Think of Cap'n Crunch, and you most likely think of scratching the inside of your mouth when eating the cereal. However, the mascot himself has a fascinating story. He's even older than the cereal he promotes! But there's a dark side to the Cap'n: a controversy over his actual rank.

As for the Cap’n, one might assume that a great deal of research went into designing the saccharine sailor’s uniform, but they would be incorrect. The U.S. Navy follows a strict code defining how uniforms are to reflect rank. The most readily apparent way for the general public to identify a captain would be the number of stripes displayed on an individual’s sleeve. Per regulation, captains wear four stripes, commanders three, lieutenants two, and ensigns one, with additional thinner stripes for grades between. This is where the question of Mr. Crunch’s proper rank becomes uncertain. Over the years, he has variously appeared with anywhere from one to three stripes. Even when apparently serving as Ensign Crunch, however, he has continued to erroneously make use of the title Cap’n.

There were so many questions about the Cap’n's rank that the U.S. Navy even got involved. But there's more, like the roundabout way that Cap'n Crunch led to the founding of Apple Computers, all of which you can read about at Today I Found Out.

(Image credit: Flickr user israelavila)

YouTuber pwnisher staged a contest for digital animators, in which they each took a simple prompt and created unique environments around it. The winners are named at the YouTube page. Here are the entries strung together. The only thing they have in common is the rear view of a character walking toward a mountain in the background. Everything else is new and different, constructed from imagination and rendered with the contestant's choice of software. Watching this is like taking a tour of all possible fantasy dimensions in a hurry, yet because of the music and the pace of walking, it's also soothing. I would recommend enjoying this in full-screen mode. -via Nag on the Lake

Gangster movies have always been popular, because they present a lifestyle full of risk, violence, riches, and disdain for lawful authority, which audiences enjoy vicariously without having to actually deal with such dangerous people. You can relive the thrills of gangster movies in a chronological list starting in 1931. The selections may evoke your disagreement, but it presents a lot of films you may not have already seen, and it doesn't limit itself to the theme of organized crime in America. There are gangsters, real and cinematic, all over the world. Read up on twenty of those movies at Mental Floss.

The rise of shopping malls and department stores as we know them began in Paris. Once upon a time, it was illegal for a shop to sell more than one kind of product. French vendors got around this by congregating different stores in one location to make purchases easier for the public, creating a prototype for the shopping mall. Eventually, it became possible for one entity to sell a variety of items, which led to the concept of the department store.     

The first on the market–and in the world–was Au Bon Marché. Founded in 1838, it survived the competition of the other novelty magazines by shrewd display tactics and remained the leader in innovations. The genius behind modern shopping science was Au Bon Marché’s next owner, Aristide Boucicaut who took over the magazine in 1852. He had many tricks up his sleeve, including placing related merchandise at the opposite ends of the store. You bought fabric in one corner, and to get a sewing thread to put the fabric together, you had to cross the store passing seductive displays of fashion accessories that would enhance the new dress. Nearly all the shopping strategies, including the orgiastic sales that influence us today, were invented by Boucicaut and his clever followers in these early days of mass shopping.

(Note the word “magazine” in this context means a retail store.) Being first had its rewards. When Boucicaut died 1887, Au Bon Marché was the biggest retail business in the world. Read about the development of mass shopping concepts at Victorian Paris. -via Strange Company

The elusive Canada lynx usually does its best to avoid humans, but this one in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, was up for an astonishing close encounter. In fact, it climbed up on some heavy equipment to get a better look at Dean Erickson, who was recording.

"I am a logger from Alberta, Canada. I was stopped on the road with my skidder and looked back and to my great surprise, there was a Lynx standing by the tire on my machine. I quickly climbed on the roof and started videoing. He then jumped up on the tire, looked at me, and then jumped again on the arch of my skidder. Only a few feet from me now, he sat and curiously watched me. After a few minutes, he jumped back down on my tire and then with one great big leap, jumped off the tire back on the ground and slowly walked back into the forest never to be seen again."

