Popcorn Shorts
Cool stuff that’s too small for a big article
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!
Someone wants to steal your cat!
Stealing catalytic converters (or ‘cats’ to the cool kids) is big business in Portland and beyond. They’re great for thieves because they’re self-contained, easy to steal, easy to sell, and worth big money. They’re not so great for you, because if your cat’s stolen your car will barely run, you’ll need an immediate replacement, it’s a very expensive part, and there’s very little you can do to prevent it. But there is something you can do…
Can you spot a troll? Can you spot more than the Dwyer Guinea Pig?
You probably already know that a ‘troll’ is a “fake social media account, often created to spread misleading information”. In one of the scariest posts we ran across all month, a quiz challenged us to decide troll-or-real for 8 real social media accounts. There’s no real definitive way to tell them apart, and the trolls are getting much better at looking human, so the Dwyer Guinea Pig that takes these tests for us only got 4 out of 8 right. That’s a failing level of social media awareness… can you do better?
“Radical’ voices fight fake patriots and nazis
It’s said ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’, and here are two videos that show how we handled today’s problems yesterday. One (1969) is from “Dragnet” where Joe Friday is approached by a skeezy dude offering the LAPD support from a ‘militia’ that believes in ‘law and order’. Joe schools the skeeze appropriately. The second (1947) is a film from the US War Department (back when they still called it ‘war’ instead of ‘defense’) where a ‘real American’ on a park bench explains the country would be better off without negroes and people with foreign accents. A Hungarian immigrant again schools the skeeze appropriately. Share with your friends who should know better!
We’re going back! NASA’s plan for a 2024 moon mission
from SpaceFlight Now- “NASA officials released a nearly five-year, $28 billion plan Monday to return astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of 2024, but the agency’s administrator said the “aggressive” timeline set by the Trump administration last year hinges on Congress approving $3.2 billion in the next few months to kick-start development of new human-rated lunar landers… NASA released a new overview document Monday describing the agency’s approach to landing astronauts on the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. The program, named Artemis, encompasses the SLS, Orion, Human Landing Systems, and the Gateway, a human-tended platform in lunar orbit that will eventually serve as a staging point for missions to the moon.”
