Ed Ranks Food on Red Dwarf

Doods, get ready to get OBSCURE to the MAXXX!


Red Dwarf is a British science fiction comedy franchise that has existed since 1988, and has (thus far) featured 12 seasons.  It's about the survivors on a Jupiter Mining Corporation ship called (not surprisingly) "Red Dwarf," namely: a curry-eating space hobo, Lister; his dead hologram roommate, Rimmer; a humanoid creature that evolved from a cat named Cat; the robot, Kryten; and sometimes a computer named Holly, and/or navigation officer, Kochanski.  But nothing of anything which I mentioned above really matters for this listicle. Well, except for the bit about curry-eating.

13. Space Weevil - One time, all of the Starbug's (a shuttle craft on the Red Dwarf that became the primary setting for the series for a number of years, presumably because it was a smaller set and thus allowed for a cheaper show budget) corn supply was depleted when a space weevil got in and ate all the corn. So Kryten killed the space weevil and served it to Lister, who thought it was a king prawn. Ugh, I'm not eating a damn space weevil even if it tastes prawn. Gross.

12. Mimian Bladder Fish - Also no. Bladder fish? I wouldn't even lie about eating this to get out of having to tell someone I was going to a droid brothel.

11. Pot Noodle - I hate pot noodle. I hate all instant ramen and instant soup things. They are so gross. These are disgusting. They are Lister's least favorite food. Lister is a sensible person (in this regard).

10. Shami Kebab Diablo - This dish is described as being indigestible and like molten lava, and was responsible for sending Lister's old best friend, Olaf, to the sick bay after eating it. This is just too spicy, people.

9. Titan Mushrooms - I guess this is less a "food" and more of a psychedelic drug. You should probably avoid these or else you'll probably wind up imagining that everyone around you is an armed and dangerous giraffe.

8. (Warm) Gazpacho Soup - Gazpacho can be a delicious, refreshing soup on a summer day. Alas, low-ranking Second Technician Arnold Rimmer was not aware of that. And so when he was invited by Captain Hollister to the Officer's Club to hob-nob with senior ranking crew members in the hopes of impressing and getting a promotion - he was surprised when his soup came out cold. So he sent it back for them to warm up. And so everyone laughed him and mocked him for eating his piping-hot gazpacho soup. Man, that's embarrassing. Don't ask for your gazpacho soup warm, people.

7. Trout a la Creme - Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal. Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal. Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal. Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal. Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal. Today's fish is Trout a la Creme, enjoy your meal.

6. Krispies - Krispies were a cereal mentioned a few times. I guess cereal is usually pretty tasty, huh?

5. Sugar Puff Sandwiches - Another cereal, but this time put between bread and eaten in sandwich form. Why not? I'll try it.

4. Curry - This is the default food for Lister on the show. He eats curry all the time. I mean I like curry too. It's great. But every meal? I don't know about all that.  Another trouble with curry on the show... well... one time the Red Dwarf Crew tried to turn a Mutton Vindaloo into a Chicken Vindaloo and accidentally created a Mutton Vindaloo Beast that wanted to kill them. Oops.

3. Beer Milkshake - The show claims that Lister "invented" the beer milkshake, which seems crazy to me since it's set in the distant future when space travel is possible. I'm pretty sure the beer milkshake exists and even existed when the show first aired. Although I guess all the residents of the spaceship died in the very first episode and Lister had to restart society. So maybe he had to "re-invent" things like this, independently.  ANYWAY, it sounds delicious, right?

2. Kipper - From what I understand, these might be very good smoked and consumed for breakfast.

1. Triple Fried Egg Chili Chutney Sandwich - This is a creation by Lister that is made from chili sauce, chutney, fried eggs and bread. It's described as, "like a cross between food and bowel surgery," and it's also apparently delicious even though all the ingredients were "wrong."  The sandwich has reached mythic status among fans who have tried to recreate it. Alas, there is no simple recipe. The "triple fried" egg would, presumably, refer to three eggs. But visually the sandwich was represented on the screen as having three slices of bread. So are there three eggs and three slices of bread or did the triple only refer to the slices of bread? If a sandwich had three slices of bread, presumably it would only have two eggs - one between the top and middle bread slice, and one between the middle and bottom slice. Although some say it must be three since they say three, which would mean the layers have different numbers of eggs (which seems odd). Then there are others who say to put four on it - two eggs between each part of the sandwich. I do not recommend that anyone eat four eggs on a sandwich unless they want to instantly have a heart attack. And let's not get started on which chili sauce or which type of chutney should be used. But the mere fact that I've talked about this for so long means that I'll just make it #1.

Ed Ranks the Hottest Clits in Romania

Finally, an excuse to post this Climate of Romania map!

3. Clit, Arbore Commune, Suceava County

The average August 25 temperature for this clit is an air-conditioned 71° for the height of day, and a low of 54° at night. Brrr! Although last year it got up to 84°. So don't tell me there's no global warming!

2. Clit, Băbeni Commune, Sălaj County

August 25 brings an average high of 75° and low of 52° here, which means that the Clit of Sălaj County is typically warmer during the day but a little cooler in the night than the one in Suceava County. So in the end, you could probably have a healthy debate with a friend over which Clit is actually hotter.

1.  Clit, Hășmaș Commune, Arad County

The other Clits on this list need to bow down to the hottest Clit of all - the one in Arad County! Every August 25 brings an average high of 79° and an average low of 56°.  But do you know how hot it was here on this day last year?  89°! Wow, that Clit is burning up!

Now, I don't want you to confuse any of these three with the wettest Clit in Romania, which is obviously the Clit River, a tributary of the Solca.

Ed Ranks the Kids in It by How Much I Thought They Would Die

I've never read Steven King's 1986 novel, nor seen the original 1990 miniseries starring the amazing Tim Curry. So I didn't really know how the kids in It would fare when I watched the 2017 version.  But I had some guesses.

Needless to say, spoilers ahead.

12. Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher)

• Who is he? The stuttering main character of the movie and leader of the so-called "Loser's Club." All the momentum of the film centered around him.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 0%
• Did he die? Obviously not. No way was this kid going to die. And he didn't. He's the freakin' main character.

11. Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis)

• Who is she? The main (and sort of only) female character of the movie. A girl ostracized as a slut by the rest of the town because kids are fucking mean.
• Chances I'd Thought She'd Die: 0%. Well, maybe 0.001%.
• Did she die? Nope, and there was no way she was ever going to. She's basically a tie with #12 above. 

10. Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard)

• Who is he? The best friend of Will, the main character. Also the most famous actor in the whole damn thing because he's the kid from Stranger Things. 
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 2%
• Did he die? No. There was no way they'd kill the kid from Stranger Things. This dude was clearly going to survive the whole film.

9. Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor)

• Who is he? The new kid that movies to town and has no friends until he meets up with Bill's crew. He's fat and bullied by everyone, but he's book-smart and figured out the whole "murder happens every 27 years" thing. There was a small chance this kid would die, but I was almost certain he'd be a survivor.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 5% 
• Did he die? Nope. I called it right! Look forward to seeing you in It: Chapter Two, Ben! I am almost certain you'll be played by a super handsome, studly actor because you'll have "grown out" of the fat phase.

8. Reginald "Belch" Huggins (Jake Sim)

• Who is he? The belching kid who is part of Henry's sociopathic gang of older, bully kids. But he was too unimportant to care about. When I thought over this gang of bullies I figured this would one be the most likely to survive of them.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 20% 
• Did he die? No, not in the theatrically released version. Because he simply wasn't an important enough character to bother killing off. I watched this film the other week and I barely remember him. But notice the big jump from #9 to #8. Once we got past those four pretty much "un-killable" characters, we jump up to 20%. It's still not a HUGE chance, but it's still a much bigger chance. Apparently, in a scene cut from the movie, he's killed by Henry. But it didn't make the film, so I won't count it.

7. Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs)

• Who is he? The black kid who's a home-schooled outsider that also has no friends. He also kills animals and stuff. Cool. Look, this is a horror film, so usually I'd assume the black kid has no chance. But for some reason, for this film I really felt that Mike was going to make it to the end of the movie. I figured the "black one always dies" horror trope wouldn't apply here, and that we've gotten beyond that cliche. But then again, I also had a lingering, minor doubt because this isn't just a 2017 book... it's source material is from the 80's when black characters were still dying left and right in movies.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 25% 
• Did he die? No. My initial instinct was right! But his survival isn't good news for all those farm animals that are about to get capped in the head.

6. Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer)

• Who is he? The hypochondriac with insane, overbearing, white trash mother who makes him think he's sick and pretty much wants to keep him locked up from the outside world.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 40% 
• Did he die? No. Right again! So far that's 7 for 7. Although notice another big jump in chances. Eddie was clearly in the realm of a "hrm, I assume he won't die, but if he does I won't be totally shocked."

 5.  Vic Criss (Logan Thompson)

• Who is he? The reluctant member of Henry's gang of bullies who didn't want to do the most sadistic, crazy shit that the other kids wanted to and maybe had some morals.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 51% 
• Did he die? No, not in the theatrically released version. As with Belch, in a scene cut from the film he's killed by Henry. I thought Vic had a higher chance of dying than Belch because he was more prominently featured and he morally objected to the things that Henry did more, so they were almost selling him as the villain searching for redemption. And that character always has an over 50% chance of dying.

4. Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff)

• Who is he? The Jewish germaphobe and son of a rabbi who is always disappointing him because he's just not that into religion.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 70% 
• Did he die? No. So this is my first really "wrong" one with a character who I was pretty damn sure was going to die. Honestly, I kept forgetting this kid was in the movie. When I saw him, I thought he was Eddie until Eddie showed up in the scene and I was like, "Oh right, that's the other kid who I don't care about. He's clearly going to die!" There was even a scene in the movie when It started eating his face or something like that and I was like, "YESSS! FINALLY!" He didn't die. Oh well. Nobody's perfect. 

 3. Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott)

• Who is he? Bill's younger brother and the kid in the yellow rain jacket with the red balloon who goes chasing after the paper boat and then gets pulled down into the sewer by It.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 85% 
• Did he die? Yes. The It pulling the kid into the sewer scene is pretty iconic going back to the miniseries, so I'm familiar with the concept of what is going to happen to him. This was the only character I had some preexisting assumptions about before I saw the movie. My assumption was that Georgie would die based on that preexisting assumption. Then the movie toyed with the idea that maybe he was somehow still alive. I didn't believe it, and that proved to be right too.

 2. Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague)

• Who is he? Henry's asshole friend who is ALMOST as much of a sadistic asshole as him.
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 95% 
• Did he die? Yes. I knew It would kill this motherfucker the first time I saw his stupid, fucking face.

  1. Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton)

• Who is he? The leader of a gang of sociopath, asshole bullies that go around tormenting the main characters of the movie for various reasons of dickery. But Henry goes beyond the usual type of teenage bully stuff into the realm of, "Oh, this guy is going to be a serial killer."
• Chances I'd Thought He'd Die: 99% 
• Did he die? Yes. Or at least we're supposed to think so. As he's attacking the Loser's Club for the 100th time, Mike pushes him down a well to his presumed death. And the distinction between Patrick and Henry is that I knew Patrick would be killed by the child-murdering creature, It.  Henry, however, was so much of a douchebag that I figured he could also be killed by a regular human being too. Which I guess he was, technically. I mean, if he is dead. I assume he is. Who falls down a deep well and lives?  I mean... okay... Jessica McClure. But who other than that? After I saw the film, I looked at the differences between the novel and the film, and he apparently lives through childhood in the novel (and 1990 miniseries) to wind up in a mental institution. So I guess we'll see!

