10 weird War Weapons you never seen
Burning pigs are just one of the weird weapons of war that graced the battlefield. Music = Breakfast Cafe by Bruce Maginnis and Daniel Weltlinger
Burning pigs are just one of the weird weapons of war that graced the battlefield. Music = Breakfast Cafe by Bruce Maginnis and Daniel Weltlinger
5 Real Prison Escapes That Shouldn't Have Been Possible
#5. Choi Gap-bok Squeezed Through a Food Slot
Via Andrew BardwellPicture every movie cell door you've ever seen. You know how they've always got that food slot at the bottom, the tiny rectangle guards slide the food trays through? If you need help, it's about 6 inches tall (that is, the length of a dollar bill) and about 17 inches wide.
Now imagine crawling through that slot.
Because a guy actually did this. His name was Choi Gap-bok and at the ripe old age of 50, he was arrested by South Korean police on suspicion of burglary. Gap-bok had been in and out of jail throughout his life, and somewhere along the way he picked up doing yoga. We don't know if he practiced yoga specifically with this in mind or if it just happened to come in handy, but either way, he decided it was time to use the 23 years of stretchy practice he had under his belt to slip right the fuck out of his prison cell.
He asked his guards for his special "skin ointment," and they gave it to him, then went off to sleep. After all, when an old man asks for lotion and privacy you don't fucking hang around outside the door. What's the old guy gonna do, lube himself up and squeeze through his food slot?
Yep. It can totally be done, as the below video demonstrates (especially if you're not a huge guy -- Choi was 5-foot-4-inches). If you can get your head through it, everything else from your shoulders to ribs kind of compress -- he was able to squeeze all of his parts through in 30 seconds. It's really just a matter of body control and really, really not wanting to be in jail.
Why did he escape? Because he wanted to prove his innocence, and obviously breaking out of prison is the best way to do that. He was caught six days later and put in a cell with a smaller food slot, so now, not only can he not escape, but he almost certainly won't get a turkey at Thanksgiving.
#4. Jack Sheppard Becomes a Prison Escape Celebrity
Via WikipediaIf you were alive in 18th century London you'd know who Jack Sheppard was. A small-time thief, he became notorious for his awesome escapes. And we're not exaggerating here -- crowds would actually go to his trials just hoping he'd dazzle them. For instance, have you ever seen a movie or TV show where somebody busts out by tying a bunch of bedsheets together into a rope? Well, Jack Sheppard most likely invented that.
Granted, he didn't have a window to drop out of, so he first smashed through his cell's ceiling and then dropped his rope of sheets over from the prison roof. Breaking ceilings is noisy work, so there was a crowd gathered when he hit the bottom. He quickly pulled a Bugs Bunny, telling everyone "He's over there!" and then ran off with the cops in hot pursuit. So, yeah, he was something of a showman.
When he got caught again, he and his wife, Lyon, were thrown in a cell together. They broke a bar off the window and then pulled the "bedsheets-rope" trick again and ran off. So when he was arrested again shortly thereafter, he was locked in a strong-room, stuck in leg irons and chained to the floor. The guards, not enjoying his wacky escapes that, oh, by the way made them look like assholes, put even more chains on him.
This did not deter Sheppard. First, he found a nail and bent it to create a lock pick for his handcuffs. Then, using his chains, he wrenched free an iron bar from the chimney (which was ironically installed to prevent prisoners from escaping) and then used that bar as a tool to break through the ceiling. All told, he ended up breaking through six barred doors, jumping to an adjacent house's roof, sneaking inside without waking anyone up and then running off into the night.
When he finally died, it was with a third of London's total population attending his hanging. Ultimately, his fame was his undoing -- the thick crowd actually prevented his friends from taking his recently hung body to a doctor to be revived. Because even in death he had an escape plan.
#3. Frank Abagnale Convinces His Guard He's a Prison Inspector
Via TelegraphIf you don't recognize the name, Frank Abagnale is the renowned con-man Leo DiCaprio played in Catch Me If You Can. He's done bank fraud, impersonated pilots, teachers, doctors, and even lawyers, all using outlandish techniques that you wouldn't even think would work in a cartoon. But maybe none compares to the absolutely ridiculous way he conned himself out of prison.
