Randall Munroe, best known for his webcomic xkcd, received a question for his "What if?" series. The question from Hunter Freyer was "What if you ignored all the rules of car racing and had a contest which was simply to get a human being around a track 200 times as fast as possible, what strategy would win?"

This would be much more fun for a creative, scientific mind to answer if there wasn't a caveat that the driver had to survive. In that case, the answer is pretty easy- we can use a number of acceleration methods. The possible speed of each is limited by what the human body can withstand, and Munroe explains why. But what's the fun in that? Let's speed up, theoretically. There are ways to go faster than any auto race has ever seen, completing 200 laps in an hour, but they involve great danger and possibly obliteration for the driver. Once Munroe drops the idea of a surviving driver, we can go exponentially faster, and he is glad to explain how we would do that.

“Oops, we’ve accidentally built a particle accelerator.”

-via Damn Interesting

On December 11th, NASA engineers deployed their NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, testing a new system designed to send video information by lasers from great distances. The distance was 19 million miles, which is how far the asteroid-hunting space probe Psyche is now. A video was beamed to earth and intercepted successfully, proving the technology has the chops to relay videos throughout our solar system.

The video displayed test patterns, space data, and a video of a cat named Taters chasing a laser light. NASA engineers love a cute cat video as much as the rest of us, and the laser light was an appropriate touch. Taters belongs to a NASA employee, and now he's a famous contributor to our space exploration program, and may have been intercepted by any aliens moving through our solar system. Read more about the communications experiment and see the video at Gizmodo.

We are lurching toward the end of 2023, and it's time for all the retrospectives to come out, summing up with the year was all about. Every December, Louis Plamondon, also known as Sleepy Skunk, edits together clips from the trailers of the movies we watched over the previous year. The video for 2023 is presented in three stages. You could term the first as "leaving," followed by "shocking," and then by "beautiful." It's a masterful edit, and left me with the realization that I went the entire year without seeing one current film. This video contains NSFW language. -via Laughing Squid

See Sleepy Skunk's mashups from previous years as well.

In the 1890s, James B. Shaw of Atlantic City, New Jersey, developed a technique for taking one picture of a person and getting an image that showed that person from five angles. These came to be known as photo multigraphs. Since these five images were usually all facing each other, the effect was that of a group having a conversation. The secret behind these photo-multigraphs was simple: the subject was set in front of two mirrors set at a 75° angle.

The novelty of this setup lent itself to photo booths set up to take pictures of tourists at seaside resorts and amusement parks. The fact that it was developed in Atlantic City probably also had something to do with that. People could pay a dollar or two and have several copies of postcards made of themselves to send to friends back home. Photo-multigraphs were popular for decades, but faded in the 1950s when more tourists began carrying their own cameras. But it's not completely gone. In 2018, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard used the technique in an art project. See a gallery of a couple of dozen whimsical photo-multigraphs at Gods and Foolish Grandeur.  -via Messy Nessy Chic

You know how every year, as soon as Halloween is over, it seems that Mariah Carey takes over all the music speakers in the world, and her 1994 song "All I Want for Christmas is You" plays nonstop wherever you go? Carey herself has noticed and capitalized on the phenomenon. But after thirty years, too much of a good thing is still too much. When you get down to the last week before Christmas, you just want to get away from that song. The Carey takeover is like a horror story, in which you cannot escape no matter what you do. Fabrice Mathieu made it so, by mixing Carey's music video with clips from more than 40 movies of all kinds. He calls this mashup "All I want for Christmas is... Silence!" You can see the wide-screen version at YouTube. You can also click "more" in the description and see a list of the movies used.   -Thanks, Fabrice!

All you need to do is drive around your neighborhood to see the inflatable lawn decorations to realize how many pop culture Christmas characters we now have. There's the Grinch, Elf on the Shelf, Frosty the Snowman, and of course, Rudolph. Outside of Santa Claus, they are all less than 100 years old. But there could have been many more. The success of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which was created as a promotion for Montgomery Ward department stores, led to many retail outlets creating their own Christmas characters that didn't stand the test of time.

The story of the first man who played Mr. Jingeling, Santa's keeper of the keys at Halle's department store https://t.co/Olchu3phaH #CLE #ThisWasCLE #holidays #holidayseason pic.twitter.com/KXIQcgUD86

— Cleveland Historical (@CLEhistorical) December 23, 2017

Does anyone remember Mr. Jingeling, the locksmith who helped Santa Claus? Unless you live in Cleveland, probably not. How about Billie the Brownie? Or Uncle Mistletoe and Aunt Holly? There were also Twigbee, Bawlmer Bear, and Mr. Bingle, among others. Read about these lesser-known Christmas advertising characters who were big in their day, but never reached the global fame of Rudolph, at Smithsonian.

