We've seen some "modern trailers" made where the editor is making fun of the formulaic sameness of today's movie trailers. This isn't that at all.

The original trailer for the 1986 movie Aliens, the action-movie sequel to the horror classic Alien, has no narration and very little dialogue. It was all action scenes that gave away almost no plot. Michael Edwards made a new one 36 years later with a modern aesthetic. Well, digital editing is going to give us a much better-looking trailer, but the difference here is that his trailer explains the main premise of the movie. There's still no narration, but bits of dialogue are artfully strung together to tell just enough of the story to make us want to see the rest. Oh, there's some action, but also suspense and exposition, carefully balanced in a well-edited barrage of clips, with just a touch of the xenomorph. And unlike real trailers of the 21st century, this doesn't give away everything in the movie. Contains NSFW language.

For contrast, here's the 1986 trailer, which you should probably watch first.



See what I mean? -via Laughing Squid

Twitter, I need your help. I stacked a ceramic bowl into another one while doing dishes and now they are stuck. How do you remove the smaller bowl without breaking both of them?

Why am I so invested? I’ve tried to fix this for 2 days, and I cannot give up now. pic.twitter.com/ONfuw7L9dH

— Chi Nguyễn (@whatchidid) June 6, 2022

On June 4, Chi Nguyễn washed dishes and found that two ceramic bowls had nested and become stuck together. She tried to get them apart for two days, and then turned to the internet for suggestions. And if there's one thing that the internet loves to do, it is to give suggestions. Over the next two days and change, Nguyễn tried different ideas and gave regular updates of what hadn't worked so far. So many people became invested in the challenge of separating the bowls that someone launched a website about it, called Is the Bowl Still Stuck? But while many suggestions were in earnest, the funny ones really stuck out.

Have you tried politely asking the smaller bowl to leave?

Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

Fill a tub full of warm (not too hot) water. Hold bowls snug to your chest. Get in the tub (clothes optional). Submerge fully. Close eyes. Take slow, deep breaths. Remain for 10 minutes. After toweling off, it is unlikely that the bowls will separate, but you'll feel stress-free.

Filled the bowls with prune juice.
Prune juice will gaurentee a bowl movement.

They like attention. As soon as you pretend you don’t care they’ll get bored of this game.
Eat some soup in the inner one, rinse, run through the dishwasher. If they stay together they are more devoted to the prank than is healthy.

I know I shouldn't laugh...

— Adelaide Braddock (She/Her/她) (@adibraddock) June 9, 2022

Maybe…they don’t *want* to be separated? They are not spooning, but are bowling.

Would it kill you to accept that the bowls are one now and maybe support their relationship?

Give them to a small child.
Tell said child that never, EVER, under any circumstances, on pain-of-death must these two bowls be separated.
Leave the room for 30 seconds.
Return to separated bowls.

It was that piece of advice that finally worked. The bowls are free! However, the smaller bowl suffered a chip sometime over the dozens of attempts.

A good time was had by all. You can read the entire thread here. -via Metafilter

Riflery enthusiast Robert Brantley was on his way to the shooting range yesterday when he saw a kitten on the side of the road. This kitten turned out to be an advance scout, or possibly bait. His brothers and sisters came out of the grass and ambushed him! He said, "I can't take you all!" And then he did. 

I was loaded down from a range trip when I was ambushed. So here is the video of them all in. I wish I would have been in my truck but I was stuck in the gas saver. This model didn’t come with the kitten box either. I couldn’t keep up with them as I would throw one in and 2 would jump out. So I had to close the door with the window down and funnel em in. That would have been good footage actually.