After being sentenced to 12 years for various forgeries, Abagnale had fantastic luck in 1971 when the U.S. Marshal transporting him forgot the detention commitment papers. No, this didn't mean he got to go free -- not yet -- but it did give Abagnale an opening to subtly convince the guards that he was actually an undercover prison inspector pretending to be an inmate. You know, here's a clean, well-spoken, educated guy who just happens to be missing his documents? It had "The bosses sent this guy to spy on us" written all over it, and Abagnale played it up for all it was worth. This meant the guards treated him far better than any other inmate (since they thought he was there to investigate conditions in the prison) -- Abagnale got better food and privileges than anyone else.
But this article is about prison escapes, and it was right around then that Abagnale decided to go ahead and just bullshit his way right out the front door. He called a friend of his, Jean Sebring, who had been visited by the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case, Joe Shea, when he was pursuing Abagnale. She doctored the business card Shea left her, then pretended to be a freelance magazine writer doing an expose on prisons and used that to also get the business card of a prison inspector. She visited Abagnale, posing as his fiance, and slipped him both cards.
Abagnale then told the guard that he was, in fact, an undercover inspector just like they thought. He gave them the prison inspector business card as proof, and then told them it was imperative he speak to the FBI immediately. The guards slapped each other on the back and bragged about how smart they were to not be fooled by the government's obvious ploy. Abagnale gave them the other card (the one for the supposed FBI agent), and they dialed the number on it. Abagnale's friend picked up at a phone booth, pretending to be an FBI operator.
Dynamic Graphics/Creatas/Getty Images"This is either the FBI or Shanteesa the Love Goddess, depending on who's calling."
6 Design Flaws That Annoy You Every Day (And Why They Exist)
Why, Cracked makes a list of it, of course! Below we've documented six everyday annoyances that exist for wholly legitimate yet completely infuriating business reasons.
#6. Wrap Rage
Here's an example of clamshell packaging:
Tktktk via Wikimedia CommonsSo why, you shout, shaking your bleeding hands at the sky, would anyone in the world design packaging that's impossible to open?
The Reason: Package Pilferage
To make it impossible to open.
More specifically, it's to thwart shoplifting, in particular, a very specific type of shoplifting. Package Pilferage describes a crime when small, relatively expensive objects are removed from their outside packaging (in which various anti-theft tags and devices are embedded) and stolen. By making packaging that's impossible to open with anything less than the Daikatana, product engineers have made shoplifting harder.
Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty ImagesAnd easier to detect.
#5. Airline Delays
Airline delays seem to be a fact of life with modern air travel. Even at the best of times, the possibility of a delay is ever-present. And if you have the arrogance to fly during the holidays or when the weather's a little bad? Who do you think you are you cocky son of a bitch?
Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty ImagesYes, we're talking to you there on your throne of stained carpeting.
The Reason: They've Reached Maximum Capacity
Planes are expensive to fly. And the people who like to fly on them (that's us) are cheap assholes. These two factors, along with a few other reasons, make the airline industry one of the most consistent money-losing industries on the planet. The only chance an airline has of making money is if nearly every one of its planes is in the air, earning money, every second of the day.
Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images"HEY! PLANE! GET BACK TO WORK! DON'T MAKE ME COME IN THERE."
There's a second reason there are delays. Passengers are generally OK with them. No delay is likely to be longer than the length of time it would take to drive or sprint to our destinations. And delays are so endemic to the industry, there aren't really any competing airlines we can gravitate toward (and even if there were, there's a good chance we'd still click "Buy Fare" for the one that was $50 cheaper). For the most part, that as much as we might like to complain, we're all just willing to accept a certain amount of hosing when we travel by air.
Burak Kara/Getty Images News/Getty Images"We'd now like to invite any Star Alliance passengers to come be shot in the face with this powerful hose."
#4. Hot Dogs and Hot Dog Buns
Hot dogs come in packs of 10. Hot dog buns come in packs of eight. This discrepancy has been the subject of angry dad rants since man first crawled out of the sea.
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images"MY LIFE DIDN'T TURN OUT THE WAY I WANTED AND NOW WE HAVE TWO EXTRA HOT DOGS, SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU THE ONE CRYING?"
