Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch. By the way, much (but not necessarily all) of our delicious Popcorn comes from articles we’ve posted on our Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, please stop by and “Like” us and we’ll keep a fairly-constant-but-not-frequent-enough-to-be-annoying stream of these coming to your virtual door!
How to build houses for your new bee neighbors
May 20 was World Bee Day, and most people have probably been wallowing in guilt for not doing enough to celebrate. Wallow no longer! You can now make your own homes for bees, and they’re IKEA-certified. IKEA has partnered with two small companies and an industrial designer to create tiny bee homes you can customize yourself. These are for solitary bee species, not the hive species that make honey, so the homes don’t need to be very large at all for a bee that can pollinate as much as 120 honeybees. All you have to do is go to the website, design your bee palace, and then download the plans for CNC fabrication at a DIY shop. Get started saving the planet!
How to talk to a conspiracy theorist
From the provably real to the unprovable to the provably wrong, conspiracy theories are coming out of the dark these days. Deciding if an rumored conspiracy is real can be difficult enough; talking to someone who has ‘seen the light’ can be almost impossible. Here are resources to help you do both… The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science from Mother Jones, Coronavirus, ‘Plandemic’ And The Seven Traits Of Conspiratorial Thinking and Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds from The Conversation, Why Do People Avoid Facts That Could Help Them? from Scientific American, and Trapped In A Hoax: Survivors Of Conspiracy Theories Speak Out from The Guardian.
The 40 strangest things you’ll ever see on the road
If this month’s newsletter seems a little grim, we apologize and we’ll try to give you a smile to make up for it. There’s a lot of slideshows of idiot drivers and their cars, but this is one of the best we’ve seen. Yes, driving Spiderman is there, but so are driving dogs and alligators. You’ll see incredible vehicles from a wooden Ford to a drivable pirate ship, UFO, and Flintstone lowrider, but then you’ll go on to see the incredible defiance of physics that only drivers seem able to pull off. Nothing but fun, and well worth your time. One of the best parts is that there’s no ‘click for next image’ BS; all the pix are laid out for you to see with minimal clickbait. Enjoy!
How to Sustain Your Activism Against Police Brutality Beyond this Moment
One of our big George Floyd worries is that, while all eyes are on the issue of over-the-top police right now, we’ve been here too many times before. Will this time be any different? If you, too, worry that this is another disappointing flash in the pan, we have some advice from Behavioral Scientist on how to keep working toward the goal you care about. And we also have a little encouragement here… you don’t have to change the whole world to change the whole world. BBC Future explains why engaging 3.5% of a population is the threshold for change, and why the most long-lasting changes come from non-violent protests.
