Jordan Peele took the cinema world by storm when he wrote and directed Get Out. He followed that up with Us. Both horror films had a major twists, which viewers, reviewers, and media all tried to keep secret because they added so much to the experience. His third film is Nope, and everyone decided to just not talk about the plot or what it's about because we figured there would be a twist. But when it was released, they didn't talk about it because no one understood it even after seeing it. It's about aliens, apparently. Is it horror? Is it a science fiction film? A Western? This Honest Trailer makes it clear that Nope is all three. The video does contain spoilers, but it can't really describe the movie in ways we are used to. That doesn't mean Nope isn't a good movie. Both reviewers and audiences generally like it as a clever satire full of delightful moments, if not as terrifying as Peele's first two films. If he keeps switching out our expectations like that while giving audiences a good time, I will look forward to a lot more from Jordan Peele. 

An email storm or “replyallcalypse” is when someone sends an email message to a list when they meant to send it to one person. Or instead of looking up that one person's email address, they reply to an old message from them sent to a list and use "reply all" instead of "reply." The storm gains steam as many people respond and point out the error or else want to be taken off the list, but they also use "reply all." We reported on one such storm from Berkeley a few years ago. But now it's happened to an even bigger list.

The US Air Force has an email address that can send a notice to everyone with an Air Force address. This can be useful for some things, like explaining a new policy that applies to all USAF members. But one would think that an address like that would be restricted as to who can use it. Instead, a clerical employee at Ramstein AFB in Germany requested help with a computer issue using the universal address instead of her department email list. Suddenly the entire Air Force worldwide knew that she couldn't remove an outdated logo from her screen. Replies came in from all over. One was from Lt. Colonel Matthew S. Judd at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio.

Good Morning, I’m sorry to hear about your computer issue, I really have no idea what your issue is or have a good solution to the problem, but here’s a shot anyway:

Unplug device, head for the second story, open window and throw it out the window, should get rid of the green screen. I hope this helps.   

The US Air Force has 328,255 active personnel. You can imagine how many responded to the original email using "reply all," which surely disrupted official business for some time. Read more about the Air Force SNAFU at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Airman 1st Class Melissa Copeland)

Here's another Star Trek supercut from John DiMarco (previously at Neatorama) with no Kirk, Spock, or other characters from the original series. This is about the Borg, which the Federation didn't encounter until Star Trek: The Next Generation. But they keep coming back to all the subsequent series. The Borg keep trying to tell us that we will be assimilated and resistance is futile, but we all know better. We can resist all we want, or we can be assimilated and then come back to our normal selves; it's been done a lot. Hearing it repeated so many times makes the word "futile" seem altogether odd. And then we see that Seven of Nine (and a couple of other characters) pronounce it like an American in Star Trek: Voyager. That's kind of jarring after we've heard the Borg pronounce the word in British English for so many years. -via Laughing Squid

'Vampire' in Poland Found Buried With a Sickle to Prevent The Rise of The Dead https://t.co/1M8cxUKt7w

— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) September 5, 2022

We've reported on archaeological digs unearthing graves that showed signs that the deceased was a suspected vampire in Bulgaria, Ireland, and Italy. Now a grave has been discovered in Poland that just screams of vampire fears. A 17th-century cemetery in the village of Pień has yielded a female skeleton buried with a sickle placed across her neck, in a manner that would cut her head off if she tried to rise from her supine position. In addition, a padlock was placed on one of her toes. They really didn't want this woman to come back.

The odd burial suggests that the woman was suspected of being a vampire even before she was buried. Archaeologists can also tell that she was wealthy due to her clothing. Vampires were a well-known myth in Poland going back as far as the 11th century. You can see quite a few pictures of the skeleton as it was discovered at ScienceAlert.  -Thanks, WTM!

