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.
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 millionU.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.
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!
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.'”
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.
13. MATTHEW BRODERICK, DENIS LEARY, JON CRYER, AND PATRICK DEMPSEY WERE ALL CONSIDERED TO REPLACE FOX.
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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.
We all like to think we know what other animals are saying. “Leave my acorn alone!” screams the squirrel on the sidewalk. “I’m so glad you’re home!” cheers your dog when you walk in the door. But the truth is that we don’t actually know. Animal communication researchers have made enormous advances in the last few decades, but there is still plenty to learn. So when one scientist said he’d found evidence of human-like dialogue in dolphins, experts raised an eyebrow.
Dolphins are incredibly smart animals, although they don’t always use their considerable intellect for good. They’re also very social, which means that communication is vital to their survival. Their clicks and whistles have a range of uses, from calling pod members to signaling an attack on some hapless shark. Each dolphin has its own signature whistle, which acts like its name, and some recent research suggests that female dolphins start teaching their calves their own names before they’re even born.
Author Vyacheslav Ryabov, of the T. I. Vyazemsky Karadag Scientific Station in Ukraine, was interested in the casual dolphin-to-dolphin discussions of Yana and Yasha, two of the station’s captive bottlenose dolphins. He used underwater microphones to record the dolphins’ chatter as they floated near the edge of their pool, then analyzed the rhythms and frequencies of each dolphin’s noises.
Ryabov concluded that Yana and Yasha were carrying on a sophisticated, human-like conversation, in which each dolphin waited for the other to finish its “sentence” before starting to speak.
“Dolphins have possessed brains that are somewhat larger and more complex than human ones for more than 25 million years,” he writes. “Due to this, for further research in this direction, humans must take the first step to establish relationships with the first intelligent inhabitants of the planet Earth by creating devices capable of overcoming the barriers that stand in the way of using languages and in the way of communications between dolphins and people.”
Dolphin translator technology isn’t quite as far-fetched as it sounds; researchers at the Wild Dolphin Project have been fine-tuning one such device for years. And the idea that dolphins don’t interrupt each other is not new. Still, Ryabov took it to the next level, veering into somewhat zany and hyperbolic territory, and other researchers are pretty turned off by both his utopian vision of dolphin-human brotherhood and his somewhat primitive research methods.
“It is complete bull,” marine biologist Richard Connor told Jason Bittel at National Geographic. Other experts, like Wild Dolphin Project research director Denise Herzing, were slightly more diplomatic in their language.
“This article does not present adequate data to make conclusions about dolphin sound structure or language,” she said in a statement to mental_floss. “Although we applaud the author for exploring dolphin vocalizations with some new methods, we urge caution regarding these conclusions and look forward to the day when we put the question of nonhuman animal language to the test.”
And then there’s the paper’s suspiciously short review period. The journal that published it, the St. Petersburg Polytechnical University Journal: Physics and Mathematics, notes that the article was submitted August 16 and published a mere five days later, which suggests the journal eschewed any peer review process.
How does film music get made? Why are some musical themes—like those from, say, Star Wars or Harry Potter—so memorable? And how can it be that the most popular film franchise of our era, the Marvel movies, doesn’t have this kind of hummable music?
In this fantastic video essay, filmmakers Brian Satterwhite, Taylor Ramos, and Tony Zhou go deep on the issue. A big part of the issue is “temp music,” or music from other films used as a stand-in before a composer is brought in to write the real thing. You’ll be amazed at how close the temp music and final tracks are in the cases presented here.
Listen up:
If that’s not enough comparison of temp-to-real-score for you, here’s another eight minutes:
Conspicuous consumption was a theme of the Reagan era, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find an auction of Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s personal effects littered with high-status, high-glitter items in keeping with 1980s excess. But while the auction of Reaganobilia taking place at Christie’s later this month does feature some glitzy high points—like a diamond, sapphire, and ruby Bulgari American flag ring Nancy used when pledging allegiance—it’s more notable for its humble touches, like the horse-shaped jar of jellybeans than once sat on Reagan’s desk or the linen dinner napkins he favored, embroidered with the phrase “Mr. President.”
Bess Lovejoy
The auction includes plenty of glimpses of Reagan the man, including a set of doodles he penciled on White House stationery around 1982. Alongside cartoon characters with a Western theme, they feature two self-portraits: one of Reagan dressed up as a cowboy, and another of him in a suit. In keeping with the former president’s love of Western themes, the auction also features a pair of Tony Lama-designed cowboy boots made of ostrich, cowhide, and bullfrog skin, embossed with the Great Seal of the United States in 14k gold.
Another doodle in the same set, of a football player, reflects one of Reagan’s most famous film roles, when he played the gifted but doomed Notre Dame player George Gipp in the 1940 film Knute Rockne, All American. That role is also commemorated by another item in the collection, an official NFL Wilson football Reagan inscribed “win one for the Gipper”—a line Reagan uttered both in the film and at the 1988 Republican National Convention (when he directed it at George W. Bush).
Christie’s
Aside from repeated uses of the phrase “president” (“first place president” is engraved on one punch bowl), the football is one of the few items with obvious political overtones. However, there’s also a fine needlepoint pillow decorated with the line “you ain’t seen nothing yet,” and depicting all the states Reagan carried in the 1984 election (all but Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota). The 1984 election is also echoed in a Tiffany marine chronometer Frank Sinatra gave Reagan as a 1981 inauguration gift, which includes an inscribed plaque that reads “Good morning Mr. President.” (That “morning” theme, of course, is reminiscent of the TV ad campaign that propelled Reagan to his second term: “It’s morning again in America.”)
Politics also shows up in a more humorous vein in the couple’s collection of 27 elephant figurines, which were once strewn (alongside several bald eagles) around the couple’s Bel Air home at 668 St. Cloud Road. According to the auction catalog, the original address was 666, before Nancy Reagan made them change it.
Bess Lovejoy
But perhaps the most humble item of all is the most significant—a chunk of graffitied concrete to which Reagan added his name in black felt-tip marker. The 25-inch slab of the Berlin Wall recalls another of the 40th president’s famous moments, on June 12, 1987, when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and implored “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
For those interested in owning a piece of presidential history, the auction runs live at Christie’s in New York, September 21-22 (public previews run until September 20) and online September 19-27. While there are plenty of items with lower estimates—you can have napkins that once graced presidential lips for only a few hundred dollars—the auction in total is expected to raise over $2 million for the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute.
As websites track our search histories, or buy and sell our online data, it’s easy to feel like online privacy is a thing of the past. But Google Maps recently showed it takes online privacy so seriously, it even protects the identities of cows.
It’s Google Maps’s policy to blur the faces of people captured by Street View cars as they map the Earth. As NPR reports, the service recently took that face-blurring practice a little further than usual. On a road along the bank of England’s River Cam, a Google camera captured a group of grazing cows. Normally, Google only obscures human faces, but apparently the website’s automatic blurring technology decided the identity of one black-and-white cow needed protecting—and blurred its face.
David Shariatmadari, an editor for The Guardian, noticed the mysterious bovine on Google Maps this week and posted a screenshot on Twitter, where it quickly went viral. When NPR asked Google why that particular cow’s identity needed protecting, Google replied, “We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it’s clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. Of course, we don’t begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame.”
