Bethlehem, a couple of hours north of Philadelphia, is a historic town. It was named on Christmas Eve in 1741, and Christmas has been celebrated there in a big way ever since. Nicknamed "Christmas City USA," it was the first American city to display a big, decorated municipal Christmas tree. The downtown historic district still resembles America in the 18th century. But that is the north end of town. The south side has a much more American story.

The Bethlehem Steel plant covers almost five miles, with blast furnaces soaring hundreds of feet into the air. This is where steel was manufactured for a hundred years, steel that was built into railroads, bridges, and skyscrapers across the country, not to mention ships and tanks through two world wars. The work was hot and dangerous and employed thousands of men and women up until 1995 when steel production ceased. The plant fell into ruins, a desolate monument to a way of life for Bethlehem residents. But instead of dismantling the plant, it has been turned into a a museum and art space. Read about the rise and fall of Bethlehem Steel and how it affected the town at Messy Nessy Chic.

(Image credit: The Mebane Greeting Card Co., Wilkes-Barre, PA.)

Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond (previously at Neatorama) is quite a Valentine's Day cynic. His stated aim in this video is to contrast the way the British celebrate the holiday with the way Americans do it, as is the normal format for Lost in the Pond videos. You might guess going in that Americans go way overboard with it compared to anyone else in the world, and you would be right. Otherwise, there are more similarities than differences.  

What's really remarkable is that Brown is so totally unenthusiastic about Valentine's Day, despite the fact that he himself got married on February 14th. It probably has to do with his tragic history with the holiday. His string of unfortunate holiday memories will resonate with those of us who usually just ignore Valentine's Day.

How do you measure love? All through history, it's been tried one way or another, from spells and amulets to trials to consultation with psychics. But as soon as we learned to harness electricity, machines to measure love, or more often sexual attraction, have sprung up everywhere. At the turn of the 20th century, a plethysmograph that detects chanes in volume was used to measure love. It's still used, but for other medical purposes. Medical instruments that measured temperature, heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure were combined to devise an early love meter, but also led to the lie detector. Other devices measure galvanic skin response or, as in the infamous Cupidometer, the subject's resistance to pain. The most enduring of the love-measuring instruments is the Love Tester, an arcade game that works on a completely different idea. Read about the history of love testers, both the serious and the entertaining, at Atlas Obscura.

Janelle Shane at AI Weirdness trained algorithms to generate Valentine cards last year. Have the programs gotten any better since then? I believe so, although they are still weird enough to generate a laugh or two. This year, she began with the prompt "Roses are red, violets are blue," and let various AI programs complete the poem. Each also generated a description of the accompanying illustration, which may or may not have anything to do with the poem. The example above was generated by GPT-3 Ada (2020 edition). Other examples range from silly to downright threatening. The newest version of ChatGPT, the AI program that is predicted to destroy the college essay and put professional writers out of work, generated eerily perfect but bland Valentine poems and cards. See the poetic work of a half-dozen or so different AI programs at AI Weirdness. If one really strikes your fancy, you can buy them here.

Around 20 years ago, I bought a leather purse with a built-in wallet. It served me well, but 15 years later it was worn out. I went back to the same store and bought another, but found that the slots in the wallet part were no longer big enough to accommodate a credit card or driver's license. That adjustment in material probably saved the manufacturer less than a penny per unit, but it made the purse useless to me. I have a similar story about a simple coffee filter. And my dryer? It contains no computer chips, but because so many others do, there is no longer an appliance repair guy in my town to fix a small problem. I'm sure you have your own stories about the decline of quality in products.

Kim Mas of Vox assures us that the phenomena is real, and explains the forces that go into the relative crappiness of everything we buy these days, from clothing to appliances. The only thing we can do is take care of what we have so we won't have to replace it.

For the third year in a row, the Minnesota Department of Transportation held an online poll to name eight snowplows. The agency solicited suggestions in December and got more than ten thousand possible names. They selected 60 that were offered to the public, and more than 64,000 people voted in the poll. You can see all 60 finalists and how they fared at the results page.

