the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Roccus7 said:

Inside the Last Old-School Seltzer Shop in New York​

Brooklyn Seltzer Boys has a century-old carbonator and a museum with a spritzing station. Beat that, LaCroix.

A century ago, before it was called sparkling water or club soda, and before it was sold as LaCroix and Spindrift, it was called seltzer. No plastic bottles or aluminum cans magically appeared on grocery shelves. Instead, factories across New York City pumped fizzy water into heavy siphon bottles that were distributed by deliverymen.

Nearly all those seltzer men are gone now; one seltzer works remains.

In an industrial space in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys factory is known among industry insiders, certain foodies and seltzer fans, but that’s about it. Its owner, Alex Gomberg, wants to change that.

Originally called Gomberg Seltzer Works, the business was started in 1953 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, by Moe Gomberg, Mr. Gomberg’s great-grandfather. After nearly closing for good during the pandemic, Brooklyn Seltzer moved and (somewhat) modernized its factory, introducing a visitable space called the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.

“We want to introduce the next generation to seltzer,” Mr. Gomberg said.

The museum, which is appointment-only, features vintage bottles from seltzer companies all over the country and exhibitions on how the bubbly elixir is made, as well as its historical and cultural role.

Mr. Gomberg created the museum along with Barry Joseph, a seltzer historian — perhaps the seltzer historian — who also teaches digital learning and engagement for museums at New York University. Mr. Joseph arranged for a dozen graduate students from N.Y.U. and Columbia University, most of whom were from China and had never heard of seltzer, to help create the exhibitions as part of their studies.

“They caught on quick,” Mr. Joseph said. “They got it.”

Earlier this month at the Cypress Hills space, Mr. Joseph walked along a wall showing a 2,500-year-old seltzer history timeline that dated to ancient Greece. He inspected illustrations of how seltzer is made and bottled, as well as digital 3-D models of the machines.

New York seltzer, which has become a culinary staple in the city like knishes and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda, has its own history, Mr. Joseph said.

Many Eastern European Jews who enjoyed seltzer overseas began making, delivering and selling it in the early 1900s, largely on the Lower East Side. They also sold it from soda fountains — either straight up, as a citrus concoction known as a lime rickey, or with milk and chocolate syrup known as an egg cream.

While many Americans switched to soda after World War II, many Jews in the city stuck with seltzer, Mr. Joseph said.

At Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, the museum and the factory can merge into one educational experience. Next to the exhibitions, delivery workers back up their trucks into an area to drop off cases of empty bottles and pick up freshly filled ones. Workers buzz around cleaning, refilling and repairing old nozzle tops.

There is also a spritzing station where visitors can spray seltzer from a bottle, Three Stooges style.

“We wanted to present the rich history of seltzer in New York City within a longstanding mom-and-pop business that still serves as a functioning seltzer works,” Mr. Joseph said.

The seltzer-making area is a Willy Wonka series of units connected by pipes. The star of the show — and the company’s workhorse — is a squat, century-old carbonator that blasts bubbles into triple-filtered tap water at a 43-degree chill. Its 65 pounds per square inch of pressure — too strong for plastic bottles, hence the use of handblown glass bottles made in Europe — breathes bite into an egg cream.

“Good seltzer should hurt — it should be carbonated enough that it kind of stings the back of your throat,” said Mr. Gomberg, who earned a master’s degree in higher education before opting to revive his family’s abandoned delivery service a decade ago. Now his crew has roughly 600 customers (a 10-bottle case costs $50, including delivery).

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic halted seltzer production and almost persuaded the Gomberg family to shutter the business for good. Instead, they sold the building and bought their current factory in Cypress Hills.

“He found a way to reinvent the business,” said Alex’s father, Kenny Gomberg, who took over from his father, Pacey Gomberg, and brother-in-law Irv Resnick.

Now the elder Gomberg, who built most of the factory himself, is basically his son’s handyman; he is virtually the only one who can repair these obsolete machines.

On a recent afternoon, Walter Backerman, 70, was filling his bottles when a ratty old van backed in. His father, Abraham (Big Al) Backerman, was buried with a seltzer bottle. The younger Mr. Backerman, one of the last of the old-school seltzer men, hobbles from years of lugging cases up and down stairs. His carrying shoulder is shot. Each case weighs more than 60 pounds full and 45 empty, he said.

But he still wakes before 4 a.m. to serve his customers, partly to keep the seltzer man tradition going.
“These bottles are basically indestructible. I’m just their custodian,” he said. “And since the Gombergs decided to reinvest and keep the last seltzer works going, someone else will be able to deliver these bottles after I’m gone.”
Click to expand...
My wife told me about this
She has a big time collection of old seltzer bottles
I remember as a kid my parents and grandparents would get a case delivered every week or 2
 
www.yahoo.com

Bear spotted with waders in mouth may have eaten angler

The man went missing while fishing alone at Shumarinai Prefectural Natural Park on Sunday
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Police in Hokkaido, Japan, are searching for any sign of a missing angler who they believe may have been eaten by a bear after a human head was found near the lake where he was fishing.

According to Japanese news agency Kyodo News, 54-year-old Toshihiro Nishikawa, was last seen setting out on a fishing expedition on Lake Shumarinai, an artificial lake in Shumarinai Prefectural Natural Park on Sunday. He was unaccompanied when a local boat operator dropped him off.

