Binky Dinky's best bud left for work, so he was already sad. He decided to take a nap, and that's when the nightmare started. Warning: if you are a dog, this may be terrifying. -via reddit

Jasper here has met his new nemesis, Repsaj! 😂🐕#viralhog #mirror #dogsoftwitter #adorable #nemesis #whoops pic.twitter.com/N60soJD6jT

— ViralHog (@ViralHog) July 23, 2021

Jasper the Golden Retriever is rightfully suspicious of Mirror Dog, who looks like a vicious brute. Be sure to warn him off so that he knows not to come on Jasper's porch ever again.

Looking for some good bling without the expensive price tag? One artist in China is creating colorful gemstones from broken glass bottles! The artist uses their creativity to turn shards of broken glass into imitation sapphires and emeralds that look like the real deal. Using a rotary tool, the artisan reshapes and polishes the shards, and then sets the new gemstone into a metal band: 

While there are still people who prefer real gemstones, others online are championing the alternative, upcycled material. One Redditor even shared an entire list as to why they would choose the glass bottle gemstone over any other. They wrote, “It's pretty, it sparkles, no one had to die to make that, no one had to slave over it, either, [and] no one had to go into debt for it.” They add, “Also, if someone made rings and earrings out of recycled glass bottles and sea glass, I'd buy that sh*t, in every color. All the colors.”

image credit: Jacek Dylag

Melissa Turkington recently bought a book that I gather is a collection of poetry and fiction by Charles Bukowski. The used book included notes from a woman who was profoundly unimpressed by Bukowski's literary pretentions.

The anonymous commenter is absolutely savage. Why do the characters in Bukowski's semi-autobiographical works fail to secure romantic relationships? It's very obvious to his critic. You can see more of her annotations in Turkington's Twitter thread.

-via AmandaB

UPDATE 7/26/21: Twitter user Katherine Esters says that she's the commenter.

British artist Matt Small utilizes chunks of scrap metals, from oxidized hunks of iron to bits of patinaed copper to crinkled aluminum strips-- Small gravitates towards these materials to construct his works of art. His corroded portraits, as Colossal describes, are ‘expressive and emotionally charged,’ and question the societal notions of value: 

[...]“Because of the social backgrounds they come from, young people find themselves overlooked, disregarded, and left uninvested in,” the artist says. “Marrying the discarded item and painting a portrait of a young person on it or utilizing the material to construct a mosaic face, I hope that the viewer sees that everybody and everything has a right to be viewed as valuable and of worth. It’s just up to us to see that.”

In a conversation with Colossal, Small references Marcel Duchamp’s urinal and the way that readymade sculpture upended long-standing notions of worth as a foundational concept he draws on his own practice. By turning debris and seemingly useless materials into works of significance, he hopes to prompt questions about the arbitrary values assigned to objects and people alike, explaining:

The scrap metal has worth because of what I did with it, not because I say it is of worth. The rusted tin can becomes a tone in the face. The shiny metal brings out a highlight on the forehead. All these worthless items have been incorporated into something that someone may now appreciate, and the potential of this scrap item can now be realized.

Image credit: Matt Small

This is just too cute! Lori Knoble’s German shepherd Anya has a very cute morning routine: she brings toys to their newly-adopted kitty, Munchie. Anya made Munchie feel welcome at their home when she tried to get Munchie to chase her toy. When the cat relented, Anya started playing with her. From there, the two animals have formed an adorable friendship: 

"Anya is the one who truly helped Munchie not be afraid and helped her to adjust to her new life of living with us." "She usually plays with her every morning, or whenever we leave the toy out laying around." "Munchie has grown from a tiny, scared kitten living in a dumpster all alone, to becoming a member of our family who is loved and cherished." "It melts our hearts that Anya instinctively knew how to help Munchie to not be afraid." "You can't help but smile when you see them playing together." "They play lovingly and they love to tease each other, too!" "Not all angels have wings, some have four paws and fur."

Image screenshot:via Flipboard

Why do people live in Yakutsk? Some are native to the region, some are descendants of Stalin-era exiles, but many are there to make a lot of money in resource extraction industries, from gas and oil to metals to diamonds to mammoth carcasses. When it's this cold, you have to learn an entirely new lifestyle. -via reddit

Farms sell produce directly to consumers in farmer's markets and right on the farm during harvest season. Vineyards do that, too, although the laws about selling alcohol are usually more stringent. In Germany, there's a traditional way around those regulations of who can sell alcohol where.

