If you're a small business owner and you come up with a grand idea that could change the world, odds are it's going to be stolen by a bigger company who is simply waiting to crush you into the dust so they can soak up all of your profits. It's not really uncommon; Angry Birds is basically a knockoff of a game called Crush the Castle, Farmville is a knockoff of a game called Farm Town. This is why back in the 1970s Robert Taylor, owner of his company Minnetonka with the idea for a liquid hand soap dispenser, decided he was going to fight back against big corporations so that he wouldn't be crushed by a bunch of assholes waiting to fuck him over.

The problem with ideas is that if you're creating something that uses items that can't be patented, say a liquid hand soap dispenser, giant companies are simply going to wait until you create your product and then simply steal the idea. Taylor, realizing that this is exactly what was going to happen, decided that he was going to use another tactic. Only two manufacturers made the pumps necessary to create hand soap dispensers, so Taylor gathered up $12 million and bought every single last pump. Doing this, no other company would be able to create soap dispensers for a year or so, allowing Taylor enough time to dominate the market with his own product, Softsoap.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

Once upon a time Prince performed Radiohead's "Creep" at Coachella which was obviously uploaded to YouTube the moment it finished. The only problem was that Prince didn't want his rendition of the song uploaded to YouTube and claimed copyright infringement. Thom Yorke of Radiohead had heard that Prince did a cover of his band's song so he tried to watch it as well only to be surprised when he couldn't watch it either, even though he wrote the song. I have no idea whether or not you can view Prince's version but the fact that this even came up is absurd.

You need to have a lot of balls to perform a cover of somebody else's song and then immediately claim copyright infringement to something you don't own. Even so, the argument arose that Prince may have owned rights to the videos of him singing it because he was the actual performer. Therefore my assumption is if Radiohead wanted they could sue Prince for singing the song for a profit  in the first place without their consent. Copyright laws are confusing no? These are the things nobody thinks about when politicians start writing laws that are vague and cover everything that concern copyrights.

TL;DR Prince once performed a version of "Creep" live which he blocked from YouTube claiming copyright infringement, even though he doesn't own rights to the song.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

One of my dreams as a kid was to be an astronaut, because that's what every kid dreams about. It's space, the final frontier, the last real mysteries to mankind. Even though I've never been into space I would imagine that there wouldn't be any need for guns let alone space cannons up there, this isn't Futurama. That didn't stop the Russians from slapping one onto the Salyut 3, as a measure of self-defense.

This is the way to look at space travel, if there's anything out there that could cause us harm we're going to blow it to bits. My guess is that they were most likely looking to shoot Americans with their space station but the principle still applies, they're using it to shoot something. I've always dreamed of giant battles taking place in outer space, after all I grew up watching Star Wars. It shames me that the Russians were the first to put giant guns on space stations, that seems like something we should have been on top of.

TL;DR Russia put a giant gun on a space station for self-defense against I don't know who.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

When you're in the world of marketing you know you've done a damn good job when you change an entire culture's traditions for a holiday. Christmas isn't a traditional holiday in Japan but the Japanese like to celebrate it in a non-traditional way. KFC then launched a marketing campaign to associate KFC with Christmas in Japan with the campaign being so successful that now you need to place orders two months in advance.

Marketing campaigns have pretty much shaped traditions everywhere on the planet but you have to hand it to KFC for this one. Tricking anybody into eating their food on any basis should be lauded as nothing short of a miracle. It leads me to thinking though, why the hell do people eat Chinese food for New Year's? Maybe it's just because those are the only restaurants open at the time but I've never understood it. Now that I think about it it's most likely because it's the best food when you're pants-shitting drunk.

TL;DR KFC is so popular during Christmas in Japan that orders need to be placed two months in advance for it.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

One of the most disturbing things I've ever read about in the history of my life is pelvic prolapse, which is a woman's vagina literally falling out. I didn't even know that could happen, I thought it was all connected as a whole in there but I'm still a little mystified on the whole thing; I never paid attention in health class. The muscles supporting a woman's pelvic organs can weaken over time and due to this the organs can slip right out of place. Fortunately for women it can be fixed with surgery, but you have to wonder what else can just fall out of your body.

This turned my world upside down because now I'm afraid of what else can fall out of my body. What happens if a testicle just falls out on the floor and I step on it and crush it? There's no coming back from that. I know what you're thinking; yes, I know my testicles are outside my body already but I'm in a panic state here. What happens when a woman goes to get it on but she can't because her vagina is M.I.A.? I'm most likely overreacting here but I think I'm allowed to in this circumstance.

