Among this week's picks: the authentic Grog recipe, the bird that absorbs almost all sunlight, paradoxes and Mars' ice columns. Also Hulk vs Superman, animated shorts, viral videos and some image galleries that are hilarious or at least interesting.
Tizón, the mastiff that plays dead in front of passersby to get them to pet him: "'Tizón', a black mastiff dog dedicated to herding, has become famous these days on social networks after a Twitter user told his story: he fakes being dead when passersby approach in La Barranca (Navacerrada) so that they will pet him and give him food. The author of the account is Manuel Delgado, who tells on his Twitter how last Sunday, while walking through Navacerrada, he saw a couple standing on the roadside next to a dog that was motionless."
The authentic Grog recipe, its origin and history: "Although probably the first mention of Grog that most of us have had is through the magnificent graphic adventure \"The Secret of Monkey Island\", being the quintessential drink of the game's pirates, in reality Grog has a long history, with its origin in the 18th century, with the British admiral Edward Vernon as its inventor and to whom the authentic Grog recipe can be attributed."
The bird that absorbs 99.95% of the light: "If you are a fan of documentaries, you will perfectly remember David Attenborough shouting in amazement at the bird of paradise that spreads its feathers and takes on an alien appearance. This bird, whose mating ritual consists of folding its wings inward and showing the striking colors amid the black plumage, belongs to one of the seven species that live in Papua New Guinea and whose feathers are capable of absorbing up to 99.95 percent of incident light."
Learn to read and write with William S. Burroughs' advice: "After such antecedents, what not even his biographers can explain is what led Burroughs to accept, five years later, teaching creative writing and reading classes at Naropa University. Perhaps it was because the contract did not oblige him to do administrative tasks or keep a too strict schedule. Perhaps it was simply that the writer had started using heroin again after a few years away from that drug. Be that as it may, those talks are excellent material for better understanding Burroughs' work and thought. In them, the author of Junkie displays vast knowledge of magic, drugs, violence, aliens, Scientology, nuclear holocausts, and, of course, literature."
Paradoxes that keep mathematicians and philosophers up at night: "Paradox comes from the Latin and Greek words meaning 'contrary to common opinion' and is, according to the Dictionary of the Royal Academy... There are various types, but what they usually have in common is that they make us stop and think, even if only for a moment, like 'to go fast, nothing better than going slow'. But others have accompanied us for years, sometimes centuries, and have occasionally driven important advances in science, philosophy, and mathematics."
The water we were looking for: Mars' soil hides ice columns up to 170 meters: "Thanks to the MRO, geologist Colin Dundas has led a group of researchers to discover that there are enormous underground deposits of frozen water, which in areas such as the Arcadia or Europa plains reach 170 meters thick, beginning just one meter below the surface of Mars. This ice, as they revealed in an article in the latest issue of 'Science', has been exposed by surface erosion and is not seasonal frost (therefore dry ice) but frozen water beneath the Martian surface."
'Unabomber': your way of writing can give you away: "FBI linguist Don Foster assures that \"scientific analysis of a text can reveal data as clear as fingerprints or DNA\". However, Juan Santana, a forensic linguistics expert at the University of Granada, comments that forensic linguists are \"cautious\" when talking about a \"linguistic fingerprint\" equivalent to a fingerprint or DNA. \"In linguistic expert reports, rather than identifying a specific individual, the aim is to create a 'profile' of the type of person, delimiting their age, sex, place of origin, etc. This limits the number of suspects or rules out certain individuals.\""
I have had a record store for 30 years - I survived Napster, iTunes and plan to do it against Spotify: "Or brought to the technological history of music, they enjoyed the golden age of the CD, suffered the arrival of the first iPod, suffered even more with the Internet, P2P networks and later streaming, and now breathe a sigh of relief thanks to the resurgence of vinyl and everything points to cassettes as well. Anyway, keeping a small business open for three decades is unusual, not only for record stores. How have they managed it?"
Scientists discover a cannibal spider shaped like a pelican: "The strange spider was first discovered in 1854. But not alive, but preserved in a piece of amber 50 million years old, so the scientists of the time thought it was extinct. Then in 1881, naturalists found live pelican spiders in Madagascar, and they became known for their peculiar morphology."
Ten technology myths we have believed wholeheartedly: "We have all heard them at some point. They range from common practices to extend our mobile phone battery life or get better coverage to some false beliefs about technological products that have surely, on more than one occasion, influenced your purchasing decisions. The list of myths surrounding computers, mobile phones and other technological devices is endless. That is why we reveal the most widespread ones and, most importantly, we tell you why you should not believe them. So you will have plenty of arguments to rebut whoever next time tells you that Macs don't have viruses or that a simple magnet can destroy all the information on your hard drive."
The forgotten future of the stationary bicycle: "Many machines could be powered directly from a mechanical connection, although generally the device needs to be adapted to work independently of electricity. However, stationary pedal machines with direct mechanical energy transmission – common in the old days – are not commercially available today in the Western world. The only exception seems to be the Fender Blender, a pedal-powered machine used to make smoothies."
Orson Welles and Christopher Lee recorded with the heavy metal band Manowar: "In 1982 Manowar recorded their first studio album, Battle Hymns. A very appropriate title for the type of music they made and for their album covers, where, as I said, warriors and swords were common. During that recording, someone thought the track 'Dark Avenger' needed a charismatic enough voice as narrator. They proposed the already legendary Orson Welles to collaborate by reciting the text in the middle of the track, before the final guitar explosion. Welles, whom I always thought of as a serious and angry guy, and I don't know very well why I think he was like that, accepted."
Videos: Collection of cinematic relics, Rubik's cube made of ice, water that freezes when coming out of the tap, the view of a supernova, how to fleece a vending machine, father dog teaches his puppies to swim, the smartest autonomous car of the moment, wait for it..., the stupid Dragon Ball Z OVER 9000! joke, guanaco fight, a gaucho taming a horse, horses fleeing from snow, falls down the stairs, falls from his house entrance, skates on a frozen lake, Sonic dancing with his friends, how to dismantle a tuna, Star Wars music with a pencil, the battle of the boxes, the smallest cat species, Komodo dragon eating a whole monkey, a cruise ship in the middle of the sea during the "cyclone bomb", and the shorts "Wakan" (animated), "The Boy In The Bubble" (animated), The Defector (pure science fiction), Creature From The Lake (animated), and the first car chase in cinema.
Galleries: Soviet control rooms, photos of Russian punk from the 80s, the strangest collections, the habitat of internet trolls, polaroid photos of bars in Amsterdam, TV series in beautiful pixel art, the art of vomit bags, butterfly wing transplant, prison girls movies, when virals were distributed in photocopies, the forbidden photos of North Korea, the best drone photos, funny vintage girl photos, the history of punk in photos, and the brilliant Visual Dump of the Week.
This week on NeoTeo: The sequel to the 'Microsoft Bliss' wallpaper, Amazon's precarious elderly workers, everyone steals Google's bicycles, WPA3 is the new Wi-Fi security standard, Monero mining for beginners, soccer 3 vs 100, The New Sound of Music (1979), atomic quackery, the car of the future in 1956, and the human curiosities of P.T. Barnum's circus.
Thank you for reading, friend! If everything goes as planned, we'll be back with the links next weekend. Arrivederci!
