Passwords can stress you out if you let them. My health insurance exchange requires a password to be changed every so often, and won’t accept any that I’ve used before, plus you have to remember the old one to set a new one. I have trouble remembering any passwords that have been changed, so it’s good that my computer remembers for me. But I also need a password to boot up the computer. And if I need to print something, I must go to the library, and when I’m asked for a password for email or whatever, I am lost. Sure, a password must be secure, but it must also be something you can remember. Admin/password seems easy to remember. I’ll have to use that sometime, although some sites might not like me going around calling myself “admin.” This is the latest from CommitStrip.
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
(Image credit: Krisse)
Ever hear the expression “I never forget a face”? Well, there are some people who never remember a face, and there’s a reason for it— a loose connection in the brain.
BRAIN POWER
There’s a part of your brain that processes faces. It’s located, according to MIT scientist Nancy Kanwisher, in the area “just behind and underneath, and a bit from your right ear.” It’s called the fusiform gyrus. (The gyrus is a ridge in the brain, and fusiform describes its shape— elongated and tapered at both ends.) Whenever you see someone you know, the fusiform gyrus tells you, “That’s Bob.” It also sends out messages to other parts of the body that add emotions to the information, such as “I like Bob. He’s my friend.” But what happens when an accident, illness, or hereditary gene disconnects the wiring between the fusiform gyrus and other parts of the brain?
Party time! Excellent! This Wayne and Garth is actually former Miss Delaware Kate Banaszak with her Irish Wolfhound Kellan. That’s a big dog! Commenters were speculating about the breed when WhiteheadJ suggested:
Could've been a Great Dana Carvey.
Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. -via reddit
Army (and/or Navy) surplus stores were once wonderful places to find bargains on well-made goods, if they have something you need or want. There aren’t nearly as many of them as there used to be. When I was a kid, almost every town had at least one. When a war is over or when the military changes the design of weapons, uniforms, tents, tools, or whatever, the leftovers go for pennies on the dollar. The surplus store owes its nationwide popularity to one person, Francis Bannerman. Yes, that the same Francis Bannerman who built that castle on an island in New York.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Francis (who, let’s keep in mind, was only 14 years old) used profits from his scrap metal business to acquire large lots of military surplus at government auctions. One particularly successful acquisition netted him over 11,000 captured Confederate guns. Because the teenage entrepreneur bought this gear at such heavily discounted prices, he was able to mark it up so the products remained a bargain for the customer, while still netting himself a nice profit.
Plenty of entrepreneurs followed Bannerman’s example in the golden age of military surplus stores. You can read the entire history of the phenomenon at the Art of Manliness. -Thanks, John Farrier!
Sometimes you can combine two problems to make a solution. The NYC Feral Cat Initiative does a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program, but some feral cats can’t be returned because their territory turned into a dangerous construction site. Adult feral cats often cannot adjust to being pets, so adoption isn’t the answer. Meanwhile, the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan had a rodent problem, and extermination chemicals weren’t doing the job. Maybe the rats have become immune. The solution was to send some of the feral cats to the Javits Center, where they took over pest control duties.
Although the cats are reportedly happy at the convention center, being fed in rotation by staff members who volunteer to bring in food, half a dozen of the felines that came from the FCI’s TNR program have found new adoptive homes during their stay at the Javits Center, including two kittens. The felines do their part to keep rodent populations in check, both by preying upon them and also by scaring them off with their scent. Convention center managers like this deal as well, because they can save money and avoid using dangerous pesticides on the property.
Sylvester, Alfreda, Mama Cat, and Ginger are living well, for feral cats. Read more about the program at Inhabitat. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Maggie O’Neill/NYC Feral Cat Initiative)
Norwegian grandmaster and world champion Magnus Carlsen was in New York and went to watch the old guys playing chess in the park. One of them beat his manager pretty badly, so Carlsen sat down and proceeded to checkmate in ten moves. The old guys play so many people they don’t look too closely at them, so it was a surprise.
But that’s only the beginning of what’s going on in this video. Liv Tyler is there, not saying anything until the end. There’s a guy with unbelievable teeth. And a squirrel gives us a priceless photobomb. Just another day in Washington Square Park. -via reddit
We all know politics is a dirty business, and here we have an overly literal illustration of that concept. Once upon a time, before modern plumbing, just about everyone used an outhouse of some sort. Royalty was never seen making the walk to outdoor facilities, though, because they had the facilities brought to them. That, of course, involved servants. The “servants” who attended to the royal toilet activities were a different breed than most royal serfs.
