Giant Letter is an annual art installation that was launched in 2012 by Chicago-based artists Caro D’Offay and Laura Gilmore. Each year, a massive construction that stands between eight and 12-feet high is displayed in different spots around Chicago. The art installations featured in Giant Letter are messages between an imaginary 100-foot-tall boy named Bobby and those who matter most in his life (aka his mother Lucinda, cat Mr. McFluffins, and Santa). The most recent installation can be found at the intersection of Glenwood and Albion avenues in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Organizers of the Giant Letter hope to be able to transfer the project to a museum or gallery in the future.

Image credit: Giant Letter via Colossal

The Lost Forty, located in Minnesota, is the largest surviving patch of old-growth forest in the state. The 144-acre land, officially known as the Lost Forty Scientific and Natural Area, contains pine trees that are between 300 to 400 years old, which is close to the trees’ maximum natural life span of 500 years. 

The forest managed to avoid deforestation thanks to a surveying error in 1882. It turns out that the three-man survey team sent to chart the area between Moose and Coddington Lakes stretched the Coddington Lake half a mile further northwest than it actually exists. This mistake, which was embedded into maps until the 1960s caused the forest to be overlooked. Learn more about the forest here! 

Image credit: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

The Antikythera mechanism was an ancient analog device built to capture the known celestial objects, sort of like an ancient computer, which records and targets known heavenly bodies. Experts believe that this mechanism was a collaboration between an astronomer-mathematician and a master craftsman. 

Made of bronze and stored in a wooden box, the artifact was sent for investigation to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. They discovered Greek writing and intermeshed gears. Learn more about the Antikythera mechanism here.  

Image credit: Joy of Museums/Wikimedia Commons

Italian studio noa has done their magic to bring life to a flat in Paris. The designers completely revitalized this flat to form a Parisian pied-à-terre for a young family that requested them to provide a feeling of being at home. The apartment, called ‘Nicolai Paris,’ showcases a curved line that symbolizes domestic comfort and yields a refined and timeless character. Learn more about this flat here! 

Image credit: Antoine Huot 

This song comes across as rather silly at first, but once you get into it, it's a wonderful story. A cowboy, who also happens to be a pumpkin, is dedicated to his cattle. He's a pacifist yet still a hero, seeking neither revenge nor accolade. He just does what a man's gotta do. Or what a pumpkin's gotta do, in this case. You'll also enjoy the villain, Cowboy Cat. "Pumpkin Cowboy" by Brian David Gilbert (previously at Neatorama) and performed by Jonah Scott was inspired by the purchase of a somewhat-smiling pumpkin toy at a flea market. But you already figured that part out, didn't you? -via reddit

Country music singer, actor, and national treasure Dolly Parton grew up in Sevierville, Tennessee, in a big family, so she learned to cook a long, long time ago. Now Duncan Hines has teamed up with Parton to bring you a line of her Southern-style cakes in mix form, with frosting, too! In March, you'll be able to find the Dolly Parton Baking Collection, including her Southern-style Banana Cake mix, Southern-style Coconut Cake mix, Creamy Buttercream Frosting, and Creamy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting at your local grocery store. Yeah, if it's Southern, you can expect plenty of butter.

Once the mixes are available, use them as ingredients for Dolly's recipes. Duncan Hines has posted a recipe for Dolly's Favorite Coconut Cake, which appears to be just the instructions from the box, and Dolly's Favorite Banana Puddin' Cake, which is a souped up version of the Banana cake mix, in which you add pudding and bananas to make it taste like Southern-style banana pudding. Why you would want to do this instead of just making banana pudding is your own business. -via Mental Floss

We've had a lot of fun in the past with medieval bestiaries, full of inaccurate depictions of animals. This was a result of world travelers who brought stories back to Europe of the amazing animals they encountered. Artists tried to recreate these animals from their descriptions, but were not all that successful. Those travelers could have been inadequate describers, or the animals they spoke of could have just been so far out of the artists' experience that they couldn't do the subject justice. If a witness had actually tried to sketch out the creatures they'd seen, the artist's finished product may have been more accurate, but for some reason, that wasn't a thing. As it was, medieval artists always seemed to start with a dog and add features they were told about, at least for land animals. For sea creatures, they started with a fish and added what they were told.

But that's not all that's going on in this video. We also learn about some weird myths these exotic creatures became burdened with. Who knew you could distract a tiger mother with a mirror? Or that pelican babies ate their parents? -via Laughing Squid

A simple delete is not going to cut it, sorry! 

