A scientific study out of Italy shows that research can be a lot of fun. The researchers took 138 rides on the Milan metro to observe the behavior of strangers. Their conclusion was that when someone dressed as Batman got onto a train car, riders were significantly more likely to give up their seat to a pregnant woman. Dress for the job you want, indeed. This study is easily replicable; all you need are an obviously pregnant woman, someone with a Batman suit, and someone to observe and crunch the numbers. The effect is not exactly unknown, as a story from a bus driver illustrates the way the Caped Crusader affects passengers.
Not that anyone was afraid of Batman. The character of Batman isn't thought to spur prosocial behavior, meaning the tendency to help others. The study frames the presence of Batman as an "unexpected event," which drew attention. When that happens, people become less locked into their phones and more aware of the environment around them. That's when they noticed a pregnant woman standing. The same people would have given up their seat anyway, if they'd been paying more attention. To be sure, someone should replicate the experiment using someone dressed as a the Joker. -via Metafilter
My proposed monopoly house rules:
— Harmony Ginger (@Gingerblast) November 21, 2025
Pot of Greed - If you have the most money at the start of your turn, you may draw 2 cards from a standard deck of playing cards. They are worth money equal to their value x 10 or may be used in combat (see combat rules below)
En passant capture… https://t.co/89wD5gu2sD
Tabletop gamer Harmony Ginger suggests some custom rules for Monopoly to spice up gameplay.
I especially like the idea of Free Parking Random Encounter, although it would necessitate each player have a complete character sheet.
Perhaps players could also, instead of taking turns, roll for imitative each round to determine who goes first.
What house rules do you use for Monopoly?
Back in 1981, when you first saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, you loved the movie because it was an adventure for the viewer. It had alluring characters, great action scenes, and just the right amount of humor. And the bad guys got their comeuppance. But the fact that you left Raiders feeling good about it involves much more than those things.
Every scene was both beautiful and believable, and they hold up 44 years later. That's largely due to the work of cinematographer Douglas Slocombe. Director Steven Spielberg had his own vision for what Raiders could be, but he was open to Slocombe's vision, and found it to be better overall. His attention to detail required some workarounds to stay on budget, in the quest to "make a 20 million dollar movie look like a 40 million dollar movie." This video looks deep into how they did that. The other secrets were the editing by Michael Kahn that kept the story moving as a breakneck pace, the amazing special effects, and of course, the actors. But you already knew about those.
Who doesn't love Thanksgiving leftovers? You have the taste of the formal feast, on your own schedule, in the amount you want, eaten in front of the TV without all those annoying relatives around. Usually, the gravy is the first thing you run out of. Now you can buy leftover gravy to stretch out those leftover sandwiches! Heinz is offering a limited run of their Heinz Homestyle Turkey Gravy in a squeeze bottle for appropriate portion control and placement, appropriately called Leftover Gravy. It was inspired by a sandwich called the Moist Maker from the TV show Friends.
Don't look for this product on grocery store shelves. Leftover Gravy is only available through Walmart online, and it comes with a recipe that mimics the Moist Maker, although with a different name. The first run sold out within hours, but they made more, and you have to keep trying to see if supplies have been replenished. Otherwise, you'll just have to use a jar, or learn to make gravy.
We're familiar with what they say about orange cats: they're large, very food-motivated, and all of them share one brain cell between them. Trekkie lives up to the reputation in the food department. In fact, he's an outlier there, because he will eat almost anything, and he wants it now. If it can be identified as food, he's going for it, and you just try to stop him. Trekkie will even steal food from a hot stove!
His family has had to take extraordinary measures to protect the family's food supplies. When Trekkie gets too rowdy in the kitchen, they put him in the bathroom with the door shut. So he learned how to open the door. Besides doors, he's learned to open packages, jars, devices, and it's all for the goal of getting to the food. That takes more than the allotted number of brain cells. Trekkie is a smart orange cat- he just goes overboard in the other stereotype.
In 1961, Yogi Bear was spun off from Huckleberry Hound and got his own cartoon show. Yogi lived in the fictional Jellystone Park and craved pic-a-nic baskets. He seemed pretty harmless.
Also in 1961, at the very real Yellowstone National Park, people flocked to see grizzly bears in their natural habitat. Some would approach grizzlies, or even try to touch one out of a car window. Grizzlies were getting used to humans, and flocked to campgrounds to steal food. Even worse, the park had pits to dump garbage into, which drew grizzlies, and in turn drew tourists who wanted to take pictures. The most popular bear that year was Sylvia, a 225-pound mother with three cubs. She would allow visitors to get within 25 feet to take pictures. In addition to Yogi, Sylvia was a reason people thought they could get close to a grizzly.
Meanwhile, brothers John and Frank Craighead were at Yellowstone studying whether humans and grizzlies could co-exist in the park. From their 12 years of research, we get the story of Sylvia, the tamest grizzly at Yellowstone, and what happened to her. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: National Park Service)
You pour a cup of coffee at the coffeemaker, then you carry it to wherever you are going to drink it. You are liable to get some drops on your clothing or on the floor. I don't have that problem because my coffeemaker's carafe is also a vacuum bottle and I take the whole pot to my desk. Scientists, on the other hand, often must share a coffeemaker, so they have spent a lot of time studying the physics of coffee, coffee cups in particular, to figure out why they are so prone to spillage. It's physics.
Madelyn Leembruggen of SciShow explains the research done on this problem, which has to do with resonant frequency. If this video has your eyes glazing over at the science, get another cup of coffee and stay with it, because she also tells how to keep your coffee in its cup. There's a 32-second skippable ad at 3:45. -via Metafilter
The skies over America are suffering the effects of inflation. Har har. Right now there are at least seven dirigibles dispatched over parts of the US. Some of them are actual blimps, which are non-rigid and are shaped by the air inside, and others are airships with internal frameworks. Those terms get confusing when you talk about the Goodyear Blimps, which used to be blimps but are now airships with frames, yet they still use the term blimps because everyone knows them like that.
