David Friedman of Ironic Sans ran down a mystery peeking out of pictures of Joe Biden in the Oval Office, the president's office in the White House's West Wing. What's the deal with a picture frame that has no picture in it? It's a clever bit of unexpected camouflage. Friedman finds the answer, but then goes down the rabbit hole about presidents and the modern technology they enjoyed in the Oval Office. We won't find out anything really secret, but we learn some really neat tidbits about presidential history in this video. While researching this video, Friedman took a tour of the White House, and it's not the way it used to be. If you'd like to see it yourself, there's a visitor's guide to the West Wing online.
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The island of Bali in Indonesia boasts enticing tropical beaches, volcanic mountains, and beautiful terraced rice fields. These terraces provided enough rice for the island for thousands of years, thanks to an invisible system of subaks, which are a sort of farmer's co-op melded with the worship of the water goddess Dewi Danu. It was an ingenius system that few outside of the farmers themselves knew about. But in the 1970s, the rest of the world discovered Bali, and both the population and the tourism industry exploded.
To boost rice production, the government instituted a program called Bimbingan Massal, or “Massive Guidance,” funded by the Asian Development Bank. Rice farmers were provided with the latest agricultural technology: irrigation aids, high-yield varieties of rice seed, and plenty of fertilizers and pesticides. They were encouraged to produce three crops of rice per year instead of the traditional two. You can probably guess what happened. Production rose by a very small percentage, but farmers confronted problems they never had before: plagues of insects, poor yields, and a lack of adequate water. Meanwhile, Bali's beaches suffered from fertilizer runoff.
Strangely, the situation was unmasked and alleviated by another bit of modern technology in the form of computer modeling. Read the story of how Bali's ancient and modern rice production systems worked against each other and why at Damn Interesting. You can also listen to the story as a podcast.
Antarctica is a continent that has no countries. Many countries have settlements there, but the residents of the science stations are rarely permanent. Still, many countries have planted a flag on Antarctica without taking ownership, and they all fly flags to show where they are from. So the people of Antarctica love flags, and have pretty much always wanted to have a flag for Antarctica itself. You can't really blame them. Believe it or not, the first flag specifically designed for Antarctica came about because of a geography video game. If you are going to designate names to all the places on earth with a flag, you've got to have one for the continent with no countries. CGP Grey tells us how Antarctica got a flag in 1929 (which was appropriate, but totally boring), 1997, and in 2018. The 2018 flag, called the "True South" flag, is expected to be permanent. You can even purchase one! -via Laughing Squid
Famous Historical Photos Recreated By The Simpsons 📸
— Criminalsimpsons (@Criminalsimpson) March 22, 2023
-a thread pic.twitter.com/FplImgQuIm
The TV series The Simpsons is now in its 34th season, with 745 episodes and counting. In that time, it has become a vast archive of cultural references. The one we hear about most often is how the show predicts the future, although that is just the writers staying on top of trends -and how our world is becoming more cartoonish. Another you may or may not have noticed is how the characters sometimes strike a pose in homage of a particularly historical photograph. Sometimes it's just a screenshot of a split second, and you have to be very familiar with the photograph to catch it. But if you are, they are unmistakeable. Simpsons creator Matt Groening obviously doesn't expect everyone to get it, but enough audience members do to make it worth the trouble.
— Criminalsimpsons (@Criminalsimpson) March 22, 2023
A Simpsons fan on Twitter who goes by Criminalsimpsons compiled a collection of these instances in which The Simpsons recreated some iconic photographs. They are a treat for those who recognized them.
— Criminalsimpsons (@Criminalsimpson) March 22, 2023
See plenty more of these in the thread at Twitter, or at Thread Reader if you prefer. Criminalsimpsons has also done threads on movie references in The Simpsons, and also art references. -via Everlasting Blort
The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1868. It begins with "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." There's a lot more to it, but the idea was to settle the question of citizenship for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. Political leaders argued over whether it covered Native Americans as well, but it soon became clear that the federal government really did not want this law to cover Asians.