The lynx didn’t seem to be scared, nor was it particularly threatening, just curious. But look at those magnificent feet! -via Boing Boing

Once upon a time, Christmas trees were illuminated by burning candles. You can imagine how difficult it was to get candles to stand up on a tree branch, and how much supervision was necessary keep the house from burning down. So it was a real Christmas miracle when electric Christmas lights were introduced. The first Christmas tree with electric light bulbs was displayed in 1882 by Edward Hibberd Johnson in New York City. His tree caused such a sensation that the New York Times wrote about it.   

“The tree was lighted by electricity and children never beheld a brighter tree or one more highly colored than the children of Mr. Johnson when the current was turned and the tree began to revolve.

“It stood about six feet high, in an upper room, and dazzled persons entering the room. There were 120 lights on the tree, with globes of different colors, while the light tinsel work and unusual adornment of Christmas trees appeared to their best advantage in illuminating the tree.

“The set of lights were turned off and on at regular intervals as the tree turned around.  The first combination was of pure white light then as the revolving tree tree severed the connection of the current that supplied it and made connection with the second set, red and white lights appeared. Then came yellow and white and other colors.”

That may seem overly elaborate to you and me. After all, the electric lights alone would warrant a newspaper article. But it wasn’t just a family Christmas tree; it was a promotion. Johnson was a vice-president at the Edison Electric Company. They subsequently sold Christmas lights for a price that was equivalent to a week’s wages, but in 1882, the electric Christmas tree was to promote the idea of electric light bulbs as a concept that would spread far and wide. Read about those early electric Christmas tree lights at The Bowery Boys. Or listen to the podcast if you prefer. -via Strange Company

You might not recognize all of the themes in this overture, hey, you might not recognize any of them (though you should), but you certainly know the fanfare style of the tune that opens the show. This medley was conducted and arranged by Alan Williams and performed by musicians from London's West End. -Thanks, Tim Spellman!

(Image source: wrud4d)

When you take your child to a photographer's studio, they spend the time necessary to get pictures you're happy with. On picture day at school, a photographer sets up and may have 500 kids to photograph before the day is over. There will be children who don't know how to smile on command, or don't feel like doing so. There will be children who are used to mugging for selfies. And there will be children who wear the same color as the green screen behind them. But you have to have a sense of humor about it. The parents of the boy pictured above still have the photo framed and on display twenty years later. In the images below, a little girl puts out her very best effort, but doesn't quite have it down.

See 40 priceless school pictures that didn't come out as expected at Bored Panda.

As someone who knows something about interruptions, we asked #BBCdad @Robert_E_Kelly to help us talk about Twitter’s conversation settings, which give brands more control over the conversations they start. https://t.co/i5eC2qEyRf pic.twitter.com/RSvqqpIyjT

— Twitter Marketing UK (@TwitterMktgUK) November 17, 2020

It's been almost four years since Robert Kelly was interrupted at his home office while on live TV. While such interruptions have become common in 2020 with so many people working from home, Kelly remains the undisputed pioneer and still champion. That's why Twitter UK recruited Kelly (and his family) to star in an ad for their new "conversations" setting. The kids have grown quite a bit since 2017! -via Metafilter

Imagine you are in your car, trying to get somewhere in an area you've never been. You pull up a map, spot a shortcut, and decide to take it, since it appears that you'll save a lot of time. Then eventually you notice a lack of gas stations or any facilities, then your cell service fades out, and the pavement turns to gravel. That's bad enough, but imagine you were taking your family and all your worldly possessions to a new place you couldn't even imagine, with no roads, fuel, or communication at all.   

