Month: February 2017

In the 24 years since Groundhog Day’s original release, fans have spent plenty of time and precious web bandwidth attempting to decode the alleged layers that exist just below the surface. Groundhog Day as metaphor? These eight theories say yes.

1. BILL MURRAY IS OUR SAVIOR.

Among the first groups to embrace the message of Groundhog Day were Buddhists, who were moved by its story of rebirth. As part of a talk at New York City’s Hudson Union Society in 2009, director Harold Ramis spoke about the many people who had been moved by the film—including his Zen Buddhist mother-in-law.

She isn’t alone. In an essay entitled “Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me,” Spiritual Cinema Circle co-founder Stephen Simon calls the film “a wonderful human comedy about being given the rare opportunity to live several lifetimes all in the same day. Of course, that’s not how the film was marketed but, for our purposes, I believe that concept is at the soul of the story.” In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Angela Zito, co-director of NYU’s Center for Religion and Media, noted that the film illustrates the Buddhist idea of samsara, or continuing rebirth. “In Mahayana [Buddhism], nobody ever imagines they are going to escape samsara until everybody else does,” she noted. “That is why you have bodhisattvas, who reach the brink of nirvana, and stop and come back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the bodhisattva. He is not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released back into the world to save it.”

2. PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL IS JESUS CHRIST RESURRECTED.

Bill Murray isn’t the only seemingly otherworldly figure in Groundhog Day. In the same New York Times feature, film critic Michael Bronski noted the Christ-like attributes assigned to Punxsutawney Phil (yes, the groundhog) in the film. “The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays,” he noted.

3. PUNXSUTAWNEY IS PURGATORY.

In the space between heaven and hell, according to Catholic Church doctrine, is purgatory. And in Groundhog Day, purgatory is the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania itself—a place where Phil Connors must undergo his own brand of purification in order to decide the fate of his afterlife. Blogger Jim Ciscell scoured the Internet to come up with the “Top 10 Reasons Why the Movie Groundhog Day is Actually Set in Purgatory,” which includes Connors’ own assertion in the film that he is “a god.”

4. IT’S A METAPHOR FOR JUDAISM.

Dr. Niles Goldstein, a rabbi at New York City’s New Shul congregation, sees Connors’ actions as specifically geared toward Judaism, citing the fact that his good deeds beget more good deeds, as opposed to a place in heaven or state of nirvana. “The movie tells us, as Judaism does, that the work doesn’t end until the world has been perfected,” Goldstein told The New York Times.

5. IT’S A METAPHOR FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS.

There aren’t a lot of Hollywood comedies that have gained analytical attention from the psychiatric community—and psychoanalysts in particular. In his talk at the Hudson Union Society, Ramis recalled the number of psychiatric professionals who told him that, “Obviously the movie’s a metaphor for psychoanalysis, because we revisit the same stories and keep reliving these same patterns in our life. And the whole goal of psychoanalysis is to break those patterns of behavior.”

The comparisons have continued. In 2006, the International Journal of Psychoanalysis printed an essay entitled, “Revisiting Groundhog Day: Cinematic Depiction of Mutative Process,” which explained that the film “shows us a man trapped by his narcissistic defenses. The device of repetition becomes a representation of developmental arrest and closure from object relatedness. Repetition also becomes a means of escape from his characterological dilemma. The opportunity to redo and learn from experience—in particular, to love and learn through experience with a good object—symbolizes the redemptive, reparative possibilities in every life.”

6. IT’S A PERFECT COMPARISON FOR MILITARY BOREDOM.

Shortly after the film’s release, members of the military began using the term “Groundhog Day” as slang, in reference to the monotony of their days. In 1994, the crew of the USS Saratoga, who were deployed to the Adriatic Sea, nicknamed their post “Groundhog Station” for this very reason. In 1996, while speaking to American troops at Tuzla Airfield in Bosnia, then-President Bill Clinton showed he was hip to the lingo (but in a Commander in Chief kind of way) when he noted that, “I am told that some of you have compared life here with the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where the same day keeps repeating itself over and over and over again. I’m also told that there are really only two kinds of weather conditions here in Tuzla. When it snows, the mud freezes, and when it rains, the mud thaws. Even the dining hall apparently is in on the act, dishing out the same food every morning and night.” The phrase took a turn for the formal when it was included in The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, which contains a chapter on “Boredom: Groundhog Day as Metaphor for Iraq.”

