Oh yeah, it's a good song, but non-stop Christmas cheer beginning the day after Halloween and lasting two months for 27 years straight is enough. If you've had it with Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You," then this song is for you. Despite the fact that it was produced by There I Ruined It (previously at Neatorama), it's actually quite listenable. He took the vocals to Twisted Sister's song "We're Not Gonna Take It" and laid it over the Christmas tune. The video mostly comes from Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special. Even if you aren't tired of "All I Want for Christmas is You," you'll still get a kick out of this mashup. See, There I Ruined It doesn't have to ruin everything!  -via Laughing Squid

Besides having the coolest name ever, Hildegard von Bingen was a writer, a scientist, a healer, a composer, a visionary mystic, and a saint who lived in 12th-century Germany. She founded two monasteries and invented a language. Hildegard's life and list of accomplishments is long and involved, but Atlas Obscura focuses on her work with medicinal food and herbs.

Hildegard subscribed to the Latin medical theory of balancing bodily humors that was prominent in her time, with elements of astrology and theology added. She advocated for bleeding and using precious stones in healing. But she prepared medicines according to the practice that (mostly women) healers always used of going with what works, and learned the benefits of natural ingredients she grew in her garden. Hildegard also advised boiling water before drinking to prevent disease. Medical historian and physician Victoria Sweet tells us,  

“More of her cures worked than didn’t,” Sweet says, noting that many of her herbal remedies are as timeless as those within traditional Chinese medicine.

But the culmination of the article is the cookie recipe Hildegard left us. She made cookies prescribed for various ailments: ginger for constipation, licorice for nausea, and cinnamon and cloves for joy. You can't argue with cookies for joy, no matter what the flavor. Her cookies for joy are easy to make, and if you swap out molasses for honey, ginger for nutmeg, and add some leavening, it would be the same as the gingersnaps I made last week. Find that recipe and an overview of Hildegard's medical practices at Atlas Obscura. -via a comment at Metafilter 

Changi Airport in Singapore has been named the best airport in the world for eight years running now. It's beautiful, too. But besides being large and easy on the eyes, the airport has state-of-the-art infrastructure that helps it to run smoothly. Get a load of the conveyor belt that spits out your suitcase onto the baggage claim carousel. Each bag waits its turn for the perfect opportunity to jump in and join the gang! This is not only soothing to watch, it makes you wonder what else is going on behind the scenes at the airport that we'd be interested to know about. If only we could get interstate entrance ramps to work as smoothly, we'd be right proud. -via Nag on the Lake

Military pilots may have to stay airborne and ready for action for long periods of time--long enough that they desperately need to urinate. One unfortunately common response for this need has been for pilots to intentionally dehydrate themselves to reduce their need to pee. But this also impairs their physical endurance and mental concentration.

The US Air Force recently announced a new type of urinal that may alleviate this problem. The Skydrate by Omni Defense Tech is major innovation in airborne toileting. The male version cups around the pilot's penis and sucks excreted urine into a bag.

The female version resembles a huge plastic maxi pad that, when wedged into the user's groin, likewise pulls away urine and collects it into a bag attached to the flightsuit.

This brilliant invention could also be implemented at other workplaces. Just imagine how much more blogging could get done at Neatorama if authors no longer had to go to the restroom during their shifts.

-via Core 77 | Photos: Omni Defense Tech

There are more than a thousand species of barnacles, mostly attached to rocks, reefs, and boats. A few species specialize in embedding themselves into the skin of whales, on which they grow and ride until they die. An individual whale may carry around up to 450 kilograms of barnacles and their shells, so permanently attached that the whale's skin grows around the bottom of the barnacle shells.

The problem in studying whale barnacles is that they tend to die when removed from the whale or from the ocean, so not much is known about their life cycles. All scientists have to work with are dead whale barnacles. However, other scientists study the composition of clam shells, which build up over time like tree rings, to analyze the composition of ocean water in the past. Biology professor Larry Taylor thought trying that with whale barnacles, who build their shells much faster than clams, might reveal not only information about the barnacles themselves, but could provide a roadmap for where its whale traveled. And we have dead whale barnacles that range from recent samples to fossils. By analyzing the isotopes in the layers of whale barnacle shells, we can trace the migrations of whales through history. This opens up a whole new world of information about how whales evolve, migrate, and go extinct, plus the state of the world's oceans over time. Those old barnacle shells are like an archive of ocean history for those who know how to analyze them. Read what whale barnacles can tell us at Hakai magazine.  -via Metafilter

A few years ago, I accidentally turned on the subtitles on Netflix and, well, never turned them off. Now I watch everything, including shows in English, with subtitles on.

