The headline is a translation. In New Zealand, the standard emergency number is 111. The concept is the same as the American emergency number of 911.

The Associated Press reports that a 4-year old boy dialed 111 on a phone while he was at home in the city of Invercargill. There was no emergency. He just had some awesome toys and wanted to show them off to someone. Could a police officer come and check them out?

The dispatcher put out a call to available units. An officer was, fortunately, available to examine the toys, which he confirmed were indeed “cool”.

It’s adorable, and shoutout to the owner for having a lot of toys for their beloved pupper-- because that’s love right there! 

Meet Mojito, a one-year-old therapy dog that has a very unique night routine. Before she goes to bed, Mojito goes through her pile of toys to choose a toy to accompany her in her sleep. If you’re worried that the dog does not have enough toys for variation, worry not because Mojito gets new toys every month in a new BarkBox. 

According to Kim Downie, her mom, “she is very specific about what she chooses to take to bed. She will search the house and empty her toy boxes until she finds whatever one she is looking for. If we move them back downstairs, she will carry them right back up.”

Image credit: Mojito Rose Soldan via Instagram

While all animals deserve love and a good home, old animals rarely get adopted by new people. This boy defies all the usual expectations for children, and raises hope that more people will pay attention and realize that older animals deserve love too! 

Easton, a young boy from Canada, picked a 10-year-old cat named Tiny from a long list of animals at the Exploits Valley SPCA Adoptables Facebook page. Tiny is a ginger cat that is “weight-challenged” as well as “shy.” However, that did not stop Easton from taking the big chonk home. 

Source: Facebook/Exploits Valley SPCA Adoptables

The quokka has chosen thee! 

While on a bike ride on Rottnest Island in Western Australia, Campbell Jones and his girlfriend met a quokka on the bike trail. Upon spotting the creature, Jones got off his cycle and snapped some selfies with the curious animal. The quokka, known as  “the happiest animal on Earth,” posed for the pictures with a smile. What a sport! 

A surprising development in this story is that the quokka actually chased after the two bikers when they were done taking photos.  “As I walked back to my bike, the quokka chased after me,” he told Western Australia's newspaper, Perth Now. “I put down the GoPro and it jumped at me as if to say come ‘come back.’”

Image credit: Campbell Jones via My Modern Met 

Two stray dogs wandering the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, went viral for hugging each other. The photos of the two puppers providing safety and comfort to each other from the harsh streets were loved by the Internet. Don’t worry, as these two dogs are now safe and sound in a Buddhist temple, as Buddhist nuns took them there to provide shelter. 

Image via live88post.com 

A grave of a wealthy medieval man in Bavaria, Germany, was discovered by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection (BLfD). The man, estimated to have been around 40 to 50 years old when he died, was buried with weapons, a horse, and a set of luxurious toiletries-- such as an intricately carved ivory comb that may have been used to style his hair and beard. Experts believe that he may have been a fierce warrior who also cared deeply about his personal appearance. 

Image credit: BLfD

Halloween is almost here, and so here's a cute post over at Supa Fluffy to whet your appetite: Meet a guinea pig named Lord Cesario, a "highly-opinionated four-legged potato," who loves ❤️ to review Halloween costumes.

🕺 This is mesmerizing: watch the captivating dance routine for the Paralympians as choreographed by Sadeck Waff.

🦿 This prosthetic leg doubles as a fold-out skateboard.

🪑 Pokemon-inspired furniture line for grownups. Gotta catch 'em all (especially the Snorlax rug!)

🎨 Arist Naci Caba creates impressionism-style Star Wars paintings

🎈 Viral TikTok video of siblings playing "Don't Let the Balloon Touch the Ground" Inspired an International Tournament with $11,000 in Prize Money.

🎤 ... and lastly, woman interviews rescue animals with a tiny mic.

We bring your more neat posts over at our new network of sites: Supa Fluffy, Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Pop Culturista - please check 'em out!

Image: Bernadette Banner/YouTube

Hadrian (r. 117-138) lived to the ripe old age of 62 before he died of natural causes. He was an outlier on that count. Only 25% of Roman Emperors died of peacefully. That's if you count from Augustus all the way to Constantine XI Palaeologus, who died during the fall of Constantinope in 1453. That is a total of 175 emperors. Data scientists in Brazil examined statisical trends in the lifespans of these rulers and published their findings with the Royal Society.

The researchers that found that the likelihood that an emperor would be killed early in his reign was very high. Consider the infamously named Year of the Four Emperors. But once an emperor was able to establish himself and get past these early trials, he tended to live for the next 13 years. Thereafter, his reign became unstable again and the likelihood of assassination increased.

This 13 year rule, the scholars note, confirms a study of 106 modern dictators who ruled between 1875 and 2004. Their power, once they survived initial turbulences, tended to become unstable after 12.3 years.

-via Instapundit | Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin

Orchestras vary from place to place, but they all have a basic organization. Who decided this? Why are certain instruments included and others not? British composer David Bruce brings us a history of the orchestra, in a style inspired by Bill Wurtz, but with a lot of solid historical information.

I was a bit surprised to learns there really weren't any orchestras until the 1600s. They early ones were somewhat experimental, but success breeds standardization, and competition breeds excess, but composers needed to know what instruments to write for. While the orchestral form is still quite standardized, it continues to evolve in new ways. Altogether, this video is way more interesting than you'd expect. -via Laughing Squid

Redditor uncle_stink shows us a water bill he received this summer. What in the world could have caused him to run up a $47,542 bill? He was accused of installing a water park in his backyard, but that's not it. There has to be an error here. Can you figure out what it is?

