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Ever Play Hangman? Listen To This Guy Reveal The Truth Behind The Game.
Words have tremendous power. Use them wisely.
09.24.14
Photo credit: Screenshots from The Piano Doctor YouTube video
YouTuber The Piano Doctor revamped a "gross" airport piano during an eight-hour layover.
There’s something very depressing about a lonely airport piano that no one plays. There’s something even sadder about an airport piano that no one plays because it's fallen into disrepair. Josiah Jackson, who tunes and restores pianos for his massive YouTube channel The Piano Doctor (717,000 subscribers, as of this writing), encountered such an instrument at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Three years later, he took action.
“When I [originally] sat down to play, I was so disappointed,” says Jackson, 21, in a recent video. “This piano sounded terrible, and the keys felt really sticky. … I made a mental note of it and decided, if I was ever flying through that airport again, I would take some time to fix it for free. So I purposely booked an eight-hour layover.”
But this charitable deed took a little maneuvering. Restoring pianos is a complicated task involving a lot of tools, including some sharp ones—not exactly compatible with airport security. His workaround: mailing everything he could a week in advance. The piano had now degraded even further, so Jackson had his work cut out for him—especially if he wanted to catch his flight.
Screenshot from The Piano Doctor video on YouTubewww.upworthy.com
There were mountains of dust inside the instrument, along with a couple of “major cracks in the sound board” and a gross amount of sticky goo. “Everywhere underneath the keys was coated with a thick, sticky, glue-like substance,” he says. “I was so confused—I’d never seen anything like this.” He eventually realized: The piano was located next to a bar, and people must have spilled their drinks down inside it, effectively “gluing” the keys in place.
Using his scaled-down tool kit, he performed an express version of a typical restoration, making compromises where necessary. (For example, he had to flip some green felt pieces upside down instead of replacing them, and he wasn’t able to replace one broken string.) Regardless, the transformation is incredible—and what matters most is that he got the instrument back to legitimate playing condition.
“The piano does sound good in person,” he narrates, before a clip where he performs a beautiful piece. “And it’s now open to the public again.” (By the way, the airport put up a helpful sign reading, “No drinks near piano, please!”)
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
If you find yourself at O’Hare, salute the Doctor’s kind deed by playing a few chords. According to an O’Hare employee who commented on the YouTube clip, people have been doing just that. “I frequently walk past this piano at C17,” they wrote. “I want to let you know that passengers and even flight crew members frequently play music on it now! Thank you for bringing a new life to the piano!”
Jackson talked about his unconventional career path in an interview with West Michigan ABC station WZZM. “I thought I was going to be a performer,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to be. I finally had a couple opportunities in high school to play on a stage—enough to realize that’s not really what I want to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to find something around pianos that I could do, and that’s when I ran into piano tuning.”
A stray dog brought her lifeless puppy to the doorstep of a local veterinarian clinic, saving its life.
In the Beylikdüzü district in Istanbul, security camera footage showed a stray dog holding a puppy in its mouth and bringing it to the doorstep of a local veterinary clinic. The veterinarian that answered the door found the puppy lifeless and took it in while the pup’s mother followed.
The puppy received emergency treatment, as it was dying from a slow heartbeat due to the cold outside. Throughout the treatment, the mother dog stayed at her puppy’s side. Thanks to quick action and care, the puppy survived and is being cared for at the clinic alongside its mother. This puppy turned out to be related to another puppy that was brought in by other animal lovers beforehand, with the belief that it was the sole survivor of its litter.
"We thought all of them had died. It turns out there was one sibling that survived,” said veterinarian and clinic owner, Baturalp Oğhan in an interview. “When our technician noticed the situation, he brought it inside. We realized the puppy's heart was beating. We placed it in intensive care. It is currently continuing treatment with its sibling."
The puppy's mother stayed with her child as the veterinarian administered treatment.@beylikduzu_alfa_veteriner
While it is unfortunate that the rest of the litter had passed, this mother dog’s actions not only saved one of her pups but had reunited her with another one.
According to World Population Review, there is a pet dog in 30% of all households globally. There are 90 million pet dogs housed in the United States alone. Bear in mind, that is counting the dogs that are housed and cared for by humans. Just imagine how many dogs are still out there like that mother dog, along with the number of dogs that sadly didn’t make it like that lucky puppy.
