Detroit had a scene right out of a police TV show last week, but it wasn't Law & Order. It was more like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Police Squad! or Reno 911. Officers from both the 11th precinct and the 12th precinct were in a neighborhood known for heavy drug traffic, ready to bust perpetrators. However, neither squad knew about the other squad's plans. What could possibly go wrong? 

Sources say it started when two special ops officers from the 12th Precinct were operating a "push off" on Andover near Seven Mile. That is when two undercover officers pretend to be dope dealers, waiting for eager customers to approach, and then arrest potential buyers and seize their vehicles.

But this time, instead of customers, special ops officers from the 11th Precinct showed up. Not realizing they were fellow officers, they ordered the other undercover officers to the ground.

FOX 2 is told the rest of the special ops team from the 12th Precinct showed up, and officers began raiding a house in the 19300 block of Andover. But instead of fighting crime, officers from both precincts began fighting with each other.

Sources say guns were drawn and punches were thrown while the homeowner stood and watched.

Two police officers were injured. Detroit Police Chief James Craig held a press conference Monday to address the incident.

“This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen in this department,”

-via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr user Don Harder)

Justice League is in theaters nationwide, and bound to be a blockbuster whether it's any good or not. But what happens if Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, or Cyborg aren't available to save the world? Batman must call up the benchwarmers. The heroes that didn't quite make the cut. Second string. The B-team superheroes, as it were.

(YouTube link)

In other words, superheroes whose movies didn't achieve blockbuster status. There are plenty of them in this video from Funny or Die. -via Tastefully Offensive

The Nigerian women's bobsled team has qualified to compete at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, this coming February. The team is the first from Nigeria to ever compete in the Winter Games. The Bobsled & Skeleton Federation of Nigeria, established only last year, raised over $75,000 for expenses through crowdfunding. The team trains in Texas.

Driver Seun Adigun and brakemen Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga completed the fifth of their required five qualifying races on Wednesday, becoming the first African team, men or women, to qualify in the Bobsled category.

In women's bobsled, teams are required to complete five races to qualify. The Nigeria team, led by driver Adigun - a former African 100m hurdles champion and 2012 summer Olympian - completed races in Utah, one in Whistler, and their final two races in Calgary on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"This is a huge milestone for sports in Nigeria," driver Adigun told KweséESPN. "Nothing makes me prouder than to know that I can play a small role in creating opportunities for winter sports to take place in Nigeria.

Nigeria could qualify for the skeleton competition, too, as qualifying races are in progress. Read more about the team at ESPN. -via reddit 

(Image credit: Bobsled & Skeleton Sports Federation of Nigeria)

The 1993 film Schindler's List was a very personal project for Steven Spielberg. He did not take a salary for directing the movie, and did not expect it to be a hit, but took great pains to tell the story accurately, intelligently, and emotionally. It worked: the film was a critical and box office smash and won seven Academy Awards. Actors Liam Neeson (as Oskar Schindler), Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley starred in the film that told the story of a German factory owner who sheltered more than a thousand Jewish refugees in Poland by employing them in defiance of Nazi authorities -which he accomplished by spending his fortune in bribes. You might want to learn some of the behind-the-scenes facts about Schindler's List.   

10. Clothing had to be found for 20,000 extras.

The costume designer had to take out advertisements to find enough clothing to suit all the extras, and as a result they found people willing to sell clothing that was from the 30’s and 40’s.

9. When one of the survivors met Ralph Fiennes she began to shake uncontrollably.

Mila Pfefferberg was a survivor from this horrible time and Fiennes resembled his character Amon Goth so much that she couldn’t control her reaction.

Read more trivia about Schindler's List at TVOM.

This video starts out showing you how to catch a wild pumpkin, so you know what direction it's going. You will also learn how to use recycled crust and mourn the existence of pre-combined "pumpkin pie spice." The entire video from You Suck at Cooking is a respite from the anxiety of planning and executing a Thanksgiving feast.   

