Imagine the folks who built the Roman Coliseum, and all those beautiful medieval cathedrals and European castles with their defensive walls. How did they get all that stone way up to the top rows? For the larger stones, it would have taken a whole team of men to carry each one to those heights. But that wasn't necessary, because they had machines, powered by humans. Guédelon Castle in France has been under construction for at more than 20 years now. It's not that construction has halted or funding has dried up, but they are using 13th-century technology to build it. That includes a treadwheel crane, also called a treadmill crane (because we know treadmills better than we remember grain mills). Using a large wheel with a person walking inside, they transferred the distance walked into lifting power through pulleys. Tom Scott demonstrates the treadmill crane at the Guédelon Castle construction site.
In 1998, Kenneth E. Jones of Jackson, Mississippi, tackled the problem of eyeglasses being too heavy or not staying in place on one's nose. Well, it was possible that Jones was the only one with this problem, but it bothered him enough to invent a solution and file for a patent. It seems obvious to us now that the best way to secure those glasses and relieve the burden of their weight is to counterbalance it with a chain that attaches to the bridge of the glasses, goes up over one's forehead, across the skull to the back, and hang off the back of one's head, with a weight at the end equal to that of the eyeglasses. The weight could even be decorative, like jewelry! What could possibly go wrong?
First off, it would mess up your hair. It wouldn't stay in place unless you kept your head level at all times and didn't make any sudden moves. You might think it looks dumb, but if it were to be really fancied up with gems and metal wings, it could be a cool ornament, but you'd still have to glue it down, and you can already do that with any jewelry. The patent was granted in 2000, but you don't see this device in stores, nor in late night mail-order ads. I can imagine that any potential manufacturer would have set Mr. Jones straight on its drawbacks.
On the patent page, there are other configurations of this device, like a band that goes across the head from ear to ear. Just to keep your glasses on! -via Weird Universe
You've seen people in movies burst through glass windows and break bottles over each other's heads. That can be exciting, but we all know glass doesn't break that easily, so movies use special ultra-thin glass made of sugar to create the stunts. Crushing a car comes with similar problems. Modern cars are more crumple-resistant than ever, and even when they are damaged, it's not always as dramatic as a movie requires. So film crews have to rig everything ahead of time to get the visuals they want. The company JEM FX specializes in making vehicle destruction look exciting in movies. They've got all kinds of tricks ready so a chase scene or car stunt gets the desired results. Sure, they go through a lot of cars, but this planning and testing saves a lot of time and effort, and most likely a lot of cars. Oh yeah, you'll see a lot of cars destroyed in this video. -via Digg
At pretty much any school in America, the most laid back athletes will be found on the men's cross country team. The runners at Santa Clara University in California are not the least bit afraid to fly their derp flag when the opportunity arises. They spent some time growing and cutting their hair, and practicing their best smiles for the camera before picture day. Notice one mustache mishap, too. Why bother looking good when you can broadcast your sense of humor? We already know they are fit young men because they are college athletes.
This picture highlights the 12 best faces on the team; you can see all 28 team members at the school's athletics website. Most of the same guys didn't look quite so special in last year's pictures, although some of them seem to have been getting there. The women's team apparently didn't get the memo. -via reddit
My sisters partner made a horse cake for the #queensfuneral and- pic.twitter.com/NhorJjurro
— Jardine Sage (@jardinesage) September 19, 2022
On Monday, the day of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, Jardine Sage shared a picture of a cake made by Ben in honor of the solemn occasion. I'm glad he labeled it as a horse, because it would have taken me a while to figure that out. It's got lovely sprinkles, and I'm sure it tasted delicious, but it's not like any horse I've seen. It didn't take long for the image to go viral, and land in one of reddit's Photoshop Battles. The highest rated artwork, by flargenhargen, is a callback to Charlie the Unicorn.
But there were plenty more.
— Jardine Sage (@jardinesage) September 19, 2022
While most alterations are funny, this one, also by flargenhargen, is rather traumatic.
But it's a horse because the queen so loved horses. And betting on them. Redditor lostsawyer2000 shows us.
You'll see many more ways this horse cake can be used in the reddit Photoshop Battle, and in the responses at Twitter. -via Everlasting Blort
The tiny town of Las Vegas grew exponentially due to the building of the Hoover Dam and then legalized gambling. The Mafia took advantage of this and made Las Vegas a party city. In the 1950s, another attraction drew tourists to Vegas: nuclear explosions.
