Neatorama

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• Forgotten Bronze Age Village Discovered In The Depths Of A Swiss Lake
• This New AI Will Tell You Why No One Is Clicking Your Website
• What Is Happening in This Mysterious Video?
• Go Ahead and Try to Rob a Man Holding a Gas Pump
• The World’s “Greatest” Hacker
• How to Win at Tic Tac Toe
• Tom the Terror, the Brooklyn-Born Ship Cat
• The Best Pizza in Every State
• A Taxidermy Zebra Playing a Sousaphone and Other Wonders by Andre Robolobavich
• Watch the World's Largest Aircraft Land
• Istanbul’s Cast Iron Church
• Did You Know That Animal Crossing Implies The Existence Of Guillotines?
• How I Ate My Way Through 14 Days in a Korean Quarantine Facility
• <i>Star Wars</i> Droid Stamps Coming May Fourth

Forgotten Bronze Age Village Discovered In The Depths Of A Swiss Lake Posted: 02 May 2021 11:15 PM PDT In the depths of lake Lucerne in Switzerland, archeologists have discovered a sunken Bronze Age village. The underwater archeologists happened upon the village by accident. Divers from the Office for Urban Development of the City of Zurich were assisting with the installation of a pipeline when they found numerous wooden piles buried underneath a layer of mud. The discovery can rewrite Lucerne's history, as it suggests that the region was settled much earlier than what was believed. Check All That's Interesting's piece on the discovery here.  Image via All That's Interesting

This New AI Will Tell You Why No One Is Clicking Your Website Posted: 02 May 2021 11:14 PM PDT Project Catchy Content is a new AI from Adobe that can analyze online content and tell its users if people engage with their content or not. In addition, the project can also tell its users why their website or content is gaining traction or not. According to Adobe's latest Sneak (or a tease of a new tool to come), the AI promises to analyze online uploads and suggest everything from better colors to tweaked copywriting, in order to get the best possible response, as Fast Company details:  As Steve Hammond, a VP of Adobe Experience Cloud who leads the Sneaks program, explains, the work stems from years of Adobe's AI research. The company has already developed some powerful AI-based tools for creatives, such as Content-Aware Fill, which uses AI to analyze a scene and fill in plausible objects such as grass or water over a blemish that you'd like to cover up. "That ability gives Photoshop an understanding between pixels, colors, and patterns," says Hammond. But he explains that Catchy Content pushes Adobe's image prowess farther, from editing to a deep evaluation. The AI classifies photos with all sorts of keywords (such as "swimming woman"), deconstructs their color palettes, and analyzes the accompanying text. It can then cross-reference all of this information against what people engage with—highly specific, demographic data—to develop a scorecard for your content. The system is one giant AI analyzer that correlates what's on your page to what people read, click, or buy. [...] There are no two ways about it: This is a cold and calculating way to view creative work. But it's also an analytic tool that reaches a lot deeper than existing options such as Google Analytics or Parse.ly, which can often track how well a piece of content on the internet is doing but can offer very little in terms of actionable advice to improve it. image via Fast Company

What Is Happening in This Mysterious Video? Posted: 02 May 2021 11:14 PM PDT These women in Nepal appear to be running over a wavy surface. Is it liquified soil? It is vegetation on the surface of water? Snopes has not reached a conclusion, but proposes a few possibilities, including a "lawn blister" or bubble of water just below the topsoil. In the meantime, I agree with Just-Call-Me-Sepp:

Go Ahead and Try to Rob a Man Holding a Gas Pump Posted: 02 May 2021 11:14 PM PDT Notable..!!!!👏👏 falto el fósforo no mas... pic.twitter.com/fxGj07cDRQ — osvaldo vega patriota 🇨🇱 (@Osvaldo04110700) April 29, 2021 A gang of robbers in Chile had the perfect plan. They had trained and prepared for the moment when they would leap out of a van and rob someone at a gas station temporarily distracted by a common task: pumping gas. Alas, they experienced a major failure in the victim selection process. Or, perhaps, they had simply chosen the wrong venue for this type of robbery. You see, a person holding an active gasoline pump is armed. This reminds me of an old, golden line: . . . better a pointed stick and a furious anger than a death ray and the soul of a rabbit. -via Boing Boing

