Well, to be fair, we’ve driven on salted roads and sometimes the best we ever got was the need for a car wash afterward. So we believed it when we heard cities use other methods. We just wouldn’t have immediately come up with pickle or beet juice as the alternative.
As it turns out, pickle brine, the wastewater from beet processing, and even beer wastewater are all effective in combating icy roads.
And that’s a good thing because we do know that too much salt is problematic in lots of ways, to us and to the surrounding land. In 2014, a U.S. Geological Survey found that 84% of U.S. streams in the northern part of the country had toxic levels of chloride. And road salt is sodium chloride. These levels peaked during the months when road salt is used. A lot of this salt also ends up in our lakes as it leeches through the land. These are big consequences that we’ll have to deal with soon, somehow. Just think about how well water is going to be affected.
According to Big Think, here’s how road salt works:
1. Salt attracts ice and snow molecules. 2. The salt break the bonds that hold together the ice and snow molecules. 3. This melts the snow, creating a brine consisting of salt and water. 4. The brine spreads, repeating the process as it moves over the road.
Beet wastewater can have the same effect. It contains sugar to lower the temperature of ice. However, the communities that have used it tend to dislike the smell – something it smells like soy sauce or stale coffee. Now, if it smelled like FRESH coffee, we’d be in business!
Pickle juice has some similar smell issues, but all of these alternatives (cheese brine is another) are less corrosive to cars as well.
Want to read more about the alternatives? Check out the source below – it’s pretty interesting to see how we may all use something different based on what’s available to us in our region. – WTF fun facts
Not only did a hamster named Mr. Goxx have more success at trading crypto than most people, but he also had 18,000 Twitter followers at the time of his death in November of 2021.
Owned by two friends in Germany, Mr. Goxx used his cage to make “predictions” about cryptocurrency.
“The business-minded rodent has a trading office attached to his regular cage. Every day, when he enters the office, a livestream starts on Twitch, andhis Twitter accountlets followers know: Mr Goxx has started a trading session.
By running in his “intention wheel”, he selects which cryptocurrency he’d like to trade, as the wheel spins through the different options. His office floor has two tunnels nearby: one for buy, one for sell.
Every time he runs through a tunnel, the electronics wired to his office complete a trade according to Mr Goxx’s desires.”
His handlers would stream him live on Twitch, where thousands would watch him make his moves.
Considering he only began his career on June 12, 2021, he was pretty successful. Though with the current crypto downturn, we’re not sure how his former portfolio is looking these days.
But he taught us what his owners set out to teach, which is that a hamster making random choices still makes better choices than most cryptocurrency investors. –WTF fun facts
The painting by Joseph Ducreux that you may have seen in memes is a legit 18th-century painting titled Self-Portrait in the Guise of a Mocker. It happens to be a self-portrait and a rather unique style. At the time, paintings took enormous time to make, so goofy “selfies” might have seemed a waste.
However, Ducreux was keenly interested in the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the attempt to assess a person’s character from their facial features and expressions. Hence the interesting poses he struck in his self-portraits.
But Joseph Ducreux was a skilled oil painter. A miniature of Marie Antoinette he made in 1789 won him a baronetcy and the title of “First Painter to the Queen” of France.
Of course, his place in high society made him unpopular during the French Revolution, so he hid out in London for a bit. That’s where he created the last portrait of Kind Louis XVI before the royal was beheaded.
He returned to France after the revolution and continued his career as a painter, indulging in the self-portrait series at the time.
They may look silly, but to Ducreux, they served a scientific purpose. – WTF fun facts
We’re not sure whether to call Dorothy Fletcher lucky or not. After all, she suffered a heart attack in the middle of a transatlantic flight from Manchester to Florida on November 7, 2009. That’s unfortunate. But, on the other hand, there were 15 cardiologists on board when it happened.
When the stewardess asked if there were any doctors on board, the 15 experts volunteered their service.
Well, they didn’t just wait around to be called on, rather the story seems to claim they all ran to her side to try and help. Using an onboard medical kit, they were able to control the heart attack, save her life, and get a drip into her arm.
Later, she said:
“I couldn’t believe what happened. All these people came rushing down the aircraft towards me. The doctors were wonderful. They saved my life. My daughter was with me and you can imagine how she felt when all these doctors stood up. I wish I could thank them but I have no idea who they were, other than that they were going to a conference in Orlando.”
