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Man climbs a 1,999-foot tower to change a light bulb. It looks as wild as it sounds.

Just another day at the office.

you name it/YouTube

Man climbs 1999-foot tower to change a light bulb.

You know those big giant antennas that look like they reach just below the wing of an airplane at cruising height? Well, someone has to climb them every so often to inspect them or change the flashing bulb. You'd think it would be easier to have a helicopter or something drop them off, but there's probably a really compelling reason someone has to physically climb the antenna. If nothing else, it's probably a good workout.

For Nick Wagner, climbing these huge antennas is just another Tuesday at the office. Wagner works for a company called National Tower Controls, LLC, and apparently, they do maintenance on these towers annually. I'm not sure if there's some sort of process to decide who gets to be the one to climb the beast or if everyone that works there is expected to climb in some rotation. But Wagner took everyone on his climb to change out the light bulb and inspect KDLT-TV's antenna in 2015, and while the view is beautiful, I imagine it could also give you heart palpitations.

"Must not be afraid of heights" is likely in the job description multiple times, bolded, italicized and highlighted. It's not like if you get a little wobbly you can just step down. You'd need an airborne rescue team or a parachute, which makes you wonder if that's part of their climbing equipment. In the video, the climb itself took nearly 15 minutes and it's not clear where in the climb Wagner started filming, but the view is so spectacular that you can practically see the curvature of the Earth.

earth, curvature of the earth, height, tall, sky Talk about scraping the sky.Canva Photos

According to HuffPost, the KDLT-TV antenna's 1,999 foot height makes it not only one one of the tallest structures in South Dakota where it stands, but one of the tallest structures in the world. It's beaten only by Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and the Tokyo Skytree.

TV and radio are, of course, important, but the sheer height and might of the KDLT-TV antenna are dizzying to think about even if you aren't the one climbing the tower. In short, why does the antenna have to be so high? The answer is really simple: "the higher the mast, the farther the signal can travel." Can't argue with that.

TV, signal, watch tv, television, antenna Happy The Simpsons GIFGiphy

What makes this whole process even more interesting is that if someone were to ask what he did all day, Wagner's answer could be, "I changed a light bulb," and he wouldn't be lying. He would be severely understating his duties, but he wouldn't be lying.

At any rate, Wagner can have those light bulbs and I'll stick to the ones that require no more height than a kitchen chair.

Watch the incredible video below and try to keep your head:

- YouTubeyoutu.be

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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unbelievable jobs

Technology

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that she says could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going."

Steve Zylius/University of California, Irvine.

UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai has developed a nanowire-based technology that allows lithium-ion batteries to be recharged hundreds of thousands of times.

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

A team of researchers at UCI had been experimenting with nanowires for potential use in batteries, but found that over time the thin, fragile wires would break down and crack after too many charging cycles. A charge cycle is when a battery goes from completely full to completely empty and back to full again.

But one day, on a whim, Thai coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and a Plexiglas-like electrolyte gel.

batteries, renewable energy, energy, renewable batteries, rechargeable batteries, innovation Batteries being recycled at WRWA, London. Nov ‘21Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

"She started to cycle these gel capacitors, and that's when we got the surprise," said Reginald Penner, chair of the university's chemistry department. "She said, 'this thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it's still going.' She came back a few days later and said 'it's been cycling for 30,000 cycles.' That kept going on for a month."

This discovery is mind-blowing because the average laptop battery lasts 300 to 500 charge cycles. The nanobattery developed at UCI made it though 200,000 cycles in three months. That would extend the life of the average laptop battery by about 400 years. The rest of the device would have probably gone kaput decades before the battery, but the implications for a battery that that lasts hundreds of years are pretty startling.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

“Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it,” said Penner added. “She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity.”

“That was crazy,” he added, “because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most. ”"The big picture is that there may be a very simple way to stabilize nanowires of the type that we studied," Penner said. "If this turns out to be generally true, it would be a great advance for the community." Not bad for just fooling around in the laboratory.

Since her discovery, Mya Le Thai has gone on to a successful career as the Principal Scientist with the Enevate Corporation,

This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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energy

Science

Expert explains why turning your phone off every day could protect you from getting hacked

Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow shares how this simple tip can offer protection in a time of less-than-stellar privacy regulations.