The warm weather in Gävle is melting all the beautiful snow 😭 Still hoping for a white Christmas. pic.twitter.com/mmiR8RKIw7

— Gävlebocken (@Gavlebocken) December 17, 2023

Every year at the beginning of December, the town of Gävle, Sweden, erects a giant goat made of straw (Gävlebocken) for Christmas. And every year, we wonder whether the goat will survive until New Year's Day. The Gävle Goat (previously at Neatorama) gets burned to the ground more often than not, despite a fence, security guards, and a 24-hour live webcam. Arsonists face heavy fines and/or jail time if caught. But this year, the goat is in danger from a completely different enemy- nature.

An unusually wet summer in Sweden led to the production of straw that has more grain still attached. Jackdaws have discovered this food source, and have been flocking to the goat to pick apart the straw to reach the grain. There's not much the goat committee can do about it, apart from replacing the goat, and they've decided to let it stand. Note the thinning horns in the image above. You can see the gathering number of jackdaws in this video clip. Only time will tell if the goat falls apart before Christmas, but all agree that a goat collapsing due to hungry birds is better than a goat destroyed in a flaming conflagration.

A timeline of the Gävle Goat's fate from its first incarnation in 1966 shows how many times it was destroyed before January and the method of its downfall. This year's Gävle Goat can be seen anytime via the live webcam.  -via Metafilter

The Mediterranean fruit fly is an invasive species that is causing intolerable damage to crops in California. So why is the USDA breeding more of them and releasing them? It's for competition. The medflies from the labs are treated to make them sterile, and then released to mate with wild medflies which will then produce no offspring. This method is not as quick or thorough as spraying pesticides, but it's certainly a lot safer for people, crops, and the environment as a whole. It's a case of taking the long way around for long-term benefits. Still, the process of growing, sterilizing, transporting, and releasing these flies is quite complicated, as Tom Scott shows us. Then they have to be monitored, which is only possible because they've also been marked. Another thing I learned: ginger root oil helps male flies become more successful at mating. How long until someone bottles that for sale? Oh, it's already happening? I'm not surprised.

Talk about a unique gift! The Chernobyl Spirit Company is offering vodka dubbed ATOMIK, distilled from grains grown in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The drink comes in essences of apples, pears, or plums, and it's not radioactive, or at least not any more radioactive than vodka produced elsewhere.

When the Chernobyl nuclear plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, suffered the world's worst nuclear meltdown in 1986, we thought that entire area would never be habitable again. You still can't live there, officially, but nature has displayed an amazing recovery in the almost forty years since the disaster. Trees and other plants grow, and wildlife has moved in to the places people used to live and work. The boar on ATOMIK bottles is an example of a thriving population in the Exclusion Zone. The grains used in ATOMIK show some radioactivity, but once they are distilled, that radioactivity is gone.  

The real story is the Chernobyl Spirit Company, whose goal is to show the area's recovery and to help support those affected by the meltdown and Ukrainians affected by the war. The company was founded by a group of unsalaried scientists. They designate 75% of their profits to such support, and have so far have donated more than $30,000. Read about ATOMIK and how it reveals the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone's recovery at Mental Floss. 

(Image credit: Chernobyl Spirit CIC)

(Image credit: Chad Doebelin)

Christmas trees are trees, decorated with Christmas lights. That's all they really have in common. Really, iy doesn't even have to be a tree, just vaguely tree-shaped. Some people go the extra mile to make their tree extra nice, or personalized, or they go with a theme, often something that's close to their heart. Surely you recognize the game Portal in Chad Doebelin's clever Christmas tree, but did you notice the TARDIS tree topper? I bet if we look closer, we'll see other pop culture references. And speaking of pop culture references, here's an excuse to put up two trees.

(Image credit: sabins253)

But you don't have to have a theme for your Christmas tree. Sometimes it just takes a little planning to achieve a stunning effect. This one is the result of seven hours spent decorating it.

(Image credit: Morana_Saracevic)

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. A bunch of people shared their awesome Christmas trees that are lovingly decorated, themed, or cleverly cobbled out of things they already had. You can see 50 examples of Christmas trees that might make you rethink yours at Bored Panda.

But if those trees truly make you feel inadequate, Bored Panda also has a gallery of images from those who selected "laziness" as their Christmas decorating theme.