One of the operator's employees raised the alarm later that day after spotting a bear with a pair of waders dangling from his mouth. The employee tried to call Nishikawa, but the angler didn't answer.

o_O
 
WTF??!??!?

www.yahoo.com

She killed a man while he was raping her, and a court in Mexico sentenced her to 6 years in prison

A Mexican woman who killed a man defending herself when he attacked and raped her in 2021 was sentenced to more than six years in prison, a decision her legal defense called “discriminatory” and vowed to appeal Tuesday. The ruling against Roxana Ruiz spurred anger from experts and feminist...
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

Associated Press

She killed a man while he was raping her, and a court in Mexico sentenced her to 6 years in prison​


MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican woman who killed a man defending herself when he attacked and raped her in 2021 was sentenced to more than six years in prison, a decision her legal defense called “discriminatory” and vowed to appeal Tuesday.

The ruling against Roxana Ruiz spurred anger from experts and feminist groups who said it speaks to the depth of gender-based violence and Mexico’s poor record of bringing perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.

“It would be a bad precedent if this sentence were to hold. It’s sending the message to women that, you know what, the law says you can defend yourself, but only to a point,” said Ángel Carrera, her defense lawyer. “He raped you, but you don’t have the right to do anything.”

While the Mexico State court found Monday that Ruiz had been raped, it said the 23-year-old was guilty of homicide with “excessive use of legitimate defense," adding that hitting the man in the head would have been enough to defend herself. Ruiz was also ordered to pay more than $16,000 in reparations to the family of the man who raped her.
 
:oops:
www.yahoo.com

New York City is sinking, study says: Huge buildings, rising seas contribute to subsidence

The pressure from New York City’s massive buildings is making some areas more vulnerable to sink lower into the ocean, according to new research.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

The pressure from New York City’s massive buildings and skyscrapers is making the city more vulnerable to sink lower into the ocean, according to new research.

Three University of Rhode Island oceanologists and a researcher from the U.S. Geological Survey found that New York City, home to more than 8 million people, is sinking at a rate of 1 to 2 millimeters a year while sea level rises.

With more than 1 million buildings amassing nearly 1.7 trillion pounds, some areas in the metropolis were found to be subsiding much faster when scientists modeled the subsidence caused by the pressure that these structures exert on the Earth.

Parts of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island all showed signs of subsidence, the study said.

“As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard,” a summary of the research said. “The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk, and that mitigation strategies may need to be included."

Sea level rise and increasing storm intensity also contribute to the gradual sinking of land.
 
wader said:
:oops:
www.yahoo.com

New York City is sinking, study says: Huge buildings, rising seas contribute to subsidence

The pressure from New York City’s massive buildings is making some areas more vulnerable to sink lower into the ocean, according to new research.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com

The pressure from New York City’s massive buildings and skyscrapers is making the city more vulnerable to sink lower into the ocean, according to new research.

Three University of Rhode Island oceanologists and a researcher from the U.S. Geological Survey found that New York City, home to more than 8 million people, is sinking at a rate of 1 to 2 millimeters a year while sea level rises.

With more than 1 million buildings amassing nearly 1.7 trillion pounds, some areas in the metropolis were found to be subsiding much faster when scientists modeled the subsidence caused by the pressure that these structures exert on the Earth.

Parts of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island all showed signs of subsidence, the study said.

“As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard,” a summary of the research said. “The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk, and that mitigation strategies may need to be included."

Sea level rise and increasing storm intensity also contribute to the gradual sinking of land.
Click to expand...

So, in 50 years it will sink a little less than four inches?

Better man the lifeboats. :rolleyes:
 
Avenger said:
Once again,...

I've been hearing this "World's Gonna end in Ten Years" cr@p for thirty years now.

When is it going to be true?
Click to expand...
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1C94F5D1-C5CA-450A-A36E-12AEB0F9E542.webp
7A1C9F77-2E59-42BA-BE42-C2E41B6E80E3.webp
3443C8BB-5B1B-472B-848C-6A0848F9AA17.webp
601B821B-A5EB-4EE5-B1D5-2DBEC9D4A634.webp
DBEC9CE6-A719-4BA9-B605-B7F8470D00BE.webp

It’s here!
 
wader said:
Wood?!??!?

www.yahoo.com

Timber! Japan's Wooden Satellite Is Nearly Ready for Space

Apparently, space wood is a thing. Japanese researchers are preparing to launch the world’s first satellite made from wood following a successful experiment on board the International Space Station (ISS), which suggests lumber can be quite sturdy in outer space.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
Click to expand...

Naturally, the first thought in my mind was bamboo. But it looks like they're using Magnolia. I'm almost disappointed.
 
CBS News

Man killed by 40 crocodiles that "pounced" after he fell into enclosure​

About 40 crocodiles killed a Cambodian man on Friday after he fell into their enclosure on his family's reptile farm, police said.

Luan Nam, 72, was trying to move a crocodile out of a cage where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in.

The main group of reptiles then set about him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving the concrete enclosure at the farm in Siem Reap awash with blood.

"While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure," Mey Savry, police chief of Siem Reap commune, told AFP.

"Then other crocodiles pounced, attacking him until he was dead," he said, adding that the remains of Luan Nam's body were covered with bite marks.

One of the man's arms was bitten off and swallowed by the crocodiles, he said.
 
WTF?!????!?
:LOL:

www.yahoo.com

Southwest pilot climbs through window to unlock plane before flight

The carrier says a passenger had somehow accidentally locked the plane and that meant the pilot had to use an alternate route onto the aircraft.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com


https://twitter.com/MattRexroad
https://twitter.com/MattRexroad
@MattRexroad

No joke… yesterday last passenger got off plane with no one else on board, he shut the door. Door locked. Pilot having to crawl through cockpit window to open door so we can board.
@SouthwestAir

Fw_amzuaIAAUMuR


 
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