The Reason: Different Industries, Different Standards
To answer this, I went right to the experts.
This organization exists.
For example, at some time in the past, someone made a baking pan with room for eight rolls, sold a bunch to their baking friends and before anyone noticed what happened, there was an industry standard. Once those standards form, they're hard to break out of. All your recipes and racks and ovens are sized for eight-roll pans. Changing out of that is a real hassle.
Meanwhile, in the probably-much-less-pleasant-smelling past of the meat-parts industry, someone decided that 10 hot dogs was a nice round number to make out of a pound of meat parts, and their competitors followed suit. A new, completely independent standard had formed, which was also hard to break out of. Yes they could change their product to start making eight hot dogs per pound. But think about how that would look on the shelf. Although this would be the same weight of meat parts, it'd look like they were only selling eight hot dogs when their competitors were selling 10; the difference in size would be tough to distinguish. The standard stuck, and dads everywhere were left doomed to their lives of bitter frustration.
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images"YOU ARE A LITTLE MIRACLE, BUT I NEVER IMAGINED YOU OR YOUR BROTHERS BEING HERE."
FIVE Brain Hacks That Give You Mind-Blowing Powers
These hacks come with various degrees of difficulty, but no risk or potential for injury. And actual scientists say that all of them work.
#5. Remember Long Lists With a "Memory Palace"
Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty ImagesThe human brain sucks at remembering lists. Think about it: When you go to the grocery store, how many items can you manage before you have to write them down? Three? Five? For most of us, if there's any more than that, we're going to get back home and find out we forgot the milk (which by the way was the whole fucking reason we went to the store in the first place).
That's weird, because there are other things in life we have no problem with. For instance, we don't have much trouble remembering the locations of a hundred different spots around town, even if we don't know the addresses (do you even know the street address of your favorite coffee shop?), or the locations of a thousand items around the house. Sure, you couldn't write them all down, but if a friend asks you where they can find a flashlight, you're probably going to have an answer. If only there was a way to exploit this strength to overcome the other weakness ...
Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty ImagesThere's only so much room on the human body to write it all down. Unless you constantly eat, we guess.
You're able to find your way around because a whole lot of your mental horsepower is devoted to spatial memory -- learning the layout of your environment. And there is totally a way you can tap into it as a hack to remember long lists. So-called memory champions have been doing it forever. They call it creating a memory palace.
Here's how it works: You pick a familiar place that you know well and can imagine without much problem -- the inside of your house, the layout of your neighborhood, whatever. You then imagine yourself walking along a specific route in that place and associate an item on your list with each location.
Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images"Shit, that reminds me, I'm out of chloroform."
It all sounds like a ridiculous extra step, but you soon realize how incredibly easy it suddenly makes it to recite a list. You're simply forcing the spatial memory part of your brain to help out. And you can start doing it at any time -- the memory palace (or method of loci) memorization technique isn't something that requires years of practice. In one 1968 study, college students were asked to memorize a list of 40 items by associating each item with a specific location around campus. Not only were the students able to memorize an average of 38 of the 40 items, but the next day they were able to name 34 of the original list (and that was in 1968 -- imagine how much more they would have remembered if the kids hadn't been on so much pot).
Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images"Two. I can remember two things."
#4. Retain Information by Spacing Out the Reminders
Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty ImagesThe hell of trying to learn anything is that time randomly wipes important information you've committed to memory -- you can't remember the Pythagorean theorem, but you remember the base stats of 649 Pokemon. This is why so many of us wind up cramming at the last minute for exams -- it's not just procrastination, it's fear that if we study a month ahead of time, we'll forget part of it by exam day. So our only answer is to cram everything into our short-term memory, knowing that we'll lose it right after the test. A hundred grand in tuition well spent!
No, what we need is a way to retain information for the long haul, without doing a lot of work. In other words, we need a scientific method to arrive at the exact minimum amount of time and energy we need to successfully retain important information.
Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images"Much better: 15 seconds to remember that I need to change the batteries in my stopwatch."
