Animation has come a long way from hand-drawn stick figures on celluloid. You may argue about which era was best for content and aesthetics, but you have to be impressed at the evolution of techniques, materials, and technology that shape our extensive catalog of animated media. This supercut follows animation over its more than 100—year history. -via Digg

An archaeological study at Dartmouth College had researchers digging up the site of an old outhouse, rehydrating fecal samples, and filtering them to find possible evidence of parasites. This wasn't just any old outhouse, though. It had belonged to the home of a professor and trustee at Dartmouth, and was later sold to a wealthy businessman. In other words, the upper crust.

Despite their wealth and influence, the study reveals some of the same “bathroom drama” researchers would expect to find in urban and lower income areas. Not only did the team unearth bottles containing digestive health elixirs, but fecal fossils still contained eggs of parasitic organisms — like tapeworms.

“Our study is one of the first to demonstrate evidence of parasitic infection in an affluent rural household in the Northeast,” says co-author Theresa Gildner, now an assistant professor of biological anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, in a university release. “Until now, there has not been a lot of evidence that parasitic disease was anywhere else other than urban areas in the early 19th century.”

Not only that, but New England is far from the tropical climates that parasitic worms prefer. The study shows that it would have been a rare person who was able to escape parasite infestation in the 19th century. Read more about the research at Study Finds. -via Strange Company

A private Facebook group called "a car club where everyone acts like boomers" is a humor forum where members post as if they were the Boomer gearheads they make fun of. There's a lot of upper case text and grousing about computerized vehicles -you get the idea. Then someone shared a Facebook marketplace post in which Gary Rider is selling his air compressor to raise funds for a liver transplant. Yeah, there are things to make fun of here, like the spelling of "toward," but the group saw more.    

A group member named Patrick Thompson, a voice actor and podcast host who was one of the folks who helped spread word of Rider’s struggles, chatted with me over Facebook Messenger video, and described the group as a “crap-posting car group” and “boredom killer.”

By now you should understand that “a car club where everyone acts like boomers” is far from an official, well-organized operation. It’s a bunch of people poking fun at old folks. But that’s what makes what happened after Alexander Keeling and others first posted Rider’s compressor listing (see post above) so amazing. The entire community of people who normally just joke about boomers actually banded together to help one out. And in a big way.

A big way is right. The group members pumped up Rider's fundraising efforts to $52,000! Jalopnik spoke to Rider, who said he's "sold" the air compressor hundreds of times, but each time the buyer tells him to keep it. Read the story of the disabled welder and the group that came to his aid at Jalopnik.

(Image credit: Gary Rider)

People are finally starting to see each other after a year of isolation. For many of us, that means trying to gain back lost social skills, so let's make small talk about the only thing that's happened to us recently. I've had a version of this conversation quite a few times lately, which Nick Smith distills into less than a minute. -via reddit

Rock 'n' roll guitarists have been smashing guitars onstage since at least 1964, when Pete Townshend of the band The High Numbers got a bit upset and wanted everyone to know about it. The audience was impressed, and he repeated the stunt quite a few more times as the band became known as The Who. After that first time, it was always planned, because guitars are quite expensive. Other musicians followed, impressed by the sheer ballsiness of the gesture.

“I grew up lucky enough to have seen The Who in ’68. I saw Jimi Hendrix twice,” Kiss frontman (and avid guitar-smasher) Paul Stanley told AllMusic in 2016. “The idea of almost ritualistically smashing a guitar is something so cool and touches a nerve in so many people that it seemed like a great way to put a period or to dot the i or cross the t at the end of a show—that this is finite, that this is over, it’s the climax.”

Read why Townshend destroyed his first guitar onstage and how others put their own spin on live destruction, a custom that continues today, at Mental Floss. -via Digg

Raven is now 13 years old, and sort of retired from running trails. But she has led an amazing life. And she tells us about trail life quite poetically.

Celebrating the joys of mountain biking through the eyes of the trail dog, Raven takes us from her driveway memories in BC to the high deserts of Utah, to freshly cut South African trails and back again. We meet some of the feistiest, four-legged trail personalities along the way, who all enjoy the mountain bike world in their own way, just like us humans do, whether it’s hitting jump lines, lapping through the loam, or setting out to build new trail.

They're all good dogs, and the photography is amazing. Don't miss the credits. -via Everlasting Blort

contoh gangguan paling kejam pic.twitter.com/D7b8PeGfvq

— Patengggg (@ftnaziemh) May 2, 2021

Cats love boxes, and they tend to fit themselves inside a cat-sized shape on the floor, even if it's not a box. Cats will even sit inside fake squares. This presents a problem for Muslims. Set a prayer rug out, and the cat will be there. You can see plenty of examples in this Twitter thread.

What to do? The simplest solution has been to get the cat its own prayer rug. These miniature rugs have become rather popular in Malaysia and Indonesia, as you can see from this collection of images.



Now, that's a devout cat! -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Risa Andriana Putri)

The era of Game of Thrones spinoffs will begin in 2022, and we've already got a look at the prequel series House of the Dragon. Above you see a couple of obvious Targaryens, Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen. You can see more images and descriptions of the main characters here. What do these people have to do with Game of Thrones?

Regardless of if Game of Thrones‘ final season left you wanting more or wishing you could go back before any of that happened, HBO is obliging fans with a spin-off show all about House Targaryen, aka our girl Daenerys’ folks. Set a few hundred years before Dany ever laid eyes on Westeros, House of the Dragon presumably follows the events that take place in George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire and Blood, which recounts the history of House Targaryen, including their civil war, often referred to as the “Dance of the Dragons.”

If you'd like some idea how this family history plays out in the books (which may or may not be spoilers for the series), Uproxx has the details.