Those precious moments of alone time in the bathroom are priceless to many of us, and yet strangely enough, it was one of the few luxuries the King and Queen of England could not afford. Until as recently as the 20th century, the British monarchy appointed what was known as the “Groom of the Stool”, a courtier responsible for assisting them in the performance of “bodily functions of excretion and ablution”. And this wasn’t the role of any ordinary household servant. The appointment was offered to Dukes and Duchesses, Earls and Lords, Count and Viscounts– even future Prime Ministers of England, who willingly took a job that more or less entailed wiping the King’s bottom…
The reasons why are laid out at Messy Messy Chic, and may explain some of our more vulgar phrases that refer to ambitious employees and social climbers.
When we say pencil lead, we mean graphite, because that’s what a pencil has inside. In this video, we find out where graphite comes from and how it gets into the middle of a pencil.
All interesting stuff, but now I want to know about the part they left out. Whose idea was it to encase graphite in wood to make a pencil? -via The Kid Should See This
For the missing history of pencil development, Martin Veneroso suggested Brain Pickings and romojoke suggested Wikipedia, both of which are quite interesting.
It all started in 1965, when Janice Parker bought a dress for her daughter Diana. She loved the dress and insisted on wearing it for her picture day in kindergarten. Her five younger sisters liked the dress, too, and they each wore it for picture day when they went through kindergarten. And so did their daughters. And then their granddaughters.
It's held up remarkably well. Sure, there are some rips and tears, but nothing that can't be easily fixed.
Of course, sometimes the girls would complain. The dress isn't the definition of current style and some of them said they were teased. But, they came around and the tradition continued.
That's three generations of sisters and cousins. The latest girl in the family didn’t want to wear the dress, or any dress. But she did, along with pants and a baseball cap, so the tradition can continue. -via Fark
(Image credit: Diana Orr)
You are in the dentist’s office, getting a foot rub. Then you get a song to go with it. This guy is a delight, as he puts his own spin on the song “Sugartime” most famously recorded by the McGuire Sisters in 1958. You know the song, but you never expected to hear it from a yodeling Muslim dentist. Whoever he is, I’d buy his album. If he had one.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work in a fire observation tower? The profession of fire spotter is dying out as satellites take over, but there are a few places left where a human keeps watch over vast areas of wilderness. Philip Connors is one of them. He spends months out of the year all alone, five miles from the nearest road, without running water or electricity, keeping an eye out for fire in the Gila National Forest.
It is a world of extremes. Having spent each fire season for nearly a decade in my little glass-walled perch, I’ve become acquainted with the look and feel of the border highlands each week of each month, from April through August: the brutal gales of spring, when a roar off the desert gusts over seventy miles an hour and the occasional snow squall turns my peak white; the dawning of summer in late May, when the wind abates and the aphids hatch and ladybugs emerge in great clouds from their hibernation; the fires of June, when dry lightning connects with the hills, sparking smokes that fill the air with the sweet smell of burning pine; the tremendous storms of July, when the thunder makes me flinch as if from the threat of a punch; and the blessed indolence of August, when the meadows bloom with wildflowers and the creeks run again, the rains having turned my world a dozen different shades of green. I’ve seen fires burn so hot they made their own weather; I’ve watched deer and elk frolic in the meadow below me and pine trees explode in a blue ball of smoke. If there’s a better job anywhere on the planet, I’d like to know about it.
Connors sees more fires than you might imagine, but has plenty of time for introspection. So it makes sense that he’s also a writer. Read about the life of a fire lookout at Latham’s Quarterly. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters)
The Walking Dead returns this Sunday night for season seven, and is expected to begin with the resolution of the cliffhanger with which they ended season six. The new bad guy has captured eleven of our main characters and killed one of them -but the audience did not get to see who it was. Continue reading for the scuttlebutt on who might die, and why (which contains spoilers for those not current with the show). Otherwise, leave your predictions in the poll below. You may select more than one answer, but be reasonable and don’t select all of them.
Who came up with the idea of traveling back in time to kill Hitler as an infant, anyway? In this video, we find out that the concept of a time machine is pretty recent in the scheme of things. However, the concept of using it to kill Hitler is older then you think.
Vox spoke to author James Gleick, who wrote Time Travel: A History, about the possibility of changing history by killing Adolph Hitler before he came to power, or even before he could fight back. Would you do it? Even assuming time travel was possible, could you do it? Not only does the question bring out certain personality traits in those discussing it, it also delves into one’s understanding of the nature of time. -Thanks, Phil Edwards!
The real kicker in this comic from Idan Schneider at C-section Comics is the bonus panel graph at the end. Keep buying those lottery tickets! -via Geeks Are Sexy
Two strange cats will fight tooth and claw over something to eat. Two cats that live together, and are possibly related, are a little more civilized. Still, they are both hungry and would like to have the milk to themselves.
Clues from the original Facebook post lead one to think these cats are in Russia. My cats don’t get milk as a rule, but they tend to firmly but politely nudge each other away from canned food if they get a chance, so I separate them in different rooms for supper. Otherwise, Marshmallow would never get her full portion. -via Metafilter