Russia has always relied on apples for sustenance and delicious treats. One that was particularly popular among 19th-century aristocrats was pastila, a dessert that may remind you of marshmallow, meringue, or divinity, made from apples. And like those fluffy sweets, it once required lots of elbow grease, as Russian food expert Darra Goldstein explains.

In the days before electricity, making pastila was painful labor. Without a mechanical mixer, beating cooked apples into fluff had to be done by hand. One “particularly exquisite” 19th-century variety, says Goldstein, had to be beaten for an agonizing 48 straight hours. “So in Russia, you had serfs and they were in the kitchen and they were whipping the pastila,” notes Goldstein. “So it wasn’t any effort on the part of the people who would be enjoying it.”

Cue the Russian Revolution. Under the restrictions and scarcities of the Soviet Union, pastila slowly faded away. “It wasn’t part of the necessary food groups,” says Goldstein. “It was hard enough for them to get basic foods to market, which they didn’t succeed in doing either.” Many of Russia’s traditional, unusual, or unique foods met the same fate. But recently, there has been a massive upswing of interest in recovering ancestral Russian recipes. A decade ago, my friend Stas took notice that the interest in restoring Russian foodways became mainstream. To him, it was especially poignant. “We always grew up thinking that a lot of our culture had been just completely obliterated,” he says. “Then there’s this wave of people unearthing really old recipes such as Belyov pastila. And so everybody’s like, holy shit, this is what this thing is supposed to look like.”

The rise of electrical appliances has made pastille accessible again. And if you want to try it out yourself, you can get a recipe for pastila at Atlas Obscura along with the history of the dish.

It is the duty of every citizen in a free republic to stay informed of current events that affect public policymaking. Consuming quality sources of news on a daily basis should be a daily habit. You could include, among those sources, the New York Times. This respected publication would like for you to know which American cities are the best and the worst for gardening in the nude. And so it presents the above list (paywalled), using data compiled by the lawncare company LawnStarter, to keep you in the know:

The study used a number of metrics, including: the percentage of nudists and the friendliness of laws governing public nudity and toplessness in each city; local Google searches for “nudist” and “World Naked Gardening Day”; safety concerns, addressed by measuring the number of registered sex offenders amid the population; weather-related factors such as temperature, rain and wind speed; and a previous Lawnstarter study ranking the best cities for urban gardening. The resulting top and bottom 10 cities are uncovered in this week’s chart.

I'm shocked to see San Antonio at the bottom. My in-laws are in that city. When I next visit them, I will engage in research to verify if this conclusion for myself.

-via Dave Barry | Image: New York Times

Is this Brian David Gilbert’s short film come to life? Do I have to contemplate whether or not some odd force is compelling me to type into spreadsheets? Fortunately, no! It turns out that the new update for Microsoft Excel allows its users to automate tasks. Meet Office Scripts, a new tool within the software that lets users record their actions inside an Excel workbook, as TechRadar details: 

On its blog overview for the new update, Microsoft states "as an example, say you start your workday by opening a .csv file from an accounting site in Excel. You then spend several minutes deleting unnecessary columns, formatting a table, adding formulas, and creating a PivotTable in a new worksheet. Those actions you repeat daily can be recorded once with the Action Recorder.

From then on, running the script will take care of your entire .csv conversion. You'll not only remove the risk of forgetting steps, but be able to share your process with others without having to teach them anything."

You can even set a specific time to run a script on a schedule using Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow, allowing you to trigger a set of actions to react to a specific event, even outside of other applications and services. This can also be set to just respond to a timer to create hourly reports or declutter ongoing downloads. 

Microsoft has provided a list of script samples and scenarios for you to use right off the bat, as well as instructional video tutorials to guide you through creating your own.

Image credit :Mika Baumeister via Unsplash 

According to a new study, certain mammals live quite successfully among humans. The research, which was published in Global Change Biology hypothesized that ‘mammals with certain traits and life strategies are more likely to suffer outsized consequences from humans.’ The researchers discovered that smaller mammals, such as raccoons tend to appear frequently in areas with higher human presence-and they fare better among us and our urbanized structures: 

Why do smaller, quickly reproducing animals fare better among us and our infrastructure? The researchers suggested it may be that they are better able to tolerate threats like sensory pollution and vehicle strikes or have a more generalist diet. Alternatively, areas near humans tend to have fewer predators.

But the results might be a bit misleading. For example, the cameras might have captured a certain species showing up frequently near human disturbances not because the animals prefer it there but because humans are destroying their natural habitat.

The study noted another caveat: Once human disturbances become too intense, even once-tolerant mammals start responding negatively. In other words, there seems to be a threshold of human disturbances beyond which co-existence with other mammals becomes difficult or impossible.

