Author: Chris Higgins

On February 5, 1936, Modern Times premiered in movie theaters. It was Charlie Chaplin’s last film featuring his Little Tramp character, and it showed the Tramp as a bumbling factory worker (and later night watchman, singing waiter, and ultimately unemployed drifter). The film was a commentary on the aftermath of the Great Depression and ensuing economic struggles in the US, as industrial automation slammed head-on into mass unemployment. It also happened to be truly funny.

The most famous sequence in the movie involves Chaplin working on an assembly line that is moving just a bit too fast for him, though his coworkers can handle the speed just fine. This sequence (shown below) inspired the famous I Love Lucy scene in which Lucy and Ethel work in a chocolate factory wrapping chocolates and rapidly lose pace.

One odd fact about Modern Times is its position relative to talkies (films with audible dialogue). Talkies had been around for almost a decade by the time Modern Times came out, and initially Chaplin had intended Modern Times to be his first talkie. He wrote and rehearsed dialogue for the film, and even shot some test scenes. It just didn’t work. Chaplin eventually scrapped the idea, instead using synchronized sound effects, music, a faux-Italian song sung by Chaplin, and other bits of not-quite-talking audio.

Modern Times has been well-preserved by the Library of Congress (and the Criterion Collection). The film quality is stunning, and Chaplin’s physical performance is dazzling, especially given that he was in his mid-40s at the time. Here’s a look at one of the classic factory scenes:

Although the video isn’t quite as high-quality, here’s a clip of Chaplin with his eating machine:

If you haven’t seen Modern Times, the best quality version is certainly the Criterion Collection reissue. Failing that, the Internet Archive hosts a low-fidelity version.

Last year, comedian James Veitch‘s TED Talk on replying to email scams went viral, as he recounted his adventures in toying with email scammers. Last week, TED released 10 more minutes of Veitch’s adventures. The audience reactions in this are priceless. My favorite exchange:

Spammer: “Don’t delay. I don’t much days here on earth.”

Veitch: “When are you leaving earth?”

Enjoy:

If that had you laughing and you haven’t seen the original video, you’re in for a treat.

The fourth moonwalk in human history occurred on February 5, 1971. The Apollo 14 mission was a big one, in part because the disasters suffered by Apollo 13’s crew had shaken (and then reaffirmed) public confidence in the space program. Apollo 14 was a do-over of Apollo 13, but with a different crew. Commander Alan Shepard—who had been the first American in space—was on the crew. By 1971, he was the oldest US astronaut to visit space, aged 47.

When Apollo 14 reached the moon, it had trouble landing at the Fra Mauro highlands. The astronauts ran into trouble docking the Kitty Hawk command module with the Antares lunar lander. When that finally worked (after firing the thrusters from each craft to force them together), the Antares lander’s radar had trouble calculating distance to the moon upon descent. The glitches were solved just in time to make a landing. When he arrived on the lunar surface, Shepard said, “It’s been a long way, but we’re here.”

The next day, toward the end of the second EVA (extravehicular activity) and history’s fifth-ever moonwalk, Shepard proceeded to try something unprecedented: lunar golf. Shepard had smuggled a makeshift six-iron in a sock, along with two golf balls. The club was a little odd, as it was a six-iron head modified by a Houston golf pro to screw onto a rock collecting implement provided by NASA. Shepard was forced to golf one-handed due to his bulky EVA suit. His first shot was awful (“I’m gonna try a little sand-trap shot here…Got more dirt than ball!”), but the second traveled an estimated 200 yards (despite Shepard’s excited statement “miles and miles and miles!”). The whole thing happened on live TV, complete with banter from Houston on his first “slice”—here’s a clip:

For more on what Apollo 14 achieved, check out the NASA documentary Apollo 14: Mission to Fra Mauro here:

For more on the golf club (and the smuggling sock), let this Atlas Obscura article by your guide.

Here’s a fun riddle: Professor Fukanō plans to circumnavigate the world in his new airplane. But the plane’s fuel tank doesn’t hold enough for the trip—in fact, it holds only enough for half the trip. But with the help of two identical support planes (which can refuel him in mid-air) piloted by his assistants Fugori and Orokana, the professor thinks he can make it in one trip. But since all three planes have the same problem of limited fuel, how can they work together to achieve the professor’s goal without anyone running out of fuel?

This TED-Ed riddle is very much like a Popular Mechanics riddle written in 2016. It’s a tricky one, and it helps to have a piece of paper handy.

