The Métro de Montréal is the third busiest municipal train system in North America, behind New York and Mexico City. But their stations are architectural wonders -works of art, even. After all, there’s no reason something functional can’t have a beautiful format well. One of the reasons is because it was only built in 1966, with a grand overall plan to make traveling as nice as possible. While daily commuters probably don’t even see the details anymore, Juergen Horn and Mike Powell certainly did, and give us plenty to look at in their post at For 91 Days.
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Believe it or not, there’s a badger hiding among this herd of zebras. In a puzzle from BBC Earth, you are challenged to find one black-and-white striped animal among a bunch of other black-and-white striped animals. It isn’t easy. If this helpes, remember that zebras are much larger than badgers. And if you find it just a bit funny that the zebras are all facing us with their butts, well, you aren’t the only one. -via mental_floss
Any parent will tell you that traveling with kids is not always an ordeal, but there are times when you want to just abort the whole idea and go home, or at least leave the young ones behind if you can. Half the time, that’s exactly what they wanted in the first place. Chris at Lunarbaboon thinks a child’s strategy might work in other scenarios. If only.
All it takes is a super-viral video game to bring wildly diverse people together. Redditor BroWithTheFr0 took this selfie with a group of a dozen people who met playing Pokémon GO in Rochester, New York. The new friends are male, female, black, white, Asian, young, old, hairy, no hair, blue hair, and they have something in common to talk about. Gotta catch ‘em all! -via reddit
Beneath the White Cliffs of Dover in southern England lies a subterranean military defense network of tunnels. The Fan Bay Deep Shelter was constructed in the 1940s, carved out of the chalk cliffs in a mere 100 days, and equipped to shelter 190 men during possible bombardment from the Axis powers.
The largest shelter of its kind in the Dover area, Fan Bay Deep Shelter was decommissioned in the 1950s and left to the mercy of vandals. The site lay abandoned for some years before one of the tunnels partially collapsed following an arson attack. As a result, the abandoned military shelter was finally infilled with earth and debris during the 1970s.
For years its remains lay entombed within Dover’s famous White Cliffs, a wartime relic lost to time. But when the National Trust accidentally stumbled across the remains of Fan Bay Deep Shelter during enabling works in 2012, what was revealed was one of the deepest surviving examples of its kind from the period.
Excavating the tunnels was a monumental task, but the National Trust set a team of volunteers to work, and now the tunnels are open to the public. If you can’t get to England to see them, take a photographic tour of Fan Bay Deep Shelter at Urban Ghosts.
(Image credit: Flickr user Disco-Dan)
The great thing about decorating your home in a particular theme is that you can do it subtly, with small touches here and there, or go all out to show off what you love. The steampunk aesthetic combines elements of Victorian living with science fiction, and what’s not to love about those things? Then there’s the joy of using what you have to make something beautiful and interesting, which is the heart of steampunk. Use subtle touches, and people might not even realize it’s steampunk. Go all out and people will come from miles around to see what you’ve done. You’ll find advice on how to incorporate steampunk into your home decor at Housely.
This screenshot of a weather radar image over Texas was preserved for posterity. There are plenty of possible headlines. The one at reddit said, “You know its hot when it's raining Jalapeños in Texas.” Or maybe it’s just really chili. Can you come up with a better one?
This baby is going to grow up to be a champion boxer, or else a movie star who plays one. He’s watching the training montage from Rocky II, and mimicking every move. He’s obviously a big fan, and has seen this scene few times before, because he knows what moves are coming up next. I particularly enjoyed his one-handed pushups. You go, kid! -via Tastefully Offensive
The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Perpetually Pleasing Bathroom Reader.
Being mistaken for dead and buried alive isn’t something we worry about much anymore, but in the 1800s, people were terrified of the possibility. Here’s the story of one man who claimed to suffer that terrible fate.
