Tic-tac-toe is a quick but rarely interesting game that usually ends in a draw, unless you are playing someone who is new to the game. That's why it's usually considered a children's game. If you want to memorize the best tic-tac-toe moves, you get that in less than two minutes here. The rest of the video is the theory behind mathematical games. -via Digg

Why would anyone build a church out of cast iron? Believe it or not, in this case, it was because cast iron is not as heavy as the amount of stone needed to create the large building. And a large ornate building was exactly what the Bulgarian Orthodox Church needed to establish a footprint in Istanbul.  

Although it looks like stone, the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church with its richly ornamented façade on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey, is made of iron. It was cast in Vienna, floated down the Danube and across the Black Sea on barges, and bolted together here in Istanbul in 1871. It is possibly the largest prefabricated cast iron structure in the world.

The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church is grand inside as well as outside. And while it may be the largest cast iron church, it's not the only one. See more of the Istanbul church and other cast iron churches at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Michael Kam Barngrover)

The United States Postal Service is celebrating Star Wars Day by releasing a new set of Star Wars postage stamps. The forever stamps are in celebration of STEM education and will feature the droids of the Star Wars universe:

Featured in a pane of 20 stamps, and arranged in staggered, horizontal rows, the stamps vary in size and depict 10 of the more well-known droids in the “Star Wars” universe — IG-11, R2-D2, K-2SO, D-O, L3-37, BB-8, a 2-1B surgical droid, a GNK (or Gonk) power droid, C-3P0 and C1-10P, otherwise known as Chopper.

The First Day of Issue Ceremony will be held online on Tuesday at 11AM Eastern time. And May the fourth be with you. -via Boing Boing

Travelers and travel writers have either been sidelined or else have had some extraordinary adventures during the pandemic this past year. James Park went to South Korea to visit his parents in December, and was obliged to spend 14 days in quarantine before he could join his family. He was not allowed to leave his room at the facility, and meals were delivered and left outside the door.

Early in the pandemic, the Korean government-issued comfort-food packages for quarantining individuals got global attention, full of delicious instant noodles, canned tuna, ready-to-eat soups, rice, and more. It was an appetizing alternative to the meals other quarantine individuals had — like those poor NYU kids who basically got sad salad and warm orange juice. Rather than stay at an Airbnb or a government-assigned hotel, I’d chosen to quarantine at a resort owned by POSCO, the company my dad works for. It had temporarily been transformed into a quarantine facility — equipped with a cafeteria at which I can’t eat — for employees and their families.

The food rules are simple: It comes three times a day in bento box form, called dosirak in South Korea, and is left on top of the chair outside my room. Staff will call when the food is ready, and I can open the door to pick it up — the only time I’m allowed to open the door during the quarantine.

His quarters were Spartan, but he had internet communication and a nice ocean view. Park was fortunate to have a steady supply of meals from the resort, supplemented by deliveries from his parents and from local restaurants, so his diary of that period focuses mostly on the food he ate during his two-week stay. It is guaranteed to make you hungry.

There are hackers, and then there are Hollywood hackers. Guess which kind Alasdair Beckett-King (previously) is portraying. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The advent of powdered gelatin and refrigeration led us into a dark period of cuisine in which anything and everything was suspended in gelatin because it looked as if you'd put a lot of work into it. But suspending weird things in gelatin was big even before that, back when it really was a lot of work. And that's where we first encounter coffee jelly.  

Coffee jelly might seem like nouvelle cuisine of the highest order, seeing as most of us are used to having our coffee as a liquid rather than a solid. But it’s actually the opposite. Early recipes for coffee jelly are at least as old as Durgin-Park. One recipe, from an 1836 issue of New York’s Lady’s Book magazine, told readers to mix coffee with the gelatin produced by boiling a calf’s foot. With cream and sugar, it became an elegant dessert. Gelatin, for much of the 19th century, was a luxury, requiring boiled animal parts and a cool enough spot to allow it to set. A platter of shimmering coffee jelly, turned out of a decorated mold and served with a cream sauce, would have elicited oohs and ahs at a tea or dinner party.

