New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel was once two hotels, the Waldorf and the Astoria. Both were considered the height of luxury in their day, with electric lights and a bathroom for every suite. The Waldorf Hotel opened in 1893, with the Astoria following in 1897. Before the hotels went up, those sites held two mansions belonging to heirs of John Jacob Astor, New York's first multimillionaire. On one side was Astor's great-grandson, William Waldorf Astor, and the other was his aunt Caroline Astor. The two mansions were separated by a garden. 

William moved to England, and had the Waldorf Hotel built in order to ruin the view for his aunt Caroline. Caroline's son, John Jacob "Jack" Astor IV, built the Astoria Hotel next door in revenge. It was many years later when these competing branches of the family made up and combined the two hotels into New York's premiere inn. But what caused the feud between William and Caroline? You'd be surprised at how petty it was, and you can read that story at Ephemeral New York. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Joseph Pennell) 

In this music video, musician Barry Bergen travels to Africa in the 1980s to glean the ancient wisdom of this magical land. Mr Jambo is an older man who must have the enlightenment Bergen is looking for, but he doesn't speak English. Indeed, the closed captions tell us that he is saying, "I don't speak English. Do you have a translator?" Meanwhile, Bergan mentions jambalaya and bears, as if they have anything to do with Africa. As silly as the premise is, the song is quite catchy. 

There is no Barry Bergen; he's a creation of comedian Kyle Gordon who has has made a career of parodying songs from genres you may not be consciously aware of, but you'll recognize when you hear them. The song "Mr. Jambo" is a parody of the "white guy goes to Africa" genre that you know mostly from Paul Simon's album Graceland, although it's been done by others. "Mr. Jambo" is from Gordon's third album Kyle Gordon Is Everywhere, to be released in October.  -via Boing Boing 

I San Diego this weekend? Whether you're a resident or just in town for SDCC, be sure to stop by the Paramount+ Lodge to live out your Star Trek dreams. Because who hasn't wanted to sip on a Vulcan sunset (sadly Romulan ale was unavailable) while enjoying music spun by an Andorean DJ?

You could even leave via transporter and head down to an alien planet. 

It's not too early to start preparing for the harsh winter weather coming. This all-terrain vehicle in Hudson, New Hampshire available on Facebook Marketplace is ideal. It's a 1996 Mitsubishi Bravo, which is normally a city vehicle designed for quality roads.

You may have noticed some modifications to the original design. It has tracks from a Polaris UTV instead of wheels to provide for traction on snow. Although it's on sale for $11,500, the owner is willing to trade it for an ATV and cash.

-via Jalopnik

Suka Sushi in New York City is pioneering a revolutionary new sushi delivery mechanism. It's a push pop! The chefs at this counter service sushi restaurant put high-grade sushi inside. To eat, just push from the bottom, like the classic frozen treat.

There's a lot of merit to this design. If you're on the go, sushi can be hard to eat. Just push the bottom of the cardboard tube to expose another segment of sushi.

Food & Wine magazine offers a positive review, although each tube is pricey at $15-17. Think of the extra cost as a convenience fee.

-via Massimo | Photo: natenibblez

Have you noticed the strange phenomena of ice cream that doesn't melt? When a child drops a scoop or a novelty in your yard, you get the kid another and let the ice cream melt. Then you can pick up the stick and hose the cream down. But in the 21st century, you are liable to come back hours later and find a blob of ice cream still sitting there. I noticed this when my freezer died and a box of ice cream sandwiches sat there warm and intact. 

