festivals – Brady Carlson

Finally, Cameras Can Truly See The Sea (Cool Weird Awesome 172)

Posted on November 15, 2019
Brady Carlson

Underwater photos are usually greenish or blueish and the brighter colors are washed out. An engineer and oceanographer has come up with an algorithm she calls Sea-thru that can bring those colors back into the image. Plus: the Las Vegas Pizza Festival is about to get underway.

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Abraham Lincoln, Wedding Planner (Cool Weird Awesome 162)

Posted on November 1, 2019
Brady Carlson

Today in 1800 President John Adams moved into the White House, the first chief executive to live in what was then called the President’s Mansion. One of the house’s most adorable stories – though possibly an apocryphal one – is the time in 1862 that Abraham Lincoln supposedly helped a couple elope. Plus: the New England WizardFest gets underway this weekend in Massachusetts. Mischief managed!

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Keeping Up With The World’s Fastest Ant (Cool Weird Awesome 152)

Posted on October 18, 2019
Brady Carlson

The Saharan silver ant can ran up to 108 of its own body lengths per second, making it the fastest ant in the world. But it lives in the desert, and running in sand usually slows us down. How the heck do they do it? Plus: in Banner Elk, North Carolina, the 42nd annual Woolly Worm Festival gets underway this weekend.

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In Casey, Illinois, Small Town Life Has Never Been Bigger (Cool Weird Awesome 137)

Posted on September 27, 2019
Brady Carlson

The small community of Casey, Illinois is home to the Big Things In A Small Town project, and this weekend someone will win a chance to sit in the world’s largest rocking chair. Plus: tomorrow in Boulder City, Nevada, it’s the Wurst Festival. I’m not mocking the event, that’s its name.

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A Pole-Sitting Champ Finds Out It’s Lonely At The Top (Cool Weird Awesome 136)

Posted on September 26, 2019
Brady Carlson

Richard “Dixie” Blandy called himself the greatest flagpole sitter of all time – they say he spent more time atop flagpoles than most flags.

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Our Long History Of Crashing Stuff Into The Moon (Cool Weird Awesome 133)

Posted on September 23, 2019
Brady Carlson

We always celebrate great space achievements, why not also commemorate some great space screwups? This month marks 60 years since the first time a spacecraft tried to land on the moon but crashed instead.

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Bah Gawd It’s A Smart Cane (Cool Weird Awesome 132)

Posted on September 20, 2019September 23, 2019
Brady Carlson

The weWALK is a smart cane for blind pedestrians, with ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles ahead and Google Maps connections to navigate through and describe the surrounding area. Plus: if you like pickles, the Big Dill festival is back this weekend in Baltimore.

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Scooby-Doo And Those Meddling Kids Started Solving Groovy Mysteries 50 Years Ago (Cool Weird Awesome 127)

Posted on September 13, 2019
Brady Carlson

It’s the 50th anniversary of the premiere of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” That’s right, the Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby have been setting traps, being danger prone, dropping glasses, making gigantic sandwiches and solving mysteries for a half-century. But originally the show was going to be very different.

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How About We Put Shade Plants Under Solar Panels? (Cool Weird Awesome 126)

Posted on September 12, 2019
Brady Carlson

There’s work out of the University of Arizona that says solar arrays can be even more efficient if you grow food underneath the panels. And no, the panels don’t block the plants from growing by taking all the sun. Plus: Chandler, Arizona is hosting the Rockin’ Taco Street Fest, which finally combines the goodness of tacos with lucha libre pro wrestling.

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The Kansas Town Where Even Popeye Got His Spinach (Cool Weird Awesome 122)

Posted on September 6, 2019
Brady Carlson

It’s Spinach Festival weekend in Lenexa, Kansas, a time for games, crafts, music, the world’s largest spinach salad and a visit from noted cartoon spinach addict Popeye the sailor. That’s fitting, since it was Popeye’s popularity that helped make Lenexa’s spinach famous in the first place.

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