In the 21st century, we aren't all that impressed with gelatin dishes, so coffee jelly pretty much died out in America. However, in the past hundred years, it has traveled around the world and back again. Learn where you can find coffee jelly, plus a recipe for making your own at Atlas Obscura.

Loic Suberville gives us short and funny skits about the way languages are constructed and used. While no language is exempt, he has had a lot of fun with French as it is heard by English speakers. There seems to be a wide gap in how we use vowels.  



The latest in the French series is labeled as part 107, although the numbering seems a bit random, as there are not 107 videos (it's about language, not math). You can browse through a ton of these videos at Suberville's YouTube channel. -via Laughing Squid

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, in the riverside town of Maués, they grow a fruit you may have never heard of. Guaraná grows in other places, but Maués is the heart of its production, as guaraná is not only a prized fruit made into a daily drink, it's a tourist draw. They even have an annual guaraná festival.

Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.

Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques.

Guaraná has a traditional origin story that, yes, involves an eyeball, and long-held traditions on how to prepare and consume it. But it's also a moneymaker, working its way into South American sodas. It may even prolong life. Read about guaraná and what it means at BBC Travel. -via Digg

(Image credit: Anita Fortis)

Just found my new role model pic.twitter.com/f1HkBXSxyy

— human_not_bees (Beës) (@human_not_bees) April 25, 2021

Before you watch this video, remember that speed competitions involving food are often a bit gross, and should never be attempted in everyday life. She had the sandwich made and EATEN before he even got to the jelly! This one-on-one competition was over before it began, but it highlights the reasons why Guinness World Records has to establish rules and standards before they recognize any record holder. -via Metafilter

It's been 35 years since the world's worst nuclear disaster occurred in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. A complicated series of events led to explosions and a fire that burned for days at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, during which nuclear fallout rained over Ukraine and nearby Belarus.

April 26, 1986, started off like any other day for Alla Shapiro. The pediatrician, then 32 years old, was at work in the Pediatric Hematology Unit at the Children’s Hospital in Kiev, Ukraine. But everything changed when she learned that an explosion had occurred 80 miles north at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, just outside the city of Pripyat. In the hours that followed, hundreds of children arrived at the hospital by bus seeking treatment.

As a front-line worker, it was the first time that Shapiro and her colleagues were faced with treating patients during a disaster of Chernobyl's magnitude. Unfortunately, the Soviet government didn’t have any nuclear disaster protocols in place, and basic supplies were severely limited, leaving medical professionals to improvise and adapt. In the days and weeks that followed, Shapiro discovered that the government was misleading the public about its handling of the explosion, which was caused by a flawed reactor design, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Shapiro wrote a book about her experiences titled Doctor on Call: Chernobyl Responder, Jewish Refugee, Radiation Expert. She is now a consultant on the effects of radiation on human health. In an interview with Smithsonian, Shapiro describes the flood of children from Pripyat coming into her hospital coughing on radioactive dust, and the measures the staff took to care for them.

I want one pic.twitter.com/WiGHfOwked

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) April 24, 2021

I want one, too! Last weekend, people on the streets of Los Angeles were treated to the sight of a guy surfing through the air on a real hoverboard. It wasn't a movie stunt- this is a real quadcopter that's strong enough to lift a person and controllable enough to stand on. It's made by Omni Hoverboards, Inc. and their website says to "Stay tuned for our consumer version". The hoverer in LA was most likely part of that promotion. Here's the company's demonstration video.



Let's just hope the first people who buy the consumer version are as good at staying upright as the guys in these videos. -via Geekologie

In the rush to colonize Africa, various European countries scrambled to claim lands, exploit their natural resources, raise crops using forced labor, and export Africans as slaves. By 1761, the French East India Company was in control of Madagascar and the Mascarene archipelago. The Mascarene Islands were uninhabited, and the French set about bringing in enslaved people to work the land. The preferred crops were coffee and sugar, which were in high demand around the world. They did not grow crops that would sustain the people who lived and worked there, so supplies had to be imported. Captain Jean de Lafargue was willing to take food to the Macarene Islands, but he was also open to making some extra money on the side.  

The governor gave Lafargue his new orders: go to Foulpointe, on Madagascar’s east coast, and bring back food. Oh, and don’t bring any slaves.

