Month: March 2021

Posted on

Did You Know There’s a Test to Find Out if You Might Be a “Super Recognizer” Of Faces?

Since people’s names and faces seem to flow right in one side of my brain and out the other, I don’t think I’m a “super-recognizer” of faces (or anything else), but according to scientists who study this phenomenon, around 1% of the population can honestly say that they never forget a face.

In 2009, a team of neuroscientists at Harvard did a study on super-recognizers, testing just four people who claimed they could always remember faces of the people they met – and even those of strangers on the street.

Image Credit: Pexels

The four people felt like their abilities were “creepy, and even that there was something wrong with them. One subject confessed that she hid her ability to “pretend that I don’t remember people, because it seems like I stalk them, or that they mean more to me than they do.”

All of the subsequent studies on the topic have included only small numbers of people – everyone they can find who might have this uncanny ability – and though researchers have found a few more, it seems to be extremely rare.

Image Credit: Pexels

This recent study that was published in PLOS ONE that looked at people with excellent memories in general showed that the two are not necessarily related. You don’t have to have a good memory to have faces burn into your brain, and vice versa.

“These findings lend support to the idea that face processing abilities are at least to a certain extent hard-wired.”

Since the 1990s, researchers have assigned the ability to identify a face to a region of the brain known as the fusiform face area (FFA).

Image Credit: PLOS ONE

This is because people who have damage to this area of their brain experience the opposite of what we’re talking about here – they have what’s known as “face blindness,” and can’t retain faces at all.

Image Credit: PLOS ONE

One of the scientists most interested in learning more about this phenomenon now, psychology professor Josh P. Davis out of the University of Greenwich, is hoping to find more people who think they have this ability so that he can study it further.

Image Credit: Greenwich University

If you do very well on this test he developed, he would like to hear from you.

Police in the UK are already thinking that people involved in these studies might be great for identifying murder suspects and the like.

If anything bad ever happens to me, I hope one of them just happens to be around.

The post Did You Know There’s a Test to Find Out if You Might Be a “Super Recognizer” Of Faces? appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Dark Facts About Countries That Most People Love

There are certain countries in the world that a majority of people would say they would love to visit – Italy, France, England, China, Ireland, Australia…

My list actually goes on and on, because there’s hardly anywhere I wouldn’t like to go if I had the chance!

Some (or all) of these beloved countries have dark histories and lesser-known facts, though, so before you visit, here are 16 things you might like to know.

16. That’s not the worst thing they did during the war.

During ww2 japan used living POW’s for bayonet practice.

The Japanese were worse than the nazis in some ways. The difference is Germany knows their dark history and paid for it.

Japan swept it all under the rug and never paid for or owned up to their war crimes.

15. But I want to see the pyramids.

In Egypt , sexual harassment is like the air , everywhere. Something every woman must live with.

I don’t know if it’s the same now, but I travelled around Egypt for a few weeks in the late nineties when I was in my early twenties. I had a couple of rather forceful attempts against me (as a man). I learnt to be quite careful using a public toilet.

14. I think it must have been.

Here in Colombia we have enough material to have a dedicated post, but for mentioning one….

In 1928, a banana company workers ceased their production and got in protests. They wanted better work conditions because They worked a lot for the crap of payment they got.

The government’s response was send the national army to shoot a place where between 2000 and 4000 people were sleeping or relaxing. Officially 13 people died, but the people there told that number was faked and the death counter was a lot higher

13. It’s so beautiful, too.

New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD.

New Zealand also has some of the highest rates of bullying (in school and in the workplace). Everyone talks about how nice Kiwis are… but in addition to the ‘macho’ culture (and maybe along with it) there is this big, dark, ugly underbelly of wide spread bullying.

I can imagine that this very much contributes to high suicide rates.

12. I have questions.

Mongolia wiped nearly 11% of the ENTIRE world population off the face of the planet.

The largest acts of mass killing/genocide in human history.

It literally changed our carbon footprint by an estimated 700 million tonnes of carbon in the atmosphere during the 13th century.

11. Eat the rich?

The Dutch once ate their prime minister.

When Johan de Witt – the ‘Grand Pensionary’ (in effect, prime minister) of the Dutch Republic – was killed along with his brother in 1672, there are accounts of some among the mob taking parts of the bodies and eating them.