Ed Ranks Looney Tunes Characters

Yeah. Looney Tunes! This one probably doesn't need much explaining, right?  Although I guess some of these might be Merrie Melodies characters. Whatever. Anyway, there are certainly more than 17 of them. But who the hell wants to talk about Gossamer?

17. Granny - She's the annoying old lady that's often the owner of Tweety, Sylvester, or whoever it is convienient for her to be the owner of in any particular cartoon. She's just sort of there.

16. Tweety - Speaking of Granny, I can't stand Tweety. Why do people like Tweety? Tweety is the worst and I was always hoping for uhh... it (I don't know if it's a him or a her) to be eaten.

There should be an Interpol warrant on this guy.

15. Pepé Le Pew - A French rapist. Yikes.

14. Foghorn Leghorn - A stupid, racist rooster. Every time he talks, I swear he's about to shout racial slurs and put on a red MAGA hat.

13. Michigan J. Frog - I think Dave Chappelle already said everything that needs to be said about Michigan J. Frog.

12. Hippety Hopper - The kangaroo that Sylvester would always confuse with a really big mouse. Sylvester is a fucking dumbass. Kangaroos don't look anything like mice.

11. Elmer Fudd - He's really just there to be a foil to the animals that he's hunting. The poor, poor guy and his hideous speech impediment. But then again they all kind of have speech impediments, don't they?

10. Porky Pig - Is it controversial for Porky to be ranked this low? I don't care. He never really did anything for me.

9. Sylvester - I guess I would cheer for Sylvester to kill Tweety all the time. But Sylvester himself is still just an average-to-mediocre character.

8. Speedy Gonzalez - Yeah, I accept that this character is super racist. Still. Why are you trying to ruin my childhood by bringing that up?

7. Road Runner - Meep Meep.

6. Yosemite Sam - This was the actually entertaining comic foil. I loved this guy. TARNATION!

Those eyebrows tho.

5. Taz - He spins in circles real fast and is sort of like Animal from the Muppets, personality-wise. What's not to like?

4. Bugs Bunny - It would be too obvious for Bugs Bunny to be #1.  Besides, Bugs Bunny is just a fake Daffy Duck. OG Daffy Duck, I mean. Not the lame-ass he became later.

3. Marvin the Martian - I loved this guy whenever he was trying to take over the earth and kill all humanity, or whatever it was he was doing.

2. Wile E. Coyote - Oh man, this guy with his ACME rocket skates, sticks of dynamite, and paint that can paint an actual tunnel into a wall that Road Runner can go through... but that he can't. I love this dude. Poor guy is just hungry.

Yes. He looked like this. And he was awesome.

1. Daffy Duck - Daffy Duck is the best. And by that I mean the original Daffy, before they introduced Bugs. Watch one of the super old black-and-white Daffy episodes and you'll see that he's... well... BATSHIT CRAZY. It started off with generally the same "being hunted and tricking the dumb hunter" dynamic (not necessarily Elmer, he was often paired with Porky) that Bugs would later STEAL from Daffy.  Even later Daffy is okay with stuff like Duck Dodgers.

Ed Ranks the Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo "made" a bunch of inventions that were "ahead of their time," which is surprising because I always thought that Donotello was the one that did machines.

Notice the quotation marks around "made," because Leonardo "invented" things in the same way that an eight year old boy "invents" things. He did some drawings on a sheet of paper and claimed it was an invention. No real design of the product and extensive trials. You might as well say that Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is "the inventor of the time machine" because he wrote it on the side of a cardboard box. Whatever.

Given that almost all of da Vinci's "inventions" are pretty much bullshit, I'll rank them in order of how cool the actual idea behind the machine is.  This has nothing to do with any actual products produced.

15. Colossus / Horse Statue

The statue would have had a 1/2 ton horse cock.

• What does it do? It's a statue of a horse. But also large.
• Did it really work? How is a statue supposed to "work?" And no. Leonardo never actually made it because his plans for it would have meant it would be 24-feet tall and weigh 80 tons (in bronze). He couldn't figure out how to make the molds. He couldn't figure out how to make ovens hot enough for so much bronze. It was commissioned in 1482 by the Duke of Milan, but then war broke out and they wound up using the bronze for cannons. Which Leo used as a graceful excuse to not admit that he's a shitty inventor who can't make anything right.
• Who really invented it? People invented statues loooong before recorded history. If we're talking big statues, Rhodes had a giant Colossus which was a wonder of the ancient world.  Eventually some Pennsylvanian pilot decided to actually make one and donated it to Milan, do does that count? No. 

14. Clock

• What does it do? Tells time. Inventing the clock would be cool. Too bad Leo didn't do that at all.
• Did it really work? As far as I can tell, nobody tested his design to see. And to clarify the above section, in no way did Leonardo da Vinci "invent" the clock. He just invented a different design that he thought would be more accurate. It would use springs and measure hours and minutes using different gears. But like I said, it was never actually physically made.
• Who really invented it? Okay, even discounting ancient devices used to tell time like sundials, water clocks and hourglasses... it's still fairly difficult to tell when the first "mechanical" clock was invented. Early sources from the 8th through 14th century AD in both China and Europe make various mentions of time-keeping devices but don't go into particulars about how they worked, mechanically. So the "inventor" of the first truly mechanical clock is lost to history. Christiaan Huygens (also a famous astronomer), would eventually make great leaps forward in clock design with the invention of the pendulum clock in 1656, which would go on to become the most accurate timekeeper for several centuries.

Ooh, a gif!

13. Anemometer

• What does it do? It measures the speed of wind.
• Did it really work? Yeah, sort of. I mean I guess. But then again it was simple and had ALREADY BEEN INVENTED 30 YEARS PRIOR.
• Who really invented it? As I noted, this thing was already invented by the time Leonardo "invented" it. While Leo's version came in the 1480s, the first type of anemometer was described by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450.

