Being a confidence man takes a lot of brass, as they say. To be able to look a person in the eye, lie to them, and scam them out of their time, money, and trust is not a thing just anyone can do. And when a con artist can do it to multiple people for…
Author: Ian Fortey
When you look at the entirety of our culinary history there are thousands, if not millions, of dishes that have been developed all around the world across time. There’s no way that anyone could ever sample them all, and there’s no way that anyone would ever like them all, either. And maybe that’s part of…
Have you ever had that moment in which you wonder if some tool or invention exists and when you look into it you’re disappointed to discover someone else thought of it first? Or worse, you have an idea that doesn’t exist, and it takes forever for someone to make it a reality? That sort of…
Military history shows us that, no matter where you’re from, strict discipline, training and dedication along with some innovation and cleverness can do amazing things. But along with that comes a long list of rituals, beliefs and superstitions that sometimes make sense and sometimes are absolutely baffling to outsiders and sometimes even insiders. Take, for…
People online love exposing secret rooms. Every so often, a new tale goes viral, featuring someone discovering a hidden room with all manner of creepy implications. But usually these stories are just of homeowners or apartment renters finding the mysterious locations and, while vaguely creepy, are not all that unusual anymore. What you may find more unusual is the…
Istanbul, Turkey, is sometimes known as the City of Cats and estimates of how many cats live in the city range from over 100,000 to a million. That’s a heck of a thing to be known for. Madrid, Spain is home to the world’s oldest restaurant. And if you head to Columbia, South Carolina you’ll…
In science fiction people have managed to travel through time in starships, DeLoreans, hot tubs and duffel bags among many other things. It’s just that easy. In real life, science can’t even decide if time travel is even theoretically possible, although a lot of prominent names lean towards it being impossible. But hey, what are…
What’s in a name? It’s generally one of the first things we learn about a new person, place or thing. We need to know how to refer to it. And we’ll probably not bat an eye over 99 names in 100. But every so often something happens to a name that makes it problematic and…
Water, water, everywhere, about which we rarely think. For a substance that is integral to life as we know it, most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about our water until something happens to it, as was the case in Flint, Michigan, Jackson, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and numerous First Nations reserves in…
A cognitive bias is essentially just a mistake in how you process information. It causes you to misinterpret or misunderstand information and the end result is that you come to a wrong decision or conclusion without realizing you made any kind of mistake. It can be difficult to realize they exist, especially since some of…
April Fool’s Day has been observed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Some of the tricks and jokes played on the day are simple and harmless, while others can be oddly elaborate and mean spirited. In modern times, you can count on newspapers, businesses and websites to run fake stories every April…
The human mind loves a good mystery. It’s almost impossible to be presented with a puzzle and not want to try to solve it; that’s just the way our minds work. And while some mysteries are very simple, and some are nearly impossible, others are just completely unexpected and unbelievable. Sometimes the solution is even…
Birds do it, bees do it, and even kleptogenic salamanders do it. No, it’s not fall in love, although maybe that’s part of it. It’s just reproducing. And while as humans we’re most familiar with the process of one male and one female sharing some genetic material so that a baby can be formed, not…
If you ever watch life hack videos on YouTube, you know that people are constantly finding cool new ways to do things. Sometimes that means taking an already existing tool or item and adapting it to a new purpose that makes it even better. This adaptability has a long history. Sometimes people invent a thing…
You know you’re in for a treat when you hear a much older person start a sentence with “back in my day.” The world used to be different and we all know it. But what gets lost sometimes is just how different things used to be in the day-to-day world. We don’t need to look…
Plastic surgery has existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Of course, 16th century plastic surgery was by no means as refined as it is today, but it did set a precedent and start a trend of trying to fix, at first, disfigurements and then, in time, just things people felt were…
It’s easy to take hearing for granted. We hear a thousand things every day and much of it fades into the background. The hum of your refrigerator, cars on the road, wind in the leaves, and so much more. It is the wordless song of the modern world and it has too many verses to…
The world is full of terrifying and dangerous beasts ranging from lions to great white sharks to black mambas. Nature is designed for killing, one way or another. So it’s a relief to know that a lot of creatures are innocent and harmless and even friendly, right? Sure it is. Except for when those seemingly…
The most inescapable part of life is death. Despite that, science keeps coming closer and closer to ways to reverse death, undo death, or just ignore it entirely. Not that we’re really making zombies or resurrecting anyone yet, but you never know what the future holds. 10. Dead Pigs Have Had Organ Function Restored In…
America has often been described as a litigious country and there’s no shortage of examples of lawsuits we perceive as frivolous or silly. The thing nearly all lawsuits have in common, whether they have merit or not, is that there is a plaintiff and a defendant and they are two separate entities. That said, every…
Most of us are aware of the work of Oskar Schindler thanks to the film Schindler’s List. Less well known are the “Righteous Among the Nations.” These are non-Jewish people recognized by Israel as having put their own lives on the line during the Holocaust to rescue Jewish people from the Nazis. Like Schindler, they…
When George Romero made Night of the Living Dead back in 1968, he set into motion a slow-moving, ravenous machine that would devour pop culture many years later. To hear most people tell it, the zombie genre has peaked and is now in the twilight of its relevance but with a solid stable of zombie…
Can any animated show claim to be more influential than The Simpsons? At this point, it may be the most influential TV show period, animated or otherwise. And whether you love or hate the “new” Simpsons, you can’t deny that the show has been a powerhouse of comedy for over 30 years now. But beyond wacky…
There’s an old saying that goes “use it or lose it” which essentially means if you have a thing, you better make use of it before it’s gone. We don’t have a lot of sayings about overuse, however, and it turns out we should. There are plenty of things in life you can overuse that…