Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 270
June 2, 2019
June 1, 2019
May 31, 2019
Baby Born The Size Of An Apple
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
This Week
[May 26-June 1st, 2019] The tiniest baby on record, a malware-infested laptop, a 97-year-old prom queen, and the rest of the week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Smallest Baby
Born after just 23 weeks and three days of gestation, micro-preemie Baby Saybie was born weighing about the same as an apple. Now, after being discharged from Sharp Mary Birch Hospital, she weighs a healthy 5.6 pounds. The University of Iowa keeps a Tiniest Baby Registry and notes that she is the smallest baby on record, weighing a full 7 grams less than a baby born in Germany in 2015.
Via Sharp Mary Birch Hospital
GPS to Rom(e)
A veteran of road trips from his home in northern England to Rome, Italy, 81-year-old Luigi Ramanti thought his latest trip would be as simple as putting it in his car’s GPS and setting off. After completing his journey in record time, however, he was disappointed that he couldn’t find the Colosseum or Trevi Fountain. Instead, he found a German village of fewer than 70 people. He had arrived in Rom, Germany.
Persistence Of Chaos
An object that frightens even the staunchest of IT security experts has just sold for $1.345 million at auction. Loaded with the most dangerous malware of the past few years, this laptop is infected with viruses like WannaCry and MyDoom—malicious software that holds user files for ransom. Thankfully, the new owner won’t even be able to check his email on the computer, as any means of communicating with other systems has been disabled.
97-Year-Old Prom Queen
Helen Danis missed her chance to go to prom. When the now 97-year-old woman was in high school, the Great Depression was in full swing, meaning her parents couldn’t afford a dress or tickets. Now, almost 80 years later, her granddaughter decided to make the near-centenarian’s wish come true. The two attended prom at a high school in Warwick, Rhode Island. Helen wore a lavender gown, danced the night away, and was even named honorary prom queen.
TSA BBQ Ban
Memphis is probably best known for its barbecue, but to TSA agents at the city’s airport, barbecue is somewhat notorious. In the wake of the World Champion Barbecue Cooking Contest, security agents have had to issue a special warning to travelers asking them to refrain from putting bottles of barbecue sauce in their carry-on.
Source: Baby Born The Size Of An Apple
May 30, 2019
Is Shuffle Random? Why You Wouldn’t Want It To Be
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Is Shuffle Random?
Whether you use Apple Music or Spotify’s streaming service, or still prefer to listen to a playlist of mp3s on your iTunes account, you’re likely familiar with the shuffle option. Many people enjoy using shuffle to sift through their music, getting random songs to play at different times (random being the key word here). But in truth, what we think of as a random shuffling of songs isn’t actually what we’re getting.
Press Shuffle Again
First of all, many consumers have complained about the issue that occurs with iTunes—and now with streaming services—where the songs they listen to on shuffle play in the same order every time. This can be frustrating for those who chose the shuffle option to get a new order of songs each time they listen to their playlist.
Fortunately, there is a way to fix this. Whether you’re listening to music on Spotify or somewhere else, hit that shuffle button, turning the feature off. Now, hit it again, turning it back on. Your playlist should start to play in a different order. When you turn on shuffle the first time, the songs will keep playing in the same order, over and over, unless you choose to reshuffle them. This is because shuffle puts your songs in a specific order that won’t change unless you tell it to. You’re welcome.
Musical Conspiracy?
However, those who look deeper into the random shuffle issue often feel they can see patterns in their playlists, even when they’re supposed to be hearing songs played at random. Some individuals may notice the same artists coming up again and again, while others will observe songs that sound similar being played back-to-back. Still, others believe in a conspiracy that Spotify has made deals with certain artists to ensure their songs play more often.
Spotify has denied any of these allegations, and actually, there is a much more likely explanation for why we see these conspiracies. Humans are always looking for patterns and designs in order to make better sense of the world. The truth is you should chalk these instances up to coincidence. For example, a certain song could be played every time you put your playlist on shuffle, simply because it has as good a chance as any other song of being played.
True random will exhibit clumps, whereas people often expect random to mean perfectly equal distribution.
Is Your Playlist Shuffled Randomly?
The funniest thing is that your playlist actually isn’t completely random, especially if you’re using Spotify, and the reason for it is that people didn’t think random was random enough. According to Mattias Petter Johansson, a former engineer at Spotify, the company used to have a perfectly random algorithm for their shuffle feature, but after getting flooded with complaints of non-random outcomes (all of which were due to coincidence), the company chose to create a new algorithm that felt more random to humans.
Therefore, it’s true that your shuffle isn’t really playing your songs at random. But, apparently, you wouldn’t really like it if it were.
By Julia Tilford, contributor for Ripleys.com
May 29, 2019
Sneak Preview Of The Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
For over 100 years, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! has been the home for the strange, the bizarre and the unusual—all incredibly hard to believe, but undeniably true. Have you ever wondered what to do if you reeled in the Loch Ness Monster or captured Bigfoot? And just how did conjoined twins Chang and Eng father 21 children? Or how in the world do Japanese game shows get away with some of the insane stunts they do?
Find the answers to everything you never knew you needed to know on Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast, featuring interviews with oddthorities from around the world by your hosts, Ryan Clark and Brent Donaldson. New episodes release each Tuesday. Episode one airs June 11th, with Ryan and Brent diving into the weird world of unproven mythological creatures—cryptids—and the real laws that protect them! Until then, have a sneak peek at what the show is like:
Listen on your favorite app!