(YouTube link)

Some of the tips here are legit, while others are not. You must figure that out yourself. And stay for the little song at the end. Honestly, pumpkin pie may seem complicated, but it's as simple as following the instruction on the can of pumpkin. Don't even think about cooking a pumpkin yourself- I've done that, and it's not worth the effort. -via Mashable

When we marvel at a sight and say it "looks like it came from a fairy tale," we have to remember that those fairy tales and their illustrations are based on real places that existed once upon a time. We are just lucky that some of those places survive today. Stone castles? Sure, they can survive war, famine, pestilence, and urban renewal, but the wooden “stave” churches of Norway are a marvel. Build when Christianity was new to the region 900 years ago, some still stand tall today, a testament to how many were erected. They share unique architectural features of the time, and many incorporate Viking symbols along with Christian symbols. See the ten oldest stave churches, plus the largest, at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Bosc d'Anjou)

Right after Toy Story 3 was released, director Lee Unkrich approached Disney about making a movie centered around Dia de los Muertos. They greenlit the project, although there was no story, no characters, and no plan. The years since then have seen the movie that became Coco develop and change, and change again.

The movie’s original story was vastly different than what happens in the final film. “[Originally,] we told a story about an American boy who had a Mexican mother and an American father. And his Mexican mother had passed away,” Unkrich explained. “It was a story about his father taking him down to Mexico to meet the Mexican side of his family, and he ended up being exposed to Dia de los Muertos and going on this fantastical adventure.”

This remained the story until the director suddenly realized something was very, very wrong. “It was ultimately a story about a kid dealing with his grief and learning to say goodbye to the memory of his mother,” Unkrich said. “And I realized we were telling a story that was thematically completely antithetical to what Dia de los Muertos is about. Die de los Muertos is about never letting go.”

Additionally, the original idea also presented the Mexican holiday through an American perspective, so it was scrapped. “We all held hands and said, ‘You know, we’re making a mistake here, this isn’t quite right,’ and we started fresh again,” Unkrich said.

After years of development, the movie evolved to focus on Miguel, a young Mexican boy who runs off to the Land of the Dead to solve the mystery of why his family hates music. And while the story was working and things were progressing, there were still challenges.

Read about more changes to the movie Coco over its six-year development at io9. Coco opens November 22 nationwide.

Boston Dynamics has been working on their Atlas humanoid robot (previously at Neatorama), fine-tuning its balance, agility, and speed. The resulting improvements are approaching uncanny valley territory. Just watch Atlas show off the stuff he can do now!

(YouTube link)

This would be terrifying if Boston Dynamics was still working for DARPA to develop military robots. Or even Google, which is determined to take over the world. But the company was sold to SoftBank, a Japanese corporation. No wonder they taught Atlas to dance. Next, the robot will be serving tea in restaurants and keeping grandma company in the nursing home. If he ever gets a real face, you know it will be cute. -via reddit

When was the last time you saw anyone in the real world wear a cape (not counting trick-or-treaters)? In the Pixar movie The Incredibles, superhero costume designer Edna Mode declares capes forbidden. They are too dangerous. And she's right- in the real world, anyone flying around fighting evildoers risks being tangles or dragged down by a cape. But they live large in movies, because a cape is the most dramatic piece of fabric you can wear.

Pop a cape on a vampire, and you get an invocation of a bat’s wings. Capes can evoke a sense of history, real or imagined, as in the Lord of the Rings movies or any number of period dramas. (Cecil B. DeMille did love a good cape — no male actor has ever worked one better than Yul Brynner in The Ten Commandments.) Capes can signify otherworldliness or intimidation, as they often do with superheroes and witches.

But pop a fur cape on Crawford in The Women or a billowy number on seductress Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, and the message is clear: I am glamorous. I am gorgeous. I am everything you wish you could be. “A cape is the ultimate fashion accessory when you want to make a grand entrance,” explains Perez. “You are instantly regal in a cape.”

Read about the way Hollywood uses capes in both the past and the present at Racked. -via Kottke

You might know that the tartan patterns of Scotland's kilts are very important to the clans who wear them. After all, each clan, or family, has a registered pattern. You might be surprised to find out how recent that custom really is. People criticize movies and TV shows that show Scottish characters further back in history for not wearing the proper tartan, but Scotland's historians will set you straight. The Scottish Tartans Authority has a database of around 8,000 tartan patterns -more than the official registry has- and they study the history of each one. Tartan historian Peter Eslea MacDonald is head of the STA's Research & Collections division, and talked with Collectors Weekly about the misconceptions we have about Scottish tartan and the kilts made from them.

