When Ruth Handler introduced her fashion doll Barbie, she was an instant hit. Barbie was a glamorous young fashion model, and every little girl wanted to be like her. in 1963, she got a best friend named Midge. But Midge wasn't glamorous at all. She seemed to be designed as second best, in order to not steal Barbie's thunder. And she had weird eyes. What little girl would want a Midge doll for a friend when you could just as easily get two Barbies? Midge was discontinued in 1967. But she was brought back again and again, with no better results. Once Midge came back pregnant, with a husband and a son, but her popularity didn't take off no matter what Mattel did to her.
This is all coming back because Midge is a character in the new live-action movie Barbie ready to land in July. She and her husband Allan are the only characters in the film that aren't some iteration of Barbie or Ken. Will Midge finally find her spot in the sun? It's doubtful. Read the tragic history of Midge and her unceasing unpopularity at Buzzfeed News. -via Digg
In 1861, 25-year-old Samuel Clemens answered the call of Missouri's governor to step up and defend his home state. This was governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, a Confederate sympathizer who was forced out of office in July of that year. Missouri never officially seceded from the Union, and its men joined both the Union and Confederate armies. The young man who would later become Mark Twain joined a Confederate unit. However, his "unit" was made up of men who didn't really know anything about the military.
In all, the famed author’s two-week stint as a soldier in the Civil War largely amounted to him larping as a Confederate.
Twain didn't see much action before he gave up and went to stay with his sister in St. Louis, and then headed off to Nevada. But the experience gave him something to write about later as a comedy of errors. His unit tried to retreat once and realized they didn't even know how to do that. Read about Twain's short but comical military service at Historynet. -via Damn Interesting
Secret Service immediately responded Tuesday to an intruder at the White House ... a toddler who squeezed through the metal fencing. https://t.co/2NMMoiVlAD
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 18, 2023
The above photo shows two secret service agents seizing a toddler who broke through the elaborate and high-tech security of the White House. He did so by squeezing through the bars of the steel fence, which are 5.5 inches across.
The Associated Press reports that the breach triggered security procedures that temporarily restricted access to one of the most secure buildings on Earth. The uniformed Secret Service agents pictured above brought the child back to his parents.
This is the first successful breach of the White House fence since it was recently doubled in height. It appears that the designers did not consider the possibility of intruders simply going through the fence.
If you're looking for a thoughtful gift for a person who is elderly or ill, consider the Lifetime by Icelandic industrial designer Dögg Guðmundsdóttir.
She was inspired to create this unique piece of furniture after visiting Ghana, where the creation of elaborate coffins and beds are popular crafts.
It serves as a comfortable bed or couch. You can adjust the cushions to suit either need.
Then, after resting, if you're ready for a truly long and deep sleep, it can be a coffin. Open the bed, flip the wooden components over, and you have a functional coffin suitable for a cremation ceremony.
-via Core 77
Once upon a time, the Cook pine tree (Araucaria columnaris) was only found on New Caledonia in the Pacific. But over the last couple of hundred years, they were imported and cultivated in far-flung parts of the globe. As they grew tall, a peculiar behavior was noticed among these trees. They have a tendency to lean. It's not just because they are tall, as other, much taller pines manage to grow completely upright. Cook pine trees have their own agenda.
All the Cook pines that grow in the Northern Hemisphere lean to the south, and all that grow in the Southern Hemisphere lean to the north. Those that grow near the equator manage to stand up straight. What's more, the angle of the tilt also depends on location- trees that are further from the equator lean more. The reason for the tilt has not been scientifically proven, but common sense would tell us that the tree is looking for optimized sunlight. However, other pine trees prioritize standing straight for longevity. Something about Cook pine trees makes leaning toward the sun more important than balancing its weight. -via Nag on the Lake
Youβve heard of artists and writers getting replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), and these machines using their work to generate contentβ get ready for voice actors (VAs) getting replaced by AI who stole their voices.
A troubling trend has arisen in the voice-acting industry. Companies are now asking professional VAs to sign contracts that would allow corporations to synthesize their voices using AI. This meant that companies now have these voices for as long as they want. They can use them to say what they want without paying additional compensation. Sometimes they have to deceptively hide these statements deep in the contracts.
