Culture & entertainment
Discover facts about culture & entertainment. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Culture & entertainment
Marvel thought people would hate Spider-Man
Publisher Martin Goodman objected that readers disliked spiders, teenagers should be sidekicks, and superheroes shouldn't have depression or money problems.…
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Why the Pentagon helped make Transformers
The Pentagon offered discounted access to bases, aircraft, and active-duty soldiers, while reviewing scripts to ensure the military was portrayed favorably.
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Tony Todd was paid for every bee sting
While filming Candyman, Tony Todd performed with live bees on his body, including a scene with them in his mouth. He said he negotiated $1,000 for each sting…
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Why Will Smith stomped fake cockroaches in Men in Black
The American Humane Association monitored the set to ensure no real cockroaches were harmed, so Smith stomped mustard-filled plastic props instead.
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Why cloud gaming can never eliminate lag
Commands and video must travel between your device and a remote server, so even a fast connection has some round-trip delay. A faster connection can reduce…
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Portal turrets fake physics with invisible springs
To fake the bounce of dropped objects, developers put invisible digital springs beside character models instead of programming more elaborate physics.
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Why your game controller fights back
Motorized gear systems in some controllers' rear triggers push back against your finger, simulating the tension of drawing a bowstring or firing a weapon.
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The Wii Balance Board became a medical tool
Four load sensors measure how weight is distributed across the board, allowing software to estimate shifts in a person's center of pressure. Researchers have…
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Your video-game character may be just floating arms
In some games, the first-person model is just the arms and weapon; body parts outside the camera's view aren't rendered, saving processing power.
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Handheld game screens struggle terribly with direct sunlight
Early handhelds had no backlight, so players had to angle the screen toward ambient light while avoiding glare. Visibility depended on the sun's position.
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League of Legends once asked players to judge misconduct
The Tribunal let eligible players review reported behavior using material such as chat logs and vote on cases. It turned moderation into a community task,…
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Kinect put a depth camera into millions of living rooms
Microsoft reported eight million units sold in the device’s first 60 days. Its ability to measure the scene in three dimensions also attracted researchers and…
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War Thunder arguments have exposed classified documents
War Thunder players have posted classified military documents on the game's forums to argue that its vehicle details are inaccurate. The disputes have…
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Why controller rumble led to multimillion-dollar lawsuits
A patent on vibrating motors inside controllers has led to multimillion-dollar lawsuits. Companies have had to redesign their circuitry or pay licensing fees…
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A simulated driver follows a cost calculation, not common sense
Traffic in city-building games depends on rules for choosing routes: distance, speed, congestion, and other costs can be weighted differently. If the rules…
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Why digital stores hide your gaming backlog
Some platforms make it mildly annoying to check how much you've spent or how many games you've never played. Keeping that backlog out of sight can make it…
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The first American-made CD was Bruce Springsteen
In 1984, CBS Records pressed the first commercial CD made in the U.S.: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” The working-class album became the flagship…
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Eminem fit 1,560 words into Rap God
Across the six-minute track, he averages 4.28 words per second and squeezes 97 words into a 15-second burst.
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Why the Friends couch was always available
A “Reserved” sign is visible on the coffee table in wide shots; Gunther kept the couch for Rachel and her friends.
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Wu-Tang made one copy of an album
The single physical copy was auctioned with legal restrictions against commercial release, then ended up with a pharmaceutical executive.
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Why Eminem studied the dictionary
He studied the dictionary to expand his store of words and rhymes—a scholarly habit behind his aggressive lyrical style.
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A vinyl record stores sound as a groove you can touch
Most conventional vinyl records are pressed from PVC. A stylus follows the tiny variations molded into the groove, turning mechanical movement into an…
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Printing Wikipedia required ninety-one volumes just for the contents
Artist Michael Mandiberg's software turned a 2015 snapshot of English Wikipedia into 7,473 print-on-demand volumes of 700 pages each. The table of contents…
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Why movie-star wigs can cost more than a car
The cost comes from painstaking labor: human hair is attached strand by strand to fine lace to create a realistic hairline.
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