Daily Show/Youtube, Photo credit: Canva

He also explains why tin foil might not be the best strategy for privacy.

There are just so many ways for important information held on your phone to be swiped—from subscription based apps that secretly send private customer data to Facebook to fake accounts that get your friends to invest in some kind of fake crypto.

And of course—this is more than a modern day inconvenience. It poses real threats to democracy and global human rights, which is why so many are calling for more regulations and safeguards. Of course, as with most regulations, change isn’t coming fast. Which isn’t good news, considering how rapidly technology evolves.

However, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has an incredibly simple tip for preventing our phones from being hacked: Turn them off more often.

While appearing on the Daily Show to promote his new documentary, Surveilled, Farrow told correspondent Desi Lydic that we as a society should be "freaking out" more about the lack of government restraints about spyware technology, saying that it could turn the country “into an Orwellian surveillance state,” affecting anyone who uses a device, essentially—not just political dissidents.

But, as Farrow noted, turning your phone off and on every day is an easy way to protect yourself, since most current forms of spyware “will be foiled by a reboot.” And even if you aren’t, say, a journalist of political activity (i.e. common targets for malware), you’re thwarting apps from monitoring your activity or collecting your data. And better still, you’re making it more difficult for hackers to steal information from your phone. Privacy protection aside, it’s a great way of just keeping your device healthy. Basically, it seems like the age-old solution for virtually all tech issues still holds up.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

There are a few other things worth turning off now and then, such as bluetooth and location devices when you’re not using them, according to the NSA. In addition, Farrow also suggested keeping devices updated, and perhaps most important of all, actually writing to your representative about the issue.

However, when it comes to wrapping devices in tinfoil as a makeshift Faraday cage…that might not be the best use of one’s aluminum.

“Experts vary on exactly how effective that approach is,” Farrow told Lydic, just before quipping, “we need better policies. Not just better tinfoil.”

Expanding on Farrow’s 2022 New Yorker investigative exposé on the notorious spyware Pegasus, Surveilled delves into the multibillion-dollar industry of commercial spyware and its potential threats, making it evidently clear that this is not an issue for the elite few, or one to ignore until the future.

Surveilled is available on Max now.

This story originally appeared last year.

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community

Science

Simulation specialist reveals what would happen if you rode a rollercoaster without a harness

Not that you'd want to try it.

Imagine you’re at a Six Flags theme park, and after waiting an hour in line, you sit down in the front seat of The New Revolution, a looping roller coaster that hits top speeds of up to 55 miles per hour. The ride operator calls, “All clear,” your coaster takes off from the loading station, and you make your way up a lift hill. As the car goes clack clack clack, you realize that the lap bar was never secured and there’s no way back.

What would happen if you were stuck on a looping roller coaster and the harness stopped working? Could you hold on to the person securely seated next to you and make it through the loop, or would you be thrown out of the car for what would be a tragic ending? Popular YouTuber Zach D. Films, who specializes in digital recreations, showed what would happen if you rode a looping roller coaster without a harness, and the good news is that there’s a decent chance you will survive. (Not that you'd want to try, though.)

What would happen if I rode a rollercoaster without a harness?

“If the bar came loose while you were riding a roller coaster, you'd probably expect to immediately fall out, but that probably wouldn't happen,” Zach D. begins his video.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

According to Zach D., the competing forces of gravity and the speed at which you’re moving counteract each other, most likely keeping you safely in your seat. “You see, as you're being pulled into the loop, gravity tries to pull you down towards the ground, but because of the speed you're going and the direction of the tracks, a special force actually pushes you further down, outweighing the pull of gravity and keeping you in your seat,” Zach D. says in his video.

Another example of these forces is filling a bucket with a few inches of water, attaching a rope, and swinging it around your head. If you forcefully spin the bucket, the water will remain inside, even without anything to restrain it from falling out.

Even though science shows that it is possible to ride a looping rollercoaster without restraints, there aren't many people out there who want to try it. In November 2024, a passenger on the Desert Storm coaster at Castles and Coasters in Phonix, Arizona, claimed that his restraint released while he was on the ride. The restraint failure happened as the coaster climbed its first lift hill so he could exit quickly and make it to the emergency stairs near the coaster's peak.

