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And it wasn't just the manure: In 1880, New York City removed 15,000 dead horses from the street. Chicago removed 9,202 horse carcasses as late as 1916! Moving the 1,300 pound carcasses was no easy task "“ special trucks that hung low to avoid excessive lift had to be made. Think today's traffic is bad? An 1886 article in the Atlantic Monthly described Broadway as congested with "dead horses and vehicular entanglement."

We had all kinds of crazy ideas for killing Castro. 10 Ways the CIA tried to kill Castro

Never had anyone get hit by one. Now they're banned. Sad.

Over a period of eight years, lawn darts had sent 6,100 people to the emergency room. 81% of those cases involved children 15 or younger, and half of those were 10 or younger. The majority of injuries were to the head, face, eyes or ears, and many had led to permanent injury or disability.

http://mentalfloss.com/article...

And one was killed.

Just use plastic ones!

As did the US. http://mentalfloss.com/article...

Maybe he should behead his opponent and then shout, "Are you not entertained?"

For those who don't believe in reading TFA, it includes a relevant image :)

Maybe he should behead his opponent and then shout, "Are you not entertained?"

For those who don't believe in reading TFA, it includes a relevant image :)

If Daily Doubles were 100% random, they would be located in the 3 higher slots more than 50% of the time because those slots make up 60% of the board. Of course the real article http://www.mentalfloss.com/art... states that when IBM's Watson analyzed Jeopardy it discovered that Daily Doubles actually were more likely to be placed in the highest 2 slots indicating non-random placement.

Dont mistake me for a Repubmocrat. I wouldnt have anything to do with the ONLY party responsible for 9/11. Sorry , still no case for political correctness.
Your mislaid point earns you a bunny. http://www.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/400pancake_bunny.jpg

Doesn't matter, it's really only a one party system , the Repubmocrats.
What one doesn't do, the other one does during their administration.
Downward spiral since the New Deal. So whether it was the Texas accent or the Arkansas accent before it, is irrelevant. One merely caters to this group of demographics, while the other one covers the rest in a shell game where our rights only appear to be under one of the shells.
So, in the end, I singled out the Democrat colored ones and associated them with their demographic, Mac owners, for an ironic humorous reply to Ralph Wiggams query about Gores V.P. term in "95" , alluding to Gores position on the Board at Apple and the fanboyism of the Macish.
Therefore, I award you a Bunny! http://www.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/400pancake_bunny.jpg

So now instead of this we have this?

Psychology ran in a major hiccup, as many of it's experiments are no longer reproducible not because of bad 'science' but because they are considered naughty and not something that should really be done to people to test out psychological theories, as in http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/ethics-standards/ethics-standards (I used British standards rather than US ones, as the US ones have so badly been mauled by the US government and their fully medically and psychological researched mass torture facility at GITMO that the US ones are rules that 'should be' broken as defined by the US government) and http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today.

Pretty soon, dinosaurs will be pouring out of the hollow earth.

Are you kidding? This is the polar regions we're talking about. The real threat there is from the secret Nazi Antarctic Fortress which the US countered with its secret nuclear powered subterranean Air Force base. Hopefully the Nazis can still be thwarted so we can avoid an "Iron Sky" scenario. If only ....

Incorrect.

Patrick Stewart's Male Pattern Baldness (androgenetic alopecia) had rendered him mostly bald by age 19. In fact, when he first tried out to for the "Star Trek" part, Stewart wore a wig, but Trek creator Gene Roddenberry nixed it, preferring the bald look. A reporter later goaded Roddenberry, "Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century." The Trekkie's comeback? "In the 24th century, they wouldn't care." A TV Guide poll named Stewart "Sexiest Man on Television" in 1992, proving Roddenberry's point four centuries early.

