Ekstremsportveko (Extreme Sports Week) 2025 was held in June in Voss, Norway. It is the world's largest extreme sports festival, taking advantage of the region's snowy mountains, wild rivers, lakes, and the high cliffs that loom over the fjords. Those cliffs are perfect for extreme BASE jumping. These adrenaline junkies had looked forward to Ekstremsportveko all year for the chance to soar through this beautiful natural world. Lifted by helicopter, they eagerly jumped off a cliff that you and I would be afraid to approach the edge of. I think there was a rule that they all had to have cameras attached. Some used parachutes, others used wing suits, and one guy did his jump suspended under another guy using a wing suit! I kept thinking "Don't let go! Don't let go!" And then he let go. But no one was hurt, and a good time was had by all. -via Kuriositas 

"Tradition," G.K. Chesterton wrote, "means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is a democracy of the dead." To embrace tradition means to recognize that our forebearers were not fools and may offer us lessons that we need not learn the hard way with each succeeding generation.

So it is fitting that, as The Wall Street Journal reports, Heather Schroering and Nick Phillips married at a Las Vegas chapel in a ceremony presided over by Manny Mayo, the mascot of the Hellmann's brand of mayonnaise. Unilever, the owner of the Hellmann's brand, paid for the event in exchange for using it to create commercials--as is tradition.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Hellmann's Mayonnaise

About 30 years ago, Hello Kitty rose from Japan and took over the world. But she was just one of a long line of pop culture cats from Japan. Japanese legends and folklore are full of cats, such as Maneki Neko, the lucky waving cat. And to our delight, Japanese art going back hundreds of years documents these folklore cats. Bakeneko are cats that change into human form, or they can remain cats but speak like humans. They can even kill and take the identity of their owner! Nekomata are cats who live to be very old, and then split their tails in two and walk around on two legs. 

There are also cat witches and cats who may steal a corpse from a funeral. Don't miss the very charming story of the boy who drew cats. A post at Hanashi by Curious Ordinary also has recommendations for books and movies if you want to explore more on Japanese cats. And it has lots of lovely artworks. -via Everlasting Blort 

I saw this Honest Trailer for Freaky Friday posted today, and couldn't figure out why Screen Junkies would do an Honest Trailer for a YA movie from 2003. It turns out that a sequel called Freakier Friday opens this weekend, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, and Mark Harmon playing the same characters 22 years later. I guess there's an audience for this, since it's become an entire franchise.

Anyway, if you are going to see the new movie, you might want to go back to the original and refresh your memory first. Did I say original? There have actually been four movies with the title Freaky Friday, from 1976, 1995, 2003 and 2018. The Jamie Lee Curtis version was the biggest hit the the four, and the only one to warrant a sequel. The verdict from Screen Junkies: it's kind of dumb, and surprisingly racist for its time. Let's hope the geriatric version does better. 

Orville and Wilbur Wright are credited with the first sustained flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft that is powered by an engine in 1903. It can be argued, though, that Wilhelm Kress designed, built, and flew the first such vehicle in 1901. Much depends upon precise definitions.

The first few years of the Twentieth Century were filled with rapid technological innovation, so it should not come as a surprise that inventions developed almost simultaneously as humanity soared off into the heavens.

Similarly, The Takeout explains, we cannot be certain who invented the corn dog. But the era of maximal corn dog development was from 1937 to 1946, when several geniuses labored independently at the creation of this supreme food. George and Vera Boyington of the Pronto Pup brand are most commonly credited with the invention in 1941.

No matter who created the corn dog first, we can all be grateful for their efforts to advance the human adventure.

Photo: Flickr user Intangible Arts used under Creative Commons license

Communication between pilots and air traffic control for international flights is almost always conducted in English. It makes sense to use the most common second language for communication. But it doesn't always work, especially when no one involved speaks English as their first language. A TAP Air Portugal flight from Lisbon to Nice crossed into France with a little problem on board- all the toilets were non-functional. Aware of the passengers' potential for distress, the pilots contacted air traffic control in Nice to request expedited landing. They didn't want to circle waiting for earlier planes to land if they could get permission to skip the line. 

However, this divergence from protocol involved several messages among quite a few people. In a radio transmission, the word "toilet" got confused for the word "pilot." The pilot's not working? It must be a medical emergency. What, you have no pilots? Then when the plane's crew tried to clarify, the control tower crew got the idea that the auto-pilot was non-functional. They put Nice Airport in a state of alert for the jet landing. Read an edited transcript or listen to a video to hear what went down in Nice.  We assume that the plane was able to land and let the passengers do their business. 

(Image credit: Siyuan He) 

This composition smoothly juxtaposes multiple media and aesthetics. Redditor /u/p_batess purchased an old chair and added small stained glass panels to each of the holes. The design is a pixelated version of the default Windows OS background. They ask that you not sit on it as one tourist sat on a chair-shaped sculpture in Verona last month.

The Great Loop, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration informs us, is a circuit of navigable rivers, canals, and oceanic waters in the United States and Canada. A boater who completes the journey can claim the title of a "Looper." It's a great test of skill and endurance. Robert Youens, the Pensacola News Journal reports, has secured a record for the fastest passage through this circuit when he arrived in Pensacola on Thursday evening.

