Balenciaga selling 'most expensive trash bag in the world' for $1,790 https://t.co/3Gq43wQSO7 pic.twitter.com/W8r0b5K63I

— New York Post (@nypost) August 4, 2022

Are you hauling your stuff around in an ordinary garbage bag while you couchsurf with a decreasing list of friends? Maybe you'd be more popular if you'd show that you are fashion conscious. Try the luxury trash bag by Balenciaga, the Parisian fashion house that offers the finest in shoes, dresses, and trash delivery mechanisms.

The New York Post tells us that Balenciaga is offering the "Trash Pouch" for its winter 2022 line. The resemblance is no coincidence. We know this because the company states directly that the design is "inspired by a garbage bag". It comes in a variety of colors, but you can't go wrong with basic black.

-via Debby Witt

A road trip is always made more enjoyable when you get off the beaten path (meaning the endless and monotonous interstate highway) and see the quirkier sites along the way. The online app Make My Drive Fun is a map that doesn't give you specific directions or driving time, but it can make getting there quite a bit more interesting. Just enter the starting and arriving point of a trip you plan to take, and the map will point out a bunch of intriguing but underpublicized places near your route. That's how I learned about Dr. Ted's Musical Marvels in Dale, Indiana, just off I-64, and Old Car City in White, Georgia, just off I-75. Even a short trip may reveal interesting stops you never knew about before! The stops on the map have no links, so you'll have to go to Google search, but most of the attractions have either a website or a review online somewhere. Wherever you are going anyway, you may as well take a break and see something that will make going to great aunt Susie's house worth the drive. -via Nag on the Lake

A family fight broke out at a funeral in Richmond, California, involving around 20 people and extensive damage to a cemetery. The people involved were not named, but the narrative resembles a Three Stooges script. Two of the deceased woman's children, a brother and sister, began to argue at the burial at Rolling Hills Memorial Park. The sister's boyfriend approached, and was attacked by the brother. The brother got into his car, intending to run over his sister. He hit another woman instead, sending her to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The car knocked over the casket (the body did not fall out), damaged headstones, and broke a water main, sending a geyser into the air which flooded the burial plot. When he got out of the car, a family member hit him in the head repeatedly with a cane, trying to get him under control.

Police responded and arrested the brother. Emergency medical services also responded. Police say the damage to the cemetery could be around $20,000. -via Fark, where you'll find more stories of funeral shenanigans.  

(Image credit: Cary Bass-Deschenes)

Many women have doulas to support and guide them through childbirth. Rachel Friedman is an end-of-life doula, trained to support and guide people through the final part of their lives. She tells us about her training, which not only deals with the prospect of death and making it as easy as possible, she also learned that you don't have to be close death to want to make the most out of the rest of your life. Her training involves three important facets: imagining your own death, engaging people by active, deep listening, and helping with legacy projects that will live on after a person is gone. Imagining your own death helps you to recognize your priorities and figure out what's really important to you. An exercise begins:

Write down your five most-prized possessions, your five favorite activities, your top five values, and the five people you love the most.

Close your eyes. Imagine you’re at a doctor’s office. You’ve just been given a terminal diagnosis and told you have approximately three months to live. Sit with that news. Breathe. Open your eyes. Cross any four items off your list.

Close your eyes. You’re back home with your spouse or friends or children or pet. You have to find a way to tell those you love: “I’m dying.” Breathe. Open your eyes. Cross another four items off your list.

By the time you have crossed off all your favorites, you should have an idea of what's most important to you. Read more advice from an end-of-life doula about living your life (no matter how much is left) and helping others live theirs at Vox.

