Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

On this Election Day, here’s a story about an early and not-too-well-known effort to help count votes that came from none other than Thomas Edison. Plus: photographer Ryan Donnell has been documenting some of the most unusual polling places in the country.  Thomas Edison’s First Patented Invention—a Voting Machine for Congress—Was a Total Flop (Mental Floss) Ryan Donnell: Polling Places (Wonderful Machine) Cast a vote for Cool Weird Awesome as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

If you're taking part in National Novel Writing Month, then here's a tip: don't forget the dedication page. They can be full of surprises, as we discovered in quite a few books. Plus: meet the prehistoric pelagornithid, probably the largest flying bird ever, with a 20 foot wingspan and teeth.  Brilliant Book Dedications (Sad and Useless) Scientists Reveal What May Be the Largest Flying Bird Ever (Smithsonian) We dedicate today's show to our Patreon backers. So if you join us, today's show is especially for you!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

In some areas, Halloween festivities actually start the night before October 31, on a night that goes by a few very unusual names. Plus: how about an unusual lollipop that's far off the beaten trick-or-treating path?  Mischief Night? Cabbage Night? Goosey Night? What does it all mean? (NJ.com) Blue Cheese Lollipops (Lolliphile) Joining us as a Patreon backer is all treats, no tricks --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Composting can turn some of our food waste back into useful stuff, but it can take a while. A new device out of Germany aims to cut the time it takes to go from food waste to compost to just 48 hours. Plus: on this National Cat Day, we salute the very tiny but impressive Cat Museum in Krakow, Poland.  Kitchen gadget converts food scraps to compost in a claimed 48 hours (New Atlas) Poland Is Home to a Very Tiny Cat Museum (Mental Floss) With help from our Patreon backers, we can cover every Internet cat ever --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We’re not the only species that knows the difference between a face-to-face chat and a remote one. Research out of Vienna shows cows prefer live human voices to recorded ones. Plus: on National Chocolate Day, we pay a visit to the world's largest chocolate moose, in Scarborough, Maine.  Cows prefer to co-moo-nicate in person, research suggests (CNN) Lenny the Moose - The World's Only Life-Size Chocolate Moose (LenLibby.com) We always want to communicate with our backers on Patreon, get in touch today! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

A project out of MIT is using artificial intelligence to scan lost languages and find rules and conventions that may help us figure out what all those words from years ago might mean. Plus: historic signs in South Nyack, New York are using QR codes to tell us something timeless - a message that's never gonna give us up. MIT CSAIL’s AI revives dead languages it hasn’t seen before (VentureBeat) Rickrolled: South Nyack historical sign on Esposito trail delivers pop music prank (lohud) Backer is a beautiful word in any language. Support our show on Patreon today! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Scientists at Purdue University have a way to help keep us cool to the point that we might not even need air conditioning, and all it takes is a fresh coat of a special paint. Plus: the town of Asbestos, Quebec has finally chosen a new name! New 'Super-White' Paint Can Cool Down Buildings and Cars (Interesting Engineering)  Goodbye Asbestos, hello Val-des-Sources: Que. town changing infamous name (CBC) Our backers on Patreon are really, really bright --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We're replaying some of our favorite car-themed episodes this week, like this one from July 2020, about a driver in Italy who got a ticket for driving 437 miles per hour. Since that’s  almost three times as fast as the car could legitimately go, it’s  believed to have been a malfunction of a local speed camera. Plus: the  creations of cabinet maker Henk Verhoeff aren’t malfunctioning, they’re  meant to be, as the artist put it, “broken and weird.” Ancona: a Ford Focus caught at 703 km / h (due to the speed camera) (Autoappassionati) How do speed cameras work? (The Guardian) This Retired Cabinet Maker Goes Viral For Making Broken And Weird Furniture That Belongs In Disney Movies (Bored Panda) Speed on over to our Patreon site and join us as a backer! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We're replaying some of our favorite car-themed episodes this week, like this one from May 2019, about an exhibit at The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles called “Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Science Fiction  and Fantasy.” If you’ve ever wanted to get close to the coolest rides  the big screen ever shared with us – like, say, the DeLorean in “Back to  the Future” – this is your chance.  Plus:  a guy in Arizona tries to  skirt the carpool lane rules with a scheme that could have come straight  out of one of the “Mannequin” movie franchise. Check out Batman’s and Marty McFly’s rides at the Petersen Museum (Ars Technica) Man busted driving with mannequin in carpool lane (WJBF) Cool Weird Awesome is listener powered. Back this show on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We're replaying some of our favorite car-themed episodes this week, like this one from December 2019, in which Cornell researchers find that making intersections more autonomous could  help get self-driving cars where they want to go more efficiently.  Plus: on the anniversary of the last day of the last Apollo mission to  the moon, how about a trip to the Museum of the Moon, now visiting  Philadelphia?  Smart intersections could cut autonomous car congestion (Science Daily) Last lunar-landing mission ends (History.com) Museum of the Moon (Franklin Institute) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is extremely smart --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We're replaying some of our favorite car-themed episodes this week, like this one from January 2020, a car that was to be (at least partly) made from soybeans. And it was  the idea of none other than Henry Ford. Plus: Steven Paul Judd is an  Oklahoma-based artist of Kiowa/Choctaw descent, and last month he made a  portrait of Sitting Bull using just over 20,000 black and white dice. Henry Ford And His Soybean Car (A Moment of Science) Soybean Car (The Henry Ford Museum) This Amazing Sitting Bull Portrait Made from 20,000 Dice (Twisted Sifter) It’s no roll of the dice to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon, you’ll make great shows happen!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We're replaying some of our favorite car-themed episodes this week, like this one from November 2019, about a vehicle right out of Richard Scarry’s Busytown: the Big Banana Car,  which is a 15 foot long banana with four seats on the frame of a Ford  F-150. Plus: the Volkspod is a motor scooter made with upcycled parts from old-school Volkswagen Beetles! BigBananaCar.com Michigan trooper pulls over banana car, gives driver $20 (WTHR) Designer Transforms Vintage Volkswagen Beetles into Adorable Minibikes (My Modern Met) Roll on as a Cool Weird Awesome backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Scientists have been trying for years to figure out why there's a gap in Earth's geologic record that's about a billion years long, known as the Great Uncomformity. Plus: today in 2001 an artist painted a Wyoming house inside and out with government surplus cheese.  Erasing a Billion Years of Geologic Time Across the Globe (Eos) So, Uh, Where Did a Billion Years of the Geologic Record Go? (Popular Mechanics) The Wyoming Cheese House (Weird Universe) Keep this show going for years and years to come, as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today is the birthday of Ruth Faison Shaw, an art teacher who spotted a kid smearing iodine on the school walls and saw a way kids could express themselves. Plus: art is alive and well in cats, or at least in a photographer taking portraits of cats going wild for - and sometimes on - catnip. Ruth Faison Shaw (A Woman To Know) A Photographer Takes Pictures of Cats "High" on Catnip, and It'll Be Your New Favorite Thing (PopSugar) Express yourself as a Cool Weird Awesome backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Millions of people have back pain that just plain makes things harder to do. A team at Vanderbilt University has developed an exosuit that may ease all that back strain. Plus: how do you let an economist know he's won the Nobel Prize when you don't have his phone number? Have his fellow winner knock on his door in the middle of the night, of course.  Vanderbilt wearable exosuit that lessens back muscle fatigue could redesign the future of work (Vanderbilt University) The #NobelPrize committee couldn't reach Paul Milgrom to share the news that he won (Stanford University on Twitter) We can do anything with help from our backers on Patreon, join us --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today in 1947 was the first performance of the Weeki Wachee Mermaids, professional mermaids in Florida who put on choreographed shows for hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, completely underwater. Plus: the Oklahoma Banjo Fest is now underway, completely virtual and still completely banjo-ey.  More mermaids than men (Mashable) Oklahoma Banjo Fest (Travel OK) Want more Cool Weird Awesome? Back us on Patreon for just $1 a month! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

To mark our 400th episode, we have stories of some of the people who have set world records for screaming! Two of them are educators, though I don't think they practice on their students. Plus: scientists have figured out how to 3D print treats out of milk.  Loudest scream (individual) (Guinness World Records) Belfast teacher still in class of her own for shouting (BBC) Got 3D milk? These adorable printed dairy products will satisfy your creamiest cravings (Fast Company) We will shout from the rooftops about how great our Patreon backers are --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Food banks are seeing growing demand, and feeding hungry people takes money. Amazingly, a study out of Ohio State University finds these nonprofits might be able to boost their donations by paying closer attention to typefaces. Plus: this weekend is the deadline to cast your vote in this year's Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Donors more likely to give to COVID causes when font matches message (Ohio State University) The Affinity Photo People's Choice Award (Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards) Thanks to our backers on Patreon for their support of the show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Shoes only last for so long, but they're made from materials that last seemingly forever. Designer Shahar Asor has an alternate idea: shoes for kids with an expiration date. Plus: a pizza place in Brooklyn is letting customers order "comforting words" along with their food.  Shahar Asor knits children's shoes with an expiration date using biodegradable thread (designboom) Vinnie’s Pizzeria in Brooklyn Delivers Comforting Words of Positive Reinforcement for the Very Small Fee of $1 (Laughing Squid) We have only positive things to say about our backers on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It's hard to believe we're saying goodbye to guitar great Eddie Van Halen. His band won millions of fans on record and offstage, and won a reputation for offstage excess. But one of their most infamous stories - that they banned brown M&Ms from backstage - wasn't quite what it seemed. Plus: a Gloria Estefan hit gets a heavy metal treatment on YouTube.  Did Van Halen’s Concert Contract Require the Removal of Brown M&Ms? (Snopes) A Headbashingly Good Metal Cover of Gloria Estefan’s Conga (Geeks Are Sexy) Rock out with us as a backer on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message