Every year, ventriloquists, or vents, meet for the annual Vent Haven Ventriloquist ConVENTion at the Holiday Inn in Erlanger, Kentucky, home of the Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum. Ventriloquism is an art form that's a humorous conversation between a performer and a puppet, or dummy. The magic happens when all eyes are on the dummy, while the vent is trying his best to speak without moving his lips. Ventriloquism was a standard type of entertainment in the vaudeville days, but is rapidly dying out in the age of movies and computer-generated magic. Today's ventriloquists perform on cruise ships and in churches or children's hospitals, or just among friends for the fun of it.

Mina Tavakoli attended the 2024 convention and got to know the attendees. They fell into two main groups: older men who have been vents for many years and all know each other, and children who want to learn the art, along with their families. She introduces us to long-time vents and their dummies and attended classes with those just starting to learn how to "throw their voice." Her story is the type of journalism that makes a very niche activity you never thought much about seem absolutely fascinating. Read about the masters of ventriloquism and the youngsters who are learning it at N+1. -via Metafilter

Designer and artist Syd Mead worked with many companies to create the look of the modern world, but he is best known for designing the futuristic looks of movies such as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, Tron, 2010, Short Circuit, and Aliens, among others. Mead died in 2019 at the age of 86.

One of the things Mead did in his spare time was to create gingerbread structures. The Syd Mead Archive found a video that they labeled as from 1990, but Mead himself introduces it as for "the 1992-91 Christmas and New Year's season." At any rate, this is no ordinary gingerbread house. It's a fantasy castle designed the way you'd expect Mead to do it. He sketched the architectural plans, then made a prototype of foamcore. Only when the design was right did he bake gingerbread. In the video, he shows us how to make curved walls and corners by working quickly with hot gingerbread before it turns crispy, using his foamcore prototype as a mold. Everything is thoroughly iced and decorated, even the trees. The finished castle is quite stunning. -via Boing Boing

Scientists have determined that modern humans (Homo sapiens) migrated out of Africa several times and then died out in Europe and the Middle East before they could populate the world. New DNA studies indicate that a migration of modern humans left Africa about 48,000 years ago and finally thrived in Europe, because they interbred with Neanderthals. However, that population died out after a few thousand years, and so did the Neanderthals. But their descendants had already moved on to Asia and other parts of the world where they survived. Eventually, these later generations migrated back to Europe.

Along the way, Homo sapiens genes became dominant, with only traces of DNA from Homo neanderthalensis remaining. But that DNA must have been crucial to survival, possibly allowing humans to resist disease. Of course, this theory doesn't say anything about the modern humans who stayed in Africa. Most sub-Saharan Africans don't carry any Neanderthal DNA. But without Neanderthal DNA, humans might even today be restricted to the African homeland. Read more about this discovery in an article from the BBC.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: hairymuseummatt/DrMikeBaxter)

Once upon a time in America, it was fairly common for churches to have a bowling alley in their basements. They were most common in the Midwest and parts of the Northeast. And why not? They provided a place for young people to meet and have fun, a wholesome activity for families, and were an alternative to parishoners hanging out in gambling dens. Some were a way to get around local liquor laws, since Christian denominations vary widely in their stances on drinking.

The first church bowling alleys were built in the 1860s and served as community gathering places for German immigrants. The trend peaked during the 1940s and '50s, when bowling was something everyone did. But those basement alleys were mostly dismantled in the 1980s and '90s. That means that the less than 200 that remain are mostly time capsules of retro design and ambience. Messy Nessy Chic takes us through the history of church basement bowling, and shares a list of quite a few that you can still visit today. 

(Image credit: Chris Yunker)

How in the world did this happen? In posting this image, redditor Every_Commercial556 quoted the driver as saying, "I backed into this and Idk what happened- help." Is there something she's not telling us? Is there a hidden ramp somewhere? Did her car drop out of a tree?   

Redditor Hriibek stepped in to save the day with a representation in text that's as good as any video in explaining what happened.

(car and a yellow pole)
-> CAR |
-> CAR/
-> CAR_
-> CA_R
"oh sh*t, I've hit something" starts going forwad
<- CA/R
<- CA|R

Mystery solved.

If you've ever wondered what to do with all those line keys on your keyboard, this is what they are for. Hriibek was lauded by hundreds for his clear explanation.

Next up, let's visualize how the car was removed from the post. That's not so difficult, since tow trucks have winches that will lift up a back end easily, or even a broken bollard. Then you have to visualize the laughs from all the guys at the garage when this car was towed in.