When you get too many Christmas gifts, or gifts you just don't care for, what do you do? Some people just keep them or regift them, but 20 to 30% of all merchandise these days is returned for money or store credit. What happens to all that returned merchandise? It was once up to each individual retailer to deal with returns, but the retail industry has now developed a complicated and centralized infrastructure to receive, sort, classify, and dispose of unwanted goods. And that system ramps into high gear after Christmas.

Inmar Intelligence is one of the larger third-party logistics companies that deals with half a billion returned items every year. Amanda Mull of The Atlantic visited their returns-processing center in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, where each item is inspected by a materials handler who follows the standards set by the various companies they contract with. Returned items are inspected, judged, and then either repackaged for sale, sold to a resale company, donated, recycled, or destroyed. Find out how all this happens at The Atlantic. -via Nag on the Lake

Gmünd, Austria, has a church in two pieces, with a road between them. The minister preaches from the pulpit in one half of the church, while the congregation sits in the other half to listen. The two parts are open to the air, so that each party can see the other. It's called The Divided Church, for obvious reasons.

There's a story behind this church, although it's not a case of the government building a road and the church refusing to move, as you might expect. The road was there first, and it had a little roadside shrine where travelers could pray for safe travel over the mountain -or for mercy as they were led to execution. In 1748, the shrine was expanded into a chapel, with an open side so that the pastor could preach to people who gathered outside on the road. Eventually, the pastor arranged to have a room built for congregants to sit in out of the weather just across the street. Read how the shrine grew into a chapel and then a unique church, and see more pictures, at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Johann Jaritz)

On December 16, 1773, exactly 250 years ago today, protesters threw a shipment of tea into Boston Harbor. In elementary school, we learn that it was an illustration of the building frustration of the American colonists that eventually led to the American Revolution. That's where we learned the phrase "taxation without representation!" At the time, though, some of the man who became the Founding Fathers were horrified at such vandalism, and thought the perpetrators should be arrested or at least have to make restitution for the £10,000 in tea they destroyed.

The tax situation that led to the Boston Tea Party, as it later was called, was more complicated than just a tax on tea. It certainly wasn't the only protest, either, but it was more memorable and fun for elementary students than, say, the Boston Massacre. Colonists in New York and Philadelphia intercepted shipments of tea before they could reach land. In Boston, patriots surrounded ships in the harbor and prevented them from unloading for a couple of weeks before they seized the tea. On December 16, thousands of colonists witnessed the destruction, but told no one and left almost no written records, lest the British authorities find out who was responsible. Learn the real story of the Boston Tea Party, which was planned earlier and involved more people than you learned about in school, at Smithsonian. 

PS: They're doing it again tonight.

#LIVE Boston Tea Party 250th Anniversary 👀

Boston celebrates 250th anniversary of Tea Party with re-enactment of famous 1773 uprising against the British.

Live coverage over at: https://t.co/CBHJNC8gy9

Follow and keep updated. pic.twitter.com/wNkFqWo8O9

— HumanDilemma (@HumanDilemma_) December 17, 2023

Minnesota is choosing a new state flag, and thousands of designs were submitted. They've been winnowed down to three finalists, all with very simple designs, which do not include surfer Sasquatch. CGP Grey is very much into vexillology, and believes most of our state flags should be redesigned to get away from the "state seal on a blue background" theme. That's exactly what Minnesota is doing, even though their new seal is a vast improvement. When the Minnesota flag submissions were announced, Grey was quick to post a video about them, but it was limited to his Patreon members. Now he's eager to register his opinions on the three finalists.

Grey named the finalists Star Rise, Old Wavy, and Polaris Tricolor. He has a definite favorite, and gives us the many reasons why he approves. As much as you may like modern elements in a new flag, one of the most important considerations for a particular design is how it will hold up over the next 100 years. We will see if the Minnesota legislature takes Grey's points to heart when they select their new flag.

Update: Grey's pick is also the Minnesota commission's pick. The bad news is that they will probably change it.

Over the last couple of decades, American have been immersed in the phenomenon of the Christmas romance movie, which are all very much alike but people watch them like they are consuming comfort food. A similar but much older genre of Christmas entertainment can be found in the United Kingdom, where the Christmas murder mystery is a thing. Murder mystery novels rose in popularity in the early 20th century, as they put the reader into the role of detective, trying to figure out whodunnit. Anything that popular is bound to eventually have a Christmas version, and that happened in the 1930s, and again, and again.  

The Christmas mysteries are now known as "cozy crime" stories, because the elements are so familiar, and the plots follow a standard crime investigation that leads to the murderer's reveal at the end. While murder and Christmas aren't the most natural pairing, such novels have become beloved in the land that gave birth to them. Every year, mystery fans look forward to the Christmas stories they've become used to. Read how this strange but common genre of fiction came about at Atlas Obscura.