"The language can be confusing and ambiguous," Tim Friedlander, president of the National Association of Voice Actors, told Vice. "Many voice actors may have signed a contract without realizing language like this had been added. Some actors are being told they cannot be hired without agreeing to these clauses.β
Image credit: Dmitry Demidov
π΄ Catch me if you can, said the little pony who led Alabama's Tuscaloosa Police Department on a two-hour low-speed foot pursuit before surrendering and posing for selfies.
π "The seagulls don't work for us"
π¬ Sure, movies have fancy sets and talented set designers but what if the film or TV series call for a banquet of human flesh for cannibals? Meet Hollywood's horror chef who make food "horrible AND delicious" (because the actors are supposed to eat 'em).
πΉοΈ Turns out, Puss in Boots mashed up with Elden Ring works out quite nicely.
(Image: Tuscaloosa Police Department)
π Take a look inside this magical Beverly Hills witch house. Enchanting!
π₯€ TIL that bottled water has expiration dates not because of the water. Instead, it's the bottle that expires.
πΊ Remember when MTV used to play music videos, then one day it doesn't anymore? It's because of channel drift: the phenomenon where TV channels change what they show until their original mission is completely forgotten.
π€€ Woman bravely tried all 23 food items at Super Nintendo World and lived to tell about it.
(Image: Kafziel/Wikimedia)
π Has John Wick finally met match? Here's "John Sick" by indie artist Olipop - via Shirt Stack
π» ICYMI: 9 Ghostbusters Tees and Big & Tall T-Shirts that are Out of This World
When Abraham Lincoln was a presidential candidate in 1860, it had been more than ten years since he served in the House of Representatives, so he had to be introduced to the national electorate. His campaign staffers were afraid that voters would find him just too ugly to vote for. His opponents had indeed spread talk of Lincoln's looks, calling him grotesque and worse. Photography was fairly new at the time, and Lincoln's advisors raced to get ahead of the game before the other side did.
Lincoln turned to the most famous photographer of the era, Matthew Brady, for a portrait that could be disseminated. Brady took the image above, but there were some tweaks made. While it didn't make Lincoln look like a movie star (it couldn't, because there were no movies then), it did improve upon his actual appearance, and staved off the rumors of his hideousness. It wasn't the last time photo manipulation was used on Abraham Lincoln.
Read the entire story of Lincoln's portrait and the stories behind a dozen other iconic historical photographs at History Collection. -via Nag on the Lake
Pizza delivery drivers are humble heroes who do more than merely provide us with delicious pizzas. They can save customers' lives and rescue children from burning buildings. Tyler Morrell of Cocco's Pizza Aston of Brookhaven, Pennsylvania fits perfectly into that mold.
Yahoo! News reports that on Sunday, Morrell was delivering a pizza when police chased down a suspect who fled his car on foot through a residential neighborhood. Morrell tripped him, sending the suspect down to the ground, where police restrained him within seconds.
What's even more impressive is that Morrell did this without dropping the pizza! He fulfilled both duties of the pizza delivery guy: bringing pizza and taking down criminals.
-via Dave Barry
The University of Konstanz in Germany has created a virtual world- for insects! They study locusts' movements and brains at the same time by attaching scanners to their heads while they walk about on a movable sphere, following the virtual locusts projected on the walls. They also study these insects in crowds, using little tags they've glued onto thousands of bugs. It does seem like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel, but don't feel too bad for these locusts. They were bred to be eaten, so working in a virtual lab is probably the best life they could hope for. Who knows? Maybe these bugs think they're playing the coolest video game ever. They still give Tom Scott the heebie-jeebies. But maybe you could think about these locusts the next time you put on your virtual reality headset and step into another world.
Read more about these experiments at the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour.
Redditor ikedness found a kitten yesterday that was a complete mess. A woman told him that some kids had glued the kitten to an object a couple of days earlier! He turned to reddit for advice on removing the glue. Redditor Com_Trad_IsTime recommended using coconut oil, which worked, so the kitten, a female, was named Coco.
The glue was only one of her problems. Coco weighs less than a pound, although she appears to be about two months old. And soon she started showing symptoms of respiratory distress. She was taken to the veterinarian, where she tested positive for feline calicivirus (FCV), a common but dangerous infection.