From http://mentalfloss.com/article/19433/3-bald-encounters-set-star-trek#ixzz2iT1NI3pu

Although most people now refer to it as "duct tape" the original term was "duck tape".
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52151/it-duck-tape-or-duct-tape

For those of you who do not know--IKEA is the biggest charity scam in the world. Its money is all tied up in mysterious offshore accounts. They have hundreds of millions of dollars and give away maybe a million or two per year. It is all a big tax avoidance scheme by the reclusive founder (and X-Nazi recruiter) of Ikea. So anything they claim to do is suspect. http://www.economist.com/node/6919139 http://mentalfloss.com/article/18575/ikea-worlds-largest-charity

At half a gram per cubic metre or 0.0005 kg/m^3, your 10^6 kg would make a cloud of 2 cubic kilometers, or two typical cumulus clouds.

I am reminded of the Thagomizer.

As dangerous as hunting large prey was, I imagine it did not take long to go from attaching a sharp rock to the end of a long stick, to throwing the long stick. When facing "the Thagomizer" the mental leap probably occurred in about a minute :-)

http://mentalfloss.com/article/18944/bill-gates-frustrated-windows

The Late Movies: 10 Screensavers of Yore: 'Here's a roundup of some screensavers I remember from the Good Old Days of computing -- the 90s -- when screensavers were delightfully corny, 3D graphics meant "the future," and flying toasters invaded our dreams.'

>Actually they don't pay for their own food when they are at the white house

Actually, you're wrong.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21928#ixzz2DXCKJM57

President Obama may have his own executive chef now, but when his family and personal guests eat whatâ(TM)s coming out of the kitchen, heâ(TM)ll have to foot the bill himself. Luckily for him, though, the government picks up the tab if heâ(TM)s having a state function at the White House, which could get pricey since the White Houseâ(TM)s website touts that its five chefs can crank out dinner for 140 or hors dâ(TM)oeuvres for over a thousand people.

Does someone really keep track? Apparently, the White House functions like a luxury hotel in this regard. At the end of each month, the president receives a bill for his food and incidental expenses

In other words, if it's work related, he doesn't have to pay, but day to day food is billed to him.

This shit is googleable. You should try it some time.

--
BMO

How exactly do you make this play together with a worldwide Internet? You can shout pretty much anything on it, knowing that it'll reach people all across the globe, and you are pretty much guaranteed to get someone somewhere offended. So now what, we should crack down on all offensive speech on the grounds that someone got mad and did something nasty?

That is a very good question.
And I'm sad to say that I don't really have an answer, though these guys seem to be on the right track.

I don't think that "cracking down" by government or some other "high authority" would help.
Two things MIGHT though.

Education of public that "it's not nice to do some things - online or off" (Yeah, I know.) and ridicule of those who practice such trolling, presenting them for what they really are.

A genetically engineered Ernest Hemingway would have been a girl named "Ernestine": http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21087
and likely would have had no motivation to spend his life proving his maleness.

You do know how much of that "ground beef" is actually insects, rat parts, etc., don't you? Or do you just blindly trust that the labels on the packaging are 100% true, and not off by the amount allowed by the FDA?

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/105442
"Meat of all sorts—ground beef, chicken nuggets, taco filling, etc.—must include at least 35 percent actual meat. The other 65 percent doesn’t have to be meat, and can be made up of any mixture of edible fillers and chemicals, including cornstarch, water, soy, maltodextrin, silicon dioxide, food colorings and artificial flavoring. "

Basically, if you didn't kill it and butcher it yourself... you ain't eating what you think you're eating. If you think I'm wrong, just visit a local meat processing plant. They are located all over the country, and are usually not against giving tours, as long as you don't come off as an eco-nut.

Yes, self-pacing is a huge advantage of online courses. At university I was always struggling to drink from the firehose, and if I wasn't, then I would feel bad for not taking a heavier load to get through sooner. But I always wished I had more time to absorb the topic and really get into it. Cramming for 4 years and then never cracking a book again (nor an online course) is no way to live an educated life.

only the distractions have changed over time

The original driving distraction controversy was the car radio. There were a number of attempts to ban them. More.

You know, if you could bother to take 10 seconds to do some basic research, you would have found out that they did make their coffee at nearly double the temperature you make your coffee:

(180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit)

How on earth is this informative? That is around 82-88C, about the same as Pentium100's homemade coffee, unless you arbitrarily place your temperature zero point for coffee at about 80C. I suspect someone didn't bother to take 10 seconds for basic research about F/C. Discussions about the merits of different units aside, Slashdotters should at least be able to put them through the Google calculator.

