You want to get close to the other person--who may possibly be of the opposite sex--in order to a have a intimate conversation. But you don't want to get too intimate--so much so that people ask questions about the boundaries of your relationship.

The answer to this problem developed two hundred years ago by European furniture designers was the conversation chair. Messy Nessy Chic describes its long history, which continues to this day:

Conceived in 19th century France, the basic setup consists of two seats conjoined in a serpentine shape, allowing the sitters to discreetly have a conversation. Without a table creating distance between them, they’re able to speak more intimately and quietly, while also preventing too much physical contact by virtue of a shared armrest cleverly doubling as an elegant barrier of sorts.

This suited Victorians very well. Budding courtships of the era often unfolded with the close supervision of parents or chaperones and so the conversation chair effectively became a popular feature of the household for pushing a matched couple in the right direction, while still keeping it all very PG-13.

I don't think that I have ever seen a conversation chair in person, but it may have inspired this 1991 satirical commercial on Saturday Night Live.

Image: 1st Dibs

Show your Valentine some extra love by sending a Valentine card featuring their favorite pop culture character! Artist PJ McQuade has you covered, as always. He has designed four new Valentines for 2020, featuring Larry David, Keanu Reeves, old school Pennywise (the scariest Valentine ever) and badass Ellen Ripley!

Those are in addition to McQuade's 17 classic Valentine cards with romantic messages from the characters of Star Wars, Games of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and more.  

If you have a lot of sweethearts (lucky you), you can order all 21 Valentines in a combo pack! See all these Valentines, plus stickers, magnets, and cards for other occasions at Castle McQuade.

If you hate harming animals, but like taxidermy, then these crocheted taxidermy mounts might be just the thing you need. The crocheted animals range from a raccoon, a bunny (with antlers), and even a fish and a narwhal! They are available over at Etsy.

Check out the photos over Sad And Useless.

(Image Credit: Deprecat/ Sad and Useless)

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After driving three days through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway we made it to our first destination! The North Cape 📍 The most northern point of Europe 🌏 What a wonderful rough landscape 🌊 Grateful to had the option to visit this place, but actually I was even more exited to drive further to the Lofoten. Just after 30 minutes driving down of the North Cape, it started raining...the street iced up that we even couldn’t stay on one point!❄️ The worst, we stopped in front of a mountain going down, next to the street just ocean and big rocks and we stoped exactly behind a curve..💯 The moment you realize your are helpless against Mother Nature 💨 After fixing our camper with snow @flash_bros_ had a mad idea🤪 Check out the end in the next post...🔜 . 📸 #gopromax @gopro #nordkapp #norway #snow

A post shared by Lonia Häger (@loniahaeger) on Jan 20, 2020 at 10:53pm PST

Self-proclaimed “adventure hunter” Loria Haeger traveled to Lofoten after visiting the North Cape, which is located on the island of Magerøya. Unfortunately, for her, just after 30 minutes of driving down of the North Cape, it started to rain. The street froze that they “couldn’t stay on one point!”

 “The worst, we stopped in front of a mountain going down, next to the street just ocean and big rocks and we [stopped] exactly behind a curve…” Haeger told the story in an Instagram post.

Trapped on the icy mountainside, and helpless against Mother Nature, Haeger feared that something worse might happen any second.

That’s when Haeger’s friend Phil came up with the idea of looking for help on Tinder.

“Phil had the weird but actually genius idea to create a tinder account with me and this fluffy cutie,” Haeger wrote in a separate post that showed her with a dog.

Thankfully, she was matched with Stian Lauluten, who came immediately to help. Five minutes after the match, Stian arrived with a bulldozer.

Haeger said he “shaped lines in the ice” for their camper and took them to a parking lot where he fixed their tires with spikes the following day.

She thanked Lauluten for his help, calling him “our hero.”

(Image Credit: loniahaeger/ Instagram)

Physicists and amateur stargazers have discovered ‘the dunes’, a previously unknown kind of aurora phenomenon. The dunes are luminous, rippling wave patterns that does not fit any established aurora category. The new phenomenon has been documented thanks to the collaboration of space photographers and professional astronomers, as ScienceAlert details: 

While authoring a guide book on the aurora borealis (aka northern lights), computational space physicist Minna Palmroth from the University of Helsinki had her attention drawn to the dunes, which at the time did not fit into the known kinds of aurora.

