Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 150

Dog Islands

These far-flung locales are going to the dogs…that is if they haven’t already.

Snoopy Island

Nishinoshima lies off Japan’s Pacific coastline and is best known for its active volcano, which last erupted in November. The ensuing lava flow created an entirely new island called Niijima. But the volcano wasn’t quite done. In the weeks that followed, it spewed out enough lava to connect the two islands as one. This strange event caused many a volcanologist to cry “good grief!” when they first saw aerial photos of the new, improved Nishinoshima: because the island now strongly resembles Snoopy. However, Japanese scientists aren’t ready to rename it “Snoopy Island” just yet. They say that the volcano is still active and that Nishinoshima’s current shape may only be temporary.

Lasqueti Island

This isle sits between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland in the Strait of Georgia. Lasqueti’s few hundred human residents enjoy living life off the grid and things there are low-key and relaxed…provided you stay away from Tikki Smith’s place. Smith breeds St. Bernards, and, at last count owns 42 of them. Smith’s dogs alone make for a sizable population that rivals Lasqueti’s humans. A video of the gigantic hounds happily romping through a nearby forest has drawn over a million views on YouTube and has practically made Smith a household name in western Canada. She told journalists that the dogs follow her everywhere she goes and treat her as their alpha female. Smith is also now considered one of the top breeders of Saint Bernards in the world.

Those Darn Demonyms

A demonym is a word used to describe the residents or natives of a place: New Yorkers, Oregonians, or Japanese, for example. Most demonyms are logical and straightforward, as in those examples. Here are some “irregular demonyms,” that, due to grammar, language, or local preference, are a little bit strange.

Mexico City. It’s slightly confusing that people from both the state of New York and New York City are both called New Yorkers. There is no demonym confusion for Mexico City. Residents are called Capitalinos—because Mexico City is the nation’s capital.

Sao Tomé and Principe. The tiny nation off the coast of Africa is made of primarily of two islands: Sao Tomé and Prîncipe. Residents are called Sao Tomean, regardless of which island they’re from.

Trinidad and Tobago. Unlike Sao Tomé and Prîncipe, residents refer to themselves as either Trinidadian or Tobagonian.

Lesotho. This country is surrounded completely by South Africa. People from this country are called Mosotho, as a group; individually, they are Bashotho.

Manchester and Oxford. People from these two major cities in England call themselves names derived from Latin—Mancunian and Oxonian, respectively.

Crete. People from the Greek island are…Cretans. (Not to be confused with cretins.)

Vatican City. There is no demonym for Vatican City. The tiny country is the headquarters of the Catholic Church, and 75 percent of the population are priests and other clergy, and citizenship is granted upon appointment. Since a nation full of priests doesn’t produce any new “natives,” there isn’t a real need for a demonym.

A few more odd demonyms:

• People from Monaco are Monagasque.

• Citizens of Ivory Coast (or Cote d’Ivoire) are Ivorian.

• Residents of Halifax, Nova Scotia are Haligonian.

• People from Barbados are Bajan.

• If you’re from Cyprus, then you’re a Cypriot.

Impossible Questions: NFL Postseason Edition (Answers)

Got your answers ready from last week’s Impossible Questions? Let’s see how you did.

 

Last weekend’s AFC title game marked the first time in history that what has happened?

On Sunday, the New England Patriots played the Denver Broncos for a spot in the Super Bowl. Both teams will be led by star quarterbacks who have hosted Saturday Night Live. The Patriots’ Tom Brady hosted SNL in April 2005, while Manning did his stint in March 2007. Only eight NFL players have ever guest-hosted NBC’s long-running sketch comedy show while they were still active players. In addition to Brady and Manning, they were: Deion Sanders, Fran Tarkenton, Eli Manning, Joe Montana, Walter Payton…and O.J. Simpson.

 

What dubious record is held by the Green Bay Packers?

They are the modern-day NFL’s leader in tie games played. Since a 1974 rule change created a more “sudden-death”-style overtime period, there have been only 19 tie games in those 40 seasons. The Packers have played in five of those games, two of which directly affected the team’s playoff hopes.

In 1978, the Packers and Minnesota Vikings played to a 10-10 tie. At the end of the season, both those teams topped the NFC Central division with a record of 8-7-1. By virtue of the Vikings beating the Packers earlier in the year, the Vikings got to go to the playoffs, and the Packers stayed home. And this season, once more a Vikings-Packers game resulted in a tie. This time, the tie allowed the Packers to claim a division title and reach the playoffs: their 8-7-1 record was just barely better than the second-place, 8-8 Chicago Bears.

