Category: Neat-o

For any of you in the rest of the world who may not know, we Americans use the fourth of July to celebrate our independence from the British Empire a few hundred years ago. Fortunately, we're now the best of friends, but the holiday remains a very popular one for us. In order to remember and relive those historic battles from the 1700's, we launch fireworks at nightfall and all become children once again, at least for a few special moments.

World War Two black and white photos that are researched and colorized in detail by Doug and other artists from the 'Colourisehistory Group.' These 50 breathtaking colorized photos look like they were taken yesterday.

In under two minutes you can learn how to neatly put away sheets. You can also double your space instantly when a fitted sheet is properly folded. This amazing technique is actually simpler than we think of it to be. Watch as you can learn how to fold the fitted sheet which has always been a mystery your whole life.

If this or any of the follow ten are your idea of the perfect car wash, you’re doing it wrong.

We picked out the five most interesting skills new recruits learn at Germany's version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).

This group photo from 1887 is reportedly the first photo ever found of Vincent Van Gogh after he became an artist. If experts are correct, then the man third from the left (and smoking a pipe) is the legendary artist himself.

Going to work every morning is bad enough, but it's even harder when you can't take your dog in with you.

Turbulence: spiller of coffee, jostler of luggage, filler of barf bags, rattler of nerves. But is it a crasher of planes? Judging by the reactions of many airline passengers, one would assume so; turbulence is far and away the number one concern of anxious passengers.

I recently listed Ludwig Wittgenstein as one of three essential philosopherswho can add surprising clarity and vital new perspective to frustrating debates about ethics, political ideology and the practical problems of our planet. What’s most essential about Wittgenstein is not the conclusions he has drawn about ethics and politics. It's the dynamic and truthful way of thinking that his method represents.

There's a million different knots for doing a million different things. But, these five are easy-to-learn, easy-to-tie and accomplish 99 percent of the jobs you'll ever need a rope to do. Anyone can make these, here's how.

It turns out there actually is an explanation as to why some ketchup is labeled "fancy," and it has to do with USDA classification.

Sure, Pluto doesn't have full-fledged planetary status anymore, but we're still excited to get some pictures from the edge of the Solar System. The New Horizons spacecraft is carrying a "Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera" that takes stills in blue, red, and near-infrared, then puts them together for a color picture.

Coffee beans are one of my favorite things in the entire world. They smell intoxicatingly perfect. And when ground up and steeped in hot (or cold) water, they somehow taste even better than they smell. Yet when the filter has cooled and the coffee has been imbibed, the coffee grounds are still useful. Yep, used coffee grounds can serve numerous different purposes; I utilize them after nearly every cup of coffee (and I drink a lot of coffee). So before you throw your grounds in the compost, trash, or garbage disposal, try using them for one of these tricks.

If you've ever gotten a fountain drink from a mall food court or at an amusement park, you probably recognize the design of two blue strokes wrapped around the cup—the wider strokes a lighter aqua blue, the skinnier ones a dark shade that borders on the side of purple.

DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS, areas north of the Arctic Circle enjoy an incredible amount of daylight, even at midnight. On June 21st, the day of the summer solstice, those who live in these northern regions experience 24 hours of sunlight. Why would anyone want to go to bed when they can enjoy such views?

Some of us are absolute neat freaks, cringing at the sight of unsightly bacteria or disorganized magazine stacks. Then there are the people who cover the rest of the spectrum: slightly OCD, remotely clean, absolute slob, and everything in between. This list is for all of them, but especially the inherent neat freaks. Here are 25 thorough cleaning tricks for the neat freak.

Roads, built to allow the empire to flow outward, and for the rewards of empire to come flooding back to the capital, were the key to the Romans' governance of Europe. Along these roads ran messengers, as a type of precursor to the American Pony Express—a relay of horsemen could carry a message 50 miles a day.

Arguably no other major franchise has inspired so many great artists over the years than Star Wars. From the saga’s original conceptual genius Ralph McQuarrie to the fan art that adorns the walls of Hero Complex, Gallery 1988 or Bottleneck Gallery, there are literally THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of artworks to filter through when compiling a list of the best Star Warsposter art ever.

Over the years here at the Art of Manliness we’ve sung the praises of the handwritten letterand simply writing things out by hand in general. Typically, when folks think about writing a handwritten note, they imagine doing it in cursive. Perhaps it’s because we’ve all seen movies set in times past where people open up handwritten letters to reveal a note filled with handsome script.

From discovering pulsars to correcting the optics of the fuzzy Hubble Space Telescope, here are 17 stories of women who made undeniably vital contributions to astronomy and physics.

Interesting info-nuggets about all that stuff you recently sent to the IRS.

It’s not easy being a conductor during practice, or so this humorous sketch would have us believe. A great way to get you or your friends to smile in under 3 minutes, this little number from BBC comedy showcase ‘Comedy Shuffle’ is quite witty and well executed.

Our aesthetic tastes are as unique as our DNA. Or are they? Sure, you may adore a Cézanne still-life while your friend absolutely hates it. But research has shown that many people share certain aesthetic preferences, such as landscape paintings and the color blue. Human biology may help explain why.