10. What the heck, New Zealand?

New Zealand: high rates of child abuse, hidden poverty and a housing crisis on the brink (not enough housing and what there is is extremely expensive to both rent and buy and rapidly rising at a ridiculous rate. It’s also not particularly high quality).

9. The face I just made.

On Toronto’s beaches up to the mid 1950s, it was common to see signs that read “No Dogs or Jews Allowed.”

8. They don’t take sides.

During WWII, the Swiss National Bank accepted large quantities of gold from the German Reichsbank.

It was payment for Swiss export shipments(weapons, ammunition..).

A large part of this Reichsbank gold had either been looted by the German occupying forces from the stocks of the occupied countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.), or it came from the victims of the Nazi persecution of the Jews [Holocaust].

7. In Canada? Seriously?

Canada had a cult leader named Roch Thériault of Ant Hill Kids who did some VERY VERY disturbing things to his followers and the children.

Also the podcast “Cults” had an episode on them but they even left out the worse things they did.

6. Where is it going?

Canada is the biggest producer of asbestos in the world, although using the product is banned in the country.

“In 2009, about 9% of the world’s asbestos production was mined in Canada. In late 2011, Canada’s remaining two asbestos mines, both located in Quebec, halted operations. In September 2012, the Quebec government halted asbestos mining.”

5. No one teachers this bit of Western history.

France had concentration camps… in 1936 for Spanish immigrants who fled the Civil War.

They also had concentration camps in Algeria in the 1960’s, and a weird bit of bureaucracy where they didn’t call them camps.

4. Same awful story, different country.

Norway used to suppressed the natives from up north, by separating them from their parents and forcing norwegian culture upon them.

Learning norwegian and how to live like a norwegian.

3. That’s not so happy.

Bhutan forcibly expelled Hindus in order to create its “happy” paradise.

Yes.. Uncle was working for UN during the whole Bhutanese Refugee situation in Nepal. He said they were kicked out by the country. There is a large Bhutanese refugee community in Baltimore.

2. NINETEEN NINETY-SIX.

From the 1700s up to 1996, Ireland was home to “Magdalene Laundries,” basically labor camps run by the Catholic Church for “Fallen Women” who had sex outside of marriage (a lot of time the women were SA survivors who’d been molested/impregnated by priests or male relatives)

1. They can keep their lips sealed.

If you’ve ever looked at a country like Liechtenstein on a map and wondered how a country that small can maintain a flourishing economy the answer is that they’re one of the largest offshore banking sites in the world.

Most people only think of the Cayman Islands when it comes to offshore banking but the Cayman Islands aren’t even close to being the only place where rich people stash their money to avoid paying taxes on it. Most of the places that do it are territories and not countries (the Cook Islands, Anguila, Jersey and Guernsey are a few other big offshore banking sites) but Liechtenstein has made it the core of their economy.

I had no idea!

Do you know any other weird facts about these countries that might give people pause?

Share the with us in the comments.

The post Dark Facts About Countries That Most People Love appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Amazing Recovery Stories About Patients That Therapists Were Sure Wouldn’t Get There

There are upsides and downsides to every job out there.

That said, some have got to just be more emotionally tough than others. Take, for example, being a therapist (especially to children) – you listen to people in the worst states of their lives, and then let them walk out the door at the end of the hour, into the world that has broken them over and over again.

Success stories are probably relative, and maybe not measured exactly in that way, but these 12 therapists had glimpses of moments that must make all the rest of it worth it.

12. That’s one great day.

I worked on an outreach team that helped homeless folks off the streets. Found a guy downtown one day that was a classic schizophrenic. Word salad, things tied around his arms and legs, the whole 9 yards. Spent a few weeks buying him lunch and building a relationship with him.

He eventually let me move him into a hotel room and take him to a doctor. Got a shot from one of our doctors and started doing better. I transferred him to a longer term care team and went on with my life. Years later I was doing a homeless count for the city and boom, there he was standing in front of me. Clean, well spoken, happy.

He introduced me to his cousin. I’ll never forget it. “Damn Robert, this is the guy who helped you get off the street? You saved his life man. My family can’t thank you enough.”

One of the best moments of my life.