 

The Seattle Seahawks are the only team to ever do what in the NFC West?

The Seahawks are the only team to win the NFC West with the best record in the league and to also win the division with a losing record. This season, the Seahawks finished 13-3, good for a #1 seed and a first-round bye. Two other teams from the division were good enough to earn playoff spots, too: the San Francisco 49ers (12-4) and the Arizona Cardinals (10-6). But just three years ago, in the 2010-11 season, the entire NFC West finished with losing records. But since somebody has to win the division and go to the playoffs, it was the best worst team, the 7-9 Seahawks. It’s the only time in NFL history that a team with a losing record won their division. Surprisingly, the team won its first playoff game (but no more), defeating the 11-5 New Orleans Saints 41 to 36.

 

Want more impossible questions? Check out Uncle John’s Impossible Questions.

Everyone Is Entitled To Their Opinion

The New York Film Critics Circle recently ousted member Armond White, a critic for the New York Press, an alternative weekly newspaper. Reason: at the guild’s awards ceremony, he heckled 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen, calling him an “embarrassing doorman and garbageman.” It’s just the latest, although loudest, moment in White’s career, which is dotted with inexplicably contrarian reviews. Here’s a look at the the times White hated movies everyone else loved, and loved movies everyone else hated.

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 is one of the best-reviewed films ever. It’s one of only a handful of animated movies ever nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. On the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the movie enjoyed an amazing 100% rating with reviews in from more than 130 critics. And then it dropped to 99% because of a single negative critical review, from, Armond White. In his savaging of the Pixar movie he wrote that the movie “stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination and strictly celebrates consumerism.” He went on to call it “fitfully amusing, more than can be said for Wall-E or Up,” referencing two other critically acclaimed Pixar animated films.

Inception

Here’s another universally hailed, 2010 nominee for Best Picture that White just didn’t like. The mind-bending sci-fi drama earned writer/director Christopher Nolan Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and brought in $292 million. White wasn’t impressed, saying that Nolan, who also directed the recent Batman trilogy, “doesn’t have a born filmmaker’s natural gift for detail, composition, and movement, but he’s definitely a born con artist. Who else could make Hollywood’s most elaborate video game movie and slap on a puzzling, unappealing title?”

Clash of the Titans

This campy adaptation of ancient Greek myths is best known for spawning the catchphrase, “release the Kraken!” It received a 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, but White loved it. In his review, he said that director Louis Letterier “shows a better sense of meaningful narrative than the mess that Peter Jackson made of the interminable, incoherent Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

Jonah Hex

Jonah Hex was both critically reviled and avoided by audiences. It earned a lowly 12 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, two nomination for the Razzies (the “award” for the worst movies of the year), and grossed $10 million against its $47 million budget. Based on a relatively obscure comic book, Jonah Hex was a mixture of science fiction and Westerns, set during the Reconstruction, and starred Josh Brolin and Megan Fox. White, however, thought it was high art, saying that it “reexamines assumptions of good and evil-morality tales vs. trite entertainment by confronting the hideous compromises people make with social conventions and their own desperation.” Jonah Hex was, to White, “beautiful and brilliant.”

Same Product, Different Name

What some popular American products are called overseas…and why.

• In many countries, Diet Coke is sold under the name Coca-Cola Light. It’s essentially the same product, although the calorie-free sweetening agent varies. Diet Coke in the U.S. contains NutraSweet or Splenda. In other countries, cyclamates may be used, which is an artificial sweetener banned in the U.S. in 1969 due to its link to cancer in lab rats.

• Starburst debuted in the U.K. first. Mars launched the square, fruit-flavored candy there under the name Opal Fruits (submitted by a contest winner, who won 5 pounds for his trouble). The candy came to the U.S. in 1967, but with the name Starburst. In 2008, Mars changed the name of Opal Fruits—which is what they’re called virtually everywhere outside of North America—to Starburst worldwide.

• In the early 1970s, Burger King sought to expand in Australia…except that a small fast-food restaurant in Adelaide, Australia, was already using the name “Burger King,” and had trademarked the name. Executives at Burger King’s then corporate parent Pillsbury came up with a list for the company’s new Australian division to pick from, and they selected Hungry Jack’s, a variation on the name of a Pillsbury pancake mix.