Since then, Brantley has taken more videos of the 13 kittens with his family, and is looking for homes for most of them. You can keep up with this adventure at Facebook. -via Metafilter

This image is pretty old. I think I saw it when I was fairly young, and that's been a loooong time! Still, I couldn't remember the answer. There is supposed to be two tigers in this image, and you are challenged to find the hidden tiger. In the internet age, you'll see this often with a clickbait title, like "If you can find the hidden tiger, you are in the 1%!" which is silly. It's a puzzle, and normal people can't see it right off. But when you do see it, you can't stop seeing it. Still, this is the 21st century, and some people try to solve an old problem with modern solutions.

pic.twitter.com/EEiogXQDi1

— David Healy (@davehealy) June 8, 2022

Go ahead, give it a try. Then when you give up, you can go read the solution at The Sun. -via Digg

Dog had a raspy cough. The vet went right over him, x ray, blood tests and it was all a big mystery. Out of the blue the vet asked me to cough. I coughed...the dog coughed...I coughed...dog coughed again. Turned out the whole family had colds and the dog was trying to fit in.

— Vanessa Young (@vanessa_young56) May 31, 2022

Kristin Chirico asked people on Twitter to share their most embarrassing veterinary visit. It turns out that every pet owner has at least one story of rushing a beloved pet to an emergency animal clinic, only to find out everything is normal, or else your dog or cat is just acting up to make you spend big bucks at the vet. This one was from a few years ago, but it was reposted as legendary.



You have to feel sorry for the poor hamster. But this one can't help but make you laugh.

this is the winner

— 🌈 emilie ✨ (@emiliebarnard) June 3, 2022

You can read all the replies at the Twitter thread, or the 40 funniest in a list at Bored Panda.

COW LOOSE ON OKC HIGHWAY 🐄🤠 Sky 5 was flying over the moments when cowboys and emergency crews wrangled a cow that got loose on a busy Oklahoma City highway. https://t.co/pgZRNirP9R pic.twitter.com/NgnlgqiEEA

— koconews (@koconews) June 6, 2022

If you thought calf ropin' was an obsolete skill only seen in rodeos, you haven't been to Oklahoma. The KOCO Sky 5 helicopter is used to following Oklahoma City traffic jams and the rare police chase, but Monday morning it was a juvenile cow being chased down the road. The bovine was first spotted on Interstate 40 near Pennsylvania Avenue, and was chased down a service road by trucks, golf carts, and emergency services, all caught on video by the traffic helicopter. Two cowboys with considerable skills managed to lasso and tie the cow within minutes.

The cowboy who lassoed the cow on his first try was Blake Igert, a contractor for Oklahoma National Stockyards. He saddled up and rushed into action through morning traffic when he got a call about a cow loose on the highway. We've seen many examples of street theater, but this is street rodeo!  -via Boing Boing

Jalopnik asked its readers to tell about their worst automotive breakdown. You can tell these are stories that have been told over and over until they are succinct and even humorous in hindsight. Like how I tell people about my first car, a 1966 MG Midget that lost its tailpipe constantly going over the school speed bumps, and eventually lost its floorboards and steering wheel. There are tales of being stuck for days, incompetent repairmen, and blocking serious traffic. But none can compare to the time Dominic von Stösser's Land Cruiser's electrical system quit working in the middle of the Namib desert, near where they filmed Fury Road. There was no one and nothing around for miles.

Not to worry: the vehicle was primitive enough to run without any electrics at all, but... trying to start a cold 2H diesel (4 litre inline six) with its ~20.7:1 compression ratio without pre-heating the engine is a fool’s errand. Absolute madness.

Thankfully I’d camped on top of a rise, so we made a big fire and boiled a bunch of water. My partner poured the scalding water over the intake manifold, while I shovelled hot coals to underneath the oil pan. When the time came, my partner and I gave the Cruiser a shove, went running after it, jumped in, rammed it into 2nd, dumped the clutch and...

... breathed a massive sigh of relief when the engine turned over, and reluctantly, ROUGHLY, coughed emphysemically to life. Having got it running, we didn’t dare turn it off until I got home, 500km away. Stopped for fuel at one point. The attendant asked me to kill the engine, told him nope; hurry up and fill, the engine is gaining. Got home close to 10pm, driving by moonlight with next to no lights, no indicators, no brake lights, nothing.