"Hey, you're doing just great"

Oklahoma little leaguer gets hit in the head and then comforts the pitcher who is shaken up afterward pic.twitter.com/hYYLiy511K

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) August 9, 2022

Little League Baseball can teach you a lot of life lessons, and it's not always about winning and losing. During the Southwest Regional Championship today, Texas East pitcher Kaiden "Bubs" Shelton accidentally beaned Oklahoma batter Isaiah "Zay" Jarvis.  You know that had to hurt, yet Jarvis was up and on base pretty soon. But Shelton was shaken, guilt-ridden and repentant to the point of tears. Jarvis left first base to give him some consolation and forgiveness. Jarvis assured Shelton that he was okay, and was heard saying, "You're doing just great." Now that's sportsmanship, and just what was needed in the moment. Texas East won the game and will advance to the Little League World Series. Whatever else happens in the Little League World Series this year, this scene is what people will remember.  -via Digg

When a mycologist makes a cake. . . #fungus #cake pic.twitter.com/ydAfqFri5Q

— Ray Van Court (@rcvancourt) December 26, 2021

Remember Dance Your PhD? That contest is still going on every year. But for many science PhD candidates, dancing may be outside their wheelhouse. There are other ways to creatively communicate your research, and one very delicious method is baking. Some universities have a "bake your research" competition for the candidates at their schools, while others just bake a research cake for fun.



You can find plenty of these cakes on social media with the hashtag #BakeYourResearch. You'll find more cakes using #BakeYourPhD or #BakeYourThesis. Read the thinking behind some of these cakes and how the idea took off at Atlas Obscura.

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Japanese Instagram member @inpot is a master of embroidery. Her entire body of work is worth exploring as she breaks the conventions of that artform with three-dimensional images that pop out of the fabric and unusual choices for subject matter.

Inpot is especially fond of pizza and features it often in her work. She includes it in her most recent piece, which is a clock. The pendulum of the timepiece is attached to a piece of pizza. As it swings, it pulls the slice along with its stretchy cheese back and forth.

Beer for dessert? That's when the sweet, creamy Mlíko pour tastes best. Try it and let us know what you think! pic.twitter.com/ny6o7ezQvG

— Pilsner Urquell (@Pilsner_Urquell) November 20, 2019

Gastro Obscura introduces us to a particularly Czech way of pouring beer. Mlíko, which means "milk", is usually served as a pilsner, but the type of beer is less important than the way in which it is poured.

Pouring a beer from a tap is more than just flipping the toggle from off to on. It's an art form and the Czechs have mastered it. The mlíko is poured by opening the tap slightly and letting the beer foam into the mug.

When done properly, it tastes like a creamy "cloud of beer" rather than just airy foam. It's essential to drink this cloudy substance quickly before it settles, so it's not for slow, casual drinking while chatting.

Having a giant rabbit around the house isn't quite like the movie Harvey or Donnie Darko. It's more like having a long-eared dog that eats vegetables. Guus is a Flemish Giant rabbit. He is two years old and lives in Amsterdam, where he goes for walks on a leash and loves hopping around the garden. Guus weighs 10 kilograms (22 pounds), but looks looks even bigger because he is so fluffy. He loves to cuddle with his impossibly gorgeous humans, Danielle and Onno. Guus has identification tattoos in his ears indicating his birthplace and date. He can be quite destructive, but they've learned to work around that. See more of Guus at Instagram. -via Boing Boing

See more adorable pet and animal posts at Supa Fluffy.

Happy Birthday @DeMar_DeRozan! https://t.co/tTjRY1JR1G

— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) August 7, 2022

The world has collected and photographed thousands of beautiful works of art going back to antiquity. But that documentation pales beside sports photography, where dozen of professional photographers are catching every minute of every game, race, or other competition. This extreme documentation is what makes a unique Twitter account like ArtButMakeItSports possible. For every classical painting, there will eventually be a sports action photo that accidentally recreates the scene. Sometimes they are spookily close.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, by Mattia Preti, 1675, 📸 Brad Smith/ISI Photo pic.twitter.com/gMR6YK1JSe

— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) July 5, 2022

You have to wonder at the work that goes into finding and recognizing these matchups. The person that runs the Twitter account is taking submissions, so that must be a great help.  