It’s explained in the video below (along with a “pause now” bit so you can solve it yourself). If you’re not a fan of video, here are the starting rules:

1. The professor’s plane must make a single continuous trip around the world without landing or turning around.

2. Each plane can travel exactly 1 degree of longitude in 1 minute for every kiloliter of fuel. Each can hold a maximum of 180 kiloliters of fuel.

3. Any plane can refuel any of the others in mid-air by meeting at the same point and instantly transferring any amount of fuel.

4. Fugori and Orokana’s planes can turn around instantaneously without burning fuel.

5. Only one airport is available for any of the planes to land, take off, or refuel.

6. All three planes must survive the experiment, and none may run of fuel in mid-air.

As the video explains, the airport mentioned in point #5 happens to be on the equator.

Here’s the video:

For a bit more from TED-Ed on this riddle, check out this lesson page. If you want to read a solution to a very similar puzzle without watching the video above, try this Math is Fun puzzle page.

In southeast Asia, archerfish spit streams of water at insects outside the water, knocking them in and making them convenient targets for gobbling. There are only seven known species of fish that use this hunting technique, and they’ve gotten quite good at it. Archerfish are able to calibrate the velocity of their spit to precisely hit their targets, using water as a weapon.

In this beautiful Deep Look video, we learn about the archerfish, its impressive spitting ability…and its puzzling ability to recognize human faces. Crank this up to 4K resolution and enjoy:

For more on the archerfish and the research discussed in the video, check out this KQED blog post. You might also enjoy our coverage of those archerfish face-recognition experiments.

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring highlighted the dangers of synthetic pesticides. Her book was so influential that DDT, previously hailed as a miracle pesticide, was eventually banned. After the ban, malaria remains an epidemic in parts of the world—even parts where DDT was not banned. So what’s going on? Is Carson to blame? (Spoiler alert: The malaria-carrying mosquitos have evolved to resist pesticides, including DDT.)

In this short documentary, the Retro Report team looks back on Carson’s place in environmental history—and considers various outcomes of the DDT ban.

(Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.)

In 1989, Stephen King was interviewed by Thomas Smith of the Public Radio Book Show. In the chat, King reflects on the differences between childhood thought process and adult ones, and explains what he sees as misconceptions about childhood. At the top, he explains that what he does for a living isn’t all that different from child’s play. Here’s a nice sample from the beginning:

I was taking a walk one day and I happened to spot a little girl on the corner of my street, she was about five years old. She was sitting in the dirt at the edge of the road talking to herself or to invisible friends and drawing in the dirt with a stick and I thought, you know if I did that, somebody would come along and say, “There’s a grown man sitting in the dirt, talking to himself—to people who aren’t there—and drawing with a stick!” Which is very close to what I do for a living. What people pay me to do.

Take five minutes and enjoy this animated interview:

For a full transcript and snippets of animation, check out this Blank on Blank page. It also features a nice section at the bottom about King’s Twitter presence.

Pizza Planet is a “pizzacore” band from College Station, Texas. The duo consists of Josh Willis on drums and Nic Shields on guitar and vocals. Here’s the twist: all their songs are based on the movie Toy Story. Indeed, even their name refers to the pizza/arcade in the movie.

In their first EP released on Bandcamp, Escape From Pizza Planet, the band’s opening tune is “Snake In My Boot,” referring to Woody’s famous line when his string is pulled. Other songs include “Double Bypass Brain Surgery” (Sid’s disassembly/torture of toys), “The Claw,” “To Infinity,” “And Beyond.” (The last two songs are a little light on lyrics, with Shields simply hollering the song titles over grinding riffs.)

Here’s a quick phone video of the band performing “Snake In My Boot”:

It’s not every day that you encounter a band so singly dedicated to its premise, and having such fun doing it. In order to understand more about Pizza Planet, mental_floss conducted an email interview last week. Here are some keepers, lightly edited for clarity.

1. THEY ARE TRUE FANS OF TOY STORY

mental_floss: How old were you guys when Toy Story came out?

Nic Shields: I was almost 2.

Josh Willis: I was 3? Maybe a late 2. It’s definitely one of the first movies I remember watching.

mental_floss: When was the most recent time you saw Toy Story?

Shields: Probably 4 or 5 months ago.

2. THEY INVENTED “PIZZACORE”

mental_floss: … Your Bandcamp page says [your band is] “pizzacore.” Where does Pizza Planet fit in the world of musical genres?

Shields: …We are definitely pizzacore. Which I believe is a genre we invented.

3. NEITHER BAND MEMBER IS A “BUZZ” OR A “WOODY”

mental_floss: Would you describe yourselves as more like Buzz or Woody? (And why?) Alternately, is there some other character is the Toy Story universe you really identify with?

