From Japan: language learning app Duolingo has put out an exhibition of examples of glaring English mistranslations from across the country. The exhibition website grandly states that it is “the first institution” in the country “to shed light on the art of mistranslations”.
From France: a well-crafted, heart-warming 5 minute short from social housing charity Fondation Abbé Pierre.
PS: If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend checking out this terrific spot from last year.
To quote from a paper/ design proposal presented at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics:
The practice of marking territory with urine is repulsive to most people; ironically, about half of the world's population (males) inadvertently marks bathroom floors, and themselves, through unintentional urinal splash back. This problem has persisted since the invention of the urinal over a century ago. We found that when a liquid jet or droplet train impacts a rigid surface below a certain critical impinging angle, almost no splatter is generated. Thus, a surface designed to always intersect the urine stream equal to or smaller than the critical angle prevents splash back. Inspired by nautilus shells and dog urination, we designed urinal surface geometries that effectively eliminate splatter by satisfying the splash-suppressing intersect criteria.
To quote from one report of the presentation:
It’s unclear whether people using the new urinals will still somehow find a way to make a mess.
Swedish luxury men’s shirt brand Eton has a limited-edition offering for American consumers: a shirt whose price is pegged to the NASDAQ index. To quote from the campaign website:
There are moments when a great investment opportunity comes knocking. The tricky part is not what to buy – but when. Bull or bear market, a successful look is always a winner. That's why we created The Index Shirt – a timeless quality shirt for a timely price.
To also quote two of the people behind the initiative:
The Index Shirt is an innovative and conceptual product inspired by our customers’ explicit sense of trends, which becomes highly relevant during these times where everything is about making the right decision at the right time.
-Janelle Hallberg, Brand & Communications Director, Eton Shirts
I’m rarely seen in a shirt, but I have extensive experience making marginal loss trading in the world’s stock exchanges. Now, I hope more people will discover the thrill of trading a brand new Eton shirt.
-Petter Rudwall, Creative Director, Valtech Radon
A simple premise is milked for laughs in this outstanding 5 minute short about a very specific area of domestic incompatibility.
A new campaign for footwear brand Crocs presented as a spoof nature documentary (“crocumentary”) complete with a voiceover nod to David Attenborough.
To quote from a report out of India:
Police in the northern city of Mathura wrote to magistrates to say 581kg of the drugs had gone missing from two storerooms after the consignments were seized from traffickers more than five years ago.
Public prosecutor Ranveer Singh said the consignments were eaten by rodents and could not be produced.
“There is no place in the police station where the stored goods can be saved from the rats. The remaining [cannabis] from the huge consignment was destroyed by officers,” the prosecutors told the court.
Apparently, the judge hearing the case has now asked the police to “deliver proof” that the rats actually consumed the alleged quantity of cannabis.
That’s how Upside Foods is announcing the FDA nod for its lab-grown chicken. What’s more, the letter is written in their native “bawk-filled language” with an option to scan and get an English translation.
UK’s best-selling Italian cooking brand has quite the reminder for consumers.
A Christmas love story told in a 3 minute commercial for the British National Lottery.
A brilliant roast.
First, the cover page:
Then, on page 26, this:
Been there, Don that
With just 720 days to go before the next election, a Florida retiree made the surprise announcement Tuesday night that he was running for president.
In a move no political pundit saw coming, avid golfer Donald J. Trump kicked things off at Mar-a-Lago, his resort and classified documents library.
Trump, famous for gold-plated lobbies and for firing people on reality television, will be 78 in 2024. If elected, Trump would tie Joe Biden as the oldest president to take office. His cholesterol levels are unknown, but his favorite food is a charred steak with ketchup.
He has stated that his qualifications for office include being a “stable genius.”
Trump also served as the 45th president.
PS: For those unfamiliar with the term ‘Florida Man’, this Wikipedia page should help.
American pickles brand Vlasic has a new offering: a limited-edition candle that looks and smells like a real jar of pickles. To quote one of the people behind the idea, it was “a no-brainer… to bring the fun and flavor of Vlasic into homes across the country in celebration of National Pickle Day”.
The Chinese runner nicknamed Uncle Chen is the news after he recently ran a marathon in three-and-a-half hours while chain-smoking a pack of cigarettes. While the reports covering the news had a fairly similar take on the oddness of it all, Canadian Running added this observation to its coverage:
Although Chen was not shooting for a Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon while chain-smoking, there isn’t any previous record in place.
To quote from a paper centered on engineering students in Sweden:
This paper has shown that students’ facial attractiveness impact academic outcomes when classes are held in-person. As education moved online following the onset of the pandemic, the grades of attractive female students deteriorated. This finding implies that the female beauty premium observed when education is in-person is likely to be chiefly a consequence of discrimination. On the contrary, for male students, there was still a significant beauty premium even after the introduction of online teaching. The latter finding suggests that for males in particular, beauty can be a productivity-enhancing attribute.
From an opinion piece in The Guardian on Matt Hancock, former UK Health Secretary who is currently in the news as a contestant on a reality TV show:
Matt Hancock is driven by the urge to resist self-knowledge at all costs. Matt Hancock is a fugitive from self-reflection; a flight risk from the truth; a guy compelled to loudly self-narrate in order to drown out the real story.
An excerpt from a CNN report about how social media users in China are using Cantonese to bypass censors:
“We had to lock down in April, and then again in November,” one resident posted on Weibo, China’s restricted version of Twitter, on Monday – before peppering the post with profanities that included references to officials’ mothers.
Last Wednesday, a local police department in Arizona made this announcement on its Facebook page:
Early this morning officers conducted a traffic stop and, upon approaching the vehicle, discovered a young owl next to the driver. The investigation revealed the owl had just been purchased by the driver at a local gas station. The driver purchased the owl from a motorist who had found it along the roadway.
The post went on to say that the driver was arrested “on numerous charges to include Aggravated DUI, Possession of Methamphetamine, and the Possession/ Transport/ Purchase of wildlife”.
Alongside this announcement, the post carried this very specific bit of advice:
The Payson Police Department would also like to take this opportunity to encourage the public not to use methamphetamine or you too may find yourself illegally purchasing a wild owl, for $100 dollars, in the middle of the night, from strangers, at a local gas station.
An outstanding 3 minute documentary that gives a peek into the inspiration and lives of a rather unique group of artists: art museum guards.