7. GROUNDHOG DAY AS ECONOMIC THEORY.

In 2006, economist D. W. MacKenzie published an article on “The Economics of Groundhog Day,” noting that the movie “illustrates the importance of the Mises-Hayek paradigm as an alternative to equilibrium economics by illustrating the unreal nature of equilibrium theorizing.” Say what?

“In economic terms the final reliving of the day constitutes what economists refer to as a perfectly competitive equilibrium based on perfect information,” MacKenzie goes on to explain. “With full knowledge of how to realize every possible gain during this day, Connors is able take advantage of every opportunity for gain. The difference between his first time through the day and his final reliving are dramatic. While this is of course only a movie, it does serve to illustrate the wide gulf between the economists’ notion of perfectly competitive equilibrium and reality.”

8. IT’S A SELF-HELP BIBLE.

For motivational speaker Paul Hannam, the key to self-fulfillment can be found in Groundhog Day’s 101 minutes. His book, The Magic of Groundhog Day, forms the basis of his transformative program of self-improvement, which promises to help its users “learn how to unlock the magic of the movie to transform your life at home and at work” and to “break free from repetitive thoughts and behaviors that keep you stuck in a rut.”

This post originally appeared in 2014.

Home appliances are a lot safer than they used to be, but cooking still accounts for nearly half of all house fires. A new product on Kickstarter aims to lower that number: Not only does it tell you when you left your burner on, but it also lets you shut it off remotely from your smartphone.

As The Verge reports, the Inirv React consists of four smart stove or oven knobs linked to a sensor unit that attaches to the ceiling. The sensor connects to your home’s Wi-Fi network, allowing owners to communicate with the system no matter where in the world they are. If the sensor detects smoke or gas, it can be programmed to send alerts to an app or shut the burners off automatically. It also detects motion, and if it senses that the kitchen has been empty for 15 minutes it will turn off the stove by default (if 15 minutes is too quick, you can adjust the setting to another of the device’s four settings).

Other neat features include voice control capabilities through the Amazon Echo and a child safety lock. The project has already more than tripled their goal of $40,000, and there are still two weeks left in the campaign. To reserve an Inirv React of your own, you can make a pledge of $229 or more. Shipping is estimated to begin in December.

[h/t The Verge]

To sugar-lovers stateside, Cadbury is best known as the maker of the cream-filled eggs that appear in stores each spring for Easter. But their full lineup of sweets includes close to 100 products that are beloved in the UK and around the world. Here are 11 decadent facts about the candy brand.

1. IT STARTED AS A DRINKING CHOCOLATE BUSINESS.

Before it was an international corporation, Cadbury got its start as a humble grocery store. In 1824, John Cadbury opened a shop in Birmingham, England where he sold, among other goods, cocoa and drinking chocolate he ground by hand. The beverage was initially marketed as a health drink, and it was often served with lentils or barley mixed in. He opened up a full-fledged chocolate factory in 1841, and by the following year he was selling 11 types of cocoa and 16 varieties of drinking chocolate. Solid “eating chocolate” only came about years later as a way for the company to utilize the cocoa butter left over from the cocoa-making process.

2. CADBURY MADE CHOCOLATE FOR QUEEN VICTORIA.

The Cadbury company was just a few decades old when it was deemed fit for royalty. John Cadbury and his brother and business partner, Benjamin, received a Royal Warrant to assume the role of “manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate to Queen Victoria” in 1855. Today the company continues to hold a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

3. THE COMPANY INVENTED THE HEART-SHAPED CHOCOLATE BOX.

Heart-shaped chocolate boxes are nearly as old as the commercialization of Valentine’s Day itself, and that’s thanks to Richard Cadbury. By the mid-19th century, exchanging gifts and cards with loved ones had become a popular practice around the holiday. Chocolate became part of the tradition by way of Cadbury’s romantic chocolate boxes. Richard, son of company founder John Cadbury, had the brilliant idea to package his confections in heart-shaped boxes embellished with cupids and roses in 1861. Customers could use the fancy boxes to store keepsakes long after the contents were consumed.