Tom Scott is apparently done with the US for now, and is back in Britain. The Royal Albert Hall in London, an oval-shaped concert hall with a wrought iron and glass dome, was built in 1870. It looked spectacular, but the acoustics were terrible. The glass dome was so expensive and so heavy that replacing it with something else was out of the question, so they started adding features to dampen the echo. That worked, but made the ceiling rather complicated over time. Get a good look at it here. In this video we get a rundown of how the roof was outfitted to alleviate the echo, which is totally worth it to see Tom's vertigo as he walks across the air vent at the top of the hall, 46 feet above the floor. Hey, I'd be a bit reticent to walk on that bouncy grid myself.

The comedy troupe Monty Python succeeded by taking absurdity to the next level, over and over again, while other comedy groups of the era were trying to be cool, hip, and edgy. A lot of that absurdity came from desperation. When a skit ended without a logical resolution, we attributed it to their normal absurdity when it was often a matter of the members running out of ideas. They were smart enough to let us believe those strange twists and turns were deliberate. In the case of the movie Monty Python and the Hoy Grail, they turned a lack of money into comedy gold by emphasizing their workarounds instead of hiding them.

See 15 pictofacts that will take you behind the scenes and reveal just how smart these six guys really were in pulling off classic comedy not just in spite of their deficits, but because of them, at Cracked.

In 35 years, a simple hobby can turn into something amazing. Bill Shea and his son Patrick of Hubbardston, Massachusetts, saw the movie Back to the Future in 1985, and were thoroughly charmed. They started collecting memorabilia from the film, including quite a few actual movie props as they became available. The collection was added to exponentially as the two sequels came about. Now they have their Back to the Future collection in what they call "The BTTF Barn." The exhibits include three DeLoreans. The first was a car they modified to resemble the time machine. The second was actually used in filming. The third was, too, although it was destroyed at the end of the third movie. So they put it back together!  

The Sheas' museum takes groups on guided tours by appointment, and they are booked up most weekends through the fall. Guests are asked to make donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. -via Boing Boing

What perfectly pampered pooch wouldn't want a chew toy modeled after a high heel belonging to the queen of country music? Dolly Parton has loaned her name to a lot of products, and now that includes a line of dog clothing and accessories called Doggy Parton. Parton has an ulterior motive. The sale of these products will help support Willa B. Farms Animal Rescue in Old Hickory, Tennessee. Doggy Parton includes dog clothing that will make your dog look and feel like a rhinestone cowboy or a country music queen. Yes, that includes wigs.



The clothing is not all pink; there are red and blue accessories for dogs with more masculine tastes, and harnesses and leashes, too. Some Doggy Parton items are already available through Amazon. The Doggy Parton website is new and hasn't got its inventory listed yet. Meanwhile, you can peruse some products at Instagram. -via Mental Floss

I photoshop Leatherface into a black and white photo everyday until I forget. Day 145. pic.twitter.com/88ROOHIX1r

— Donnie Gourdman 🎃 (@DonnieGoodman_) July 2, 2022

Early this year, Donnie Goodman gave himself a daily challenge: Photoshop Leatherface, the monster from the 1974 movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, into a totally unrelated scene rendered in black and white. These are often historical photos or well-known movies. As of today, he is up to photo #208. You can see an archive of the first 100 of them here, but you may have to resort to Google for the rest of them. 

I photoshop Leatherface into a black and white picture everyday until I forget. Day 25. pic.twitter.com/Ok0z3F4q90

— Donnie Gourdman 🎃 (@DonnieGoodman_) March 4, 2022

You'll see Leatherface as a sports star, rock star, an action movie hero, various politicians, background characters, even other movie villains. The more implausible, the better! Let's see how long Goodman can continue doing this every day by following his Twitter feed. -via Metafilter

Two disparate but highly recognizable pop culture worlds, deftly mashed up, pretty much defines what the internet should be. The TV series Breaking Bad ended nine years ago, but the tension between the main characters still speaks to us, even when they are racing down the Rainbow Road. This clip of meth maker Walter White and his sidekick Jesse Pinkman as characters in Mario Kart Wii is only a half a minute long, but you know there was a lot of labor that went into making it work this well. The facial expressions and the timing are perfect! -via Boing Boing

The launch of NASA's Artemis 1 mission that was canceled on Monday has been re-scheduled for today, September 3, at 2:17. Everyone at NASA and the many related industries that are involved are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. The launch window today is only two hours; if the rocket doesn't take off for any reason, the next opportunity will be weeks away. No one is crossing their fingers harder than John Giles, who is in charge of getting the rocket from its assembly building to the launch pad.  