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants in 1870. His parents returned to China a few years later, but Wong traveled back to San Francisco with an uncle and grew up to live and work there. He traveled to China occasionally, where he married and conceived children. Wong was 24 when he was denied entry into the US because he wasn't a citizen. Although he was born in California, his parents weren't US citizens, nor could they become citizens because of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Wong lived on ships offshore for months while he fought this decision, and federal authorities came to see him as an important test case for birthright citizenship for people of Chinese ancestry. They wanted to deny his citizenship as a precedent for all Chinese-Americans born in the US, and therefore any of their children, whether born in the US or abroad. The case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 had far-reaching implications for Asian immigrants and their descendants in the US. Read about the case that went to the Supreme Court and its aftermath at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: National Archives)
Any time we see American cities from above, we are astonished at how much real estate is set aside for cars, both in streets and in parking lots. Sure, we have multi-story parking garages in places, but even they take up a lot of room because there has to be drivable roads to each floor and each space. Tokyo tackled that problem with mechanized and computerized garages that store many cars in much less space. Some of them are even underground, which means they take almost no real estate at all! Those kinds of garages cost an awful lot to install, and pay off in nebulous benefits over a long period of time, which means they are probably out of the question for the US. But when you add charging capabilities for electric vehicles, robotic garages sound like a complete winner.
In other news, Tom Scott is in Japan, so we are liable to see some really cool stuff in the next few weeks.
Smart phones are so smart that a two-year-old can learn to use one in no time at all. And they do. If you've had children in your home in the last 15 or so years, you probably have some pictures of yourself that you would never share, but you keep them because your child took them. One of the women in Kira Cook's online mother's group shared one to lighten the mood during the pandemic, and then others followed. It's heartening to know others have the same experience. The photos are not flattering, but they give us a glimpse into what real life looks like and how children see it. They don't care that mommy doesn't want to have her double chin or droopy morning eyes recorded; they love mommy and think a picture should be taken.
Sharing such pictures brings out the humanity we all share. Life is messy, and kids don't care. Read about how liberating it feels for mothers to know that they are far from alone in their less-than-photogenic moments at Romper. -via Kottke
How high did this Kia Soul jump? What caused this to happen? And is the driver alright? We don't know exactly how high, but one redditor noted "the brake lights of hope." This was caused by a runaway wheel. And the driver managed to walk away. Whew. Anoop Khatra caught the action on his dashcam Thursday when a truck lost a wheel that caused the havoc.
Witnessed and recorded the most INSANE car crash yesterday, you can see Autopilot also swerve and avoid the rouge tire for me $TSLA pic.twitter.com/csMh2nbRNX
— Anoop (@Anoop_Khatra) March 25, 2023
Notice how the tire came back a second time to get one last punch. The car was certainly engineered to handle this kind of accident. We can see the curtain airbags deployed.
The flip and land and roll distributed the impacts. Causes less injuries than one hard direct impact. But still a hell of an accident, that Kia handled it well.
— Space In My Brain (@SpaceInMiBrain) March 26, 2023
The accident occurred on the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Los Angeles. There were no passengers in the Kia, and no major injuries. -via reddit
If you are of a certain age, you remember when people had to undergo a blood test in order to get a marriage license. In my elementary school, kids who "knew" told us that it was to uncover possible Rh factor incompatibility, which was a thing at the time. Today, young people tell each other that it was a genetic test to make sure the bride and groom were not related to each other, which is demonstrably wrong, because DNA tests just weren't available back then. Eventually we all learned on our own that it was a test for syphilis, a part of a nationwide battle against the disease launched by U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran Jr. in the 1930s.
States took up the challenge with tests for people getting married until the majority of states required them. Some states later tested for other diseases, but then gradually dropped the requirement until the last premarital blood test was dropped ...in 2019. Read about Parran's crusade and the results of these required tests at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Library of Congress)
— ONT WTF (@OntWtf) March 24, 2023
Personal robots don't have to be super high tech to get the job done. Kael Schoerlin has a FPV RC car (a remote control car with a camera) with a transparent cargo bed and he's not afraid to use it. When he ran out of fish food, he sent the car to get it! The car doesn't have a speaker, but can communicate pretty well by opening its bed and tooting its horn. It also has a tiny "driver" wearing a cowboy hat that will nod its head by remote control. The employees at Petco were delighted to be visited by a toy buying food for a fish, and even more delighted when it responded to them in its own limited way.
The original video is at TikTok. The car also went to get a banana and negotiated a deal, delivered a donation to a food drive, and purchased candy. -Thanks, WTM!