Shortly after the book was published, members of the Finnish hobbyist community again identified and photographed the dunes phenomenon in the sky, sharing the imagery with Palmroth and her colleagues so they could investigate it.

"One of the most memorable moments of our research collaboration was when the phenomenon appeared at that specific time and we were able to examine it in real time," says astronomy hobbyist Matti Helin.

"It was like piecing together a puzzle or conducting detective work. Every day we found new images and came up with new ideas."

image via ScienceAlert

This is Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait. In 1910, the painting was bought as a genuine by Norway’s National Museum. Doubts on the authenticity of the masterpiece, however, began to surface in 1970. Now, after decades of uncertainty, experts confirm the painting to be genuine. They also state that the painting was “made during psychosis.”

Following a nervous breakdown, Van Gogh was sent to the Saint-Remy mental asylum to recover. There, he made his self-portrait, which was finished in the summer of 1889.

The work is the only known painting Van Gogh made while he had psychosis. The image is dominated by a dreary greenish-brown tone, and shows the artist with a lifeless expression.

It can be linked to a letter that the artist wrote to his brother Theo in September, about a self-portrait “attempt from when I was ill”.

“It feels really reassuring to know that it’s genuine,” said Mai Britt Guleng of the Norwegian museum.

“When we delivered the painting in 2014 they warned us and said ‘you might not like the results’ and it might be that we will never find out. So we were very happy when we got the news.”

More details about this over at Independent.

(Image Credit: AP/ Independent)

Just kidding! Obviously these are photoshopped. And the one who photoshopped baby Ryan is none other than his father, Matt Mac.

Ryan was born nine weeks ahead of schedule, and he just weighed three pounds, so he had to spend the first six weeks of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Despite this, however, Ryan’s parents were very optimistic.

Instead of saying he was premature they joked that he was just “advanced” — which inspired Matt to create a whole series of photos of their son doing all sorts of very “advanced” things once they brought him home.

More details about how the photos were made over at Funny Or Die.

(Image Credit: Matt Mac)

This family in Rio De Janeiro found their beloved pet tortoise after three decades. The Almeida family lost its pet turtle thirty years ago in 1982. The family discovered Manuela, the tortoise, in the storage room, as Oddee details: 

It wasn’t until their father, Leonel, died in early 2013, that the Almeida children began clearing out the second-floor room which he had filled with broken electrical items ad always kept locked. Leandro, Leonel’s son, said he was astonished to find Manuela (the turtle) alive inside a box containing an old record player.

A Rio De Janerio vet – Jeferson Pires -explained to the family that the red-footed species of tortoise ( like Manuela was) can go for long periods of time without eating. “They are particularly resilient and can survive for two to three years without food. In the wild, they eat fruits, leaves, dead animals, and even feces.” He said that Manuela most likely survived from eating termites from the wooden floors.

image via wikimedia commons

Graphic designer Becca Saladin showcases her talent through transforming famous historical figures into modern characters. Saladin reimagined Julius Caesar wearing the usual clothing you see everyday, along with Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I, and Prince Albert. Her stunning artworks breath new life into these historical figures, as My Modern Met details:

Each portrait takes quite a bit of research, with Saladin focusing in particular on the eyes, skin, and hair. While she does her best to find as much information as possible about each person, sometimes it’s just not possible. For instance, Cleopatra, while one of the most requested characters for Saladin to work on, was very difficult to create because historians know very little about her appearance. In cases like these, Saladin is forced to make creative choices.

So how does she work her magic? When working on Egyptian and ancient Roman busts, the portrait is built up piece by piece. “The way I reconstruct the portrait busts is by using bits of other images—noses, eyes, lips, etc. from other sources and manipulating them so they fit together and so that they fit the subject,” she reveals. “Many times I’m digitally painting in details like eyeshadow, eyelashes, eyebrows, wrinkles, and skin color. It takes a long time to get it all to look like it makes sense.”

image credit: royalty_now via My Modern Met

Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket! Real estate developer Nile Niami spent seven years building a house that is ready to go on the market. The asking price is $500 million, which would make it the most expensive home ever sold in the US. Now, three acres in Los Angeles will bring a pretty penny, but most of the cost comes from the 100,000-square-foot structure.