11. What keeps you going.

Psychiatrist here:

I used to do sessions at a government run long-term psychiatric hospital. Where I am a patient can only stay in a psych hospital for 3 months max, & if they didn’t get better we had to transfer them to the long-term hospital, So, the people who ended up here already had very poor prognoses to start off with, and to add to that they were all there on an involuntary basis, so co-operation was an ongoing battle. Very few are ever successfully discharged back into the community. There is a gross shortage of resources and the place itself looks pretty bleak, but we did all we could within our limited means.

I have had a few successes with patients here over the years, which you kind of hold on to in order to remind yourself that there’s always hope.

One lady I recall had been admitted via the courts after vandalizing a colleagues car that she believed had been using witchcraft against her. After being admitted and treated at the regular psych hospital, she was diagnosed with treatment resistant schizophrenia, which is probably one of the worst case scenarios in psychiatry.

Once she arrived at the long-term facility, I started treatment with probably the only drug we have for treatment-resistant schizophrenia. This drug is basically our last “big-bomb” for schizophrenia, but is not a pleasant one to have to use with a patient. It has a lot of serious side effects, requires blood to be drawn every week for 18 weeks (& then monthly for the rest of the time you’re on it, which is generally life-long in schizophrenia) and most frustratingly there is no injectable formulation, so patients need to take it willingly everyday which is a real uphill battle for involuntary patients that lack insight (lack of insight being part of schizophrenia as well, so you can imagine how challenging that can get). If they refuse more than 2 days worth of meds, the whole 18week initial phase needs to be restarted from scratch.

This patient was extremely paranoid and very hostile towards treatment in general. Every time I saw her she would get aggressive, argue with everything, and refused the meds on several occasions, necessitating a restart every time. She was one of the most challenging patients I have had to deal with, and honestly I didn’t hold out much hope for her. But, we just kept on trying, worked through every aggressive episode and tried to at least keep things steady enough so that she wouldn’t deteriorate any further.

After two years, things slowly started to change for her. She started taking the meds regularly and we had noted small incremental improvements. Despite this, her prognosis was still poor and I was just hoping to improve her overall level of functioning in any way I could.

Then one day when she walked into my office, she looked like an entirely different person. Her grooming and self care were definitely better – she had done her hair, wore earrings and actually smiled at me… all for the first time since being admitted to the hospital. To say I was thrilled at her progress would be an understatement, I was flabbergasted really.

Having gone back to her almost normal self, she was a pleasant, articulate lady with a wicked sense of humor. After that, we did a lot of work on her insight & helping her make sense of what had happened to her and understanding the medications she would need to take for the rest of her life.

After about 3 years, she was discharged home and resumed her previous occupation of being a high school teacher. Last I heard from her she was till doing well and even became a grandmother. Sadly, I no longer work at that hospital so I have since lost touch with her, but her story stays with me every time I see a “hopeless” case. It’s the starfish analogy for me, and although my job can be emotionally draining & frustrating, every now and again you get to make a life-changing difference for someone, and that keeps me going.

10. That’s all they want to hear.

I had a client who was a Senior at a highschool I was contracted at. I got him the day after he had been released from the ER for a Suicide attempt. He was smart and his plan was well executed, painless to being a diabetic. He had his method of suicide literally on him 24/7. He had second thoughts.

He was a wreck, paranoid, didn’t want to live. Are one point I had to have him involuntarily committed by the police because he could not garuntee me he could keep himself safe and his parents really couldn’t either. I hated to do it. I had no other choice though.

Every week we met. He was intense, angry and paranoid. His parents were Asian immigrants and were woefully under prepared for dealing with and understanding the extent of his mental health issues. We went on a regiment of Cognitive behavioral therapy for 6 months. He went all in, did every price of homework I gave him and utilized it. By the end of the 6 months he graduated and was accepted to NYU and prepping to attend in fall.

The last day we met I asked about his experience in therapy and to reflect on his journey. He ended by saying. ” I’m glad I didn’t kill myself”. Don’t know where he is but I hope he is doing amazing.

9. Sometimes experiments work out for the best.

I work with veterans who have had traumatic brain Injuries a lot of whom additionally have some combination of ptsd anxiety and depression. One of our most recent patients was a graduate student before deciding to enlist in 2011 to fight isis. He came back unable to walk and unable to read and remember things properly as a result of the damage to his brain.

