Humans genuinely dislike change, especially when it comes to changing the way we do things in our everyday lives, and even though we keep discovering new and better ways to do stuff the old ways refuse to die.
We constantly complain about how vending machines rip us off, how much those magnetic strips on our credit cards suck and how stupid and useless red light cameras are, and yet these outdated technologies refuse to die.
And speaking of outdated- why are we still using the same optical media we've been using for over thirty years?
But the one outdated tech that makes me wonder "why is this still a thing?" is the alkaline battery- they're terrible for the environment, a pain in the ass to recycle, and yet they outnumber rechargeable batteries ten to one at retail stores.
The Simpsons' home is one of the most iconic houses in television history, and the fact that the house is featured so prominently in every episode makes it instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever watched the show.
Which is why the Fox network decided it would make a great grand prize for some lucky Simpsons fanatic out there, so they hired homebuilders Kaufman and Broad (now KB Homes) to make an exact replica of 742 Evergreen Terrace.
The replica Simpsons house was built in Henderson, Nevada in 1997, but when the winner Barbara Howard was offered either the house or $75k cash she took the cash because the house was too far away from her family farm.
The original Simpsons replica home featured rooms decorated to look just like the original, a replica of Bart's Treehouse in the backyard and an El Barto tag on the side of the house painted by Matt Groening himself.
Sadly, the fact that Barbara didn't take the house meant it became just another piece of commercial property, and the new owners took it from totally toon-tastic to bland and boring when it was sold in 2001.
Here's a fun video via AV Club showing pop culture archaeologist Adam The Woo visiting the formerly fun home back in 2015:
Comic book nerds dream of having super powers because we believe these powers will make our lives better in some way, but when we really analyze what it means to have certain powers the cons far outweigh the pros.
Now I wouldn't exactly call bone claws a super power, but I also wouldn't call them a practical thing to have around at the flick of a wrist, especially if you have pets or small children in your home.
Nightcrawler made teleportation look like a really cool power, but there would be too much pressure to get your jumps just right for it to be practical.
And the classics super speed and super strength seem like they'd be handy on paper, but the human body isn't built to handle that kind of stress so using your power would mess you up but good.
Talented musicians have a way of making any and all instruments sound better than expected, but making a crappy little toy guitar from a dollar store sound good seems like an impossibility.
However, as we've learned many times before Rob Scallon is a musical wizard, and when he wraps his hands around a cheap toy guitar from Dollar Tree he somehow manages to make it sound like a million bucks.
Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's safe to say Rob got his money's worth!
The holidays are all about giving, but some people are so darn hard to shop for it's virtually impossible to find a gift that will actually make them happy.
So here's the secret to great gift giving during the holidays- head to the NeatoShop and grab them a geeky t-shirt, a super cool hoodie, lovable long sleeve t-shirt, positively awesome print or a badass baby onesie!
Are you ready to stare at a picture full of objects to find one specific object again? Of course you are!
As usual this picture of something hidden among other things is brought to you by Hungarian artist Gergely Dudás, aka "Dudolf" aka the guy who has hidden a panda among snowmen and a cat among owls.
This time we're searching for something fleecy hiding in a sea of jolly fat men, so can you spot the sheep among the Santas?
It used to take a steady supply of hard drugs, strong coffee or pills to get so strung out you couldn't sleep at night, but nowadays all you need is a computer screen or a smartphone to get totally cracked out.
Because if the endless content, constantly refreshing Instagram feed or all the cute cat videos shared by your aunt on Facebook don't keep you up at night the blue light generated from your screen damn sure will.
Plus, as this For Lack Of A Better Comic comic shows, having your smartphone sitting on your nightstand will keep you up at night too, especially when it beckons to you to pick it up and search for stuff online...
Horses are noble and elegant creatures and truly one of the most beautiful animals in the world, but did you know they're also the hirsute heroes of the animal kingdom?
With beautiful manes and tails that can be braided and styled their hair game is undeniably strong, but what truly makes them hirsute heroes is the fact that both males and females can grow amazing moustaches.
And unlike other animals with hair on their upper lip the horse's moustache comes in many styles, from the hairy hippie to the dapper dan to the horsey handlebar.
Have you ever gotten a piece of roast beef that looked like it might be starting to go bad because it had an iridescent sheen on it that looked like something you'd see on the side of a fish?
That metallic shine may have put you off and caused you to throw away perfectly edible roast beef just to be safe, but as it turns out that metallic shine has nothing to do with the meat being old.
In fact, the iridescence is actually caused by an optical phenomenon called interference:
Optical interference happens whenever a light wave reflected off one surface encounters a wave reflected off another surface close by.
In the case of lunchmeat, two sorts of interference effects are possible.
The first is called thin-film interference. Some deli cuts, especially cured meats, are rich in fat and oil. If this fat seeps out, it can form a layer on the surface and change the situation from a simple single reflection to a double reflection—one off the front surface where the air meets the fat layer and another off the back surface where the fat layer meets the meat.
This type of interference is what gives oil slicks their hues of purple and green, and what gives bubbles that warbling rainbow shimmer.
The second interference effect is called diffraction. Diffraction occurs whenever light passes through a repeating grid of equally-spaced slits or bounces off a surface of equally-spaced reflectors. This structure—called a diffraction grating—produces many reflection points, meaning that instead of considering how just two reflected waves interfere, we must consider the sum of a great multiplicity.
