Once upon a time, a person's home was wherever they built it, and the places that didn't have homes were considered shared land. Then came the concept of purchasing private property and land grants and deeds, and poor people were out of luck. But in that transition period, people came up with schemes to work around that. One was the concept of tŷ unnos, a Welsh term meaning "house built in one night." It became a tradition that if one were to build an entire home in one night before the sun came up, they would own that house, plus however much land they could toss an axe to.

Young people would plan their adventures in building for a long time, making some components and gathering construction materials. Then on the planned night, all their friends and family would begin building when the sun set. These crude structures were merely four walls with a door and a roof, with a chimney because a fire was necessary. After the household was established, the tŷ unnos would be replaced by something more substantial. This tradition was not limited to Wales, though. A similar scheme existed under different names in Ireland, Italy, France, and in Turkey. Read about tŷ unnos and how that worked at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Steve Daniels)

When the US president goes anywhere, the security involved is a logistics nightmare involving hundreds of people. You deal with that when there's a diplomatic reason for travel, but when the Commander in Chief needs a weekend to relax and refresh or a summer vacation, it's a lot easier to have a spot already in place with permanent security. Security is important, but that spot also has to be nice enough so that the president will want to stay there. That's how Camp David was born in the 1930s. The facility is also perfect for hosting meetings with other heads of state for the same reasons, especially for extended meetings like peace talks. Half as Interesting explains the history of Camp David, plus the measures taken to keep it feeling like a luxury resort to its guests while maintaining security that makes a supermax prison look weak. It's a delicate balancing act, but someone has to do it.  

Once upon a time, one requirement for an FCC broadcast license was a certain amount of airtime dedicated to serving the public. TV networks fulfilled this requirement by bringing us the news, 15 minutes of it, at 6 PM. When that was expanded to 30 minutes in September of 1963, all the ad slots were sold immediately. But the networks maintained that TV news was a loss, as it was expensive to run a journalism department that did nothing else. Then on November 22, 1963, 60 years ago today, President John F.Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

All the networks ran coverage of the assassination, the aftermath, and the funeral non-stop for days, with no ad breaks. That cost the networks millions of dollars in lost ad revenue, but it garnered them the goodwill of the public, and even more important, got everyone to tune into the nightly news and other news shows that were gradually added. TV networks still let us think that the news was a public service and a financial loss for years afterward, even as each new news show became more profitable. Read how the business of news broadcasting was a moneymaker long before we knew at the Conversation.  -via Damn Interesting  

(Image credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News)

If the Disney+ series Kenobi had been produced in the 1980s, it would have been on network TV and be squeezed between The Incredible Hulk and MacGyver. Ewan McGregor (born in 1971) would have been too young for the role, but Sir Alec Guinness was still around in the 1980s. Considering how he felt about Star Wars, they would have had a hard time getting him for the role. Oh yeah, in case you haven't seen Kenobi, this video contains spoilers. I haven't seen it either, but when you live on the internet, spoilers just come with the territory.

What really makes this retro TV intro perfect is the original theme song, called "Be the One" by Auralnauts, with guitar and vocals by Scott Beetley. The feedback to the TV intro made that clear, so Auralnauts went ahead and made a full music video for the song, by mixing in video clips from the very 1980s music video for "The Unforgiven" by Robert Tepper.  



Considering the audio and video are from completely different musicians, this is a masterpiece of editing. But that's what you would expect from Auralnauts.

How did this happen? Redditor hbmomo's mother was making a pie for Thanksgiving when the law of gravity took a temporary break and the stand mixer saw its opportunity for escape. It didn't make a clean getaway (see the counter), but the incident resulted in a priceless photograph. If you think hard enough, you can figure it out, but I'll go ahead and explain. The windows have blinds, and since they were pulled up, the cord was pretty long, and got caught in the beaters. It became an instant pulley! The wonder is that the blinds were attached strongly enough that it pulled the heavy mixer up instead of pulling the blinds off the window. But there are other Thanksgiving disasters that also cry out for explanation.

Last year, a friend of redditor alwaysangrythrowaway cooked this turkey. Was it marinated in Pepto-Bismol? Benadryl, maybe? Or is it just a food coloring prank? The poster said it had been rubbed in "neon pink salt" which others decided must have been pink curing salt, or Prague Powder. It contains sodium nitrate and is not safe to be eaten in this concentration. But we also learned that the friend burnt that turkey badly and it was not eaten.