Here in southern Germany’s wine regions, a besen, or a broomstick, signifies something special. For up to 16 weeks, local laws permit winemakers to set up temporary restaurants to serve their latest harvest. So each year, typically in spring and fall, they sweep out their family room or barn, drag tables out from the garage, and recruit family members as servers. Then, they hang a broomstick outside to indicate they’re open.

These broomsticks inspired the name of these pop-up establishments: besenwirtschaften, or simply besens. The limited season creates demand, as does the feeling of being welcomed into a stranger’s home for a rowdy dinner party. As customers sidle up to each other at long communal tables, three-piece brass bands play catchy folk songs and wine is poured by the same hands that picked the grapes. It’s no wonder besen season is a local favorite.

While the pop-up restaurants are in themselves a loophole in the laws, there are strict regulations about them. But why a broom? Read about traditional besenwirtschaften at Atlas Obscura.

The coelacanth is a fish known for its fossils, and was thought to have died out about 66 million years ago. That is, until 1938, when they were discovered to be still around and reproducing in deep waters. Coelacanths became known as "living fossils" since the species goes back so far. But were they really ever lost at all?

And while science only recognized that these critters were not actually extinct as of 1938, it seems fisherman local to their habitats were abundantly familiar with them.  So familiar, in fact, that they knew how to make a meal out of them. Pre-eminent cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson, in reference to ichthyologist James Smith’s 1938 coelacanth-hunting in South Africa, once observed, “There were indications that the native population in this part of the world had fished for and eaten these ‘living fossils’ for several generations. Although not a common item in native diets, there is no doubt that, while Professor Smith dreamed of finding a second coelacanth, a dozen or more had probably been served and eaten” (Sanderson, 1961, p15).  Fisherman off the Comoro Islands, Madagascar, and Mozambique colloquially referred to coelacanth as gombessa (“worthless”) due to the fact that it secreted gallons of oily mucous, and would often ruin the rest of the catch, which makes it even more puzzling that it’s 1938 rediscovery happened when it was found in a pile of other fish headed for the market.

This shouldn't surprise you, as we've posted many stories about rare or even unique animals that were eaten. You might be interested in how one prepares a coelacanth dinner, which you can learn about at Esoterx. Once you do, you probably will swear them off for good. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Dean Falk Schnabel)

Do you have sensible, practical clothes? Beijing-based fashion house Marrknull can fix that for you. These jeans that debuted for the spring season collection have complete waistlines at both the top and the bottom. Wear them and people will definitely form an impression of you.

-via Weird Universe

UPDATE 7/26/21: I just realized another advantage: these jeans give you twice as many pockets.

Bernhard Sobotta calls his invention The Cercle. Unlike other camping bikes that pull a trailer, The Cercle has its bed frame in the middle of the vehicle. It unfolds to provide an adequate sleeping space and a table, the latter of which has a built-in steel ring for a camping stove.

I can think of a few post-apocalyptic scenarios in which The Cercle would prove useful. Maneuvering it could be too cumbersome during a zombie apocalypse. But, in an empty Earth event, The Cercle could provide the mobility necessary for foraging. My greatest concern would be providing real protection for the sleeper from two and four-legged predators at night.

-via Laughing Squid | Photo: Bike Citizens

Wait… what? Initially reported as a cryptocurrency farm, an area full of PlayStation 4 consoles that was shut down by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was actually a FIFA Ultimate bot farm. Sparked by the scepticism of the official claim, as well as game discs being spotted in the official photos, business newspaper Delo launched an investigation into the matter: 

Delo said the Security Service of Ukraine has so far refused to comment on the revelation, citing the secrecy of the investigation. But the suggestion is these PS4 Slims, all controlled by PCs running bots, farmed Ultimate Team for profit.

Ultimate Team is the perfect game for this kind of operation, given how it's structured. You can spend real-world money on loot boxes in the hope of obtaining high-value cards, but the odds of getting one of the best players is soul-destroyingly slim. Or, you can play the game for months on end in a bid to save up enough of the in-game currency to splash out on the auction house. Or, you can buy FUT coins on the black market (expect 40,000 FUT coins to cost you a couple of quid). To put that into context, Lionel Messi's 99-rated Summer Stars card currently costs around 1.5m FUT coins on the PlayStation auction house.

