February 2017 – Page 15

During World War II a Soviet pilot was shot down while returning from a reconnaissance mission and hid in the woods nearby. When a German fighter pilot landed nearby and got out to investigate, the Soviet pilot rushed out, stole his plane and flew home, barely avoiding being shot down by Soviet fighters in the […]

February 21, 2017

Morning Cup of Links: Early Drafts of Movie Villains

Miss Cellania

filed under: Links

Image credit:

YouTube

Look at how stupid your favorite movie villains almost were. Early drafts of iconic baddies would’ve inspired more laughter than fear.
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The Future of Advertising Starts With Your Face. Ads will recognize you and customize messages to put you in the picture.
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How the BBC makes wildlife films that look like Hollywood movies. The first video of a three-part series looks at the technological advances in nature documentaries.
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In the animated short film Alike, Copi and Paste are father and son whose lives are very much the same. It’s time to put the color back in!
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How a Chinese restaurant kitchen works. Structure and procedure stand between a staff and chaos.
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This Woman Has Created Brutally Honest Illustrations About Her Eating Disorder. Christie Begnell used illustrations as therapy while she stayed in a private clinic.
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Street Art and Graffiti Cats. Colorful felines brighten public walls all over the world.
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Hollywood Peeps: 15 Oscar-Winning Films in Marshmallow. Pretty soon, people will start creating scenes of the 2017 winners.

February 21, 2017 – 5:00am

February 21, 2017

This Light-Up Bike Helmet Helps Keep Cyclists Safe at Night

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: bikes, design, tech, technology

Image credit:

Lumos//Kickstarter

Night rides can be dangerous for cyclists, even if their bikes have lights and reflectors. To stay safe on dark roads, Mashable reports that two engineers have designed a smart helmet called Lumos, complete with a red brake light and yellow turn signals.

Lumos comes with a small, wireless remote, which riders clip onto their bike’s handlebar and use to control the lights. It also has an accelerometer, which switches on the brake lights when cyclists make a rapid stop. The helmet and remote are both battery-powered, so an accompanying iOS app keeps tabs on how much juice they have, and notifies you when to charge them. (An Android version of the app is reportedly on the horizon.)

The helmet’s designers, Jeff Chen and Ding Eu-wen, raised funds to make the helmet with a Kickstarter campaign. The project is now fully funded, but Lumos isn’t ready for the open road quite yet; beta testers are still providing feedback on its fit and design, and Chen and Eu-wen are tinkering with the accelerometer. They’re also contemplating adding a ride tracker to collect activity data.

You can keep tabs on the helmet’s status by visiting their website, where a limited first-edition version is currently available for pre-order, starting at $170. In the meantime, learn how it works by watching the video below.

[h/t Mashable]

February 21, 2017 – 3:00am

February 21, 2017

Jaywalking Behavior Varies by Culture, Study Confirms

Shaunacy Ferro

filed under: cities, science, traffic

Image credit:

iStock

Pedestrian culture varies quite a bit between cities across the world, especially when it comes to crosswalks, according to a new study in Royal Society Open Science (highlighted recently by Science magazine).

Japanese and French researchers teamed up to observe stoplights at four different intersections in Nagoya, Japan and three different sites in Strasbourg, France, hypothesizing that France’s individualistic society might encourage people to take more risks than Japan’s collectivist one.

They found that out of 1631 Japanese road crossings observed, only 2 percent of pedestrians crossed against the red light. By contrast, French pedestrians crossed against the light almost 42 percent of the 3814 crossings observed. Furthermore, even law-abiding French pedestrians stepped off the curb sooner than Japanese pedestrians when the light finally turned green.

In both countries, the number of jaywalkers increased when no one was around to notice. When no other people were nearby, French pedestrians crossed illegally 67 percent of the time. Japanese pedestrians jaywalked almost 7 percent of the time when no one was around to see it happen. The researchers hypothesize that people are more afraid of judgment from their peers than of getting a ticket from the police. The researchers write that “they are more afraid of being criticized than they are of being fined.”

But city culture isn’t the only thing that influences whether or not people decide to scamper across the street outside the safe confines of a walk signal. People are more likely to jaywalk when the streets have fewer lanes or when there’s a median, as well as when the wait time between lights is long, among other things.

