Gen X And Millennials Do Not Like Each Other, And Other Facts
Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important fact from the past few days. This week: Both young and old need to get along, Q-Tips are bad for your ears and George Lucas can't even give away his museum.
Millennials And Gen X'ers Both Dislike Each Other And Will Probably Always Will
Look, we get that drawing any sort of generational comparison is going to be fraught with over-generalizations. Not all millennials are lazy, entitled, delusional idiots who also work for peanuts and never take vacations. And not all Gen X'ers are aging, bitter middle-managers who are stymied by Boomers who refuse to retire. Look, we get that.
That said, Mel Magazine's John McDermott argues that given the current economic forces at work, it's sorta hard to ignore this inherent tension. Young folks entered the work force at a pretty shitty time and thus have either been forced to move back home, or work long hours for shitty pay just to get their career off the ground. And middle-aged folks, who one day hope to retire, aren't making the wages they should be making at their age. Meaning they're now faced with the prospect of retire later — if ever at all — while having to deal with some young go-getters who are chomping at the bit for their job.
So yeah, everyone is mad and frustrated that life isn't going the way they planned. Maybe we can at least understand where the other generation is coming from now?
[Mel]
Q-Tips Are Bad For Your Ears
Surprisingly, sticking cotton-tipped sticks into your ears does more harm than good, says the experts over at the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery.
Apart from the risk of just straight-up puncturing your ear drum with one of those things, the fact that you insert them into your ear is functionally opposed to how your ears deal with ear wax.
You see, the outer half of your ear produces the wax, and naturally it makes its way out of your ear. Clean the outside of your ear and you're cleaning away the old wax. Trying to buff the inside of your ear canal with a cotton swab only pushes the wax further back into your ear. And if done with enough regularity can lead to earwax impaction — a fun thing where the earwax hardens and muffles sounds and makes you feel like you have water stuck in your ear 24/7.
Don't use Q-Tips, just embrace that our ears get waxy and that's fine and natural.
[Gizmodo]
George Lucas Wants To Build A $1.5 Billion Museum That No One Asked For
People hate George Lucas. He did oversee the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, which might be the most upset people have ever gotten over a theatrical performance since The Rite of Spring.
George Lucas also seems to hate George Lucas. In Devon Leonard's examination of why George Lucas can't seem to convince cities to let him build a free art museum worth some $1.5 billion, it's clear that Lucas has a conflicted relationship with his success. Mostly: The fact that his movie franchise is legitimately the most popular franchise on the planet, and yet has yet to win any major awards.
This is part of the reason why Lucas is willing to spend more than a billion dollars of his own money to build a museum in the first city that will have him. But just like Hollywood, the art world doesn't feel like it needs Lucas. So now Lucas, who sold "Star Wars" to Disney for a cool $4 billion back in 2012, is left to shop around his museum. And no one is interested.
An Italian Astronaut Is Responsible For 6,500 Of DC's 8,700 Noise Complaints
Look, Roberto Vittori is a reasonable man. He used to work for NASA. He's been to space three times. He lives in what was once a quiet neighborhood nestled behind Georgetown University.
But then in 2013 Reagan International implemented a new system for flight navigation and now planes roar by Vittori's house night and day. He can't sleep. He's stressed out. He tried to soundproof his house but to no avail. What else is a guy to do but file noise complaint after noise complaint until someone finally listens?
No one listened to Vittori. Bureaucracy is here to save us from itself, unless you are Roberto Vittori.
Previously on What We Learned This Week
Facebook Knows More About You Than You Think
Cheat Codes Don't Exist Anymore
The Cheapest Way To See The World Is On A Cargo Ship
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.