"I jokingly told them when we went to the pad and dropped it off this time, I went to my management and said, 'I'm not bringing it back. It stays here,'" he told Mashable in an interview before Monday's attempted launch. "'You gotta launch it because I'm not gonna take it back to the VAB.'"

It's hard to overestimate the hassle that Giles' crew goes through to transport the rocket from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad four miles away. The crawler that carries the rocket is 60 years old and has had to carry the 18-million-pound rocket in six round trips over the past two years already. The journey takes eight hours, and drivers have to switch out every hour because the trip is so exhausting. Read more about the crawler crew and their unenviable task at Mashable. -via The Byte

(Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston)

Update: The launch was again delayed, probably for months, so Giles and his crew will have to drive the rocket back to the garage.

If you were to name American serial killers, you'd say Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and a couple of others before you would think of Richard Trenton Chase, if you remember him at all. In 1977 and 1978, he shot and killed six people in Sacramento in different incidences and misused their corpses, including drinking their blood. You can read about the murders he committed at Wikipedia, although they are grisly. An article at Cracked goes into Chase's extreme mental illness and how it manifested in his life.

Chase showed so many red flags that 21st century readers would be astonished that he was walking the streets at all. At one time, he was institutionalized because he injected rabbit's blood into himself. While at the mental hospital, he continued his bizarre behavior by drinking the blood of birds and dogs. But they discharged him! Read about Chase's lifelong mental illnesses that eventually led to murder at Cracked, but be warned it may be nightmare-inducing.

Nicolò Falcone of Venice, Italy, won the 2015 Monopoly World Championship. He is the reigning champion because they haven't held a world title match since then, thanks to COVID-19. He entered a local competition with friends and came in third while his friend won first place, but after that, as he climbed the rankings of the tournaments, he won over and over. By the time he got to the world championship tournament in China, he was treated like a celebrity. What do you do after you win the world championship? You go to work for Comedy Central, apparently. Standup comedy was Falcone's other hobby; he just needed a way to get their attention.

In an article at the Guardian, Falcone gives readers some tips on how to win a game of Monopoly, like avoiding jail in the early part of the game, but staying in jail later on. He has more tips for players, but one might think he's not telling us everything he knows about Monopoly, because he plans to become the world's first two-time Monopoly champ. -via Boing Boing

Musicians from all over the world collaborated on a poignant version of the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The various styles and languages in the video are seamlessly woven together to make it a work of art. This project from Playing for Change (previously at Neatorama) is in support of relatives of missing people around the world for International Day of the Disappeared, which was August 30. The "disappeared" refers to those who have vanished due to war, violence, crime, displacement, and other global woes. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has a page set up for more information about those missing people, which also contains a list of the musicians in this video. -via Nag on the Lake

Imagine a scenario in which you are out in the wilderness, say, in a national park, using a horse to carry stuff because there are no roads. And the horse dies. Well, you have to continue on foot, but there's a horse carcass in a national park now, with tourists hiking by occasionally. If you leave the horse there, it will attract bears to the hiking trail. What do you do about it?

That very scenario comes with instructions from United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. They recommend explosives. A guideline shows how many pounds of explosives to set underneath each body part. If it's not possible to set them underneath the animal, you can put them on top, but you'll need an entire 55-pound box of explosives. They also recommend removing the horse's shoes before detonation. The goal is "obliteration" of the carcass, but under certain circumstances, "dispersal" of body parts is acceptable.  -via Metafilter

See also: The Exploding Whale.