Fictional hurricanes can be horribly destructive in movies, but it sure beats dealing with one in the real world. Hurricane Harvey is still raging along the Gulf Coast, leaving flooding and destruction in its wake. We can seek a little refuge from the depressing news by 1. contributing to relief efforts and 2. retreating into movies. In case you're in that kind of mood, check out some of the best hurricane depictions in film that you may or may not have already seen, at TVOM. A couple of the videos there are full movies, which you can bookmark to enjoy in full when you have the time.
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You aren't allowed to take mercury on an airplane. It's dangerous stuff, to be sure, but who knew that the way it interacts with aluminum was the reason? Nile Red shows us what happens when mercury amalgamates with aluminum, although it isn't easy. Aluminum is usually protected by a layer of oxide, which he removes. In the real world, we don't want to count on that safety feature.
The mercury did not end up damaging the aluminum all that much, but that doesn't mean airlines should allow it. Who knows what that "Oh, cool!" effect would do in a uncontrolled situation. Oh yeah, the generator site Nile Red talks about is here. Open the menu at the upper left to change it to your favorite molecule. -via TYWKIWDBI
Roodharigendag is a festival for the redheads of the world. Thousands of redheads from more than 80 countries will gather during the first week of September in Breda, Netherlands, to meet each other, have fun, and pose for pictures. The festival seems like a well-established tradition, but its origin is actually rather recent. And it was unintentional.
The accidental mastermind behind this gathering, painter Bart Rouwenhorst, happens to be a blonde without a speck of ginger in his hair. Inspired by artists who famously painted red-haired women such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Gustav Klimt, Rouwenhorst put an ad in the newspaper asking for 15 natural redheaded women to model for him in 2005. More than 150 women called. Not wanting to turn any of them away, he decided to hold a gathering where the women would enter a lottery, and the inaugural festival was born.
You don't have to be a redhead to attend, but if you don't have red hair, you won't be included in the official group photo. Read more about Roodharigendag at National Geographic Travel.
(Image credit: Bartr)
The lists of supplies that parents are asked to buy for back-to-school keeps getting longer. It's not the teacher's fault, it's the cutbacks in government funding. Teachers will end up spending hundreds of dollars of their own money on classroom supplies they need. Dena Blizzard understands that. She is also desperate for school to start after spending all summer with her children.
There's nothing like putting up with kids all summer to make someone appreciate a teacher's job. -via Buzzfeed
One of the effects of the flooding caused by hurricane Harvey is that fire ants are now on the move. When their territory is flooded, fire ants will leave their underground nests, link their limbs with each other, and harness the power of surface tension to form floating rafts made of ants. Floodwaters in Texas have plenty of these rafts, as you see in the picture above from Pearland, Texas. Below, the fire ants virtually cover the water in Cuero.
Meanwhile, in Cuero, the river has brought my aunt all of the fire ants. Yes, those are all (of the) fire ants. pic.twitter.com/dEibWYxAdl
— Bill O'Zimmermann (@The_Reliant) August 29, 2017
Entomologist Linda Bui studied fire ants after seeing the damage they did in New Orleans to people who waded through floodwaters after hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The episode stuck in Bui’s head, and later, she investigated the venom of flooded fire ants. The study, published in 2011, found that flooded fire ants deliver higher doses of venom because they have 165 percent as much venom inside them as normal fire ants. The flooding made them more aggressive and dangerous. It is also important, she says, to be careful during post-hurricane cleanup. Piles of debris can act like islands, where fire ants have congregated during the flood.
Read more about fire ants and floods at the Atlantic.
(Top image credit: Flickr user Brant Kelly)
Why does America still use the Fahrenheit system to measure temperature, when the rest of the world uses Celsius? I figured it was because we are lazy and don't want to learn a whole new system. Vox looks more deeply into the question.
Fahrenheit is just one of the ways Americans are holdovers for imperial measurements, when the rest of the world is using the metric system. And Americans will stay on the imperial system until someone finds a way to make the conversion profitable. -via Laughing Squid
The Cold War was a game of one-upmanship in the areas of nuclear armament and in technology, such as the space race. But it also unfolded in other areas, including bragging rights on which country treated its women better. The United States appeared to have an edge there in the 1950s and '60s, with a prosperity that allowed families to thrive on one income.
