Someone got hold of an Arizona Department of Transportation electronic sign on Fort Valley Road in Flagstaff this week, and changed the message about left turns to "Rogue Panda on Rampage."
Authorities said there is no cause for concern.
"We want to assure all citizens of Flagstaff that there is no problem with rogue pandas," said Lt. Ken Koch with the Flagstaff Police Department.
He does, however, encourage anybody who spots a member of the endangered species roaming Flagstaff streets to call the police department.
The sign, which had been altered in the middle of the night, was corrected by 11 AM. No suspects have been identified. The good news is that the publicity may cause motorists to read electronic signs more carefully in the future. http://azdailysun.com/news/local/police-no-rogue-pandas-about/article_420be32f-7571-5507-9ce9-58b6f6ea8d4f.html -via Arbroath
Have you ever noticed that middle school American history classes tend to rush through the War of 1812 in order to get through the Civil War before the school year ends? College Humor imagines what it would have been like if the participants understood the conflict just as well as we do.-via Buzzfeed
There are some websites that are so interesting and extensive they are known as "black holes" or "time sucks," because once you get started, you may not be able to escape. Wikipedia is near the top of the list. Even more perilous to your workday than reading is joining Wikipedia as an editor. Before you decide to take that step, you might want to learn something about the culture of Wikipedia editing. The Awl looks at the editing history of one provocative entry:
Since 2001, the Wikipedia entry on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita has been edited 2,303 times. It's a popular entry, too: of approximately 750,000 Wiki articles out there, it ranks at 2,075 in traffic.
In the past ten years, the entry has grown from the four-sentence description, shown above, to the detailed, 6,000-plus-word monolith of today. The two Lolita films now have their own pages, while the entry on the novel has expanded to include sections on such subjects as Lolita's Russian translation and its literary allusions. An edit is made, on average, about every other day.
Not only is the entry constantly edited, but those edits are discussed among editors. The road to the perfect entry is long and involved, and sometimes resembles sausage making. Link -via Boing Boing
You've probably heard by now that Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple, which saddened many fans who assume the move is due to his health. As a tribute to his career, Ranker has posted The Top Steve Jobs Keynote Moments, with videos of his most memorable speeches, highlighting the expected "surprise" unveiling of new Apple products. The earliest features a new Macintosh computer that referred to Jobs as "a man who's been like a father to me." The image here is from the 2007 iPhone introduction. There's even a compilation of bloopers! Link
In case you've ever wondered who decided the world needed fake vomit, the story can now be told, courtesy of novelty historians Stan and Mardi Timm. Professional prankster Irving Fishlove began manufacturing plastic puke in 1959. There are two plausible stories about who invented the stuff, but Fishlove bought the idea and went on to perfect it.
Not only did Irving Fishlove buy the idea to mass-produce and sell, he also took matters into his own hands. His son, Howard Fishlove, told the Timms about coming home as a schoolkid to find his kitchen counter covered in various types of fake barf. Turns out, Dad was so excited about this upchuck gag, he was experimenting with his own formulas of brown or yellow latex mixed with chunky bits of colored foam. “He told us it was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen,” says Mardi Timm.
The formula they settled on has been a closely-guarded secret ever since. Read all about the history of "Whoops," the original latex barf at Collector's Weekly. Link-Thanks, Ben!
Storycorps listened to cousins James Ransom and Cherie Johnson as they remembered their childhood Sunday school teacher Miss Lizzie Devine, "the only woman who scared them more than their grandmother." Animated by The Rauch Brothers. Link-Thanks, Krisi!
This unintentionally goofy mistranslation appears on a toy package in a Chinese dollar store. Unfortunately, the original photographer is unknown. -via Dangerous Minds
You know how microwave ovens heat or defrost your food unevenly? You must either rotate or stir your food between zaps to get it "done." Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories accidentally uncovered the pattern her microwave uses when she heated some Indian snack crackers called appalams.
Holy crap!
As an area of the cracker cooks, it bubbles up in just a few seconds, leaving clear marks as to where there is microwave power and where there isn't. For this particular microwave, Saturn-shaped objects will cook evenly.
Obviously what is happening is that there are two hotspots in this microwave: one in the center, and one offset from center which traces out a circle thanks to the rotating plate in the bottom.
And then, like any good scientist, she recreated the entire experiment in four other microwave ovens to see if the results could be duplicated. Link
Jesef, in a motorized wheelchair, is chased by a desert tortoise named Cruiser. As exciting as this is, I can't help but think it needs more Yakety Sax. -via Buzzfeed
Police in Prague, Czech Republic, began receiving calls about thefts of women's underwear from clotheslines, at about the same time a man called to report his pet kangaroo, Benji, had escaped. It all made sense when one caller said she had witnessed a kangaroo hopping off with her underwear. The marsupial was picked up shortly afterward.
Benji's owner Petr Hlabovic, 35, said: "I'm very relieved to have him back. I've got no idea what he thought he was up to - he certainly didn't pick up the habit from me."
There is no mention of whether the unmentionables were returned to their rightful owners. http://austriantimes.at/image/24741/news/Around_the_World/2011-08-22/35683/Skippying_Bail_ -via Arbroath
Attention, Portal 2 fans! Gary Hudston commissioned a series of custom levels of the game.