These are only two images from a gallery of 50 pictures illustrating Thanksgiving disasters collected by Bored Panda. If your Thanksgiving is not proceeding in the manner you expected, they will make you feel downright thankful. 

Around twenty thousand Native Americans fought in the Civil War. But on which side? Did they fight for the Union in solidarity with the enslaved people of the South? Or did they fight for the Confederacy to get back at the United States for their own mistreatment? The truth is, they fought for both sides, with way more volunteering for the Confederacy, but for neither of the reasons above. There were many reasons a Native American joined one army or the other, which just shows us the danger of generalizing a large group of people, and the danger of assigning modern motives to people in previous centuries.

After the Civil War, Native Americans fought in all US wars, and continue to this day to sign up in higher percentages than other ethnic groups. Read an overview of Native Americans in military uniforms, with a good look at the Navajo Code Talkers, at Messy Nessy Chic.

Wars and rumors of wars. Fire and brimstone. Deadly plagues and pestilence. The total collapse of society. The threat of an impending apocalypse hits differently in 2023, because we already have those things. In fact, some folks might see the end of days as an improvement on what we have now. Once again, Ryan George (previously at Neatorama) plays all the parts as he gets some reactions from people on the street, who are quite credulous in order to fit this all into a short skit, but don't react the way the street preacher would prefer them to. Despite all that, the end is almost hopeful. And the horse joke can be read in more ways than one. The skit is only 3:10; the rest is an ad. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Janelle Shane at AI Weirdness once again pitted different AI algorithms against each other, this time to give us a Thanksgiving spread. She asked DALL-E3 to generate images of the feast with labels, from a list generated by ChatGPT-4. The food looks good (although we are running low on gravy), but the names of the dishes are priceless.

There are more images, including one with a groaning board of desserts. Shane got into a conversation with ChatGPT-4 over whether the dessert labels were correct in the image, and got varying answers leading us to think that the algorithm just wants to please its programmer. The program Bard disagreed with ChatGPT-4 on that, and read the labels as

Pies: Pumpkin Pie, Cockles Pie, Apple Pie, Chess Pie, and Cheese Coales Pie
Cookies: Thinssving, BPOWHIES, BRIINES, and BROESCKE
Brownies: SIEHECADODOVAN and POKY

When you see the dessert image, you'll see how wrong both the labels and the program reading the labels are. I'd still like to try that pople pie. See all the images and read of the difficulty AI has in recreating our traditional feast. -via Nag on the Lake

The Ship Handling Research and Training Centre in Poland is a very unique school. This is where ship's pilots can learn how to steer through the biggest, most crucial ports, locks, and canals on earth, like the Panama Canal and the Suez canal. This training is meant to supplement on-the-job training with more experienced pilots, not to replace that experience. The goal is to keep from becoming a global meme, like the Ever Given a couple of years ago. They use a combination of computer simulations and real piloting. The school uses ships and courses that are scaled at only 1/24th the size of the the real thing, but that's still surprisingly big. They also use current generators to recreate various real-world conditions. Tom Scott talked them into letting him pilot one of these ships without taking the entire course, just for funsies. I don't think he's going to try for a job with Evergreen or any other shipping company. but someday, you might.    

Oh yeah, they have another of these training facilities in France, too.

King Frederick William I was the ruler of Prussia from 1713 to 1740. He instituted a number of reforms and improvements in the Prussian military, but one project was for his own amusement. The king, upon ascending the throne, immediately began recruiting very tall men for a regiment that became known as the Potsdam Giants. This recruitment took many forms, from giving incentives to soldiers, their families, and employers to kidnapping and imprisonment for tall men who refused to join. Foreign leaders who wanted to court favor with the king sent the tallest men from their own armies to join the Potsdam Giants. Most, however, were volunteers. After all, the Potsdam Giants got the best food in the entire Prussian military, and tall hats to make them look taller. It turned out to be one of the safest places to serve, too.

