I once knew someone who had a screened-in party room at their house, and behind it was another screened-in room with a bed! It was a sleeping porch, used when it was too hot inside. This one caught breezes from three sides. Sleeping porches are one of many methods people used to keep cool before air conditioning became common. Pictured above is the freestanding sleeping porch President Taft had installed on the roof of the White House in 1910.

Evaporating water has been used for cooling for thousands of years, especially in dry areas. But it was used in the swampy city of Washington DC in 1881 after President Garfield was shot. His room in the White House was rigged with a device that blew air through wet fabric cooled with ice, and lowered the temperature by 20 degrees. It went through half a million pounds of ice over two months until Garfield died of his wounds.

Read about these and other clever methods that people used to keep cool in hot weather at Smithsonian.

You take all the standard tropes of a space adventure movie and put them together to make a parody. You shoot it in your apartment with a budget of zero and a cast of one playing all the parts. How good could it possibly be? In this one, it all comes down to the acting, and the zero-gravity effects, which were done only through acting. Oh yeah, there's one video effect, an illustration of product placement with a candy bar.

I saw a three-minute video on reddit and thought it was was quite good, and in fact was posted on the subreddit Best of the Internet. But I didn't post it here because I didn't know who made it. Then a friend pointed me in the right direction, and it turns out the full movie is nine minutes long and had a different ending. It was made by writer and actress Caroline Klidonas. Klidonas started posting vignettes on on TikTok during the pandemic lockdown that became full-blown productions. You can find quite a few of Klidones' full-length parodies at YouTube. -Thanks, Carol!   

In 1968, the Catholic Church established the Diocese of Orlando, which encompasses a large amount of central Florida. This area includes Cape Canaveral, from which the Apollo moon missions were launched in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A 2019 article in L'Osservatore Romano, which is the Vatican's newspaper, republished at ETWN, reports that after the Apollo 11 landing in 1969, Bishop William Borders asserted episcopal authority over the moon.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law granted such authority over newly-discovered territories to the location of the launching expedition. Since Apollo 11 was launched within the boundaries of the Diocese of Orlando, the moon was the turf of Bishop Borders.

Bishop (later Archbishop) Borders once verbally asserted his lunar claim to Pope Paul VI, although the pontiff's response remains unknown.

-via Depths of Wikipedia | Photo: Archbishop William Borders and Pope Paul VI

If you were to tell a story about a late partygoer, you could mean someone who arrived long after the party started, or you might mean someone who died at a party. These very disparate uses of the word "late" can be confusing without the proper context. The reason that the word has two meanings goes back to the early use of "late" (pun intended). In the 15th century, the word was used to mean "recently." You can understand that by the phrase "of late." There are many examples that are now considered archaic, but we still use a form of it in phrases like "the latest comic from Randall Munroe." When referring to someone who died, the term "late" was originally only used for someone who passed away so recently that it might be news. But we strayed from that, and now say "the late Richard Harris," even though he died more than twenty years ago.

So the "behind schedule" definition has survived, and the "dead" meaning has been altered, but the in-between definition that meant "recently" has mostly fallen away. Read a rundown of how the word "late" has evolved over time at Mental Floss. Now, as far as the use of the phrase "the late, great..," that seems to have come about just because it rhymes and is therefore fun to say. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Roman Eisele)

Have you always wanted to walk through the Slurm factory, enjoy a donut with The Simpsons or do an alien autopsy of Roger from American Dad? If so, you'll want to head to Hulu's Animayhem activation at this year's San Diego Comic Con.

There's a lot of fun to be had here, including a snack of green sprinkled donuts, refreshing Slurm, a Solar opposites stress test that gives you a relaxing squishy toy, and some incredible pins at the end.

If you are in the area this weekend, stop by for some fun. 

Kid Robot had been selling blank vinyl toys for years, making it easy to color your own designs amd create your own one-of-a-kind creation... But unless you start adding on to the sculpture, it will always be the same shape as everyone else's.

