Category: Neat-o

How a young woman with the uncommon talent of applying poetic imagination to science envisioned the Symbolic Medea that would become the modern computer, sparking the birth of the digital age.

If you're looking for a mathematical way to impress your friends and beguile your enemies, here's a good place to start.

These color images reveal the interior of not just any old 1930s airship but the Hindenburg itself, looking as genteel and well-appointed as you might expect, with accommodations up to and including, somewhere below its hydrogen-filled balloon, a smoking room.

Apply these 5 research-backed ways to improve your memory, and you’ll be memorizing faster in no time.

In the mood for a little outer space photo session?  Hunker down with this intoxicating video of Saturn and its many moons from the Wall Street Journal that stitches together all 341,805 images taken by NASA’s Cassini probe during the period of Feb. 6, 2004 through Sept. 15, 2015.  All combined, this awesome dump of data encompasses three hours and 48 minutes of enlightening video footage.

Today’s post is mostly for fun, but there are some things that can be gained from exploring the vocalism of Disney animated princesses throughout the years (especially now that the company has such a huge presence on Broadway).  It is interesting to see how the singing in these films has changed to reflect shifting musical and cultural trends in our society.  So, without further ado, let’s meet our five princesses…

These two expressions for good luck are well-known throughout Italy, but clearly they don’t make any sense. Maybe they came into use because a simple “good luck” (buona fortuna) was too plain and boring.

Yes, mass-market brands emphasize customer service, but retailers of the world’s most prestigious marques practice refinements that mainstream dealerships can’t manage. High-end retailers anticipate your perceptions of the ultra-luxury car-buying experience, and they’re prepared to go extra lengths.

Here, we bring you 12 surprising facts about Elizabeth II…

Most Americans don't drink soda out of the glass bottles seen in Coke's ads anymore. But this week, the company is celebrating a century of the bottle that's been sold in more than 200 countries.

The Art of Memory: Why It’s Just About the Coolest Thing Ever, and Why You Should Learn It Today

For years, grandiose film speeches made by high-ranking actors have made their way from the silver screen to a special place in one’s heart to inspire people in some very real ways. In and out of context, these speeches have reached a legacy status that have cemented them as speeches that will be remember for years to come. Ranked, from kinda-greatest to greatest-greatest, let these 30 inspirational film speeches raise your fist in the air and cheer.

To celebrate 60 years of wireless TV remotes, let's look at vintage ads promoting the ultimate technology of convenience.

Lies come in all shapes and sizes. Some forms of dishonesty are major, such as marital infidelity or embezzling funds from work. Others, though, are of the “white lie” variety and include complimenting a friend on her dress even though you think it makes her look like an Oscar statuette.

Designer Ben Barrett-Forrest has created a delightful and informative stop motion animation about the history of fonts and typography.

As patriots recount tales of military heroism during the Revolutionary War, I thought it apropos to remind LibertyChat readers of two episodes when the “Founding Fathers” displayed remarkable moral courage. The episodes involve John Adams and Thomas Paine, both of whom were willing to do what was right, even though they must have known the mobs—who would otherwise have adored them—would turn on them. In Adams’ case, his risky move turned out to pay off in narrow terms, while in Paine’s, it almost cost him his life.

IN MY TRAVELS, I’ve come across dozens of people from all corners of the earth and walks of life who left home, never looked back, and now couldn’t imagine their lives any other way. Some had advanced degrees and six-figure salaries, others meant to backpack for a few months and simply never stopped. What they all have in common is a shared belief in the power of travel, similar experiences of the doubt faced at first, and an unequivocal faith in the story they’ve since begun to live out.

It's easy to believe in the supernatural when you're lying awake in bed at 3 a.m. after many episodes of the show Supernatural. However, many people stick to the "ghosts are totally real" mindset even once the sun has come back up, despite researchers' ongoing attempts to ruin every single seemingly supernatural mystery with easy explanations. After all, everyone has seen something they can't explain.

Bond never overpacked, always made his connections in time and blended into local culture wherever he was. He's a perfect travel role model for any modern voyager. Well, minus all the killing, constant boozing and womanizing.

If you still haven't enjoyed a lobster this season, there's no time like the present because it's National Lobster Day! TODAY has got you covered with the ultimate lobster roll recipe from Luke's Lobster, but first check out these 10 surprising fun facts about the crustacean.

From Gladiator to Braveheart, most historical fiction about fighting with swords is kinda wrong, influenced more by performance art than how people actually fought each other with blades. Back to the Source, a documentary about Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), is looking to show people how it was actually done.

