In December, the crew of the ISS baked the first cookies in space. They managed to thoroughly bake two cookies, which were not eaten, but were returned to earth on a SpaceX supply flight to be analyzed. That may seem disappointing, but there was no way to share those two cookies with the entire crew, anyway. The experimental baking process was time-consuming to say the least, as Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano reported.

The first cookie — in the oven for 25 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit (149 degrees Celsius) — ended up seriously under-baked. He more than doubled the baking time for the next two, and the results were still so-so.

The fourth cookie stayed in the oven for two hours, and finally success.

“So this time, I do see some browning,” Parmitano radioed. “I can’t tell you whether it’s cooked all the way or not, but it certainly doesn’t look like cookie dough any more.”

Parmitano cranked the oven up to its maximum 325 degrees F (163 degrees C) for the fifth cookie and baked it for 130 minutes. He reported more success.

Additional testing is required to determine whether the three returned cookies are safe to eat.

Why did it take two hours to bake one cookie? A look at the oven's website has clues. They say convection cooking is not feasible in space. Then you remember that heat doesn't rise in microgravity the way it does on earth. A fan might help. And a maximum temperature of 325 degrees is low for cookies. But most pointedly, each cookie was enclosed in a silicon envelope to keep crumbs contained. Clearly, further research is needed. The upside of the experiment for the astronauts is that the baking session made the ISS smell better for a short time. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Christina H Koch)

In 1995, Pepsi ran a promotion in which they offered merchandise for "Pepsi points." You could redeem your Pepsi points for clothing and accessories and all sorts of neat stuff, as you can see in the original ad. The prizes ran all the way up to a Harrier jet for seven million Pepsi points.

The joke is simple enough: they took the idea behind Pepsi Points and extrapolated it until it was ridiculous. Solid comedy writing. But then they seemingly didn’t do the math. Seven million sure does sound like a big number, but I don’t think the team creating the ad bothered to run the numbers and check that it was definitely big enough.

But someone else did. At the time, each AV‑8 Harrier II Jump Jet brought into action cost the United States Marine Corps over $20 million and, thankfully, there is a simple way to convert between USD and PP: Pepsi would let anyone buy additional points for 10 cents each. Now, I’m not familiar with the market for second-hand military aircraft, but a price of $700,000 on a $20 million aircraft sounds like a good investment. As it did to John Leonard, who tried to cash in on this.

Leonard did the math, and bought enough Pepsi points to get the jet. The company was caught by surprise, because they didn't do the math. Read how that turned out, and why the ad company couldn't see it coming at Literary Hub.  -via Digg

You can marvel at the length of time this frisbee keeps going on the ice. You can ponder the physics that keep it upright. You may be impressed with the camera stabilization, and the stamina of the skaters chasing it. But if you really want maximum enjoyment from this video, you will turn on the closed captions. Trust me.  -via Metafilter

So many of our modern pop culture stories are about good vs. evil in that every character must pick a side, and we know that one side is right and the other is wrong, and we are supposed to root for good over evil. In Star Wars, these two factions are explicitly named, to shape our expectations and label who we are to identify with. It doesn't always work as intended, since while Darth Vader may be evil, you have to admit his menace is thrillingly cool. The dichotomy of good guys and bad guys is clear in superhero movies, Westerns, murder mysteries, horror, fantasy, and even history books ...is there any doubt that World War II reads like a morality tale? But it wasn't always that way.

Stories from an oral tradition never have anything like a modern good guy or bad guy in them,  despite their reputation for being moralising. In stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk or Sleeping Beauty, just who is the good guy? Jack is the protagonist we’re meant to root for, yet he has no ethical justification for stealing the giant’s things. Does Sleeping Beauty care about goodness? Does anyone fight crime? Even tales that can be made to seem like they are about good versus evil, such as the story of Cinderella, do not hinge on so simple a moral dichotomy. In traditional oral versions, Cinderella merely needs to be beautiful to make the story work. In the Three Little Pigs, neither pigs nor wolf deploy tactics that the other side wouldn’t stoop to. It’s just a question of who gets dinner first, not good versus evil.

