September 2016 – Page 45

September 18, 2016

James Barry (born 1789-1799 as Margaret Ann Bulkleychose)…

James Barry (born 1789-1799 as Margaret Ann Bulkleychose) chose to live as a man so that he could become a surgeon. With his sex only being discovered after his death, Barry was the first qualified female British surgeon known, anticipating the next female physician by over 50 years.

September 18, 2016

In 1997, a group of enthusiasts began building a castle…

In 1997, a group of enthusiasts began building a castle in France, using only materials, tools and techniques available in the 13th century (800 years ago). The project is scheduled to be completed sometime in the 2020’s.

September 18, 2016

Why Traffic Jams Happen (and How to Fix Them)

Chris Higgins

filed under: Cars, traffic, video

Image credit:

YouTube // CGP Grey

Traffic jams are interesting phenomena. While we tend to think of them as the result of car crashes (and sometimes they are), far more often they’re a subtle outgrowth of the way we drive, and how we apply our brakes.

Humans often overreact to small changes in traffic flow, and that reaction cascades into a massive slowdown. In the video below, CGP Grey illustrates how traffic works, and why humans are typically bad at managing traffic flow.

This video explains that endlessly frustrating phenomenon where you’re stuck in a jam, assuming there’s some massive wreck just up ahead, but there is no wreck and never was—you just magically speed up at some point. If you’ve ever wondered why that happens or what to do about it, have a look:

If you’re interested in this, there’s a lively discussion thread on Reddit talking about this whole business.

September 18, 2016 – 4:00am

September 18, 2016

This Vibrating Pen Lets Anyone Make Pointillist Art

Anna Green

filed under: art, technology

Image credit:

Hammacher Schlemmer

If you want to create pointillist works of art without giving yourself carpal tunnel—or you just lack the artistic dexterity—you might want to invest in The Pointillist Artist’s Electronic Pen. The $70 pen was created by Hammacher Schlemmer, makers of other brilliant and pointless products like rideable beer coolers and forks that twirl your spaghetti for you (along with a slew of practical stuff), and allows artists to automatically produce pointillist dots without having to tap each one out by hand.

The electronic pen was designed to help artists create pointillist or stippled works like those of impressionist painter Georges Seurat and The Wall Street Journal illustrator Kevin Sprouls. It contains an electromagnetic mechanism that pushes the ink tip up and down like a miniature jackhammer, generating 600 ink dots per minute. According to Hammacher Schlemmer, the pen allows artists to stipple 10 times faster than usual—making it perfect for impatient artists and those who suffer from wrist fatigue.

[h/t Gizmodo]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

September 18, 2016 – 2:00am

September 18, 2016

Xbox One Owners Might Have “Free” Games Waiting for Them

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: video-games

Image credit:

iStock

If you used to own an Xbox 360 and currently own an Xbox One, you might have some unexpected games waiting to be discovered. As The Verge discovered, many games purchased on the Xbox 360 have recently carried over to the Xbox One and are now hiding out on players’ hard drives.

Backwards compatibility is nothing new. Gamers have come to expect that their new systems will be able to play games from the previous generation—but only the previous one. This means you can play Wii games on your Wii U, but you can’t play GameCube games. Saying goodbye to old games is just an accepted progression of gaming for most people, as the technological arms race between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo rages on. But now that Xbox has rolled out this new version of backwards compatibility, it opens up the opportunity to extend past single generations.

You can see a full list of the Xbox 360 games that are now available on the Xbox One here and enjoy reliving old games on a new console.

[h/t The Verge]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

September 18, 2016 – 12:00am

September 18, 2016

This ‘MythBusters’ Video Will Make You Flinch

Chris Higgins

filed under: video

Image credit:

YouTube // Discovery

In the video below, Tory Belleci from the MythBusters Build Team inflates a giant balloon, and we wait for the thing to pop. It’s like consensual torture. Having said that, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would—the suspense comes in waves, as it goes on far longer than I expected. At times I wondered if the balloon would even pop at all. Tory even repeats his lines, it goes on for so long. Just watch poor Tory’s face as he waits for the inevitable explosion. It’s awful and wonderful all at once.

Incidentally, the Build Team is working on a new Netflix show. Get excited!

September 17, 2016 – 8:00pm

September 17, 2016

You Can Watch the Sunrise From the Top of the Empire State Building

Caitlin Schneider

filed under: architecture, cities

Image credit:

iStock

If you’re an early riser and want to start the day in an Empire State of mind, the iconic New York building has an enticing opportunity for you.