The puppy is recovering nicely alongside its sibling.@beylikduzu_alfa_veteriner
While it is remarkable that this mother dog, out of memory, instinct, desperation, or a combination of those traits took her puppy to the clinic, the onus cannot be on dogs themselves to receive the help and care they need. Fortunately, there are several animal shelters and clinics that can help care for these animals, but they still need to find ways to get there. Not all of them have smart dog mothers that can get them to a helpful human vet.
The puppy lives thanks to its mother's quick action and trust in local veterinarians.@beylikduzu_alfa_veteriner
If you wish to help out a stray animal, such as a dog or cat, there are some steps you can take to be prepared if the situation presents itself. The Humane Society has a bunch of quality tips, such as keeping your car with supplies like fresh water, bowls, pet food, heavy blankets,and such to keep the animal comfortable while waiting for animal control to arrive at the scene or if you choose to transport them yourself to a nearby shelter. Before you stock up, you should research to see if there are any state or local laws regarding housing lost or stray animals to make sure you’re following the legal methods.
We share a lot of space with “man’s best friend” and the least we can do is be a best friend back to them, especially when they’re in need.
Photo cropped from Facebook page.
Everyone eats sexualized or not.
When it comes to breasts, Americans really have it twisted. We've sexualized them to such a point we no longer see them for their main purpose: feeding babies. This disconnect is so extreme that when women breastfeed their children in public they are often met with scorn or shame. Florida mom and anti-circumcision advocate, Ashley Kaidel, isn't having it anymore.
Not having it.
Kaidel was breastfeeding in an unnamed restaurant when another diner gave her the stink-eye, just for feeding her child in public.
So Kaidel took a photo of herself staring right back at the shamer and posted it to Facebook. The photo quickly went viral, receiving over 420,000 likes.
In her post, she explained why she had such a stern look on her face.
"In the picture, it appears I'm staring off into the distance. In reality, I'm staring into the eyes of a woman staring at me. She is looking at me with disgust and shaking her head with judgement in an attempt to shame me and indirectly tell me without words that I am wrong and need to cover myself.”
Kaidel says she breastfeeds in public to reduce the stigma surrounding it.
"I do this for the person that has the mentality 'Boobs are to be covered. They're for your husbands eyes only. They're intimate. It's a personal/private thing to feed your baby. Cover up out of respect. My kids don't need to see that. Walk out of the room' and any other derogatory, close-minded comments and sentiments alike.”
Then, she cut through all the nonsense surrounding breasts to explain their real purpose.
"[B]reasts were made to sustain your baby's life before they were made to bring pleasure to any other man, woman, partner or spouse. Their sole purpose is to make food and dispense it straight into a baby's mouth. There is nothing weird about this and there's no difference in me feeding my baby with my breast than you feeding yourself with a spoon.
Finally, Kaidel had some strong words for the next person who attempts to shame her for breastfeeding in public.
"No person should be isolated and shunned because they're eating, especially when you yourself are eating while ridiculing how someone else is eating. Is it not certainly easier to avert your eyes from a displeasing sight rather than suggest or demand a mother and child remove themselves from your presence? How pompous and selfish is this? Just look away. It's simple to do so. No harm done at all."
This article originally appeared 9 years ago.
Innovation
A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years
"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." 
There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.
There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.
A team of researchers at UCI had been experimenting with nanowires for potential use in batteries, but found that over time the thin, fragile wires would break down and crack after too many charging cycles. A charge cycle is when a battery goes from completely full to completely empty and back to full again.
But one day, on a whim, Thai coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and a Plexiglas-like electrolyte gel.
"She started to cycle these gel capacitors, and that's when we got the surprise," said Reginald Penner, chair of the university's chemistry department. "She said, 'this thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it's still going.' She came back a few days later and said 'it's been cycling for 30,000 cycles.' That kept going on for a month."
This discovery is mind-blowing because the average laptop battery lasts 300 to 500 charge cycles. The nanobattery developed at UCI made it though 200,000 cycles in three months. That would extend the life of the average laptop battery by about 400 years. The rest of the device would have probably gone kaput decades before the battery, but the implications for a battery that that lasts hundreds of years are pretty startling.
Batteries being recycled at WRWA, London. Nov ‘21Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash"The big picture is that there may be a very simple way to stabilize nanowires of the type that we studied," Penner said. "If this turns out to be generally true, it would be a great advance for the community." Not bad for just fooling around in the laboratory.
This article originally appeared two years ago.