There is a measurable process by which your brain drops information, a "forgetting curve." If you want information to stick, there's a specific hack you can do to work around it. It takes a bit more practice than the memory palace thing above, but if your job or degree depends on it, it's worth it. Basically, it's a matter of figuring out the rate at which your brain forgets things and adapting to it. They call it spaced repetition, and here's an animated gif showing off the simplest form:
So let's say you're trying to learn Spanish, and you're going to have a big final on it in four months. The most rudimentary way to practice spaced repetition is to put the words you need to learn on note cards with the English on the front and the Spanish on the back (flash cards, basically) and get three boxes (or create three piles, if you don't have any boxes sitting around) marked:
1. Every Day
2. Every Week
3. Once a Month
The labels tell you how often you're going to look at the flash cards. "What?" you say, "I don't got time to be studying this shit every day! Besides, I know I can hold this stuff in my brain longer than that!" Right, you probably can. This method will tell you exactly how long. That's the point: to arrive at the exact bare minimum amount of time you need to study.
Creatas Images/Creatas/Getty Images"Well, maybe we can make an exception just this time and study for a couple more hours."
A month later, you go through the Once a Month pile to make sure you remember it. The stuff you've forgotten goes into the weekly rotation again. See what you're doing? You're figuring out the exact rate at which this stuff falls out of your brain. Breezing through that monthly box? Great, make it every two months. The spans of time are flexible (conversely, if you have an exam or presentation in two weeks, you can shorten the whole process -- make your three piles Daily, Every Other Day, Every Three Days).
If that still sounds too complicated, a Polish psychologist named Piotr Wozniak created computer software that does it for you:
That's just an example graph; yours will be different. But yes, it works. Wozniak actually conducted an experiment on himself by memorizing thousands of nonsensical syllables ... and found that he could repeat the list three years later. So when you're walking around the city and you see filthy people mumbling nonsense syllables to themselves all day, this is probably what they're doing. Ask them about it!
#3. Write It Out (Even if You Don't Read It Later)
Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty ImagesQuick! When was the last time you held a pen and wrote something? It was probably while signing a receipt, wasn't it? A note you left on the parked car you dinged at the mall? Child support checks? In this age of smartphones, constant texting, and spending half our waking hours online, most of us have lost the gentle art of holding a pencil and scratching out ransom notes the old-fashioned way. Which is too bad, because if you want information to stick in your brain, you need to write that shit out by hand.
Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images"Punching babies is wrong. Punching babies is wrong. Punching babies is wrong."
The act of handwriting actually engages neural activity that you don't get by hammering on a keyboard. During an experiment at Indiana University, preschool kids who were learning the alphabet were separated into two groups. The first group was shown letters and told what they were, while the second group had the additional task of practicing writing the letters. When the kids were put into a "spaceship" (an MRI machine), the brains from the writing group lit up like somebody had crammed a road flare into their ears. Their neural activity not only was more enhanced, it was more "adult-like," which we presume means they later asked researchers to check their cholesterol levels while they were there.
John Foxx/Stockbyte/Getty Images"I'm sorry, but you only have two weeks to live. Hahaha! Just a little joke we like to tell the kids."
A 2008 study proved that this works especially well when you're doing something that involves learning unfamiliar characters, like some computer languages, or sheet music, or Japanese. Again, making your fingers draw out the shape engages a completely different part of your brain than if you're just staring at it on a screen and saying, "Remember this, goddamnit!"
Polka Dot/Polka Dot/Getty Images"And don't you even think about getting up until you know astrophysics."
5 Famous Wars That Showed Up in the Last Place You'd Expect
#5. The German Navy Attacked Cape Cod
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesQuick: What exactly does the U.S. Coast Guard do? They save sinking boats and shit, right? Maybe stop smugglers, that sort of thing? All of it must seem like a pretty sweet deal if you're doing that instead of, say, fighting a world war. That's why the Coast Guard off the small town of Orleans, Massachusetts, probably thought they had a pretty sweet gig during World War I -- no filthy trenches or death-defying naval attacks for them. All they had to do for the war effort was guard a bunch of lobster traps and enjoy the whale watching. Which made it all the more pants-wetting when, out of the blue, an Imperial German submarine suddenly rose from the abyss in attack mode.