The plane had to be diverted to North Carolina so that the 67-year-old could get immediate hospital care
Mrs. Fletcher was treated in the intensive care unit at Charlotte Medical Centre and stayed for two days. She had been traveling to attend her daughter’s wedding. And she did make it to the nuptials on time the following week in Lake Berkeley, Kissimmee. – WTF fun facts
It sounds like a cliche, and some people use this fact that way, but it’s true. It would be impossible for any two sunsets to look exactly alike.
Between the tilt of the Earth and changes in the atmosphere, the conditions between us and the sun are slightly different each day and can result in major changes.
If you’ve seen some beautiful sunsets, you probably understand. Heck, even if you’ve seen two amazing, blazing, pink and blue sunsets, you’ve probably noticed that they’re still a bit different. Even the clouds are in different places.
But the biggest difference is the particles and molecules in the air. That’s what gives sunsets their color. After all, the sun doesn’t emit pink, orange, or blue light. It doesn’t even emit yellow light!
In space, the sun’s light is white.
The colors we see are the sun’s rays are just the light refracting off molecules and particles. And sometimes those particles are pollutants that we add to the air (not for sunset purposes, of course).
So if you share a sunset with someone, it’ll be special no matter what, because you’re never going to see the same thing again. While that makes us want to put down the phone and appreciate it, we’d probably be tempted to snap at least one moment real quick as well.
There have been some famous and controversial guest stars in the Home Alone movies, but this one takes the cake.
We know it came out a long time ago (1990, to be exact), but perhaps you’ve seen the original Home Alone movie recently. And if you have, you likely remember the scene when bad-guy Marv, played by Daniel Stern, gets caught up in Kevin McAllister’s (Macauley Caulkin) set of booby traps. In one particularly cringe-worthy scene, he ends up with a tarantula on his face.
Now, tarantulas are venomous, but that venom doesn’t do humans any real harm. The worst that can happen is that they bite you and it hurts. Still, most of us want to avoid that.
Normally, a life-like tarantula would be created by a props department for use in a movie. And Home Alone’s propmasters did, indeed, make a spider for the scene. It’s just not the one that ended up on David Stern’s face. That one was real. And his name was Barry.
“I’ve talked about the stunt guys doing crazy things, I’ve talked about my love of doing physical comedy, but one of the most surreal moments of the film was the scene with the tarantula crawling across my face. People who meet me are always curious if the tarantula was real, if my scream was real, and if I was scared, crazy or both. The answer to all three of those questions is “Yes.”
My memory might be off and I will happily stand corrected if anybody has better info but here is how I remember it:
When I first read the script and talked to Chris Columbus, I thought the tarantula in the scene was going to be a mechanical one and when I showed up on set, sure enough the incredible crew in the prop department had made a very life-like spider replica which could move a bit, as well as a version that didn’t move. I told them I thought I could help sell it, with my great acting abilities and all… They were polite but not convinced. To insure that the “gag” was going to work, they brought in a different crew member, this one from the animal wrangling department. He had a cage and in this cage was an exact replica of the replica that the prop department had made. But you could definitely see by the way it moved that this was no fake, but a creature of royalty in the natural world. I was a little intimidated for the first time in the movie. The wrangler introduced me to “Barry the Tarantula” (possibly mis-remembering his name, apologies). They had Barry crawl around on my hand and head. I asked if Barry was trained and was told they had been working with him for a few days but tarantulas are kind of tough to train. I asked if his poison had been removed, and was told that if the poison was removed, Barry would die. I said, “Right, but if the poison isn’t removed, then I’m gonna die. See where I’m going here?!” “Just don’t make any sudden, threatening moves and you’ll be fine.” “But I’m going to be screaming in Barry’s face. Do you think he’ll feel threatened by that?!” “Barry doesn’t have ears. He can’t hear. Relax. “
I think I made one last feeble attempt to honor the hard work of the prop department and use the replica, but once the director saw Barry in action, the Barry Action Figure was put on the sidelines. I remember Barry crawling around my face. I remember trying not to piss off Barry. Once I got used to him and what he was doing, he turned out to be a great scene partner. I think I felt comfortable enough to have let out that scream right at him in the scene, but there’s another legend that says I only mimed it and added in the scream later. (I would love for the powers-that-be at 20th Century Fox to release the original footage to see if I screamed or mimed, so we can settle this “controversy” once and for all – and the world can finally be at peace.) Either way, the scream came out pretty good and was an homage to the shower scene in “Psycho”. I then had to beat Joe Pesci with a crowbar. And we all know that even though it was pretend and funny and a fake crowbar, it’s a thousand times more dangerous pissing off Joe Pesci than pissing off a venomous spider that’s crawling on your face.
