This is called the Coffer illusion.

In this image there are 16 circles. Can you find them? pic.twitter.com/b0bOZkQDD5

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 4, 2024

Can you count how many circles are in this image? No? Can you see any circles at all? What seems to be a series of rectangular boxes does contain circles, but you have to look for them, because there are no curved lines in the image. Try concentrating on the vertical bars and ignore the horizontal bars for a minute. If that doesn't help, look at this visual aid at imgur. Still can't see them? That's okay, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.   

The Coffer Illusion is not named after Dr. Coffer, but for the appearance of decorative panels in a door, called coffers. This illusion was created by Anthony Norcia, psychology professor at Stanford University. It was a finalist in the 2006 Illusion of the Year competition. While there are explanations for the visual perception involved, they all mostly boil down to the fact that we identify what we are looking at quickly, and once that identification is made, we have a hard time shifting our brains to see something different. -via Digg

Linguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky (previously at Neatorama) makes us feel a little better about mispronouncing words. First, we are not alone, and there are quite a few words that the majority of us mispronounce, which over time will lead to our way of saying them becoming correct. That's how language evolves, after all. And second, there are common and logical reasons why we don't just intuitively know how to pronounce a word. The rules for English have more exceptions than it has rules, so even native speakers can't keep up all the time. Then there are times when a mispronunciation actually communicates what you mean better. For example, I know how to pronounce schadenfreude, because I looked it up, but it always comes out scootin fruity. You may laugh, but you also know what I'm saying.

While watching this video, I realized that I don't ever recall hearing anyone say the word "dour" out loud, correctly or incorrectly. I don't even use it, but when reading it, I imagined it pronounced "dower." That's a word that we have plenty of other, easier terms we can use instead, like stink-eye or RBF. The comments under the YouTube page for this video are full of amusing stories of mispronunciations. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Last year, McDonald's decided not to put their Filet-o-Fish sandwiches on sale for Lent, and people were upset. This year, they are on special at two for $6, which is underwhelming for those of us who used to buy them for 35 cents. Besides, if you can only eat one before they cool off, you are out of luck. But on Fridays during Lent, you should be able to find a community fish fry somewhere to pick up a full meal of fish, potatoes, hushpuppies, and cole slaw served piping hot to raise funds for churches, charities, or community organizations, especially in the Midwest. What was once seen as a sacrifice, giving up meat on Fridays, is now a treat and a beloved tradition that brings people together. In fact, there are so many fish frys that several cities have fish fry maps or lists shared online, that can direct you to a fish fry nearby. Read about the tradition of community fish frys and how to find one at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Steve Snodgrass)

Bookworms read all kinds of literature, and over time they can recognize certain authors just by the way they put words together.  But it takes a literature expert or linguist to see exactly how an author's language is different from the next talented writer, and to explain it to the rest of us. This talent has even been used to solve crimes. For example, Jane Austen wrote in a very different style from previous novelists in that she used what linguists call "free indirective speech." It's a technique for connecting the narrator with the character and the reader all at the same time, yet separating them all enough to allow the freedom to critique that character. Even if you're a Jane Austen fan, you might not have ever noticed this, and even if you did, you probably couldn't explain it as well as Nerdwriter1 does. It's one of the many devices that gives an author a distinct voice and a distinct feel for the way she tells a story. -via Kottke

Sky News reports that a healthy baby boy was born on a VietJet flight between Taipei and Bangkok. The cabin crew informed the pilot, Jakarin Sararnkskul, that a woman had gone into labor in one of the jetliner's toilets.

Mid-flight births on commercial airliners are rare--there have been only 74 between 1929 and 2018. So, despite his 18 years of experience piloting, this was Captain Sararnkskul's first time delivering a baby.

He left his co-pilot to handle the plane and supervised the successful birth. The New York Post reports that paramedics were on the scene when the flight landed in Bangkok.

-via Jalopnik | Photo: Jakarin Saramraksul

The Cleverlys is a comedy country music quintet that offers country-fied parodies of modern and popular songs. They perform in-character as hillbillies from an alpaca farm in Arkansas where, while not touring, they produce alpaca sausage and wool lingerie.

The band appeared on an episode of the country music variety show Larry's Country Diner where they performed a favorite song of older country fans -- "Walk Like an Egyptian" -- by the bluegrass band known as the Bangles. This song was a smash hit in 1987 when it led a dance craze of walking like the ancient Egyptians as they appear in hieroglyphics.

-via The Awesomer

There are plenty of riddles in literature and pop culture, not to mention in dad jokes and those lists your aunt sends by email. Most have an answer that will make you laugh or groan, but some have no answer at all, or at least no answer that makes sense in the real world. In Lewis Carroll's book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asks Alice, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Alice tries to answer, but she doesn't know. It turns out that the Mad Hatter doesn't know, either. In the more than 150 years since the book was published, plenty of people have come up with plausible but not-so-funny answers, and even Carroll explained it (nonsensically) at one point. But the fact that there is no answer is there to illustrate that the Hatter is, indeed, mad.

But that's just one example. Read about the raven and the writing desk and four other literary riddles that can't be solved because there is no definitive answer at Cracked. 

A best man's speech can be fraught even if it's your brother giving it, because you never know what he's going to say. At this wedding, captured by Tali Joy Photography, Dave's little brother is the best man. The speech is intended as a thank you for taking the fall for the younger brother's frustrated screwup twenty years ago when they were young boys. However, the twist is that the groom had no idea what really went on all those years ago, and why he was in trouble. The look on his face when he realizes what really happened is priceless! Several of his friends from back then were there and remembered the exact incident. Yet this was the perfect time to set the record straight, since the statute of limitations has surely passed. A good time was had by all. -via Laughing Squid

Long before Pepper Anderson, Maddie Hayes, Dana Scully, and Olivia Benson solved fictional crimes, there were real women opening doors in the crime-fighting arena as detectives. On the one hand, it was unseemly work for a lady, as were most professional careers before the 20th century. On the other hand, women made great undercover officers and spies because no one paid all that much attention to them. They were few, but they opened the door to generations of detectives to follow.   