When the freedom to spend separated Americans from Soviets, consuming — everything from ranch homes to the newest TV sets — became patriotic. But there was a special emphasis on how those purchases especially helped women: With all the new vacuum cleaners and washing machines available, that freed up more time for homemakers, allowing Mrs. Housewife to slick on her lipstick, smooth her bubble cut, and serve her casserole dinner with a smile.
That idea became clear in the “Kitchen Debate," a televised conversation where President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stood in a model home’s kitchen display, a setup meant to resemble the suburbs, goading each other's shortcomings. Microwaves and electric ovens became metaphors for ideologies, and pointing at the shiny, white linoleum, Nixon said, "In America, we like to make things easier for women. What we want to do, is make life more easy for our housewives." While the Russians might have been ahead with rockets and Sputnik, Nixon said, America would come out on top because of domesticity.
The Soviets countered with feminism. The idea was offered that women in the USSR had more freedom to become rocket scientists and factory bosses. That was true. But while American women grew lonely keeping homes in the suburbs, Soviet women were longing for lipstick and relief from long hours of road construction. Read about the tug-of-war over the image of women at Racked.
(Image credit: Flickr user clotho98)
Although it doesn't seem like that long ago, it's been twenty years since the John Travolta-Nicolas Cage movie Face/Off came out. To "honor" the film for its anniversary, Screen Junkies has given it an Honest Trailer.
What is there to say about Face/Off besides how implausible it was? This Honest Trailer ratchets that concept up to eleven for our entertainment. Turns out that Face/Off was way more implausible than we already knew.
People are sharing the clues that tell you a restaurant is not the place you want to eat with the hashtag #SignsOfABadRestaurant. While some of them are serious, most are jokes. But the pictures had to come from somewhere, right? Sometimes you can tell from the sign, like the one above posted by Derek Jansen. Sometimes you can tell from the menu that this is not a five-star restaurant.
#SignsOfABadRestaurant When you see this on the menu.... pic.twitter.com/Uz3lGYO59Z
— Shells In Ireland (@ShellsInIreland) August 28, 2017
Or maybe you should take your cue from the people who work there.
The staff refuses their free meal each shift #SignsOfABadRestaurant
— Luke, Cool (@LukeWheeler01) August 28, 2017
You can see plenty more of the indicators of a bad restaurant at Twitter. See a selection of the best at Buzzfeed.
I saw the headline of this article and thought, "Of course they did. Didn't everyone smuggle alcohol in?" Yes, but it was mostly by boat or some other vehicle. A submarine would be an extraordinary tactic, especially since the few that existed were owned by militaries. But there were rumors and sightings. Authorities rarely gave any credence to the reports, and when they checked them out, they didn't find any evidence.
People who claimed to have seen these boats were likely to agree with that assessment—because they didn’t think these were American Navy ships. The Puget Sound submarine was thought to have been built in Seattle but sold to the Canadian government, which later sold it for junk. And the boats on the East Coast were thought to come from Europe: “Up and down Cape Cod chin whiskers are bristling in the salt air as fishermen tell of a giant German U-boat which is torpedoing the Eighteenth Amendment with liquor and beer,” one United Press reporter wrote sun 1924.
Finally, after two years of rumors, evidence surfaced. As historian Ellen NicKenzie Lawson reports in her book Smugglers, Bootleggers, And Scofflaws, in 1924, a commercial mapping firm was flying over the Hudson River when it spotted two submarines, each 250 feet long, in the water 30 miles up the river. They shared a photo with the Navy, which confirmed the submarines did not belong to the United States. Could those photos, preserved in Coast Guard intelligence files, have shown the U-boats of rumor?
See that picture, and read about the practice of smuggling alcohol via submarine at Atlas Obscura.
What new gadget would make going back to school easier? A hypodermic needle shaped like a bunny, to interest young children in their vaccinations? Maybe a case for the banana in your packed lunch? A backpack that carries its own desk? But first, you have to make sure the kids wake up on time.
