How High-Tech Garbage Trucks Can Help Maintain A City (Cool Weird Awesome 1080)
A new project using smart cameras could help keep our neighborhoods in proper working order, and it’s all based around garbage trucks.
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09, 2023
19
07, 2023
AI Phone Bots Foil Scammers By Wasting Their Time (Cool Weird Awesome 1051)
Some experts are worried AI could undo human civilization, but some of it is trying to help people. Like a project that uses AI phone bots to keep phone scammers from scamming people.
10
06, 2023
The “Wicked Bible” Suggested People Break Some Of The Ten Commandments (Cruel Weird Awful 2)
What do you have when you have a book that tells people "thou SHALT commit adultery"? You have what's known as the Wicked Bible or the Sinners' Bible, though who was encouraging all that sinning is something of a mystery.
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10, 2022
Each Year, London Pays Rent To The Crown For Land That’s… Somewhere (Cool Weird Awesome 863)
The UK has lots of traditions. Here's another one: once a year, sometime between about now and mid November, the city of London pays rent to the Crown for several pieces of land in what’s called the Ceremony of Quit Rents.
21
03, 2022
Solar-Powered Cribs Are A Bright Idea To Stop Jaundice (Cool Weird Awesome 736)
Jaundice is treatable with phototherapy, but not all places have access to light therapy machines. A startup in Nigeria is building solar-powered phototherapy machines to fill that gap.
4
11, 2021
A Bar Owner Invented The Cash Register Because He Didn’t Trust His Bartenders (Cool Weird Awesome 649)
Today in 1879, a bar owner in Ohio received a patent for an invention that changed the way we buy and sell things: the cash register. He did it to thwart his bartenders, who he suspected of putting money meant for him in their own pockets. Plus: a professor in South Korea reveals one place from which you probably shouldn't give an online lecture.
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11, 2021
Fort Blunder, The Military Installation Built In The Wrong Country (Cool Weird Awesome 646)
Today in 1816, the US military awarded to built a contract for a fort next to Lake Champlain, near the border with Canada. For years crews worked to make the fort strong, until one day when they realized there was a big problem. Plus: people on Tumblr say today is the 1000th birthday of a medieval monk's brother named Werner.
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08, 2021
There’s A Farm In The Middle Of A British Highway (Cool Weird Awesome 601)
Stott Hall Farm is an unusual place; on either side of the place, there's the UK's M62 highway. We'll explain how it happened. Plus: a couple in Texas bought a plot of land, spent years building a house there, and then got a knock on the door from the actual landowners, explaining that there'd been a mix-up.
25
05, 2021
Why A Stormtrooper Walked Helmet-First Into A Door In The Original “Star Wars” (Cool Weird Awesome 543)
Today in 1977, "Star Wars" premiered in movie theaters, and became a movie, pop culture and merchandising phenomenon. But how is it that, in one scene, an Imperial Stormtrooper walks helmet-first into an overhead door? Plus: in Kent, Ohio, there's a restaurant with a large-scale replica of an X-wing fighter out front. If you visit, stay on target!
19
02, 2020
Crime May Not Actually Pay: Some Things For February 19, 2020
Oh man, this day.