4. “RATION CHOCOLATE” WAS SOLD DURING WORLD WAR II.

Like many European businesses, Cadbury was forced to make sacrifices during the Second World War. When the British government banned fresh milk in 1941, the company stopped production on its Dairy Milk bars. Ration Chocolate, made from dried skim milk powder, was released as a cheap substitute.

5. THE FIRST CADBURY EGG APPEARED IN THE 19TH CENTURY.

Cadbury’s connection to chocolate eggs traces back to its early history. While experimenting with moldable chocolate formulas, Cadbury came up with a hollow Easter egg in 1875. The first iterations had a plain, dark chocolate exterior with sugar-coated chocolate drops filling the inside. In 1923, Cadbury debuted a cream-filled chocolate egg, but it wasn’t until 1971 that the Cadbury Creme Egg we know today, with its white-and-yellow fondant center, became an official part of the lineup.

6. CADBURY WON—AND LOST—THE TRADEMARK TO THEIR SIGNATURE PURPLE.

Cadbury first adopted its signature purple packaging in 1914 as a tribute to Queen Victoria’s favorite color. After a four-year legal battle with Nestle (which uses a similar shade in their Wonka candy line), Cadbury won the right to trademark Pantone 2685C in 2012. But their victory was short-lived—Nestle successfully appealed the ruling the following year and “cadbury purple” became free for all to use once more.

7. ROALD DAHL WAS INSPIRED BY THE COMPANY.

Years before he became a world-famous author, Roald Dahl taste-tested sweets for Cadbury. The company sent shipments of their chocolates to Dahl’s boyhood school for students to sample and the experience sparked the young boy’s imagination. When writing about his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a draft of a speech, he recalled:

“It was then I realised that inside this great Cadbury’s chocolate factory there must an inventing room, a secret place where fully-grown men and women in white overalls spent all their time playing around with sticky boiling messes, sugar and chocs, and mixing them up and trying to invent something new and fantastic.”

His musings came in handy years later when he sat down to write his most famous novel.

8. THE IDEA FOR FLAKE CAME FROM A FACTORY WORKER.

Flake, the crumbly bar made from thin layers of chocolate, is one of the most unique products in the Cadbury family. Rather than being dreamt up by a recipe developer, it was discovered by an employee by mistake. One day a worker responsible for filling the molds noticed something unusual about the excess chocolate spilling over the sides. The ribbons of liquid chocolate cooled into light, flaky bars quite different from anything else on the market. The company ran with the concept, and in 1920 the Cadbury Flake bar made its commercial debut.

9. CADBURY PRODUCTS ARE SOLD IN 40 COUNTRIES.

Cadbury may forever be associated with its British home, but the brand extends far beyond the UK. Their chocolates can be found in countries across the globe including Thailand, Argentina, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia [PDF]. Regional specialties include Cadbury Oreo Eggs sold in Canada and Cadbury Glow that’s marketed as a Diwali gift in India.

10. THE CHOCOLATE TASTES DIFFERENT IN THE U.S.

If Cadbury chocolate tastes better in its British homeland than it does in the United States, that’s not in your head—products sold under the same label are made with different ingredients in the two countries. The UK product is made from milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat, and emulsifiers, while U.S.-made Cadbury chocolate also includes lactose, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavorings, and lists sugar as the number one ingredient. Unfortunately for Cadbury purists, finding the real stuff in the States is next to impossible. Hershey, the manufacturer of the products sold in U.S. markets, forced a ban on British Cadbury imports in 2015.

11. CADBURY WORLD HAS BEEN OPEN SINCE 1990.

Fans in search of a more immersive look at the company and its history can visit Cadbury World in Birmingham, UK. The space features over a dozen interactive zones, including a 4D chocolate adventure, a chocolate-making exhibition, and a full-sized replica of the street where John Cadbury opened his first shop in 1824. If the original location is too far out of your way, Cadbury also runs a sister attraction in New Zealand.