Some people call them "life hacks" today, but in bygone years they were "handy tips" or just "advice." Today they can rack up TikTok views, just like in the old days when they filled magazines that people bought, but the safety and efficacy can range from useful to downright dangerous. Sure, it might have once been a good idea to set your mattress outside in the sun to fight mold and vermin, and lard can heal chapped skin. You can distinguish butter from margarine by burning it, as illustrated above, but wouldn't it be easier to just taste it? However, some of these tips worked on the same principle as hitting your toe with a hammer to get rid of a headache.
For example, a mixture of menthol, cocaine, and boric acid could be snorted to fight congestion. Whether it worked or not, boric acid is poisonous. So is leaving mercury out to fight bedbugs. A pinch of borax might make your expired milk last a little longer, but it is also poisonous.
These old-timey tips sometimes came with a hilarious bit of honesty. One columnist suggested that you use roast peas, grains, or bread crusts if you run out of coffee beans. She added, "None of these are very good." Read all 25 handy tips from way back when at Mental Floss.
(Image source: New York Public Library)
I heard my niece is entering the research phase of her PhD course, and had to make jokes about the poor grad students who spend all day counting people in public bathrooms or sifting tons of dirt looking for bone fragments just to be listed as et al in the final publication. However, Crystal Owens of MIT's mechanical engineering department got approval for a study of the physics of an Oreo cookie.
Owens aimed to discover if there is any way to twist open an Oreo and achieve creme sticking to both wafers. You are shaking your head no. At least now it's been scientifically proven. Owens and her team used a rheometer, a device that twists cookies open, to test different twisting speeds and different cookie flavors. This involved gluing the cookies to the rheometer's discs, which takes some of the magic out of the experiment. They tested more than 1,000 cookies, both by machine and with hand techniques. The results showed that 80% of the time, the cookies ended up with all the creme on one wafer, no matter how slowly the cookie was twisted or what method was used.
The researchers suggested that Oreo might turn the wafers over so that the printed side could grab the creme. That's not going to happen, because that's branding. It is evident that the creme is more cohesive than adhesive. If you want to eat an Oreo and have a consistent ratio of creme-to-wafer, you can always bite them like you would another kind of cookie. -via reddit
(Image credit: Jacek Halicki)
When archaeologists discovered the oldest winery yet -8,000 years old- in Georgia (the country, not the state), linguists weren't the least bit surprised. They had already traced the modern word "wine" back to the region and the era by reverse-engineering it, since it occurs in various forms in so many other languages, in a way that might remind you of prehistoric genetic research. Linguists are a clever bunch. But they believe mead, or honey wine, is even older for the same reasons. Some of our terms for alcoholic beverages are indeed ancient, while the origins of others are just a matter of deciphering the historical record. When our anicent ancestors invented language, and later figured out how to write things down, they wrote a lot about alcohol. Humans have always cherished their booze. PBS's Otherwords gives us a quick lesson in how alcoholic drinks got their names. I'll drink to that! -via Laughing Squid
A few years ago, I posted a link to an article about Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black woman to become a medical doctor in the US. The post links to an article on a now-defunct site that displayed a picture of a woman who is not Dr. Crumpler.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was a groundbreaking figure with an amazing story that's been posted in many places. She received her medical degree from the New England Female Medical College in 1864 and dedicated her career to the care of Black women and children who were denied medical treatment from white physicians. But there are no existing photographs of Dr. Crumpler.
The many photos purporting to be Dr. Crumpler attached to biographies, quotes, and memes are of other women, many who deserve to be lauded in their own right. The photo above is of Dr. Georgia E. Lee Patton Washington, who was born in 1864 and became the first Black woman to be a licensed doctor (and surgeon) in Tennessee. Fake History Hunter collected quite a few images attached to Dr. Crumpler and identifies who they really are. I'm sure you are disappointed that something on the internet turned out not to be true. -via Strange Company
Witness protection is crucial for certain legal cases, when testifying against someone might endanger your life. So we have the federal Witness Security Program to make sure that doesn't happen, and that witnesses don't have to risk their lives to tell the truth. WITSEC has never lost a witness who complied with their rules. It's a lot more serious than what we saw in My Blue Heaven. Half as Interesting goes through how the process works. Going into witness protection is a pretty drastic life change, although for certain people, it's a great opportunity to start over. Although I doubt they would ever put anyone up in Aspen, Colorado, because that town is tiny, very expensive, full of rich and famous part-time residents, and requires altitude acclimation. And we find out that a My Blue Heaven situation actually happened at least once, in Orange County, California. The last minute of this video is an ad. -via Digg
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