12. The "Ideal" City

• What does it do? I don't even know where to begin with this bullshit "invention." Well, it's just a drawing of a city which he believed to be ideal. Everyone was dying of plague, so Leonardo designed a city that he thought would avoid stuff massive plague deaths with canals, broad roads, large arches, pillars, stables for horses, air vents in buildings, etc.
• Did it really work? Obviously nobody ever built a city based on Leonardo's designs. It just stayed on paper.
• Who really invented it? Will Wright? I don't know.

11. Triple Barrel Canon

• What does it do? Well, this one should be pretty self-explanatory. You know canons? It's like that. But with three barrels.
• Did it really work? Similar to his machine gun idea (see below), I'm not sure the design was actually ever field tested.  It's sort of a less-ambitious machine gun. Boring.
• Who really invented it? I think it's just him. Normal military commanders would just, you know, wheel out three separate cannons.This is sort of dumb.

10. Parachute

Yep. This is what I'm going with.

• What does it do? Jack up the excitement in action movies.
• Did it really work? No. His design was a triangular shape like a tent, rather than rounded. No way would that have enough air resistance to float.
• Who really invented it? Louis-Sébastien Lenormand, a French chemist and inventor in 1783. It's weird that parachutes were invented before airplanes, but then again I guess people could have been jumping off cliffs and stuff. Yeah. It was probably cliffs. Imagine being the poor motherfucker who Lenormand made do the "trial" tests to see if it actually worked.

8. Giant Crossbow

• What does it do? Allow Bron to shoot Drogon, which was a big fucking mistake on his part. Although I guess he lived and he actually hit him... so whatever. Do I actually mean him? I'm not sure. Dragons don't have male/female pronouns.
• Did it really work? As far as I can tell, he only did drawings and didn't actually design a physical one. Although... I mean... if someone had actually have made one I'm sure it would have worked.  It's just a BIG crossbow.
• Who really invented it? The "Scorpio" was described by early-imperial Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius in the first century BC. The earliest description of the "Ballista" occurs in a description of weapons made by King Uzziah, who reigned over the Kingdom of Judah in the eighth century BC. The crossbow itself dates to about 650 BC, coming from China. Basically, tThe idea goes back to antiquity. I'm not sure that Leonardo should get any points for saying, "yeah... that but bigger!"

8. Revolving / Swing Bridge

• What does it do? It's a mobile bridge that can be packed up and moved around for use by armies. It can also swing in other directions to allow navigation of ships and to block other armies from crossing.
• Did it really work? It was never actually made. Noticing a common theme?
• Who really invented it? In ancient China, King Wen of Zhou was the first to create a pontoon bridge in the 11th century BC. The idea is super old.  As for something along the lines of what Leonardo was probably going for, 19th-Century British civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (considered one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history) designed a swing bridge in 1849. I actually only know who this guy is because there was a passing reference to him in Doctor Who in the 1980s. Oh, and the Doctor met da Vinci, by the way.

7. Scuba Gear

• What does it do? Allows tourists to enjoy the Great Barrier Reef until it is completely destroyed by global warming in, I assume, about four years.
• Did it really work? Obviously not. Leonardo was in Venice and drew these designs for warfare, imagining that people would deck out in scuba gear and attack ships from below the water. So really, if Leonardo invented anything here, then he invented the film Thunderball.
• Who really invented it? This one is tough. The first practical scuba rebreather with a self-contained breathing apparatus was designed by diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878. If you really want to notch up the technology you think of when you think of a modern set of Scuba gear, you have to turn to Frenchmen Émile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau (you've probably heard of the latter), who designed the first open-circuit-demand scuba gear in 1943.

6. Helicopter / Aerial Screw

This bullshit will NEVER work.

• What does it do? Add atmosphere to movies about Vietnam. Also, it flies through a process of lift and thrust via rotors.
• Did it really work? Of course not. Leo was obsessed with wind and air inventions because he was obsessed with flying. He has a tons of wind and flying-related inventions. Unlike the modern helicopter, this was shaped more like a screw (hence "aerial screw," which sounds either like a more vulgar version of the "mile high club" or what Prince Eric did to The Little Mermaid after the credits rolled).
• Who really invented it? Let's say that it was Russian-American aviation pioneer, Igor Sikorsky. Although you could argue that it was either Henrich Focke or Paul Cornu, based on various reasons. I'm not going into them. If you're reading this, you're on some sort of computer. Research that yourself.

5. Tank

• 

  I'm just as un-impressed as you.

  What does it do? It's a big, armored vehicle that is resistant to bullets and all kinds of stuff like that. It also has big guns/weapons on it so that it can shoot other people.  
• Did it really work? No, da Vinci’s tank was designed with powering cranks that went in opposite directions, thus making forward motion impossible.  Some Leo fans claim that this was an OBVIOUS flaw that he OF COURSE must have known about because he was a genius. So they make up some elaborate story about how he was a pacifist that designed this machine to not work on purpose so that it would never be used. Or, possibly, Leonardo was a dumbass who's inventions were all non-working bullshit. That's an option too. I'm just putting it out there. Based on the evidence of EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING HE INVENTED, WHICH WAS BULLSHIT THAT WAS IMPRACTICAL.
• Who really invented it? Australian engineer Lancelot de Mole (what a name!) submitted a proposal for a "chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches" to the British War Office in 1912. Although some people credit Jan Žižka, a Czech national hero who used a similar-ish armed wagon with guns in battles. But he did that even before da Vinci created his design.You know what? Fuck Lancelot. My family comes from the Czech Republic, so I'm on Team Žižka here.