Here’s to Barry! The greatest tarantula I have ever acted with!”
Want to revisit the scene now that you know that’s a real spider? Here you go:
Back in 1979, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to prank their dean. We’re guessing they had seen Animal House with John Belushi a few too many times.
It was a relatively innocent prank concocted and executed by a group of students known as the Pail & Shovel Party, who already had a reputation for their campus antics involving $10,000 toga parties and buying toys for students waiting to register for classes. Then there was that time they stuck a Statue of Liberty replica in a lake, but we digress.
To welcome back students in 1979, they decided to go as tacky as possible and decorate a lawn near the dean’s residence with pink plastic flamingos. One thousand and eight of them, to be exact.
It wasn’t until years later, when a newspaper columnist named Doug Moe wanted to commemorate the incident, that the idea of having an official bird came about. He lobbied to make it happen, despite the plastic flamingo not being an actual animal. In his defense, he said the city already had 5 “official” songs, so the bar seemed pretty low for making things official in the city. The move would be just another way for Madison to show it had a sense of humor about itself.
The city council agreed. Councilwoman Marsha Rummel, who voted in favor of the motion to adopt the plastic flamingo as the city’s official bird, said: “If you don’t have a little fun, [life]’s not worth living.” Fourteen other council members agreed, and only 4 opposed the motion.
“Most states have an official state bird, but it’s less common for a city to declare an official bird. About 28 American cities have proclaimed a fowl of choice: Chicago’s is the peregrine falcon and Key West, Florida’s is the chicken—and then there’s Madison, Wisconsin.”
Until the late 19th century, presidents brought their own cows to the White House to provide milk. There was no dairy delivery in Washington DC at the time.
When President William Howard Taft’s cow Mooly Wooly died in 1909, it was replaced by Pauline Wayne, a 1500-pound Holstein-Friesian. She was a gift to the Taft family from the farm of Senator Isaac Stephenson of Wisconsin.
The 4-year-old black and white bovine was the last presidential cow, but by far the most famous. The media appears to have been obsessed with her. Her arrival was covered by The New York Times, and her exploits appeared in publications from The Evening Independent in St. Petersburg, Florida, to The Milwaukee Sentinel.
One particular bit of drama was covered far and wide. Pauline was visiting the International Dairymen’s Exposition in Milwaukee in 1911 (with her milk sold in souvenir bottles for 50 cents each). But on the trip home, she went missing.
We always figured it would be hard to lose a cow, especially the President’s cow. But it happened.
It turned out Pauline’s private car was accidentally hooked up to a train carrying cows to slaughter at the Chicago stockyards. Can you imagine the scandal?!
Luckily, after a series of frantic telegraphs from the dairy show, train attendants ended up locating Pauline’s car as newspapers reported how she “narrowly escaped death.” – WTF fun facts
It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, but it did happen in Japan on April 1st. In 2015, Burger King Japan released a limited edition cologne made so men could smell like meat. Because who wouldn’t love that?
It was called “Flame Grilled,” and it was specifically designed to smell just like the fast-food chain’s famous Whopper. It cost $41 and was sold for just one day.
You may recall the shenanigans of Burger King Japan from 2013 when, according to Forbes, “the chain offered a “BiKing” (pronounced like ‘Viking’) an all-you-can-eat Whopper promotion in which customers could eat as many Whoopers as they wanted for 30 minutes after placing their first order for the set. The same year they offered a “Black Ninja” burger, a Whopper patty with a piece of hash brown and a long slab of bacon that resembled a tongue, all sandwiched between two black buns.”
Forbes continued: “The most notable offering by the chain so far has been their Kuro (black) burgers, a culinary oddity that was sold for a limited time last year. The burgers were made with black buns, black cheese, and even a garlic sauce made black by actual powdered squid ink.”
But don’t blame Burger King Japan. The chain has some worldwide weirdness going on. We would have written off the whole fragrance thing as a quick joke, except it wasn’t Burger King’s first fragrance release. In 2008, the chain released “Flame” cologne, and it was available through Ricky’s in NYC. Apparently, it was supposed to be alluring to wear “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” We’re just not so sure that the second part fits. – WTF fun facts