He could no longer focus in classes, and was severely depressed which lead to him not able to finish his PhD. We do an experimental 10 days brain stimulation treatment combined with vision and working memory therapy and after his 10 days the changes were astounding.

He feels motivated again, there was an improvement of almost 100% on every cognitive and executive function task as well as improvements to his vision/reading/focusing ability. He signed up for classes at the community college here and is hopeful he can finish his PhD in geology and get his life back on track. I’ve never seen such a dramatic improvement before and it made all the difference in the direction of his life. Reminds me why I do what I do.

8. They just keep showing up.

I had barely graduated and was working in the public sector as a clinical psychologist. One day a 47 yo woman arrived. The patient was experiencing depression and had told me that in another episode she couldn’t even take a shower.

I was nervous cuz I was so inexperienced and felt a weight on my shoulders thinking: “how Am I gonna help this woman?”. But as the months progressed I saw a big transformation. In the beginning she wouldn’t even look me in the eyes and she had told me that she couldn’t even hug her children (they were young adults). She was my patient for 8 months until I had been approved to work somewhere else with a much bigger salary.

In our last session she was looking at me, dressing up, smiling and when I told her that I wouldn’t be working there anymore, she even gave me a hug. It was quite a challenge, but in the end it all worked well. I no longer work as a clinical psychologist (and don’t intend to return), but this experience transformed not only her, but myself.

I gained confidence to work with other people and was extremely satisfied to see that I could help improving someone else’s life.

7. Sometimes all you do it listen.

I’ve regularly had clients tell me some version of, “Remember that thing you told me about breaking up with them/applying for that job/telling them such and such… Well, I took your advice and it really worked and made such a difference!”, and in my head I’m thinking, “that’s not at all what I said” or “oh, that was just an offhand remark that had nothing to do with what I thought I was trying to do, but good job!”

It has made me realize that change is kind of inevitable (tho not necessarily for the better) and that when people are ready, there’s little that will stop them from moving toward that change; they’ll take what I say or, a song lyric, or a convo with the Lyft driver, or whatever is around them and turn it into the thing they need.

So maybe I’m just more like the catalyst in the sense that I can help start the reaction, but I’m not there in the end result.

6. Some parents are not the best.

I tutored students with learning difficulties and helped them learn to coordinate with their guidance counselors and teachers etc. I was kinda the go between for a lot of these kids whose parents had no idea what to do.

One of my students was one of a few siblings. Parents were totally checked out and self absorbed, entitled, expected others to do everything for them and the state to pay for everything so they don’t have to work because they don’t feel like it. They were convinced his adhd was his fault and he wasn’t sad or anything, just bad at school (because his twin brother had been using the “I’m depressed” statement for years as a reason for him to refuse to go to class or do any homework and instead play video games and hang out with a not so good crowd. his brother was evaluated by mental health professionals over and over who deemed him completely fine just unwilling to work hard because he didn’t want to and expect the state to take care of him like it did his mom and dad…this was a whole other story) But this kid was drowning in himself and I saw it and so did others. I sat his parents down and told them if they didn’t get their shit together and get him some help, he wasn’t going to make it. Period. It was crisis level bad and his brothers issues were being reflected on him as the same thing and thus ignored.

I finally got his guidance counselor involved and laid it all out. This kid needs help, his parents are ignoring it, his other older brother is trying to help but can’t, the twin brothers issues are being used as a reason why “nothings wrong with him, he needs to try harder”, the extended family isn’t close enough to do anything but know there’s a problem (they were calling me at this point), and I can’t watch this kid loose this battle. She was on board the second I informed her and jumped right in to coordinate help.

3 months later I watched him walk across the stage graduating with honors, on track with a good mental health plan, a therapist, and his grandparents directly involved in supporting him.

He’s off to trade school as of last year.

5. You’ve gotta love that.

I am a private practice therapist. I had a long term client I saw for over 2 years who was able to overcome so much (poor support, negative self talk with some suicidal thoughts, trouble regulating emotions, using substances to escape, etc).

She ended up moving away but checks in with me from time to time. Her life has completely changed and is doing so well now.