Meet the Hosts
Brent Donaldson is a career magazine journalist whose features have covered true crime, cage fighting, the arts, politics, higher education, and the tech industry. Brent lives with his wife and two sons in Cincinnati, Ohio—scarring them daily with stories from Ripleys.com. Believe It or Not! Brent was the last journalist ever to interview Evel Knievel!
Ryan Clark has hunted for ghosts in Civil War mansions, made bets at the Kentucky Derby with Gilbert Gottfried, chased hurricanes in Mississippi, and has driven a good portion of Route 66 to get to the International UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico. The point? He loves finding—and telling—unbelievable stories. Now, Ryan’s doing it for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! A journalist by trade, he has published books and articles on a variety of topics and currently teaches at Xavier University. Ryan’s always looking for the next adventure, but when the party’s over, he’s ready to come home to his wife, two children, and two cats.
Episode 1
The first episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast dives into the world of cryptids—mythological creatures that are believed to exist by some, but have not been recognized by the scientific community. Whether you believe in them or not, there are laws in place right now to protect cryptids—Believe It or Not! In this episode, our hosts go coast to coast to bring you interviews with two people who are advocating for laws protecting unrecognized species. We first go into the depths of the Florida Everglades, home of Dave Shealy—a man who has dedicated his life to bringing awareness to the existence of the elusive Skunk Ape. Then, we travel across the country to Skamania County, Washington, where biodiversity and seclusion make the ideal home for Bigfoot and commissioners, like our friend Bob Hamlin, have created a law to protect these poor creatures from being hunted.
One Man’s Mission To Clothe Nude Animals For Decency’s Sake
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
No More Naked Animals
America in the 1950s was rapt with concern for morality and decency. As the greatest generation returned home to a baby boom, the family became inextricably tied to social identity—an identity that would become challenged in the 60s as boomers grew up. It was during this time—when the family we had fought for was under apparent attack—that one organization stepped forward to fight for common decency.
The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals vowed to clothe animals everywhere.
S.I.N.A.
S.I.N.A.’s goal was to clothe any animal over four inches tall or six inches long. They argued that children were at stake. How could children understand why mom and dad wore pants, but not the dog?
They declared the Jersey Turnpike a moral disaster, claiming that a truck had collided with a tree after seeing two cows mating by the road. As they gained national attention, zoos were called peepshows for kids, and their motto, “Indecency today means morality tomorrow,” took over the news cycle.
They claimed to have over 50,000 members and were bringing in 400 more each week. People were putting together floats stocked with clothed animals to show what a proper barnyard look like in parades. A plane even air-dropped clothes onto cow pastures for farmers to dress their animals.
Clifford Prout
The organization’s president was G. Clifford Prout Jr., a man who claimed horse-dressing ancestry. He appeared on numerous tv shows, including NBC’s Today Show, excoriating animal nudity. He brought animal clothing on the air to demonstrate a solution to this dire threat, modeling Bermuda shorts for horses, slips for cows, and pants for kangaroos.
“A nude horse is a rude horse.”—G. Clifford Prout Jr.
Members were asked to play active roles in their communities and issue “SINA Summonses” to neighbors seen trotting their pets about in shameful nudity. Members even picketed outside the White House, urging Jackie Kennedy to clothe her horses.
Appearance on CBS
By the time Prout appeared on CBS news being interviewed by Walter Cronkite, SINA had been in the spotlight for six years, but their reputation would soon turn to infamy.
Workers at CBS soon realized that Prout’s name was a fake, he looked suspiciously like comedian Buck Henry, who was working for CBS at the time. Henry soon stepped forward and revealed the whole thing was a hoax. Started by renowned hoaxer Alan Abel, Henry had agreed to act as the organization’s president and was in on the scheme from the beginning.
Abel had actually gotten the idea from seeing two cow’s mating off the highway, but the people who had joined up were real. Henry nor Abel cared about animal nudity, but they showed that lots of other people apparently did. Abel even had to turn down a $40,000 donation organization, stating that he never wanted to cheat anybody.
Source: One Man’s Mission To Clothe Nude Animals For Decency’s Sake
May 28, 2019
A Batak Shaman’s Bone Almanac
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In the fecund jungles of West Sumatra, in the island nation of Indonesia, Batak shamans known as datu looked to the sky on the last moonless night in May. They watched as the belt of Orion slipped below the horizon and the constellation Scorpio rose in the east. This marked the first day of a new month and the first month of the New Year.
Calendar keeping was of the utmost importance to the datu. It was their job to advise farmers when to plant and to determine the correct days to perform rituals—and to avoid the inauspicious days. While much of this can be tied to religion, much of the work a Sumatran shaman performed was integral to feeding the people of their island.
The 12 columns represent the months, and the 30 rows represent the days.
In the heyday of shamanic power in Indonesia, much of their cultural events were layered in rituals controlled by mystics traveling from village to village. These shamans had a number of tools they used to divine the best courses of action for their people. By consulting Batak spellbooks known as pustaha, they used intricate bone calendars to calculate the best day for a ritual two months ahead of time. The bone calendar, known as a porhalaan, got its name from the Sanskrit word for scorpion—a nod to the constellation kicking off their New Year.
The calendar was typically engraved onto buffalo bones for durability. Carvings of serpents, lizards, and scorpions were often accompanied by other decorations, and instructions or reference notes.
The datu followed a lunar calendar influenced heavily by Hindu tradition. The landmark days of a month correspond with Moon phases, and the days themselves were named for the Sun, Moon, and succeeding planets. Because their calendar held fast to 30-day months and relied on the Moon, some porhalaan have an extra thirteenth month in order to reconcile leap years or to make calculating a date that falls into the following year simpler for the shaman.
Source: A Batak Shaman’s Bone Almanac
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