Kate Warne talked the Pinkerton Agency into hiring her, and proved her mettle by single-handedly foiling a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as he traveled to his inauguration. Antonia Moser learned her craft from a master detective, then lived with him as his lover, then competed with him when she opened her own agency. Maud West (shown above) was a master of disguise and was so good at it she showed the newspapers, knowing she'd never be recognized. Read about these women and more, seven in all, who became detectives when such work was considered out of reach of most women. -via Nag on the Lake

Do you have overdue books at the public library of Worcester, Massachusetts? You can fork over your cash. But during March, the library will also accept photos of cats. The program is called March Meowness. The program is part of a calendar of events to celebrate Cat Month.

The library is showcasing books about cats, teaching you how to make cat eye makeup, staging a cat petting event, conducting a talk by a cat behaviorist, and providing a screening of the film Cats. This is a great opportunity for library patrons and staff to remember who's really in charge for the other eleven months of the year, too.

-via My Modern Met

As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, many languages used by small populations are dying out. The Endangered Language Alliance, which is headquartered in New York City, is committed to preserving as many of them as it can.

During its work, the organization has found that many of these endangered languages can be found in New York City itself. For example, Seke, which is used by about 700 people, originates in a few villages in Nepal. But because everyone eventually comes to New York City, about 150 Seke speakers live in two particular apartment buildings in Brooklyn.

The New York Times reports on the presence of endangered languages in the City. The article is paywalled, but you can find a long excerpt at Languagehat. It says that there are at least 41 endangered languages in Manhattan alone. The article also addresses what makes a language endangered and the characteristics unique to endangered languages, such as the absence of formal greetings. Seke has no word or phrase for "hello" because it is rare for a Seke-speaking person to encounter a stranger who also speaks Seke.

-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: ELA event celebrating the Galifuna language

Wayne Kusy is a shipbuilder, but he builds neither seafaring ships nor small models, not even tiny ships in a bottle. His preferred material is toothpicks! Actually, that's his only material besides glue and some accessories. And his ships are big, and have gotten larger over time. Kusy has been building ships out of toothpicks for 50 years now (in his spare time, as he does have a regular job), and his latest accomplishment is a 25-foot-long model of the Queen Mary made of more than 815,000 toothpicks. That project took five years. He's also built replicas of the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the America, all containing many thousands of toothpicks each. Kusy does commissions, in case you want a model of your own boat made of toothpicks. You can see the time-lapse of a shipbuilding project that he referenced at his website, as well as other projects he's done.   -via Geeks Are Sexy

I'd never heard of it, and it's fantastic.

Above all, it explains how Palpatine somehow survived: with Cerveza Cristal. https://t.co/JtNd4jOE3e pic.twitter.com/kuX3Cn0Ls8

— The Spaceshipper 🚀 (@TheSpaceshipper) March 3, 2024

According to internet rumor, the first three Star Wars films were broadcast in Chile in 2003. In order to avoid losing audience attention through commercial breaks, the broadcaster integrated beer commercials into the films themselves.

I would really enjoy watching a version of Star Wars that tried to cram in as many beer commercials as possible. How far can we take this concept?

You might think that Outerbridge Crossing is called that because it is the most remote bridge in New York City, or maybe because it is the southernmost crossing in New York state. But it was named after Eugenius Harvey Outerbridge, the first chairman of the New York Port Authority. They might have named it Outerbridge Bridge, but then thought better of it. You might think that Baker's chocolate is called that because it is the preferred chocolate used by bakers. Wrong- it's made by a company founded by Walter Baker. And you might assume that Main Street is used as a name because it's the main street, but in San Francisco, the street was named for Charles Main. It was only appropriate.

In science, Southern blot is a process used in sequencing DNA. There is also Northern blot, Eastern blot, and Western blot. However, they were not named for Dr. Blot. Southern blot was named after biologist Edwin Southern, who developed it. When the other methods came along, they were named in sequence after Southern blot. There are other surprising things that were actually eponyms, meaning they were named after people, although you will be forgiven for thinking they were just named for what they are. Roland Crosby compiled a list of them with links to the story behind each name. Even when the inclusion in a list seems like a stretch, the stories are all rather interesting. -via Metafilter, which gives us even more of them.

(Image credit: Jason Eppink)

Winchester plan for £100,000 Jane Austen statue triggers ‘Disneyfication’ fears https://t.co/Ks1LvK89Vf

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) March 1, 2024

Acclaimed British author Jane Austen died over two hundred years ago, yet still retains legions of fans around the world. I am not one of them, although, in my wild bachelor days, I once read Pride and Prejudice in order to impress a girl (it worked).

The earthly remains of Jane Austen are buried inside Winchester Cathedral. There is a plan underway to erect a statue near that site to honor her life and work. Many of her fans, The Guardian reports, strenuously object.

These fans argue that Austen was an intensely private person and would prefer not to be regarded this way. Furthermore, they are concerned about the "Disneyfication" of Austen's grave if fans travel there to take selfies with the statue. Worse, the statue may attract even more American tourists to the area than is the norm.

Sculptor Martin Jennings responds to these complaints by arguing that now, after her death, Austen belongs to the whole world. Her reserved nature in life need not be endured now by the living.

-via Marginal Revolution