4. Sometimes it’s a simple answer.

when I was a Patient at the psychiatric ward there was another patient who I still think of sometimes. When she arrived she was so white and apathic. Some days later I met her in the halls of the facilities and she looked way better. So I talked to her to get her story.

She was brought in because she had drunk various cleaning products after 14 days without any sleep. She just wanted to sleep and didn’t know any further – I guess it was kinda like a psychotic episode. When she arrived they pumped everything out of her and fortunately she didn’t had any long term damage.

The doctors found out that she couldn’t sleep because of menopausal issues so she got sleep medication and hormones for menopause. When I talked to her she already had slept two nights in a row and she looked so much better, was smiling and talkative.

She said herself she didn’t know what happened to her. Being without sleep made her into a completely different person. I was so happy that she felt better. Overall she just stayed about a week.

Came to us like a ghost. Left us full of life. It was amazing

3. Most people have a reason.

I’m a therapist inside and outside of the prisons. I’d say at least 1x a month I meet an inmate that was likely a major piece of shit when they committed their crimes

Fast forward 10-20 years of incarceration later, and they are intellectual, hardworking men of integrity. It’s amazing what a little bit of structure can do for someone.

2. It happens to men, too.

I’m a therapist and mine is one of my clients getting out of a ridiculous, controlling relationship. He had difficulty conceptualizing that abusive (emotional and physical) relationships can happen to men and it was so bad that he internalized all those negative feelings.

I’m talking about significant, bat-sh%t controlling too like “send me a snap every 10 min, no even LOOKING at other girls, you aren’t allowed to be outside” type of thing.

Working through all of those issues over years was super satisfying to see his progress and recovery.

1. Tell the truth to yourself, first.

I spent most of my childhood depressed and chronically wanting to throw myself off a cliff. There was abuse and a lot of trauma that doesn’t need to be detailed. But I spent pretty much all of high school suicidal and self-harming. College was slightly better but about the same. I never looked depressed mind you, I was high functioning and I always did well in school, etc.

My parents knew but did nothing. I was also dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia and coming to terms with my sexuality in a strict religious environment that had no room for me. I ended up a lesbian married to an abusive man, with a decades long history of trauma, self-harm, etc.

I started therapy four years ago now. Something my therapist instilled in me from the beginning was this: once you can tell the truth about your life, then you can start to create a better story.

She taught me to identify the terrible things I had endured at the hands of the people who should have protected me. She taught me to bring those truths into the light, see them fully, and grieve the childhood I didn’t have and the way that followed me into adulthood. She helped me identify the ways I was perpetuating toxic cycles as a result of trauma: in my relationships with other people and also in my relationship with myself. She reminded me over and over again, that it was not my responsibility to create safety for myself as a child, but it is my responsibility now to protect the child inside myself. It is my responsibility now, to do better than people did to me. She taught me that I could trust myself to know what I need and what I want and what I deserve. She showed me what my life had been, held my hand and pulled me through all the paralyzing, desperate things I did to cope, and then asked me what I wanted instead, and what I could do to build that. She gave me permission to imagine better and then build better.

So I came out. I named what happened to me and stop trying to keep all the abuse a secret. I left my abusive ex. I quit the job that was killing me. I stopped drinking. I started taking medication. And it was absolutely terrifying. But I knew that I had built a trust in myself and I could trust myself to take care of myself. I believed there was a version of life that could be as good as I wanted it to be. I leapt.

And now I live in a beautiful city with the kindest woman I have ever known, whose love feels like coming home. Whose touch is gentle. Who knows every tiny thing about me. I do work I love. I have the derpiest dog to ever exist. I sleep well, which is a new thing. I say yes when I mean yes, and no when I mean no. I don’t abandon myself anymore.

Things can get better. Not overnight. Not without a fuck ton of pain and nights spent possibly sobbing on your kitchen floor. But it is possible for things to get better. And it’s also possible for things to get worse, and for you to not be alone in that, which is a different sort of better.

I owe my life to my therapist. Truly.

These just make my heart happy, y’all.

If you’re a therapist, what’s a moment that made it worth it to you? Share with us in the comments!