The 71-year old adventurer from Texas completed the journey in a record time while piloting his humble 16-foot jon boat named Ageless Wanderer. You can watch a video interview about his journey here.

-via John Konrad | Photo: Scott Anderson

Chuck Jurgen Teschke, an engineer and aviation technician from Canada, modifies helicopter bodies into works of art. Auto Evolution tells us that the Frankencopter 4, which is pictured above, is a synthesis of a Volkswagen Type 2 microbus and a H125 Airbus helicopter. Although it does not fly, it does inspire the imagination to reach new heights as one contemplates a groovy and retro form of air transportation.

Again, this is the Frankencopter 4--the fourth of a series of helicopter transformations that Teschke has constructed. Others include what appear to be combinations of an old Ford truck cab and a tractor cab smoothly welded into helicopter frames. You can see photos of them at Auto Evolution.

-via Toxel

English has a lot of words that people rarely use in general conversation, but they flourish in text. You may know a word for years and never hear it pronounced. One such word is "biopic," a movie that's the story of one person. Do you pronounce it BY-oh-pic or by-AH-pic? The word is short for biographical picture. Mental Floss argues that it is pronounced BY-oh-pic, and I have heard movie critics pronounce it that way, so I guess they are right. It used to be spelled with a hyphen: bio-pic. Still, the pronunciation by-AH-pic is what I've always heard in my head, and maybe you did, too.  

Then they go into why we mispronounce the word in our heads. It's an example of a misle, or a word with a spelling that doesn't make the pronunciation clear. English is full of them! When we encounter new words in print, we have a tendency to pronounce them like similarly spelled words that may have nothing to do with the word you are seeing. Read some common examples, and the varied reasons we hear them incorrectly in our heads at Mental Floss.

(Image generated with PhotoFunia) 

Millions of years ago, the grassland of North America was a brutal place. There were huge animals like rhinos, camels, horses, and elephants. And there were predators that evolved to take them down. These were canid borophagines, bone-crushing dogs. Borophagine species ranged from the size of a large coyote to larger than the biggest wolves, up to more than 300 pounds! They had short muzzles and massive teeth, and may have resembled hyenas. The borophagines consumed plenty of bone, but evidence from fossil feces show they weren't great at digesting them. Tearing through bones, however, was an efficient way for a pack to get its fill of a mastodon.  

The last of the borophagine species died out 1.8 million years ago, and were replaced by true canines that didn't crush bones, like coyotes. Wolves came even later. Saber-toothed cats hung around until about 10,000 years ago. So what happened to the borophagines? Read what we know about these ancient dogs at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: Ghedoghedo) 

When Batman debuted in comics in 1939, his alter-ego Bruce Wayne was made a billionaire to explain how he had the remote location Batcave, the Batmobile, all kinds of technological wonders at his disposal, and the free time to fight crime in Gotham City. Readers had no real concept of a billionaire back then, except that they were rich. Now we have plenty of real billionaires in the news, sucking up resources and exerting power over our everyday lives. They give rich people a bad name, which just gets worse when we learn how they came to have more money than many national economies. That knowledge kind of puts a different light on Batman, don't you think? In this short video from Dorkly, Batman's usual nemeses -the Joker, the Riddler, Two-Face, and Mister Freeze- realize who the real villain is. The story is only 2:40; the rest is an ad. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

Car & Driver reports on a curious legal battle in Ohio. Tiah McCreary purchased on loan a car from a Kia dealership in the town of Lima. A month later, the dealership concluded that there was not enough information to continue the loan and so repossessed the car while McCreary was at work.

McCreary discovered that the dealership company did not own the name "Taylor Kia of Lima", which is the name under which it operated. So she registered a claim on that name and her attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the dealership, ordering it to stop using a name that was McCreary's property. The outcome of the case is still in progress.

-via Instapundit | Unrelated photo by Lee Stockton used under Creative Commons license

In 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine aired. Like The Next Generation, it took a couple of years to find its narrative rhythm. But once DS9 adopted a serial format, it became the greatest series in the franchise.

To promote it, Paramount released many promotional items, including this rare TV/VCR combination kit. The curves reflect the Cardassian aesthetic that is foundational to the design of the Deep Space 9 station--what the Cardassians referred to as Terok Nor. The package included photos, headshots of actors in costume, and a VHS tape to complete the press it. Perhaps a handful were made.

-via reddit

Jim Ashworth-Beaumont is an orthotist at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in London. He builds and fits prosthetic limbs and cares for patients using the devices, as he has since the 1990s. In a cruel twist of fate, he was riding his bicycle and was struck by a truck in 2020. The truck wheels sliced through his body and ripped his right arm off. Ashworth-Beaumont spent six weeks in a medically-induced coma as doctors saved his life by repairing his lungs and liver. The loss of an arm was a lower priority at the time. However, in another twist of fate, Ashworth-Beaumont's surgeon, Edmund Fitzgerald O’Connor, is a plastic surgeon who had been on the lookout for a patient to try a new type of prosthetic limb. 

Osseointegration is the process of implanting a titanium rod into an amputee's stump that can be attached to a prosthetic. The process is commonly used to implant teeth, and we have seen it used in animals. It has been used in people, but now bionics has progressed to allow osseointegration to be combined with electronic sensors to control a limb's movements with the patient's brain. Ashworth-Beaumont received his implant last October. Read his story at The Guardian. -via Damn Interesting