From October 1 through November 20, you can watch the sunrise from the top of the 1454-foot Midtown Manhattan landmark. Tickets for the “Sunrise Experience” are $100, and no more than 100 of them will be sold for each viewing experience. Aside from the inherent awesomeness of greeting the day high above the Big Apple, the Instagram appeal is notable: the 86th floor Observatory offers 360-degree open-air views of the city.

To give you a sense of what your body will actually have to endure—stop rolling your eyes, morning people—the sun is due to rise at about 6:53 a.m. on October 1 and 6:49 a.m. at the end of the run on November 20. (Those who really want to maximize their shut-eye should aim to get in right before Daylight Saving Time hits on November 6—sunrise is a 7:32 a.m. on November 5.)

Guests will also have access to a $25 “Empire State Building Sunrise Breakfast” if you’re worried about morning hunger pangs.

Tickets are on sale now at the Empire State Building website. While the current run only extends to November 20, out-of-towners might not need to book tickets to Gotham just yet: the press release seems to hint at the possibility of an extended run.

September 17, 2016 – 4:00pm

September 17, 2016

Meranti Was a Super Typhoon for the Record Books

Dennis Mersereau

filed under: weather

Super Typhoon Meranti near peak strength on September 14, 2016. Image credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison/Google Earth

The western Pacific Ocean is known to harbor some nasty typhoons, but Super Typhoon Meranti is a rare breed of danger. This powerful cyclone, which made landfall in China on Thursday, September 15, now sits in the record books as one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, and the strongest storm on Earth in 2016. The storm did hit some populated areas, but the worst conditions missed the largest city centers, sparing southeast Asia from the full horror of yet another scale-topping typhoon.

Super Typhoon Meranti peaked on Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 190 mph before it scraped the southern tip of Taiwan and moved northwest toward mainland China, which would make it the equivalent of a category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

To put Meranti’s ferocity into perspective, we only have reliable records of one hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean (Allen in 1980) reaching maximum winds of 190 mph, and Meranti is now among the top 10 strongest storms ever recorded in the Pacific Ocean. The typhoon’s lowest surface air pressure also dipped below 900 millibars, which places it among only a handful of storms to achieve this feat. Standard air pressure at sea level is 1013 millibars, and under normal conditions at sea level, the atmospheric air pressure doesn’t drop below 900 millibars until you’re a few thousand feet above the surface.

A radar loop of Super Typhoon Meranti as it approached the southern tip of Taiwan on September 14, 2016. You can see the typhoon’s eye wobbling in this loop. Image credit: Central Weather Bureau/Brian McNoldy

The piercing eye of Super Typhoon Meranti tracked just a few miles off the southern tip of Taiwan, focusing some of its strongest winds on Hengchun Township (population 30,000), but thankfully the core of the worst winds missed land. Residents of southern Taiwan were even more fortunate that Meranti didn’t make landfall as the storm’s eye was going through cycloidal oscillations as it drew closer to the island nation.

Cycloidal oscillations occur when the eye itself wobbles in a looping motion as strong thunderstorms bubble up in the eyewall and “tug” the eye toward them. As these strong storms rotated around the eyewall, they kept tugging the eye in their direction, causing the eye to wobble around as the whole storm kept moving northwest. If you traced these wobbles on a map, it would create little squiggles in the storm’s track. It doesn’t seem like much, but even a tiny shift in the eyewall’s location could mean the difference between a devastating storm and complete destruction.

While Taiwan missed the absolute worst of the storm, areas nearby weren’t so lucky. The island province of Batanes makes up the northernmost part of the Philippines, and this archipelago found itself directly in Meranti’s eyewall on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

An infrared satellite loop of Super Typhoon Meranti making landfall on Itbayat Island in the northern Philippines. Image credit: University of Wisconsin-Madison

The typhoon, which is known as “Ferdie” instead of Meranti in the Philippines, made landfall on the tiny island of Itbayat early Wednesday morning around sunrise, unleashing its full fury on the tiny strip of land that’s about 40 percent the size of Guam and home to around 3000 people. Due to one of those eye wobbles, the entire island fell within Meranti’s eye with room to spare, giving residents a brief reprieve before the extreme winds ripped back from the other direction. The typhoon severed all lines of communication between Batanes province, which includes Itbayat, and the rest of the Philippines Thursday morning. By the time it moved out, it had done an estimated $4.7 million U.S. in damage to the province.

A report in the Taipei Times indicates that the storm injured nine people and caused damage across Taiwan, knocking out power to more than 700,000 homes and businesses during the height of the storm. A weather station in Hengchun Township recorded winds of more than 105 mph, which the paper reports is an all-time record there since the station was established in the late 1800s. Taiwan now faces $21 million U.S. in agricultural losses.