The Mocking of Christ, by Carl Bloch, 1880 pic.twitter.com/e2Jj0bpaFm

— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) August 5, 2022

Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1618-19, 📸 via @MattMoylansLegs pic.twitter.com/Eudu5ZJ2jz

— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) July 30, 2022

You can follow the Twitter account ArtButMakeItSports here, and see an archive of past matchups at Instagram. -via Everlasting Blort

Jalopik shares this terrifying video with us (content warning: foul language). It takes place at Cotswold Airport northwest of Swindon, UK.

That private and general aviation airport is an old RAF facility that can house aircraft much larger than the Piper PA-28 Cherokee seen in the crash. The airport is used for storing and salvaging old jetliners, which is why you see a line of commercial jets parked on the tarmac.

Accident investigators think that the pilot overshot the runway while attempting to land. Although one wing caught on the landing gear of one jet, no one was killed. The pilot and passengers were taken to a local hospital to receive treatment for their injuries.

Here's Lubbock, Texas, whose favorite son is the late rock star Buddy Holly. The people of Lubbock do, of course, honor him. The other famous names are mostly country and western stars, as well as a few football players, since this is west Texas. They're Waylon Jennings from nearby Littlefield, Texas.

We've previously looked at interactive maps of famous people in the United States. What sets this project apart is that it covers the entire planet by making use of a database of birthplaces of famous people from 3,500 BC to 2018 AD. Here's eastern South Africa. You may recognize some famous names.

Explore the map. Antarctica is especially interesting.

I am, though, a bit skeptical about the accuracy of data. The man that the map says was born at the North Pole was, as far as I can tell, born in central Mexico.

-via Dave Barry

Once upon a time, mail would get to the right town with just a zip code. Once there, it was up to the local office to figure out exactly where the address was. These days, 99% of US mail is sorted successfully by machine with optical readers. But if your handwriting is so bad that the machines can't decipher it, or if the envelope got wet and the ink ran, it will be sent to the Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Or rather, a picture of it will be sent there. At this level of sorting, a combination of human and computer power will use a strange but effective system of comparison to figure out where that mail is supposed to go. If they can't do it, the last resort is completely human before the postal service gives up and returns it. Tom Scott give us a look inside the Remote Encoding Center to see how it's done.   

This plot of land, which measures just over a square mile, might be called the Pennsylvania Wedge had the boundary dispute between that state and Delaware not ended in Delaware's favor. But the Delaware flag defiantly flies above this strip of land, so we call it the Delaware Wedge.

How did this land dispute arise? In State and National Boundaries of the United States, Gary Alden Smith explains. In 1682, King Charles II separated the land of Penn's colony from that of what would become Delaware by a 12-mile arc extending around New Castle. This is why the northern boundary of Delaware is round. Maryland's eastern boundary was later defined with a right angle, leading to this small plot of land left unaccounted for.

Pennsylvania claimed it, arguing that Mason-Dixon Line surveyed in the 1760s allotted the land, by default, to Pennsylvania. U.S. military engineers surveying the area marked it as Pennsylvanian territory. 

But the people who lived in the area identified as Delawareans, voted in that state, and paid taxes to Dover. In 1921, Congress approved of this de facto border after both state legislatures approved.

This historical marker notes the dispute that, thankfully, never boiled over into open warfare.

We've been blown away by the images coming in from faraway galaxies taken by the Webb Space Telescope. The vivid colors are lovely, but how real are they? The telescope only collects infrared and near-infrared light, and humans can't see infrared light, so where are all those colors coming from?

Image developers on the Webb team are tasked with turning the telescope’s infrared image data into some of the most vivid views of the cosmos we’ve ever had. They assign various infrared wavelengths to colors on the visible spectrum, the familiar reds, blues, yellows, etc. But while the processed images from the Webb team aren’t literally what the telescope saw, they’re hardly inaccurate.

So while the colors are added, they are not added arbitrarily. You could call it a translation of sorts. And the colors are necessary to detect features of the original image that otherwise couldn't be discerned. It's our own fault, really, for not developing the ability to see light in its full range. Heavenly bodies shine in ultraviolet light, microwaves, and x-rays, as well as infrared light, which would all have to be translated for humans to see them. Read how and why this is done at Gizmodo.


(Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI)