Killer chickens, fish farts, Nintendo in 1969, and food neophobia. Super interesting things to read, lots of viral videos to watch, and several galleries to admire. All that and much more, only in the Recommended Links of the Week. Don't miss it!
The Revenge of the Tyrannosaur: Why Chickens Are Neither Dumb Nor Tame: "Now let's talk about aggression. It's no secret among poultry farmers that chickens can be fierce. Flocks of free-range chickens have a clear hierarchy: the largest, strongest, and most aggressive bird rules the roost. This hierarchical order means dominant birds abuse their power by intimidating and pecking at their weaker counterparts to subdue them."
How Fish Farts Almost Caused a Diplomatic Accident but Founded the Most Liberal City in the World: "Flatulence has been the origin of not a few warlike conflicts. However, the one that almost caused a diplomatic accident between Sweden and Russia was the gas of a very specific type of fish: herring. This bland-tasting fish often communicates with farts (a finding that earned an IgNobel Prize in Biology in 2004), which caused that frying-like noise to be mistaken for a submarine crossing a delicate border area in the Baltic Sea during the years of the Iron Curtain."
Letter from Groucho Marx to Warner Brothers: "When the Marx Brothers were about to release the film 'A Night in Casablanca,' they received a legal threat from Warner Bros. over the use of 'Casablanca' in the title. This is the reply that Groucho sent. Currently the original letter is in the Library of Congress in Washington. It is worth clarifying that after this letter, and two others of similar tenor, Warner Bros. did not complain again and finally the film was called, as we know, 'A Night in CASABLANCA'"
The Automated Factory Where Casio Calculators and G-Shocks Are Made: "The factory now has 2653 employees, and we say this figure for a reason. And it is that the 'reason' behind the automated line is not technological (as some might think) but, as in the case of Swatch with its robotic line where they make watches without any human intervention, it is the cost of labor. In Thailand, salaries are improving, and so are the labor and workers' rights. This is better for everyone… for everyone, except for manufacturers, of course."
Nintendo's Chaotic Cube from 1969: "A decade before the original puzzle known as the Rubik's Cube became an international gaming phenomenon, Nintendo had already put a cube-shaped puzzle on the market that, without being too simple, seemed very fun and challenging. It was called, in that 1969 of the last century, 'Challenge Dice' (dice challenge), later known as 'Chaotic Cube' (chaotic cube), a much more fitting name for the American market, without a doubt. It cost 400 yen in Japan and $3.79 in the United States."
Why the EU Copyright Directive Is Bad Business for Everyone: "The enormous controversy of the Directive centers on two provisions. The first, Article 11, requires search engines and similar web pages to pay publishers for reproducing brief excerpts of their material. On this measure, critics point out that most of the revenue will go to a handful of well-established large publishing companies. And since tech giants like Google don't want to pay this fee, they are likely to show less information from sites that require payment."
Are We in a 'Galactic Zoo' Watched by Aliens?: "A group of scientists met at a METI conference —Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence, for its acronym in English— in Paris on March 18 to explain why we have not yet established any contact with possible extraterrestrial civilizations, writes Jamie Carter in his article for Forbes."
Can NASA Set Foot on the Moon in 2024?: "Let's be clear: at first, no. As of today, the US has no chance of putting a human on the lunar surface in five years. The reasons are several. The first is the enormous and shameful delay of the SLS/Orion program, the two elements on which NASA bases its lunar program. After almost a decade of development and twelve billion dollars spent, the giant SLS rocket has not stopped suffering delays and cost overruns. The first uncrewed mission (EM-1), officially planned for next year, will probably be postponed to 2021, while the first crewed mission, EM-2, will fly four astronauts around the Moon no earlier than 2023."
History of Philosophy, Main Philosophers: "The text is divided into five chapters: Philosophers of Antiquity (700 BC – 250 AD), Philosophers of the Middle Ages (250-1500), Philosophers of Reason (1500-1750), Philosophers of Revolution (1750-1900), and Philosophers of the 20th Century. In total, we (briefly) review the thought of 56 philosophers, from Thales of Miletus to Michel Foucault. In addition, we use a graph made by VENTURA (this graph G1042018) that you can open in another tab, because it will be very useful for our journey."
Why Do People Love Each Other? The Answers of Social Psychology: "Surely more than once we have wondered how to be liked by someone; what makes us attractive in the eyes of others. Social psychology is the discipline that arises from the study of people's thoughts and behaviors, as a result of their interaction with others; that is, it studies how we respond to what another individual does. Within this framework, we find the social interactions that occur in the development of a relationship between two people and the foundations that support the success or failure of that emotional bond."
Transparency for the Weak and Privacy for the Powerful: "Examples abound to show that closed code conceals the robotic surveillance of the population. And that it violates fundamental rights. 'Smart' TVs identify viewers. Connected to the Internet, they send data about the programs we watch, who we are, and what we do while watching. They can record us even when they are off. In 2015, Samsung admitted that its devices performed this function. And one of the largest TV manufacturers in the U.S. was fined in 2017 for spying on eleven million American households." Thanks, José Carlos!
Food Neophobia: 'Ugh! I'm not trying that': "That gesture of disgust a person makes before an unknown food has a name: food neophobia. It is not a phobia in the sense of fear (panic about carrots is not known); it is a phobia of invincible disgust. 'It's a rejection, a refusal to try and eat something, a denial to change one's diet,' explains María Jesús Periago Castón, professor of Nutrition and Bromatology. It wouldn't matter if it were a quirk like counting tiles. The catch is that neophobia can lead to a diet with fewer vitamins than that of a 15th-century sailor."
Videos: The End of the Universe, the oral sex demon, how to make Portal cake, when sand falls like a waterfall, YouTube fight, invisible man cosplay, pass the salt (Goldberg machine), The Acrobatic Fly (1910), transparent fish (Leptocephalus), "Who let the dogs out" by a doggy, making a rover for kids, almost crushed to death, a drifting cruise ship, live choreography, how to catch a cold according to Disney in 1960, pool and domino tricks, snails devouring food, oh, what an idiot!, fails on the farm, ornithology by Juan Fontanive, keep your eyes on the marble, Kalashnikov drone, record for wearing the most t-shirts at once, how to make a Yakut knife, robot working, Sekiro's shield, sand spider that buries itself, can you barricade a door with furniture?, the little dog that sells potatoes, the largest video game collection in the world, omelette with fried potatoes and the animated short Runaway.
Galleries: Users in front of their C64, the balancing art, wool sweaters from the 80s, sculptures that are hard to forget, chickens as supermodels, wool clothing from the 70s, incredible sculpture of a pirate ship, amazing cardboard sculptures, mini sculptures by Juliana Lepina, things cut in half, makes ugly tattoos and is a sensation, the world with giant animals, rooms of famous paintings in the real world, Animated Dump and the Visual Dump of the Week as a finishing touch.
https://old.neoteo.com/creepypasta-scp-469/