The US military conducted above-ground nuclear tests at Yucca Flats, only 65 miles from Vegas. They brought in 100,000 military and staff to conduct and witness these tests. Between 1951 and 1963, nuclear detonations occurred fairly regularly in Nevada, and people came from all over the country to watch them. Las Vegas businesses threw parties the night before detonations, arranged bus tours closer to the action, and in between detonation days shuttled tourists to bomb craters. No one seemed to be afraid; the effects of nuclear fallout weren't quite understood at the time, and besides, enlisted men were much closer to the explosions. Read about nuclear tourism and see lots of pictures at Rare Historical Photos. -via Damn Interesting
Kent Rollins is a real cowboy. He grew up wrangling cattle in Oklahoma and became a chuck wagon cook. In addition to catering and selling cookbooks, he still feeds cowboys at ranch gatherings. Rollins enjoys teaching folks about a traditional way of life. Here, he shares his secret for crispy onion rings. You'll find the printed recipe at his site. Now, you might think that a "traditional way of life" wouldn't include onion rings and ingredients like panko crumbs, but cowboys do exist in the 21st century, and there's no reason they can't eat the good stuff.
You might also think that watching someone cook onion rings pales in comparison with eating onion rings, but this video is not only informative, it will inspire you to make some onion rings yourself. There are enough ingredients involved in Rollin's recipe that you have to make a lot of onion rings to justify it. More power to ya. -via Digg
Looking forward to Halloween? We've got some neat posts over at our Halloween-centric blog Spooky Daily to keep you entertained till October 31.
👻 If you're having a Halloween party, you can make these Hocus Pocus charcuterie board and Scream cheese platter.
🎃 Better than wearing a cumbersome costume: 10 Halloween T-Shirts that are Spooky and Fun
🧙♀️ Count down the nights with Disney's Hocus Pocus 13 Frights of Halloween Countdown Calendar
If you're not looking forward to Halloween (what's wrong with you?) we've got other neat posts, too:
🦀 This nature-lover decided to build a rainforest ecosystem in his bedroom.
🎨 Bob Ross of The Joy of Painting didn't make mistakes, just happy accidents but this Bob Ross of War is all about the joy of warfare. Pro-tip: When he says, "Let's get crazy", run away.
🛏️ In Reverse Pinterest, people rescue handcrafted furniture from "Pinterest-paint hell" and restore them to their original glory.
😡 Which city is the rudest in America?
🥞 You probably have no hope of living like a royal, but there's one royal thing you can do in the kitchen: bake the Queen's own Royal Scottish pancakes by following her recipe.
😺 Lastly, what do you get when you make a cat the lead singer of a heavy metal band? Cattera, of course, and it's a-meow-zing!
More neat stuff over at our new sites: Pop Culturista, Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Infinite 1UP, Supa Fluffy and Spooky Daily. Check 'em out!
Image: Is it Halloween Yet? T-shirt by mommagorilla
In the year 1569, Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis went to Japan and presented feudal lord Oda Nobunaga with a gift of a clock. Nobunaga admired the clock, but considered it useless. It didn't even tell time! That opinion was repeated in Japan for several hundred years. The Japanese system of timekeeping measured hours in a variable way. A day was divided into 12 hours, but those were six hours of daylight and six hours of night. In the winter, nighttime hours were longer than daytime hours, and vice versa in the summer. Japan was not the only culture to keep time this way, but we have records of how the introduction of Western clocks made no sense to them. A Western clock had the sun coming up at different times on different days, and that was completely nonsensical. Still, Western clocks became popular among wealthier Japanese because it implied a tribute gift from foreigners, raising their perceived status.
