TUSTIN, CA — A previously lost episode of the beloved children’s classic VeggieTales has surfaced that depicts a young Dave, portrayed by Junior Asparagus, chopping off 200 pickle tips and bringing them to King Saul as tribute.
The lost episode was discovered by Trilogy Animation Group while they were reviewing archival footage as part of their work in developing future VeggieTales content, but the crew now wishes they’d never found it.
"It’s shockingly graphic," one member of the team said. "Some of the most lifelike animation ever done for the show, certainly, but… yeah, it’s gross."
The story was an adaptation of 1 Samuel 18, which tells how King Saul charged David to bring him 100 Philistine foreskins as a dowry. The quest was intended to be a suicide mission, with King Saul assuming David would die in the ensuing battle. However, David not only succeeds, he more than doubles the dowry, delivering 200 foreskins. In an attempt to make the story suitable for younger audiences, the creator and former writer of VeggieTales Phil Vischer replaced the foreskins with the more appropriate (and vegetable-themed) pickle tips.
"It didn’t work," Vischer said, recalling the abandoned episode. "We never aired it because it was just too horrifying."
The lost episode not only depicted the circumstances of David’s predicament but also his unyielding faith in God as he slashes hundreds of pickle tips.
"We didn’t have Dave actually kill any of the Philistines, but that kind of made it worse," Vischer reflected. "So much screaming."
At publishing time, TBN announced they would air Dave and the 200 Severed Pickle Tips during a special after-hours broadcast for adults.
Thanks to clown world, it’s been a great year for comedy. Here are some of our top-performing sketches of 2024!
Denial has no survival value. And pretending that the threats faced by Christian churches in today’s world only apply to “other” churches in “other towns” is both imprudent and foolish.
This year, I visited a local church with family for Christmas Eve services. We arrived early, and I had a chance to people watch. I saw one or two individuals who looked like they might be armed judging by their dress and the more serious folding knives clipped to their pants. Nobody had radios and those men were with their respective families, not watching for threats.
The church had pleasant greeters, but they had no radio communications. Moreover, more than a few of us entered from the lower parking lot through a dimly lit, unmanned entrance on another level. Not at all good from a security standpoint. Later, during services, nobody was anywhere near the pastor in a protective role. I’d just about bet money that all the entrances were unlocked and virtually unmonitored.
I spoke about this dearth of best practices on security with a couple of knowledgeable friends. One suggested that this place of worship maybe had an exceptionally discrete team. I chuckled, given multiple open entrances, some unstaffed? No way. That’s a rookie mistake that can cost a lot of lives if evil comes a-knockin’. That and a lack of communications along with any semblance of protection for the pastor left me pretty sure this place was hopelessly unprepared for bad things that might happen.
There are a host of short-sighted reasons why some might be opposed to an organized church safety and security team. Those reasons usually involve fragile people who would rather not acknowledge that evil exists … and of course those icky guns.
A failure to plan is a plan to fail.
Why have a safety and security team?
A safety and security team will welcome people to each service, and more importantly, they stand trained and ready to assist rendering aid in medical emergencies. One would think increasingly aging congregations would welcome that kind of planning.
Teams also monitor weather- and environmental-related threats as well as help look after child care areas. Sometimes they even direct traffic, both inside with people and outside with traffic in parking lots.
Perhaps their most important function is to protect the congregations from nut jobs, violent criminals and others with ill intent. They do so outside in the parking lots, at the front door and inside the sanctuary, communicating with one another via radios and their earpieces. Video surveillance assists in monitoring the exterior as well as entrances for potential problems, including medical emergencies.
Not having a team to mitigate risks and deal with threats can have costly and lasting impact to the church’s long-term viability. If something happens and the church hadn’t taken reasonable steps to mitigate that risk, people will leave that church. If something bad happens, they could even sue the church. People go to church to find peace and sanctuary, not experience criminal attack or victimization.
Failing to use best practices for church security in today’s world is as imprudent as leaving your house unlocked and your car’s keys in the ignition.