The names are all puns. Three of them are related to pop music, two have to do with movies, one is a TV show, one is historical figure, and Blader Tot Hotdish is a reference to the ubiquitous casserole seen at all Minnesota potluck dinners. In case you are unfamiliar with Tater Tot Hotdish, here's a typical recipe. 

The new names will go to one snowplow in each of MnDOT’s eight regions. A ninth snowplow has been named Giiwedin, which is the Ojibwe word for the North Wind. At this rate, all of Minnesota's snowplows should have names by the year 2120. -via Fark

(Image credit: Minnesota Department of Transportation)

The crypt beneath the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Rome is decorated with intricate scenes and designs made from 4,000 skeletons. It is a work of art and memento mori, a reminder that we are all mortal and will face death. These skeletons once belonged to Capuchin friars. In 1621, a Capuchin cardinal was granted land in Rome to build the bigger church they needed. It was completed in 1631. They moved the remains of friars buried at the previous church to a crypt below the new church. Other Capuchin friars were brought to the church from all over the world for burial there over the next hundred years.  

Some time in the mid-18th century, someone decided to use those bones as decorative artworks, and arranged them into complex scenes in all six of the crypt's alcoves. Some skeletons were kept intact and posed in friar's robes, while most bones were sorted by shape and used to construct other objects or line the walls. The crypt is now open to the public by going through the church's museum. Read about the crypt of the Capuchin friars and see lots of pictures at Smithsonian.

When you think of palindromic names (those that are spelled the same backward and forward), Anna, Bob, and Eve come to mind. But Bob is usually a diminutive of Robert, and it's not all that popular in the 21st century. In fact, there were no babies born in the US in 2021 who were named Bob on their birth certificates. Anna and Eve are still popular for girls, but more than 12,700 girls were named Ava in 2021. Overall, the number of different palindromic names has exploded, as you can see from the chart above. Namerology has compiled a Complete Master List of Palindrome Baby Names (using United States statistics) showing their all-time popularity and their popularity in 2021. There are quite a few 6-letter names, but the only 7-letter names are Habibah and Reinier. Check them out; you might find one you like. However, if you were to give one of these names to your child, you'll have to explain it later, and "because it's a palindrome" may not be a good enough reason for them. (via Metafilter)

Darren Pearson, also known as Dariustwin, (previously at Neatorama) is a light painter. He moves LED lights through the scene against the night sky while taking long exposure photographs. He also uses stop motion video animation to create beautiful video sequences.

At Pearson's  website, you'll find video tutorials in which you can see how he does it -and maybe even try it yourself. Don't be too hard on yourself; Pearson's been doing this for many years. You can also check out art prints for sale, as well as the tools he makes to do what he does (even though they are currently sold out). -via Born in Space

When I learned that baby carrots were developed to reduce food waste, it made me feel better about buying them. The origin of Tater Tots might make you feel better about eating them. In 1953, the Ore-Ida company was busy selling frozen corn and french fries, but it was a real hassle to separate cut french fries from the rest of the potato when they came out of the cutting machine. Nephi Grigg, who founded Ore-Ida with his brother Golden Grigg, talked the manufacturer of a prune-sorting machine into making a device that would separate the french fries out. It worked, but that left them with lot of potato scraps. The original plan was to use the scraps to feed livestock, but Nephi had a better idea. He made Tater Tots and took them to the 1954 National Potato Convention, where participants were served samples.

“These were all gobbled up faster than a dead cat could wag its tail,” Nephi Grigg would write 35 years later.