That drive sucked.

Indeed. Read 14 other stories of epic vehicle breakdowns, and then make sure your roadside assistance insurance is up to date. -via Digg

(Image credit: Michael Schwarz)

Mercedes-Benz only made nine chassis for the 1955 Mercedes-Benz SLR coupe. The Mercedes SLR was a racing legend. It won every race it participated in, but then an SLR was involved in the 1955 Le Mans disaster, in which French driver Pierre Levegh's SLR was thrown through the air and landed, twice, among spectators. The car exploded into flames. Levegh and 83 spectators were killed, making it the deadliest car race ever. Mercedes-Benz withdrew from racing for three decades.

Two of the nine SLR chassis became street-legal autos for Mercedes executives, one being Daimler-Benz motorsport chief Rudolf Uhlenhaut. These two cars were called Uhlenhaut Coupés. That in itself made each one of the rarest cars in the world. One of those cars is in the Mercedes corporate museum. The other has set a world record for the most expensive car ever sold. In May, the bids went up to €135 million, or $142 million! The previous record was set in 2018, when a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO sold for $70 million.

Of course, that $142 million is just money. The SLR that exploded at Le Mans was much more costly, but in a different way. The buyer has yet to reveal himself. Mercedes will use the proceeds to launch a global scholarship fund.

The Uhlenhaut Coupé has a 300 horsepower eight-cylinder engine, gull-wing doors, and exhaust pipes on the passenger side. If someone offers you a ride in one, take it, but be careful getting in.  -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Alexander Migl)

Escape from Auschwitz: the most extraordinary Holocaust story you’ve never heard | Holocaust | The Guardian https://t.co/2hahTMhnBI

— Pete Blackman (@peteblackman) June 5, 2022

Walter Rosenberg was only 17 when he arrived at Auschwitz in 1942. Most new arrivals were sent straight to their deaths, but Rosenburg, being young and strong, was assigned to work. Over the next two years, he did almost every job in the camp, and learned the ins and outs of the camp layout and Nazi procedures. He also witnessed thousands of deaths, including the public hanging of two men who attempted to escape. The spectacle was designed to scare other inmates, but it only made Rosenberg more determined to escape. And he did.

In April of 1944, Rosenberg and fellow inmate Fred Wetzler hid under a pile of wood, and stayed there for three days before making their way out of the camp. Once back in their native Slovakia, Rosenberg and Wetzler wrote up a report on everything they'd witnessed at Auschwitz, a document that changed the course of the war. Read about the daring escape in a book excerpt at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting    

Sometimes a drug's side effects turn out to be more important, or at least more lucrative, than its original purpose. A drug that was developed to address heart problems took off when it was repurposed under the name Viagra. Wellbutrin is used to treat depression, but also became an aid to quit smoking under the name Zyban. These were repurposed after rigorous medical studies. An earlier case of drug repurposing happened outside of the lab and involved an over-the-counter cold remedy.

In the 1930s, phenylpropanolamine (PPA) was developed and marketed as a nasal decongestant, to relieve symptoms of colds, asthma, and allergies. It was sold over-the-counter under many brand names; you are most likely to recall the cold pills called Contac. The drug had a side effect that caused users to feel less hungry. In the 1950s, the patent for PPA lapsed, and manufacturers of diet pills jumped on that side effect, marketing PPA as a miracle diet aid. The FDA had not approved of its use for appetite suppression, but since it was sold far and wide already for colds, there was little they could do about it. It took decades of studies and another rare but scary side effect to take PPA off the market. Read about the rise and fall of PPA at Mel magazine. -via Digg

Tom Scott is at the Wasserspiele of Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, which is a 590-acre park in Germany. It has spectacular water features, which were built privately by various wealthy former landowners. Now, you may agree or disagree that rich people should build such ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption, but if they did, they should be enjoyable by the public. The public certainly can't devote money to such a useless display just because it's cool (which it is), because we have more important things to worry about, like crumbling infrastructure and national defense. What's interesting is the technology that made these fountains work merely by gravity, for more than 300 years now. Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

After two years without a summer road trip, you may be itching to go somewhere new. But you don't want to drive too far with gas prices the way they are, and you certainly don't want to deal with crowds of tourists doing touristy things. The US offers a lot of interesting and different experiences in small towns, and one may be relatively near you.