As to the merits of the lawsuit and the complaints: fresh homemade coffee can (and often should) have those temperatures if it's made with a quality insulated press pot / percolator, or is instant. I have a severe problem recognizing that 700 adults needed to be told that their hot beverage is... hot, and that it can burn them. What were they thinking, "since this coffee is probably not that hot I can just go ahead and pour it on myself?" Even coffee at 60C might give you lesser degree burns if you do this, one can reasonably expect that coffee-drinkers are (re sig: be?) aware of that. This lawsuit is still occasionally ridiculed in newspapers over here. It's too bad that the poor woman suffered burns, but it was still her own damn fault.

Unless McD made that coffee over 100C.

You know, if you could bother to take 10 seconds to do some basic research, you would have found out that they did make their coffee at nearly double the temperature you make your coffee:

Over the course of the trial, Liebeck’s team established that McDonald’s had a policy of serving its coffee at temperatures ranging from 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit to enhance flavor and ensure that to-go cups were still warm when they reached their destinations. (The coffee that you brew at home probably comes out at around 140 degrees, so there’s a significant difference.) Moreover, experts testified that skin can burn quickly when contacted by liquids at these temperatures.

More damning, though, was McDonald’s own testimony. The company admitted that in the decade before Liebeck’s incident, upwards of 700 customers had filed complaints about its coffee causing burns.

You know, if you bothered to make a real coffe, instead of that drip-filter shit, then perhaps you'd understand the difference between Celcius and Fahrenheit. 190 degrees Fahrenheit is not nearly double 100 degrees Celcius, it's only 88C.

  Coffee is hot. Any idiot that scalds themselves with it (including me) has no reason to blame anyone else.

You know, if you could bother to take 10 seconds to do some basic research, you would have found out that they did make their coffee at nearly double the temperature you make your coffee:

You know, if you could bother to take 10 seconds to do some basic research, you would have found out that 100C is > 190F

Unless McD made that coffee over 100C.

You know, if you could bother to take 10 seconds to do some basic research, you would have found out that they did make their coffee at nearly double the temperature you make your coffee:

Over the course of the trial, Liebeck’s team established that McDonald’s had a policy of serving its coffee at temperatures ranging from 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit to enhance flavor and ensure that to-go cups were still warm when they reached their destinations. (The coffee that you brew at home probably comes out at around 140 degrees, so there’s a significant difference.) Moreover, experts testified that skin can burn quickly when contacted by liquids at these temperatures.

More damning, though, was McDonald’s own testimony. The company admitted that in the decade before Liebeck’s incident, upwards of 700 customers had filed complaints about its coffee causing burns.

Well, I wasn't buffaloed.
Forgot about that.
Nice breakdown here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13120

Mental Floss has an interesting blurb on the distinction between commonwealth and a state.

This is not an attempt to discredit your statement in any way, rather just to point out that on occasion the national enquirer does get it right. Not too often, but it happens [Evidence].

Now any information attained from sources like this need to be approached with a great deal of skepticism but occasionally I'm sure they get things right here too...

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/75068

4. For the Love of Dolphins

Perhaps the most troubling experiment in recent history is the dolphin-intelligence study conducted by neuroscientist John C. Lilly in 1958. While working at the Communication Research Institute, a state-of-the-art laboratory in the Virgin Islands, Lilly wanted to find out if dolphins could talk to people. At the time, the dominant theory of human language development posited that children learn to talk through constant, close contact with their mothers. So, Lilly tried to apply the same idea to dolphins.

For 10 weeks in 1965, Lilly's young, female research associate, Margaret Howe, live with a dolphin named Peter. The two shared a partially flooded, two-room house. The water was just shallow enough for Margaret to wade through the rooms and just deep enough for Peter to swim. Margaret and Peter were constantly interacting with each other, eating, sleeping, working, and playing together. Margaret slept on a bed soaked in saltwater and worked on a floating desk, so that her dolphin roommate could interrupt her whenever he wanted. She also spent hours playing ball with Peter, encouraging his more "humanoid" noises and trying to teach him simple words.