Pen Pearson, a critic at Slashfilm (/Film), does likewise. That's because he's noticed that it's increasingly hard for him to understand what actors are saying. It's not because he's suffered hearing loss. Movies are intentionally made this way now.

In his deep dive into the issue, Pearson discovered that some filmmakers choose a sound design that makes the dialogue difficult to follow beecause they often want to show hard, difficult situations for characters--the sorts of situations that might make it difficult to hear what's going on. If the audience can't understand the actors, they can empathize with the challenges of the character in that given situation.

Futhermore, actors vocalize differently these days. If I understand Pearson correctly, he means that actors aren't trained to speak clearly on an open stage, but to talk, or even mumble, into a microphone. This is a popular acting style that makes a sound engineer's work difficult. And because the modern visual style of movies calls for wide shots, it's not always possible to simply lower a boom mic over an actor.

Other trends contribute to this problem, such as the transition from sound design for theaters to online streaming video. Read about them at /Film.

-via Kottke | Image: Warner Bros.

Pictured above is the CenturyLink Tower. At 11 stories and 174 feet in height, it is the tallest building in South Dakota. At least it is now. The Zip Feed Mill in Sioux Falls had a 202-foot grain elevator that was the tallest building in South Dakota from the time it was built in 1956 until it was scheduled for demolition on December 3, 2005. At that time, it became ...the second tallest building in South Dakota.

They don't build 'em like that anymore. Instead of coming apart under the stress of falling, the tower remained solid and just slid down into its basement, to much amusement from the crowd that had gathered to watch the demolition. However, it was quite tilted, so it was too dangerous to go in and rig it with explosives again. They ended up using a crane and a wrecking ball to take the tower down. You can read a history of the building here. -via a comment at reddit

(Image credit: TCN7JM)

It's December first; time to hang your Advent calendar and open up the first door! Neural network researcher Janelle Shane (previously at Neatorama) introduced an algorithm to the concept of an Advent calendar. This would be the old-fashioned kind before everyone expected chocolate, in which each of the 25 doors would open to a delightful picture. Shane instructed the neural network to follow a story involving a store called Shop of Strange Antiques that got an old Advent calendar with "atypical" images. The algorithm took that to heart. The image ideas were generated in text, then transferred to another algorithm to produce the pictures from the descriptions.   

Shane asked for "atypical," and that's exactly what she got. They are downright bizarre and therefore priceless. A pack of wolves playing poker. Santa Claus strumming a banjo on a trampoline. You get the idea. The Advent calendar has been posted at AI Weirdness in an interactive form in case you want to only open one image per day, or all of them today if you prefer. There were more than 25 images generated because Shane knew that some would have to be discarded, and yes, 20 more were unsuitable for small pixel images or otherwise unusable, but those are listed in a bonus post for your pleasure.

Henry Kissinger was National Security Advisor to President Nixon, then Nixon's and President Ford's Secretary of State. He's most famous for negotiating the opening of diplomatic relations with Communist China, the US withdrawal from Vietnam, and nuclear weapons reductions with the Soviet Union. Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, so he's accomplished a lot in his career.

But, Kissinger once claimed, what he really wanted to do was to work as a weatherman.

He got his chance on Tuesday, May 21, 1991. Kissinger appeared on the show CBS This Morning. Coached by regular weatherman Mike McEwen, he described the weather across the continental United States, referring to regions of the US by towns named after famous cities, such as Paris, Kentucky and Athens, Georgia.

Source:

Rosenberg, Howard. "Forecast: A Trivializing of America Television: Henry Kissinger's Stint as a CBS Weather Forecaster is just the Latest Outrage as a Tabloid Mentality Sweeps Across the Airwaves during the May Ratings Sweeps." Los Angeles Times , May 24, 1991.

-via Weird Universe

🎵 Got a squeaky dryer? Don't fix it ... instead, record it on Tiktok so musicians worldwide can create entertaining "duet chains" and sooner or later, you'll end up with a full blown and very catchy Dryer Song.

🏰 A man's home is his castle, even if he's living in a tiny home. In this case, a New Zealand couple's tiny truck home actually is a castle, complete with turrets. Oh, and did we mention it actually unfolds and transforms into a bigger castle?

