School’s out, and life suddenly gets more complicated for someone who works at home. Every year, I wonder why kids get the summer off. You may have been told long ago that it’s an agricultural thing, because farm kids worked the crops during the summer. That doesn’t make much sense, since the real work of growing crops is planting, which is done by the time school is out, and harvesting, which happens after school starts in the fall. That explanation is a myth.

Before the Civil War, farm kids never had summers off. They went to school during the hottest and coldest months and stayed home during the spring and fall, when crops needed to be planted and harvested. Meanwhile, city kids hit the books all year long—summers included. In 1842, Detroit’s academic year lasted 260 days!

The summer school vacation evolved in phases, and you can read the whole story of how it happened at mental_floss.

(Image credit: Flickr user bass_nroll)

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The Fine Brothers pull out the confusing stuff for kids again, this time exposing them to obsolete computers, the kind we used just a few years years ago. Oh, it’s an Apple II from the ‘80s. With floppy drives, no mouse, and it’s text-based on a black background. And no internet! When I had one of those, I thought it was the neatest thing ever, even though you practically had to know how to program just to use the thing. -Thanks, Benny!

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It’s tough being five years old. What to do when you find yourself with three girlfriends? That’s funny enough in itself, but the punch line on this video is priceless. -via Digg

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You all know the song, you just don’t know the lyrics to this version. This guy met a girl and his whole life turned upside-down, so he made a little song about it. From campus life to a home in the country and a growing family, this is quite the clever way to announce a baby on the way! -via Geeks Are Sexy

Kids have always found fun ways to slide down the stairs, but while it's a fun indoor activity, it's not a particularly safe one. Thanks to the SlideRider though, kids of the world can finally glide down the stairs without making their parents worry about their safety -and the cool device can even be packed up and stored away in a small, simple bundle. 

See more pictures of the prototype and learn more about the new invention and how you can track the idea over on Homes and Hues: The SlideRider Makes Your Stairs Into A Slide

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We’ve seen GoPro footage from all kinds of extreme sports, and simple activities like hula hooping and jumping rope, but nothing will make you feel like a kid again quite like watching Gopro footage of a toddler in a swing.

The gentle rocking motion may put you in a trance, or leave you drooling all over yourself at your computer, so you’d better wait until you’re home before you watch this adorable video which was created to advertise the new GoPro HD HERO3+.

Besides, you wouldn’t want to start feeling like a kid again only to discover that you’ve got hours of work ahead of you, right?

-Via Laughing Squid

Boy oh boy did the future ever look bright through the eyes of folks living in the early 20^th century, back when futuristic meant flying cars and food replicators instead of selfies and Google.

The futuristic world envisioned in the past sure does look like a lot of fun, it’s too bad we have to settle for our flash free 21^st century blahs while we wait for our mechanical overlords to conquer the planet.

Here we see the nursery of the future as realized for the Ideal Home Exhibition held in Olympia, London in 1930. The nursery comes complete with comfortable baby tending helmet and gloves for mom, coffin like crib sure to quiet even the noisiest little bugger, and a shiny chair to warm your aching buns. 

The only things missing are a remote controlled robot bartender and a cigarette rolling machine!

-Via Paleofuture

The Social Security Administration has released the most popular names for new babies in 2013. Nationwide, Sophia was the most popular name given to baby girls (again), and Noah is the most popular name for boys, after 14 years of Jacob at the top of the list. You can see the top thousand names for boys and girls at Nameberry. However, when you break the naming trends down by state in these maps at the Huffington Post, they look quite different. While Noah is tops nationwide for boys, both William and Liam (which is a short form of William) feature prominently. Liam was number one in 18 states.

For baby girls born in 2013, Emma was the top name in 27 states, while the #1 ranked Sophia was first in only 11 states. The differences can be attributed to several factors. Noah and Sophia may rank #2 (or at least high) in many states, or there may have been more babies born in states where those names are preferred.  

These maps can now be added to Reuben Fischer-Baum’s animated tracking of names by state for both boys and girls. -via mental_floss

See also: The Most Groan-Inducing Baby Names of 2013.

Kids are pretty darn cute by default, but when they dress up, pose or play a role they suddenly become ten times cuter.