From the governor’s point of view, the proscription made perfect sense. The one advantage of having been abandoned by the navy was that its crews no longer stopped by, insisting on being fed, but even with that reduction in overall appetite, Île de France still needed victuals more than extra mouths to feed. Lafargue, though, had no intention of paying attention to the restriction: L’Utile was his first command, and one of the benefits of being captain of a Company ship was the possibility of engaging in trade on your own account. Indeed, it was an official perk: the Company had suffered so many losses from pilfering captains that it had eventually thrown up its hands and given them the right to merchandise for themselves, in the hopes that they would stick to their permitted limits and leave the Company’s goods alone. And Foulpointe was Madagascar’s main slave trading port.

L’Utile departed on 27 June. Three weeks later, on 22 July, it set sail for its return journey. In between, Lafargue had not only filled up the hold with flour, meat, wine, and other necessities, he had also negotiated the purchase of 158 Malagasy men and women, who cost him 10,000 livres. This was something over his yearly salary, but he could expect to sell them in the Mascarenes for twice that⁠—and the buyers would consider it a good deal as long as a slave lived more than three months.The slaves were shoved into the hold and walled up in a compartment separating them from the foodstuffs. The only mitigation in their situation was that L’Utile was not a specialised slave ship, and so they were not chained.

Lafarge's plan was to sell the Malagasy people on the island of Rodrigues, then continue to Île de France (now Mauritius) with the supplies. But on his secret route, there was the Island of Sand, a tiny, treeless, uninhabited volcanic island with a dangerous reef that had been badly plotted on various maps. You guessed it; L’Utile was shipwrecked when the island appeared where Lafarge wasn't expecting it. The surviving French sailors and the Malagasy worked together to built a boat, in which the Frenchmen sailed away, leaving the Malagasy behind. Read the incredible story of the castaways who lived on the island for 15 years at Damn Interesting. The story is also available as a podcast.

Masala chai is a delicious blend of tea, spices, and milk enjoyed by, well, everyone, but it has a special significance for the Indian diaspora. The traditional drink, correctly made, is a connection to home and family. While meaningful, it's not an ancient tradition. Indian people didn't drink tea until the early 19th century, when the British Empire needed a place to grow tea after China began closing off trade with the West. Plantations in India took a long time to produce quality tea, and the Indian Tea Association (composed of British plantation owners and tea traders) boosted sales of the inferior product by promoting tea drinking among Indians.

Chaiwallas—street or roadside stand vendors that sold tea—started adding masala to tea sometime between World War I and the 1930s. This innovation was likely inspired by those Ayurvedic and Muslim medicinal spice brews—and because the cheap tea tasted bitter and strong. The Association took notice in the 1930s and started inspecting tea stalls to prevent the practice from spreading, even sending out competing tea hawkers who didn’t brew with spices—the addition of spices, the Association believed, meant that less tea would be used per serving and thus lower profits. While my research is ongoing, I suspect that many chaiwallas did not scale down the tea: Most modern masala chai recipes call for just as much (or more) tea as a plain cup would. But the Association shut down those tea stalls that used masala, calling it an adulteration of the product.

As history proves, that wasn’t the end of masala chai. “Adding the spices was really an act of rebellion against the British,” says Sana Javeri Kadri, owner of Diaspora Co., a single-origin sustainable spice company that supplies turmeric and other spices to chai drinkers and manufacturers. “Therefore, as our national symbol or a national drink, it’s a very symbolic one.”

The history of masala chai is a fascinating story told at Epicurious. But there's more, as we get a rundown of the spices and a lesson in making authentic Indian tea, too.

First, the people at Bridge Kaldro Music Store in Christianburg, Virginia, put up a sign challenging the nearby shoe shop to a sign war. Super Shoes responded with an insulting sign declaring that their shoe strings are stronger than Bridge Kaldros' guitar strings. Cute, even if they were a little short on Ss. The signs were even posted online for a laugh.

They went back and forth for a while and then a sign insulted the Kabuki Japanese Steakhouse, which joined in. Before you know it, every business in Christainburg had a sign up referencing the other signs, and a Facebook group was founded to keep up with them all.

See the signs that started it all in chronological order at Bored Panda, and keep up with new ones at the Christiansburg, VA Sign War Facebook group.