In 2009, Nadya Suleman achieved a Guinness World Record for multiple births when she had eight babies at once, and they all survived. Two instances of a woman giving birth to nine babies have been recorded, but none of the infants survived. But now a Malian woman has given birth to nine babies by cesarian, and they are all alive. Halima Cisse was told she was carrying seven babies; two more were a surprise.

Doctors in the West African nation had been concerned for her welfare and the chances of the babies' survival - so the government intervened.

After a two-week stay in a hospital in Mali's capital, Bamako, the decision had been made to move Ms Cisse to Morocco on 30 March, Dr Siby said.

After five weeks at the Moroccan clinic, she had given birth by Caesarean section on Tuesday, the minister said.

Cisse has one older daughter, who stayed behind in Mali with her husband. The nontuplets, five girls and four boys, are said to be doing well. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: the Malian Health Ministry)

The Carter Center shared a photograph of former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Roselyn hosting a visit from President Biden and his wife Jill. The initial reaction from everyone who saw it is What's going on here? The Carters look tiny while the Bidens appear to be giants. While the Carters are in their 90s, and people often become smaller with age, that doesn't tell the entire story. Maybe it's the wide-angle lens.

The presidential photo doesn’t have any EXIF data left to indicate exactly which lens was in use when it was taken, but it was obviously a wide-angle model. To say that it was simply “lens distortion” that makes the Carters and Bidens look disproportionate seems inaccurate.

Yes, there are other things going on here. The extreme distortion without obvious facial distortion is a confluence of several factors that are explained at Popular Photography. -via PopSci

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the French Riviera was a popular retreat for the wealthy elite -as it is today. W. Somerset Maugham called it “a sunny place for shady people.” And so that's where Amélie Condemine went to relieve the rich of their cash and jewels. She passed herself off as the Comtesse de Monteil, which gave her access to the finest hotels and resorts, and kept suspicions from her victims at bay. In fact, she operated for twenty years before she was finally arrested in 1908.

After her arrest, the comtesse became something of a folk hero in the media. Newspapers emphasized her pluck and daring, such as when she robbed the same Swiss banker three times. The third time, he awoke and raised the alarm, but she sprinted back to her room, where she pretended to be asleep and was never suspected. On another occasion, in Alexandria, the hotel accused her and an accomplice of theft; the pair fought the accusation in court and won a defamation suit against the hotel. While she was a criminal conning the wealthy, she was also portrayed as a woman of the people. Le Petit Parisien noted that her maid liked and respected her, and that she was a generous tipper.

Read the story of the Queen of Thieves at Atlas Obscura.

We love ranked lists of pop culture, but you always have to look at the source to decide whether one will be worth a look. This list of 100 sitcoms is from Rolling Stone magazine. They go back to the '50s, and aren't limited to American television, nor to broadcast TV, so the list had to be winnowed down from the mountain of shows that make us laugh.  

To choose the 100 greatest sitcoms ever, we first had to decide how to define the term. Sketch comedies were out, from the explicit, like Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show, to the more ambiguous, such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Ditto comedy-drama hybrids that ran around an hour — Freaks and Geeks, say, or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Half-hour dramedies presented a blurrier picture; we took those on a case-by-case basis, applying our own version of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Where Enlightened and The Wonder Years seemed to fall just too far onto the drama side of the line, for example, Atlanta and Better Things had enough comedy to qualify. This list is also composed entirely of English-language comedies, primarily American ones, with a handful of British and Canadian shows making the cut.  

So what's left? An amazing array of sitcoms spanning 70 years and several continents. Sure, you will disagree with their rankings here and there, but you'll probably appreciate that the top 20 are all golden. And you might find some new-to-you shows that you'll want to watch. -via Digg

Marvel initiates the rollout of Phase 4 of the MCU with a megatrailer that focuses on the human side of our favorite Marvel superheroes, which pulls us all in as we emerge from isolation and deprivation with a desire to return to human contact. That emotionally sets us up for an impressive schedule of movies over the next few years that will get us back into theaters. Marvel is making up for lost time. -via Metafilter

Many American know Cinco de Mayo (May 5) as a celebration of Mexico. The date is not Mexico's independence day, but rather a commemoration of the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. As such, it is more of a regional holiday in the state of Puebla. In the US, Cinco de Mayo is often an excuse to dip into stereotypes and chow down on tacos.   

But what America’s Cinco de Mayo misses is the traditional food of Mexico, named to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a recognition given to only one other cuisine (French). And, nachos with refried beans, cheese wiz and jalapenos is nowhere on the list or in the country. Taco Bell has even tried opening up in Mexico but each time has failed, simply because no one will eat there.

What makes traditional Mexican fare worthy of such a distinction? You won’t find cumin soaked ground beef hard shell tacos topped with iceberg and cheddar. But, you will find lamb barbacoa that has been smoked underground in banana leaves or carnitas topped with queso fresco, pickled onions and homemade salsa verde wrapped in a warm homemade corn tortilla that has been ever so lightly heated on a comal. And Puebla, just so happens to be considered by many, including Rick Bayless and Mark Bittman, as the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Therefore, learning about the authentic foods of the region would be an appropriate way to honor the region of Puebla. Smithsonian looks at the origins of three dishes from Puebla: Mole Poblano, Chalupas, and Chiles en Nogada, with links to recipes you can try yourself. Besides, tacos are for any day.

Tom Scott climbs to the top of a wind turbine so that we don't have to. We find out what it looks like inside, what the view is like from the top, how not to fall off, and for the purpose of the video, how to get down safely in an emergency. Now I'm convinced that all hard hats need a pair of googly eyes.