Microwave ovens have been around for more than 50 years now. They come in all configurations, and people have different habits in using them. Do you try to get to it before the the time expires to avoid that annoying bell? Some folks hit the stop button just before the timer runs out, while others just open the door, assuming no microwaves will escape. I hear this is not good, especially for older microwaves, and can wear out the mechanism that stops the cooking when the doors opens. And there are some people who just open the door, leave it open, and never clear the remaining time. Namely, my younger daughter.

Whichever kind of microwave user you are, there's a browser game that might be very satisfying. Microwave is simple. There are four seconds left in the cooking time. Your goal is to open the microwave door as close to zero as possible without letting the bell go off. Your score will depend on it. The highest score is 10,000, and the sooner you open the door, the lower the score will be. There are plenty of reports of people achieving 10,000, but rarely on the first try. Others are still trying. -via Kottke

It's not quite as difficult as it used to be to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, because the categories have gotten very specific. Also, I would imagine the book has gotten very heavy. On November 26, Sky Elements Drone Shows (previously at Neatorama) teamed up with UVify to stage a Christmas display over Mansfield, Texas. A portion of the show was deemed worthy of a Guinness World Record for "largest aerial display of a gingerbread village image displayed by multirotors/drones" with 4,981 drones. It's so new that Guinness doesn't have a listing for it yet, but they do have pages of world records involving aerial drone displays, many of them from Sky Elements Drone Shows.

But world records aside, the Christmas light show featuring almost 5,000 drones was quite beautiful, from the massive turkey (this was before Thanksgiving) to Santa Claus waving to all. -via Laughing Squid

Every sitcom in the 1980s tried to present a Christmas episode, but there's only so many ways to get festive and heartwarming and still subvert expectations to make the audience laugh. The series Married... with Children went there with a rather gruesome premise that aired on December 20, 1987, totally played for laughs. In the episode "You Better Watch Out," a mall sales promotion went wrong, and a skydiver dressed as Santa Claus crashes to his death in the Bundy's backyard. Ed is obliged to dress up as Santa himself to distract a crowd of children who witnessed the fall so that the coroner can remove the body. You can see the episode at YouTube. It aired with a rare parental guidance warning.  

What you might not know is that the inspiration for the episode was a real Christmas skydiving disaster that happened in 1932. In that incident, no one actually died, but many children were left traumatized by witnessing Santa Claus falling from the sky and crash landing. Read how that came about at Cracked.

Sometimes chemical reactions are so cool that you don't need to fully understand them to be fascinated by them. Here's an experiment in physics and chemistry that will blow your mind. There aren't many metals that are liquid at room temperature. Besides mercury, there's an alloy called galinstan that's composed of gallium, indium, and tin. It has such a low melting point that it can be used as a substitute for mercury, which is quite toxic.

James Orgill of The Action Lab (previously at Neatorama) explains some of the properties that make galinstan so darn cool. It reacts with other chemicals in a way that animates it like the metal blobs are living things. But because these reactions are purely chemical and physical, they can be controlled. Can he make a blob of galinstan find its way through a maze? You bet! There's a skippable ad from 4:48 to 6:16. -via Damn Interesting

The South Korean TV series Squid Game took the world by storm in 2021. The drama features a clandestine game show in which 456 desperate people compete for one enormous cash prize. The catch is (spoiler alert) that the 455 people who don't win will be eliminated by death. It's a bloody dystopian commentary on wealth inequality and unchecked capitalism. Season two begins December 26th.

In a promotion rivaled only by the real game show Squid Game: The Challenge in missing the point, McDonald's Australia is offering a special meal and a contest based on the show. Macca's Squid Game Meal is not exactly a Happy Meal, but it comes in a decorated box and includes ten Chicken McNuggets, fries, a drink, and dalgona candy, a Korean treat stamped with shapes like those featured in season one of Squid Game, plus one stamped with McDonald's arches. If you can nibble your way to the arch shape, you'll be entered into a drawing for a Squid Game tracksuit. The promotion runs from December 11 to January 7 in Australia only. Only Aussies will be able to chomp down on McNuggets while thinking about those 455 people who didn't make it out of the game. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: McDonald's)

YouTuber Miss Mello is a self-taught animator with a flair for creative juxtopositions. We've seen the 1973-1974 Animated Series. This variant sends the animation to Japan a decade later. The audio and scenes are from "The Trouble with Tribbles" -- the most overrated episode in the franchise.

There's a rumor that Miles O'Brien and Benjamin Sisko, who made an appearance in this story in the Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations," appear in this video, but I haven't been able to spot them yet.

-via reddit

In 2002, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland brought us 28 Days Later, which introduced zombies that moved swiftly and were therefore even more dangerous. In 2007, we got the sequel 28 Weeks Later. You may have been under the impression that the trilogy was complete then, but it turns out that the 2000 film 28 Days has nothing to do with zombies. At any rate, the third movie in the series is coming to theaters. 28 Years Later will be released on June 20, 2025.

In the trailer above, the soundtrack stands out as particularly intriguing. It is a famous recording, a 1915 recitation of the Rudyard Kipling poem "Boots" read by actor Taylor Holmes. The poem is about the forced marches of British soldiers across southern Africa during the Second Boer War, its cadence echoing the psychological torture of the march. Read more about the poem and find more links at Metafilter.