(Image credit: Every_Commercial556)

As cool as the new Sora is, gymnastics is still very much the Turing test for AI video.

1/4 pic.twitter.com/X78dNzusNU

— Deedy (@deedydas) December 10, 2024

AI should be forgiven, since very few people have mastered gymnastics. And while we can laugh at the body horror these videos show us, there's something comforting about knowing that "intelligent" machines aren't yet perfect. I made the joke that you can tell this is AI because gymnasts don't perform en pointe, as if you couldn't tell by the arms, legs, and torso constantly changing places. At about nine seconds in, the gymnast's head flies off her body and quickly reattaches. Also notice the photographer in the back. He appears in two different places, and has four hands.

This video and three others were generated under prompts from Deedy Das using OpenAI's new Sora AI video generator. Das explained that Sora is an improvement over other video generators when it comes to gymnastics, but machines still don't understand the physics of how human bodies work at higher speeds. Trained on existing gymnastics videos, the algorithm predicts the next frame of video based on the current and previous frames, not by common sense, which human brains still excel in. Das explained how it all goes so wrong Ars Technica. Meanwhile, keep going to see the other three videos Das produced.

The kids called him "Hot Dog Santa" but his real name was Axel Bjorklund. Bjorklund came to Boston from Sweden in 1889 and sold hot dogs on the street. He never got rich, or even ahead, selling street food, but was always generous to the hungry children of Boston's North End. Their immigrant families started out poor, and were even further impoverished or even orphaned by the Spanish flu pandemic.

On Christmas Day in 1921, Bjorklund set up his hot dog cart and gave away hot dogs to 500 children. The Christmas giveaway became a tradition, and grew until Bjorklund was giving away 3,000 hot dogs every year. Not that he could afford it- in later years, he asked for donations keep up the annual giveaway. But he didn't ask for help for himself as his health deteriorated. Read about the the old-fashioned generosity of Axel Bjorklund, the Hot Dog Santa, at Fishwrap. -via Strange Company

Adolf Hitler proudly hosted the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a demonstration of German racial superiority. Jews were not allowed to compete for Germany, and Jewish athletes from other countries boycotted the games or were barred by their countries to avoid upsetting Hitler. It was another 36 years before Germany got another chance to host the Olympics, this time as West Germany. The 1972 Munich Olympics gave us global sports stars Mark Spitz and Olga Korbut, and the German authorities were very determined to not resemble a police state. This led to a certain lack of security, and suddenly, a Palestinian militant group called Black September set upon the Israeli athletic team.

With the entire world watching, West Germany was thrust into the ongoing struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the games were halted -but only for a short time. German police were ill-equipped to deal with the situation, which went from bad to worse to a complete disaster. Tom Blank of Weird History explains what really happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics.  

Just as all domestic dogs are descended from wolves, the cows we know today descended from wild aurochs that once populated Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Around 10,000 years ago, humans decided they would domesticate aurochs because they would be useful for pulling heavy weights and producing milk. Besides that, they were delicious. But you have to wonder how that was accomplished. Aurochs were huge, with bulls about six feet high at the shoulder. They were also aggressive, strong, and fearless. A dead auroch could provide plenty of meals, but a live one would be very difficult to capture, much less keep. People living on the other side of the world knew better than to even try to domesticate bison.

There are other mysteries about how we domesticated aurochs and ended up with cows. Genetic studies have shown that domesticated cattle and wild aurochs interbred in Europe up through the Middle Ages. Was that on purpose, and how did cattle breeders handle it? The last wild auroch died in 1627, but can we really say the auroch is extinct when all our domestic cattle are their descendants? Read what we know about the domestication of wild aurochs and how selective breeding turned them into cattle at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Malene Thyssen)

After six epic films and a spinoff TV series, do audiences want more stories mined from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? Sure they do! A new film centered around the character Gollum is in the works, and should be in theaters in 2026. There are tons of people who will go see any movie having anything to do with The Lord of the Rings, especially one written and produced by Peter Jackson. The movie, tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, will be directed by Gollum himself, Andy Serkis.

But is Gollum the best character to hang a spinoff film on? We know it will be a prequel, because we've already seen Gollum's end. That in itself restricts what can be done with the character. Yes, Smeagol will be involved, too, as we'll get a closeup of the metamorphosis that Gollum goes through. But is there anything new to be revealed there? Are we capable of rooting for Gollum? These and other questions are explored in depth by The Art Of Storytelling (previously at Neatorama). He has a way of explaining the nuts and bolts of telling a story that we recognize intuitively, but never really thought about.