4. "33-Barreled Organ" / Machine Gun

• What does it do? Allow mentally unstable people to kill lots of innocent people really quickly and with almost no background checks. Uhh... I mean "hunting and personal defense." Yes. That's what I meant to say. #secondamendment
• Did it really work? I'm not able to find any definite sources on this thing being tested, but given that machine guns didn't become widely used in the 15th century, I'm going to go ahead and say, "no."
• Who really invented it? As with many of these examples it was more of a process than a single invention, but the first gun to offer controlled, sequential fire with mechanical loading was created by American (of course, it's a gun) Richard Jordan Gatling in 1861. The Gatling gun saw limited use in the Civil War. ♪ THE MORE YOU KNOW. ♪

3. Car

• What does it do?  I assume I don't have to explain a "car" to you. 
• Did it really work? Not in his lifetime because, as usual, it was never actually made. Supposedly in 2006, some Italians made a working "self-propelled cart" based on his designs and lauded him as a genius. But then again the term "based on his designs" is a little questionable. You know how movies are "based on a true story" and are wildly different from what actually happened? I'm sure the Italians filled some major holes in Leo's designs to make sure it worked as a sense of national pride. 
• Who really invented it? German engineer Karl Benz in 1885. You may remember him better from his time in an 80's pop group with his colleague, Mercédès.  1880's, I mean.

2. Flying Machine

This shit drawing is what people call "an invention."

• What does it do? It's an airplane, dumbass. Or, I guess more accurately an "ornithopter," which means a plane that flaps wings. Do you need the concept of an airplane explained to you? Are you John Madden?
• Did it really work? Absolutely not. He made some sketches that were based on winged animals like bats and birds. Really, it mostly looked like a bat. So da Vinci really invented the Batwing.
• Who really invented it? The Wright Brothers, in 1903. Well, that's the most official and well-known story. Really inventions are more of a "process" than a single event, and you can point to lots of antecedents (including da Vinci) in the invention of the airplane. Why is this ranked so much higher than helicopter? Because planes are awesome and helicopters are death traps. 

1. Robot

• What does it do? Leonardo designed a knight-in-armor which used mechanical parts like pulleys, weights and gears.
• Did it really work? Hell no. Just because this is ranked #1, don't think that da Vinci got around off his lazy ass to actually MAKE one. Do you think ROBOTS were around in the 1400's? That's crazy talk.  In fact, Leonardo's full designs for this (if you can call any of this designs "full") don't even still exist, and only scattered fragments referencing it can be found in his notebooks.
• Who really invented it? A difficult question to answer, but let's go with American inventor George Devol, who in 1954 created the first digitally-operated and a programmable robot called the "Unimate." The Japanese took the "mate" part of "Unimate" a little too seriously and have been trying to create screw-able robots ever since.

Ed Ranks Factoids About the Number 200

This is Ed Ranks Everything's 200th post.  Remember how I ranked my first 100 rankings as my 100th post?  Well, I'm not doing any nonsense like that again.

This is an article written in 2011 that I found when doing a quick Google search about the number 200.  And that's about the limit of my ambitions for putting any research into this set of rankings.  I will rank the facts about 200 presented in this article.  Yep, that's it. The bold is what the article says (or a summary thereof). The regular text is my snarky commentary.

Inventor of the eye roll.

14. The Roman Emperor during 200AD was Septimius Severus - This was clearly a copy/paste fact where they looked at the Wikipedia entry for 200AD and then when writing the article forgot to mention why they mentioned him with relation to 200AD.  The article just states he was emperor at the time and was born in Africa.  Wikipedia notes that he visited Syria that year, which is what the article writers probably forgot to include. Dumbasses.

13. 200 years before the article was written in 2011, the French admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville died, aged 81 - Literally nobody knows who this is.

12. The Greek mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria was born in 200AD - Literally nobody knows who this is.

11. In Greek mythology, Typhon the Titan, “father of all monsters” had 200 fire-flashing eyes, two for each of his 100 heads - I think they're cheating with this factoid. Technically the fact is that Typhon has 100 heads. Having 200 eyes is just a sub-fact to his 100 heads. This fact might as well be that he has 200 nostrils or 200 ears.

10. The “classical” period of Mayan civilization began in Central America around 200AD - Around 200? That's not even specifically 200. VAGUE!

9. Two hundred Japanese executives die on the golf course each year - I can find nothing to verify this factoid.  This seems like bullshit to me. 

8. The Japanese sent a huge fleet to invade Korea in 200AD - This is the entity of the factoid provided. I wish there was some follow-up. Did they win? Did they lose? You don't expect me to do my OWN research, do you?

Go ahead and count 'em

7.  Each dandelion flower head produces 200 seeds - Sure, that's sort of interesting.

6. The world’s human population in 200AD is estimated to have been 257 million - By 2018 statistics, that's less than the current population of Indonesia (266 million).

5.  A quarter of the world’s wealth is controlled by just 200 companies - That's an interesting fact! Depressing... but interesting.

4. Jean-Antoine Nollet, the Abbot of the Grand Convent of Carthusians in Paris, performed an experiment where he linked 200 monks together and electrocuted them to show how fast electricity moves - Yeah, this is exactly what random factoids are all about.  I LOVE this factoid!

3. Two hundred miles a day was the average daily distance covered by the Pony Express - Gosh golly, that's interesting!  I feel so much smarter now that I know this.

A trophy-collecting, weirdo serial killer.

2. In the Old Testament, David bought his wife with a dowry of 200 Philistine foreskins (by murdering 200 people, of course) - Remember to live your lives according to the great morals taught to you in the bible, kids!  Women are property that you can buy and mass murder is A-OK so long as you do it to a different race/culture/religion!

1. In 1991, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death in 1791, Triumph International, Japan’s second-largest lingerie company, made a musical bra with blinking lights which played 20 seconds of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. But Mozart didn't actually write Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Oh, Japan!

Ed Ranks Cybermen Serials of the Original Doctor Who Series

This ranking is exxxxxxcellent.

No post-2005 Who here. Just 1963 to 1989.  Cameos where the Cybermen are briefly seen--but do not play an important role in the story--do not count (i.e. The War Games, Carnival of Monsters).

10. The Moonbase

Season: 4 (1967)

Synopsis: In the year 2070, there is a base on the moon that has a weather control device. However, the people on the base are all dying from some mysterious space plague. The plague winds up being caused by the Cybermen, who can apparently be easily harmed with some fire extinguishers. After a bunch of bullshit, the Doctor realizes that there isn't much gravity on the Moon, and so they use the weather control device to reverse the gravity to fling all the Cybermen into outer-space to die. Or, presumably, live an eternal, undying life in the endless void.