If you really want to let your inner artist shine, you'll want to check out Marmals. We spotted these at Comic Con and my son fell in love -and so did I. These adorable creations have magnetic parts so you can switch around the head, arm, and legs, and even change parts between different models to create entirely new creatures. You can even deck them out with adorable accessories like sneakers and beanies.

Need a little help getting your design started? They also sell sticker packs you can color in. Not into making your own art? Then check out the gorgeous galactic designs. Whether for an art toy, desk toy, or a kid's toy, these cute creations offer something for just about everyone.

With today's all-volunteer armed forces, we might forget how common military service once was. Throughout most of the 20th century, young men could expect to be called up for World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War. In between wars, service was seen as a useful bridge to manhood, or to see the world, or to learn job skills. So it wasn't odd to see half the houses in your neighborhood occupied by a veteran and his family. The language they brought back from their service could be colorful, but even when it wasn't, these veterans retained a lot of jargon that fellow veterans would understand, and soon those terms were used by everyone. We know what these terms mean, but we don't know how they came about. Weird History looks at a whole bunch of everyday phrases and idioms we use that you might not know came from the military, as far back as the Revolutionary War.   

I can't vouch for how accurate these stories are. Commenters at YouTube are especially upset about "balls to the wall," which they contend predates aviation.

Charles Byrne was born in Ireland in 1761 and grew to be seven and a half feet tall. This made him two feet taller than everyone around him. As word of the "Irish Giant" got around, Byrne decided to go to London and make a living off his unusual stature, because there were plenty of people who would pay to see a giant. And there was a also surgeon who would pay to have a giant. John Hunter was that surgeon, as he was also an anatomist who had dissected many human bodies to study them. Hunter made no secret that he would like to take possession of Byrne's body when the time came, to further his scientific knowledge.

Byrne was in control of how he was exposed during his life, but the thought of being dissected and then displayed after death horrified him. Even though he was a young man, his health began to deteriorate. The giant let it be known that he didn't want John Hunter anywhere near his body if he were to die. Byrne died at age 22. He had already made plans for his friends to bury him at sea, with weights to keep his body submerged so that the anatomist couldn't get to him. We don't know for sure how his plan went awry, but Hunter indeed ended up with Byrne's body. He dissected it for four years and then Byrne's skeleton went on display for hundreds of years -until 2023. Read about the restless corpse of the Irish Giant at ABC. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Maggie Jones)

The classic tale of the magic carpet from One Thousand and One Nights is completely separate from the story of Aladdin, but we all know what we saw in the 1992 Disney movie. The YouTuber who goes by Alladin Skylab was inspired by watching Aladdin as a child and now is experienced in flying ultralight planes, paragliders, wingsuits, and hang gliders. But now he has truly recreated that childhood dream by fashioning a colorful carpet to act like a wingsuit! Watch him base jump from a high mountain (does anyone recognize the location?) and soar on his own magic carpet just like Aladdin! Lucky for us, he has a drone following him to catch the action. How is he going to land on that kind of terrain? For that, he pulls out another of his flying skills. You can see more of Aladdin Skylab's stunts at TikTok. -via Nag on the Lake

One of the great things about the San Diego Comic Con is that there is always something fun to do - even if you don't have a Comic Con badge. A perfect example is the Paramount+ Lodge, where visitors can get an inside look at the some of their favorite shows. 

Want to get a better feeling for your favorite Ghosts character? You can smell a perfume representative of the sitcom's different ghosts. They even send you home with a small sample. 

If you prefer making ghosts over hanging out with them, you can always explore a little blood splatter at a killer's crime scenes from Dexter: New Blood. 

If you're hungry, you can grab a bite of pizza and a gourmet lemonade with the Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Or if you're thirsty, consider grabbing a drink at the Tulsa King Bred2Buck.

Other fun activities: get a custom-made Star Trek tee, go jellyfishing in Bikini Bottom, or get a picture with an imaginary friend from IF (though the photo op was broken when we went, so we didn't get to hang out with an IF).