In the summer of 1846, a party of 89 emigrants was making its way westward along the 2,170-mile-long Oregon Trail. Tired, hungry, and trailing behind schedule, they decided at Fort Bridger, Wyoming to travel to their final destination of California by shortcut. The “Hastings Cutoff” they chose was an alternative route that its namesake, Lansford Hastings, claimed would shave at least 300 miles off the journey. The party believed this detour could save more than a month’s time. They were wrong.

Hastings Cutoff turned out to be a waterless, wide-open stretch of the Great Salt Lake Desert, bordered by sagebrush wilderness, that began with having to forge their own wagon route through Emigration Canyon in the Wasatch mountains. By the time the party finally reached the Sierra Nevada mountains, the shortcut had cost them weeks. Snow fell, trapping the Donner-Reed party. This is when the most infamous (and deadly) part of their tale began. When members of the party began starving to death, survivors ate their remains to stay alive.

Find out why Hastings promoted the cutoff when he never even traveled it himself, and read stories of other horrible shortcuts on the Oregon Trail at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Albert Bierstadt)

For Christmas 2020, mashup artist extraordinaire Bill McClintock combined Slayer's "South of Heaven" with Wham!'s "Last Christmas" into a song he calls "South of Christmas" by Slam! There's also a cameo appearance by Rammstein and McClintock himself with a festive guitar solo. The best edit in the song comes at about 3:20. Try not to laugh.

Dinosaurs were reptiles, and so we often think of them as big lizards, soaking up the sun in tropical or at least temperate regions. But scientists are always learning more about dinosaurs, and find them more varied and adaptable than we ever suspected before. It turns out that dinosaurs lived in plenty of pretty cold areas.

The finds are coming fast and furious. A tiny jaw found in Alaska’s ancient rock record, and written about in July, indicates that dinosaurs nested in these places and stayed year-round. In 2018, paleontologists published a study describing how microscopic details of polar dinosaur bones show that some dinosaurs slowed their growth during harsh seasons to get by with less. The ongoing identification of new species, not found anywhere else, highlighted how some dinosaurs adapted to the cold. Each thread comes together to underscore how wonderfully flexible dinosaur species were, adapting to some of the harshest habitats of their time.

Read about the study of dinosaur environments and how they coped with cold weather at Smithsonian.

There's someone for everyone, and Satan finds his true love in this ad for Match.com. Not only is it grimly hilarious, it's full of easter eggs. Her profile pic is a murder hornet. The actress appears to have subtle fangs. They're from the same home town! Check out the end zone lettering in the empty stadium. The fine print on the treadmill sign. The asteroids. It's perfect. This ad was written and directed by Ryan Reynolds and features a newly-recorded version of Taylor Swift's 2008 hit "Love Story." -via Today

Update: Part two is now available.

Natalie Sideserf of Sideserf Cake Studio is renowned for her realistic cake sculptures, some which you've seen here at Neatorama. The ultimate test of realism is to create a face that looks like someone's real face -in this case, her own! She also recorded the process, which you can see in this video. Cutting into a cake like this must be a bit unsettling, but that's a sacrifice I'd make for a piece of cake. -via reddit

A champagne chair is a dollhouse-sized chair made from the cap, cage, and/or cork from a champagne bottle. We can imagine it originated from partygoers who needed something to do with their hands while listening to drunk conversation, but it has become somewhat of an art form, and as happens to all human activities, it has been turned into a competition.   

The year is the 17th for the annual DWR Champagne Chair Contest. Make a chair from the  foil, label, cap, cage, and cork (anything but the glass) of up to two champagne bottles. There's a division for original design, and a division for recreating a chair from the gallery at Design Within Reach. Entries must be in by January 5, so if you plan correctly, you can use your New Year champagne. Prizes are substantial DWR gift cards, and there's a bonus:

For each entry, Herman Miller Cares is donating $50 to Artist Relief, a charitable initiative providing financial help to artists during the pandemic. The more entries, the more artists are helped.

Read the contest guidelines at Design Within Reach. Find a basic how-to to get you started at Instructables.  -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Flickr user Mark Morgan)