The situation is more complex in epics such as The Iliad, which does have two ‘teams’, as well as characters who wrestle with moral meanings. But the teams don’t represent the clash of two sets of values in the same way that modern good guys and bad guys do. Neither Achilles nor Hector stands for values that the other side cannot abide, nor are they fighting to protect the world from the other team. They don’t symbolise anything but themselves and, though they talk about war often, they never cite their values as the reason to fight the good fight. The ostensibly moral face-off between good and evil is a recent invention that evolved in concert with modern nationalism – and, ultimately, it gives voice to a political vision not an ethical one.

The shift to battles of morality only began a couple hundred years ago. Robin Hood had been around a long time, but didn't rob the rich and give to the poor until 1795. Grimm's Fairy Tales added some morality to old folk stories soon after. Read about the rise of the good guy trope at Pocket.

Mountain Dew cheesecake might seem like an abomination if you don't drink Mountain Dew, but to those who consider it the nectar of the gods, it could be your new favorite dessert. James Lamprey shows us how to make No-Bake Mountain Dew Cheesecake. The recipe is close to mine, although I use lemon juice and berries instead of the soda pop syrup. Also eggs, because I bake mine. A baked cheesecake tastes a little more traditional, doesn't need to set for several hours, and most importantly, doesn't require a springform pan. Laughing Squid has a second video showing a different way to make Mountain Dew Cheesecake, using cheesecake and Mountain Dew Jell-O in separate layers. While I am not inclined to put either Mountain Dew nor Jell-O in a cheesecake, I am intrigued by the swirling colors. That I might try!

Kate Wagner is taking on the project of writing the history of the McMansion year by year. She'll tackle the state of American culture and architecture over the past 50 years, and how those things collided to bring us the McMansion. This could easily be a book by the time she reaches 2020. The first installment focuses on 1970, and a "proto-McMansion," a home built that year with some foreshadowing of what the McMansion would eventually become and a mishmash of 1970 style (carpets and dark wood) and 1980 style (brass and glass) with more ostentatious French and Colonial styles.

Though this house tends to feature more Louis XV-style furniture (my suspicion is that this might be evidence of an 80s or 90s era redecorating), the emphasis on bulky, ornate 18th century reproduction furniture, moldings, and wallpaper is indicative of the fascination in the 1970s towards the (American) Colonial era in anticipation of the 1976 American Bicentennial.

This home in New Jersey is for sale. Read the entire critique at McMansion Hell, and bookmark the site to follow the coming entries from each year. -via Metafilter

We know from Western movies that a cowboy always rode high in the saddle, his six-shooter by his side in case of outlaws or Indian attack. But cowboy life in the Old West wasn't like that, outside of Hollywood. Herding cows was hard work that fell to youngsters and minorities, those with few opportunities for a better job. While ranch work was poorly paid drudgery, it was nirvana compared to the work involved in a cattle drive.

Driving two or three thousand cattle over 1,000 miles required a dozen or so cowboys, each with four or more horses, working for three to six months. The trail boss, who might be the ranch owner but was more likely an experienced ranch hand, rode ahead of the herd to control the pace and direction of travel and tolerated neither unruly cattle nor rebellious laborers. Cowboys took orders and worked for wages typically lower than skilled factory pay.

Each herder had a regular position in the herd, from lead to flank to swing to drag, with status and sometimes pay according to position. According to Montana cowboy Edward Charles “Teddy Blue” Abbott, drag riders had it the worst. Responsible for bringing along the poor, weak, or wounded animals, drag riders would end the day “with dust half an inch deep on their hats and thick as fur on their eyebrows,” Abbott said. Even worse was the dust in their lungs, which had them coughing up brown phlegm for months after the drive.

There were small and memorable parts of a cowboy's world that fed into what became the cowboy myth in dime novels, Wild West shows, and eventually Hollywood movies. Read about the real life of a cowboy at the Saturday Evening Post. -via Damn Interesting

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Ze Frank observed the mating dance of the puffin, and instead of just snarking about the more unsavory aspects of the species, as we would expect, he was inspired to write a song. And sing it! Therefore, in this short video, we get anthropomorphized animals who aren't too bright plus double entendres galore, as we do expect from Ze Frank. Plus music!

The TV series Sesame Street broke new ground in 1969 as the first children's television show backed by educational research. It was also a hit with children, and most adults, although there were a few exceptions. Sesame Street had only been on the air a few months when it ran up against the newly formed Mississippi Authority for Educational Television. The five-member board met in January of 1970 to consider the influence of Sesame Street, which featured an integrated cast of both black and white adults and a diverse group of children.  

