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!
Malicious Mouse just tried to take away your right to trial by jury
Jeffrey Piccolo sued Disney because his wife, Kanokporn, died after eating at a Disney restaurant where she explained her severe food allergies but they served her food with nuts anyway. A tragic story, a nasty court battle, but it gets worse. Disney argued that it shouldn’t be in court at all, but in arbitration (with a Disney arbitrator) instead. Why? Because in 2019 the Piccolos had signed up for a one-month trial of Disney streaming, and the agreement has a clause (as all such contracts do) requiring disputes be settled by arbitration. You’ve almost certainly signed one of these, for Disney or someone else, too. Do you still have a right to Trial by Jury, or has the Mouse taken over? Click here or here to find out…
The Dark Side of EV’s… Road Taxes
(from Politico.com)– “he U.S.’ electric vehicle boom is ushering in a new crisis lawmakers have known for decades is coming: The gas tax system that prevents crumbling roads and bridges is evaporating. There’s a solution waiting in the wings. Charging drivers for the miles they traverse could easily replace the roughly $80 billion in revenue that state and federal gas taxes produce annually. The problem is getting elected officials to put that plan into action. Gas taxes are among the most politically risky issues elected officials can wade into, and few are willing to put their weight behind proposals to charge drivers to use public roads…
What are these?
(Photograph courtesy of Sarah Lloyd, based in Tasmania, article posted on Quora.com) What are these? “They’re the myxomycetes, and they can move and hunt for prey or look for the best environment for them. They are born from spores, like mushrooms. Myxomycetes move like huge amoebas, like pulsating masses: their movements seem to be dependent on microfibrils that remember the fibers of the muscles. These ′′ blobs ′′ crawl (at a speed of 1 cm per hour) phagocusing bacteria, algae, yeasts, protozoa and other organic material; they digest them and expel the remains outside. Not randomly, mixomycetes proliferate where there are plenty of prey: on decomposing logs or on carpets of dead leaves, wet. And so they’re often found in the woods: yellow, purple, blue, red, thanks to the pigments they contain…”
See the Aurora from anywhere… even Portland
(from Inverse.com)- Living in the Great Northwest means we miss out on a lot of the big astronomical extravaganzas. From here, things like the Perseid Meteors or the Aurora Borealis are best viewed on YouTube. But the best views are always from the International Space Station, and “astronaut Matthew Dominick took thousands of photos of the spectacular auroras over the weekend and put them together in this short time-lapse video…Part of the station (and a docked Soyuz crew capsule) hovers in the foreground, the glittering stars of deep space in the distance, and the green and red lights of the auroras dance across Earth’s upper atmosphere. At about the 45-second mark, the light of sunrise (which happens about every 90 minutes as the ISS zips around the planet) bathe the docked Soyuz capsule in a pale blue glow.”
