The Neatest Stuff Around
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Rock breaks scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper covers rock. When I was a kid, I favored using a rock most of the time, because in my childhood logic the rock at least never got destroyed. I wasn't very good at the game. The game you know and love originated in Japan, although it was a variation on a more ancient Chinese game. The Japanese relabeled the objects and gestures into something that…
The most remote spot on earth lies in the middle of the widest part of the Pacific Ocean, 1,670 miles (2,688 kilometers) from the nearest three tiny uninhabited islands. This is Point Nemo, which is the Latin word for "nobody." The nearest inhabited places are more than 2,000 miles away. In fact, the closest anyone gets to Point Nemo is when the ISS flies over it, because no shipping routes go…
On the outskirts of Ottawa, Illinois, there's a tiny island on a lake. Sitting on that lake is a 2001 S80 Volvo sedan. WCIA News tells us that the property is an artificial lake formed from a flooded mine. The lake used to have a peninsula. After parking the car on the tip of the peninsula, the owner used a excavator to turn the peninsula into an island. The owner operates two car repair shops. He…
Chill Dude Explains titled this video High-Paying Jobs Nobody Applies For, but that's contradicted by the very first job, which has a waiting list of applicants. Still, these are unusual jobs that pay well because they are dangerous, difficult, very unpleasant, and/or require lots of talent and training. When you see the descriptions, you'll remind yourself that money isn't everything. And even…
Embed from Getty Images Fifty-seven years after the Tate/LaBianca murders, people are still intrigued, or even obsessed, with the Manson Family. Nine people were killed in the summer of 1969 in horrific manner. As the case unfolded, it had all the salacious buzzwords to get it into the headlines: murder, movie star, sex, cult, hippies, celebrities, pregnant, runaways, drugs, revolution, etc. etc.…
Have you ever looked at a large city office building and noticed how wavy the windows are? Did you wonder if they looked that wavy from the inside? No, I can't say that I've wondered about that, mainly because there are no such buildings in my small town, although I have briefly noticed that waviness on city trips. Once inside the building, the view is fine, but I never connected those…
When we make pop culture references, there are certain phrases that everyone understands, even when they never happened in the first place. A longer quote gets turned into a shorter meme that encompasses an idea. When someone says, "Lucy, you've got some 'splainin' to do," you know they are referring to Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy and his not-so-perfect English. But he never said that exact line;…
In a post-apocalyptic world, a scavenger robot learns about human life from the detritus we left behind. What is happiness, and what is required to be happy? A companion, of course, according to ancient women's magazines. He finds such a companion, but this is animated science fiction, so we have to suspend our disbelief about power requirements. Just go with it, because it's funny. He can move,…
The term "permafrost" is becoming an anachronism as climate change is affecting the way the world works. Last year, the Swiss village of Blatten was evacuated ahead of a glacier collapse that destroyed the town. A different kind of danger is looming over Kandersteg, which lies below a rock formation called Spitze Stei. It is a mountain of rock that is held together by permafrost. But that…
The second film in the new DC Universe features Superman's younger cousin from Krypton. Supergirl was released in June, and soon proved to be a box office bomb. The movie needed to gross around $315 million to break even, but only made $126.3 million during its theatrical run. Supergirl in this movie is Kara Zor-El, a rebellious 23-year-old who drinks too much after the destruction of her home…
We think of cells as very tiny, whether they are part of a larger organism like humans, or a single unit like bacteria. But single cell organisms can grow large enough to be seen, or even as big as an eyeball. Meet Valonia ventricosa , a single cell algae that can grow centimeters wide. They are round and green and found in the ocean, which is why they got the name the sailor's eyeball. They are…
Your mother told you not to use baby talk, but that's when you were old enough to use regular speech. She changed her mind when you had children of your own. We just can't help ourselves when we talk to a baby. But what is baby talk? One kind is just gibberish, when the speaker is imitating baby sounds that aren't real words, which is useless. The other is "parentese," or "infant directed speech"…
Embed from Getty Images If you're from a very small town, you've probably made jokes about having only one traffic light, and no one pays attention to it. Himakajima is a small island of the coast of Aichi Prefecture in Japan. Himakajima is also the name of the town on the island, which has about 1600 people. You can walk all the way around the island in about 90 minutes, and you don't really need…