The City of Bend, Oregon, which is in roughly the geographic center of the state, appreciates the creativity of its local artists. It even promotes resident artists directly, showcasing their works. But it would prefer to have some oversight of what, where, and how art is displayed.

In an Instagram post, the city government requests that street artists refrain from attaching huge googly eyes to public statues. This is evidently a popular trend locally. The city does not object to the style, but asserts that the use of adhesives damages the statues and the repairs cost too much money.

-via Dave Barry

Santa Claus does magical things every Christmas, like flying all over the world and fitting down a chimney, not to mention surviving at the North Pole. The real historical figure he's based on, Nicholas, the 4th century Bishop of Myra in Turkey, is also credited with many miracles, although his were not appropriate fodder for children's bedtime stories. People apparently treated each other terribly back then.  

We know little about the historical Nicholas. There are no contemporary accounts, and he left no writing. But he had a reputation as a generous man, giving away his inherited wealth, and for standing up for common people. Centuries after his death, stories were circulated about St. Nicholas, which have evolved over time. One of them involves a butcher who chopped up three little boys and stored their remains in a tub of brine. Nicholas arrived seven years later and brought the boys back to life. Even if a person's faith made them believe in the miracle, the crime itself makes no sense at all. It's a horrifying tale, but the boys' rescue is the kind of thing Nicholas would do. Read about that one and seven other rather gruesome miracle stories attributed to St. Nicholas at Mental Floss.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ...sort of both. We think about bird flight as flapping wings, and plane flight as fixed wings and propellors or jets. But there is a lot more to bird flight than flapping wings. Birds take off by hopping into the air with their spring-loaded legs. A new drone project called RAVEN (Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments) combines the mechanics of birds and planes to give us a bird-inspired robotic drone, with vertical takeoff and landing.

Getting a bird's takeoff right wasn't easy, as you'll see in this video. Real birds have to learn how to launch themselves, and so do robotic drones. Notice they haven't exactly mastered the vertical landing yet, but they'll get there. Read about the research that went into the birdlike takeoff in the journal Nature. Then when you see a bird in the air, keep in mind that it could be a raven or maybe a RAVEN. -via Metafilter

Imagine, if you will, going to bed on Christmas Eve and instead of visions of sugarplums dancing in your head, you encounter Freddy Krueger invading your dreams! The Montreal Comiccon Holiday Edition was held over the weekend. This Christmas party gave cosplayers from all over a chance to get festive while still portraying their favorite pop culture characters, and boy, did they! They were pretty imaginative in mashing up movie characters and comic book superheroes with Santa Claus and his elves. Not all cosplayers went for a Christmas mashup, and some went totally Christmas. A few weren't even human!

Yes, that's Johnny Five from the 1986 movie Short Circuit, being all alive dressed as a Christmas tree. Geeks Are Sexy was there to take portraits of the best cosplayers, as they do. See and explore 47 of the best costumes from the Montreal Comiccon Holiday Edition in their gallery. Click on each photo to bring up the full-size version.

Celine Rousseau traveled the world experiencing its many culinary wonders in the finest restaurants. Now, from her home in Geneva, Switzerland, she creates foods that delight all of the senses. Her website named La Table showcases her creations for smaller clienteles: her family.

Christmas approaches and Rousseau is in an appropriately festive mood. Her take on burrata pizza featurs the soft cheese in the center of the pie shaped and decorated to resemble a snowman who is having a hard time with the heat of the oven.

Airmen of the 19th Maintenance Squadron at Little Rock Air Force Base have altered the appearance of a C-130A Hercules transport aircraft on static display to resemble Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Beda Koorey of Huntington, New York is a serious Trekkie. She loves the franchise so much that when she owned a car, she got a custom license plate inscribed with the registry number of the starship Enterprise: NCC-1701 -- no bloody A, B, C, or D.

Koorey stopped driving four years ago and disposed of her car and its plates. But NCC-1701 is a popular custom plate request among Trekkies, so it's still associated with Koorey. She receives computer-generated traffic tickets in the mail when cameras see NCC-1701 in states where license plate records are not up to date.

-via Boing Boing

We all recognize the image of Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the 14th century B.C.E. The limestone and stucco sculpture is 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) tall, with its original colors mostly intact. If the image is accurate, she was a beautiful woman. The visage matches other depictions of Nefertiti from the city that Akhenaten built, Tell el-Amarna.

The bust of Nefertiti resides in the Neues Museum in Berlin, a gift from German art collector James Simon in 1920. Simon did not find the bust, but he financed the German archaeological expedition that did. A team led by Ludwig Borchardt unearthed the bust on December 6, 1912, from a workshop identified as that of the sculptor named Thutmose. Borchardt wrote of the bust, "Description is useless, must be seen." The custom of the time was that Egyptian artifacts would be split between the archaeologists and Egyptian authorities, but there is some doubt as to whether those authorities ever got to fully see Nefertiti.

The ownership of the bust has been a sore spot between Egypt and Germany ever since. Even Hitler got involved, which is why to bust is still in Berlin. Read about the bust of Nefertiti and the hundred-year controversy over where it belongs at Smithsonian.  

(Image credit: Philip Pikart)