As time passed, it became clear that Peter didn't want a mom; he wanted a girlfriend. The dolphin became uninterested in his lessons, and he started wooing Margaret by nibbling at her feet and legs. When his advances weren't reciprocated, Peter got violent. He started using his nose and flippers to hit Margaret's shins, which quickly became bruised. For a while, she wore rubber boots and carried a broom to fight off Peter's advances. When that didn't work, she started sending him out for conjugal visits with other dolphins. But the research team grew worried that if Peter spent too much time with his kind, he'd forget what he'd learned about being human.

Before long, Peter was back in the house with Margaret, still attempting to woo her. But this time, he changed his tactics. Instead of biting his lady friend, he started courting her by gently rubbing his teeth up and down her leg and showing off his genitals. Shockingly, this final strategy worked, and Margaret began rubbing the dolphin's erection. Unsurprisingly, he became a lot more cooperative with his language lessons.

Discovering that a human could satisfy a dolphin's sexual needs was the experiment's biggest interspecies breakthrough. Dr. Lilly still believed that dolphins could learn to talk if given enough time, and he hoped to conduct a year-long study with Margaret and another dolphin. When the plans turned out to be too expensive, Lilly tried to get the dolphins to talk another way--by giving them LSD. And although Lilly reported that they all had "very good trips," the scientist's reputation in the academic community deteriorated. Before long, he'd lost federal funding for his research.

This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/75068

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/75068

4. For the Love of Dolphins

Perhaps the most troubling experiment in recent history is the dolphin-intelligence study conducted by neuroscientist John C. Lilly in 1958. While working at the Communication Research Institute, a state-of-the-art laboratory in the Virgin Islands, Lilly wanted to find out if dolphins could talk to people. At the time, the dominant theory of human language development posited that children learn to talk through constant, close contact with their mothers. So, Lilly tried to apply the same idea to dolphins.

For 10 weeks in 1965, Lilly's young, female research associate, Margaret Howe, live with a dolphin named Peter. The two shared a partially flooded, two-room house. The water was just shallow enough for Margaret to wade through the rooms and just deep enough for Peter to swim. Margaret and Peter were constantly interacting with each other, eating, sleeping, working, and playing together. Margaret slept on a bed soaked in saltwater and worked on a floating desk, so that her dolphin roommate could interrupt her whenever he wanted. She also spent hours playing ball with Peter, encouraging his more "humanoid" noises and trying to teach him simple words.

As time passed, it became clear that Peter didn't want a mom; he wanted a girlfriend. The dolphin became uninterested in his lessons, and he started wooing Margaret by nibbling at her feet and legs. When his advances weren't reciprocated, Peter got violent. He started using his nose and flippers to hit Margaret's shins, which quickly became bruised. For a while, she wore rubber boots and carried a broom to fight off Peter's advances. When that didn't work, she started sending him out for conjugal visits with other dolphins. But the research team grew worried that if Peter spent too much time with his kind, he'd forget what he'd learned about being human.

Before long, Peter was back in the house with Margaret, still attempting to woo her. But this time, he changed his tactics. Instead of biting his lady friend, he started courting her by gently rubbing his teeth up and down her leg and showing off his genitals. Shockingly, this final strategy worked, and Margaret began rubbing the dolphin's erection. Unsurprisingly, he became a lot more cooperative with his language lessons.

Discovering that a human could satisfy a dolphin's sexual needs was the experiment's biggest interspecies breakthrough. Dr. Lilly still believed that dolphins could learn to talk if given enough time, and he hoped to conduct a year-long study with Margaret and another dolphin. When the plans turned out to be too expensive, Lilly tried to get the dolphins to talk another way--by giving them LSD. And although Lilly reported that they all had "very good trips," the scientist's reputation in the academic community deteriorated. Before long, he'd lost federal funding for his research.

This article originally appeared in mental_floss magazine
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/75068

    The Buran was squished quite a while ago. It's a shame, but shit happens.