First, notice the dates. He was billed from July to April, which made the number of days negative. We don't think there is any time travel involved here, so either there was a typo or else someone entered the data in the wrong field. The machinery saw the dates were reversed and therefore reversed the meter readings. This didn't help, as now the present reading is less than the previous reading. When that happens, the system assumes that the meter rolled over, so a million units were automatically added.

It doesn't help that the right side of the bill should be read from the top down chronologically, while the left side should be read up chronologically. This is counterintuitive. The dates and the meter numbers as they were read on those dates should be lined up on a well-designed bill.

Let's hope that the bean counters at the water department can see that it's an error. In so many of these cases, they first offer to help set up a payment plan for you.

At the Brünnlisau shooting range in Switzerland, the shooters are on this side of the road, and the targets are on the other side. Meanwhile, traffic is passing along in between. What could possibly go wrong? What might surprise you is that this shooting range has been in operation for twenty years with no incidents involving the vehicles passing by!

The explanation lies in the design of the shooting range and the rules that govern it. These rules are bolstered by the gun culture of Switzerland, in which shooters are numerous, but also highly trained and regulated. Also noted: this range has some very cool technology for scoring your shots.   

Europeans who saw this video tell us that Brünnlisau is far from the only shooting range in Switzerland that ranges across a road like this. They also had a laugh at Tom mentioning that it's about two hours from Zurich. The response was that every place in Switzerland is about two hours from Zurich, including parts of Zurich during rush hour.  

PSA for anyone who might be dealing with robot gun dogs, from a farm robot specialist who wasn't really looking at robot wrangling from the public safety standpoint but here we are. https://t.co/PhQSmEnzOn

— Dr Sarah Taber (@SarahTaber_bww) October 17, 2021

You may have seen the "robot gun dog" on the internet in the last few days. Ghost Robotics, a company that makes quadruped robots for the military, attached a "special purpose unmanned rifle" to the robot to show off at an army conference last week. Its appearance is frightening, and so are your thoughts about what it can do.  

Crop scientist and industrial safety expert Dr. Sarah Taber is here to reassure you that there's no need to fear the latest lethal robot just yet. In a Twitter thread, she explains the troubleshooting challenges that await any new technology, particularly if it is designed to be used outdoors or in any unfamiliar environment. Her knowledge comes from working with hi-tech farm equipment, which is designed by very smart robotics engineers who have never worked on a farm. Taber lays out a list of problems these robots will face, which she admits is far from a complete list.

it's just really funny to me that these are supposed to be scary but probably can't stand up to a water balloon full of pickle juice

— Dr Sarah Taber (@SarahTaber_bww) October 17, 2021

See the original thread with replies at Twitter or at Threadreader if you prefer. -via Metafilter

These bottles of sand aren't decorated with colorful labels. The entire artwork is made of sand inside the glass bottle! This is the work of Andrew Clemens, who made these primarily between 1880 and 1886. Clemens was rendered deaf by a case of encephalitis in his infancy. During his summers away from the Iowa State School for the Deaf, he collected naturally colored sand from Sand Cave at Pikes Peak State Park and sorted the grains into various tints. Then he carefully layered the sand inside a medicine bottle, using tools he designed himself, with no glue or foreign substances to hold the design together.

While the most complex designs could take up to a year to produce, most of Clemens' bottles were completed somewhat faster. He suffered from poor health all his life, and died at 37. Of the hundred or so sand bottles Clemens completed, only a few survive today and sell for a pretty penny when they are put on the market. One of them went up for auction on September 30th. It was estimated to be worth $100,000, but eventually sold for $956,000! -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Wikifreaking)

When we think of jaguars, we picture them in the Central and South American rainforests, which is where 99% of them live. But at one time, jaguars roamed through the southern US, from California to Louisiana and even beyond. A government-backed campaign of eradication wiped them out in the first half of the 20th century. There are some jaguars in Mexico, where a preserve has been set aside for them, and occasionally one of the cats moves into the US. Solitary male jaguars wander a large territory, and there are two of them suspected of living north of the US border as of now.

Some conservationists believe the US should welcome jaguars back. We know from our experience with wolves that re-introducing apex predators will improve an ecosystem from the top down. Expanding the range of jaguars will also improve the species' chances of survival in the long run. One plan is to bring jaguars in from Mexico and Argentina to live in the Central Arizona/New Mexico Recovery Area (CANRA), a 20-million-acre area owned by Native American tribes and the federal government. Other conservationists believe it would be better to support the jaguar population in the Mexican preserve and encourage them to cross into US territory on their own.

There are people opposed to both plans. Some are concerned for livestock and other wildlife. Some believe it to be a waste of money and resources. And some jaguar fans believe that the US is just too dangerous for the cats in the 21st century, between fences, highways, hunters, and poorly-managed habitats. Read about the controversial plans for re-introducing jaguars to the US at Vox.

(Image credit: Leonardo Ramos)

Don’t worry, he was able to receive his order afterward! 

A Polish bakery was commissioned to make a cake that has a RTX 3080 FE print with the message, “one year together” in Polish with the pre-order number. The cake was sent to X-kom, a store that sells NVIDIA RTX 30s, as a light-hearted jab by a customer who preordered the graphics card and has been waiting for it for a year. 

Maybe next time you just have to send a special cake to the store you preordered from in order to get the item you reserved! 

Image credit: back2gaming