for author Neil Gaiman, who had another spider named for him in January. U. gabrieli is named for musician Peter Gabriel, U. brandicarlileae is for singer Brandi Carlile, and quite a few others are named for scientists. -via Boing Boing
While I know some people who would want this, it's not an official LEGO set, just the latest project from LEGO artist Iain Heath, also known as Ochre Jelly (previously at Neatorama). Besides, we know that while the lightsaber was eventually recovered, the hand was never seen again. -via Mark Hamill
#TooSoon 😢 https://t.co/r1RVaNUeee
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) July 9, 2021
A farm near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, UK, hosted a particularly unusual contest in 1883. Two men battled it out to decide who could work better- a laborer who had been drinking beer, or a laborer who only had water. Mr. W. F. Terrill, a farmer from Wiltshire, drank beer and harvested corn, while Mr. J. Abbey of the Church of England Temperance Society did the same while drinking only water.
From the very start in the contest, Mr. Terrill assumed the lead. At four o’clock, he had cleared 15a. 3r. 16p. [acres, roods, and perches], and Mr. Abbey had cleared 14a. 3r. 0p. Therefore at that time Mr. Terrill was about one acre ahead. A short cessation of work took place. Mr Terrill, it was stated, was “annointed” by his friends, the “ointment” consisting of whisky. But this is denied. However, he worked well after the pause.
After four o’clock, Mr. Abbey gained steadily, continuing to so so to the finish, when he was only 3r. 21p. behind, having gained something like an acre in about three hours and a quarter. The quantity pitched by Mr Terrill was 29a. 2r. 7p., and that of Mr. Abbey 19a. 2r. 26p. It is stated that a man who clears 12 or 13 acres in a day is considered have done a good day’s work. After the contest, Mr. Terrill and Mr. Abbey shook hands in a most cordial manner, and each proposed cheers for the other.
You might guess that the real winner of the competition was Mr. George Melsome, the owner of the farm, who cleared 48 acres with free labor. But the question of the benefits of beer vs. water was far from settled, once you look into the background of the contest and the men who took part. Read the whole story of the competition at Singular Discoveries. -via Strange Company
British comedian Chris McCausland is blind. On the TV show Would I Lie To You? he tells the story of that time he had a neighbor who ignored him... or so he thought. This is really funny, but it also shows us how modern technology can enable communications between people who otherwise would not communicate at all. -via Digg
The medieval kingdom of Makuria ranged over parts of what is now Sudan and Egypt. Its capital was Dongola, a Sudanese site on the Nile River where archaeologists have been digging since the 1960s. They previously found a church, and expected to find a town square as well. However, the massive structure they uncovered appears to be a much-larger cathedral.
Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw’s Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology (PCMA) believe they have found two walls of the church’s apse, painted portraits of the Twelve Apostles, and the domed covering of a tomb. Artur Obłuski, director of the PCMA, told The Art Newspaper that the tomb could be the resting place of a powerful archbishop from Nubia’s Christian period, which ran approximately from the 6th century to the 14th century. That theory is based on the layout of another ancient church found in Sudan in the 1960s, just west of a bishop’s domed tomb.
At its height, Dongola was about the size of Paris today, so it only makes sense that they would have a large cathedral. Read about the discovery and the kingdom of Makuria at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Artur Obłuski, Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw)
UFOs are easy to explain -they are unidentified flying objects, and are unidentified because we don't know what they are. There are often several possible explanations; we just don't know which one is correct. However, when you start talking about aliens and flying saucers and extraterrestrials, suddenly everyone is interested. While odd things have been seen in the sky since ancient times, they've only been publicized, recorded, and studied since around 1947. Penn State historian of science Greg Eghigian is writing a history of American UFO sightings, and tells us how it all got started.
What happened in 1947?
A pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold was flying his small plane near Mount Rainier in Washington state. As he was flying around he said he saw some sort of glimmer or shine that caught his eye and was concerned that maybe he was going to have a collision with another aircraft. When he looked, he saw what he described as nine very odd-shaped vessels flying in formation.
After Arnold landed, he reported his sightings to authorities at a nearby airport and eventually talked to some reporters. When a reporter asked Arnold to describe how the things moved, he said, “they flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across water.” Some very clever enterprising journalists came up with the headline “flying saucers” and from that point forward they were flying saucers – even though Arnold never uttered the phrase himself.
A Gallup poll six weeks after the event discovered that 90% of Americans had heard the term flying saucer. This was the beginning of the phenomenon that some call the flying saucer era and the contemporary idea of UFOs.
Eghigian gives us an overview of UFOs in the public eye and the in military studies in the interview at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: George Stock)
The 19th century was a unique time for archaeology, with wondrous treasures being unearthed all over the world and sent back to the discoverer's home country (or sponsoring country) to be kept in a museum. Museums became very competitive in acquiring ancient artifacts, which sometimes led them to be too trusting as to an artifact's provenance.
For the better part of a decade, the widely celebrated and esteemed Louvre Museum of Paris proudly displayed a supposedly ancient tiara made of solid gold. Experts at the Louvre identified it as belonging to the Scythian king Saitapharnes who ruled sometime in the 3rd century BCE. An inscription on the tiara mentioning that it was a gift from Olbia, a Greek colony on the Black Sea coast, to King Saitaphernes left no doubt about the item’s authenticity and great age. But later it became clear that the tiara's new owner had been a little haste in acquiring the item. The exhibit is now locked away in storage—an embarrassment, for the tiara was proved to be a hoax perpetuated by two Russian art dealers.
Embarrassing for the museum curator, but the incident turned out to be quite lucrative for the goldsmith who made the tiara. Read the story of the Scythian tiara hoax at Amusing Planet.
This is an interesting story. However, it happened twenty years ago, and there is apparently no video footage from the actual incident -just still photos. So they pulled up a bunch of stock footage of "leopards" and ended up with mostly cheetahs, at least one ocelot, and possibly a margay. Just so we're clear, cheetahs live in Africa, and ocelots and margays live in the Americas. The producers assumed we wouldn't know the difference. Also, there are quite a few different kinds of cows pictured, many of which do not live in Pakistan. Sure, it's a sweet love story, but would this video have racked up three million views in a week without the cheetahs? -via Digg
It's true that an army moves on its stomach, since troops who aren't fed won't be able or willing to fight. While there is plenty to complain about in modern-day MREs and the C-rations that came before, those are luxuries compared to what was fed to soldiers of the American Revolution. The rebels had no government infrastructure behind their supplies, but they did the best they could. At the beginning, the Continental Congress declared how much of different foods each man should be allotted, and Washington ordered that each soldier carry two days worth of provisions. But as the war dragged on, food was harder to come by.
In situations when rations were scarce, which was more often than not, many Continental Army soldiers had to resort to subsisting on what was known as biscuit, fire cake, or hardtack. This simple flour and water dough was baked into hard, flavorless cakes that were often so dry that soldiers had to soak each bite in water, broth, or tea in order to eat it. If Continental soldiers were lucky, the mixture wouldn’t be absolutely ridden with insects. They often weren’t.
The supply situation got so bad that soldiers were impelled to steal food from civilian settlements. The British had their own problems with food supplies as well. Read about the difficulties of getting enough to eat during the American Revolutionary War at The Drive. -via Fark
(Image credit: National Park Service Digital Image Archives)