If a regular alarm just doesn’t rouse you in time, how about this 1882 patented “device for waking persons from sleep?” It consists of a frame suspended above the head of a bed. From the frame dangle cords with soft wood or cork blocks attached to their ends. The frame itself is attached to a clock; when the clock strikes the appointed hour, the frame drops, hitting the sleeper in the face with the blocks. That’ll teach you to oversleep!
Some ideas aren't so bad, like the magnetic locker decorations developed by a middle school student. See ten more back-to-school patents in a slide show at at Smithsonian.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
Joseph Levitch (Jerry Lewis) was born in Newark, New Jersey, at Beth Israel Hospital on March 16, 1926. Note: at least one source claims Jerry's birth name was actually Jerome Levitch. Although he may have been referred to as "Joey" in these very early years, henceforth in this article, for the sake of simplicity and to avoid confusion, he will be referred to as "Jerry."
Jerry's parents were Daniel Levitch (he performed under the stage name "Danny Lewis"), a small-time journeyman master of ceremonies and vaudevillian, and Rachel ("Rae Lewis") nee Brodsky, a pianist, who would accompany Danny on their gigs around the country.
Little Jerry made his performing debut at a club in the Catskills at the age of six. He came on the stage and sang the then-popular depression era song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" But besides singing, Jerry accidentally stepped on a stage light during his performance and it exploded. This accidental misstep surprised Jerry and evoked his first-ever laugh from an audience. "Not all kids would have liked being laughed at," recalled Jerry years later, "but I was a strange kid." Jerry said his next performance was at the age of eight.
The vast majority of our movies about encounters with aliens involve extraterrestrials that come in somewhat of a humanoid shape and fairly the same size as humans. That makes it much easier to cast those roles. And science fiction rarely ever deals with planets populated by life that's not intelligent enough to interact with humans. But now that we are able to detect planets outside of our solar systems and speculate on their conditions, scientists are entertaining the possibility of life one those planets. What form would those living things realistically take? Gizmodo talked to four scientists about what alien life might really be like. Caitlin Ahrens of the University of Arkansas said,
I’ll put “life” in quotes due to it being a very vague term in regards to aliens. We have carbon-based life. But there’s theories for sulphur-based and other chemistries to form some biological structures. “Life” could mean anything from microscopic blue cupcake-loving worms to sentient snorkels that like polka—not necessarily human-like. Not necessarily intelligent either.
Read the rest of what they had to say about alien life at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Jim Cooke/Gizmodo)
You can develop a very special relationship with the professional who cuts your hair. Take care of that relationship, because it's a fragile and beautiful thing. This guy learned his lesson the hard way, when he cheated and used another barber.
The hurt feelings can escalate over time. Can this relationship ever be repaired? Comedian Anwar Jibawi has a message: don't cheat on your barber. -via Tastefully Offensive
F. Nephi Grigg grew up producing potatoes and corn on his family's farm in Idaho. In the 1940s, he understood the future of frozen food and opened a flash-freezing plant in Oregon with his brother. They named the company Ore-Ida, after the two states. The Grigg brothers made a fortune processing potatoes into frozen french fries. But cutting potatoes into fries presented a problem, in that the potato pieces that were too small to use were hard to separate from the fries.
When an equipment manufacturing company inexplicably showed up at their plant to demonstrate a prune sorter, Nephi and his plant superintendent Slim Burton chatted with them about a redesign. Could the barrel be redesigned so that it would eliminate the unwanted pieces of potatoes from the very wanted french fries? It could.
This being the northwest, and with the Grigg brothers’ company surrounded by farmland, Nephi decided that the scraps would go to feed the cattle and other livestock owned by the Grigg family. This was fine for a while, until Nephi realized that these cattle were getting enormous amounts of potato product. He was an entrepreneur, goddammit, and not one to waste anything, especially “product that has been purchased from the grower, stored for months, gone thru the peeling process, gone thru the specking lines and trimmed of all the defects, only to be eliminated into the cattle feed,” as Nephi wrote in a letter to an Ore-Ida representative in 1989.
You can see where this is going. It was those little scraps left over from making french fries that ended up in Tater Tots. Read the rest of the story of how Tater Tots were developed at Eater. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Flickr user Lower Columbia College (LCC))
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