Yeah, I know, it doesn't make sense to me, either. Tater Tots became an instant hit and remained so for Ore-Ida, partly due to the fact that they are almost impossible to make at home. Find out why in the story of the Tater Tot at Eater. -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Willis Lam)

Ask a Manager is an advice site that addresses workplace issues. Often the problems that are laid out are just plain depressing, whether they can be easily answered by citing laws, or they are sticky social questions that require finesse. A post last fall took on five questions, but the one that concerns us is number three that involves Frank. Frank is a wonderful guy who retired just before the pandemic. After being confined to home for more than a year, Frank does not know what to do with himself. He drops by the office to visit and chat with his former co-workers. They all like Frank, but over time his visits became a drag on the work flow, and no one wanted to tell him. What do you do about a pleasant distraction, especially one involving a person you don't want to hurt?

Fast forward to this week. An update from the original correspondent tells us that not only has the "problem" been resolved, but the rest of the story turned out better than anyone could have imagined. You'll be glad you read it. -via Metafilter

A farmer in Missouri spotted a "crazy-looking cat" several times over about six months. He also noticed feathers and bones, evidence that the cat had been hunting. The farmer set out a live trap and eventually caught it. The family kept the cat in the trap cage and fed it venison. They took it to a local veterinarian, who declared the cat to be a female African serval. The doctor scanned the serval but found no microchip. You have to wonder how a small animal or livestock veterinarian reacted to someone bringing in a serval! Local authorities referred the farmer to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The refuge is already home to rescued big cats (including some that had previously belonged to Tiger King Joe Exotic) and a few servals.   

Staff from the refuge traveled a couple of hours to pickup the serval, who was still being kept in the live trap, since the farmer had no other cage big enough for her. The still-unnamed serval was lodged at the refuge's veterinary hospital, and later anesthetized for a complete medical workup and treatment. They treated an infected toe and amputated the tip of her frostbitten tail. A serval's native habitat never gets as cold as a Missouri winter, and this one was lucky to survive. You can keep up with the serval's progress at Turpentine Creek's Facebook page. -via Gizmodo

In the history of cinema, a vast but untold number of shadows have been used to set a mood, frighten the viewer, or imply action without showing the actors. Fabrice Mathieu (previously at Neatorama) wrote a story around such shadowy film clips from more than 60 movies. The narration is told from the perspective of a shadow. The "wearer" is the person throwing the shadow. A shadow is doomed to follow the actions of the wearer, and this shadow does not approve of those deeds at all. He eventually become determined to rebel against the wearer. What happens when a shadow decides to take matters into his own hands? This experimental short is in French with English subtitles, which means you'll want to see it twice to catch all the glorious shadows. While In the Shadow has only become freely available today, it has deservedly won all kinds of film awards. -Thanks, Fabrice!  

A very small castle in Wichita, Kansas, is listed for a rather low price- it's free! And that old adage about location, location, location, doesn't apply here, because you'll have to move it. But this is a historic opportunity. This 20'x20' castle is a prefab diner that once sold hamburgers on East Douglas Avenue in Wichita. It dates back to the 1930s, and was built by the Wichita-based company Ablah Hotel Supply. According to the Instagram account Cheap Old Houses, it was the only castle-shaped diner the company ever built, possibly inspired by White Castle, which was also founded in Wichita.

Moving the diner may be expensive, as the floor is cement. But it is doable. The current owners have decided that they don't want to put in the time and effort to restore it, but they hope that whoever takes the diner will want to preserve it for its historical value. -via Nag on the Lake

The Shweeb began as an innovation in mass transit. It is a monorail system in which people ride in pods slung below the rail and propel themselves by pedaling in a recumbent position. The folks at Google were so intrigued by the idea that in 2010 they granted the company a million dollars to develop the idea. One commenter speculated that the guys at Google thought it would be fun to use this to get around the campus. Tom Scott takes a ride in one and shows us how it's done. Would you be willing to commute to work in a Shweeb? To me, it looks scary, uncomfortable, tiring, and liable to induce motion sickness. Imagine having to take your grandma or a small child with you. So far, the Shweeb is only in operation at a theme park in New Zealand. Maybe it's fun and a good workout, but probably not something you'd want to deal with every day.