Analysis: I hate ranking this one last because that's sort of unfair. Half the episodes are missing/destroyed so I haven't even seen half of it. It also re-introduced the Cybermen in a much more cool-looking, silver, robotic form that was a vast improvement from their first appearance as flimsy hobos in ski masks at the South Pole (see #8). The iconic look they received in this serial stayed, and this established the Cybermen as who we know them to be. Reappearing also cemented them as a recurring villain like the Daleks. But did we really need another Cybermen serial four serials after they were just introduced? A little too soon. And the fire extinguisher and gravity plot devices were just bad.

Does Adric Blow Up? No. Adric is still over a decade away from being introduced. 

9. The Wheel in Space

Season: 5 (1968)

Oh, hey Zoe.

Synopsis: Remember The Moonbase? Yeah. Well, it's that again. Except this time it's a space station instead of a moonbase. Also this time, the Cybermen want to take over the space station to use its radio as a beacon for their invasion of Earth. The Cybermen-defeating plot device du jour this time is now an X-Ray, which can kill all the Cybermen as they do an extremely unconvincing "space walk" against a green screen. But hey, at least we get introduced to Zoe Heriot.

Analysis: A lot of serials in this era follow a  "trapped on a ship/base and being killed one-by-one by monsters" story - because Doctor Who had no money and writing episodes like this made them cheap because you only had to worry about a limited number of sets for filming. But I can barely remember the differences between this episode and The Moonbase, and I always mix up which happens in which one.  They're essentially the same. This one has even more missing episodes though, and only 2 of the 6 episodes in the serial survive. Honestly, The Moonbase might be slightly better than this one -- but no way am I ranking a damn Ben and Polly serial in front of the serial that introduces Zoe Heriot.  Also, this serial adds the little "teardrop" design to the Cybermen's eyes. Presumably because they were in prison.

Does Adric Blow Up? No. Although the Zoe character is a lot like Adric in that she's a young, mathematical genius.

8.  The Tenth Planet

Season: 4 (1966)

Synopsis: It turns out that Earth used to have an identical twin planet (literally identical, it was just Earth flipped upside down, AKA "Australian Earth"). This planet drifted away and all the inhabitants became weak and enhanced themselves with technology to survive, thus creating the Cybermen. In the FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 1986, the Cybermen decide to put some rockets on their ol' planet (Mondas) to bring it back to the Earth and, like, steal the Earth's "essence" or some hippy bullshit like that. They also want to turn all humans into Cybermen because they think being a Cyberman is pretty cool. Or they want to destroy the Earth. It's not exactly clear. The First Doctor is at a South Pole base called Snowcap trying to defeat them. Although I'm not sure he actually does anything relevant to the plot, because I think the Cybermen all on their own fuck up and take "too much" of Earth's essence and destroy their own planet. What a bunch of dipshits.  Oh, also Cybermen are not the cool-looking android guys you're used to. They are fuckwits in ski masks with air conditioners on their chests, flashlights on their head, and they talk in sing-songey voices whith gaping mouths that are annoying AF. So annoying that the Doctor dies at the end of the serial for no damn reason.

Analysis: Okay, so some credit to this serial for introducing the Cybermen and attempting to deal with some scientific concepts that were ahead of their time. This serial dealt with questions of post-humanism like the merging of humanity and technology. Cyberpunk and the Borg owe a lot to this.  As in The Graduate, the 1960s were an era when plastic was the new, big thing so it seemed more cool and futuristic that cyborgs would be plastic-based rather than metal. Fortunately that changed by the time they came back. Despite how ambitious and thoughtful the concepts behind the serial might have been, the story itself and science are absolute hot garbage.  And I'm pretty sure that had the Doctor and his companions not showed up, nothing different would have happened because the Cybermen would have still sucked in too much energy and blown up their planet, right? In fact, the Doctor did barely show up and he was missing for a few episodes. Then he dies and gets a new body. Which was an awesome plot device that allowed the show to keep going for another 50+ years.

Does Adric Blow Up? No. Adric's pocket universe known as Exo-Space hasn't even been discovered yet. Or maybe it has because this is THE FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 1986.  But you know what does blow up? The Cybermen's home planet.

7. Attack of the Cybermen

Season: 22 (1985)

Synopsis: Cybermen from THE DEEP FUTURE remember The Tenth Planet from re-runs and know that their home of Mondas is destroyed in THE FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 1986.  They decide to travel back in time to 1985 and ruin Earth to prevent the events of 1986 from ever occurring.  They then remember and say, "Oh yeah, isn't Halley's Comet coming around to this planet soon?"  So they decide that they want to redirect Halley's Comet to smash into the Earth.  The Cybermen (led by the cone-headed Cyber Controller, who is several notches above the usual Cyber Leader) run their plot from the planet of Telos, and also appear to get aid from a former Dalek Employee of the Month, Lytton. But Lytton's not really on their side, and the local natives of the planet Telos (Cryons) also want to mess up the Cybermen's plans.  The Cybermen, unsurprisingly, get blown up before they can change history. THE FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 1986 is saved and we won't have to deal with any tragic, demoralizing, space-related disasters. Well, except for the Challenger, I suppose... but we can't blame the Cybermen for that.

Analysis: This serial was more of a tribute to old Doctor Who serials than anything new. Its main plot is a call-back to the first Cybermen serial, which is sort of cool, and to the planet Telos and the Cyber Controller from The Tomb of the Cybermen. And it is also partially set at 76 Totter's lane, where the first scene of the first episode of the show was set in 1963.  But it's also all over the place and makes no sense.  And the inclusion of Lytton, previously a Dalek henchman, in the story made no sense.  He also has an illogical heel-face turn that is totally inconsistent with how he was previously characterized as a ruthless killer.  The Cryons are also just the worst.