• The American discount store chain T.J. Maxx operates stores in England, Ireland, Germany, and Poland. In those countries, however, it’s known as T.K. Maxx. Reason for the incredibly small name change: The company wanted to avoid confusion with a rival discount chain called T.J. Hughes.

• This one is quite confusing. The Mars Bar you buy in the U.S. consists of nougat and almonds covered in chocolate, which, from 2002 to 2010 was known as Snickers Almond. But if you were to purchase a Mars Bar in the U.K., you’d get a bar consisting of nougat and caramel covered in chocolate—in other words, it’s identical to a Milky Way. Or, at least, the American version of a Milky Way. There’s also a candy bar sold in Europe called the Milky Way, which is entirely different and reminiscent of a 3 Musketeers. Got it?

Fact-or-Fake Friday: “Size Matters” Edition

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for your weekly faux-news news roundup. As usual, two of these bizarre news items are legitimately true. The other one we legitimately made up off the top of our heads. Answers are below; good luck!

A.

Australian scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation are gluing teeny-tiny sensors onto thousands of Tasmanian bees in order to better track their movements and hopefully gain insight into honeybee colony collapse. The scientists will first “soothe the bees to sleep” by putting them in a refrigerator. They will then shave the hairier bees and use tweezers to glue a 2.5-millimeter sensor, individually, to 5,000 bees on the island of Tasmania. The sensors will be tracked in much the same way cars are tracked when they pass a checkpoint on a toll road. The scientists are also working on an even smaller sensor to be attached to even smaller insects, including mosquitoes.

B.

According to a recent report by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, penis pumps are pulling way too much money from the U.S. Medicare program. Between 2006 and 2011 alone, the penis pumps, which are used to treat erectile dysfunction, cost the U.S. government $172 million—which is twice what the product would have cost if individuals had bought the pumps directly at the retail level. Ben Domenici of the Heartland Institute think tank criticized the findings in a statement, saying, “To those seniors who really do want one, just buy it yourself—you don’t need to send the bill to your fellow Americans.”

C.

Japanese researchers say they’re close to developing a 12-milligram micro-drone that could be used inside the human body, reducing the invasiveness of certain surgeries and medical procedures. The team, led by Dr. Keiichi Shirato of the Mechanical Engineering and Science department at the Kyoto University, published preliminary results of their efforts in the latest Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, which added that implications of the team’s work are “vast; potentially the first step in a sea change in how invasive medical procedures are performed around the world.”

 

Want more fakes? Check out Uncle John’s Fake Facts. (Really!)

And the Razzie Goes To…

The Academy Awards will be handed out to the year’s best films on March 2. Who cares? The night before, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation gives out the Razzies—as in they “razz” the year’s worst films and film performances.

• In the 1970s and early 1980s, Los Angeles publicist John Wilson hosted a potluck dinner for his friends every year on Oscar Night. At his 1981 party, after the Oscars were over, Wilson asked his friends to vote on the worst movie of the previous year—it had some standouts. Wilson was inspired to crown the worst movie after watching a double feature of two stinkers: the Village People musical Can’t Stop the Music, and the roller-disco-based, Olivia Newton-John musical Xanadu. The winner: Can’t Stop the Music. As Wilson was a publicist, he put out a press release to announce it. The news was picked up around Hollywood, and it soon became an annual tradition, except they’re now awarded in an L.A. theater, not Wilson’s living room.

• In 2009, Sandra Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side. The night before, she won the Razzie Award for Worst Actress in All About Steve.

• Bullock actually showed up at the Razzies ceremony to accept the award, joining only two other people who collected their trophy in-person: Halle Berry (for Catwoman) and Tom Green (Worst Actor for Freddy Got Fingered).

• In 1984, Amy Irving got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Yentl. Irving got a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress for the same role.

• The 1988 Academy Award winner for Best Picture: Rain Man, starring Tom Cruise. The 1988 Razzie winner for Worst Picture: Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise.

• Person with the most all-time Razzie nominations and wins: Sylvester Stallone. He’s received 31 nods, and won eight times.