The clever puzzles were put together by designers Doug “TopHATTWaffle” Hoogland and Rachel “Miss Stabby” van der Meer, who should probably be hired by Valve to work on Portal 3. And if you’re wondering how they did such an accurate GLaDOS impression, well, that’s Ellen McLain, the actual voice of GLaDOS.
If you don't care anything about the game, you should skip ahead about six minutes and watch the rest anyway. The Daily What Geek has this plus a second video, the “super-sexy cinematic version”. http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/08/23/portal-proposal-of-the-day/
In 1959, ten people went on a skiing expedition to a Russian mountain named Kholat Syakhl, camping along the way there. One turned back due to illness, and the other nine were later found dead.
Caught in a snowstorm, the trekkers veered off course and decided to set up camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl – at 5pm on February 2, judging from their photos and diary entries. They went to sleep. Then something horrific occurred, the nature of which we can but guess at. Some have suggested that it was an avalanche, but others aren’t satisfied with this explanation. Only one thing is known for sure. Whatever it was, it was serious enough to make the skiers leap up in the middle of the night and escape from their tent by cutting it open from the inside. Some didn’t even bother to put on clothes or boots as they ventured outside into the bitter cold.
When the bodies were finally recovered, some had unexplained wounds, and the tongue of one woman was missing. Read about the investigation and the various theories about what happened to the campers, at Environmental Graffiti. Link
The flower business might seem old-fashioned, but 1-800-FLOWERS is anything but behind the times. In the 1980s, it was one of the first businesses to operate a 1-800 number, taking calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And in 1991, during the Gulf War, the company made the risky move of ramping up its television ads on CNN. At the time, other businesses were pulling their ads from the channel, not wanting to be associated with the station's non-stop war coverage. But Jim McCann, president of 1-800-FLOWERS, saw it as an opportunity. He bought 24 ads for the price of one. The Gulf War made CNN the biggest cable new network in the world, and 1-800-FLOWERS reaped the benefits.
Then came the emergence of the internet. McCann launched 1-800-FLOWERS.com in 1995, and the company became the first merchant to sign a contract with AOL. By 1995, well before Google was conceived, 1-800-FLOWERS.com had deals in place with at least 13 other online service providers. And the innovation hasn't stopped. In July 2009, 1-800-FLOWERS.com became the first company to complete an e-commerce transaction entirely on Facebook.
WISTERIA HYSTERIA
On October 3, 2004, Americans met the ladies of Wisteria Lane -the famously fictional street that's home to TV's Desperate Housewives. In a matter of months, the rest of the world had been introduced to them, too. According to a 2006 survey of 20 countries, the program was the third most-watched TV series in the world, with 120 million viewers. (That's one of out every 55 people on the planet!) But not everyone watches the same cast members. In Latin America alone, there are five separate adaptations; each is a scene-for-scene remake using local actors.
Yet, nothing compares to the impact the show has had in Saudi Arabia. In May 2009, Wikileaks unearthed a diplomatic cable about the program, which reported that it's helped dissuade Saudi youth from radical Islam by giving them a favorable impression of the United States. According to the cable, "Saudis are now very interested in the outside world and everyone wants to study in the U.S. if they can. They are fascinated by U.S. culture in a way they never were before."
In a country where women can't vote, drive, or walk outside without a male guardian, the ladies of Wisteria Lane are showing them that life has more to offer, particularly in the way of drama.
FLOWER GIRLS
There's a reason why so many grandmas are named Rose and Daisy. During the first half of the 20th century, women were basically expected to name their pink bundle of joy after a flower. But as the nation entered the 1960s, the hippie generation became more interested in planting on vans than using them for baby names. Recently, however, floral names have begun cropping up again.
Watch Modern Family and you'll see Lily; read Us Weekly and you'll hear about Violet Affleck and Iris Law. While Rose has yet to make a full comeback, other flower names are definitely in bloom. Just check out the graph below:
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
Just as people can be named after flowers, flowers can be named after people. Here are some of our favorite celebrity buds.
Barbra Streisand Rose A notorious diva, Barbra Streisand once said that if a flower were ever named after her, she wanted it to smell good and be disease-resistant. Botanists bred this sweet, purple bloom with a hearty immune system just for her.
Julia Child Rose If you're wondering what sort of mouth-watering qualities land you the Child name, this one's the color of butter and smells of licorice.
Chihuly Rose This rose is fittingly named after Dale Chihuly, the master craftsman who's created some of the world's most colorful and elaborate glass sculptures. The petals of the Chihuly Rose change color with the light, turning from yellow to orange to red.
Dolly Parton Rose This hybrid tea rose has big double blooms, just like its country-crooning namesake.
George Burns Rose In honor of George Burns' 100th birthday in 1996, botanists created a ruffled flower with streaks of red, yellow, pink, and orange. They also gave it a lemony scent, making it as colorful and zesty as the comedian himself.
Jackson and Perkins, the iconic rose-peddling company, will allow anyone to name a new rose variety after themselves. All it requires is a small fee of $75,000.
The article above, written by David Goldenberg and Adam K. Raymond, is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the July-August 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!
Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!
Do you know which countries produce the most crude oil? That's the subject of today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. You are challenged to name the 12 nations that produce the most oil (not the ones that have or export the most) in three minutes. There was only one left when I ran out of time. Link