An Ancient Egyptian text states;

I am one that becomes two,
I am two that becomes four,
I am four that becomes eight,
Then I am One again.

The Great Pyramid has 8 sides of which can only be seen during the Spring & Autumnal Equinoxes.

As Above So Below
🔺️🔺️🔺️🌓 #equinox pic.twitter.com/uwJTwBIZhH

— RN Vooght 𓁀𓀳 𓁢 𓂀 (@VooghtRN) March 20, 2023

We are used to thinking of the pyramids of Egypt as having four perfect identical sides, but did you know that actually have eight? Each of the four sides is ever-so-slightly indented so that the structure is subtly the shape of a star. All three pyramids at Giza are concave octagonal pyramids. The Great Pyramid appeared to be merely four-sided when it was completed, due to a covering of casing stones designed to align the sides. But most of those casing stones were lost when a massive earthquake hit in the year 1303.  

The concavity of the pyramid sides wasn't evident until we had aerial photography to capture the pyramids from above. A study from Akio Kato at the Kanagawa University in Japan determined that the indentation is 11 degrees, and the anomaly added much-needed stability to the pyramids. It's one of the reasons we still have them today. Smaller pyramids have been identified as possible prototypes, or tests, for the structural integrity of the Giza pyramids. Read more about the concave octagonal pyramids of Giza and why they were built that way. -via Strange Company

The word "Christmas" was uttered in the Star Trek universe, but only on very rare occasions, and this project doesn't use any TV footage. But "Kahn!" was said an awful lot in the 1982 movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So when you listen to this supercut, substitute "Christmas" for "Kahn!" and you'll be able to follow along just fine.

John C. Worsley (previously at Neatorama) has released his annual holiday supercut featuring the beloved characters of Star Trek. He titled this year's entry Holiday Trek: The Motion Pictures (Captain Please Come Home). The video clips are from the feature films that followed the short-lived original series and cemented Star Trek's enduring fandom. The song that provides the backbone of this lunacy is the 1963 holiday staple "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love. The "singers" are credited as James T. Kirk and the Original Crew, The Nexus, and The Next Genettes. Trek fans will understand.

The evolution of vampire movies seems to have followed two parallel tracks. The 1931 movie Dracula made Bela Lugosi the archetype vampire image for a series of Universal films and pop culture characters like Count Chocula that followed. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror used the same source material and spawned two remakes, the latest of which will open nationwide on Christmas Day, plus a movie about the making of the original movie.

The 1922 Nosferatu was the first production of the new German movie company Prana-Film, and as such, they spent as much money promoting the film as they did making it. The first newspaper reviews of the film were more about the party thrown after the premiere than about the film itself. The company soon went bankrupt, and it's a miracle that we have any existing copies of the film at all. That can't be said about earlier films based on the novel Dracula. Read up on the production of Nosferatu in a trivia list at Mental Floss. The most bizarre story is about the 1979 Werner Herzog remake, the one with all the rats.

There are special people who go to a pet shelter and ask about the cat (or dog) who has been there the longest. The reasons vary, but it's often just because they are older than other adoptable pets. Luna was just such a cat, plus her background was tragic. She had spent her twelve years with a cat hoarder who kept her in a cage. Luna had some health problems, too, as a result of her confined lifestyle. Living in a shelter was better, but she was still in a cage by necessity.

Julie Nashawaty makes a living taking care of other people's pets. For her own household, she only adopts senior cats. She decided to take a chance on Luna, since she looked at the situation from the cat's point of view. Luna needed to learn what a normal life was. There's a saying that "pets are only with us for a short while, but we are with them for their whole life." For Luna, that meant what was left of her life, and Julie knew that she deserved something better than what she'd already experienced, even if it was only for a short time. You'll see in this video that Luna was worth taking a chance.

Wildlife photographer Milko Marchetti is the top winner at this year's Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards for taking this picture of the back end of a squirrel. Titled "Stuck Squirrel," it only appears to be stuck. Marchetti caught the photo at just the right instant as the squirrel was diving into its nest. The photographer, knowing how the image came about, didn't see the humor in it, but when everyone he showed it to laughed, he decided to enter it into the annual competition.

Click to the right on the image above to see winners in the various categories of the competition. You'll see a fox with the zoomies, kissing owls, and a fish chasing an eagle. Read the stories behind these pictures and the photographers who captured them at just the right time in the winner's gallery, which also includes the highly commended photographs. My favorite of those is the cheetah playing hide and seek. See even more in the finalists' gallery.