Sometimes it’s the ridiculous tiny adult look that cracks us up, other times it’s because young kids are generally silly little critters, so when they try to act all serious for a moment it’s downright hilarious.

The stylish 4-year-old in this charming photo series is Ryker Wixom, a name truly fit for an internet sensation in short pants, and since his mom Collette has started posting these mighty funny model pics on Instagram, and on their blog Mini Style Hacker, they have amassed tens of thousands of followers.

Not bad for a kid who can barely read his own fan mail!

-Via Petapixel

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Dan Tran and his wife Anne Tran made a time-lapse video of her pregnancy, but wanted it to be a little more entertaining than the usual picture-a-day video. They added vignettes that show the passage of time through the holidays and the nursery preparation along the way. It turned out to be a charming document even for those outside the family! In case you’re wondering, they now have a little girl. They did not mention whether they named the baby something that rhymes with the rest of their names. -via Buzzfeed

(Batgirl Onesie now on sale at the Neatoshop)

I proposed "Svetlana" for our second daughter. Or, if we had a boy, "Bruce Wayne." My wife said, quite firmly, no. She said that Svetlana was too exotic and that no explanation was necessary for Bruce Wayne.

In my defense, I must say that my proposals were established names correctly spelled. Some parents, however, do not take this approach. The U.S. Social Security Administration recently released its data on baby names for 2013. Nameberry, a website devoted to baby naming, informs us of the bad news:

As you might imagine, most of these names are pretty far out on the ledge.  There are lots of kree8tiv spellings of more conventional names: Finlea and Massyn, Londonn and Karsan.  There are names from around the world freshly introduced to America: Junhao and Mokshith and Motoki.  There are original combo names — Charlotterose and Marcusjames — and there are new word names and place-names and surname-names — Revelation and Tokyo and Thoreau — and there are even a couple of wonderful old names revived for the modern world: Hypatia and Thisbe, Romilly and Calisto.

But all these newborn names look downright sedate compared to a handful of choices it’s hard to believe were given to even one baby, much less five….or ten….or 63.

Yes, 63 girls were named Vanellope. 5 were named Sierraleone. 10 boys were named Rydder. 5 were named Subaru (hopefully after the constellation, not the car company).

You can read the rest of Nameberry's list here.

-via io9

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Drawing is a skill that comes really easy to some people, and with time and practice they are able to render hand drawn illustrations on a masterful level, but a select few are actually born with the ability to draw on a higher level.

11-year-old Dusan Krtolica is one of the lucky few born with an amazing drawing ability, and the incredibly detailed drawings of nature he spends hours creating on a daily basis reveal both his advanced drawing skills and his nearly encyclopedic knowledge of animals.

Dusan clearly has a bright future ahead of him as an artist, but he says he would like to study and become a zoologist, so perhaps we'll get to see a fully illustrated guide to the animal kingdom created by Dusan in the near future.

-Via Laughing Squid

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This is a video I had jotted down several years ago and put into a file marked "Mothers Day," which I then lost track of. I mentioned the state of my computer files a while back. This parody of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the opening number at the Mothers Day service at Church on the Move in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2010. The lyrics are at the YouTube page. Happy Mothers Day, y'all!

(Photo: Caroline Bird)

Irina Vasylkova, 25, boarded a Polar Airlines flight between Yakutsk and Zyryanka, two cities in eastern Russia. She began to experience labor pains shortly after takeoff. Christina Kondratiev, a stewardess, moved her to a seat where she would have more legroom and asked the passengers if there was a doctor on board.

To their good fortune, there was not only a doctor on the plane, but an obstetrician. Dr. Elena Sleptcova stepped forward to offer her help. The first child was born in midair. The second was born after landing as the plane was taxiing to a gate.

The mother and her two babies were taken to a hospital, where news reports indicate that they are doing well.

-via Jalopnik

This scheme might work, but it’s so horrific that I had to laugh. Of course, every parents dreams of ways to motivate their children to put in an effort in school, but the drawback to this particular plan is that you have to wait until the grades are actually a little better, and that day might never come. It’s the latest comic from Ryan Hudson at Channelate. -via Daily of the Day