Disney/Lucasfilm has unveiled the creation of a new Star Wars universe. Oh, it's still in a galaxy far, far away, but a new series of books called The High Republic is set even longer ago, specifically 200 years before the events we know from the movies. We'll see the first of these publications in August.

Phase one of The High Republic debuts in August at the Star Wars Celebration Anaheim convention, and will feature five releases: young adult novel Into the Dark, middle grade novel A Test of Courage, comic book series The High Republic Adventures, another comic book series (this one from Marvel) called simply The High Republic, and finally a novel called The Light of the Jedi.

In 2016, Disney de-canonized the "expanded universe," the hundreds of novels, comics, and games set in the Star Wars universe, in order to exert more control over the narrative. With the creation of the High Republic series, the universe will expand once again. It will be an "incubator" of sorts: the stories from the High Republic that prove the most popular among Star Wars fans will be the ones ripe for investing with a movie budget. You can pre-order books through the links at Star Wars.

A couple of weeks ago, we found there are two ways to regard books, which determines how you treat them. Now it appears there are many ways to save your place in a book that range from methods that border on idolatry to downright crimes. I suppose most of us  are somewhere in the middle -except for chaotic neutral, what's up with that? This alignment chart was found at Laughing Squid.

It's 2020. Why aren't you wearing inflatable pants?

This is the future that countless generations of humanity have labored for. The advancements of technology and culture have finally brought us to the destination: Harikrishnan's inflatable pants. He debuted them at a fashion show for the London College of Fashion's graduate students.

Ladies don't have to feel left out. He also offers them for women, too.

-via Weird Universe | Photo: London College of Fashion

Besides FANGS, Pixie and Brutus, and other alternate media comic strips, I also frequent The Lazy Goth, found on both Facebook and Instagram (see illustration).

The Lazy Goth chronicles the misadventures of a lazy and unmotivated lady goth as she contends with ordinary things and events from the goth point of view. The artist's real life experiences are often represented, as we see her husband (not a goth) and learn that she recently broke her leg. The episodes appear regularly and have a certain charm even if they are not excruciatingly funny. Goths are all the rage these days, as seen in a mainstream comic strip, On the Fastrack, executed by the same cartoonist who does Kevin and Kell.

The Lazy Goth may be found at Facebook and Instagram.

The surreal picture above is titled "Frozen mobile home." It won French photographer Greg Lacoeur the title of Underwater Photographer of the Year for 2020. The caption:

Massive and mysterious habitats, icebergs are dynamic kingdoms that support marine life. As they swing and rotate slowly through polar currents, icebergs fertilize the oceans by carrying nutrients from land that spark blooms of phytoplankton, fundamental to the carbon cycle. During an expedition in Antarctica Peninsula with filmmaker Florian Fisher and freediver Guillaume Nery, we explored and documented the hidden face of this iceberg where crab-eater seals have taken up residence on icebergs that drift at the whim of polar currents.

Lacoeur's photograph also won the Wide Angle category. See the winners in each category at PetaPixel, and browse through all the top-placing images at the contest gallery. -via Digg

Titos Tsai is a contact juggler from Taiwan. Contact juggling involves moving balls and other objects around one's body without losing contact. Tsai is an absolute master of that craft. Watch him, seemingly without effort, move a huge sword around his body while gracefully dancing. He doesn't drop the sword or cut himself with it even once.

You can see more of his fantastic work on Instagram.

-via Geekologie

When her mother died, French artist Cécile Davidovici watched old VHS home movies of her family back in 1988. To reinforce the permanence of the relationship now separated by death, she embroidered still images from those home movies to "anchor herself in the moment."

Davidovici calls the series, appropriately, 1988. You can see more examples on her website and Instagram.

-via Colossal

Modern problems require bold solutions. For example, how do you eat spaghetti without spilling it everywhere, including on yourself?

You use a pair of scissors, as this genius does. Just snip off the ends of your forkful before putting the remainder in your mouth. As he says, "Beats crawling around with a fork."

We salute you, sir. Audentes Fortuna iuvat.