This appeared to be too much for the Authority, which discussed how lawmakers with control over ETV’s budget—which had just been set at $5,367,441—might find the mixed-race assembly offensive. The panel's participants were all white.

The board pushed the discussion aside until April 17, 1970, when they took an informal poll and decided, by a margin of three votes against two, to prohibit ETV from airing Sesame Street—a show that came free of charge to all public television stations. (The decision affected mainly viewers in and around Jackson, as the station had not yet expanded across the state and was not expected to do so until the fall of 1970.)

As you might guess, when the decision became national news, it reflected more on Mississippi than it did on Sesame Street. Read what happened at Mental Floss.

Pedro Arizpe of Port Sherry (previously) intends to start telling longer stories in his comics, like this fairy tale that began in December. The suspicion that starts to eat at the king continues through the rest of part one, posted here. Was there magic involved in his whirlwind romance? Does the queen have an ulterior motive? And will the king ever find out? Is this a Disney movie or a Shakespearian tragedy? Arizpe knew the backstory, but he involved his readers in deciding a crucial plot point. They registered their opinions, and the conclusion of the story was posted today.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

all that time it took to setup, almost gets ruined by the cat from r/funny

Click on the image above to start the video. The first rule of building a complicated ball run, domino fall, or Rube Goldberg contraption is that you must first put the cats away somewhere. However, when you spend ten hours getting it right, keeping the cats locked up begins to border on animal abuse. In this case, people who watch this -and you have to watch it at least a couple of times- tend to agree that the cat made it all worthwhile. You can watch this in a somewhat larger format at reddit.

An Iranian couple recite poetry together, until they are stopped in traffic and see another couple fighting. Thursday Appointment may make you cry when watching it, and then afterward, you find out that *spoiler*

Joker is a comic book movie that is nominated for eleven Oscars. If you haven't seen it, that might be confusing, but Screen Junkies clears it up with this Honest Trailer. Or maybe not, but it is intriguing. What is clear is that Joaquin Phoenix went the extra mile for his character.

A houseplant is supposed to be simple, a little bit of nature brought inside. Some people get attached to their plants, because they are living things that one takes care of. But when a plant dies, it's a sad occasion that may induce mourning. Is that normal? Yes, and common, too. While it's not as devastating as losing a pet or a family member, the death of a plant can produce a profound sense of loss that may be confusing.

“When it comes to a plant dying, the mourning usually is more about self-criticism over one's ability to do things right,” says Marina Resa, a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles who specializes in pet bereavement, among other things. “There's an assumption that caring for a plant should be easy, so the shame can run deep, particularly when a plant dies that is said to be ‘impossible to kill,’ such a cactus or succulent.”

When a plant you’ve owned for a long time dies, the mourning process might be even more difficult, Resa added. That plant has “seen” things, after all. It’s lived life alongside you, providing beauty and comfort in times of stress. And now, instead of furthering your connection to the natural world — a blessing that doesn't come easy in the digital age — you’ve dried it out.

As a longtime gardener, I no longer mourn the death of one plant, but I fondly recall the rubber tree I kept going for 30 years, and regret the flowers that won't flourish under my care. Read more about what's involved in our relationships with houseplants at Mashable.

(Image credit: Vicky Leta/Mashable)

Beware of wonderful family vacations and the desires they can inspire. A 12-year-old Australian boy had run away from home several times in his quest to return to Bali, where his family had spent some presumably enjoyable time. He was caught over and over, until 2018, when he managed to book a flight and abscond with his passport and his mother's credit card.

After his parents thought he had gone to school, Drew packed a bag, hopped on his scooter, and proceeded to the train station. He skipped over the check-in kiosk at the Sydney airport because, as he terrifyingly explained later, they "ask too many questions." The one time he was questioned in Perth, he showed them his student ID to prove his advanced age of 12, and everything went swimmingly from there.

Drew went from Sydney to Perth to Indonesia before finally landing in Bali, where he claimed he was meeting his mom. He checked into the All Seasons Hotel, explaining that he was waiting for his sister, and then chilled in Bali for four days. He rented a motorbike, tried beer for the first time, and generally acted out Home Alone: Island Edition before his mom showed up and totally harshed his mellow.

Read the rest of that story and those of four other cases where children caused complete chaos in the article 5 Temper Tantrums That Spiraled Out of Control at Cracked.

(Image credit: TMFalkner)