Bad Design Kills, And Other Facts
Welcome To What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week, the fatal cost of flawed design, the impossible task of assembling Ikea furniture while high and the aliens possibly trying to shut down a star.
KEEP MAKING JOKES ABOUT COMIC SANS THOUGH
Too Many People Die Because Of Bad Design
This past June, Anton Yelchin was killed by his car. Details of the incident are unclear, but Yelchin's Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled down a hill and crushed him against his home's security gate. The shifter was not broken or malfunctioned, but that its design — a sequential-style shifter that does not make it clear the vehicle is in park — is to blame. Fiat Chrysler is recalling some 1.1 million vehicles with this shifter.
Sadly Yelchin's death was not a freak accident. In Lena Groeger's investigation for ProPublica, she finds dozens of poorly designed products — household cleaner that looks like juice, digital medical charts nurses can't understand and cooking spray that looks like insect repellant — that have been fatal.
DOESN'T SEEM LIKE A BRIGHT IDEA
Aliens Are Trying To Get Rid Of A Star
Last October, astronomers thought they had discovered something incredible: Possible evidence of an alien megastructure surrounding a star. While they couldn't see the structure surrounding KIC 8462852, they could detect a regular dimming of the star, suggesting that something huge, possibly of alien origin, was orbiting the star. Of course, some astronomers thought this was complete nonsense.
While debate rages over KIC 8462852, researchers are now detecting something else funny with the most mysterious star in the galaxy. In addition to the regular dimming, astronomers are also noticing a gradual decline in the star's light. Which, given the star's connection to an alien megastructure, could mean that something out there is trying to extinguish this star.
A WASTE OF DRUGS AND FURNITURE
Don't Do Drugs And Then Try To Build Ikea Furniture
Like most things in life, you can totally do it. You can take acid, and then build an Ikea dresser. It might take you longer than it should, and it might not be the most enjoyable experience, but you can do it. Perhaps the only drug you should take, and then build an Ikea dresser is Adderall. Then maybe that might be a fun time.
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THEY'RE ON ANOTHER PLANET
People Still Believe The Earth Is Flat
It is the year 2016. We have smartphones and GPS satellites and a near-instant connection to humanity's vast collection of knowledge. And yet, there are people out there who are convinced the world is flat. Worse, it is the internet that continues to perpetuate the flat earth movement. There are Facebook groups and Twitter accounts and poorly-compressed JPEGs that all claim that our planet is a disc, not a sphere.
Of course, most Flat-Earthers also believe in a slew of other popular conspiracies — NASA faked the moon landing, gravity doesn't exist, 9/11 was an inside job, and so on. Maybe they just don't want to believe.
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THIS IS NOT A JOKE
Jared Leto's Joker Is Actually Good?
There has been plenty pecked out about how Suicide Squad is not a good movie. However, it is The Ringer's Sam Donsky who found one of the few pearls in an otherwise disposable garbage fire of a film: Jared Leto's Joker.
Now wait, you might say. Jared Leto's Joker was in that movie for like 10 minutes, and he wasn't even that good. True, yes. But as Donsky points out, thanks to the media and marketing strategies we've been inundated with the idea of Jared Leto's Joker for almost two years now. We've seen the teasers, the trailers, the teaser trailers and that one press image where he's wearing no shirt and screaming into your dang face.
You see, in the year 2016, it doesn't really matter if your star villain is in your movie or not. Because people love to eat up all the promotional material leading up to your movie — it's free, it requires little time commitment, it's ambiguous enough that the idea of what the movie might be is more compelling than what it actually is — you can just heavily market Jared Leto, Joker and poof, now Jared Leto joins Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger as Notable Jokers in Film. People will forget Suicide Squad, but they won't forget Jared Leto, Joker.
THEY STAY COMPOSED UNDER PRESSURE
Tubeless Bicycle Wheels Are Really Great
Even today, the most popular method of bicycle tire inflation is the inner tube. It's cheap, it works, and if it goes flat, it's easy to replace. But it's imperfect. Rough roads can cause pinch flats, where the tube is literally pinched between the tire and the rim, and random road debris presents the constant threat of puncture.
Tubeless tires ditch the tube and replace it with a liquid sealant that cannot pinch flat, and will, as its name implies, seal any puncture in seconds. The only downside is that they're expensive, are a little trickier to set up and in the rare case that you do flat, well, it's a pain in the butt. Still, how cool is it to jab a nail in your tire, pull it out, and still keep rolling?
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Previously on What We Learned This Week
Brazil Has A Billionaire Problem
Paying With A Credit Card Is Harder Than It Needs To Be
The Best Time The Navy Detonated A Nuke Underwater
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