If you find yourself in downtown San Diego this weekend, drop by the lounge for a good time. 

Richard Harris was known to my generation for playing King Arthur in the movie Camelot. You may know him better as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films. He relinquished the role when he died in 2002 of Hodgkin's disease. Harris had been staying at the Savoy Hotel in London while his condition swiftly deteriorated. He was eventually carried out in a stretcher and sent to the hospital. As he was carried past hotel guests, he yelled, "It was the food!" That had to cause some panic among those who had dined there. As far as we know those were Harris's last words.

But he wasn't alone in using his last words as a joke, or to confuse people, or to get back at someone. Read about five men whose last words were a first-class example of trolling. It's likely they didn't know those would be their last words, but they were nevertheless clever.

🇫🇷 Kevin Piette, paraplégique depuis un accident, est entré dans l’histoire aujourd’hui en portant la flamme olympique avec son exosquelette ! 👏

🎥 wandercraftofficialpic.twitter.com/HTy5MrYE6Z

— Le Média Positif 🍀 (@LMPositif) July 23, 2024

The Olympic torch relay has been going on since April, when the flame was lit at Mt. Olympus in Greece. It is a traditional honor to carry the torch, and many athletes, political figures, and celebrities of all kinds have done it. As the torch nears the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Paris, the more prestigious the torchbearers are. The torchbearers this year will include Snoop Dogg. The final torchbearers who lights the Olympic flame is still a mystery, and it's always a parlor game to guess which host nation superstar athlete it will be by process of elimination.

French athlete Kevin Piette is one of the 2024 torchbearers. Piette became a paraplegic 11 years ago, and will compete in the Paralympics in tennis. He is also a "test pilot" for the French company Wandercraft that developed the Atalante X, a self-balancing walking exoskeleton designed to be used by people with disabilities. Tuesday, Piette became the first Paralympian to participate in the torch relay wearing an exoskeleton.

Piette's Instagram post expressed his pride and gratitude to those who came out to show support (in French). -via Laughing Squid

Many people probably have this notion that chess is a gentleman's game. And in all respects it should be. But chess is a battle of wits, a competitive game between two minds, and in many cases, a war of egos. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that a game which is supposedly innocuous can actually be quite cutthroat.

This may further be amplified if there is something highly valuable on the line: the title of World Champion, and these days that also comes with some monetary incentive. However, in the early days of the World Chess Championship, challengers cared less about the prize money, and more about the bragging rights.

Now, to clarify one thing, I'm not saying that the elite chess players are all vicious, ruthless, and aggressive. It's just that, in the spirit of competition, these people put their desire to crush their opponent and prove they have the better concept in full display while they are playing over the board. However, for the most part, chess masters are generally innocuous people outside the game of chess. But as with any athlete, their drive and motivation is found in the pursuit of being the best in the world at this one thing.

So, let us go through in passing several peculiar events that happened in connection with the World Chess Championship which nobody would think could ever happen in a sport like this.

Early Days

Back in the days when there was no international organization that held championships to determine who would be considered the best player in the game, people just played as many opponents as they could, and whoever won the most number of games and beat the most players was considered the strongest. At this point, the idea of having a World Chess Champion was still in its nascent stage, but several names were already being floated around in chess circles.

During the 19th century, some of the renowned chess players were the likes of Howard Staunton and Adolf Anderssen, both very strong contenders for the title of world champion. Of course, that was until Paul Morphy entered the scene and upstaged many of his contemporaries. With a brilliant tactical mind and innovative approaches to the game, Morphy rose quickly in the chess scene.

Considered by many as one of the GOATs, Morphy had an intuition unlike many of his peers. And so he dominated the world of chess wherever he went, until he suddenly passed away at the age of 47 from a stroke. Morphy's death left a void in the chess world which would later be filled by the person considered to be the very first World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz.

