Wednesday, December 31, 2014
World War I soldier’s room untouched for almost 100 years
His torn military jacket still hangs by his desk and his shoes are still tucked neatly by his bed — relics of a life lost long ago. In the small village of Bélâbre in central France sits the room of Hubert Rochereau, untouched for nearly a century as a memorial to the fallen solider, who died during World War I. It’s “an unforgettable journey back in time,” described as a “mummified room.”
Volkswagen Bus
The Volkswagen Type 2 Kombi ended production last year in Brazil—the last place in the world where the iconic camper van was still in production.
The Best Games To Get For Your New Gaming System, Phone Or Tablet
Get a new gaming system for Christmas? Or a new phone or tablet that plays games? We've got some recommendations for you so you can play some games (and maybe ignore your more annoying relatives in the process).
Below, you'll find lists to our 12 favorite games for every major game-playing device. The vast majority of the games listed—including all of them for PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, Vita, Android, iOS and, of course, PC, are all downloadable. So you don't even have to go to the store today.
Below, you'll find lists to our 12 favorite games for every major game-playing device. The vast majority of the games listed—including all of them for PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, Vita, Android, iOS and, of course, PC, are all downloadable. So you don't even have to go to the store today.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
“The Interview” now available on Google Play and YouTube Movies
Last Wednesday Sony began contacting a number of companies, including
Google, to ask if we’d be able to make their movie, "The
Interview," available online. We'd had a similar thought and were eager
to help—though given everything that’s happened, the security
implications were very much at the front of our minds.
Of course it was tempting to hope that something else would happen to ensure this movie saw the light of day. But after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be).
So starting at 10 a.m. PST in the U.S., you can rent or buy "The Interview" on Google Play and YouTube Movies. It will also be available to Xbox Video customers and via www.seetheinterview.com.
Of course it was tempting to hope that something else would happen to ensure this movie saw the light of day. But after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be).
So starting at 10 a.m. PST in the U.S., you can rent or buy "The Interview" on Google Play and YouTube Movies. It will also be available to Xbox Video customers and via www.seetheinterview.com.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Million-Mummy Cemetery Unearthed in Egypt
She's literally one in a million.
The remains of a child, laid to rest more than 1,500 years ago when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, was found in an ancient cemetery that contains more than 1 million mummies, according to a team of archaeologists from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
If You Haven't Listened To "Serial" It Is Time To Start
Serial is the hottest new podcast that's working everybody up into a lather. It's the number one podcast not only in the United States, but also Australia, and the United Kingdom. If you haven't started listening to it, start listening to it.
Serial follows the conventions of sequential storytelling -- conventions that came out of the Victorian era, when books were issued as installments. For instance, each chapter of Great Expectations arrived to the public simply as a link in an ongoing narrative -- its own self-contained unit with elements of cliffhanger suspense built in. Only later were the bits collected and put together in book form (and this was simply to make money twice).
That's how Serial is supposed to get you: The feeling of true waiting -- something that is lost in our digital culture where all things are instantaneously present simultaneously -- is a novel sensation. Pardon the pun.
Always Staring Controversy Right In The Eyes: How to tackle the most embarrassing problem on planes
In-flight flatulence is a common discomfort – so what causes it? And what can we do to save embarrassment? David Robson speaks to a Danish doctor with some surprising answers.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
NASA Emailed a New Wrench To the ISS
You know that moment where you overhear a loved one talking about something they really need, and realize you just stumbled onto the perfect thoughtful Christmas present? That's what just happened on the ISS, where an astronaut recently opined about needing a wrench—and then received one over email and printed it out.
51 Minutes in a Revolving Door: A lesson in storytelling
Mid-turn, and the whole thing stopped moving. With a sighhhhh. And a click. The person in front of me (hair scraped into a bun and brown coat) was able to squeeze out. As was the person behind me (heavy boots and red scarf). But I was trapped. By three walls of glass. After much pushing and shrugging on my part, the security guard approached holding up a note written on the back of a ticket stub. Are you ok? Door stuck? His name tag said “Bill” and he could not have been older than 19. “I can hear you,” I said. “Yes it is. And yes, I’m fine.” Good, Bill wrote on his hand before, subsequently, transforming these words into a thumbs up. He turned to another security guard: “I think the door’s stuck,” he said. Bill’s Friend looks at the door. And then at me: “Christ.”
