☀️ Awesome Things by John Suder, Volume 137
Another week of internet awesomeness.
Welcome to Issue 137 of the newsletter and welcome new subscribers!
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On to this week’s Awesome Things:
'Rare' hissing mushroom called 'Devil's Cigar' seen at Texas park
It is said that when the "Devil's Cigar" unfurls, it releases a strange hissing noise and a hazy cloud of spores. While not poisonous, it is inedible, officials said.
Woodpecker stored over 700lbs of acorns in walls of CA home, pest control company says
Workers say the woodpecker was making holes to store its food, which kept falling into spaces in the walls.
When they cut into the wall, over 700 pounds of acorns were discovered.
From Nike to Nutella: Company names you have probably been mispronouncing your whole life
Global company names often get Anglicized or Americanized to the point where they’re unrecognizable. But there are lots of perks to ensuring a brand name is pronounced correctly.
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Watch Jason Alexander, Glenn Close, and more random celebs sing 'Let It Be'
“Let It Be” is obviously a great song, but who knew it had the power to wrangle up some Hollywood’s most forgotten beloved celebrities? In this video for a Norwegian talk show (embedded below), watch a puzzling assortment of ’80s and ’90s sitcom stars (Alfonso Ribeiro, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Jason Alexander), esteemed actors (Kathleen Turner, Glenn Close, and the late Leslie Nielsen), and former figure skater turned convicted felon Tonya Harding lip sync in front of a digitized beach backdrop. One — or many — of these things is not like the other? Props to Carlton Banks for really going for those high notes. Here’s hoping they got paid well?
David Jolicoeur, De La Soul's Trugoy the Dove, dies at 54
For all their humor, the group spent decades waging serious battles with the music industry, partly around their sampling practices, and mostly with Tommy Boy. One legacy of those disagreements with the label has been the absence of most of their albums from legal streaming services, an unfathomable void in the age of the infinite jukebox. This travesty is finally being rectified on March 3, but it's a sad, cruel irony that Trugoy should pass away mere days before the indefensibly delayed return of his and De La's music to the masses.
Billions of Celestial Objects Revealed in Gargantuan Survey of the Milky Way
Gathering the data required to cover this much of the night sky was a Herculean task; the DECaPS2 survey identified 3.32 billion objects from over 21,400 individual exposures. Its two-year run, which involved about 260 hours of observations, produced more than 10 terabytes of data.
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Inside JFK’s Secret Doomsday Bunker
The president’s Nantucket nuclear fallout shelter could become a National Historic Landmark—but efforts to preserve its history have stalled
Viral TikTok boosts father's thriller book to bestseller
The experience has proven why writers should never quit, he tells BBC News.
She got the last seat on a flight next to a stranger. They've been married for 40 years
Vickie Moretz had never left the southern United States, let alone traveled abroad. The prospect of flying across the Atlantic was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.
10 Ways to Make the Most of Your Social Media Experience This Year
From Medium:
As the old quote says: Don’t wrestle with pigs, you’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
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Tweet of the Week
Quotable
"The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose."
- John McEnroe
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