There are worse-case scenarios beyond robberies, thefts and other crime. Some involve physical violence by bad people slashing people with a blade or blasting away with a gun.
It seems hardly a week goes by where there’s not an attack on churches somewhere in America. These are usually carried out by social misfits and society’s losers.
Fortunately, most are thwarted by safety and security teams and these incidents hardly make the news. Sometimes these even happen at high-profile venues like Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston where the security team stopped a bloodbath earlier in 2024.
Sadly, some attacks are not thwarted and people get hurt. Some even die.
If there’s no team, there’s little hope of deterring or thwarting a criminal attack, especially if it happens during service. Moreover, without a team, there’s scarcely any chance of organized response to a serious threat.
Ensure the safety of guests and the long-term viability of a church. Make sure your place of worship has a safety team and plans for emergencies of all sorts.
An anonymous reader writes: Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel, a frontend-as-a-service product, just used the company’s AI site builder to come up with a new twist on CAPTCHAs, one that invites users to play the classic single-player game DOOM and killing at least three monsters. You can check it out here.
https://theawesomer.com/photos/2024/12/paintball_piano_t.jpgPiano? More like paino. Mattias Krantz has a thing for making dangerous musical instruments. After creating a piano that’s capable of electrocution, he moved on to one that triggers paintball guns when its keys are pressed. It plays music by turning its victims’ screams into notes.The Awesomer
Based on what we’ve seen, odds are good that you’re not in love with the redesigned Photos app in iOS 18. While the old version isn’t returning, here’s how to make it more like its beloved former self.
With iOS 18, Apple undertook the daunting task of redesigning the Photos app. While the app was loved by many, it hadn’t changed in a while and Apple wanted to prep it for the future.
This modernization didn’t go over well. The redesign decision has been a controversial to say the least.
The new Photos app compared to the old one on the right
Even months after launch, many users complain of confusing design, missing features, and a general dislike of the app.
The old version isn’t coming back. There are some things you can do to restore your Photos experience closer to what you had, though.
How to fix the Photos app in iOS 18
The new app has a singular interface, ditching the tabs. Scroll up to see your full gallery and down to see various collections of images and videos.
Adjust the gallery view to show recents
The first thing you can do is adjust the gallery view.
Tap the up/down arrows in the lower-left corner
Instead of sorting by "Date captured," sort by "Recently added" so you see all your new images first
We’d also recommend considering showing screenshots in this gallery view too
That will allow you to see all your images, as they’re added, including the screenshots. There are other options there too you can explore that may make sense for you.
Hide and reorder sections in the Photos app
The next option is to remove the unnecessary sections of the app.
Scroll to the bottom of the Photos app
Tap the large "Customize & Reorder" button. Apple really wants to make sure you see this!
Uncheck any of the sections that you don’t want to see in the Photos app
We’d suggest hiding Featured Photos, Recent Days, and Wallpapers to start
You can also reorder the sections by tapping, holding, and dragging on the right side of each section while in this edit view
Tap "Done"
One of the ways that we found to vastly improve the usability was a reliance on the Pinned Collections section. It’s a new category that lets the user decide what is shown there.
Add collections to the pinned view
Make sure Pinned Collections is enabled in the edit view outlined above
Tap Modify on the right side of the section in the Photos app
Tap the + button on any collection you’d like to add and the – on any section you’d like to remove
Below the list of suggestions, you an tap + Any Collection or Album
This gives you 100% control on anything you’d like to add from a gallery of you, your partner, and kids, all of your screenshots, your hidden photos, and more.
As hard as it is to believe sometimes, Apple does listen to user feedback and we’ve seen this quite a bit with the redesigned Photos app.
The old featured carousel was axed before release
During the original iOS 18 beta phase, Apple took a drastic step of parring back its ambitious design and removing features, like the cycling carousel at the top. All based on feedback it received.
As we mentioned, iOS 18.2 also added more quality of life improvements and changes.
When viewing a collection, you can now swipe to go back to the main view versus forced to tap the arrow in the top-left corner.
