Photographer Phoo Chan spotted this incredible scene in Seabrook, Washington. A crow landed on the back of a bald eagle in mid-flight and rode there briefly. The eagle did not seem to object and the crow flew away after a short time. You can see more photos of this encounter at the Daily Mail.
-via The Soul Is Bone
The famous Venus de Milo, discovered in the soil of the Greek island of Melos in 1820, has captivated artistic and popular attention for nearly 200 years. She is a mystery—in particular, her arms. They were never found, so it’s uncertain how they were arranged.
Now you can make your own decisions about her arms. Japanese toymaker Figma offers a posable 6-inch plastic Venus de Milo action figure. She has her arms back, which you can arrange to taste.
-via Geek Art Gallery
Visit this Cold Stone Creamery in Doha, Qatar, and you’ll get a tasty treat and a show! Watch the server flick a scoop of ice cream around like he’s telekinetic. I’ll take a double scoop of chocolate, please.
-via 22 Words
(Photo: KHSL)
Amber Pangborn of Oroville, California got lost while driving through a forest in northern California. She was 9 and a half months pregnant. After her car ran out of gas, Pangborn went into labor. She then gave birth alone in the woods.
Pangborn named her daughter Marisa.
Pangborn was then promptly attacked by bees who, she says, wanted her placenta. They stung her badly. In an attempt to signal for help, she tried to start a fire. She was successful. In fact, she started a wildfire that grew into a quarter acre blaze before being spotted by a US Forest Service helicopter crew.
The helicopter took them to a hospital, where the child is reported to be in good condition. The Los Angeles Times reports:
Pangborn’s mother, Dianna Williams, told the L.A. Times that her nine-months-pregnant daughter went to a casino on Wednesday to visit a friend and get a respite from the hot temperatures. Pangborn, she said, was also hoping to induce labor.
Well, her plan worked.
(Photo: Li-sung)
Nicholas Winton was a 29-year old British stockbroker working in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1938 during the gradual conquest of that nation by Nazi Germany. He was aware that the Jews there were in great danger. He wanted to save as many as possible, especially the children. So Winton and his colleagues arranged for host families in Britain and Sweden to take the children. They made phone calls, sent letters, scrounged up money, and arranged the logistics for this massive undertaking—all while holding down his day job as a stockbroker. He helped 669 children escape from the Holocaust in occupied Europe.
Then Winton returned to Britain as that nation and Germany went to war in 1939. He drove an ambulance and later joined the Royal Air Force. After the war, he worked in various positions, including co-owning a popsicle factory.
Winton didn’t talk about the rescue, not even to his wife. The Washington Post reports:
In the late 1980s, Mr. Winton’s wife, the former Grete Gjelstrup, was rooting through the attic when she came upon a scrapbook containing documents related to the wartime rescue effort. He had never mentioned it to her. […]
The scrapbook made its way to Elisabeth Maxwell , the Holocaust scholar and wife of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. Soon, Mr. Winton found himself featured in British newspapers and on the BBC television program “That’s Life!”
Here is an incredible scene from that program. You should watch it right now.
Sir Nicholas Winton died today at the age of 106.
-via Jonah Goldberg
Ugh! What a piece of junk! No thief could consider stealing that wreck. I doubt that it will last more than a few more miles before falling apart.
Or maybe not! It's actually a brand new Volkswagen T5 Transporter Sportline in perfect condition. But the owner wanted car thieves to suspect otherwise. So he hired Clyde Wraps, a car graphics company in Glasgow, Scotland, to design and wrap the van in custom vinyl sheets that make it look like a rust bucket. The Clyde Wraps blog describes the process:
Once we had completed the artwork – which is not mirror imaged for either side too – we printed in full colour digital vinyl and finished in a Matt Laminate to further dull the colours used. It goes without saying the van stands out in a crowd and our customer had great pleasure in telling us later that it only took 3 days for the police to pull him over to ask what was going on with all the rust…
-via Pee-wee Herman
(Photo: Dogs of Gettysburg)
Well, technically speaking, dogs on either side usually did not wear regulation uniforms. But if you want your pooch to look like a Union or Confederate soldier with the precision that a Civil War reenactor would appreciate, then Stephanie Honodel can outfit your dog.
Honodel has been making custom pet clothing for 15 years. About 5 years ago, a Civil War reenactor asked her to make a Confederate general’s uniform for his miniature pinscher. Word about her work spread and she’s since made hundreds of Civil War dog costumes. To accommodate her business, she’s just opened a shop called the Dogs of Gettysburg, which is helpfully located near the battlefield site.