Homemade ice cream contains milk, cream, sugar, and flavoring (and sometimes eggs and/or salt). The big conglomerates who sell store-bought ice cream have found ways to recreate that product with less of the expensive cream by adding gums and emulsifiers that enable them to whip in more air to produce volume. This includes premium brands like Breyers and Ben & Jerry's. These formulations often bring the product below legal standards for ice cream, but it doesn't matter if you grab a familiar package from the frozen food section. Look carefully, and you may find that it doesn't say "ice cream" anywhere on the package. Read how these frozen dairy desserts are made and how far they've strayed from "ice cream." -via Fark

The smallest countries of Oceania, spread across the Pacific, are widely-spaced paradises. They aren't rich, but some of them make a surprising amount of money by getting creative and looking to the future. Vanuatu makes a ton of money by selling citizenship. Tuvalu prospers by leasing its .tv internet domain. And Tonga was fortunate enough to be the retirement home of a satellite expert, who saw a fortune in the starry skies above his new homeland. There's money to be made in selling, or in this case renting, what you have plenty of. For Tonga, that was its isolation, which gave them a large swath of the empty space overhead. Half as Interesting explains how Tonga leveraged its location and international pacts about the use of space to make millions of dollars passively. What happened to the money is another story. This video is only around five minutes- the rest is advertising. 

I majored in history. Why? It was a bad idea and I should have focused on a degree program that leads directly into a meaningful and finanially rewarding career such as online influencer.

Dextero reports that Arizona State University now offers a bachelor of arts program in Content Creation. This program prepares you for a financially rewarding career as "an influencer and strategic storyteller." Students have to prove that they have what it takes to succeed by gaining real followers. They can also complete their BA program while also completing a master's program in Digital Strategy and Audience Engagement.

You can't afford the tuition? Consider going into debt to acquire this degree. 

-via David Burge | Photo: Pxhere

If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, chances are you watched your fair share of Nickelodeon. And if you loved Double Dare, You Can't Do That on Television, or The Kid's Choice Awards, you may have fell in love with the mysterious green slime that seemingly rained from the sky at the Nickelodeon Studios.

I know I sure did. So when I was given the opportunity to get slimed at Comic Con this year, my answer was a resounding "yes!" But since I knew there was a chance the stuff might end up in mouth, I was a little worried about it's ingredients.

A quick search online informed me that the formula has changed over the years, with some of the earlier recipes allegedly containing oatmeal for chunkiness. Kids who visited Nick Studios in the 90s swear it was made with vanilla pudding or applesauce. But modern slime doesn't have the same flow, so I had to ask someone at Nickelodeon.

Their representative confirmed that they have multiple formulas. Apparently, the Nick waterparks and reports use a runner slime so visitors can dive straight into the pool after a good sliming. But the one they use on TV was the exact one I was going to be slimed with. She told me that the formula is a secret, but it is food safe and free from all major allergens.

While she recommended not eating it, I admit curiosity got the better of me and I had to do a little taste. My verdict: it was pretty flavorless. If I had to guess, I'd say it was tapioca starch (or a similar thickener), food coloring and water.

If you're curious what it feels like, well, it was mostly just cold and gooey. On a hot day, it was pretty refreshing. In the long run, didn't stain my skin (my clothes were protected by a pancho), but it did crust up my hair.

For those in San Diego this weekend who are brave enough to risk a sliming, you can try it yourself at the Nickelodeon activation across from the Children's Museum. I recommend not tasting it. Or, if you have Comic Con passes, you can get virtuality slime (mess free) at the Nickelodeon booth in the convention. 

Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, whom we commonly name as Diocletian, was Emperor of Rome from 284 to 305 A.D. He temporarily brought stability to a fragmenting empire before retiring to an estate in what is now Croatia to raise cabbages. It was a rare for emperors of this era to be able to retire peacefully. When political leaders asked him to return to power, he responded, "If you could see the cabbages I have planted here with my own hands, you surely would never have thought to request this."

As Diocletian's final years were in Croatia (then called Dalmatia), it is fitting that a Croatian film production studio offers a feature-length movie about his life. The dialogue of The Last Roman God is entirely in Latin.

-via Debby Witt

Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats, a shelter in Maryland, received a call from Pet Supplies Plus that one of their kittens has been stolen from the store. She went down to the store and saw police cars arriving from all directions. She thought, "Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat." But there was more to the story. 