Frederick William I himself was only 5' 3" tall, so his obsession with tall soldiers was easily explained- not that anyone spoke of it at the time. The regiment of giants grew to around 3,200 men, some of them topping seven feet tall. But they weren't sent into battle, because they meant too much to the king. That changed after Frederick William's death. Read about the rise and fall of the Potsdam Giants at Amusing Planet.

On the one hand, you'd think that the ability to think outside the box would be an asset for a Jedi Knight. On the other hand, we know young Anakin Skywalker is an ass and is liable to get Obi-Wan killed before his time. You are supposed to discuss new strategies with your master before surprising them with your outlandish new battle tactics. That's what Obi-Wan should have gotten onto him about. Oh yeah, and about Yoda.

At the same time, we all know that Force powers are completely underused in Star Wars, particularly in battle. Anakin has an another idea that might give him the upper hand.



Once again, Obi-Wan is surprised by Anakin's dangerous secret tactics. Events of their future notwithstanding, Obi-Wan should have seen how dangerous this kid was years before. But Anakin eventually gets his comeuppance, and finally learns a lesson. This nonsense is brought to you by Matthew McCleskey. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The 2023 Miss Universe competition was held last night in San Salvador, El Salvador. The winner was Miss Nicaragua, Sheynnis Palacios. In case you missed the broadcast, we know what you really want to see is the parade of national costumes, which is always pretty entertaining, although not entertaining enough to sit through the entire show. There was the usual mix of colorful evening gowns, traditional culture costumes, and Las Vegas showgirl-style constructions.

At first I thought that Miss Denmark must be mislabeled, but no, this is Nikoline Uhrenholt Hansen, wearing a costume titled "The Nordic Ocean Dragon," which looks suspiciously South American.  

Miss Myanmar, Amara Bo, dressed as a money tree.

Miss Netherlands, Rikkie Kollé, walked in as a literal tulip. But this face-hiding costume was designed to change, and she soon "blossomed" into her final form.

See a video of the transformation here. One of noticeable trends this year was a written statement on a sign affixed to costumes, sometimes only seen from the backside, which featured into several costumes. The costume competition winner was Sheynnis Palacios of Nicaragua, who went on to win the Miss Universe title. See all the contestants in their national costumes, the good, the bad, and the over-the-top at Buzzfeed.

European history is a frighteningly big subject, especially for Americans, because it's documented so far back. There were so many cultures always at war with and conquering each other that nations and borders were constantly changing. A kingdom could be just a few hundred people and still have a royal family that ended up in the history books, so that the timeline is a long string of of wars, marriages, and murders that eventually just seem to blend together. But when you look closely, there are episodes that stand out because they are just so bizarre. Weird History does us a favor and highlights just the most outstandingly weird incidents in battle. You don't have to know exactly who these rulers were, or how they fit into the timeline to get a kick out of the odd things that make history worth knowing.

In the 21st century, the term "dude" is just another word for "guy" or "man." I first became aware of the word "dude" in Western movies, when it referred to a newcomer unfamiliar with or incapable of Wild West ways, also called a city slicker. That definition fits in well with the history of the word, which goes back further than you might think. The first appearance of "dude" in print happened in 1883, when it appeared in a poem. But we know that people were saying something long before it ever got to print. The etymology of the word between its origin and the first evidence in print is the subject of some speculation.

One theory that makes sense, but it still surprising, is that "dude" derived from the earlier term "Yankee Doodle Dandy!" It works in the context of the earliest definition of "dude." But the meaning behind the word changed through the 20th century. Read the history of the slang term that went from an insult to a descriptor to a worse insult to a compliment to neutral everyday use at The Art of Manliness. -Thanks WTM!

There was a time when I refused to get any Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving. But then I settled on a tradition of getting the outdoor lights up just before Thanksgiving in order to impress my family members who traveled to feast with us. The tree goes up whenever a kid or two is here to haul it up from the basement for me, if they are willing to decorate it. This year, I noticed some houses with outdoor decorations on November first. That started during the pandemic, and it seemed like a welcome bit of cheer to folks who couldn't actually visit.

You may call it Christmas creep, but psychologists say there's nothing wrong with putting up Christmas decorations early. In fact, it's a sign of a happy person. Read what psychological studies say about people who put up Christmas decorations as soon as Halloween is over at Mental Floss.  

(Image credit: LoMit)