She was prescribed a slew of medicines, but Coco again showed signs of difficulty breathing, and was taken to the vet again. This time, she got a nebulizer treatment and snot removal. Since then, Coco seems to be doing better, and even purring.
Several redditors have reached out to help with the vet bills. Coco still has a long way to go to gain weight and be considered healthy, but she is on her way. The crucial part was finding a loving home.
(All images credit to ikedness)
Update: The latest on Coco. You can follow her progress here.
Latif Nasser is a writer in Los Angeles. He recently shared on Twitter the story of his discovery of and friendship with an Afghan refugee in the United States.
A friend asked Nasser to deliver an antique violin to a man in Los Angeles when he flew home from a trip to New York. He found it annoying to have this chore and burdensome to arrange a meeting to deliver the violin. But Nasser completed the task and was delighted with who he met. The violin's new owner is Ali Esmahilzada.
Prior to the Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan in 2021, Esmahilzada was a famous musician in his own country. But the Taliban hates music and forced Esmahilzada to flee for his life. Nasser found him working part-time in a shopping mall warehouse.
You can read Esmahilzada's story and how Nasser helped him here.
-via Amanda Brennan | Photo: Latif Nasser
In the 1930s, the German government, controlled by the Nazi party, began confiscating all the gold they could, especially from Jews. In 1935, it became illegal for any German to accept or retain a Nobel Prize. At the time, a Nobel Prize medal was made of 23-karat gold and weighed 200 grams. They were embossed with the winner's name, and were therefore hard to hide. Max von Laue received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1914. James Franck received the physics prize in 1925. Both scientists sent their medals to fellow physicist and Nobel laureate Niels Bohr in Denmark for safekeeping.
But in 1940, the Nazis invaded Denmark. They approached Bohr's Institute of Physics in Copenhagen. If they found the medals, it would be evidence that would send von Laue and Franck to their deaths. Bohr turned to Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy to make sure the invaders didn't find the medals... with science! Read the story of how the medals were hidden, or more accurately, destroyed, and how they were eventually returned to their rightful owners many years later, at Today I Found Out.
The most mundane Wikipedia articles can end up being the most fascinating. The couple whose pictures illustrated the "high five" captured the public's imagination and they became a meme. Likewise for the guy you see if you were to look up "shrug." His is the only picture in that entry, and has been since 2007. He is illustrating a shrug, alright, but he's also wearing a paisley tie and holding a cocktail. And why is he wearing a tiara that says SCAMPER in on it?
¯\_(γ)_/¯
Sixteen years later, he is known as the Shrug Guy. His picture has illustrated innumerable reaction memes as well as "shrug" in many various language versions of Wikipedia. But he is not unknown. Comedian Annie Rauwerda reached out and connected with him, and got the story behind the original photo and the tiara, which is quite funny. His life has changed considerably since then, but he's still recognizable, and he's still okay with being the Shrug Guy. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Dazzledog)
π° It looks like a slice of cake straight out of an animated Looney Tunes episode, but this cartoon cake is actually a real cake. Just see redditor u/Single_Disaster_2856 prove it to you by slicing into it. And don't forget the how-to video at the end. Yum!
π½ Here's how to hide a toilet in your house: the Hidealoo Foldaway Toilet.
π¦ A 31-year-old bald eagle that's been building a nest and incubating a rock has finally gotten a baby eaglet. What a heartwarming story!
π¦ Here's why you should never yell at a moose. An Idaho man learned that lesson the hard way.
π Who says that jeans can't be haute couture? Behold the Spiked jeans by fashion artist Done by Doug. It's what to wear when you've got a point to make.
πΊ Needs more cowbell? All the movie scenes where Christopher Walken danced have now been compiled into one majestic music video clip.
πΉοΈ Zelda + Studio Ghibli mash-up is the video game we didn't know we needed.
π» Tee for your favorite geek: Evolution of Storage by indie artist Jonz - via Shirt Stack
π± ICYMI: 8 Wednesday Fan Art Tees and Big & Tall T-Shirts We Love to Death
π Don't miss: NeatoShop Sitewide Sale (ends tomorrow) - save up to 20% on all tees sitewide.
Don't forget to check out our new sites: TastyTastic (fun food stuff!), Artgonaut (weird and amazing art), and Grand Blog Auto (you can guess what this one is, I'm sure). Thank you!