This study only examined crosswalk culture in two countries, so it can’t really be extrapolated to the whole world, but perhaps other researchers are at work on international jaywalking behavior. It would be interesting to compare the difference between crosswalk behavior in a place like the U.S., where jaywalking is largely against the law, compared to the UK, where jaywalking fines do not exist.

[h/t Science]

February 21, 2017 – 1:00am

February 21, 2017

These Clever Literary-Themed Teas Come in Book-Shaped Tins

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: books, shopping

Image credit:

Amazon

Make the act of grabbing a cup of tea more like picking a book from the shelf. NovelTea, known for their literary-themed tea bags, is now offering brand new packaging that resembles old-fashioned tomes with flowery embellishments and detailed spines.

Each tin includes a packaged bag of loose tea (we have some suggestions for tea infusers) and a corresponding classic book—with an interesting spin. The lineup of punny titles include Matcha Do About Nothing, Pride and Peppermint, Oliver Lemon Twist, The Picture of Earl Grey, and War and Peach. Customers can also send in their own suggestions for clever title/tea flavor combinations on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

[h/t EBook Friendly]

February 20, 2017 – 10:00pm

February 21, 2017

43 Giant Presidential Heads Are Stuck in a Field in Virginia

Jay Serafino

filed under: History, presidents, weird

Image credit:

Mobilus In Mobili via Flickr

Tucked away in an unassuming field in the town of Croaker, Virginia, sits perhaps the greatest presidential monument you’ve never heard of. That’s because this private farm is home to 43 presidential busts that were originally crafted to be the centerpiece of Presidents Park, an open-air museum in Williamsburg, Virginia that would rival anything found in Washington D.C. Today, though, they sit as crumbling colossi waiting for a new home.

The park was originally conceived by Houston artist David Adickes, who was struck by the idea after visiting Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. He teamed with investor Everette “Haley” Newman to turn this idea into a lasting monument for these larger-than-life politicians. When it opened in 2004, Presidents Park featured a sculpture garden with every Commander in Chief from George Washington to George W. Bush, all meticulously crafted by Adickes and his team of sculptors. The busts ranged from 18 to 20 feet tall and weighed in at around 22,000 pounds.

Unfortunately, the $10 million experiment that was Virginia’s Presidents Park wasn’t long for this world; it was shut down in 2010 due to lack of visitors. Though it was located in Williamsburg, Virginia, it wasn’t near the tourist-friendly colonial section. Instead it was located adjacent to a highway, obscured by woods and a motel, which left these 20-foot presidential heads as nothing more than an obscure curiosity. Money got so tight toward the end that they couldn’t afford the $60,000 to add a bust of Barack Obama to the roster.

After the park was shut down and the land auctioned off, Howard Hankins, who helped build the park, had the heads moved to his family’s farm in Croaker—even though Newman originally just wanted to destroy them. It took nearly a week to move all 43 busts to their new location, and due to their immense size and weight, the move didn’t exactly go smoothly. Cracked heads and damaged noses were just some of the maladies suffered during the $50,000 relocation. The most notable damage was inflicted upon Abraham Lincoln, who now sports a not-too-subtle gaping hole in the back of his head. That’s in addition to the dilapidated state the busts were in before the move, including a lightning strike that claimed half of Ronald Reagan’s face and severe weathering from years of neglect.

Though they’ve been at their new home since 2012, there are still no specific plans for the heads. Weather and nature have now taken a considerable toll on the busts—some frogs apparently call James Buchanan “home” now—and a GoFundMe campaign by the Hankins family to repair the statues and move them to a new museum has earned a paltry $841 of its $500,000 goal in 12 months.

Still, Hankins is keeping his dream of a new museum alive, telling PBS, “It’s amazing, the history of it all, I want to preserve all I can and share it.” Until Hankins can find a permanent home for these statues, tourists looking for an obscure site to see should know that there are 240 years of American history peeling and cracking in a field in Croaker, Virginia.

February 20, 2017 – 7:00pm

February 20, 2017

The Best Thing to Happen to Dog Owners Since Dogs

Nick Greene

filed under: video

5306872924001

Forget the Pooper Scooper. With Piqapoo, your dog can pick up after itself.

February 20, 2017 – 6:00pm

February 20, 2017

Don’t Miss Amazon’s President’s Day Deals

Smart Shopping Team

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, February 20.

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!

February 20, 2017 – 11:00am

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