Let us discuss the very nature of the cosmos. What you may find in this discussion is not what you expect.

A giant ring around Saturn is even larger than thought, spanning an area of space nearly 7,000 times larger than Saturn itself, researchers say.

It’s pretty much inevitable if you live in a temperate climate that there will be flies buzzing around your house. Some try fly strips as a way to get rid of them, others do bug sprays, but there’s an alternative method that works like a charm every time: pennies in water in a ziplock bag.

Here is what to do if you are on a commercial flight where a) both of your pilots become incapacitated and b) you are the one who decides to step up to the plate and land the thing.

Watch Earth roll by through the perspective of ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst in this six-minute timelapse video from space. Combining 12 500 images taken by Alexander during his six-month Blue Dot mission on the International Space Station this Ultra High Definition video shows the best our beautiful planet has to offer.

It turns out the answer to a question that has puzzled "Star Wars" fans for decades was hidden in a Canadian library.

Fun facts about words and the English language.

World War II was one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Millions took part in the fighting, and sadly, millions died. Unsurprisingly, there are lots of amazing stories from the conflict, though some are more well known than others. New stories surface constantly, such as the recently uncovered encounter of Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler. Here are 10 stories that are less well known but no less amazing.

Is your language rhotic? How to find out, and whether you should care.

This is the biggest challenge that newcomers face: a movie set can look like summer camp. There are cliques, gossip, casual clothing, planned activities and snacks. Many kinds of snacks.

June 6th, 1944 marked the beginning of Operation Overlord. More commonly known as D-Day, the operation involved 156,000 American, British and Canadian landing on five different beaches along the Normandy coast. To this day, it is the largest amphibious assault ever launched.

Students using ‘standing desks’ pay more attention in class than those who are seated, a new study finds.

26 years ago today, the whole world watched as a lone Chinese hero stood in front of an advancing column of tanks, refusing to stand down in the face of authoritarianism.

A famous deep-space object imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope 20 years ago has been reborn in an amazing new photo.

As Jamie Raven's lemon trick on Britain's Got Talent is rumbled, the secrets behind magicians' greatest optical illusions revealed.

Below are some of my favorite #longreads that fall under the umbrella of “the lives of the poets.” Each is paired with a favorite poem by the poet in question. Quite a few of these stories are personal, not just about the poet, but about the authors of the pieces themselves. Which is unsurprising, especially because, as Billy Collins put it in a 2001 Globe and Mail piece: “You don’t read poetry to find out about the poet, you read poetry to find out about yourself.”

We don't know much about computer hacking here at Cracked, because that stuff involves numbers, but we've come across a whole bunch of different crazy brain and body hacks over the years. The following pages will help you change reality for yourself and others, stop pain by coughing, and even make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. Years of gathered wisdom are at your disposal. Read on.

The largest library in the world is home to more than 16 million books. But this isn't your average library — here are 13 things you didn't know you could find in one of America's most important cultural institutions.

The core concept behind Japan’s successful Muten Kurazushi Sushi Restaurants is something known as a food “bullet trains”—quick-moving conveyor belts that rocket your table’s choices right to your seat. This is, of course, after said selections were ordered via tableside touchscreen. In most restaurants, a separate conveyor belt moves among the tables offering pre-made selections up for the taking.

But how does Shazam really work? Shazam’s algorithm was revealed to world by its inventor Avery Li-Chung Wang in 2003. In this article we’ll go over the fundamentals of Shazam’s music recognition algorithm.

Here's the story of a lovely lady, a man named Brady who could've been played by Gene Hackman, six kids, a wacky housekeeper, and how a series that started as a typical formulaic sitcom grew into a syndicated monster. Here are 16 things you might not know about The Brady Bunch.

The Bugatti Veyron is no more. Whether you loved it as a technological marvel or hated it as a passionless robot with equally passionless drivers (and popular opinion seems to be the latter), you cannot deny it as one of the most advanced cars ever made. Here are eight things you didn’t know about the Bugatti Veyron.

Are you up to date with our constantly evolving language? You can find out by seeing how many of Merriam-Webster's new words you already know. Every year, M-W adds thousands of new entries to its site, adding examples, updating words, providing words with added definitions and adding words to the dictionary that were never there before.

The practice of pricing fuel with a fraction of a penny is thought to have started around the 1930s.  While we can’t be sure who was the first to price fuel this way, it seems to have become relatively commonplace across the United States all the sudden around the same time. So what happened?

The modern pencil was invented in 1795 by Nicholas-Jacques Conte, a scientist serving in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. The magic material that was so appropriate for the purpose was the form of pure carbon that we call graphite. It was first discovered in Europe, in Bavaria at the start of the fifteenth century; although the Aztecs had used it as a marker several hundred years earlier.

Here’s some thespians you never realised journeyed to that galaxy far, far away.

This is 天鉄刀 (Tentetsutou, The Sword Of Heaven), a traditional Japanese katana forged entirely from an iron-alloy meteorite. Obviously, it's the perfect weapon for a space ninja like myself. "You are not a space ninja." Then how am I writing this FROM THE MOON? "You aren't." I could be. "But you aren't." Man, I hate playing pretend with grownups.