The post Amazing Recovery Stories About Patients That Therapists Were Sure Wouldn’t Get There appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Garbage Collectors Discuss the Interesting Items People Toss in the Trash

There is not one (honest) job in the world that is not worthy of respect. That goes double for anyone who does a job that benefits absolutely everyone else in society, like the people who collect our garbage every week.

I also imagine that they see quite a bit of interesting stuff, and right now, we’re all in luck – because these 16 garbage collectors are going to share their best stories with us down below.

16. A good deed.

In the eighties I picked up a number of Philips colour tvs. I had a few, so fixing them was just a question of swapping parts.

I then sold them cheaply or gave them away to fellow students.

15. Ugh, I hate this twist.

When I was a kid my dad worked for a company that hauled away dumpsters and at one point found an old alto sax complete in the box.

Ended up playing it for four years up until high school when it was stolen, couldn’t play after that since my family couldn’t afford a rental let alone pay for a new one.

14. Not actually broken.

I found an amazing smart TV in the dumpster of my apartment complex a few years back. Took it inside, plugged it in, and, as expected, it wouldn’t even turn on.

So I opened it up, but couldn’t find anything wrong. No blown capacitors, no internal cables unplugged, nothing. So I put it back together and tried it one more time. And this time it worked. No idea what was actually wrong with it, but it worked great for years.

I also found a laptop bag with a 2003 Dell laptop inside in that same dumpster. It was like 12 years old and slow as hell, but it worked fine. Had the power cable and everything.

13. That’s definitely odd.

Friend of ours found two bullet resistant vests with paramedic written across them, being thrown out behind a fire station. I guess the expire or something.

12. It’s not all good stuff.

My dad was a trash man when I was growing up. He would always be bringing cool stuff home to us. He used to always say that the “poor” neighborhoods had the most trash and they threw away literally everything.

The two best ones that I can think of was a brand new BMX bike and like 20 Nintendo 64 games that he found at a video rental store.

Also once at the transfer station one of his co-workers found a “dummy arm” in the big pile of trash. He pulled it and it ended up being a dead guy, the police later determined that it was a homeless person that got picked up and died when the trash truck compacted him.

11. Now I don’t feel so badly for throwing those things out.

My dad used to do the cleaning for a mall and he would bring us some amazing stuff sometimes. I remember he once came back home with a backpack full of miniature toys (like the ones you find in Kinder Surprise), another time an entire toy kitchen, and some kids magazines (Les p’tites princesses, I loved it).

He also found a lot of stuff for our home but I was a kid so I remember the toys more than anything

10. Oh my laundry.

My dad was a garbage man for a while and told me about people being compacted. He said they shake dumpsters up and down and wait 30 seconds before dumping them and he’d had people climb out on two occasions. Crazy.

9. What a waste.

My dad worked at a landfill for most of my childhood and my brother and I both got into related companies that directly dealt with landfills for a while. One of the most common things I remember hearing about and seeing all the time were clothing with minor irregularities that had to be thrown away by said clothing company.

It was stuff like Roxy, Vans and other stuff you’d see at places like Tillys or similar clothing store. One of my old coworkers families basically were clothed their whole life from this type of clothing being dumped. The clothing was clean or could be cleaned to a decent level that the clothing was fine to wear.

It was dumb stuff like small rip, missing zipper or some other weird thing they couldn’t sell it that way. Everyone at the landfill was basically in on the scheme. When the truck with the clothing pulled up to the fee booth, someone would radio people at the dump site and it was like a pack of vultures, everyone on the site would swarm the truck as soon as everything was dumped out of the truck.

8. Some parts of the old days weren’t so bad.

When I was a kid I found a couch. It wasn’t very big, but thats why it was so great. 10 year old me was able to carry it all the way home by myself. (About a block and a half.) This was before kids having cell phones were huge so I didn’t call my parents about it first and they were at the store anyways. So I took the couch home and put it in my room.

It was pretty dated… Made of some material I’ve never encountered again so far, but I thought I was THE SHIT. I had a whole couch in my room. How many 10 year olds had couches in their room? Well my parents came home and clearly weren’t happy, but given I carried it up to the second story and got it into my room they let me keep it. (My down stairs neighbor helped me.)

I felt like a king. I had a couch. I had a big box TV for my play station. I had it all. Simpler times.