Does Adric Blow Up? No. Adric has already blown up by this time. But the Cybermen are still really in to the whole "smash a space object into Earth and blow it up" plan.

6. Silver Nemesis

Why does this look like a youth baseball team photo?

Season: 25 (1988)

Synopsis: A BBC producer realizes that his 25th wedding anniversary is tomorrow and he has to quickly buy a gift. He's reminded that the 25th anniversary is the "silver" anniversary, buys a silver necklace, and a marriage crisis is averted.  Coincidentally, the next day the BBC also needs to green-light the plot for the 25th Anniversary serial of Doctor Who. So the producer says... "Uhhh, Silver Something?"  The BBC figure that, since the Cybermen are silver-colored, they better just use them for a silver anniversary.  But they still don't have a serial written so they're like, "What was the last Cybermen serial about?" And someone says, "Halley's Comet." And then they copy and paste the script and make it about a space object that comes around every few decades, just like Halley's Comet, except they call it "Nemesis." But then a writer is like, "Well, we have to explain what Nemesis is."  So someone else is like, "Uhh... an ancient Gallifreyan artifact with super magical powers?"  And the writer is like, "But we just used that plot device TWO SERIALS AGO with the Hand of Omega."  But the BBC is short on time and like, "Screw it! Add some Neo-Nazis and a time traveling Renaissance Faire lady and we'll call it a day."

Analysis: The serial isn't actually as bad as I make it seem in the synopsis above, but there really isn't much new or original to it.  It's almost a beat-for-beat remake of Remembrance of the Daleks, which was (as noted) just two serials before. Just replace warring Dalek factions with... uh... Lady Peinforte?

Does Adric Blow Up? Negative. 

5. Revenge of the Cybermen

Season: 12 (1975)

Synopsis: The Cybermen realize that being allergic to things like fire extinguishes, x-rays and gravity is stupid.  So now they are allergic to gold, for some reason.  There was a giant "Cyber War" at some time in the future and the Cybermen were nearly wiped out by gold.  Well, now they're back and they want to blow up Voga, a planet made of gold, to ensure that the galaxy's gold supplies are disrupted.  To set the stage for the destruction of Voga, they take over a space station that is exactly the same as a space station used earlier in the same season of the TV show, with a convenient plot explanation for why it is the exact same space station but in a different location during a different era of the future. Fortunately the Cybermen are not only allergic to gold though. They are also allergic to stock footage from NASA of 1960's rocket launches, and a Saturn V rocket blows them up.  Hopefully one without an Apollo lunar capsule on top.

Analysis: When this serial aired, the Cybermen hadn't been seen since 1968. It was great to have them back! It's the first time they appeared in color, as well as the first introduction of the "Cyber Leader" with his black helmet.  Yeah, parts of this serial are admittedly bad.  But it's totally watchable because it's the Forth Doctor, Sarah Jane, Harry Sullivan, and freaking Cybermen that shoot little cap gun fireworks from their heads!

Does Adric Blow Up? No. The Fourth Doctor hasn't even met Adric yet.

4. The Five Doctors

Season: 20 (1983)

Synopsis: The Lord President of Gallifrey uses an ancient, now banned device called the "Time Scoop" to suck up five incarnations (well... four) of the Doctor and his enemies to play an elaborate Hunger Games-style event called "the Games of Rassilon." Why? Mostly for shits and giggles, but also because he believes the Doctor can get to Rassilon's tomb and uncover Rassilon's legendary secret to immortality.  Yeah, this Lord President guy wants to live forever.  The Cybermen are one of the Doctor's adversaries that get sucked  up, and they play a significant part in the plot until they are killed by a combination of (1) a silver version of "the Gimp" from Pulp Fiction known as a Raston Warrior Robot, (2) an electrified chess board of death, and (3) The Master.

Analysis: Yes, this is absolutely a Cybermen episode (not serial, since it's just one movie-length special).  I know the Cybermen aren't the only villains, as this one was an ensemble piece.  Really the main advisories are The Master and the Lord President (Borusa, who does a face-heel turn after appearing numerous times as a good guy).  But the Cybermen had a pretty big role in the episode when you compare them to other "cameo" type villains like the Daleks and Yeti.

Does Adric Blow Up? No, Adric blew up a year-and-a-half prior to this special. Or, arguably, 65 million years prior. It depends how you count.

3. The Tomb of the Cybermen

AKA the Japanese Capsule Hotel of the Cybermen

Season: 5 (1967)

Synopsis: The Doctor and his TARDIS crew land on the planet Telos where they discover some future Earth dudes doing an awesome archeological dig in what is clearly meant to be a narrative stand-in for early 20th century digs in Egypt.  The Doctor then learns that they're digging for the old tombs of Cybermen... which apparently used to live on this planet before they all died.  But guess what!  They're not dead!  These aren't tombs at all... just cryogenic chambers where they've been sleeping.  Of course they get woken up and want to kill/convert everyone!  Fortunately, the Doctor realizes that all he has to do is kill their leader, the "Cyber Controller," and the rest of the Cybermen will be happy to have the film of them emerging from their tombs played backwards so they all go back to sleep again.

Analysis: The master copy of this serial was erased by the BBC ages ago because they thought nobody cared about old black and white Doctor Who serials . It therefore became legendary and people talked about it like it was the greatest lost treasure of all time.  It reached mythic status as a fantastic episode that was forever lost.  When trying to rank Doctor Who serials (who would do something lame like that?) many people (who never actually saw it) said it was the greatest thing EVAR.  Then in 1991 they found a copy in Hong Kong.  It didn't quite live up to all the hype, but the mythic legend of it had grown so much that many people still rank it as the greatest Cyberman episode ever.  It's not.  It's just The Mummy in space.

Does Adric Blow Up? No, but thank you for continuing to ask me that question.

2. The Invasion

Season: 6 (1968)

Well, there goes London.