Image credit: The Security Service of Ukraine.

Science is a means to explain the reasoning behind different phenomena. Surprisingly, scientists are now trying to explain even the most unprompted occurrences in our daily lives! Researchers have tried to explain the science behind near-death experiences, believing that these scary experiences are a biological mechanism called thanatosis. Daneil Kondziella explained that this mechanism is ‘the acquisition of language enabled humans to transform these events from relatively stereotyped death-feigning under predatory attacks into the rich perceptions that form near-death experiences and extend to non-predatory situations.’ While this explanation seems sound, Mind Matters raises two problems: 

➤ Implausibility: Most of the people who have survived to tell of near-death experiences are not “death-feigning.” They are clinically — and, in most cases, involuntarily — dead.

Modern medicine can bring people back from actual states of death or even induce such states, for surgical purposes. That’s why we hear so many reports of near-death experiences these days. There is no physiological basis for the belief that, in general, humans can just “play dead” when it suits us, as can marsupials like opossums. Many might wish we could but we can’t.

➤ What does “the acquisition of language” mean? Human language, as opposed to animal signal systems, is only possible due to the ability to reason abstractly. There is no plausible evolutionary explanation for that at present. It appears to come from something that is not part of the animal world at all. It is not directly related to survival chances because all other life forms thrive without it. It may be part of a non-animal world in which near-death experiences are possible.

Image credit: Evgeny Tchebotarev (Unsplash)

Does anyone remember the Arch Deluxe? It was a fancy hamburger offered at McDonalds beginning in 1996. The company spent $200 million to promote it, and expected to rake in a billion dollars in return. Only they didn't.

It wasn’t entirely unreasonable to expect miracles because on paper, the Arch Deluxe is one hell of a burger: crisp lettuce, mustard-mayo sauce, peppered bacon, tomato, and beef on a bakery-style potato roll. It was the creation of Andrew Selvaggio, a fine dining chef from Chicago’s legendary Pump Room. With all the talent and bona fides a McDonald’s head chef required and then some, Selvaggio spent months coming up with what he now describes as “something unique and different [to] set us apart from everybody. The Arch Deluxe was supposed to be the first entry into a better burger — premium burger — experience for McDonald’s.”

When I read the name of the burger, I confused it with the McDLT, which launched in 1984. So you might be forgiven if you've forgotten the Arch Deluxe, but you can read about it at Eater.  -via Digg

We learned that the ancient Olympics were a big deal in Greece, then were adopted by the Romans, and died out as the Roman Empire turned to Christianity. While it's true that the name fell out of use, sporting competitions inspired by the Olympics became a part of life throughout Western civilization.   

In the West, chariot racing died out rather quickly, but beginning in the second half of the 11th century, knightly tournaments were the spectacle of medieval Europe. At their height, beginning in the 12th century and continuing through at least the 16th, participants would, like their ancient Olympic forebears, travel a circuit of competitions across Europe, pitting their skills against other professionals. (The depiction in the 2001 Heath Ledger film A Knight’s Tale was not far from reality.) In these competitions, armored, mounted men would try to unseat their opponents using lance and shield, or battle on foot with blunted (but still dangerous) weapons to determine who was the best warrior, all for an enthusiastic crowd.

And indeed, these were performances. Lionized in contemporary fiction, and discussed repeatedly in historical chronicles from the period, one scholar has suggested that these were often accompanied—much like the modern Olympics—with theatrical opening and closing ceremonies. An autobiographical set of poems from the 13th century, for example, had the knight Ulrich von Liechtenstein perform a chaste quest for a wealthy (married) noblewoman. Dressed as a woman, specifically the goddess Venus, Ulrich travels across Italy and the Holy Roman Empire defeating all challengers in jousts and hand-to-hand combat.

The legacy of such tournaments continues today, with sports offering nations and individuals an opportunity for fame, glory, and one-upmanship without killing or colonizing each other. Read about the medieval tournaments that grew out of the Olympics at Smithsonian. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Thomas Wriothesley)