As mentioned a while ago, in those days, there was no World Chess Federation or FIDE. Strong players just agreed to have matches with each other to figure out who among them is the greatest. After Steinitz, came Lasker, the longest reigning world chess champion in history, who was later defeated by the young Cuban master, José Raúl Capablanca. Capablanca is widely considered as a great technician in the game, excellent in calculation with great depth in positional understanding.

Under FIDE

He was then followed by another master who ranks among the greats, Alexander Alekhine, who was unexpectedly defeated by the Dutch mathematician Max Euwe. After WWII, FIDE took over and things started to become more structured and organized. To decide on who the next World Chess Champion was going to be, FIDE held a tournament joined by five players. It was eventually won by Mikhail Botvinnik, who was perhaps the most cunning world champion in history.

Botvinnik held the title for 15 years, but not consecutively. With his influence on the design of the world championship cycles, he was able to get rematches every time he lost the title. And each time, he would reclaim the title, once from Vasily Smyslov, and another time from Mikhail Tal.

After Botvinnik's defeat to Tigran Petrosian, FIDE changed the automatic rematch rule which made Botvinnik withdraw from entering future World Chess Championship cycles. Petrosian was defeated by Boris Spassky, who would later be challenged by none other than Bobby Fischer, probably the most controversial player to ever grace the world chess stage.

In any case, Fischer defeated Spassky, thus breaking the Soviet stranglehold of chess and bringing the title to the west. But then, Fischer disappeared from the scene when FIDE rejected his terms for the next championship match.

From this point onward, the World Chess Championship would continue to have controversies like The Great Yogurt Controversy between Anatoly Karpov, the successor to Fischer, and his rival Viktor Korchnoi, in which Korchnoi alleged that Karpov and his team was sending him coded messages by giving him blueberry yogurt while they were playing a match.

Then came Garry Kasparov, arguably one of the most famous chess players of all time before Magnus Carlsen. When Kasparov was going to defend his title against Nigel Short, FIDE's prize pool was much lower than expected, and so the two split from FIDE and created the Professional Chess Association.

Reunification

For years, the chess world had two world champions because of this. It wasn't until Vladimir Kramnik, the PCA Champion, had a match against the then-FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov that the two titles would be unified. Ultimately, Kramnik won that match, but not without controversy.

Topalov and his team had accused Kramnik of cheating in what is now called the Toiletgate scandal, as Topalov claimed that Kramnik was getting help from computers when he used the bathroom. Kramnik denied the allegations, they continued the match, and he won thus uniting the two titles.

After Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand became the next World Chess Champion, and for the most part, his tenure as champion was quite peaceful without any disputes or scandals. He defended his title three times until he faced Magnus Carlsen, who would prove himself to be, perhaps, the greatest chess player of all time, bar none.

Defending his title five times in a row, Carlsen found it to be exhausting to continue with the current format of the World Chess Championship, and in 2023, he relinquished his title, which paved the way for Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren to vie for the coveted World Chess Champion distinction.

In that match, Ding secured victory to become the first Chinese grandmaster to become the World Chess Champion. And that, in a nutshell, is the history of the World Chess Championship, and all the twists and turns that came along with it.

(Image credit: Vladimir Barskij/Wikimedia Commons)

A rogue planet is a celestial body that is not tethered by gravity to a star, but rather roams through space on its own. It may have once orbited a star, but was knocked off their trajectory by another object, or pulled away by another star, or may possibly be the remnant of a star system that exploded. It may be even possible that planets can form without ever being in orbit. We don't know much about them because astronomers have only detected rogue planets in the 21st century, and then only indirectly. 

