A Japanese company has invented a way to let us drink potato chips. Forget the tedious (and greasy) way of eating a bag of potato chips, because Zyplus’ Poterapper will let you gulp your chips with ease. The Poterapper doesn’t turn potato chips into an actual liquid form. It gives the user a way to shove potato chips into their mouth with ease, as SoraNews24 detailed: 

At first glance, the Poterapper looks sort of like an adapter for hookng up your washing machine. It’s composed of three parts, top, middle, and bottom pieces, as shown above. Those three parts, though, plus a pair of scissors, are all you need to make the magic happen.

First, cut off a corner of the bag and slide the bottom piece. Then place the middle piece over the bottom piece, with the bag’s material sandwiched between their contact patch, and screw the two pieces together. Finally, screw the top piece, which is a cap, onto the middle piece.

Now that you’ve got your equipment set up, the final step is to turn your chips into drinkable form by pressing and squeezing the bag to break them into smaller pieces that can easily flow through the spout. We suppose you could also toss the bag around the room or dropkick it, but you’ll want to be gentle enough that it doesn’t rip.

image via SoraNews24

Have you ever bought shoes online that you never got to use because it wasn’t the shoes you were looking for? Here’s a game-changing trick for you that can help you visualise if the shoes you’re eyeing are the one that complement your clothes. While this trick doesn’t really work for checking if the shoes are the right size, at least it can help online shoppers in another way.  The trick, shared by Megan Papas, will only cost you a small print-out of yourself, as Mirror UK details: 

Megan prints out a photo of her side profile, wearing the outfit she wants the shoes to go with.

The then cuts around her body and snips off her feet, so she can line the end of her legs up with the picture of the shoe on the computer.

She also laminates the photo so she can use it again and again, without it getting bent or destroyed.

Her trick means that she always has an idea of what shoes are going to look like with her clothes before she buys them.

image via Mirror UK

Pastry chef Claire Saffitz tests her wits in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen as she attempts to make gourmet Butterfingers. Yes, that’s the taffy-like chocolate treat we know and love. The process of trying to recreate them is meticulous and tedious. Watch as Saffitz tries to figure out the correct ratio of ingredients (and the ingredients themselves) in order to create a perfect recreation of Butterfingers. 

A dark ale made from crickets will be making its way into Shibuya this March. The ale will be made from farm-raised bugs, kept in optimal conditions until harvesting. The crickets are roasted and added to the brew. The resulting ale has a bitter and savoury taste with a caramel-like undertone. In addition, the aroma will remind the drinker of coffee, as SoraNews24 details: 

Ishikawa Prefecture’s Tono Brewery has teamed up with insect food production firm Antcicada, headed by self-proclaimed cockroach lover (or “katsaridaphile” for you Scrabble players) Yuta Shinohara.

Antcicada has already developed cricket soy sauce and cricket ramen, and now with Tono’s help is set to release Cricket Dark Ale.

From Sunday 15 March to Wednesday 18 March, Antcicada will be serving glasses of this bold new ale at a pop-up stand in Shibuya Parco. In addition to the beer, specially selected insect snacks will also be served and merch such as T-shirts can be purchased.

What makes this cricket beer unique and quite possibly a world-first is that the crickets used are fed the lees (leftover sediment from brewing) of previous batches of Cricket Dark Ale, creating an efficient cycle of waste-reduction which can only bring out more of the inherent flavor and aroma of the drink.

image via SoraNews24

French street artist Invader created an interpretation of the Mona Lisa using the tiles from a Rubik’s cube. Invader’s interpretation was sold for 480,200 euros ($520,680) at a modern art auction in Paris, leagues beyond the work’s presale estimated amout of 150,000 euros. Reuters has more details: 

The Rubik Mona Lisa was created in 2005 and is the first in Invader’s “Rubikcubism” series, in which he recreates well-known Old Master works.

Invader, who defines himself as an UFA, an Unidentified Free Artist, wears a mask and insists on his face being pixilated for his rare appearances on camera.

He has a large following of fans who use a Smartphone app, “Flash Invaders”, to snap pictures of his mosaics if they’re authentically his, rack up points and compete with other players.

image via Reuters

A video from someone’s Pokemon Camp has gone viral. In the video, two Drifblims are kissing while a Gengar laughs in the background. The video attracted over 174,000 likes and 55,000 retweets. It’s a cute and wholesome video to be honest, although it might make you want to have someone to cutely kiss at a Pokemon Camp as well. 

