What a Weird Week for Sunday May 1st 2022: Dirty Waffles and Kentucky Fried Buckquets

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Thanks for checking out the What a Weird Week Podcast, a countdown of the Top Ten Weird Things in the News from the Week that was. This is episode 3.31
For Full Show Notes and Podcast Links see www.Shownotes.page


BBC podcast about the war in Ukraine - if you want to understand what's happening there, it is a good way to get informed. It's called Ukrainecast (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bqztzm) ... ways to help  Ukraine (https://www.scottyandtony.com/2022/03/here-are-ways-to-support-ukraine.html)


Here's the Top Ten... 


❿ What is that mystery noise under the house? (Dramatic movie music plays) 
Spoiler alert, it was bear snores.
Five bears were hiding under this California house for months like master criminal trespassers. The guy renting the house said he heard loud purring noises coming through the floor... finally after months of the noise, the renter called The Bear League a week or so ago. Btw, How great is that name!? The Bear League is a group of humans who try to help bears. The Human League is a band from the 1980s. If we could get them together for a photo op that would be great. 
Notes:
- it was five black bears
- they'd been under the house since December
- this is generally the same area where that Bear named Hank the Tank made news for systematically breaking into people's houses.
- the bears came back but the experts put up a Bear proof fence to discourage them... and a strongly worded note explaining that it's not cool to trespass.
- if you encounter a Bear you should know what to do... do not reason with the Bear. Even if you're a moderately important person. The Bear doesn't care. Even if you have an electric car and good credit. The bears hardly ever get impressed by status. Once in awhile a Bear might be a fan of your Instagram and decide not to eat you, but it hardly happens. Even if you've won debates on the high school debate team, the Bear won't care. If you have a funny joke, the Bear won't laugh. Don't waste your A material on that Bear.

❾ This is a weird stat that no one saw coming... the researchers were baffled at first...
Road signs that flash messages about safe driving cause accidents?
This study focused on Texas... the example sign they show in the article is "1669 deaths this year on Texas roads". It's a sobering statistic and they thought signs like that would get people to drive safely and reduce accidents. Nope. According to the stats, when you drive by one of those electronic safety signs (and for about the next ten kilometers), you are MORE likely to have a car crash.
Notes:
- 28 states in the US have signs like this
- researchers had all kinds of data from before the signs were installed and then after... 
- after they installed these safety-awareness signs, accidents went up by 4.5% which for Texas would mean an extra 2600 car crashes per year.
- Why does this happen? Researchers think the signs distract us. Also, anxiety could be a factor... it looks like when the sign has really awful accident statistics, we get anxious and drive worse...  

 
❽ Money can save your marriage! - research. 
I don't know what minimum wage is where you're at but if they were to raise it, there would be less divorces. 
This study was a team effort by psychologists from UCLA and a group of economists. If you want to lower divorce rates, raise minimum wage. 
When states raised their minimum wage by a dollar, divorce rates dropped between 7 % and 15 %. 
Notes:
- it could be because as people make a little more money, they don't jump into marriage as early in life...
- this was a HUUUUUGE survey of more than 300,000 households
- why there's interest is saving marriages: divorce is linked to a bunch of negative things in society and we end up using different government programs more...
- lawyer's note: this doesn't mean you should stay married to someone who's a low-down dirty dog though! https://www.studyfinds.org/minimum-wage-divorce-rates/

 
❼ Burger Deliciousness revolution!
Heinz has a new Burger Dipping System that had been a Tik Tok trend... then Heinz packaged it up and made it available for purchase (God bless them!)... 
Heinz Dip-n-Crunch© looks to me like a side-by-side dipping system where one side is sauce and the other side of the tray is smooshed chips... 
https://www.fastcompany.com/90745333/heinz-has-a-new-crunchy-dipping-sauce-that-went-from-viral-tiktok-trend-to-actual-burgers 

 
❻ it looks like the guy who took selfies and jumped out of a plane that crashed... he was wearing a parachute btw... he also had a Selfie stick... the FAA says he crashed that plane on purpose... the video got under 2 million views... looks like the fella will be losing his pilot license but that's just about all the FAA has the power to do...

 
❺ *PG13 warning* a restaurant in British Columbia has been in the news for their dirty waffles...
It's a pop-up waffle shop (which makes it sound a little dirtier) and the waffles they sell look like ding dongs. Why? Is that the optimal shape for waffles on a stick? 
 
 
❹ KFC and Pro Flowers in the USA are teaming up to offer an incredible gift for special moms this Mothers Day... Flowers and fried chicken. They're calling it Kentucky Fried Buckquet... Give him something that shows you care... 
 *"Mother’s Day is KFC’s biggest day for online ordering and delivery, and one of its busiest days of the year, as the chain sells nearly 400,000 buckets of fried chicken on the holiday"
 
❸ rockets are so expensive that a company is trying something bonkers... 
A rocket company that sends up satellites thinks they can grab a rocket - as it plummets back down to earth - using a helicopter with a grappling hook!
Notes:
- this would save them the hassle and expense of retrieving the rocket booster from the ocean.
- as it falls back to earth, the rocket will deploy a parachute and the helicopter pilot will try to catch it by the parachute or parachute cord.
It's bonkers but worth the gamble... ???

 
❷ the giant robot that is set to destroy us all...
Notes:
- West Japan Railway built an enormous robot that looks like it's from the Transformers Movie
- it is fixing railway power lines in hard-to-get-to places
- it's controlled by a pilot who sees everything through virtual reality
- let's face it, at some point the robot will stop taking commands from the pilot and just go rogue
Here's a clip...
 
 
here's a clip of the robot becoming sentient ...
 
 
Honorable Mention: did Elon Musk do something or something?? 
 
 
❶ Good News Story!! Solar Panels you can see through are coming... they can be used as windows and capture solar energy while you look through them at the wasteland outside!! :) :) :)
We're not quite there yet but science is ON IT!!
https://interestingengineering.com/transparent-solar-panels-replace-windows-in-the-future-heres-how


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