clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Frosted Flakes: VHS Tapes, Virtual Traffic Jams and Cold-Water Swimming

Free goodies inside

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Photo by Epics/Getty Images

My life in Guadalajara continues. I have had a bad cough for the past week but it’s finally getting better so I hope to go out to a meetup tonight and catch up with some local friends.

There has been a lot of talk about to coronavirus in the news recently but something that caught my attention was an article about a JFK-Hong Kong flight that cost just $193 one-way. The only catch was that had a six-hour layover in Wuhan (the epicenter of the coronavirus). This flight wasn’t until May 20th so it made me think about how many people would take that deal. One could assume the virus would be eradicated by that time and you should be fine if you are young and healthy with no respiratory problems.

Would you be willing to take a really cheap flight to Asia this summer if it meant you had a layover in China? Feel free to discuss that or anything else you read in Today’s Flakes, which is packed with loads of goodies (especially at the bottom) which should keep you occupied for a while.

Frosted Flakes

Nebraska Wrestling: Huskers in the Rankings | Wrestling | Corn Nation

With a huge home victory over the Buckeyes, the Huskers finally got over the hump and jumped up to the No. 4 spot in the NWCA Coaches Poll.

Mailbag: Trade Season, Spring Game Revamps and B1G Changes | Sports | Hail Varsity

Hail Varsity staff members Mike Babcock, Jacob Padilla, Greg Smith, Erin Sorensen and Brandon Vogel tackle your questions about the latest news in Husker Nation.

Padding the Stats: Nebraska Calling for Competitors | Basketball | Hail Varsity

Hoiberg promised this week of practice would be a difficult one. Nebraska doesn’t suit up again until Saturday, so the Huskers have plenty of time to really get after it and still recover before the trip to Iowa.

Huskers 2020 Recruiting Class Closes In On Top-25 Ranking | Recruiting | Omaha World-Herald

The program’s roster makeover under Frost also officially continued Wednesday. Of 160 players listed on the team website, only 28 were there prior to Frost’s arrival in December 2017. Of those, 20 are scholarship players with 11 seniors and nine juniors.

Husker Coach Scott Frost Says It’s Taken Up Until Now ‘To Really Catch Up in Recruiting’ | Recruiting | Omaha World-Herald

“Honestly, this early signing day has changed a lot,” Frost said. “It’s pretty relaxing right now in February. We may sign someone today, we might not. The majority of our work was done in the early signing period.”

Huskers Face Akron in Top-10 Matchup | Women’s Rifle | Huskers.com

The No. 7 Nebraska rifle team travels to Akron, Ohio, this weekend to take on No. 4 Akron on Saturday, Feb. 8. Match action is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and fans can follow along on social media.

Huskers Travel to Virginia for Pair of Matches | Men’s Tennis | Huskers.com

The Nebraska men’s tennis team (1-3, 0-0 Big Ten) will travel to Norfolk, Va., for a pair of road matches this weekend. The Huskers will face off with the SMU Mustangs on Saturday, Feb. 8, at Noon CT, before playing the Old Dominion Monarchs on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 10 a.m. CT.

Travel

China Puts Museum Exhibits Online Due to Coronavirus | Travel | Travel and Leisure

Museums like the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing have made their galleries virtual, viewable for those in China who cannot travel to see it in person, CNN reported. The Forbidden City is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year, but said on Jan. 23 that it would be closed until further notice due to the contagious coronavirus.

Vienna is Offering Free Museum Admission if you Walk or Bike Instead of Drive | Travel | Travel and Leisure

Once a user has tracked 20 kilograms of carbon savings — about two weeks of biking or walking to and from work versus driving, the city says — they’ll be awarded one culture token. The token can then be used for admission into some of the city’s biggest museums.

Miami Beach is Auctioning off its Colorful and Iconic Lifeguard Towers | Travel | Travel and Leisure

These towers have been painted to reflect the Super Bowl, which was played in the city. One sports the Kansas City Chiefs logo, while the other is painted with the San Francisco 49ers label. They were both displayed on the beach prior to the game.

The Afghan Artifacts That Survived the Taliban Destruction | Travel | BBC

After thousands of priceless artifacts were smashed by Taliban forces, the country’s National Museum is piecing the fragments back together and hopes to unveil them this year.

Japan’s Naked Art of Body Positivity | Travel | BBC

In Japan’s strongly hierarchical culture, naked communal bathing allows people to broach controversial topics and speak openly and honestly about their feelings.

Turning 50 Made Me Rethink Why I Travel | Travel | Conde Nast Traveler

As my 50th birthday was drawing near and my career in television winding down, my interest in making room for things more challenging, less comfortable, and perhaps even agitating, was surfacing. I strongly felt that I wanted to spend my next act making a difference, although the exact hows and whats were unclear.