(via NintendoSoup)

image via NintendoSoup

A new mix-it-yourself hand soap has been launched by FORGO, a brand that avoids plastic and minimises carbon emissions. True to its aim, the hand soap comes only in concentrated powder, along with a refillable glass bottle. The powder contains the essential ingredients needed to turn regular tap water into a full bottle of foaming hand wash. Designboom has the details: 

form us with love worked with a lab specialized in natural cosmetics to develop the powder, which includes six core ingredients that have been around since the eighties. the FORGO handwash comes in three scents — neutral, citrus and wood — all packaged in the studio’s signature minimal aesthetic.

we have defined our mission as design real change, our guide to influence everything we do here at form us with love. this ambition is very time-consuming,’ says jonas pettersson, CEO at form us with love. ‘it means we have to dig deep to influence entire industries, and make better products in terms of innovation, sustainability, quality production to make things long-lasting solutions.’

image via Designboom

What happens when you run a script of an untranslated game through multiple rounds of Google Translate? This video, apparently. Watch the product of a Google-translated Fire Emblem Sacred Stones, and see for yourself if Google Translate is a reliable translator. Don’t worry, the battle maps aren’t included, only the conversations in the game. 

Establishments such as retailers and restaurant chains use software that determines their employees’ work schedule. The software uses a variety of data to fine-tune and automate their employee’s schedules, and is designed to track employees’ time and activity to cut labor costs and maximize profit. While these systems do help ease the management costs, it may put the companies’ employees at risk, as Vice details: 

Many large retailers and restaurant chains in the U.S. and abroad have deployed software that uses a variety of data to fine-tune and automate their employee’s schedules, according to press releases, public statements, and employees interviewed by Motherboard. These systems are designed to track employees’ time and activity to cut labor costs and maximize profitability for shareholders.

"Because there isn't a way to guarantee week-to-week that I [could have] certain days off depending on what the system dictates, it makes it really hard to plan anything outside of work,” Kyle, a former full-time worker at Target, told Motherboard. Motherboard granted Kyle and other sources in this story anonymity because they feared retaliation from their employers. “As far as a social life is concerned, all of my activities became spontaneous. Planning anything for me became months and months in advance.”

“I felt like my life source was being tapped out of my body. I felt like I should just suck it up and be better,” Callen, a student and Starbucks worker, told Motherboard.

They said that management used Starbucks’ scheduling software to prevent shorter shifts during the week in favor of longer weekend shifts.

“I live three hours away from [my family] and I can only return home on weekends. Last semester, I only saw them three times,” Callen said.

This illustrates how these systems rely on forcing workers to have a 7-day “open availability,” a common aspect of at-will employment contracts used in the service industry.

image via wikimedia commons

Japanese mobile company Tone Mobile has released a phone that keeps its users from taking inappropriate photos. The Tone e20 has an AI-powered feature that prevents its users from taking or saving nude photos. This feature is aimed at parents who would want to keep their kids away from porn, or prevent them from posting (or taking) nude photos of themselves. Petapixel has the details: 

The system is powered by what Tone Mobile calls “TONE Security AI,” which is implemented into the phone’s TONE Camera to “prevent self-portrait damage caused by children under the age of 18 being deceived or threatened to photograph their own nudity.” If the AI recognizes that the subject of a photo is “inappropriate,” the camera will lock up; and if you somehow manage to snap a photo before the AI kicks in, the phone won’t let you save or share it.

Additionally, a feature called “TONE Family” can be set to send an alert to parents whenever an inappropriate image is detected.

image via Petapixel

Edward Bullard invented the ‘Hard Boiled Hat’ after coming back from World War 1. The hard hat was inspired from the helmet used by soldiers during the war. Bullard saw the effectiveness of the helmet as it protected soldiers from harm, so he created a version that would be used outside the war. Bullard’s Hard Boiled Hat revolutionized the safety-product industry, as Smithsonian Magazine detailed: 

“Bullard’s invention came at an important time,” says Peter Liebhold, curator in the Division of Work & Industry at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which has three examples of the Bullard hard hat in its Mining Lights and Hats collection. “Mines were one of the first regulated work places in America. His hard hat protected employees and limited the liability against employers.”