Synopsis: In the FUTURISTIC YEAR OF... uhh... 197something (UNIT episodes are pretty inconsistent on when they are set), the Cybermen decide to invade Earth with the help of a traitorous human being, Mavic Chen Tobias Vaughn.  Vaughn believes he can make a deal with the Cybermen that will allow them to share in conquest and power.  The Cybermen even help to upgrade him with cyber technology while "leaving his mind alone."  But Cybermen are sort of dicks who don't really think agreements with lame flesh people are to be honored, so you can guess how this deal will work out.  The Cybermen launch a massive invasion of London and march along all those monuments you see on post cards, but especially St. Paul's Cathedral.  They invade elsewhere around the world too... but who cares about cities other than London, really?  Once the Cybermen's invasion plan starts to go a little awry because of the work of the awesome new "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce" (UNIT), they say "fuck it" and decide that they'll just blow up Earth with a MEGARTRON bomb (yep, Megatron).  Vaughn doesn't like that because he sort of wanted to rule a version of Earth that wasn't hot ashes.  So he flips and helps UNIT (and the Russians) turn of the homing beacons for the invasion and locate the Cyber ship to blow it to smithereens.  Of course he dies in the process too, because that's how it works with villains.

Analysis: This serial is much better than The Tomb of the Cybermen, no matter what anybody says.  It's fantastic!  If there is anything wrong with it, it's that it's too long. It's 8 episodes long, and 2 episodes are missing (but have been redone in animation, like many other lost episodes).  The version of the Cybermen here are probably "the" quintessential version of the Cybermen.  The episode is sort of a James Bond-sytle action thriller (Vaughn is totally a Bond villain) and it introduces UNIT.  The entire template for the Third Doctor's run was essentially set up by this Second Doctor episode.  The Cybermen were a truly threatening force in this episode, with the entire world on the line rather than just some dumb base on a moon.  And the images of the Cybermen walking by St. Paul's are probably some of the most iconic in the history of the TV show.

Does Adric Blow Up? JUST WAIT A MINUTE, OKAY?! 

1. Earthshock

Watching some All Creatures Great and Small

Season: 19 (1982)

Synopsis: A galactic peace conference is happening on Earth in the year 2526, with a bunch of adversarial planets putting aside their differences to unite against the Cybermen.  The Cybermen do not like this at all, and decide to place a bomb in a cave (coincidentally full of dinosaur bones) on Earth to blow it up.  But a bunch of space marines on Earth (shouldn't they be in space?) go in the cave and start getting killed one-by-one by a robot that looks suspiciously like a Raston Warrior Robot.  The Doctor stumbles onto the scene as usual, shuts off the bomb, and saves the day.  So the Cybermen are like, "Okay, Plan B."  They then hijack a giant space freight ship and decide that if they crash it into Earth, it will be just like the asteroid/comet that hit the earth and caused the K-T extinction event which killed all the dinosaurs (huh... I mentioned dinosaurs again. Odd).  But the Doctor knew the Earth bomb was being signaled to explode from space, so he traced the signal back to the space freighter and... sure enough... freakin' Cybermen!!!  After lots of lectures about how they don't have emotions, the Cybermen actually WIN AND SUCCEED WITH THEIR PLANS!  Yes, it's true.  The Cybermen defeat the Doctor and the space marines, and use their Cybermen technology to steer the ship for a course directly to Earth at warp speed with a few hostages left on it (including Adric, the Doctor's companion and mathematical genius who is so good at math that he got a GOLD STAR).  The Cybermen, being assholes, decide to watch the whole thing on the screen in the Doctor's TARDIS like petty bitches and laugh.  The freighter collides into the Earth and completely obliterates 75% of all life on the planet and causes the dominant species to become extinct.  That dominant form of life being, of course, dinosaurs. Wait. What? What the hell? Yeah... you see... when the Cybermen left Adric on the ship, he started messing with the Cybermen's steering control device.  Apparently messing with this device while going at warp speed caused the ship to go back in time 65 million years and it became the Chicxulub impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs.  So the Cybermen, instead of wiping out humanity, accidentally help to CREATE IT.  Fortunately, the Doctor still had Adric's GOLD STAR and he slammed in right into the Cyberleader's chest and then shot him a few times.

Analysis: HELLS TO THE YEAH! ISN'T THAT THE BEST SYNOPSIS EVER? I GIVE THIS SERIAL A GOLD STAR IN SWEETNESS.

Does Adric Blow Up? Yes. Adric stayed on the space ship to the very end, refusing to use the escape pods until he figured out how to stop the ship. Unfortunately, he never realized that he didn't have to stop it. Adric blew up big time. *roll silent credits*

 

Ed Ranks the Flags of ASEAN States

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising ten Southeast Asian countries that promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and socio-cultural integration. Or that's what Wikipedia says, at least.

Here are their flags, ranked.

10. Indonesia

Monaco called, and they want their boring flag back.

9. Thailand

Thailand is such a cool country. You think they'd have a cooler flag than just some dark red and blue stripes with white.

8. Laos

Marginally better than Thailand. It feels like the circle in the middle should have something in it. Like some sort of national seal. It's like they were going to put something there... but then forgot. 

7. Singapore

The addition of a crescent moon and stars to Indonesia's flag makes it more interesting, see?

6. Vietnam

Don't get me wrong, simplicity has its virtues. This is a simple, okay flag. But when I see it, all I can think is, "Commies!"

5. Myanmar

Don't lie. If you saw this flag and had to guess where it was from, you absolutely would have guessed an African country.

4. Philippines

I'm kind of digging this flag. The sun and stars really help it out.

3. Brunei

This flag is pretty awesome too. Some pretty unique colors that stand out, and that national symbol is the arms and stuff is pretty badass.

2. Cambodia

Angkor Wat? That's pretty damn sweet. Some of these other flags, even if they look good, could be the flags of ANY country. This flag screams, "Hey! This is Cambodia and nobody else has a flag like us."

1. Malaysia

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. I wonder where they got the idea for this flag from.