If you don’t have a dog, you can still throw your pet back in time. Honodel also makes costumes for cats, pigs, tortoises, and snakes. You can read more about her work at the Huffington Post.
A cherpumple is a cherry pie, a pumpkin pie, and an apple pie all baked separately, then baked into cake layers, which are then stacked and iced. It is a thing of glory sometimes attributed to American humorist and chef Charles Phoenix.
We most recently saw Phoenix unveil to the world his Uncle Watermelon party game and snack. He’s already getting prepared for the holiday weekend with a special cherpumple called the Cheruble. This recipe replaced the pumpkin pie with a blueberry pie, then seals the three pies inside red, white, and blue cakes in reflection of the colors of the US flag.
If you’re French, then you can use the same design for the upcoming Bastille Day. Just alter the order of the layers to match the French revolutionary flag.
-via Foodiggity
(Photo: Jun Seita)
One of the greatest problems with nuclear war strategy is that nuclear attacks require very little time to carry out. At the height of the Cold War, annihilation was, hypothetically, only a few minutes away (as illustrated metaphorically by the famous Doomsday Clock on the cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.) This inspired fear by both sides that the other would launch a pre-emptive strike in order to avoid a surprise attack. The winner (or the side that would lose less badly if everything worked) would be whoever struck first.
In these tense moments, it would be essential to have national leaders who were sufficiently calm that they could make rational decisions. To a degree, they must hesitate to kill. In a 1981 issue of the Bulletin, Roger Fisher made a suggestion for how to create that condition. It’s quoted at the Nuclear Secrecy Blog:
There is a young man, probably a Navy officer, who accompanies the President. This young man has a black attaché case which contains the codes that are needed to fire nuclear weapons. I could see the President at a staff meeting considering nuclear war as an abstract question. He might conclude: “On SIOP Plan One, the decision is affirmative, Communicate the Alpha line XYZ.” Such jargon holds what is involved at a distance.
My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, “George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.” He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.
When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, “My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.“
And so this proposal was never put into practice (as far as we know).
What do you think? Would Fisher’s suggestion have been a good idea?
-via TYWKWIDBI
Gretchen Röehrs, a fashion designer in San Frrancisco, says that she “still plays with her food.” She inks female bodies around fresh fruits, bread, and oyster shells. The results are designs that look like they’re ready to parade down the catwalk at a fashion show.
(Image: The Local/Owen Kilgour)
Now I shall ask the obvious question: why is this not an Olympic sport? Getting dragged behind a galloping horse while on fire is a fantastic recreational activity. It should have a role in youth sports programs, training these specialized athletes from a young age. After a generation or two of this, we could see athletes halving Joe Tödtling’s record.
Tödling, a stuntman from Austria, wore a special protective suit (which, in my opinion, takes some of the fun out of it) while being dragged by a horse for a full 500 yards. He did this on fire, thus breaking the previous Guinness Word record of 472.8 meters. Tödling then immediately turned around and was dragged by an ATV 582 meters, also while on fire.
Vick Vanlian, a furniture and interiors designer from Lebanon, developed the BFF Console Tables line. They’re painted in bright colors and supported by one or two pairs of feminine legs in high heels. They’re an homage to pop artists Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami, as well as a reflection of Vanlian’s “love for fashion and women’s beauty.”
-via Home Crux
Stay safe out there. That’s hard to do, as this dashcam footage reveals. A man is walking along a sidewalk, tending to his own business, when a van veered straight for him at high speed. He’s lucky to have made it out alive.
Like all men of quality, Ali has a sword. It’s a heavy scimitar appropriate for slicing open head-sized round objects, such as watermelons. He did not anticipate the outcome, but nonetheless considers it to be something of a victory because the watermelon tasted good.
On reddit, Ali admits that he “didn’t quite think it through.” I disagree. The watermelon is safely placed in the center of a cutting board. Ali did just fine.
-via That’s Nerdalicious!
It's called the Woof Washer 360. This As Seen on TV product is a clever approach to washing a dog. I want one, but to use on my kids. It would make bath time so much faster!
The Woof Washer 360 is a perforated garden hose that sprays water from the interior of a circle. You can channel soapy water through it, as well as clean water for rinsing.
One woman in the video says that it's helpful for washing "parts you don't want to touch." Sorry, but I think that's not actually optional, even with this handy tool.