"We suggest that such thresholds are critical to consider when attempting to promote 'landscapes of coexistence' (i.e., ecological conditions that allow the long-term persistence of sensitive mammal species in human-dominated landscapes) and functional connectivity between populations, particularly as several large mammal species continue recolonizing modified landscapes in North America and globally," the researchers wrote.

Image credit: Dan Gold via Unsplash

Reading through multiple paragraphs and pages of history can be somewhat boring or tedious. If you want to learn about the history of a city, or how it developed over time, why not view it through visual media? Antonis Antoniou and Steven Heller have presented the visual history of New York through their new book, Decoding Manhattan. The book compiles over 250 architectural maps, diagrams, and graphics of the island of Manhattan in New York City: 

In a very real sense, the island of Manhattan is a place created by a diagram: The Commmissioner’s Plan of 1811, which laid out the future streets north of Houston Street and south of 155th Street, was essentially a map disguised as a planning document. So there’s real conceptual beauty to Antonis Antoniou and Steven Heller’s new book, Decoding Manhattan, a rollicking, wide-ranging visual compendium of more than 250 maps, diagrams, and graphics, all related to that incomparable chunk of bedrock. It’s a fascinating, visually vibrant book, often quite funny, and catnip for someone like me, obsessed with New York City-themed historical images. I recently talked to the authors about the genesis of the book. 

You can check ArchDaily’s full interview with the authors here! 

Image Credit:  Steven Guarnaccia and Pentagram New York, from Decoding Manhattan (via Archdaily) 

We see ancient Greek clothing in art, television, and games. Our knowledge of ancient Greek clothing was derived from marble sculptures. That’s why we see a similar style in different modern depictions, and this is also why many would assume that the ancient Greeks wore only white clothes! This is untrue, however, as people from ancient Greece used natural dyes to add different colors in their wardrobes: 

Ancient Greeks, indeed, were using natural dyes from shellfish, insects, and plants, to color fabric and clothing. Skilled craftsmen extracted dyes from these sources and combined them with other substances to create a variety of colors. In time the colors became bright. Women preferred yellow, red, light green, oil, gray, and violet. Most Greek women’s fashion garments were made from rectangular fabric that was normally folded around the body with girdles, pins, and buttons. Decorative motifs on the dyed fabrics were either woven or painted on. There were often geometric or natural patterns, depicting leaves, animals, human figures, and mythological scenes. 

Although some women bought imported fabric and textiles, most women wove the fabric creating their own clothing. In other words, by using different textiles people differentiated by gender, class, or status.  Greek pottery and ancient sculptures provide us with information on fabrics. They were brightly colored and generally decorated with elaborate designs. Ancient fabrics were derived from the basic raw materials, animal, plant, or minerals, with its main wool, flax, leather, and silk.

As time passed and finer materials (mostly linen) were produced, the draped dresses became more varied and elaborate. There was silk from China and a  further variety in draping was created by pleating. It’s worth mentioning that the silk from China and fine muslins from India began making their way to ancient Greece after the victorious conquests of Alexander the Great.

Image credit: Engin Akyurt via Unsplash 

The game Monopoly can be cutthroat, but its most enduring feature is that it takes a long time. While some of that has to do with how evenly matched the players and their motivations are, the ultimate outcome depends on the roll of the dice. If the dice fall just so, the game can be quite short.

After our recent attempt to play the shortest actual game of Monopoly on record, we started to wonder about what the shortest THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE game of Monopoly would be. That is, if everything went just the right way, with just the right sequence of rolls, Chance and Community Chest cards, and so on, what is the quickest way one player could go bankrupt? After working on the problem for a while, we boiled it down to a 4-turn (2 per player), 9 roll (including doubles) game. Detail on each move given below. If executed quickly enough, this theoretical game can be played in 21 seconds (see video below).

It's been a long time since I played the game, so I had forgotten that a turn can be extended with a double roll. The guys at scatterplot explain how a game can end in sudden death, with a very short bonus video to demonstration it. Personally, if confronted with a group who wanted to play Monopoly, I would go bankrupt as quickly as I could, in order to go do something else. -via Boing Boing

Gruinard Island in Scotland was once a British biological warfare testing area. But that's just a prelude to the story Tom Scott tells us about the island and what happened decades later in 1986. The story doesn't even have much to do with anthrax and nothing at all to do with biological warfare. In fact, it might make you grin.

A horse drawn canal boat has a lot of inertia and no brakes. If a horse towing a boat arrives at a bridge, the supervising humans must bring it to a halt, disconnect the towing rig, move the horse to the other side of the bridge, and then reconnect the tow line.

