#via Wikipedia

Edison may not have been the first to record the human voice

On December 7, 1877, Thomas Edison walked into the offices of Scientific American and placed a metal device on a desk. With a turn of a crank, Edison astonished the dozen or so staffers who had gather…

When The Going Gets Weird·2d ago·6 min read

He ran an $11M fraud scheme from prison and just escaped

A Georgia man convicted of leading an $11 million fraud scheme while in custody through contraband phones is now on the run after officials say he escaped from a federal prison camp. The United States…

When The Going Gets Weird·4d ago·6 min read

via CBS via Daily Galaxy via Boing Boing through my Patreon

A teenager fixed a 35-year-old problem with oxygen sensors

A Kitchener, Ont., teen has won the best project award for innovation at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. Eigenpulse: Eliminating Demographic Bias in Pulse Oximetry and Remote PPG from First Principles w…

When The Going Gets Weird·5d ago·6 min read

via the CBC via the New York Times via Wikipedia through my Patreon

Italian photographer made a pinhole camera out of pasta

Berlin-based Italian photographer Paride Ambrogi recently combined two of his loves, photography and pasta, in a brilliant, possibly tasty way. Ambrogi made the Ravihole Camera, a working pinhole came…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 29·6 min read

via PetaPixel via Wikipedia via Hamdan Coffee through my Patreon

The rise and fall of the world's only female yakuza gangster

In almost 40 years, Mako Nishimura never lost a fight. She told me this as if it were as obvious as night following day. Nishimura is 5ft-nothing and slight of build. She is also probably the only wom…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 27·6 min read

via The Guardian via The Atlantic via Open Culture through my Patreon

Seven-foot-four basketball player trained as a Shaolin monk

Master Yan'an has trained at the Shaolin Temple in China since he was 6 years old. He has climbed the roughly 1,500 stone steps up Wuru Peak to the Bodhidharma Cave thousands of times. None of the ste…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 22·6 min read

via ESPN via the FT via Boing Boing through my Patreon

Man uses legal loophole to declare himself a Swiss king

A Swiss man named Jonas Lauwiner has drawn attention after declaring himself the “king of Switzerland” and assembling a patchwork of land parcels without paying for them. His unusual rise is not based…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 15·6 min read

via the Times of India via Scientific American via Woman's World through my Patreon

She saved the NASA moon mission multiple times

It’s July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are about to land on the moon. They will be the first humans to set foot on Earth’s only natural satellite. Suddenly, the onboard computer flashes: “…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 14·6 min read

via Scientific American via Victory Journal via Kottke through my Patreon

A heroic quest to find the best free restaurant bread in the US

Here is the promise you and I must cling to across the thousands of words that follow: At some point within this text, I will reveal to you what—after 555 responses, 13,000 miles of travel, and months…

When The Going Gets Weird·May 5·1 min read

via The Atlantic via Wikipedia via The Smithsonian through my Patreon

The voices told her she had a brain tumor and they were right

As the woman was reading, she heard an unfamiliar voice say, "Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think…

When The Going Gets Weird·Apr 29·1 min read

via Live Science via Ultimate Classic Rock via Gizmodo through my Patreon

Bobby Brown fried chicken in cocaine when he was 10

Brown says he was unaware his mother sold cocaine to support the family and while away, he decided to fry chicken, a meal his mother taught him to cook. He grabbed a bag of what he believed was flour …

When The Going Gets Weird·Apr 13·1 min read

via Vibe via the BBC via Science History through my Patreon

Two hikers found a can with $300,000 in gold coins inside

A field in an overgrown Czech Republic forest has, for nearly 100 years, served as the hiding place for a secret stash of nearly 600 gold coins and other precious metal goods tucked into a stone wall.…

When The Going Gets Weird·Apr 7·1 min read

His obsession with jewelled eggs destroyed his family

When I was growing up, my mother used to refer to the egg as “your father’s ego”, while to the rest of the world it was known as the Argyle Library Egg by Kutchinsky. I felt a mix of pride and bafflem…

When The Going Gets Weird·Mar 26·1 min read

via The Guardian via Far Out magazine via Wikipedia through my Patreon

A flood of beer sounds great but one in London in 1814 was not

The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the pre…

When The Going Gets Weird·Mar 25·1 min read

via Historic UK via Atlas Obscura via Wikipedia through my Patreon