After hitting the Philippines and Taiwan, Meranti continued on to its final landfall in mainland China as a powerful but weakening typhoon. The storm fell below the equivalent status of a major hurricane by the time it hit the mainland early on Thursday morning, but the storm made landfall very near Zhangzhou, a city that’s home to nearly five million people—a larger population than Los Angeles. In all, 14 died, dozens were injured, and 14 more are still missing. Some 33 million people were relocated, and 1600 homes were destroyed.

September 17, 2016 – 12:00pm

September 17, 2016

You Need to See This Weekend’s Top Amazon Deals

Smart Shopping Team

filed under: shopping

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, September 17.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

September 17, 2016 – 11:00am

Amazon Product Id:

B01DFKC2SO

September 17, 2016

13 Facts About ‘Spin City’

Roger Cormier

filed under: Lists, Pop Culture, tv

Image credit:

YouTube

Premiering 20 years ago today, Spin City was a multi-camera sitcom that marked a successful, more adult return to television for Michael J. Fox. It was co-created by Gary David Goldberg, the creator of Family Ties (the show that made Fox famous), along with Bill Lawrence, who would go on to create Scrubs.

Fox played Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York. The show at first went back and forth between Flaherty’s home life with his girlfriend, reporter Ashley Schaeffer (Carla Gugino), and his work life with the mayor and his staff, which included Connie Britton as Nikki Faber and Jennifer Esposito as Stacey Paterno.

Halfway through the first season, Gugino’s character was written off the show, making Spin City a workplace comedy. After Fox left due to his Parkinson’s disease, Charlie Sheen stepped in as a new Deputy Mayor, Charlie Crawford, for the final two seasons. In honor of the show’s 20th anniversary, here are some things you might not have known about Spin City.

1. JEFFREY KATZENBERG LIED TO GOLDBERG AND FOX TO GET THEM TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN.

According to Nicole LaPorte’s book about DreamWorks, The Men Who Would Be King, there was tension between the creator of Family Ties and the undisputed star of that show. Without telling Goldberg, Katzenberg called Fox and told him Goldberg wanted to work on another series with him. Fox was interested. Katzenberg then called Goldberg and said Fox was eager to work with him again.

In Fox’s version of the story, he sent out feelers to different producers in 1995 asking if there was a place for him in the comedic TV landscape again. Goldberg called Fox and asked if he would be interested in working for him before sending him the pilot script. In Goldberg’s autobiography Sit, Ubu, Sit, Fox called Goldberg ostensibly about a mutual friend around Christmas 1995 and also mentioned his intention to return to television. Goldberg eventually decided to work with Fox, after Fox had turned down a script from someone else.

2. GOLDBERG AND LAWRENCE WROTE THE PILOT IN FOUR DAYS.

Goldberg, Lawrence, and Fox sketched out the characters surrounding “Alex Keaton with power” before Goldberg and Lawrence went off to pen the script. They faxed it over to Fox, who faxed them back 15 minutes later with the message, “I love it. I’m in. Let’s make a show.”

3. MIKE FLAHERTY WAS INSPIRED BY GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS.

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

The primary role model for Flaherty was George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton’s former political advisor, White House Communications Director, and Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy. Stephanopoulos helped Goldberg and Lawrence sketch out the character, as did New York City political fixture Kevin McCabe (John Cusack claimed he was basically playing him in the 1996 film City Hall) and lawyer Sid Davidoff.

4. THE MAYOR SHARED A NAME WITH THE MAN CARTER HEYWOOD WAS BASED ON.

Barry Bostwick portrayed New York City mayor Randall Winston, which was also the name of the show’s associate producer. The real-life Winston asked Bostwick to make the character very popular so that he could get great tables at restaurants in New York. “Carter Heywood was loosely based on me,” Winston also revealed on a DVD feature. “We were two bald gay black men in New York.”

5. THE CO-CREATORS ARGUED OVER WHETHER TO LET RICHARD KIND AUDITION.

Goldberg insisted Richard Kind wasn’t right for the role of press secretary Paul Lassiter and didn’t even want him to audition. Lawrence disagreed, and won.

6. KIND AND FOX SPENT A MEMORABLE EVENING TOGETHER IN CHICAGO, WHICH FOX DIDN’T REMEMBER.

Rob Kim/Getty Images

While Fox was shooting the film Light of Day (1987), he improvised with Kind at Second City in Chicago. Fox played Kind’s son, and the two got applause and laughter that lasted, in Kind’s memory, for one minute when Fox perfectly jumped into Kind’s arms. “It was memorable,” Kind said. “It was a memorable, memorable moment, and it’s still as clear as can be.”