-via Dave Barry

Daniel Kish is a man who grew up adapted to blindness. At infancy, both of his eyes were removed to save his life from retinoblastoma, a cancer that attacks the retinas. Now at 44, Kish has taught himself how he can navigate the world, even with a handicap. He uses sounds to perceive the environment around him, as Men’s Journal detailed: 

 Kish has trained himself to hear these slight echoes and to interpret their meaning. Standing on his front stoop, he could visualize, with an extraordinary degree of precision, the two pine trees on his front lawn, the curb at the edge of his street, and finally, a bit too far from that curb, my rental car. Kish has given a name to what he does – he calls it “FlashSonar” – but it’s more commonly known by its scientific term, echolocation.

Bats, of course, use echolocation. Beluga whales too. Dolphins. And Daniel Kish. He is so accomplished at echolocation that he’s able to pedal his mountain bike through streets heavy with traffic and on precipitous dirt trails. He climbs trees. He camps out, by himself, deep in the wilderness. He’s lived for weeks at a time in a tiny cabin a two-mile hike from the nearest road. He travels around the globe. He’s a skilled cook, an avid swimmer, a fluid dance partner. Essentially, though in a way that is unfamiliar to nearly any other human being, Kish can see.

image via Men’s Journal

There was a time when people saw a bad movie, and it ended at that. There would be no long threads on Twitter (or any social media platform) on the reasons why it sucked, and how it could have been better. The discourse on bad movies remains as there is still unused footage and  behind the scenes clips that the producers release for the public to consume. Read more on the reasons why we can’t let go of bad movies at Cracked.

image via wikimedia commons

"Take Poo to the Loo", commonly shortened to "Poo2Loo", was an Indian social media campaign led by UNICEF

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that every 40 seconds, someone in the United States will suffer from a stroke. Every 4 minutes, a person dies from a stroke. It is the fifth leading cause of death for Americans, and it is also a leading cause of long-term disability. Truly, it is a force to be reckoned with. Thankfully, our sciences are advancing, and new tools that help ease the suffering of those who are sick are being developed by the minute, such as this one.

A non-invasive, wearable, magnetic brain stimulation device could improve motor function in stroke patients, according to preliminary late breaking science presented… at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2020…

[...]

“The robustness of the increase in physiological brain activity was surprising. With only 30 subjects, a statistically significant change was seen in brain activity,” said lead study author David Chiu, M.D., director of the Eddy Scurlock Stroke Center at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. “If confirmed in a larger multicenter trial, the results would have enormous implications. This technology would be the first proven treatment for recovery of motor function after chronic ischemic stroke.”

I wonder how much it will cost, though, but I guess it will be expensive. Still, this is great news!

(Image Credit: Blessy John/ Neuroscience News)

We see different mascots and people in costume playing as a particular Disney character at Disney World. From Mickey Mouse to the different Disney princesses, these people are trained and paid to play the part of the iconic characters for the customer’s (specifically, children’s) enjoyment. But have you ever wondered what it’s like to be hired as one of the people who will dress up and roleplay at the theme park? Kristen Sotakoun, a former employee, shared her experience at Vox: 

It may be different now, but for me, the training was five days. When you’re accepted in entertainment, nobody is just a princess or just a prince. You have to be trained and approved in fur characters first. The first three days of training is sitting and watching videos of what you can or can’t do. Learning autographs. There’s a really creepy portion where you wear just the head and hands of the character. So you’re in business-casual but the hands and head of Chip and Dale. The last two days of training you go out into the park with character attendants, and meet people. It was wild to me, I thought the training would last about a month. And once you’re approved for fur, it’s two days of training for each “face character” [characters like Belle or Princess Jasmine that don’t wear a mask].

I was so stoked when I got through training, and then I did three weeks in a row of just Winnie the Pooh.

image Kristen Sotakoun via Vox

The Pokemon franchise has been around for a long time. It’s not surprising to see the spread of urban legends that players can try to spot in the games. DidYouKnowGaming compiles all the urban legends and rumours all throughout the Pokemon games. Maybe you can try and see if these urban legends are real! 

When Twitter user Logan Evans was in his senior year of high school, his teacher laughed at him when he said that he would become a lawyer. But it seems that Evans has the last laugh, as he was just accepted into law school with a scholarship. Evans made sure that his teacher knows that he was in fact, on the way to becoming a lawyer through an email. The teacher actually replied to his email, and it’s less hostile and more wholesome.

pic.twitter.com/ZCh1oUJrtC

— Logan Evans (@SheWantsThe_E) February 23, 2020

image via Twitter