Anyway, three of the currently flying airships are Goodyear Blimps as they travel to various events. Two more are advertising blimps, and two are from LTA Research. One of those is a blimp, and the other is an experimental rigid airship that's 406.5 feet long, making it the biggest modern aircraft in the world. Read about these airships, and where you might spot them, at The Autopian.
(Image credit: Mercedes Streeter/LTA Research)
We all know that there is a big difference between adopting a dog and adopting a cat. Everyone who has a cat will tell you its story, which often is just "He showed up one day and never left." This is commonly called the Cat Distribution System. A thorough investigation by Cat Lovers Forum has uncovered how the system works, and it will blow your mind. Since the discoveries were all under the cover of darkness, the results of the investigation are explained in this weirdly animated video. The covert operations may remind you of an international spy operation, or at least Men in Black. This is the only way the Cat Distribution System could possibly be as successful as it is.
Once you understand how it works, those cat stories all make sense. And now we know why dogs dig in the yard. While the main headquarters has yet to be identified, those in the know suggest looking in Istanbul. -via Geeks Are Sexy
In a post last week, we learned that were 6,000 shipwrecks on the Great lakes, and that was just in one century. The first documented shipwreck was in 1679 when the Griffon went down. But the lakes have revealed dugout canoes that go back as far as 5,000 years. How do we know this? The Wisconsin Historical Society’s Maritime Preservation and Archaeology program has been identifying, studying, and mapping the remains of ships found in the Great Lakes. This work is carried out by people like underwater archaeologist Tamara Thomsen.
Shipwrecks are better preserved in the lakes than they would be in an ocean, due to the fresh cold water. New technology like GPS and personal aircraft make finding the wrecks easier. So Thomsen no longer looks for shipwrecks, but she dives down to those that have been reported to study and document them. The ship remains, and any artifacts, are left in place to become memorials. Some are added to the National Register of Historical Places. It's a really cool job for someone who's passionate about diving. Read what that job involves at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Tamara Thomsen)
Design Boom reports that engineers at Northwestern University have developed a haptic feedback device that allows users to interact with digital environments with high resolution. The VoxeLite functions like a bandage that wraps around a finger. The very thin sheet is covered with tiny nodes where the fingertip is. Each node has its own electrode that adheres it to a surface when voltage is applied.
The VoxeLite replicates human touch for digital screens without blocking the natural sensation of physical contact. The researchers hope that future versions will allow for use with tactile maps or provide for haptic feedback in games.
Photo: Northwestern University
John Williams is perhaps the most widely known orchestral composer due to his long career of music authoring for films, including Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Saving Private Ryan.
One associates Williams with grand, dramatic spectacles that use a whole orchestra to emotionally enrapture audiences, not...calypso.
But that's what he made when Sherwood Schwartz's 1964-1967 sitcom Gilligan's Island. Williams introduced the characters and premise for the pilot episode. Schwartz disliked it and instead went with the more familiar version by George Wyle.
Wyle's version written in the standard "ballad metre", which is why it's possible to sing it to the tune of "Amazing Grace" and "The House of the Rising Sun."
Friendsgiving is the custom of having a Thanksgiving feast among friends instead of family. It has become pretty popular in the 21st century because of a few trends in modern society. Young adults live far away from family because of their jobs, and often can't get enough time off to travel home (or can't afford to). They are postponing starting their own families. And sometimes they just can't go home because their family is toxic. But they still want to indulge in the traditional harvest feast, so a circle of friends make it happen. It sure beats watching TV and eating ramen all alone on Thanksgiving.
In fact, Friendsgiving is so popular that even people who celebrate with their family often have a separate feast for friends on another day. The idea isn't new, but it has exploded in recent years due to social media. Vox has the story of how Friendsgiving became what it is today. -via Laughing Squid
The title of the article is Why Do Diners Across America All Use the Same Mugs? I instantly knew the answer- it's because they don't break. Well, they might if you threw them hard against a concrete wall, but in everyday use, they are super sturdy. I use one every day because it's tough, well-insulated, and most importantly, it fits in my car's cup holder, unlike all other coffee cups.
But the story is really about how this particular coffee cup came to be, and it's more interesting than just someone getting a good idea. Their first manufacturer was Victor Insulators of Victor, New York, who made porcelain insulators for high voltage electrical transmission. Their founder had developed a special method of producing porcelain that was dense enough to produce the high resistivity needed and withstand plenty of current. Victor Insulators did not set out to make coffee cups as a side gig, but they jumped at the opportunity when it was presented. Read the story of the common ceramic diner mug at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Quercus acuta)
Lady Chatterley's Lover is a famous or infamous erotic novel by D.H. Lawrence. He published it privately in 1928. It was banned in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and other nations as obscene. It was scandalous for not only its sexual content (or so I've been told; I've never read it), but because it upended class norms by depicting an affair between an upper-class woman and the lower-class gamekeeper who worked at her estate.
In 1959, the US Supreme Court ruled that the law banning the novel violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. That same year, Field & Stream, an American magazine about hunting and fishing, reviewed Lady Chatterley's Lover. It is, after all, a novel about gamekeeping. Ed Zern wrote the brief review:
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this fictional account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savor these sidelights on the management of a Midlands shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion this book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping.
Ed Zern, a humorist, is being facetious: there is no such book as Miller's Practical Gamekeeping. But it would make sense that much of Lawrence's novel contains scenes that are extraneous to the needs of hunters.
