Like the Queen’s Guard in the United Kingdom, police officers in the United States need to be able to keep their composure whatever happens. Of course they could be forced to keep their composure in the face of threats of violence, but even harder to stifle is laughter. So this police academy gives them the ultimate test: the rubber chicken test. If they can keep in their laughter, they don’t get penalized. If not, it’s pushup time.

Twenty-five years ago, Los Angeles erupted into riots after a tape of police officers beating Rodney King was released to the public. There are loads of tragic stories from those days, and a few horrific images stick in survivors’ and spectators’ minds. One of the most memorable of those images is of the two Korean men defending their business in LA’s Korea Town with handguns. This video shows some of those clips and the participants explain what they were thinking as the shootout went down.

The clementine cake played a small but important roll in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. The main character used the cake to trade to some tribespeople, who in turn allowed him safe passage through their territory. Those tribesmen weren’t alone in finding that cake irresistible. Babish, from Binging with Babish couldn’t resist but make this delicious cake. Here’s how to make it yourself. Give it a try and welcome it to the clean plate club along with Babish.

Concrete was first famously used by the Romans, which obviously came around long after the kinds of folks that the Primitive Technology channel models his stunts after. Using only the kinds of technology available to primitive peoples, he makes huts, shelters, kilns, and all sorts of neat things. But this video may his most impressive feat yet. using snail shells to extract lye from, he made lime mortar, which is a kind of concrete. 

We have all heard the story: a woman orders coffee at McDonald’s and spills it on herself. She then sues McDonald’s for millions. The moral of that version of the story is clear. Lawsuits in the United States became so frivolous that a dum-dum spilling coffee on herself. But here’s the problem: that story leaves out the facts. The truth is that the coffee was so bloody hot that it gave her third degree burns. She went into shock. She had burns over 16% of her body, 6% of which were third degree. She was in the hospital for a week and racked up over $10,000 in medical bills. 

After the Florida shooting, the NRA has come under pretty serious fire (as it were…). Major corporations like Hertz, Delta, United, and others have pulled their support for the NRA after a grassroots Twitter campaign. But streaming TV services, like Google, Apple, and Roku, have not yet backed out of their NRA support because there’s a streaming NRA TV channel. This John Oliver segment examines the kinds of shows that appear on NRA TV and why those shows are a bit problematic.

Homeopathy causes quite the controversy, especially in internet circles. But what exactly is homeopathy, and how does it (claim to) work? Essentially, homeopathy claims that an active ingredient that causes a problem is also the way to cure the same problem. For example, belladonna (a plant) causes fever. So if you take some belladonna in a certain way, it will cure your fever. The “certain way” is where things get interesting. In order to be effective, you have to dilute the strength of the ingredient millions and billions of times. The video explains how it works with helpful visuals and weighs in on effectiveness.

Old images or paintings of WWI ships reveal weird paint patterns––lots of blocky lines or bright colors, sometimes wave patterns that appear almost psychedelic. As weird as it seems, those bright patterns that seem to stand out so much were actually a form of camouflage. The idea was this. U-boats looking at a ship through a periscope were going to be able to see the ship no matter what, because the color of the sea and the sky were always changing thereby effectively negating any blending camouflage. Dazzle camouflage wasn’t designed to blend into the sea or the sky. Instead, it was meant to make gauging distance and movement difficult.

Most people don’t think about paintings as being scary. That’s because most of what we’re exposed to is froo-froo art of landscapes or kids playing––if w’ere lucky, we see some cool Renaissance paintings. But paintings can be downright terrifying, and Nerdwriter makes a good case that Francisco Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son” is the most disturbing painting ever made. Not only is the subject matter creepy, but also the context of the painting is downright terrifying. It was found painted in Goya’s kitchen, straight onto his wall. He never intended anyone to see this. It was just for him.

Everybody has a hobby. Some people collect stamps or coins, some dance or sing, others exercise. Usually, hobbies involve passion––things that really inspire us and make us excited. Stamp collectors get excited about rare stamps. Runners get excited about extreme routes. And so on. The men in this short documentary all have their hobbies, but you’re going to have a hard time understanding what’s so exciting about the passion that inspires their hobbies. They love things like roundabouts and mailboxes, things the rest of us never ever think about.

Un Chien Andalou is a surrealist film from 1929. If you’ve ever seen the film, you probably remember one thing about it: the eyeball-slicing scene. If you haven’t seen the movie, then yes, you read that right. In the film, someone slices open an eyeball (not a human eye, of course) with a razor blade. It’s horribly visceral and hard to watch, but it definitely sticks with you. Part of the reason that it’s so memorable is that they use an animal’s eye, and so it really looks like they’ve sliced a human eye open because goo comes out. As this video teaches you, “goo” one of the best words to describe what’s in the human eye.

According to experts on storytelling and screenwriting, the most basic and fundamental relationship of any movie consists of that between the hero and the villain. It’s the driving force of the film’s dramatic action, so naturally it needs to be pretty darn good. One of the key aspects of that rivalry is that the two characters’ philosophies are antithetical––this makes a successful hero-villain dichotomy. This video explores how Marvel movies successfully––and sometimes unsuccessfully––make villains.