What does this have to do with lunchmeat? Muscles are made up of proteins that bind into strands, and these strands in turn group into long fibers, each about one or two micrometers in diameter.
When a muscle is cooked and ultimately cut, this repeating structure of muscle fiber is exposed, forming a natural diffraction grating for visible light. Any mixture of light incident on the slice of meat will encounter these well-ordered fibers and reflect only certain colors out at certain angles.
We are just a week away from the premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and I'm so excited I feel like a kid who's caught Star Wars fever again, only with less action figures, less Ewok plushies and no Darth Vader Underoos.
In order to properly prepare for the premiere I've been watching all the Star Wars stuff, from the trailers to the interviews to the parodies, and even though this video is based on Episode IV rather than Episode VIII it's my favorite by far- because cats.
Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope. With Cats by YouTuber klusmanp is an amazing blend of costumed cat actors, nerdy humans, ridiculously low budget puppets and equally low budget special effects, so basically it's the awesomest!
Mushrooms are delicious, they're a great source of vitamin B, niacin and riboflavin, but some fungi are deadly when ingested and many look wicked creepy when you see them growing in the wild.
The mushrooms known as "Dead Man's Fingers" (Xylaria polymorpha) look like zombies clawing their way out of their graves, which is a fitting look for a killer 'shroom:
“Dead Man’s Fingers” are unsurprisingly as bad as they sound. And not because ingesting them will result in a long strange trip, but because the appearance of this fungus at the base of a tree means that it is quite literally breaking down the structure of the tree which results in soft rot. In other words, Dead Man’s Fingers (aka Xylaria polymorpha) are tree-murdering mushrooms though it is said that they are edible. Good luck with that.
"Dead Man's Fingers" are pretty creepy but not as gross and disturbing as this monstrosity:
The Hydnellu peckii is called the "Bleeding Tooth" mushroom for obvious reasons, and yet despite its icky appearance these mushrooms contain a useful chemical called atromentin:
The Bleeding Tooth secretes a dark red liquid which as you may have guessed, makes it appear to be “bleeding.” The non-toxic fungus is quite useful as it possesses the naturally occurring chemical, atromentin which is said to work quite well as an antibacterial and anticoagulant. (It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax.)
And to finish off the zombie mushroom menagerie we have the Gyromitra esculenta, or "Brain" Mushroom, because what are zombies if not lovers of fresh brains?:
Gyromitra esculenta or “Brain” mushroom is somewhat common fungus, and highly toxic. But that doesn’t stop people from eating them despite the risks associated with ingestion that include vomiting, diarrhea, tremors, dizziness and sometimes (though rarely) coma and death. Brain mushrooms are quite popular in Finland and are sold with extensive warning labels because even boiling them in water will causes the chemical gyromitrin (the stuff that might kill you in a Brain mushroom) vaporize which can make you sick just by breathing too much of it. Yikes
We all want to ditch work every once in a while so we can go out and have some fun, and the more stressful and unrewarding the job the more we dream about bailing on our employer.
Some alleviate these urges to bail by taking a sick day, having someone cover their shift so they can spend a day away from the office or cashing in their vacation days.
But senior union delegate Tom Colella decided lying was the way to go, so he could spend his days golfing and still get paid. So he figured out a way to fool the company PDA he'd been issued that tracked his location at all times- by putting it inside a potato chip bag.
Somehow the foil inside the bag masked the PDA's signal, allowing him to go off the radar and hit the golf course, and he used this trick to go golfing on the company's dime some 140 times over a two-year period.
Tom was fired immediately when his employer found out about his deception, and now Tom has all the time in the world to go golfing, that is, until he's so broke he can't even afford a bag of potato chips!
Kids often give their grandmothers trouble for taking in strays like a crazy old cat lady, but this act of kindness really shows that she's a good person so they generally don't dissuade her from continuing to collect cats.
But when Eric Hertlein went to visit his grandma at her home in Kansas he saw something that caused him to be concerned about her cat collecting and her eyesight- because one of the strays she was taking care of wasn't a cat at all.
His grandma thought she'd been taking care of three stray cats, but one of them was an opossum imposter pretending to be a cat so he could live the sweet life indoors:
“She reassured me it was one of her cats,” he told The Dodo. “I told her it wasn’t what she thought it was.” The sweet woman even named him Tete, and though she was shocked to realize the truth, she didn’t mind too much at all. “Well, he hasn’t bothered me yet, so I’m OK with him being here!” she reportedly exclaimed.
'Ever had one of those friends who was constantly making fun of you for enjoying the geeky side of life?
It's like they're afraid to embrace their geeky side because they might end up looking less "mature", which someone important to them claims to be the most important thing in life.
But, as this For Lack Of A Better Comic comic shows. people who spend too much time worrying about being "mature" and don't stop to have any fun often end up bored, alone and utterly boring to be around. How mature of them!
If you're going to give up your home on the range for a life at sea you might as well make sure your floating accommodations are just as comfortable and homey as your dirt-bound home.
And if you enjoy living in a cottage-style home then you'll love this charming 2-story houseboat rented out at Lee Ford's Marina on Lake Cumberland in Nancy, Kentucky.
It's got five bedrooms, a private deck for entertaining outside, two full bathrooms, a full kitchen and a nice living room for entertaining.
The Harbor Cottage Houseboat is nicer than any apartment I've ever lived in, and even though this model is staying on Lake Cumberland for the foreseeable future the folks at Lee's Ford Marina would be happy to build you the floating home of your dreams.