7. Who would throw that away?

Worked as a garbage man for a very short time last summer, but the best thing I found was an edition of my local newspaper from the day after the Challenger exploded.

6. More good than bad.

I worked as a garbage man in 1972. A small stray cat jumped into the back of the hopper to look for food. I took him home and named him saigon. This was the best thing.

Second best thing someone threw out an old pair of skis. There was snow on the ground and me and the other guy each took a ski and stood on it and held onto the truck, great fun.

Third best we found an entire case of “brylcream” (look it up) and me and the other guy had brylcream fights all day, total mess (I stripped off before going into my house after work).

Worst things a garbage can that had live coals in it that started our truck on fire.

5. It deserved a good home.

A Lane cedar chest. I was helping my dad clean out this lady’s garage and she said as long as we were there, we might as well take that, too. She said she always hated the smell of cedar but her husband wouldn’t let her get rid of it and now that he was dead, she was sending it on its way!

The veneer was never in great shape but it still keeps my wool items safe. I’ve had it for over 30 years now.

4. A treasure indeed.

in the early 2000’s my best friends dad was a garabge man. I used to hang out at their house a lot and i remember him finding uncut sheets of hologrpahic dragon ball z trading cards in the trash and bringing them back. They were super dope to see.

3. The perfect meet-cute.

I found my wife in a pile of garbage while working on a garbage truck.

I was working being trained as a garbage man and one day a women was throwing out way to much good stuff, boxes of books and I could see she was trying to fill a car and minivan, so I figured she was moving and having to sacrifice good stuff.

I talked to her and offered to come back later and help her move so she didn’t have to throw away so much stuff, and it ended up being a story that her husband left her for her best friend, and they moved in together, and she couldn’t afford the townhouse anymore as she was undergoing cancer treatment.

We got married one year later. I like to say I found her in the trash and fixed her up, but the truth is it is opposite. I was the trash she fixed up I.

2. Someone didn’t clean up their room.

My friend found a PS4 (excellent condition) and a brand new controller still in the box.

1. A hidden gem.

My little brother was emptying out a client’s basement and everything was going to be thrown away so my brother was told to keep anything he wanted. He saw a nice looking bike and took it.

Turns out it was a Dahon mu p8 30th anniversary limited edition and in perfect condition. From what I found on it, it goes for over $4K.

Human beings are really fascinating, don’t you think?

If you collect garbage, add your interesting finds down in the comments!

The post Garbage Collectors Discuss the Interesting Items People Toss in the Trash appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

People Share the Movies That Turned Out to Be Way Better Than They Expected

It’s a good thing that there are so many different kinds of movies in the world, because not only are there so many different kinds of people watching movies, but when we’re looking for something to watch, we’re not always after the same thing.

Sometimes we want to laugh, sometimes we want to be challenged, sometimes you just want to sit back and be entertained – and sure, sometimes we’re more concerned with quality than others.

Here are 18 times people clicked on a movie thinking it was going to be somewhere between bad and laughably awful, only to be surprised when the flick turned out to be great, instead.

18. If you want to get your heartrate up.

Crank 2: High Voltage

It’s not gonna win any Academy Awards, but that movie is a masterpiece of over the top action and you will not be bored the entire time.

Also features Dwight Yoakam and a score by Mike Patton.

17. You know, really funny.

Megamind.

I thought it was gonna be the normal cringe superhero movie but it was actually just super funny! actually funny, not cringe funny!

16. This movie is a masterpiece.

For some reason, I thought Knives Out was gonna be just another lame movie with famous ensemble cast but I liked it way more than I expected.

I thought this movie was targeted to old, boring people. Turns out to be a great movie that lots of people can enjoy.

15. An instant classic.

Clue. A movie about a board game? What? And it’s a comedy?

14. Epic is an excellent way to describe it.

Cabin In the Woods.

Expected a lame cookie-cutter slasher flick. Got something way more epic and fun.

I saw this movie without seeing any trailers for the film, I had no idea it was going to be satirical and genuinely thought that was the moment I lost touch with modern Hollywood antics.

13. And you’ll never get that song out of your head.

The Lego Movie.

I thought “Oh this is just one of those movies for a product. I mean Batman and Superman on the poster, this screams paid product. I just hope the marketing isn’t crazy”. My god was I wrong.