India Reintroduces Cheetahs to the Wild After 70 Years | Travel | Lonely Planet

India is delighted by the news that it has been given permission by its supreme court to reintroduce cheetahs into the wild after they were declared extinct almost 70 years ago.

In a Race for Cheap Airfare, It’s You vs. The Machine | Travel | New York Times

Travel providers now use software to re-price their offerings, sometimes dozens of times a day, putting travelers at a big disadvantage.

Overtourism in Europe’s Historic Cities Sparks Backlash | Travel | The Guardian

Across Europe, historic cities are buckling. Mass tourism, encouraged by cash-hungry councils after the 2008 crash and fueled by the explosion of cheap flights and online room rentals, has become a monster. The backlash, however, has begun.

Utah Wanted All the Tourists. Then It Got Them. | Travel | Outside Online

As red-rock meccas like Moab, Zion, and Arches become overrun with visitors, our writer wonders if Utah’s celebrated Mighty Five ad campaign worked too well—and who gets to decide when a destination is “at capacity.”

The Rest

Elinor Kaine was a Pioneering Sportswriter in an Industry Built for Men | Football | SB Nation

To say Penna was a pioneering woman sportswriter is an understatement. Working under her maiden name, Elinor Kaine, through the 1960s and early ‘70s, she was a bona fide sports media phenomenon with the syndicated columns, TV deals, book deals and trash talk from disgruntled peers to prove it.

Why Racism is on the Rise in Soccer Again | Sports | GQ

Last September, Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku converted an otherwise routine penalty kick, securing his team’s victory over Cagliari in Italy’s Serie A. The goal made Lukaku a hero in the game’s dying minutes, but the Belgian striker couldn’t savor the victory. During the penalty, Lukaku was subjected to the ugliest kind of taunting from opposing fans, who intoned monkey noises.

Sports Gambling in Sing Sing Prison | Sports | Sports Illustrated

It’s Saturday afternoon, Week 11 of the NFL season, and I’m lapping the A Block yard at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Ossining, N.Y. Crisp autumn air whips off the Hudson River as Mexicans, Dominicans and Albanian Eddy play pickup soccer on a slightly slanted open area of cracked pavement.

The Hockey Game That Changed Aviation History | Sports | OZY

One winter afternoon while playing hockey with friends on a pond beside the Dayton Soldiers’ Home, Wilbur was hit in the face with a hockey stick, a blow that broke his jaw and knocked out most of his upper front teeth.

Her Uighur Parents Were Model Chinese Citizens. It Didn’t Matter. | China | New York Times

When Zulhumar Isaac’s parents disappeared amid a wave of detentions of ethnic minorities, she had to play a perilous game with the state to get them back.

The Subversive Job of Cold-Water Swimming | Environment | The New Yorker

In 1973, Roger Deakin, a British writer and environmental activist, acquired a tumbledown sixteenth-century farmhouse outside the ancient village of Mellis, in Suffolk, and began a restoration, repairing stone walls and replacing roof tiles. Among the attributes of Walnut Tree Farm, as the house was called, was a deep, spring-fed moat.

The Bizarre Story of How One Man Stole $24 Million from McDonald's | Crime | The Guardian

In a stranger-than-fiction new docuseries, an FBI investigation into a decade-long scheme to fix the McDonald’s Monopoly game is revealed.

VHS Tapes Could Be Worth a Fortune, Thanks to the Streaming Era | Culture | Mic

In an era when online streaming dominates entertainment distribution, nostalgia for a particularly cantankerous, nearly obsolete way of watching things seems to be on the rise: According to eBay, sales of VHS tapes on the site have grown about 5% year-over-year since 2016, whereas demand for DVD and Blu-ray disks plummeted in 2019.

CollegeHumor Helped Shape Online Comedy. What Went Wrong? | Culture | Wired

On a cloudy morning the week after New Year’s Day, at CollegeHumor’s headquarters in West Hollywood, everyone braced for bad news. “We all knew what was about to happen...”

A Brief Global History of the War on Cannabis | History | MIT Press

This ancient and extensive history of cannabis farming has given rise to the idea that prohibitions put in place in the mid-20th century were the first of their kind — a whirlwind of racial, political, and economic forces that successfully used marijuana prohibition as a pretext for suppression.

The Craziest Story You Will Read This Week

You can continue reading the rest of it here.

Last But Not Least

Another year, another NFL Bad Lip Reading video.

Makes me cringe just watching this clip. Butt-clenching stuff.

Creating Virtual Traffic Jams

Your optical illusion of the day

Poll

Is the baseball player...

This poll is closed

  • 68%
    batting left-handed
    (35 votes)
  • 31%
    batting right-handed
    (16 votes)
51 votes total Vote Now