In freaking Cape Cod.
It was July 21, 1918, and the German sub U-156 suddenly found itself in possession of far too many torpedoes and far too few targets. The U-boat's captain, Richard Feldt, spotted Orleans, with its several unassuming tugboats and barges docked in the harbor. Most people would've shaken their head sadly and gone off to blow their excess torpedoes on icebergs or whatever. Feldt, on the other hand, thought, "I must now shoot all of this," high-fived his second in command, and proceeded to attack the quaint little town in a move right out of a Stephen King novel.
Bemused bathers ashore stared in slack-jawed surprise as the U-boat began its attack, blasting at boats and spraying the town with bullets from mounted machine guns. The Coast Guard, annoyed by the pesky sounds of warfare in their peaceful station, popped their heads out to investigate -- only to find their little town quickly turning into a war zone. They hastily sent out a few shoddy aircraft, which completely failed to damage the U-boat with their bombs.
George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images"OK, that's close enough to finished -- just send it out."
#4. The American Civil War Spilled Over into France and Brazil
Goodshoot/Goodshoot/Getty ImagesThe big thing about civil wars is that they tend to keep within the country in question. That's the whole point, really. So if you were fighting in the American Civil War and took a break in, say, France, you'd think you had left the fighting behind and could relax with some nice 19th century French prostitutes.
Perhaps that is why the Confederate ship CSS Alabama was so confident when it stopped for repairs in the French seaside town of Cherbourg. The Alabama had been busy raiding Union ships in the Atlantic and went to get some repairs time on the other side of the ocean. Even if you have to endure accordion music and filthy mimes, a little holiday in a then-neutral country must've felt like heaven after all that hardcore warrin'. Then, after the repairs were finished, they sailed leisurely back to sea to run right the fuck into a Union battleship. Suddenly the North and the South were continuing their American conflict within sight of ... whatever France had at the time instead of the Eiffel Tower.
Simon Willms/Lifesize/Getty ImagesBack then, their main tourist attraction was just a dude. People loved Chad France.
This went about as well as you'd expect. The Alabama went under after an hour's combat, its crew presumably still cursing the French sea chanty from the tavern last night that they couldn't get out of their heads.
By the way, almost the exact same thing happened to the Confederate ship the CSS Florida (which happened to be a sister ship of the Alabama) when it decided to stop for coal in the Brazilian port of Bahia. Despite the fact that they were in freaking South America -- the wartime equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card -- the Florida happened to encounter the Union ship USS Wachusett, which promptly captured the vessel.
Via History.navy.mil"Onward! We will not stop until we have shown the entire world how much we suck at war."
#3. Greenland Was Full of Secret Nazi Outposts
Via RingomassaImagine being an American rescue pilot in 1943, gliding over the vast emptiness of Greenland. You may be drifting off course over the world's largest island, but you don't care -- you're thousands of miles from World War II, and that's what counts. After all, who the hell cares about Greenland?
Suddenly, you notice a strange structure in the middle of the rugged wilderness below. Whatever could that be? Intrigued, you mark the spot on your map, making a point to return to the site on foot to see what this peculiar construct in the untouched wilderness might be. Days later, you finally make the trip and knock on the door of the structure.
Then, a Nazi comes out and punches you in the dick.
Why the hell were Nazis in Greenland? Did they hear that the Ark of the Covenant was buried there? Actually, it was all about monitoring the weather. In the days before weather satellites, you needed weather-monitoring stations in remote places to tell you what weather systems were coming your way. So when an American rescue plane stumbled upon that strange shack in the ass end of Greenland, they had actually come across a major Nazi operation.
Once a patrol had captured the lone German officer manning that outpost, they realized that the Nazi bastards had secretly littered Greenland's coastline with them, providing valuable weather data for Hitler and pals 24/7.
Since bombing the entire coastline of a massive island wasn't really an option even for America, they devised an alternate strategy: A 15-strong congregation of U.S., Norwegian, and Danish troops stormed station after station after station using dog sleds, commandoing their way through hundreds of miles of snow and ice. Sometimes they met heavy resistance from the Germans, while others surrendered almost immediately because their toilet had frozen.