When Kind showed up to the network audition he brought it up to Fox. “And [Michael] goes, ‘Richard, I’m sorry: Not only don’t I remember that night, I don’t remember being in Chicago.'”

7. IT WAS ORIGINALLY TITLED SPIN.

But SPIN Magazine wouldn’t give ABC the rights to the name.

8. THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS WERE SHOT IN NEW YORK.

It was only after Fox left the series that the show moved to Los Angeles. Bostwick believed that one of the reasons they filmed in New York at first was because Goldberg, Lawrence, and Fox would receive much less network interference.

9. STEPHEN COLBERT HIRED JENNIFER GARNER TO BABYSIT HIS KIDS AFTER THE TWO APPEARED IN AN EPISODE TOGETHER.

In the first season episode “The Competition,” James (Alexander Chaplin) tried to break up with Garner, who played his high school sweetheart, while Colbert portrayed Frank, a spokesman for the City Council speaker’s office. After working together on the episode, Colbert asked Garner to babysit his daughter. Garner later revealed that Colbert paid her less than $10 per hour, telling The New York Times that, “[Colbert] is so cheap!”

10. FOX SOMETIMES HAD TROUBLE HIDING HIS ILLNESS.

“He was seriously struggling with his own body,” Connie Britton remembered. “We would have delays for up to an hour and a half with a live audience waiting for us—and for Michael’s meds to kick in. It was really tough for him.” Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease back in 1991, and was told he had 10 years left to work. He left Spin City in 2000.

11. FOX GAVE AN UPDATE ON HIS OTHER TV CHARACTER IN HIS FINAL EPISODE.

In “Goodbye,” Fox referred to a senator named Alex P. Keaton. In the same episode, Michael Gross (who played Fox’s father on Family Ties) made a cameo appearance. Goldberg and Fox were not shy about making Family Ties references on Spin City: Meredith Baxter (who played Fox’s mother) played Mike Flaherty’s mother in two episodes during the show’s first season, and Fox’s real-life wife and former Family Ties co-star Tracy Pollan appeared in a couple of episodes, too.

12. ALAN RUCK RECOGNIZED HIS FERRIS BUELLER ROOTS.

Just like in the classic John Hughes film, in the season five installment “Hey Judith,” Alan Ruck—who played Stuart Bondek on Spin City and Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—looked out-of-place wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey. This time, instead of Chicago, Ruck wore it to a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden.

13. MATTHEW BRODERICK, DENIS LEARY, JON CRYER, AND PATRICK DEMPSEY WERE ALL CONSIDERED TO REPLACE FOX.

Getty Images

Charlie Sheen ended up with the gig, despite reported concerns about his off-camera behavior. ”I probably wouldn’t have hired me had I been ABC,” Sheen told The New York Times in 2001. The ratings, at first, improved with Sheen on board. Ultimately, Fox would star in the first 100 episodes, and Sheen in the final 45.

September 17, 2016 – 10:00am

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1. JEFFREY KATZENBERG LIED TO GOLDBERG AND FOX TO GET THEM TO WORK TOGETHER AGAIN.

2. GOLDBERG AND LAWRENCE WROTE THE PILOT IN FOUR DAYS.

3. MIKE FLAHERTY WAS INSPIRED BY GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS.

4. THE MAYOR SHARED A NAME WITH THE MAN CARTER HEYWOOD WAS BASED ON.

5. THE CO-CREATORS ARGUED OVER WHETHER TO LET RICHARD KIND AUDITION.

6. KIND AND FOX SPENT A MEMORABLE EVENING TOGETHER IN CHICAGO, WHICH FOX DIDN’T REMEMBER.

7. IT WAS ORIGINALLY TITLED SPIN.

8. THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS WERE SHOT IN NEW YORK.

9. STEPHEN COLBERT HIRED JENNIFER GARNER TO BABYSIT HIS KIDS AFTER THE TWO APPEARED IN AN EPISODE TOGETHER.

10. FOX SOMETIMES HAD TROUBLE HIDING HIS ILLNESS.

11. FOX GAVE AN UPDATE ON HIS OTHER TV CHARACTER IN HIS FINAL EPISODE.

12. ALAN RUCK RECOGNIZED HIS FERRIS BUELLER ROOTS.

13. MATTHEW BRODERICK, DENIS LEARY, JON CRYER, AND PATRICK DEMPSEY WERE ALL CONSIDERED TO REPLACE FOX.