"We started going up, everything seems to be OK. And then, when we get closer to the top, I hear a click. Different from the click of the roller coaster going up on the chain," he said. "So I check my bar, and when I pushed it, it released. It opened." The incident was caught on camera, and the footage is chilling.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

While the idea of riding a roller coaster without a lap bar is horrifying, Zach D. proves that physics may be your unexpected friend in case of a lap bar failure. That being said, let’s keep those restraints locked and double-checked. Roller coasters are meant to be fun, not a test of your centrifugal force knowledge.

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Family

Parents are sharing the things they keep repeating to their kids who just never listen

via Pexels

A parent disciplines his child.

Parenting can seem a lot like parroting. You repeat the same demands over and over again. “Get in the car,” “Put on your shoes,” “Stop putting your finger in the light socket “ …the list goes on and on. As parents, we don’t want to sound like a nag; we’d like them to listen the first time, but sometimes it seems impossible. No parent is perfect and nor is any child, so the struggle continues.

Just imagine a blissful morning where you only have to say the following phrases just once:

“Wake up.”

“Put on your clothes.”

“Finish your breakfast.”

"Brush your teeth.”

“Grab your backpack.”

“Get in the car."

Or, even better, what if we never had to say those phrases in the first place? Sadly, this will never happen for 99% of all parents, but the good news is that you’re not alone.

Adam Rittenberg, senior writer for college football at ESPN, asked his followers on X what they have to tell their kids incessantly and he got back a list that every parent will understand.

Curious about the most recited phrases for other parents with young kids. Mine is easily: "Put your shoes on."\n\nIt goes unanswered at least 10 times per day.
— Adam Rittenberg (@Adam Rittenberg) 1642599694

— (@)

“Sit down while you eat” and “leave your brother/sister alone” find the repeat button in our household all day
— Andrew McCleary (@cfp4_us) January 19, 2022

When we are trying to leave the house for any reason, I have to say “get in the car” at least 10 times before the entire family actually gets in the car.
— Chad Osler (@oslercpa) January 19, 2022

Mine is “Why would you do that?”
— Dave Nemeth (@dnemeth11) January 19, 2022

“Use your inside voice”!
— Caned (@MrCaned5150) January 19, 2022

So, how do we get our children to listen the first time? Is it even possible? Erica Reischer Ph.D. has some tips in Psychology Today that can help parents get on the right track. One of the most important is to make sure to cultivate the habit of paying attention.

“Because if you tend to ask again and again (and again), and then either give up and do it yourself—or resort to yelling—you may be unintentionally teaching your kids that you can be ignored until you either give up (you didn’t really mean it) or you yell (now you mean it),” Reischer writes.

She also said to be sure to let them know the consequences of not listening.

“Fair warning is critical because if children know in advance what the consequences will be for breaking a rule or ignoring a request, then they are making a choice about their behavior: whether they are going to follow the rule, or break the rule and bear the consequences. There are no surprises,” Reischer says.

It’s also important that parents follow through with any threats or else they will have no teeth. If you count to three to get the child to listen and after finishing the count there aren’t any consequences, they’ll eventually stop listening. But if you follow through every time, they will start paying attention very quickly.

There’s another great piece of parenting advice that seems to apply to just about every situation: “What you permit, you teach.” Whatever behaviors we allow our children to do, whether we like them or not, we reinforce.

Parenting is tough, but as the tweet thread above shows, we’re not in it alone. Parents from all walks of life have the same struggles because every kid seems to be blessed with the miracle of selective hearing. Unless, of course, you ask if they want ice cream, then they’re all ears.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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People share useless facts that simply won't leave their heads

Photo by Sean Benesh on Unsplash

Some facts are only useful for trivia contests.

Ah, useless facts. Random knowledge that serves no purpose other than to take up space in our brains, and maybe, just maybe, win a trivia game (yeah right) or kill time at a party.

Leave it to Ask Reddit to resurface all things odd and amusing, though. People shared their own useless facts that live rent free in their heads. And though they might be pointless, they are certainly entertaining.

Without further do:

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell pic.twitter.com/1bGJ5VAB9r
— Dank Memes (@theMemesBot) November 16, 2019

Yep, this useless fact has stayed with us since elementary school. On the bright side, it’s been the source of many a fun meme.