☕ Marble-lous: This NYC woman's coffee table turned out to be a priceless mosaic from the Roman Emperor Caligula's ceremonial ship. The story of how they found out that the coffee table was actually a historical artefact is equally fascinating.

🦠 Good news: bacteria are evolving to eat plastic.

🏆 Can't find that must-have toy for Christmas? Give your kids a bucket of sand and tell them it's the new hot thing. After all, sand is the latest inductee to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Next year, sticks!

🐻 This real-life Winnie-the-Pooh got its head stuck inside a plastic container. Too bad it's not a jar of honey.

🎬 'Doon't' miss this Bad Lip Reading of Dune. The spice, and laughter, must flow.

😺 There is nothing this cat can't catch. A-meow-zing!

👕 Psst! Our Fantasy T-shirts and Sci-Fi T-Shirts make for great 🎄 Christmas presents.

Tons more neat posts over at our new sites: Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, and Supa Fluffy. More neat tees over at the NeatoShop.

Image: @teej011/TikTok

No Time to Die was the 25th film in the James Bond franchise, and the fifth Bond film starring Daniel Craig as secret agent 007. It's also his final Bond movie, which Screen Junkies agrees is enough, since Craig's Bond was just way too serious, emotional, and depressing. Too realistic, actually, even with the over-the-top gunfights, explosions, and violence. That said, No Time to Die had a respectable run, becoming the most lucrative American film so far in 2021. Yes, it's time for a new Bond, and maybe a return to a more lighthearted spy series. But please, not Chris Pratt.

Everyone's talking about the new omicron variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus. So far, we don't know all that much about it, but anecdotal evidence is that it may be less dangerous than the delta variant, even if it turns out to be more virulent. The word omicron has tripped up a lot of newscasters who've never heard the word pronounced before. Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, and not really heard much in English. However, it sure sounds like a science fiction term, doesn't it?

Filmmaker Christopher Miller took a poster from the 1966 movie Cyborg 2087 and altered it to what we picture when we hear "the omicron variant." The title follows the phrasing of science fiction titles like The Andromeda Strain or The Philadelphia Experiment (or The Shawshank Redemption or The Pelican Brief, for that matter). The only thing that would make this more fitting would be to slot in Charlton Heston in the lead role.

It turns out there have been several movies with omicron in the title, in 1963, 1999, and 2013. We nerds really like the Greek alphabet. -via Boing Boing

YouTube has decided to put an age restriction on this video, so you'll need to go there to see it. 

"It's like any of these traditional regional things that it wouldn't be allowed if you were to ask anywhere else in the world to do it now, innit."

For more than 400 years, Bridgwater, Somerset, UK, has celebrated Guy Fawkes Day, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, with plenty of gunpowder. The Bridgwater Carnival is held every fifth of November, except it was canceled in 2020 and scaled back in 2021. In a normal year, there is a full carnival including an illuminated parade after sundown. This year they still managed to do the traditional "squibbing," which involves a phalanx of 150 or so people holding fireworks over their heads. Tom Scott got a chance to investigate how the squibbs are made and used, which is just a little bit safer than the traditional ones from hundreds of years ago. He also got to participate in the festivities a few weeks ago, and seems downright giddy at the pyromaniac pyrotechnical display. A good time was had by all.

Experts have discovered two galaxies hiding near the dawn of the universe. These ‘invisible’ galaxies, named  REBELS-12-2 and REBELS-29-2, imply that there were far more galaxies in the early universe than scientists thought. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) captured the radio waves emitted by these stars, which existed 13 billion years ago, actually. 

According to Swiss astronomer Pascal Oesch, they were looking at a sample of very distant galaxies when they noticed the invisible galaxies. “And then we noticed that two of them had a neighbor that we didn’t expect to be there at all. As both of these neighboring galaxies are surrounded by dust, some of their light is blocked, making them invisible to Hubble,” he said. 

Image credit: NASA

We almost failed to notice it, too! 

A New Zealander who was flying home from a holiday in Samoa noticed a strange mass floating in the ocean in her airplane window. The woman took photos of the odd sight and emailed them to scientists, who then realized that this large mass wasn’t a new island popping out of the ocean-- it was a mass of floating rock from an underwater volcano that erupted. 

The volcano in question is the Havre Seamount, which was initially unnoticed by scientists until its eruption that produced the large rift of rocks to flow to the top of the ocean. The eruption is estimated to be roughly 1.5 times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens – or 10 times the size of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland

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Image credit: Rebecca Carey, University of Tasmania/Adam Soule, WHOI