DIG IN
Before the 1830s, British medical colleges could legally use only the bodies of executed criminals for dissection in their anatomy classes. When those were in short supply, body-snatchers known as “resurrection-men” stepped in to fill the gap, digging up freshly buried corpses from cemeteries and selling them to medical schools. Then Parliament passed the Anatomy Act of 1832, allowing licensed medical schools to use unclaimed or donated corpses, which ensured a steady supply of legal cadavers and ended the ghoulish black market trade forever. But in 1896, before the practice passed entirely from public memory, James Blake Bailey, librarian of the Royal College of Surgeons, published The Diary of A Resurrectionist, “an actual record of the doings of one gang of the resurrection-men in London.” The book included what may be history’s only firsthand account of what it’s like to be buried alive and live to tell the tale. If John Macintire’s story could be believed, Bailey wrote, “the resurrection-men sometimes performed a valuable service to those who had been buried.” The following is Macintire’s account of his experiences, as told to Bailey.
Has anyone told you they were going through an existential crisis? Or maybe you’ve experienced this yourself. We used to call it a mid-life crisis, but it can happen anytime during adulthood. Here’s what that really means.
Having so many options means we are never quite sure whether we’ve made the right decisions. But the past can’t be changed. The only options we really have are to change the present or the future. And even if you change nothing else, you can make the decision to be content with where you are. -Thanks, Carol Ann!
John Mitchell was born in the colony of Virginia, but lived in England, where the director of the Board of Trade and Plantations commissioned him to create a map of the American colonies. Although Mitchell wasn’t trained in cartography, he produced a map, published in 1755, that was surprisingly accurate for the time. Not only that, it had “boundaries” drawn between British lands and those of the French and Spanish.
Mitchell’s map took a decidedly British view of who owned what on the continent. His boundary lines, and small notes he scattered across the map, favored British claims over those made by the Spanish and French.
In Florida, for example, Mitchell drew a southern boundary line well inside the territory claimed by Spain. In Alabama, there’s a small note that reads “A Spanish fort built in 1719 & said to be soon after abandoned,” an apparent effort to diminish any Spanish claims to the land.
Mitchell’s map had political influence far beyond anything he’d ever imagined. It played a part in sparking the French and Indian War. That war sucked up so many resources that King George III levied additional taxes on the colonies, and we know what that led to. Then in 1783, his map was used at the Treaty of Paris to define the boundaries of the new United States, after much negotiation. Read about the map that shaped the USA at Phenomena.
(Image source: Osher Map Library)
The title of the post may be confusing, because the store is not necessarily on a corner. What they’re talking about is a convenience store, or the small shop that sells a variety of things like food, beer, toilet paper, cigarettes, soap, ice, newspapers, etc. They exist all over the world, and have wonderful names that mean many different things, often evolving from a former version of the store. Depending on where you live, it’s called a deli, sari-sari, dépanneur, packie, offy, milk bar, pulperia, konbini, bodega, mini-mart, or my favorite, misceláneas. Atlas Obscura tells us about the locations and origins of these names. Where I live, they are called “convenience stores,” because we have no imagination.
(Image credit: Flickr user Ewan Munro)
Cocaine Bear Attracts Visitors To Lexington Businesshttps://t.co/G2Ooo9TXHG pic.twitter.com/ZILmegVmdp
— LEX 18 News (@LEX18News) July 8, 2016
In 1985, notorious Kentucky drug smuggler Andrew Thornton jumped out of his plane with $15 million in cocaine. He became tangled in his parachute and died when he landed in Tennessee, while the cocaine landed in Georgia. Later, a dead bear was found in the Georgia woods. The cause of death was determined to be the 75 pounds of cocaine he ate. That was just the beginning of the saga of Cocaine Bear, or Pablo Eskobear, as he’s sometimes called. After years of travel, the stuffed and mounted bear is back in Kentucky and on display. Read about that bear, or watch the video, at WLEX. -via Arbroath
At first, it looks like a science fiction scenario from the future. But then, you realize it could possibly be from the past, and this is how we got ourselves into the predicament of having to bend our wills to the feline overlords in our own homes. This comic is from Things in Squares.
Spanish track runner Bruno Hortelano came in second in the 200 meter race at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam yesterday. Churandy Martina crossed the finish line first. Hortelano spoke to a Dutch reporter after the race, and despite some language troubles, told her his silver medal was a dream come true.
But it was not to be. Martina was disqualified for stepping on the line twice, and Hortelano was actually the first place winner! Hortelano wasn’t sure if it was true, or just another language difficulty. His response is cute as can be. -via reddit
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