The Lego Movie is now in my top 20 animated movies and I did not expect that movie to be that amazing. It proved to me that all those paid product movies don’t have any excuses to be as bad as they are.

12. High praise for a parent.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – my kids picked this for movie night recently on Disney+.

I was expecting your standard, non-reboot, modern Disney movie, kids think it’s hilarious and everyone else cringes the entire time.

In reality, it was f*cking hysterical from beginning to end and I’m looking forward to watching it again.

11. Southerners are people too.

Tucker and Dale Versus Evil.

As a southerner with a lot of Appalachian hillbilly friends/family, I love this movie for how it finally treats southerners as normal people, as opposed to the crazy, malformed, cannibalistic and/or r*pist hermits that are usually in horror films.

Cause, y’know, poor/uneducated folk are scary.

Also, it’s godd*mn hilarious.

10. It’s all substance, people.

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.

I was expecting a corny kids version of a marvel movie. Entertaining but no substance.

Well I was blown away, probably had the most fun in a movie that I can remember with that one. And I think that’s a movie meant to be watched on a big screen.

9. A good take is hard to find.

The Edge of Tomorrow.

I thought it was going to be a stupid explosion movie since I’d never heard of it, turned out to be the one of the cleverest takes on the Sci-fi action genre I’ve seen.

Great story, and really well acted.

Not surprised it’s become a cult hit.

8. This description isn’t wrong, exactly.

About Time.

Looks like your typical frou frou fancy pants British romantic dramedy that relies on posh English accents and charming actors to buy some cheap tears and give middle aged women semi lady boners.

But it’s actually a very nuanced, well-meaning movie that reaches out to any and everyone.

7. Adaptations are tricky.

Stardust.

I didn’t expect that a film of such a great book could ever live up to it. I fully expected to be very disappointed. And then there was Robert DeNiro as a pirate.

Honestly ended up like the movie more than the book. They’re very different variations on the same story, and I like that the movie stayed true while also doing some of its own thing.

Michelle Pfeiffer as a wicked witch is f*cking amazing.

DeNiro is incredible, and Claire Danes took a character that could have been very one note and managed to fully invest me into a character whose not from this world and is very Fish out of Water.

6. This is going on the list.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

I was not expecting it at all. I liked the trailer but I wasn’t feeling it to be honest.

I still decided to go watch it and I came out feeling like I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I had a good laugh and I actually thought it was well balanced with the actual plot.

5. He is a national treasure.

Had zero interest in watching a cartoon movie called Kung Fu Panda.

Way, way better than expected. God bless Jack Black.

It has so many running gags, such as Po being blissfully unaware he’s adopted and every other character questioning why his Dad is a goose. Wonderful movies.

Po: I found out that my dad… isn’t really my dad.

Tigress: Your dad, the goose?

[Po nods]

Tigress: [deadpan] That must have been quite a shock.

4. Unexpected magic.

“School of Rock.”

I saw it on TV at least 5 years after it was first released. I remembered rolling my eyes at the previews and being all cynical about it.

Turned out it was a magical musical journey full of laughter and learning. ~~~*

3.  Except for the dog.

John Wick.

Keanu as a retired hitman getting revenge on the people who killed his dog? I mean, that sounds like the synopsis for a Ranier Wolfcastle movie.

Put it on during a hangover Sunday thinking it would be background noise while I napped.

There was no napping that day.

2. Second this one.

Pacific Rim

When I first saw the trailer, my friends and I just thought it was going to be along the lines of a Transformers movie (meaning well-below average in terms of quality) but it would be giant robots punching giant monsters.

And that was what the movie was, but the action is just done so well that it doesn’t matter that the premise of the movie is kind of stupid. You have a giant mech use a ship as a baseball bat to beat up a giant monster.

1. Two thumbs up.

Galaxy quest.

Seems like a cheap star trek knock off.

Oh my gosh no it isn’t.

I’ve shown it to people who aren’t into sci-fi and took a lot of persuading.

They love it, every time.

Well, I guess I’m adding a few more movies to my to-watch list!

Have you seen any of these? Were they good? What other movie would you put on a list like this? Tell us down in the comments!

The post People Share the Movies That Turned Out to Be Way Better Than They Expected appeared first on UberFacts.