And, videos immediately play full screen with just a tap to dismiss the controls, just like before.
Videos can be scrubbed frame by frame once again. Plus, you can view the scrubbing time on a nanosecond-level in the timeline.
Hide preview videos
When viewing any collection, there is a movie preview playing at the top. With iOS 18.2, this can be disable to show a standard gallery view.
If you have more suggestions, you can also file feedback with Apple. Just visit feedback.apple.com and let them know.
The change has definitely been a drastic one, and making it better requires a little bit of time, but it’s getting better. You just have to give it a chance.
You could have it all, my empire of dirt… in a one-horse open sleigh. There I Ruined It took Johnny Cash’s voice from his cover of Hurt, and set it to the tune of Jingle Bells. Trent Reznor’s lyrics are decidedly darker than those of the cheerful holiday classic, but we’re still adding this one to our Christmas playlist.
Laravel 11.35 introduced the Uri class powered by the PHP League’s URI library. Uri makes it easy to manipulate and work with URIs in your Laravel application and includes some conveniences around named routes.
Basic Manipulation
At the heart of the Uri class is creating and manipulating URI strings, including the query, fragment, and path:
Also, note the difference between getting the URI value and decoding the URI:
Example of basic URI manipulation, value, and decoding.
Query Assertion and Manipulation
Asserting and manipulating the URI query params has never been easier in Laravel, using the accompanying UriQueryString under the hood. The UriQueryString class uses the support trait InteractsWithData, which gives you a bunch of useful methods for asserting a query string:
Learn about all the useful methods that InteractsWithData provides to the UriQueryString instances to assert and manipulate query data.
Get an Uri Instance from Named Routes, Paths, and the Current Request
The Uri class can also create a URI from a named route in your application, a relative URL, or even from the current Request instance:
// Using a named route
(string) Uri::route("dashboard"); // http://laravel.test/dashboard
// Using a root-relative URL
(string) Uri::to("/dashboard"); // http://laravel.test/dashboard
// From the current request
function (Request $request) {
(string) $request->uri(); // http://laravel.test/dashboard
}
As of Laravel 11.36, the Uri class is aliased by default in Laravel applications, meaning you can use it without importing the Illuminate\Support\Uri namespace.
Learn More
We hope you enjoy using Uri in your Laravel applications! The Uri class was released in Laravel 11.35 in #53731. Also, read up on InteractsWithData, which provides a ton of useful methods for working with the Uri class, the Fluent class, and Laravel’s HTTP Request class (via InteractsWithInput).
ElevationLab’s TimeCapsule AirTag Battery Case – Image credit: ElevationLab
Elevation Lab’s TimeCapsule is a case for AirTag that adds more battery life, extending the time between battery changes to up to ten years.
Apple’s AirTag is extremely useful when it comes to tracking down lost or stolen items, with many stories detailing how it’s helped reclaim personal property. However, while it’s small and handy, its battery life can be a problem.
The AirTag uses a CR2032 battery, and that cell lasts for about a year before you need to change it out. While this isn’t a massive problem when using it on a keyring, it can be a struggle to regularly replace if it’s in a well-hidden and hard to access spot, such as underneath a vehicle.
To solve this problem, ElevationLab has come up with the TimeCapsule AirTag Battery Case. A rectangular fiber-reinforced composite enclosure designed to encase the AirTag’s main body, and to supply power to it too.
Users have to remove the battery and door from an AirTag before placing it inside the case. Along with the AirTag, the case has space inside its 4.45-inch long, 1.57-inch wide, and 0.75-inch thick casing to hold two AA batteries, which supply power to the AirTag.
The result is a 14-times increase in battery life, with a claimed lifespan of up to ten years. However, this does rely on the batteries being good quality, and not degrading or otherwise failing for such a long period of time.
Using four CNC-machined screws to hold the case together, it’s also fully waterproof with an IP69 rating.
TimeCapsule is available now from the company’s store and Amazon, starting from $19.99 for one unit. A two-pack is available for $29.99, and a four-pack is $39.99.