    There were other things that they built that looked like orbiters. There were several aerodynamic mockups (like the US orbiter "Enterprise"). I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that the pieces shown in the photo weren't necessarily even a named or numbered shuttle. The US orbiter "Endeavor" was built from spare parts for the "Discovery" and "Atlantis". Before it was constructed, they would have just been spare parts. When the US space shuttle program is finished, either the end of 2010, or sometime in 2011, I wouldn't be totally surprised to hear about spare orbiter parts laying about in odd places. The US gov't is kind of pissy about hiding their secrets away. I'm confident that the named and complete units will end up at museums, but the unnamed "spare parts" will end up somewhere like this or this. There are plenty of other facilities to dispose of old parts at too.

Original stories:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10457/
http://listverse.com/2009/01/06/9-gruesome-fairy-tale-origins/
http://www.cracked.com/article_15962_gruesome-origins-5-popular-fairy-tales.html

CHEEZ!!!

Wasn't it actually the Apple II Monitor?

Did you know that Popeye did not originally eat spinich?

Mental Floss Magazine had a brief story about our spinich-eating friend this month.

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20794.html

In part:

"Everyone knows Popeye's secret. Whenever the cartoon sailor is on the verge of losing a fight, he squeezes open a can of spinach, pours the greens down his throat, and uses his supercharged muscles to pummel opponents. But fewer people know that the U.S. government is directly responsible for his dependence on canned vegetables."

That's right, folks! Popeye=propagana

Also, the article mentions that spinich was actively promoted due to its high-iron content, which was miscalculated when a scientist moved a decimal point.

~ bowl_of_petunias ~

Oh no! Not Again!

http://www.check-six.com/lib/Famous_Missing/Broken_Arrow_B47.htm http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10031 http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml

Link The one under the wetlands in NC is probably the most recoverable. All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure. A separate article I can't dig up right now tells the story of the guy that found it (recently, within the last 10 years). He was able to deduce the location by taking and graphing hundreds (thousands?) of radiation measurements. He wrote the air force and they said "No, it's fine where it is."

"In the 24th century, they wouldn't care."

What?? They sure do go dump Toxic Waste because there aren't specific injunctions and court orders not telling them to...
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/11165
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/27/93622.shtml?s=ic
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Toxic_waste_dump_killing_children_in_Kenya_UN_report_999.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/06/MN2510MASF.DTL&type=printable

You think these companies waited until they were in trouble to start dumping their crap?

Haven't tried it, but it might be worth a try:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/16016

I suspect the water was too hot for the unprotected circuitry.

One of the comments in this article describes NASA using a dishwasher on circuit boards. When circuit boards are mass-manufactured, I believe they go through a waterfall of molten solder. As such, I'd think the circuit boards themselves could handle the heat of a dishwasher cycle.

Taking it out once the wash cycle is done and then air-drying it for a week is a good idea to make sure all the water is gone before you power it up.

I know you're not really being serious, but I'm still having hard time understanding how you'd even have the perception that sports and religion are in conflict. Growing up going to church, sports analogies were a regular part of sermons, and then of course there are church baseball leagues and organizations like FCA and Kamp Kanakuk, and even the YMCA (the "C" stands for "Christian"). And there was the John 3:16 guy at football games and other sporting events, and half of the guys that score touchdowns in the NFL do the little kneeling-in-prayer celebration in the end-zone. Is there any sphere of public life that's more friendly to Christianity than sports, or any leisure activity that Christianity encourages more than sports?

There's no right way to eat a Rhesus

www.mentalfloss.com

1. I have several e-mail accounts to deal with
2. I chat on IRC daily
3. I follow several USENET news groups
4. I routinely post on a variety of message boards
5. I subscribe to Mental Floss, SysAdmin Magazine and Columbus Monthly
6. I read /. and technocrat and fark and El Reg and Something Awful and Google News and Groklaw and The Onion and Maddox and Ars Technica and USA Today and NewsForge every single day
7. I use Stumble Upon to find random, new and interesting web sites
8. ...AND I CAN'T GET ENOUGH!!!

I was reading Mental Floss until my local Barnes & Noble stopped carrying it... I might just have to start up a subscription.

I do subsribe to National Geographic but I've found myself not reading it that much but just looking at the pictures.