The industrious people of Industrial Era Britain thought of a better solution: the roving or turnover bridge. Whereas some bridges were simply high enough to allow the passage of the tow horse on either side, the roving bridge brought the horse up on ramps facing either direction, turning it completely around as it passed.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Smabs Sputzer

Finally, 100 years after being hung at a Rhode Island church, a stunning Tiffany stained-glass window can now be admired by visitors at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). The window, now known as the Hartwell Memorial Window, was painstakingly restored to prepare it for public viewing, as the Smithsonian details: 

The iridescent tableau depicts a peaceful New Hampshire landscape full of lush, multi-colored trees. Dappled sunlight bounces off a flowing waterfall, while the imposing Mount Chocorua looms in the background. Per Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, Tiffany artists soldered 48 layered-glass panels together to produce the 23-foot-high by 16-foot-wide scene.

In the work, “[w]arm light emanates from the setting sun, catching on the rushing waves of the central waterfall and dancing through the trees—the transitory beauty of nature conveyed through an intricate arrangement of vibrantly colored glass,” writes AIC curator Elizabeth McGoey in a museum blog post.

Image via Art Institute Of Chicago 

If you’ve ever wanted to download Microsoft Flight Simulator, but found out that the game takes 170GB on your hard drive, then I have good news for you. The developers of the game have managed to reduce the game’s size to only 83 GB, about half of the size before. As to what they did to reduce the size, however, is unclear. But one thing’s for sure — it’s now more accessible to people who are interested in the game.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Asobo Studios/ Xbox/ Wikipedia)

Weaving is a skill best pursued by the brave, the patient, and the cunning. It is not something that can be learned easily. Not to mention that your creations take a few days before you can see them in their full glory. Yet, of all the activities he could have taken up as a hobby, 86-year-old Mongijal took basket weaving as his hobby to spend the days with during the first implementation of Malaysia's Movement Control Order (MCO) early in 2020.

But as time passed by, his casual pastime turned into a collection of well-over 30 baskets. And so, he turned it into a small business.

So, on May 22, Mongijal’s daughter Nancy promoted his baskets at Facebook. On the first day of Mongijal’s business, he was able to sell two baskets. Nancy was happy that her post reached some customers, but it seems she got more than that, as the post became viral, and there became a high demand on the baskets. However…

Nancy advised customers to show up to the hut in-person if they want to purchase a basket.

"We can't deliver at the moment. If you want it, just come to the stall and you'll get it. The stall will only open if there is stock," Nancy wrote, adding that she wanted to save her father the physical effort of delivering the baskets himself.

Needless to say, producing a multipurpose carry-all basket alone is not an easy task because it takes two to three days to complete. Bamboos known as 'Poring' or 'Tivung' in Rungus, have to be sourced from a nearby forest, while the rest depends entirely on talented hands and patience.

When Nancy first posted the photos, nearby villagers wound up visiting Mongijal's hut and purchased a lot of his baskets. Others even placed advanced orders, too.

On the next day, on May 23, it is said that Mongjial woke up in early in the morning and excitedly waited for his customers.

Very wholesome.

(Image Credit: Nancy Fuh/ Mashable)

Blender is a free open-source computer graphics software used to create 2D and 3D animated films, 3D character models, and video games. And, in case you missed the fourth word of the previous sentence, this software is free. With just a little patience and practice, you’ll be able to create magnificent stuff that you never knew you could do, just like this kid here named William Landgren.

(Image Credit: William Landgren/ YouTube)

One of the things that you have to make sure of when you’re playing chess is not losing focus at any moment in the game. After all, chess is a game of wits. It is an intense mental battle between two players. And, to be honest, it is really difficult to focus on the game when there are so many things going around you — when people are watching you, and when there are other people playing chess as well.

What happens when you focus on the wrong things while playing chess? You get distracted. And that’s what happens with Ozzy Man. Thankfully, he’s not the one playing the game; he’s just commentating on the match.

(Image Credit: Ozzy Man Reviews/ YouTube)

The type of content that we usually see in live-streams are video game playthroughs, virtual concerts, and celebrity Q&A. Balule Nature Reserve in South Africa, however, uses live-streams to deliver a very different type of content to the world: real-time videos of animals. Their goal: to chase out animal poachers.

Thousands, sat comfortably at home, became virtual rangers with this anti-poaching pilot project, Wildlife Watch, by Balule, Samsung and Africam.

Viewers were able to report suspicious activity - things like seeing fence lines cut or hearing gunshots - and alert rangers to the possibility of poachers and trapped animals needing rescue.

For Leitah Mkhabela, a member of the park's all-female anti-poaching unit known as The Black Mambas, creative use of technology can make a big difference.

"Once poachers become aware that there could be more cameras in the bushes, they'll be worried as we have so many eyes monitoring.

"It will definitely help chase them out."

This is not the only innovation happening in the world of animal conservation.

"There are people on every continent in different environments using every sort of technology," Stephanie O'Donnell tells Newsbeat.

Learn more about this exciting story over at BBC.

(Image Credit: peterjohnball0/ Pixabay)