Here are some things you might not have known about the award-winning—and much-beloved—1960s-set coming-of-age tale.

The McLaren F1 Owner's Manual is just as rare as the car itself, except that you won't even find it at car shows. So here's a peek inside this special book with the man who drew it.

We live in an age in which ideas, important ideas, are worn like articles of fashion.

How much it costs to have a brush with fame.

Has the endless distraction of modern life destroyed our ability to sit with the symphonies of Beethoven and Bach?

Eye charts are designed to test visual acuity, or clarity of vision. Each chart design has limitations and advantages, depending on the clinical setting, patient profile, and diagnostic objective. To understand the differences between the charts, it is helpful to know a little historical background of standardised visual acuity testing.

The Epic of Gilgamesh just got more epic. A recent find of a stone tablet dating back to the neo-Babylonian period (2000-1500 BCE) has added 20 new lines to the ancient Mesopotamian poem.

On Star Trek, we hear a lot of "stardates," meant to mark some futuristic date. An example is stardate 47457.1, which is Captain Picard's birthday. The weird thing is that stardate 47457.1 is either the equivalent June 16th, November 4th, January 8th, or January 10th, depending on how you count. Let's go deep-nerd on this.

What do the Pyramids of Giza and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa have in common with Twitter and Pepsi?

Patricia Fletcher is a New York-based voice-over and dialect coach explains how to speak with a proper British accent.

D’Angour goes on to describe in detail how scholars like himself use “patterns of long and short syllables” in the surviving verse to determine musical rhythm, and new revelations about ancient Greek vocal notation and tuning to reconstruct ancient melody.

In the fall of 1969 the Rolling Stones were in a Los Angeles recording studio, putting the final touches on their album Let it Bleed. It was a tumultuous time for the Stones.

The poster for The Force Awakens dropped earlier today, and it looks fantastic. Star Wars has always had fantastic posters over the years, and we’re going to see tons more in the future. Here’s a look at the posters that have been advertising the movies since 1976.

A reader sent me six phrases and asked how I would hyphenate them:

Literature has given us many – well, many given names. Popular first names have been created specially for novels or plays, and have become established as names for thousands if not millions of people born ever since. Here are ten Christian names which we owe to literature, either because they were invented or popularised by writers. Writers from Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde have been responsible for creating new first names, and although not all of them are hugely popular (there aren’t as many Dorians in the world, for instance, as there are Richards), they have nevertheless had an afterlife beyond the literary character who was the first to bear them.

The three questionnaires below come from Ashley Montagu's 1958 book, The Cultured Man. Montagu—a well-respected anthropologist and former student of Franz Boas, who was influential in his profession's midcentury rejection of the idea of innate racial hierarchy—wrote many popular books, of which The Cultured Man is one.

Most processed foods contain a long list of additives — but have you ever wondered what they would really look like if you broke down a food into its component ingredients? How blue is Blue No 1? What form does pure riboflavin take?

Are you hearing a nasty screech when you press the brake pedal in your car? Does it sound like rock monsters are playing the world's loudest frame of bowling every time you need to slow down? Well, it may be time to change your brakes. Here's how.

Beethoven’s missives to this “immortal beloved,” which include the only known love letter of his to use the informal German du for “you” rather than the formal Sie, were found among his personal effects; they were never mailed — a beautiful and tragic testament to the fact that their affair, like all affairs, was both bedeviled and vitalized by the awareness that the two lovers could never fully have each other.

How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading in 1/3 or 1/5 the time?

With 18 gears, what you really need is a lot of time.

I bet every geek out there is pretty excited about this, and whenever I get to see the Millennium Falcon flying, I tend to smile. Kurt Miller, an American artist, comes up with astonishing illustrations showing air and space battles between Tie Fighters and X-Wings.

The few remaining Polish Air Force (PAF) pilots are the subject of Solarski's long-term project. The PAF's history, generally lost in a wash of tragic World War II stories, is important not to sweep under the rug, Solarski says.

A neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, but has no electrical charge and a very small mass, which might even be zero.

Looking for a nice little burst of nostalgia on this fine Saturday evening? Don’t feel like going through the process of installing MAME and lurking for ROMs, but still want to get your classic arcade on?

British Airways has provided a behind-the-scenes look at the assembly of its new state-of-the-art plane – ending the mystery for passengers who have always wanted to know how an aircraft is built.

Learning a new language is no easy task. Thankfully, there are an endless number of resources and technologies to help you quickly and effectively learn a different language. And while that's really awesome, it also presents a new challenge. Which platform works best for you?

The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973. It was an immediate success; it topped the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart for one week and remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.