Brothers Jim and Will Pattiz run the site More Than Just Parks, dedicated to sharing information on America's National Parks. They've tackled the task of ranking all the parks in a list that may or may not be useful to you on your future travels.  

Each of the 63 designated National Parks (National Monuments, Recreation Areas, Forests, etc. were not ranked) were rated in five equally-weighted factors: accessibility, recreation, crowds, amenities, and scenery. It's sad that a park's very attractiveness can lead to a low score due to crowds, but too many tourists can lead to dissatisfaction with the experience. In deciding whether to visit, you'll need to weigh these factors for your own purposes. If a lack of accessibility and amenities don't bother you, you could see the most glorious scenery there is, without crowds, despite a low score on this list.   

The top National Park on the list is Olympic National Park in Washington state, with a score of 48 out of 50.

My state's only National Park, Mammoth Cave, ranked abysmally. It got docked for lack of recreational activities, which is true, and for lack of scenery. Seriously, scenery? What can you expect, it's a cave! Bring lights. The park that came in dead last earned that score because it shouldn't even be a National Park. See the full list of rankings, with an explanation for each score and often a video. -via Kottke

You probably know a few things about Josephine Baker. She was an American entertainer who moved to Paris in the 1920s as a teenager and became a sensation for her singing, her cross-eyed comedy, and her dancing, particularly her notorious erotic dance in a skirt made of bananas. During World War II, Baker was a spy for the French Resistance, using her fame to bypass the scrutiny everyday French citizens had to endure. And later on, she adopted a dozen children from all over the world. Those things you know already.

But there was a lot to Baker's life in between those milestones. For instance, she got the name Baker when she married at age 15. That was her second marriage! During the war, Hermann Goering personally tried to murder her, and nearly succeeded before she made a daring escape. Read these stories and quite a bit more about Josephine Baker's astonishing life at Messy Nessy Chic.   

Kransekage means wreath cake in English. These cakes are made in Scandinavia out of concentric circles of baked marzipan, and are served for holidays and special occasions. But in Denmark, if the occasion is really special, like a wedding, the cake takes on a unique shape. This is the overflødighedshorn, or cornucopia cake, a Danish tradition since the late 1700s.



The horn of plenty, or cornucopia, symbolizes good fortune, wealth, a bountiful harvest, and generosity. These Danish wedding cakes are displayed overflowing with a bounty of fruits, candies, or smaller pastries. Overflødighedshorn is an expensive confection, painstakingly made by bakers who are artists. Each ring of the horn must be baked in just the right shape to be assembled into a gravity-defying curve, held together by a bit of chocolate. Read how they do it at Atlas Obscura.

And if you ever see a overflødighedshorn, better take a picture, because this work of art will be eaten!      

The science of artificial flavor allows us to taste things that we'd normally never eat. Prank marketing group MSCHF (previously at Neatorama) ran with that idea and offers us Illegal Chips. This is a limited-edition selection of (possibly potato) chips that come in the flavors of forbidden food. You can try horse meat chips, fugu fish chips, and casu marzu chips. Casu marzu is the Sardinian cheese that contains sheep milk and live maggots.

Wanna try these Illegal Chips out? It will cost you around $4 for a 3-ounce bag, but only until they sell out. There are risks involved, even though the chips don't contain any of the foods they purport to taste like. One the one hand, they could taste awful. On the other hand, you might find you like one of them so much that it induces a craving for a dish you can't obtain, or obtain easily.  

You can watch a video of a taste test of the fugu-flavored chips at Boing Boing.

The a cappella group Six13 (previously at Neatorama) presents their annual Chanukah production! This year, it's a medley of familiar tunes from the Broadway musical West Side Story. The six singers channel the Sharks and the Jets as they sing about the Jewish Festival of Lights and the history behind it. The video was appropriately recorded on the streets of Manhattan. While you know the songs from the 1961 movie, the newest film version of West Side Story is due in theaters on December 10. Chanukah begins at sundown on Sunday and lasts until the evening of December 6. Chag Chanukah same’ach!

PS: I have often spelled the festival as Hanukkah, but used Chanukah this time as that's the spelling that appears in the video. Both are considered correct.

The turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck that was stuffed with a chicken, all deboned, separated only by a layer of sausage stuffing. It was a regional delicacy in Louisiana before 1996. New Orleans butcher Glenn Mistich had built somewhat of a reputation for providing turduckens, so he was enlisted to make one for legendary sports announcer John Madden. That happened when the St. Louis Rams played the New Orleans Saints on December 1, 1996. Madden was a well-known food enthusiast, and made no bones about what he found delicious as he narrated football games. Mistich went to great lengths to deliver the best turducken possible to the Superdome before the game. After a run-in with security, he delivered the dish, posed for a picture with Madden, and left.

It was an unwritten rule that Madden got to eat first, but the realization had hit that there were no utensils or napkins.

After a good 30 seconds of people scouring the booth and coming up empty, Madden couldn't take it anymore. He dug his hands into the turducken, ripping chunks off and eating them as the bemused crew laughed and asked him how it was. "I love it," Madden said between mouthfuls. "I absolutely love it."

Madden kept eating the turducken through the game, and made the dish a national phenomenon. The story of that day takes us through the history of the turducken, Mistich's method of creating them, and what that game meant for turducken chefs in the decades since. And it's pretty funny, too. Read the whole story at ESPN.  -via Digg

Plankton is a catch-all name for the tiny lifeforms that inhabit our water. They come in a ridiculous variety of sizes and shapes, but mainly two types: plants (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton). Within those categories are an entire encyclopedia of different plankton species, each with their own ecological niche. Plankton drift along with the current, mainly reproducing and waiting to be eaten. As they are the bottom of the food chain, they are essential to all life on earth. They also excrete oxygen as a waste product and perform other chemical processes that help to keep ocean waters healthy for other living things.

Dutch filmmaker Jan van IJken recorded different types of plankton through a microscope and assembled this gorgeous compilation of their forms. Some look like inanimate objects, while others resemble critters we  might recognize if they were bigger. A few of them may as well be aliens from a science fiction fantasy. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

While the basics of America's Thanksgiving feast are widely known and eaten across the country: turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, there are regional variations in the menu that you might never have heard of. Or maybe your family has a tradition of serving something that you would be surprised to find doesn't exist nationwide. Then again, there might even be a local variation in your own area that you aren't familiar with!

Does your family serve Frog Eye Salad, Wild Rice Casserole, Sopapilla Cheesecake, or Funeral Potatoes for Thanksgiving? Find out where these are common and why at Atlas Obscura, and if they pique your curiosity or hunger, follow the links to a recipe for each. You'll have to Google the recipe for persimmon bread, I'm afraid. 

Note: The list does not include cranberry pickle pie.

(Image credit: Flickr user SK)

You wouldn't go online to hire someone to commit murder, would you? Of course not. First, it's wrong, immoral, and illegal. Second, it's dumb. You would know right off that a site called RentAHitman is a joke. Apparently not everyone is so internet-savvy. A woman in Michigan pled guilty earlier this month to soliciting the murder of her ex-husband through the site! Wendy Wein was contacted by a police officer posing as a hitman from the service and received all the evidence he needed, including a $200 deposit. She is expected to be sentenced to nine years in prison.

Bob Innes launched RentAHitman in 2005 as a joke and a website test. He ignored it for some years, but eventually went back to clean it out and found hundreds of messages. A lot of them were trying to enlist his "services." Innes took his concerns to police, who contacted other law enforcement agencies all over the world to check out the messages. This was easy to do, since earnest potential clients filled out a form with their own information plus personal information on the person(s) they wished to exterminate.

“I don’t get it,” Bob Innes, the owner of the joke site, told the Washington Post in a recent interview. “People are just stupid.”

Read about the many people who were caught trying to hire a hitman through the website at Gizmodo. And when you visit RentAHitman, do not add your own joke by filling out the inquiry form.

(Image: RentAHitman)

Many communities stage a Christmas parade to kick off the holiday season (see: Macy's), but there's an inherent problem with having one right after Thanksgiving. Everyone's too tired and bloated to march, due to eating all that turkey, dressing, side dishes and pumpkin pie!

Glen Arbor, Michigan, took that idea and ran with it. The town's Chamber of Commerce encourages everyone to come out and do their Christmas shopping on Black Friday wearing pajamas. Their parade begins in the morning, and features beds rolling down the street! One of the parade's organizers says it's hysterical. You can put wheels on a bed, but they often lose them before they get to the end of the parade, and end up being carried. So much for resting up after Thanksgiving. But it's an annual traditional that Glen Arbor is proud of.