By October 1944, the Allies had won one of the coldest operations of the war, losing just one man in the process, which is still more casualties than what they probably expected to lose in fucking Greenland.
#7. The Dark Knight Rises -- They Actually Dropped a Plane
We're sorry to do this to your peace of mind, but we're afraid that a lot of what you just saw was real -- we guess Christopher Nolan could have used computer effects, but instead he got a real C-130 and tossed a bunch of real people out the back of it.
To set the mood, each stuntman had an earpiece where he could hear Nolan humming dramatic music.
Or sometimes without the fuselage at all.
"Holy fuck, that's a little too much." -Stanley Kubrick's ghost
"Models are for nerds."
The entire shoot was scheduled for nine days. Nolan did it in two, because fuck time, and fuck sanity, and most of all, fuck airplanes.
#6. Skyfall -- Fighting on (and Under) Speeding Trains
James Bond will do almost anything (and anyone), but he won't do CGI -- the filmmakers try to limit the computer effects to things that don't exist in the real world, like the invisible car or Denise Richards. This means that some of the most insanely dangerous scenes you saw in the latest Bond movie, Skyfall, were created the old-fashioned way.
For instance, remember the part where a full-size train smashes through a wall?
They did that for real. This was accomplished by hanging the train from inverted rails and then proceeding to smash that fucker through a wall. Because realism. Also, although they added Bond escaping from the train in post-production, Daniel Craig was actually on the set when this happened.
Earlier in the film, there's a scene in which Bond massages a bad guy's kidneys with his fists on top of a speeding train. This was also filmed using practical effects, by which we mean that they actually had Daniel Craig and another guy kick each other's ass on top of a real train, supported by wires no thicker than your finger.
You can see the wire on the last picture -- that's the only thing preventing the actor playing the bad guy from falling off. And yes, that's Daniel Craig himself going after him in the other pictures, not a stunt double. You can see his face more clearly in the trailerrific scene where he drops into the train from a giant hole in the wall, adjusts his cuff, and calmly walks off to pursue the bad guy -- that was all him, too.
In fact, the only scenes where CGI was used heavily were the one where Bond has to fight a Komodo dragon and the one where MI6 blows up, since even James Bond can't blow up MI6 and get away with it. Yet.
#5. Tron (the Original) -- The Film Was Shot in Black and White, Then Hand Painted
To the original's credit, it took a lot less time for CGI Jeff Bridges to look this silly.
To get the desired effect, the filmmakers had to employ cutting-edge technology ... from the 1930s. All the scenes set inside the computer were filmed entirely in black and white, after which they were turned back into individual cells that were hand painted in post-production. One by one. The process was long and tedious: First they had to enlarge each frame to a 14-inch still using a rotoscoping machine.
Then they'd put that image through another process to make it transparent.
Using this technique, they could isolate different parts of the image, like the faces, the costumes, and the part they wanted to fill with funky neon veins. They then photographed each element on its own and finally put everything back together -- the simplest images had around six layers, but others had up to 30.
So, that's 75 minutes of film at 24 frames per second. Using basic math, that means that they animated around 108,000 individual cells, each of which was composed of six to 30 different parts. This process was such a pain in the ass that animating a two-minute reel took the team two months, and they still had 73 more minutes to go ... so they just sent that shit to Taiwan and had some guys in a warehouse do it for them.
That's not Pac-Man, that's the Chinese symbol for "HELP US."
#4. The Spider-Man Films -- Real Web Slinging and Spider Reflexes
The effect was created by strapping a stuntman, or sometimes Spider-Man himself, actor Andrew Garfield, to a wire "no thicker than a bootlace" 60 feet in the air, which was connected to a winch on a rail. When they'd jump and reach the bottom of their swing, the winch would move down the rail, giving them a nice clean arc and unquestionably soiled underwear. Here's a clip of the system in action -- you can see the rails above at the beginning:
So in that scene where Peter Parker screams as he's learning to swing on a chain ... yeah, that probably didn't take a lot of acting.
This isn't to say that the original movies had no practical effects whatsoever -- remember the part where Tobey Maguire catches Mary Jane's lunch like it ain't no thing?
The pudding's stuck on the ceiling.