This Valentine’s Day, show that special someone you really care with the help of a celestial body that’s 150 arcminutes in size and glows intense, red gas. The Heart Nebula, which is just a short 7500 light years from Earth, is easily the most romantic of all the nebulas thanks to its darling shape. Maryland-based artist Lauren Beacham (known for her space jewelry) takes this charming image and puts it on matching cufflinks—you know, so you can wear your heart on your sleeve—and a necklace.

Now you can give a gift that’s the perfect balance of adorable and scientific. Both the cuff links and necklace are made with glass and rhodium-plated brass. If a heart-shaped nebula isn’t enough to make you swoon, also consider that it’s right next to the Soul Nebula, creating the Heart and Soul complex. With a backstory like that, the accompanying card pretty much writes itself.

You can snag the necklace or cufflinks on UncommonGoods for $65 or $28 respectively.

First Genetic Results From Scott Kelly’s Year In Space Reveal DNA Mysteries. He came back showing chromosomal differences from his twin, astronaut Mark Kelly.  
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7 Real Life Organisms That Seem to be Born From Nightmares. That’s a whole lot of nope.
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The folks at Bad Lip Reading roast the 2016 NFL season. They’re full of trash talk -and none of it makes any sense.   
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Check out an Electromagnetic Levitation Quadcopter. We may someday see mass transit based on this idea.
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Death rates for many US 30-year-olds are rising in an ‘extremely unusual’ way. The culprits, as you may have guessed, are drugs, alcohol, and suicide.  
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Peter Capaldi, Doctor Who, & His Behind the Scenes Humanity. This will be his last season as The Doctor, but he’ll be remembered.
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Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze. Historians once considered alcohol as just another consumable, but it’s becoming more clear that alcohol was one of the driving forces behind a lot of developments and upheavals of human civilization.
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11 Punxsutawney Phil Facts for Groundhog Day. Winter is half over, whether he sees his shadow or not.

Punxsutawney Phil is getting ready to make his Groundhog Day prediction about how much winter we’ve got left. Here’s a closer look at the rodent we trust for weather prognostication.

1. HE HAS BEEN AROUND SINCE 1887.

Punxsutawney Phil has been in charge of telling us how long winter will wear on (and, conversely, when spring will finally bloom) since 1887, all based on whether or not he sees his shadow on the morning of February 2nd (if he sees his shadow, we’re in for six more weeks of winter, if he doesn’t, spring will come early). There are no other Phils. There’s just the one. No, really.

2. IT’S “GROUNDHOG PUNCH” THAT KEEPS HIM SO YOUNG. 

Phil stays so young by way of a magical “Groundhog Punch” that he’s fed every summer at the annual Groundhog Picnic (just a sip) that apparently extends his life for another seven years. So even if Phil misses out on six annual sips, he’s still good to go with his weather reporting and newsmaking for the time being. That’s some magical punch—the kind that foresees potential snags for nearly a full decade.

3. THE PUNXSUTAWNEY GROUNDHOG CLUB’S INNER CIRCLE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PHIL.

Phil obviously can’t get his elixir without a little help, which is where the so-called “Inner Circle” comes into play. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club’s Inner Circle doesn’t just hold fast to Phil’s meds and administer them to their beloved groundhog; they also take care of Phil for the entire year, plan each year’s big ceremony in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and sport some truly styling top hats and tuxedos at each ceremony.

4. THERE ARE 15 MEMBERS OF THE INNER CIRCLE.

The Inner Circle currently has 15 members (16 if you count Phil himself), including President Bill Deeley, who has been in the circle since 1986. The members all have individual nicknames that vaguely tie into their careers (Tom Dunkel, the so-called “Shingle Shaker,” is a roofing contractor) or weather phenomena (there’s an “Iceman,” a “Big Chill,” and even a “Thunder Conductor”).

5. PHIL LIVES IN A TOWN LIBRARY.

When Phil is not busy predicting the weather at Gobbler’s Knob, a rural area about two miles outside of Punxsutawney proper, he lives in the town library.