Shields: I want to feel like I am Mr. Shark because I just make fun of everybody all the time and enjoy mockery in general. And that’s exactly what this band is, mockery.

Willis: I really identify with Slinky, he’s super sarcastic but also I have the ability to stretch my body to absurd lengths.

4. THEY PUT ZERO EFFORT INTO THIS BAND, AND THAT’S OKAY

mental_floss: The message of the Toy Story movies (especially Toy Story 2) seems to boil down to, effectively, “Accept your situation and enjoy it while you can.” Does that message resonate with you?

Shields: (laughing) That’s exactly how I feel about this band because we put zero effort into it. We play in serious bands that we put time and effort into, but everybody just cares about our joke Toy Story band. So I’ve just learned to take whatever comes and stop trying.

Willis: Yeah, I’m in the same spaceship as Nic [Shields] on this one. I have a lot of disdain toward this band because of how little effort I’ve put into it and how little I care compared to my serious band that I drop a lot of time and care into and write about stuff that is important to me. But I’m learning recently to just accept it and enjoy it while it lasts.

mental_floss: How long does it take to write a typical Pizza Planet song?

Shields: About twice as long as it takes to play it.

Willis: None of our songs are longer than 2 minutes I don’t think. We usually practice maybe an hour a month. We weren’t kidding when we said pretty much zero effort is put into this band.

5. AUDIENCES HAVE MOSHED TO PIZZA PLANET

mental_floss: What’s the biggest audience you’ve ever played to, as Pizza Planet? How about the smallest?

Shields: Probably a little over 100, and smallest would probably be like 10.

Willis: Yeah, we played in a taco shop in Denton Texas called “Killers Tacos,” there was probably 100+ people there. They were moshing and going crazy enough that we had to tell them to calm down because I could feel the floor moving underneath us.

mental_floss: Does the audience understand the whole Toy Story thing? Like, do you explain it to them first?

Shields: Absolutely, we treat them like children and walk them through every song we play.

Willis: Yeah, we usually will describe what each song is about from the movies and between almost every song say “All our songs are about Toy Story” so hopefully nobody has misunderstood.

6. MORE SONGS ARE COMING

mental_floss: Any plans to record more Pizza Planet songs?

Shields: Yeah!

Willis: Yeah, we just booked studio time with a friend of ours, we’re going to re-record the original songs on our [EP Escape From Pizza Planet] plus some more songs. I think it’ll be like 10-11 songs total.

mental_floss: Have you learned anything doing this project?

Shields: That hard work doesn’t pay off and to not take anything too seriously.

Willis: Yeah definitely that I need to stop taking stuff as seriously with music. I’m just having a blast and doing stupid stuff with one of my best friends and if people are into it, whatever, and if they’re not, who cares? I’m in a band that plays music about Toy Story and you’re not. So yeah.

HOW TO FOLLOW THE BAND AND FIND THEIR MUSIC

For a bit more on the band and their dreams of getting a cease-and-desist order from Disney, read this article from The Daily Dot. Their Facebook page is a lot of fun, and their music is on Bandcamp.

We salute you, Pizza Planet—The Claw has chosen wisely.

(All images courtesy of Josh Willis, used with permission.)

In this five-minute video, a LEGO train rides on an outdoor LEGO track. It’s going just one meter per second (just over two miles per hour), but because the tiny camera is mounted on the tiny train, the speed feels far faster.

The track runs 90 meters, and features some nice touches—tunnels, “boulders,” and countless twists and turns. When the train concludes its run, the journey repeats while the camera moves to a different part of the train.

Take your anti-nausea medicine and tune in:

If you like that, there’s a night version, and LEGO master BANANENBUURMANS’s website is intense.

In Bremen, Germany, a 146-meter-high drop tower allows scientists to perform experiments in microgravity. As the name suggests, the tower is designed for experiments to literally drop from top to bottom, allowing for about 9.3 seconds of near-zero gravity.

There are drop towers around the world, but Fallturm Bremen offers the longest drop time of them all—in large part because they use a catapult system to get extra hang time on the way up. When the payload hits the bottom, a load of polystyrene breaks the fall.

In this video, Tom Scott visits the Bremen drop tower, explains the science, and shows us some footage from experiments inside. It’s fascinating technology, and every second counts. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it:

For more on the tower check out this page. For a bit more behind-the-scenes chat, here’s a bonus video in which Scott discusses the filming process.

(Image courtesy of CuttyP at the German language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons, modified to add additional area on left and right.)