If you’re planning to give away or sell your computer to another person, make sure to not just erase all your files and reset your operating system. Wipe that computer’s hard drive clean. Not literally of course. Fully clearing your hard drive assures that your deleted files can not be recovered at all. PC Magazine lists different methods one can utilize to clear all the files in your hard drive for good. Check the full article here. 

Image credit: benjamin lehman

Students from Roxbury High School's Structural Design and Fabrication in New Jersey are building homes for families who are in need. In collaboration with Morris Habitat for Humanity, this group of students will build a house on the grounds of their high school. The finished home will not remain on the school grounds permanently but will be relocated to a nearby neighborhood after its construction. 

Image credit: abc7

Movie fans and enthusiasts rejoice! The first trailer for Mexican writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s newest project has been released. 

The trailer is a sneak peek for the Netflix original film Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and features amazing stop-motion sequences and Ewan McGregor voicing Sebastian J. Cricket, a character who introduces the viewers to the classic tale.  The filmmaker has labeled this version of the tale as a “brutalist fable,” which is already promising. Check the full clip of the trailer here! 

image credit: Netflix

The Internet is a great source for all the interesting and weird conversations between people from all over the globe. We get the odd conversations that jump from one topic to another and end up having a completely different conclusion, which are funny in some cases; and then we also find the clever comebacks. The kind of interactions on the web that just makes you feel like, ‘Wow, that person just roasted the hell out of that person.’ Buzzfeed lists the top clever comebacks and quips on the Internet– check the rest of them here. 

Image credit: laptitudee on Reddit

Your throat will get hurt after playing if you do so. Or your brain will hurt trying to set the entire thing up so that the game can actually accept voice commands. Since I do not have the time and energy (also the money to buy the game) to actually attempt this at home –and maybe you too, let’s all just vicariously live through KickThePJ’s attempts at winning in Mario Kart via talking. Or screaming. I’ll admit, it’s a good challenge for gamers out there!

The biggest single-day disaster in the history of the District of Columbia occurred one hundred years ago, on January 28, 1922, but few even know about it today. It wasn't an act of war or terrorism, and that may be the reason it's been mostly forgotten. It was the night the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed.

What has since been called the Knickerbocker Storm was a blizzard that raged through Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and left 28 inches of snow on Washington, D.C. The storm was over by the 28th, and 200 or so people trudged through the snow and paid 25 cents to watch a movie at the Knickerbocker. It was still a slow night- the theater had a capacity of 1700. It also had a flat roof. The weight of all that snow caused the roof to come down in one piece, killing 98 people and injuring 133. Read about the Knickerbocker Theatre disaster at Smithsonian.

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Nothing's more fun than a music video made with Star Wars clips, especially if it's by the masters of the genre, Auralnauts. "Everyone in Star Wars Getting Ready to GO" is an original song by Scott Beetley and Auralnauts. The lyrics are at the YouTube page. Besides the song, the magic here is the absolute perfect clip choice for every lyric. That brings up the question: were the clips chosen to go with the lyrics, or were the lyrics written around the clips? This music video is an excerpt from their latest parody called Star Wars Ep. 7: Banana Time. It's long, but worth every minute. -via Boing Boing

As if February didn't have enough holidays: we have the Lunar New Year on the first, Groundhog Day on the second, the Super Bowl on the 13th, Valentines Day on the 14th, and Presidents Day on the 21st (Mardi Gras isn't until March first). Our friend Ron Gordon, keeper of the calendar holidays, informs us that February second is Trumpet Day. How's that? The date is written 2/2/22, which sounds like four notes of a classic trumpet fanfare!

Gordon is having a contest for Trumpet Day, which has been in the works since 2013. Now the time is here, and  they are looking for "the brassiest, classiest, sassiest way to celebrate the day!" Share your Trumpet Day ideas or celebration and win both money and bragging rights. Send in your entries by noon on February 15 to rongordon135@gmail.com or mail to

Ron Gordon
Box 5133
Redwood City, CA. 94063

The Trumpet Day Contest features our largest prize ever----$2,222---with nary a decimal. The prize will be shared by lots of folks---we will have 2+2+22 plus “to” plus “too” plus “two toooo!!” winners. Our best holiday math suggests that means Fifty-Two people will divide the prize---no one gets really rich, but all can brag and tooot their own horns about their brilliant accomplishments.

Read more about Trumpet Day at the Trumpet Day website.