Santa's real workshop: the town in China that makes the world's Christmas decorations
Inside the ‘Christmas village’ of Yiwu, there’s no snow and no elves, just 600 factories that produce 60% of all the decorations in the world.
I have been here many times.
I have been here many times.
Yiwu: The Chinese city where Christmas is made and sold
Forget Lapland. The real home of Christmas is a strange and unknown Chinese city called Yiwu. Tim Maughan visited the global epicenter of festive decorations and plastic gifts.
Time To Smoke A Beef Chuck Cross Rib Roast!
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| After 2 days of continuous rain I decided that smoking a roast sounded good. |
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| 1.25 inches of rain in the last 36 hours is really unusual for Kuna! |
Using a great recipie from 
I begin the process.
I begin the process.
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| A great idea! sprinkle all of the goodies you want ON the roast across your cutting board... |
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| Roll your roast coated in Virgin Olive Oil around on the board... |
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| The attractive sleeveless vest is know around the Whitten home as my "Smoking Jacket." |
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| And you have a perfectly coated piece of meat. |
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| 225 degrees in the smoker, fat side up. |
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| Still has about 5 more hours to go. |
Friday, December 19, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
You may have heard about Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon before. In fact, you probably learned about it for the first time very recently. If not, then you just might hear about it again very soon. Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase "That's so weird, I just heard about that the other day" would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.
Birthday Star
Light traveling in empty space is the fastest thing in the universe. It travels at 186,000 miles per second!
The stars are so far away from us that their light still takes a long time to reach Earth. One light year is the distance light travels in a year: 5,878,499,812,499 miles. The closest star apart from the Sun is 4.2 light years away, so its light takes 4.2 years to reach Earth.
Tell the Birthday Stars computer when you were born, and it will look for a star that is your age in light years away from Earth. This means that the light we're seeing from that star today actually left the star around when you were born, and has taken your entire life to reach Earth.
The stars are so far away from us that their light still takes a long time to reach Earth. One light year is the distance light travels in a year: 5,878,499,812,499 miles. The closest star apart from the Sun is 4.2 light years away, so its light takes 4.2 years to reach Earth.
Tell the Birthday Stars computer when you were born, and it will look for a star that is your age in light years away from Earth. This means that the light we're seeing from that star today actually left the star around when you were born, and has taken your entire life to reach Earth.
How to Keep Your Paperback Books in Good Condition
Even though eBook readers like the Kindle are popular, paperback books are still awesome. They may be fragile, but with the right tricks, you can keep them in great condition to read for years to come. Here's how.
What do dictators like to eat?
You are what you eat - but also how you eat and who you eat with. Food can affect your mood, your bowels and your world-view, write Victoria Clark and Melissa Scott, authors of Dictators' Dinners: A Bad Taste Guide to Entertaining Tyrants.
The Thugs of India
Accounts of a secret cult of murderers roaming India go back at least as far as the 13th century, but to modern history their story usually begins with the entrance of the British Empire in the early 1800s. For some years, India’s British administrators had been hearing reports of large numbers of travelers disappearing on the country’s roads; but, while disturbing, such incidents were not entirely unusual for the time. It was not until the discovery of a series of eerily similar mass graves across India that the truth began to dawn. Each site was piled with the bodies of individuals ritually murdered and buried in the same meticulous fashion, leading to an inescapable conclusion: these killings were the work of a single, nation-spanning organization. It was known as Thuggee.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Christmas Tree, Inc.
WLLAMETTE VALLEY, OREGON — On a cool spring day in 2004, a chicken in Oregon pooped. Ten years later, you strap a Christmas tree to the roof of your car.
The span between that hen and your living room is filled with a decade-long process to plant, grow, harvest and ship one of 6.4 million Christmas trees reaped each year from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the Christmas tree capital of the world. The system involves hundreds of people, most of whom work for one very short and intense period of the year, every year.
The span between that hen and your living room is filled with a decade-long process to plant, grow, harvest and ship one of 6.4 million Christmas trees reaped each year from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the Christmas tree capital of the world. The system involves hundreds of people, most of whom work for one very short and intense period of the year, every year.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Friday, December 05, 2014
Thursday, December 04, 2014
The coldest ground-level temp ever recorded on Earth was -128.6 degrees F
It looks like winter has already arrived for much of the U.S. But you can feel a bit better by putting things in perspective. At least it's not -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That's the coldest temperature ever recorded by humans at ground level on this planet.