Japanese engineers found ways of "fixing" the Western clocks so that the hours varied and made more sense. It wasn't until 1873 that Japan switched over to measuring time with fixed hours. Read about the timekeeping clash at Jstor. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Didier Descouens)
A charming trail cam sequence from Colorado shows that mountain lions are not all that different from house cats, when they aren't busy hunting or avoiding threats like humans. Thaddeus Wells built a wooden swing in the forest and set a camera nearby, hoping to catch bear cubs in action. But a young cougar chose that area to sleep in. When she touches the swing, she's startled at its movement. But then that movement becomes intriguing to her, and she bats it back and forth like a cat playing with a piece of string. I wonder if she ever knocks objects off a cliff just for the fun of it. Read more about the encounter at Yahoo! News. -via reddit
During the Great Depression, a relatively wealthy hand model named Helen Ressler went to see Alma Nelson, a psychic who had been a co-founder of the First Spiritualist Church of New York, to seek advice on investing in something that would make the world a better place. Nelson went into a trance and channeled the voice of "Sudah," a spirit from Atlantis. Sudah told about his brother, who was a gifted engineer, and had been reincarnated into the bodies of gifted engineers many times over history. The brother had worked on the world's biggest projects, including the building of the Egyptian pyramids. Sudah, speaking through the medium, also confided that his brother's current incarnation was an engineer who just happened to be a friend of Nelson's!
That engineer, Arthur Lingelbach, told Ressler about his many accomplishments and plans for future technological innovations, including television, supersonic planes, and a refrigerator that worked on the principle of perpetual motion. All he needed was investors. Ressler not only invested in Lingelbach's company, but brought in other investors ...until enough time passed that she noticed no progress was being made on those inventions.
Ressler was quite embarrassed about the money she had given Lingelbach, but became a whistleblower anyway. Still, prosecuting Nelson and Lingelbach proved to be much more difficult than she thought it would be. Read the story of the psychic scheme and the trial that followed at Truly Adventurous.
"Financial compensation" never sounded so good. The latest project from There I Ruined It takes the monologue from that ad we've all seen again and again and sets it to the tune of "Galop Infernal" by Jacques Offenbach. We know it as the Can-Can song. It's not so much the quality of the work (which is pretty good), but the very idea of pairing such random things that takes you by surprise. You have to wonder how that concept even entered his brain. -via reddit
The origin of sourdough bread probably contributed to the popularity of Chinese food in America. The use of sourdough as a leavening agent grew up during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Miners and prospectors in the San Francisco area didn't have access to adequate supplies of yeast, but they needed bread to eat when they were working and didn't have time to build a fire to cook each meal. So they baked their own bread using sourdough starter. That doesn't mean they were good at it.
Across the American West, sourdough was considered a food for unmarried men who didn’t know how to cook. These men were like their bread: rough, tough, and they smelled a little bit funny. But the ultra-masculine frontier lifestyle was supposed to be temporary. These men were expected one day to return to civilization and enjoy the “sweet” and “light” bread baked by their mothers or wives.
The miners' sourdough bread could be really nasty and even dangerous. Moldy and contaminated bread caused a lot of upset stomaches and some deaths. So how did sourdough become a hit among tourists traveling to San Francisco? Learn the history of sourdough bread, and don't eat while reading it, at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: George H. Johnson)
I can SO relate to this! Today is the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the transition from summer to fall. From this point on, the nights will be longer than the days until next spring. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the vernal equinox, or the beginning of spring. In the real world, your mileage may vary, as the above video makes clear.
But autumn is often just a state of mind. Above you see the decorations I laid out before Labor Day. Having been through a few equinoxes in the South, I knew that the day would be just another day as far as the weather goes, but I was surprised this year. On Wednesday, the high temperature was 90°F (32°C). But where I am, the high temp today was 75°F (24°C) and I need to bring in the porch plants tonight. The weather is always surprising; this year I am surprised it followed the calendar. Again, your mileage may vary. -via Digg
The 1904 Summer Olympics were held in St. Louis, Missouri, because the city wanted the games to be part of the St. Louis World’s Fair. But there were no airports in 1904, and St. Louis is a long way from any sea port, so there were few athletes from outside North America. The marathon was particularly affected, as most of the participants had never run a marathon before. An athlete from Cuba lost all his money on the way gambling in New Orleans and didn't even have shorts, much less running shoes. Two experienced but barefoot runners from South Africa were there, but only because they were already working at the World's Fair. The race organizer limited the runners to only two water breaks because he was running a personal experiment, unbeknownst to the athletes. The route was not cleared for the race. It began in 90 degree weather. You can see how things might go wrong.
Only 14 runners completed the 1904 Olympic marathon. The stories of the race that day involved cheating, illness, theft, injury, performance-enhancing drugs, hallucinations, and one runner being chased off course by dogs. Read what happened at the race that came close to being the last Olympic marathon at Amusing Planet.