The World’s “Greatest” Hacker Posted: 02 May 2021 11:14 PM PDT There are hackers, and then there are Hollywood hackers. Guess which kind Alasdair Beckett-King (previously) is portraying. -via Geeks Are Sexy

How to Win at Tic Tac Toe Posted: 02 May 2021 11:14 PM PDT Tic-tac-toe is a quick but rarely interesting game that usually ends in a draw, unless you are playing someone who is new to the game. That's why it's usually considered a children's game. If you want to memorize the best tic-tac-toe moves, you get that in less than two minutes here. The rest of the video is the theory behind mathematical games. -via Digg

Tom the Terror, the Brooklyn-Born Ship Cat Posted: 02 May 2021 11:13 PM PDT Tom was born in 1896, and spent his first two years catching rats and mice in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was a scrappy cat, fighting other cats and generally doing whatever he pleased. Then he decided to join the navy. He wandered aboard the USS Terror and decided that's where he wanted to live. Tom was immediately adopted by the crew of the Terror, and full enlistment papers were drawn up giving him the rank of rat killer and mascot. The papers were properly filed, and Tom's life at sea as a member of the United States Navy began. Following Tom's service during the Spanish-American War, where he worked alongside other navy cats such as Tom of the USS Maine, the USS Terror returned to northern waters. Tom and the rest of the crew joined the receiving ship Franklin. From the Franklin, Tom was transferred to the USS Monongahala, which at this time was a ship-rigged sail training ship for the United States Naval Academy. Life on board the ship was made as pleasant as possible for Tom, but as they say, you can take the cat out of Brooklyn, but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the cat. While Tom discharged his pest control duties well, he did not like taking orders, and eventually became a deserter. Read how he got away from his commanding officer and evaded a search to join another ship at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company

The Best Pizza in Every State Posted: 02 May 2021 11:12 PM PDT As you sojourn through the fifty states of the union, where shall you stop for pizza? Pizza styles are a personal preference. There are some that I find generally unpalatable, but David Landsel of Food & Wine has done his best to accommodate different tastes in his catalog of the best pizza in each state. Pictured above is a lobster-topped pizza from Via 313, which Landsel says is the best in Texas. Here, he has made a common geographic error. Via 313 isn't in Texas--it's in Austin. -via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Via 313

A Taxidermy Zebra Playing a Sousaphone and Other Wonders by Andre Robolobavich Posted: 02 May 2021 11:11 PM PDT It's over seven feet tall, so it would stand out in your office or living room, even if it wasn't a life-size zebra silently playing one of the largest instruments in a brass band. Andre Robolobavich (I gather that he also goes by the name Rob Hudson--it's a bit confusing) is a British taxidermist of great skill and imagination. Much of his work is for sale at Chiswick Auctions. They often share a common theme: animals making music. These once-living sculptures are wonderfully unsettling. -via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Chiswick Options

Watch the World's Largest Aircraft Land Posted: 02 May 2021 06:39 PM PDT With a wingspan of 385 feet, the Roc (named for the legendary gigantic birds) can carry up to 275 tons of cargo. Specifically, it's supposed to carry rockets high into the air, then launch those rockets into orbit. On Thursday, Stratolaunch, the company which produced the Roc, completed its second test flight. Space.com reports: Roc reached a maximum altitude of 14,000 feet (4,267 m) and a top speed of 199 mph (320 kph) during Thursday's test flight, which Stratolaunch deemed a success. [...] Stratolaunch is developing its own family of hypersonic vehicles, including a reusable 28-foot-long (8.5 m) craft called Talon-A, which will be the first to fly with Roc. But that won't happen for a while yet; Roc needs to make a number of additional solo flights first, company representatives said today.  If all goes according to plan, the first drop tests with Roc and a Talon-A test article will occur early next year. An expendable version of Talon-A will reach hypersonic speeds later in 2022, and the first flight with the reusable Talon-A variant will follow in 2023, said Stratolaunch chief technology officer Daniel Millman. -via Nag on the Lake