• This year’s Worst Picture nominees are After Earth, A Madea Christmas, The Lone Ranger, Movie 43, and Grown Ups 2. Adam Sandler, who starred in Grown Ups 2, is up for Worst Actor—if he wins, it will be three in a row, following recognition for That’s My Boy and Jack and Jill,

• Sandler’s Jack and Jill is in fact, the most Razzied movie in the awards’ 34-year history. Jack and Jill won every single award in 2012, 10 in all. It took tome Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Sandler), Worst Actress (Sandler again, playing his other character’s twin sister), Worst Supporting Actor (Al Pacino), Worst Supporting Actress (David Spade in drag), Worst Screen Ensemble, Worst Director, Worst Remake (the Razzies nominating board felt it was a rip-off of Ed Wood’s drag B-movie Glen or Glenda), Worst Screen Couple, and Worst Screenplay.

Impossible Questions: NFL Postseason Edition

Okay, you know the drill. See if you can answer these brain-benders about the NFL playoffs…and then come back tomorrow to see if you’re right.

 

This weekend’s AFC title game marks the first time in history that what has happened?

 

What dubious record is held by the Green Bay Packers?

 

The Seattle Seahawks are the only team to ever do what in the NFC West?

 

Want more impossible questions? Check out Uncle John’s Impossible Questions.

Real Life Lightsabers?

Yes, it’s really happening.

If you thought the lines were bad at your local Apple Store every time they roll out a new iPhone, just wait until they start selling lightsabers. Scientists recently declared that they have developed technology that could one day lead to the construction of the iconic weapon from the Stars Wars films.

In October, physicists at MIT and Harvard University revealed in Nature that they’ve found a way to bind photons together in order to create a new molecule possibly capable of forming an illuminated blade.

“What we have done is create a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other so strongly that they act as though they have mass, and bind together to form molecules,“ said Mikhail Lukin, a physics professor from Harvard.“The physics of what’s happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies,” he added.

During his team’s experiment, they managed to create this new form of matter by blasting a batch of photons into a cloud of rubidium atoms. The scientists discovered that the particles started sticking to one another while behaving in a manner similar to the neon blade found in a lightsaber.

But the most amazing part of all of this isn’t just the creation of a few form of matter, or that the team isn’t interested in using their discovery to cash in on the latest Star Wars movie, which is due in theaters next year. Lukin’s crew is far more interested in building a quantum supercomputer that can be powered by these molecules. According to the professor, photons are great at carrying quantum information. That isn’t to say that any wannabe Darth Mauls won’t break into his lab to steal this tech in order to build their very own double-bladed lightsaber.

California, There They Go!

Earlier this year, we told you about some communities around the country aiming to separate from their states to create brand new U.S. states. Add another candidate to the mix—this one’s in northern California.

In September 2013, citizens and officials in Siskiyou County, the northernmost county in California, met to discuss their dissatisfaction with, and alienation from, the state government in Sacramento. Siskiyou, along with a lot of northern California, is primarily rural, and the economy is driven by farming and logging. Much of the rest of California is highly populated, urban, and leans to the left politically. Feeling that they shouldn’t be government by a government that doesn’t have its needs at heart, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of a declaration to secede from California.

It’s a longshot, but Siskiyou is no longer alone in its endeavor. Neighboring Modoc County officials have joined the secession movement. Officials in nearby Tehama County put a referendum on the ballot, to be decided by voters in June 2014. Seven other counties have since formed secession committees: Del Norte, Humboldt, Shasta, Glenn, Butte, Sutter, and Yuba. If the new state is formed, it would have an area of about 26,052 square miles, making it the 41st largest state (just behind South Carolina), and be the 47th most populous (just behind South Dakota).

Forming a new state isn’t easy. It’s only successfully been done once in the past 160 years: when West Virginia split from Virginia in 1863. Seceding requires a majority vote in the state legislature, and then in the federal House of Representatives.

Nor is this the first time a secession movement has caught momentum in northern California. In 1859, there was a resolution to split the state in two at the Tehachpi Mountains, which are just north of Los Angeles. The idea died when the Civil War began. The movement was revived in 1941, and was set to be voted on by Congress the week Pearl Harbor was bombed and the U.S. entered World War II. Once again, the measure was overshadowed by war. In 1993, 27 counties voted in favor of a split proposed by assemblyman Stan Statham, but obviously it didn’t get anywhere.

The proposed name for the new state: Jefferson. In the 1941 campaign, counties from similarly minded southern Oregon (home of the B.R.I.) joined up with the northern California counties. Had that new state been created it would have been called Jefferson. The state flag: two Xs, representing a “double cross” by the state governments in Sacramento and Salem.