Vending machines are more deadly than sharks.

Gif of a zombie vending machine in a graveyard

animation domination lol GIF by gifnewsGiphy

Think about this next time you go to retrieve a Snickers bar: Between 2002 and 2015, the National Electronic Surveillance System reported that vending machines caused four deaths per year in the U.S. Mostly due to people tipping the machines onto themselves.

Compare that to the shark-related deaths averaging out to just 0.6 deaths per year. Not sure how only about half of a person is considered dead, but math was never my strength.

This statistic might need to be taken with a grain of sea salt, however, given that those in landlocked states have next-to-zero chances of experiencing a shark attack. But there you have it, a useless fact to use when you’re at the beach.

Snails have teeth.

horror finger GIF by absurdnoiseGiphy

“They’re not big enough teeth to hurt humans. That’s what makes it a useless fact to know. & it won’t leave my head because it’s juuuuuust disturbing enough to make me rethink my entire opinion on snails.” – ghosts-go-boo

But cows do not.

At least, no upper front teeth. Makes chewing—and dentist visits—easier I suppose.

The Sun is about 400 times bigger than the Moon but also about 400 times farther away from Earth. So they look to be about the same size.

A solar eclipse.

commons.wikimedia.org

This explains how the sun can be completely blocked in an eclipse.

Pigeons and doves are in the same bird family.

Gif of animated pigeons standing next to bread

Happy Animation GIF by sahlooterGiphy

Columbidae is a subspecies of birds that are stout bodied, with short necks, and primarily feed on seeds, fruits and plants. Though one lives on as a symbol of peace and love, and the other is often considered a flying rat, the names are practically interchangeable.

However, thinking about Stevie Nicks singing, “just like a white-winged pigeon” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

The length of a jiffy…

Gif of the Doc Brown from Back to the Future

back to the future great scott GIFGiphy

According to ScienceFocus.com, physicists use a “jiffy” to define how long light takes to travel one femtometer (which is a tiny fraction of a millimeter). In layman’s terms, one jiffy equals one-fiftieth of a second.

So next time you say, “be back in a jiffy,” know that you better return really, really, really fast.

Most corn is inedible for humans.

Who knew?

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

“1% of the corn grown in the USA is sweet corn (the corn you eat as corn). The other 99% is field corn (or dent corn), which is fairly inedible raw and needs to be processed before human consumption. This field corn is also what they use for non-edible corn products, like ethanol, paint, cosmetics, etc. Yes, most corn goes to livestock feed. Ethanol and High Fructose Corn Syrup are up there as well. Yes, if you're driving on a highway and are passing fields of corn, you very likely cannot eat it.” – Kat_lbltko1pl

Infants have flexible bones.

stretching GIF by AFV BabiesGiphy

Ever wonder why toddlers seem so much more flexible? This is because a baby’s skeleton is very different from an adult's. Babies are born with about 300 bones (94 more than adults) that are joined together with pliable cartilage to make that whole birth thing possible. As they get older, the bones will fuse together. And suddenly that toe touch is nothing but a distant dream of the past.

Numbers from 1-999 don't have the letter "a" in word form.

Sorry if your math teacher never told you.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Some vowels just don’t get the respect they deserve.

John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald are both known by three names. And each full name is composed of 15 letters.

Gif of Milhouse dressed as Abraham Lincoln behind text

surprised season 4 GIFGiphy

Actually, this is not entirely correct. Oswald’s full name was not used until after Kennedy’s assassination, due to his habit of adopting false names.

Cockroaches molt.

Unlike a reptile shedding it’s skin, cockroaches molt out of their entire exoskeleton. Out crawls a soft, fleshy, ghostly-white creature that will turn brown over a few hours. You’re welcome for the nightmare fuel.

There you have it. Gems of wisdom no one asked for. They say knowledge is power. But in this case, I’d say knowledge is unnecessary. But still fun!

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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People just realized the Calculator app keeps history & share their most embarrassing calculations

It's OK, we can all be idiots together.

jeffersonjohn14/TikTok & Unsplash

We've all done it in secret when we think no one's looking. We inconspicuously pull out our phone, give one more sideways glance to make sure no one can see our screen, and then we open up our Calculator app just to make sure 6 plus 3 really does equal 9 before confidently announcing it out loud. You can never be too sure.