On Monday, July 13th, a yet-unnamed man came into the pet supply store and stole the kitten. Employees said he had been there many times, showing great interest in the three-month old tuxedo kitten named Magnolia. Then he went across the parking lot to a bank and tried to rob it! He asked the bank manager to hold the kitten while he wrote a note, which was a note to the teller demanding money. He didn't get away with it.

Magnolia was stashed in the manager's office until she could be picked up, and was not hurt in the incident. Since she is no longer listed at the shelter's PetFinder page, we assume that the publicity of her adventure led her to a permanent home. Read or listen to the story at I Heart Radio. -via Strange Company   

(Image credit: Beltsville Community Cats at Facebook) 

Oh look! It's July, and we have a trailer for a Christmas ghost story! The trailer says "The name you know, the story you don't." Hogwash. Everyone knows the story of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. There have been over a hundred movie and TV adaptations of it. Knowing the story doesn't keep us from watching it again and again. The 2026 version titled Ebenezer stars Johnny Depp in the title role, along with Rupert Grint as Bob Cratchit, Daisy Ridley as his wife, and Ian McKellen as Jacob Marley. 

The trailer focuses on the star power of Depp and the many oddball characters he's played before. We can assume with this cast that the acting will be good. As far as I'm concerned, the success of Ebenezer will depend on how they portray the ghosts. Meanwhile, it is kind of nice to see scenes of falling snow while we swelter in the summer heat. Ebenezer opens on November 13th.

At the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union had an agreement with Hitler to split conquered territories in Europe. The Soviets deported up to a half-million people from occupied Poland to labor camps in Siberia. In 1941, the USSR changed sides when Hitler double-crossed them. So what would they do with the Polish exiles now? Men were recruited for a Polish military unit, and tens of thousands of women and children were evacuated to Iran. From there, no one seemed willing to step up and take the refugees. The British considered settling them in India, but the Indians, who were suffering from wartime shortages like everyone else, were hesitant. Especially at risk were hundreds of malnourished Polish orphans, whose parents had died in transit or in Siberia.

Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja was the wealthy maharaja of Nawanagar, one of the local rulers who operated semi-independently but still under British authority. He stepped forward and said he would take all the orphans, risking his position by bypassing British permission. He personally welcomed the orphans, and had a camp built at his summer palace to accommodate them, complete with a school, a library, kitchens, and even a Catholic church. Before the war's end, Digvijaysinhji would take in around a thousand children. Read about Digvijaysinhji and the Polish children he adopted at Smithsonian. The article includes an hour-long documentary about this little-known chapter of history.       

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is an informal motto of the US Postal Service. However, mail carriers are not obligated to deliver your mail when you're obviously messing with them. 

Vlog Creations, a YouTube channel dedicated to non-harmful pranks, invested in a long series of mailboxes of varying sizes and heights, and gradually installed smaller and smaller ones to see how long it took for the mail carrier to notice. Yeah, he noticed, but he's more amused than annoyed. Then it became a battle of wits to see how small they could make the box and still get their mail picked up and/or delivered. My mail carrier will never pick up outgoing mail unless he has some to deliver. This carrier put up with ridiculous challenges all the way through. 

You can see a much longer video detailing this prank here. 

Living in a castle isn't all that great, since they are hard to heat and the wifi is often blocked -and plumbing can be a nightmare. But we still swoon when we see the grandeur of what was built centuries ago. The interactive map Castlemap will help you discover new historic castles and fortresses all over the world. As you might guess, Europe has always been big on castles- notice you can recognize the area in the screenshot above just by the dots. Zoom in to separate them. Germany has many, but in Luxembourg, you can't swing a cat without hitting a castle. The same in Japan. In the US, most are military forts. You can sort the map by date or type of landmark. 

It's not just a map, though. Click on any dot to bring up more information, collected from Wikidata and Wikipedia. Check out a list of the most famous castles, with links to more information and images. Sadly, there are no floor plans in this map. -via Metafilter