TL;DR A woman's vagina can fall out. Just straight up fall out.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

Whenever there's a joke about Walmart it's always a joke about the customers who shop there, and for good reason. I just found out today that Walmart has a policy that allows RVs to park in their parking lots overnight because "Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers." I didn't make that quote up, it's right there on their site under most frequently asked questions, which means it has come up far more than once.

One of the things that I appreciate about Walmart is that even though they directly pander to those who don't have as much money with bargain deals [read:me], they don't even try to avoid the fact that they're doing it. Sure one would assume that RV travelers would mean people who are traveling across country or are on a trip, but given Walmart's customer history I'm going to guess that it's actually referring to people who live in their RVs. I'm surprised Walmart hasn't set up trailer parks on their property yet, that's basically a goldmine.

TL;DR Walmart not only allows RV travelers to park in their parking lots, I'm fairly sure they encourage it.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

I have a bug zapper in my back yard and I'll be the first person to tell you that it's one of the best inventions ever conceived. If you put one near your house I promise the amount of bugs you deal with will drop dramatically. Now I learn that when bug zappers electrocute insects it creates a mist that can spread up to seven feet, spreading bacteria and viruses if it's inhaled. The best plan of action is buy a bug zapper with a scatter-proof design.

Even if I am inhaling tons of bugs I would still use a bug zapper because of how well they work. Just hearing the sound of thousands of bugs meeting their demise is enough to make me smile while I sit on my back deck knowing no insects will be bothering me. Now if there was only a device that would attract and electrocute hipsters I would be all set. That's an invention that would truly make the world a better place.

TL;DR Bug zappers can create a mist of bug parts than can be easily inhaled.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

There's so much information being created daily that it's literally impossible to keep track everything every day. I scour the internet all the time for news stories and my guess is I don't even make a dent. What you might not know is how much information we actually create every day. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt once said that "there was five exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization and 2003, but that much is now created every two days." He said that back in 2010 as a point of reference. I don't even know how to process how much information there is now.

If you were to take this website as a benchmark, my guess is that the internet is filled with useless information. I literally just wrote about a guy's penis and the airport troubles it creates, that can't be useful information to anybody. With everything I can access at the tip of my fingers I should probably be able to speak every language and cure cancer, but instead I can only tell you where to find the funniest pictures of cats. We may have all of the information that we've ever needed but we certainly don't use it efficiently.

TL;DR We have more information now than ever, and I'm pretty sure it's all about cats.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

Here's something that I never knew about Chinese culture, they hold white people in high regard. I always assumed that the entire world thought that Americans were idiots but I guess not. They hold them in such high regard actually that companies will often rent white people to pretend that they work at the company. Foreigners within the company gives the impression of prestige, money and connections, even if it's all made up. English teachers who are white are also paid more and held in higher regard, even if English isn't the teacher's first language.

This has to be awful, not for the white people who simply pretend to be important, but for the Asians who aren't top dog anywhere they go. If they come to America it's the whites who are at the top of the totem pole (or Hispanics, depends what neighborhood you're in). They go back to Asia and it's the whites who are at the top of the totem pole, again. Although at least in America everybody naturally assumes that if you're Asian you're a genius. That's a wave I would ride everywhere if I could.

TL;DR White people can be rented in China to make your company seem more important.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned

I've never been the biggest fan of psychiatric evaluations because I feel a lot of it comes down to what the attending psychiatrist feels and there's a lot of room for human error. Psychologist David Rosenhan agrees with me which is why in 1973 he sent "psuedopatients" into psychiatric hospitals to see how the psychiatrists would react. The psuedopatients were to simulate auditory hallucinations to gain admission but show no other signs of mental illness after that. Even with the psuedopatients informing staff that they were fine they were still not allowed to leave, some even being forced to agreeing that they had a mental illness and to take antipsychotic drugs in order to be released.

This is where I find fault with anything that has the word psychology in it. If a psychiatrist can't tell the difference between a mentally ill person and a person who's perfectly fine how are they determining it? Just flipping a coin and tossing people in straight jackets? I have anxiety and I can't even get my primary physician to believe the things I tell him. "Doctor I swear my penis was bigger yesterday and now I'm afraid to show it in public," "you have a small penis and you've always had a small penis. Please go home and leave me alone." Real doctors set you straight, psychiatrists talk to you for hours on end with no real clue as to what might actually be wrong with you.

TL;DR A psychologist sent psuedopatients into psychiatric hospitals and instructed them to act perfectly fine, staff couldn't figure out who was actually mentally ill and who wasn't.

Posted by Atkins under Today I Learned