Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - July 2, 2025 [TRex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.

This is the Wednesday night ONT. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Be nice to your fellow commenters.

By somewhat popular demand:

Weekly commenter stats for week of 6-28-2025
Top 10 commenters:
1 [757 comments] 'TheJamesMadison, reflecting on change and permanence with Ozu' [107.51 posts/day]
2 [447 comments] 'polynikes'
3 [426 comments] 'Oldcat'
4 [403 comments] '...'
5 [360 comments] 'Boss Moss'
6 [329 comments] 'toby928'
7 [319 comments] 'Warai-otoko'
8 [294 comments] 'Blonde Morticia'
9 [294 comments] 'Hadrian the Seventh '
10 [285 comments] 'Bulg'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [177 names] 'The Paolo' [25.14 unique names/day]
2 [98 names] 'Spud Webb'
3 [69 names] 'Ciampino - pray for a safe launch'
4 [68 names] 'Quarter Twenty '
5 [57 names] 'Duncanthrax'
6 [55 names] 'Quarter Twenty '
7 [47 names] 'LeenCorp LLC'
8 [44 names] 'Count de Monet'
9 [35 names] 'Moron Analyst'
10 [32 names] 'toby928'

Time for a mid-year check of progress for those participating in the official Ace of Spades ONT 2025 Prediction Challenge. As a refresher, Morons made guesses on a range of current events and economic metrics. We'll tally the results at the end of the year and see whose crystal ball was the most clear.

But we're six months in and everyone wants to know who has the early edge, so... We have economic metrics for all the items except one (a TRex small brain glitch is going to require one of the items to be dropped).

Some event-related predictions have been determined (such as Trudeau stepping down). Some of the event-related predictions have seen change but have not fully materialized yet (a good example is NPR/PBS de-funding where there is legislation that has not passed or some Epstein files were released but no client list).

The top two Morons on the economic metrics are no one of any consequence and Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan. Their predictions are excellent with a meaningful margin to third place from predicting pookysgirl.

For predicting events, Pale Rider currently has a commanding lead with a perfect prediction record. Dr. Claw, Methos and Luca I are tied for second.

Well done! We'll see what the remainder of the year brings. Plenty of time for change.

What could be more America than celebrating July 4th by launching cars off a cliff?

The Glacier View Fourth of July Car Launch in Alaska has become an annual tradition.

Here's what it looked like last year:

If you don't already have your tickets for this year, you're too late. SOLD OUT.

I had thought this was a parody. It is not.

Serve up a winning combination of big crunch and bold flavor with Vlasic Pickle Balls Dill Pickle Flavored Corn Puffs. Crunch into the perfect doubles team of dill and vinegar flavor in every bite and have a pickle-ball with this gluten free pickle flavored snack that rivals all other salty snacks on the court.

Pickles and corn puffs are fine on their own. Pickles are among the few vegetables that find favor with TRex. Mixing them diminishes each. We mourn the unfortunate sacrifices made by dill pickles in the pursuit of potential pickleball playing patrons.

Makes sense:

Astronomy photo of the week: ISS passing in front of the sun:

Photo credit: Andrew McCarthy

Medical knowledge:

An SPF 15 sunscreen blocks 93% of UVB radiation, and SPF 30 blocks 97%. After that, the difference in protection is small. SPF 50 blocks 98%, and SPF 100 stops 99% of UVB rays from reaching your skin.

If you pick SPF 30 and reapply at least every two hours, George says you'll be making a good choice. "A higher SPF might give you a little more wiggle room if you didn't apply enough sunscreen, or you forgot to reapply," says George. "But after a point, going higher doesn't mean you are getting dramatically more protection."

TRex has a small brain (and short arms) but this comes as news.

This isn't the food thread, but I can't let this pass. I only recently learned about the BRL.

This is a quasi-smart military blog at times, so we should address the BRL (Barge, Refrigerated, Large). The barge was towed by the Navy in the Pacific theater of World War II to store frozen and refrigerated food. It stored tons of frozen meat, vegetables, eggs and dairy products. More importantly, it also produced ice cream in large quantities - 10 US gallons of ice cream every seven minutes.

The U.S. Navy had (in)famously outlawed alcohol aboard ships in 1914, six years before Prohibition, but it still needed to fill the gap in morale boosting power a sailors daily drink left behind. As any noncommissioned officer who has overseen junior enlisted Americans will tell you: if you don't give them something to boost their morale, they can get into anything...and you might not like what they find.

Not everyone was thrilled with ice cream's rampant popularity. At the end of the war, then-Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller allegedly decried ice cream as "sissy food" and lobbied for beer and whiskey instead. The newly formed Department of Defense opted to stick with ice cream instead.

History is fun:

Roland the Farter was a medieval flatulist who lived in 12th-century England. He was given Hemingstone manor in Suffolk and 30 acres of land in return for his services as a jester for King Henry II. Each year, he was obliged to perform "saltum, siffletum, pettum" (a jump, a whistle, [and] a fart that were all done at once) for the king's court at Christmas.

Valerie Allen, professor of literature at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, investigated Roland's story in her 2007 book, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages.

Read more about professional flatulence at Atlas Obscura. Among other things, you will learn that "not all performing farters were land owners."

Hat tip: inspired by scampydog's ONT last night that referenced Operation Frequent Wind

Sotheby's recently sold the sweater vest that Matthew Broderick wore in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The sweater and a collection of related memorabilia with exceptional provenance sold for $279,400. Shockingly, the pre-sale estimate was $300,000 to $600,000.

If the name Mansour Ojjeh means something to you, you will appreciate the sale of 19 McLarens from his estate. If you don't recognize the name, take my word that the person had an outsized role in automotive history.

That collection was built around a central theme, with the McLaren F1 as its "jewel in the crown." This particular F1 is a one-of-one example, finished in a unique colour named Yquem, after the esteemed and rare dessert wine. It was also the last McLaren F1 ever produced.

To reflect the significance of this vehicle, McLaren subsequently renamed the colour Mansour Orange, a custom hue used exclusively on his cars. This shade could not be specified by any other customer. Furthermore, Mansour requested the final chassis number for each model, ensuring his cars incorporated all the technical updates made during the production cycle.

The result is without equal. With the exception of the F1 (which has just 1,810 km) and the P1 GTR (used occasionally during McLaren track days), every car remains unused, in factory-delivered condition, and maintained under direct instruction by McLaren themselves - a service no other collector has ever received. Tom Hartley Jr.

Sadly, TRex has no available garage space at the moment.

I have mixed feelings about this video, but sharing in the name of knowledge and science (although the absence of scales on the TRex head makes the results questionable):

Who knew utensils were so complicated?

Winning!

Hat tip: Grateful

The Pittsburgh police scanner is like a slow motion car crash. You can't bear to watch but you can't look away. Fewer entries than usual, but this is more about quality than quantity.

John Philip Sousa for the big ONT finish (naturally):

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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