6. HE HAS A WIFE, PHYLLIS.

He lives in that library with his wife, Phyllis. Yes, Punxsutawney Phil has his own little groundhog wife, and her name is Phyllis. It’s almost too adorable to be believed.

7. HE’S A JETSETTER.

Despite enjoying life in the library and doing other groundhog-appropriate things, Phil has done his fair share of traveling over the course of his career. In recent years, he has met big celebrities and public figures like Oprah and President Ronald Reagan.

8. HE WAS REPORTEDLY NAMED AFTER KING PHILLIP.

Punxsutawney Phil was apparently named after King Phillip. Before that naming took place, he was called “Br’er Groundhog,” which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

9. HE SPEAKS GROUNDHOGESE.

Phil speaks a special language—it’s called Groundhogese—which is what he uses to communicate his shadow-finding to the Inner Circle President, who then announces it to the world.

10. HE WAS FIERCELY ANTI-PROHIBITION.

Phil apparently likes more than just his Groundhog Punch: The groundhog quite memorably announced during Prohibition that, if he were kept from drinking the hard stuff, there would be 60 weeks of winter. (But not even Punxsutawney Phil can plunge the world into over a year of winter, desire for booze aside.)

11. HE’S WRONG A LOT MORE OFTEN THAN HE’S RIGHT.

Phil’s batting average for his predictions isn’t exactly the greatest: A record of his findings shows that his shadow-based predictions have only been right about 21 percent of the time.

This article originally appeared in 2014.

We throw out a lot of food in the U.S.—an estimated 30 to 40 percent of our supply. To prevent uneaten meals from ending up in landfills, some choose to dispose of scraps by composting them. However, as Co.Exist reports, this well-meaning approach can backfire: According to a new study led by researchers at Ohio State University, diners who know their leftovers will be turned into fertilizer don’t try as hard to reduce their food waste during a meal.

Led by Brian Roe, an agricultural, environmental, and developmental economics professor, and OSU graduate student Danyi Qi, the experiment observed 266 participants as they ate a self-serve meal of sandwiches, chips, and apple slices. They were allowed to take as much food as they wanted, but they weren’t allowed to share meals or save any leftovers. At the meal’s end, researchers weighed diners’ trays to measure how much food they left behind.

Before the meal, subjects were given some reading material, either educational pamphlets about the environmental harm of food waste (this made up the “educated” group) or information about financial literacy (the “uneducated” group). However, around half of the participants in both groups were informed that their waste would be composted, while the rest were told it would end up in a landfill.

Diners who didn’t think that composting was an option responded strongly to the educational materials: Those who read the pamphlet detailing the harmful effects of food waste ended up wasting 77 percent less food than those who received the financial literacy one. Educated diners were also nearly 40 percent more likely to finish their entire meal (leaving no waste). However, the positive effects of the education were nullified when diners were told their table scraps would be composted: When diners thought their waste was going to a “good” place, they had leftovers on par with the uneducated group.

The study’s findings pose a challenge for policymakers aiming to reduce America’s food waste. They’ve tried to tackle the problem with public education and with landfill diversion techniques, like composting. However, these two approaches appear to “cancel each other out—they work at cross purposes,” Qi said in a press release.

“It seems that if [people] feel that the social and environmental cost is lower, they may feel less guilty and that may cause them to waste more,” Qi added.

Also, Roe points out to The Columbus Dispatch, people may feel less inclined to take multiple steps to help the environment if they’ve already completed one. “Once one box has been checked, there’s not much appetite to do another thing,” Roe said. “Maybe for some people, that box has been checked off (with composting).”

At the end of the day, composting your food is a better option than throwing it away. However, it’s better to avoid wasting edible goods in the first place—and with a little strategic planning, you can. At home, people can limit food waste by sticking to a strict shopping list of the essentials, cooking only what they’ll actually eat, and donating leftover edible foods to food pantries or shelters. As for restaurant owners, they can try giving customers a crash course in environmental awareness, instead of simply telling them they compost leftovers.

“Do it, but just don’t brag about it,” Qi told the Dispatch.

[h/t Co.Exist]