Started in 1898, the E.D. Bullard Co. was founded by the inventor’s father Edward D. Bullard. The manufacturer produced carbide lamps and other equipment for miners in California, Nevada and Arizona. After returning from the war, the son began developing ideas for affordable safety headgear that would protect miners.

“He realized miners wouldn’t be able to afford a metal helmet,” says Wells Bullard, the inventor’s great-granddaughter, who now runs the family business. “He came up with the idea of a canvas hat, which was shellacked to give it durability and strength. He also invented an inner suspension system that distributed the force of an impact.”

Edward W. Bullard actually began working on a concept for protective headgear in 1915. But it wasn’t until after his experiences in World War I that his design finally took shape. He opted to use a heavy duck canvas, which was then formed to fit the human head with steam, hence the name Hard Boiled Hat. He attached leather brims to it, painted it black and then coated it with shellac so it would hold up to everyday wear in dirty, dangerous mines. In 1919, Bullard also developed a protective cap for the U.S. Navy, which wanted to keep shipyard workers safe.

image via wikimedia commons

When Twitter user Logan Evans was in his senior year of high school, his teacher laughed at him when he said that he would become a lawyer. But it seems that Evans has the last laugh, as he was just accepted into law school with a scholarship. Evans made sure that his teacher knows that he was in fact, on the way to becoming a lawyer through an email. The teacher actually replied to his email, and it’s less hostile and more wholesome.

pic.twitter.com/ZCh1oUJrtC

— Logan Evans (@SheWantsThe_E) February 23, 2020

image via Twitter

The Pokemon franchise has been around for a long time. It’s not surprising to see the spread of urban legends that players can try to spot in the games. DidYouKnowGaming compiles all the urban legends and rumours all throughout the Pokemon games. Maybe you can try and see if these urban legends are real! 

Daniel Kish is a man who grew up adapted to blindness. At infancy, both of his eyes were removed to save his life from retinoblastoma, a cancer that attacks the retinas. Now at 44, Kish has taught himself how he can navigate the world, even with a handicap. He uses sounds to perceive the environment around him, as Men’s Journal detailed: 

 Kish has trained himself to hear these slight echoes and to interpret their meaning. Standing on his front stoop, he could visualize, with an extraordinary degree of precision, the two pine trees on his front lawn, the curb at the edge of his street, and finally, a bit too far from that curb, my rental car. Kish has given a name to what he does – he calls it “FlashSonar” – but it’s more commonly known by its scientific term, echolocation.

Bats, of course, use echolocation. Beluga whales too. Dolphins. And Daniel Kish. He is so accomplished at echolocation that he’s able to pedal his mountain bike through streets heavy with traffic and on precipitous dirt trails. He climbs trees. He camps out, by himself, deep in the wilderness. He’s lived for weeks at a time in a tiny cabin a two-mile hike from the nearest road. He travels around the globe. He’s a skilled cook, an avid swimmer, a fluid dance partner. Essentially, though in a way that is unfamiliar to nearly any other human being, Kish can see.

image via Men’s Journal

We see different mascots and people in costume playing as a particular Disney character at Disney World. From Mickey Mouse to the different Disney princesses, these people are trained and paid to play the part of the iconic characters for the customer’s (specifically, children’s) enjoyment. But have you ever wondered what it’s like to be hired as one of the people who will dress up and roleplay at the theme park? Kristen Sotakoun, a former employee, shared her experience at Vox: 

It may be different now, but for me, the training was five days. When you’re accepted in entertainment, nobody is just a princess or just a prince. You have to be trained and approved in fur characters first. The first three days of training is sitting and watching videos of what you can or can’t do. Learning autographs. There’s a really creepy portion where you wear just the head and hands of the character. So you’re in business-casual but the hands and head of Chip and Dale. The last two days of training you go out into the park with character attendants, and meet people. It was wild to me, I thought the training would last about a month. And once you’re approved for fur, it’s two days of training for each “face character” [characters like Belle or Princess Jasmine that don’t wear a mask].

I was so stoked when I got through training, and then I did three weeks in a row of just Winnie the Pooh.

image Kristen Sotakoun via Vox