But more recent data suggest that rogue planets are way more common than previously thought. Current estimates say that there are an average of seven free-floating planets for every star in the Milky Way galaxy! We just can't see them because they emit no light and only rarely cause a shadow. But they are out there, moving between star systems, colliding with other bodies, and sneaking through the darkness. Our newer, more powerful telescopes are expected to shed light, so to speak, on these so-far invisible planets. Read about the search for rogue planets at IEEE Spectrum. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Chris Gunn/NASA)

To be honest, I have never used or seen a dishwasher before. It's one of the few home appliances that I have not been fortunate enough to own or even see firsthand, in person. I am aware of its function and efficiency, and I have seen an ad for a dishwasher which demonstrated the inner workings of the machine. Alas, it's not something that many people I know think to be a must-have for home appliances. However, if I were given the option to receive a dishwasher, then I will not hesitate to accept, just so that I can see the process that goes on in there, and perhaps, just so that I won't be ignorant about it.

Did you know that the inventor of the dishwasher, Josephine Cochrane, brought her idea to reality out of sheer desperation? The story is, Mrs. Cochrane's husband met his untimely demise leaving her and their two children to fend for themselves. Given that it was also in the 19th century, being a widow with two children to feed and raise, life wasn't going to be rainbows and skittles.

Being born into a family of inventors and tinkerers, Cochrane decided that it was finally time to bring her ambition to fruition. Despite not having a formal education in the sciences, Cochrane had been exposed well enough to her civil engineer father and her grandfather, who had first patented the steamboat. And so, she looked for a problem that needed an urgent solution.

Now, anybody who has washed dishes would know the annoyances that such a task can bring. Cochrane was fed up with chipped, nicked, or cracked dishes and utensils, and she wondered why nobody has ever thought of inventing a machine that can do all of that labor for her.

The 19th century saw many inventions brought to life from the steam engine and the telephone, to the first automobile and the light bulb. However, most of them were concerned with things outside the home. Being a housewife, Cochrane knew the struggles that many other women were most likely going through at the time. They would spend all day doing housework, leaving them with no time to do other things.

Seeing this particular problem with her chinaware, Cochrane resolved to make her own dishwashing machine. At the time, there had already been several attempts at building prototypes of dishwashers. There was a hand-cranked dish soaker designed by Joel Houghton, and an upgraded version of that by L.A. Alexander. Both of which were quite bad.

Cochrane, on the other hand, paid particular attention to measuring cups, plates, and other kitchenware in making her design, envisioning the final product as one in which different types of wares will have their own compartments. These compartments were then placed on a rotating wheel which allowed all of the wares to be squirted with soapy water.

With the help of the local mechanic George Butters, Cochrane was able to invent the first dishwasher and she filed her patent in December 1885 for the "Cochrane Dishwasher". Then came the equally challenging part of the whole process: actually selling the machine.

Having an initial price between $75 to $100 made sure that these dishwashers would not yet be sold to households, as it was too expensive, so Cochrane turned to commercial establishments like restaurants and hotels. The first order of dishwashers she received was from the Palmer Hotel in Chicago, for $800.

Soon, another opportunity would open up with the World's Columbian Expo in Chicago, where she exhibited the first dishwasher to investors, other inventors, and the public. At the time, her dishwasher was the only invention by a woman displayed in the Machinery Hall. Also, the dishwasher had been upgraded as an industrial model which could wash and dry 240 dishes in two minutes. This piqued the interest of many other clients like schools and hospitals that ended up ordering machines from her. Furthermore, she received the award for design and durability, which catapulted the dishwasher into a household name.

Fast forward to 1898, Cochrane opened up a factory for her business, now called Cochrane's Crescent Washing Machine Company. In 1913, Cochrane died from a stroke, but her legacy lived on as her dishwasher continued to be improved upon with innovations in design until such a point that the company was able to sell the dishwashers at a lower price, enabling households to purchase them. Advancements in soap also paved the way for dishes to be cleaner and come out without residue.

The company became KitchenAid, which was later acquired by the Whirlpool Corporation. And in 2006, Josephine Cochrane was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Her story is quite an inspiring one and at the end of her life, she admitted that had she known how difficult it was going to be to invent something and then bring her invention to the market, she may not have had the courage to embark on it. However, she also said that the whole journey had been a wonderful experience.

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)