Last year's parade was canceled due to the pandemic, but it's back on for 2021, beginning at 9AM Friday. -via Fark

We sure love our fried potatoes. Which kind do you like best? There are french fries, curly fries, Tater Tots, potato wedges, and more, and you have to admit they are different, even though they are all fried potatoes. The Fry Universe gives us an elaborate 3D visualization of how they are different, which is a matter of surface area vs. volume. It's all in the frying, meaning how much of this food is potato, and how much is fried. Sure, we like both parts, but the frying is magic. Still, I am a bit disappointed they didn't include hash browns or latkes. -via Metafilter

Marvel Studios dipped its toe into the world of martial arts films this year with Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings. Screen Junkies are here to point out how this movie uses all the usual tropes from Marvel superhero movies plus all the tropes you expect from a martial arts film (plus father issues), and yet it works better than you'd ever expect. After all, those film elements became ubiquitous because audiences liked them. While there's plenty to say, it's obvious that our favorite film critics really liked Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings. Even if they are really bracelets.   

Early 20th-century modernist architecture was big in Southern California. There were innovative architects bringing sunlight and class to the homes of the nouveau riche, movie stars, and real estate moguls. Many became quite famous, and led lifestyles that rivaled those of movie stars. And then there was Jock Peters.

When the great 20th-century architect Richard Neutra arrived in Los Angeles in 1925 with his wife, Dione, and the couple’s young child, his first residence was 835 Kings Road in West Hollywood. There, the Neutras shared the home of fellow Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler and his wife, Pauline. Schindler, who designed the architectural landmark, had already made a name for himself in the United States by writing a “manifesto” that described, perhaps for the first time in so many words, an architecture in which, “The distinction between indoors and the out-of-doors will disappear.” A stint with Frank Lloyd Wright sealed Schindler’s reputation, as did the legendary soirees at Kings Road, where it was not uncommon for modern dancers to perform in the nude while Schindler’s guests drank freely, despite the strictures of Prohibition.

When the little-known 20th-century architect and designer Jock Peters arrived in Los Angeles in 1922, his wife, Herta, and their five children remained back home in Germany. Peters’ first lodging was a room at a local YMCA, which he shared with his brother George, who had landed in the United States almost a decade earlier. “I want to lead a quiet, insular life with you here,” Jock was soon assuring Herta in a letter home, “and shall try to avoid ambition and fame.”

Peters kept this promise, maybe too assiduously…

Peters started his career in California at a draftsman table, working for an architectural firm. But he branched out by getting creative for Hollywood studios, designing fantasy sets and interiors, a step that may be even more lasting than the expensive houses that brought acclaim to other architects. He went on to design stores and other commercial businesses, but he always kept a low profile. Now Peters' real influence can be recognized through the publication of his archives in the book Jock Peters, Architecture and Design: The Varieties of Modernism by Christopher Long. Read an overview of Peters' life and work at Collectors Weekly.  

Radon is a naturally-occurring radioactive gas that we are warned about in our basements. We know the dangers of radiation, which was driven home forcefully after Hiroshima and during the arms race. There was a time before that in which people sought out the miracle of radiation in cosmetics and even medicine. That belief hasn't quite died out.

There are places in the world that people go to and pay good money to be exposed to radon. Radon therapy seems to help some people, but is it a miracle cure, a placebo, or a matter of faith? Tom Scott visits the radonstollen (radon tunnel) in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. It's the site of a thriving pain clinic. The unique feature of this clinic is that the radon can be turned on or off! It sounds like the perfect place to propose a double-blind study on the effects of radon, but that probably won't happen. Even if you could find enough volunteers, good luck getting that idea past a university's ethics board.

If you know only two things about Benjamin Franklin, you know the story of how he flew a kite in a thunderstorm to capture electricity, and how he wanted to name the turkey as our national bird. If you know three things, you know he also liked beer. And then there's all that Founding Father stuff. You might like to learn how Franklin combined his electrical experiments with his fondness for turkey meat.

Two years before his famous kite experiment, Franklin decided to slaughter a turkey using electricity. He theorized that turkeys killed by electricity would be tastier than those killed by the usual method of decapitation. On December 23, 1750, Franklin set up the procedure. But instead of killing the turkey, he electrocuted himself! No, he didn't die, but he wrote about his injuries. We don't know what happened to the turkey, but it most likely ended up as Christmas dinner anyway. Read the story of that experiment at Smithsonian.