Collectors Weekly: So the concept of the clan tartan was really embraced by both the weavers and the clans in the 19th century?

MacDonald: Correct. Sir Walter Scott, I think, deliberately set out to heal some of the internal Scottish wounds and hatred, to some degree, between the Highlands and the Lowlands. As I say, he developed this pan-Scottish identity. With Scott’s help, Robert Burns became the bard of Scotland, even though he’s got nothing to do with the Highlands, and the Highland dress became the Scottish national dress. Tartans became a Scottish family thing. Wilsons—and others later—just jumped on the bandwagon because it was a great marketing ploy, the company made lots and lots of money.

Not long after that, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria bought Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1848, and the whole love affair of Scottish schmaltz just went into overdrive.

MacDonald tells us about the kilts of much earlier times, how they were different, how they were worn, and how they evolved into the to tartans we know today.

In the latest Simon's Cat cartoon, the cat once again displays typical cat behavior that manages to ruin Simon's day. He's simply trying to install a new shelf on the wall. The cat knows that anything new is for sits. Especially elevated things.

(YouTube link)

And as always, the cat gets his way in the end. -via Tastefully Offensive

This guy starts off with a piece of glass. You can see the slats in the pallet below. Then he pours a bucket of liquid silver nitrate on it. You can immediately see the guy's reflection, but somewhere along the way, the slats underneath disappear and the glass is now a mirror! It will probably be a while before the mirror is dry enough to be picked up. If you want to try doing this yourself, the internet has instructions. -via Digg

When is the right time to switch from Halloween decorations to Christmas decorations? In a perfect world, the Halloween stuff would come down on November 1, and Christmas decorations would go up sometime during Thanksgiving weekend. Redditor savage_irony did the changeover in one fell swoop, and he acts like he's both exhausted and proud of himself. I like the finished product, though. -via reddit

The town of Terlingua, Texas, has been hosting a chili cook-off for over 50 years now. In a state where chili cook-offs are thick as thieves, this one is the biggie, and it comes with a ton of history. The founders split into rival cook-offs (now held at the same time), the rules were established, and there were controversies along the way.

Terlingua, Texas. It’s the Super Bowl of chili cook-offs. You can’t compete unless you’ve gotten yourself qualified by winning smaller competitions, and you have to show picture ID on account of what happened in 2003. A fella by the name of Don Eastep, a Yankee no less, snuck into the proceedings posing as his brother, who’d qualified but couldn’t attend.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, take a listen to this. Picture a desert scene with pickup trucks and campers and about a hundred folks in straw hats and aprons cooking chili on camp stoves. Now, our friend here, he’d set up his cooking area, but he wasn’t cooking. He was strolling around sipping a koozie-clad cold one and chitchatting. He’d eventually ask folks for a taste of their chili in a Styrofoam cup, and most of the cooks obliged. He took those samples and dumped them into his own pot. He got enough to enter the contest. And he won. Yep. He won the whole dang deal.

That certainly wasn't the first, or the last spectacular controversy at the Terlingua Chili Cook-off. Matthew Diffee attended the 50th Terlingua Chili Cook-off in 2016 and brings us a condensed but lavishly illustrated explanation and history of Texas' premiere chili event at Texas Monthly. -Thanks, Walter!

(Image credit Matthew Diffee)

PS: If you want a deep dive into the founding and first split of the Terlingua Chili Cook-off, here is the story as it happened, from 1967, part one and part two.

The 2009 move Up in the Air stars George Clooney as a frequent flyer who lays off workers for a living. That's sounds depressing, but the film is a story of emotional redemption that tugs at your heartstrings. It was both a critical and box office success. If you liked Up in the Air, you'll appreciate learning some of what went on behind the scenes.

10. Some of the fired people are not actors.

The director decided to use real people to get real emotions. You can tell who the actors are and who the real people are since the latter have no interaction at all with Clooney and Kendrick, as the director thought this would freak them out.

8. Clooney’s wardrobe for the movie fits into one suitcase.

That definitely suits the idea of his character and fits in with the backpack speech he gives throughout the movie.

There's more trivia about Up in the Air at TVOM.