Welcome to “What We Learned This Week,” a regular feature where we share all the most interesting nuggets of information we picked up in the past week.
The US Is Not Running Out Of Bourbon
Rumors of bourbon's demise have been greatly exaggerated. For a time, spirit soothsayers saw the drink's rising popularity as a ill omen. Their logic was thus: Bourbon1 takes years to make, which means distillers can't just ramp up production at the drop of a glass. The delay in production, then, would leave bars and stores scraping the bottom of the barrel as demand outstrips supply, forcing people to find other liquors — eventually leaving bourbon producers with surplus of brown liquid and not enough livers to process it. But fear not distilled corn mash lovers! Industry analysts now say that while some boutique bourbons might become a little scarce, there will still be plenty of good-enough stiff stuff to go around.
A Railroad-Renewing Locomotive Is The World's Most Useful Rube Goldberg Machine
The railroads of yore were massive undertakings, truly built from blood, sweat and tears. Today, humanity harnesses the power of recursion and employs trains to replace the very tracks they're running on. Watch as this Plasser & Theurer RU 800 — a long, lumbering rough beast — slowly and methodically removes old ties, resurfaces the gravel and lays down new track with an oddly satisfying mechanical weight and precision.2
You Should Eat Broccoli Stalks
The more perceptive of us out there might have noticed that when you buy a head of broccoli, it comes attached to a stalk. And if you were to cook the vegetable whole, one of two things happen: either the florets become delicious and tender while the stalk remains fibrous and vegetal, or the stalk turns supple while the florets turn to mush. This catch-22 forces most cooks to discard the stalk entirely. But don't! If you cut the stalks off and cook them separately you can avoid rabe-ing yourself of a fresh broccoli slaw or a savory broccoli stalk roast.
The Formula For Internet Dog Fame Is To Have A Goofy Dog
What's the secret to launching your dog into Internet fame? This week's Reply All examines Instagram's Marnie, a goofy-looking shih tzu, to understand just what makes a pet popular on the 'net. The secret — as the likes of Grumpy Cat evince — is that pets with slight deformations tend to be destined for stardom.3
Alien Life Is Just 20 Years Away
Given the vastness of the universe, statistics would mandate that discovering life outside of Earth is not a question of if but when. Now, NASA's chief scientist Ellen Stofan has drilled down that question of "when?" to within a generation. Granted, Stofan is hesitant to promise discoveries of "little green men." Instead, she expects first contact will be with microbes.4
This Is Not A Chameleon
It is the work of artist Johannes Stötter, who painted the bodies of two humans to look like the color-shifting lizard. Its uncanny movements now haunt our dreams.
Working At Apple Is A Nightmare
Working at an Apple Store is widely known to be a miserable, cult-like experience, and now, thanks to an anonymous ex-employee, it would appear that working at 1 Infinite Loop is no different. The former Apple acolyte who was tasked with improving Apple's customer service division, does not mince words: "It is ironic that one of the world’s largest companies and one that prides itself on innovation, creativity and ‘breaking the mould’, operates on such soul limiting entrenched dogma. It’s an organised boys club where perception is valued over substance and tenure over talent." And that's just in the opening paragraph.
Invisible Girlfriend Can Be A Garbage Can For Your Drunk Texts
As designed, Invisible Girlfriend is meant to be a relationship cover. A crowdsourced significant other that lives amongst your text messages to fool others into thinking you're spoken for. But use the service long enough, and it's easy to take advantage of the fact that, at base level, you're texting anonymous strangers who are mandated to text nice things back.
2 And now we finally understand the allure of train spotting. ↩
3 It would seem that Poe's famous quote: "There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.” ↩
4 Which, for humanity's sake, is probably a good thing. Unless those microbes unleash a Andromeda Strain-level space-plague. ↩