Cartersville, Georgia, has only 23,000 residents, but has three Smithsonian Affiliate museums, plus historic sites and businesses that keep an old-fashioned aesthetic. Africatown, Alabama, is where the formerly enslaved Africans of the ship Clotilda settled, and some of their descendants still live there. Africatown has a new museum opening this summer. And everyone knows Winslow, Arizona, thank to the Eagles song "Take It Easy"  -they even have a Standin’ on the Corner Park! But Winslow also has Fred Harvey's last railway hotel (now a Historic Landmark), the Old Trails Museum, a Hopi archaeological site, and it's close to Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest. Read about these towns, 15 of them in all, and what they have to offer at Smithsonian.

Would you like to watch The Terminator again, for just just seven minutes? How about a version starring Sylvester Stallone as the Terminator? Even stranger, Willem Dafoe stars as Sarah Conner! (However, the Terminator obviously still has Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1984 body.) As the scene goes on, you feel like you recognize more and more faces. Jim Carey, Brad Pitt, and Shelly Duval also appear. In fact, the list of cameo appearances in the credits will make you rewind back up the video to check them all out. Was that really Donald Trump? They are all deepfakes, in a video by Ctrl Shift Face and Deep Voodoo that brings the technology to a ridiculously uncanny level. Contains NSFW language.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

If you've been confused about "spiciness" or "hot" warnings on menus, or maybe you'd like to try some new chile pepper but don't know what to expect, science has your back. Most peppers are rated by Scoville units to explain how hot they are. But that doesn't really tell the true story of what it's like to eat those peppers. Ivette Guzmán and Paul W. Bosland of New Mexico State University led a study that looked into "the complex nature of this sensory experience" to give us more comprehensive descriptions of the effects of capsaicinoids, or chile peppers. They found that capsaicin experience can be measured in five different dimensions.  

1) Development    Heat sensation can be felt immediately or is delayed by 5, 15, 30 s, or longer.
2) Duration    Heat sensation lasts for a short time, disappearing quickly, or may last for many minutes to even hours.
3) Location    Where is the heat sensation felt; on the lips, front of the mouth, tip of the tongue, mid-palate, or in the throat.
4) Feeling    Heat sensation feels SHARP like pins pricking the area or FLAT like the heat is being smeared or painted on with a brush.
5) Intensity    Stated as Scoville Heat Units. Normally measured analytically and recorded in parts-per-million (ppm), then converted to Scoville Heat Units by multiplying by 16. Commercial products are labeled mild, medium, hot, or extra hot, however there are no industry standards for these terms.

Mefite lalochezia proposes another dimension, having to do with the effects of the pepper leaving the body.   

The study paper goes on to give us a profile of quite a few different kinds of peppers using the new lexicon. This may be helpful to you in finding your new favorite kinds of chiles. However, capsaicinoids aren't the only ingredient that makes food hot and spicy. There's also horseradish/wasabi, ginger, onion, etc. To get a full profile of a prepared dish, you'd have to have a flavor profile of all the ingredients. -via Metafilter

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor and the nearby town of Pripyat have been pretty much a no man's land since the nuclear meltdown in 1986. In those 36 years, entropy has damaged structures, trees and plants have taken over, wildlife has moved in, yet you can see that it was abandoned so suddenly that evidence of the former residents are still everywhere.    

Joerg Daiber visited Ukraine last year, before the Russian invasion, and got the spend a couple of days in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. He filmed a lot of the landscape by drone, and used the tilt-shift filtering method to give it a miniature toy look, but it's all too real. Eerily real. -via Laughing Squid