It's OK! No one has to know that we don't have faith in ourselves to do even simple arithmetic that comes second-nature to most elementary schoolers. Those moments of self-doubt are our little secret. Or, at least we thought they were.

A viral TikTok, however, just announced a major development: The Calculator app on iPhone keeps track of your history.

It's been hiding in plain sight this entire time, and suffice it to say, but people are shook.

"Yall please remember to clear your CALCULATOR history every once in a while," user jeffersonjohn14 captioned. "My bf just saw mine and would have rather him gone thru my internet history."

In the text caption to the post, the user wrote "3+8??????" implying that at some point they had to be extra sure they could properly add to 11, and were mortified by the idea that someone might find out.

I had to double check to confirm that this is true, and unfortunately, it is. If you're an iPhone user and you look at the upper left hand corner of your Calculator app, there's a small hamburger menu that you probably never bothered noticing before. Open it up and you'll see your calculations from the last 30 days or so. Why does the Calculator app save all your formulas for a month? Who knows — but this is your warning to go in there and delete anything egregious before someone you respect sees it.

@jeffersonjohn14
3+8??????

If you have embarrassing calculations in your Calculator history, it's OK: You're not the only one.

Not only were viewers of the now-viral TikTok flabbergasted to know the truth, many of them seemed surprised at what they found in their own histories.

Here are some of the best responses:

1x10.. it was a difficult day!

3+3 the other day

Nah why I got 35-1 in mine

Damn mine really said 18-3

5x2 😆 what the heck was I doing

I just checked mine and the last one was 15 x 2 🤣 why am I like this

calculator app on phone sitting on top of documents Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash

And if you're someone who doubts the intelligence of the average TikTok user, how about this comment from someone who should definitely be above using an app for simple calculations:

As a math major, having 100x2 in my calculator history is just embarrassing

It seems that people of all ages and backgrounds fall victim to the same phenomenon: We know the answer to basic addition and subtraction questions, but sometimes we just want to be extra sure.

It could be chalked up to a fear of being wrong (announcing the wrong answer to a group), or maybe it's a lack of practice with basic arithmetic that makes us doubt ourselves. Maybe it's deeper than that, where we want to really see something with our own eyes to before we believe that it's true, like the way we look for other people to confirm or even shape our thoughts and opinions.

Whatever the reason, I found it reassuring and heartwarming just how many people chimed in to share their own calculator fails. We really are all in this together!

And if you do regularly use a calculator for basic addition and subtraction that you know how to do in your head? There's no shame in that.

In fact, some educators argue that kids should be allowed to use calculators more often in school so that, instead of drilling computation over and over, they can spend more time on critical thinking and problem solving skills. Calculators can allow you to solve problems on your own and even explore numbers creatively (ever randomly wonder what 38239 * 77771223 is? Now you can find out!) They also, obviously, allow us to get the right answer, and sometimes it's better to be accurate than to protect your ego. After all, your waiter at the restaurant would prefer you leave a good tip — even if you need to use your phone to double check what 20% of 100 is.

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Why a traditional calculator may give you a completely different answer than a cellphone ›

phones

We have a small favor to ask of you

Technology

Just another day at the office.

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going."

Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow shares how this simple tip can offer protection in a time of less-than-stellar privacy regulations.

Not that you'd want to try it.

What would happen if I rode a rollercoaster without a harness?

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Vending machines are more deadly than sharks.

Snails have teeth.

But cows do not.

The Sun is about 400 times bigger than the Moon but also about 400 times farther away from Earth. So they look to be about the same size.

Pigeons and doves are in the same bird family.

The length of a jiffy…

Most corn is inedible for humans.

Infants have flexible bones.

Numbers from 1-999 don't have the letter "a" in word form.

John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald are both known by three names. And each full name is composed of 15 letters.

Cockroaches molt.

It's OK, we can all be idiots together.

If you have embarrassing calculations in your Calculator history, it's OK: You're not the only one.

It seems that people of all ages and backgrounds fall victim to the same phenomenon: We know the answer to basic addition and subtraction questions, but sometimes we just want to be extra sure.