Istanbul’s Cast Iron Church Posted: 02 May 2021 03:17 PM PDT Why would anyone build a church out of cast iron? Believe it or not, in this case, it was because cast iron is not as heavy as the amount of stone needed to create the large building. And a large ornate building was exactly what the Bulgarian Orthodox Church needed to establish a footprint in Istanbul.   Although it looks like stone, the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church with its richly ornamented façade on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey, is made of iron. It was cast in Vienna, floated down the Danube and across the Black Sea on barges, and bolted together here in Istanbul in 1871. It is possibly the largest prefabricated cast iron structure in the world. The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church is grand inside as well as outside. And while it may be the largest cast iron church, it's not the only one. See more of the Istanbul church and other cast iron churches at Amusing Planet. (Image credit: Michael Kam Barngrover)

Did You Know That Animal Crossing Implies The Existence Of Guillotines? Posted: 02 May 2021 01:51 PM PDT Too bad they don't have the actual item in the game. Then again, it is a game marketed for children. In the latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons update, dataminers have found an item that has some heavy implications. The item is the  Phrygian Cap, a seasonal hat that will be released in the game to celebrate Bastille Day on the 14th of July. So what does this cap imply? NintendoLife's Kate Gray has the details:  Time for a wee history lesson: the Phrygian Cap, also known as the Liberty Cap, was one of the primary icons of the French Revolution, symbolising the plight of the poor in revolutionary France, and their subsequent uprising against the nobility. You'll probably have heard of that bit, because it's the bit where a bunch of royals and other wealthy nobles got their heads lopped off by guillotines. You see, the Phrygian Cap (or an early version of it, at least) used to be worn by Romans and Greeks who had been freed from the bondage of slavery, and therefore represented all those things that the French Revolutionaries were about: liberty, equality, and fraternity. Also, cool hats. Bastille Day — the event that the cap celebrates in Animal Crossing — is a huge event in France, and its origins lie in the storming of the Bastille in 1789. Displeased by their treatment by the nobility, the people of Paris broke into the Bastille, a prison-fortress that was often used for political prisoners, and grabbed a bunch of ammunition with which to fight back. Basically, the storming of the Bastille was one of the final blows to the status quo of France's monarchy, and so the day is celebrated as a symbol of the Republic. Image via NintendoLife

How I Ate My Way Through 14 Days in a Korean Quarantine Facility Posted: 02 May 2021 01:47 PM PDT Travelers and travel writers have either been sidelined or else have had some extraordinary adventures during the pandemic this past year. James Park went to South Korea to visit his parents in December, and was obliged to spend 14 days in quarantine before he could join his family. He was not allowed to leave his room at the facility, and meals were delivered and left outside the door. Early in the pandemic, the Korean government-issued comfort-food packages for quarantining individuals got global attention, full of delicious instant noodles, canned tuna, ready-to-eat soups, rice, and more. It was an appetizing alternative to the meals other quarantine individuals had — like those poor NYU kids who basically got sad salad and warm orange juice. Rather than stay at an Airbnb or a government-assigned hotel, I'd chosen to quarantine at a resort owned by POSCO, the company my dad works for. It had temporarily been transformed into a quarantine facility — equipped with a cafeteria at which I can't eat — for employees and their families. The food rules are simple: It comes three times a day in bento box form, called dosirak in South Korea, and is left on top of the chair outside my room. Staff will call when the food is ready, and I can open the door to pick it up — the only time I'm allowed to open the door during the quarantine. His quarters were Spartan, but he had internet communication and a nice ocean view. Park was fortunate to have a steady supply of meals from the resort, supplemented by deliveries from his parents and from local restaurants, so his diary of that period focuses mostly on the food he ate during his two-week stay. It is guaranteed to make you hungry.

<i>Star Wars</i> Droid Stamps Coming May Fourth Posted: 02 May 2021 01:47 PM PDT The United States Postal Service is celebrating Star Wars Day by releasing a new set of Star Wars postage stamps. The forever stamps are in celebration of STEM education and will feature the droids of the Star Wars universe: Featured in a pane of 20 stamps, and arranged in staggered, horizontal rows, the stamps vary in size and depict 10 of the more well-known droids in the "Star Wars" universe — IG-11, R2-D2, K-2SO, D-O, L3-37, BB-8, a 2-1B surgical droid, a GNK (or Gonk) power droid, C-3P0 and C1-10P, otherwise known as Chopper. The First Day of Issue Ceremony will be held online on Tuesday at 11AM Eastern time. And May the fourth be with you. -via Boing Boing

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