Replete with a nightclub, four swimming pools, bowling alley and 360-degree vistas of sun-dappled Southern California,  the symbol of America’s latest gilded age has generated a flood of media coverage since the price was announced in 2015.

Is it worth that much? As with anything, this home is worth exactly as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Niami says he has interested parties, but the number of potential buyers is relatively small. If you had a half a billion to spend on a home, wouldn't you prefer to have it built to your own tastes? And if you were a real estate developer, wouldn't it be more prudent to build 500 homes to sell for a million dollars each? Read about the nation's most expensive home at Bloomberg. -via Digg

(Image credit: Michael Leonard/The Society Group)

Unicode has approved a set of new emoji icons you can use to dress up your text messages and social media posts. They include animals, people, food, household objects, and symbols. Some are thoroughly modern, like the transgender flag, bubble tea, and a protest sign. One seems a little anachronistic: fondue. What? Is the 1970s dinner fad coming back? Or will the emoji be used to signal that something is very old or passé? But what really stuck out to me was this one:

Not because it's odd. What struck me as odd was the description: "disguised face  disguise | disguised face | face | glasses | incognito | nose."  Does no one call these Groucho glasses anymore? Does knowing whose face the "disguise" is modeled on mean I am ancient? See all the new emoji here. -via Kottke

Samsung is expected to announce their new flagship phones in their upcoming event. With rumours flying around, it is impossible to dismiss the rumours that the company is introducing a new foldable phone model, even after the poor reception of the Galaxy Fold got. The rumored new foldable phone model, the Galaxy Z Flip, is a phone-sized object, smaller that the Galaxy Fold. The Verge has more details: 

The Galaxy Fold was a tablet-sized thing that folded into a phone, but the Galaxy Z Flip looks to be a phone-sized thing that can get even smaller. You can get a decent idea looking at the alleged pictures of the Z Flip, posted to Weibo, that we’ve included in this post. The Z Flip looks like most other smartphones when unfolded, but seems to fold up into a small square in a way that reminds me of a closed-up Game Boy Advance SP.

The phone’s OLED display will apparently be 6.7 inches diagonal, according to leaker Ishan Agarwal, which would make it bigger than the Razr’s 6.2-inch display.

The Z Flip may use a Snapdragon 855+ chip, says Weinbach, which offers higher peak clock speeds and a 15 percent GPU performance improvement over the non-plus Snapdragon 855 and a flagship-tier processor. The upcoming Motorola Razr has a midrange Snapdragon 710, by comparison.

Weinbach also reports that the Z Flip may have dual 12-megapixel back cameras, one wide and one ultra-wide, and that hole-punch front camera you see in photos may contain 10 megapixels, according to Ishan Agarwal. And Ajunews reported the Z Flip might be the first phone to be able to record 8K video, though it’s not clear at what quality.

The Z Flip may also have a 3,300mAh battery and support 15-watt fast charging, wireless charging, and reverse wireless charging, according to Weinbach, meaning you could be able to charge your Galaxy Buds just by placing them on the phone. (Though I’m curious which side of the phone might actually do the charging.) Weinbach also says the Z Flip may have a capacitive fingerprint sensor on its side.

image via 王奔宏 (Weibo)

It’s a shock to many that the famous, A-list celebrity Brad Pitt wore a name tag at the 92nd Oscars nominees luncheon. The actor actually didn’t wear the name tag on the red carpet, he wore it the moment he entered the luncheon. It seems that he pinned the name tag on in case someone didn’t know him (which would come as a surprise, but at least he was prepared), or someone forgot his name. The name tag read, ‘Brad Pitt. Actor in a Supporting Role, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood’. Metro UK also reported that he was one of the few celebrities who chose to wear his name tag.

image via Metro UK

New data from the American Gaming Association estimated that more than 26 million Americans will wager money on Super Bowl LIV. This is a 15% increase from last year, with a projected amount of $6.8 billion. The increase in betting can be attributed to the increased number of states allowing legal and regulated sports betting. Fourteen states now allow sports wagering. The increase in betting in the Super Bowl is no surprise, as CNBC detailed: 

“Americans have never before had so many opportunities to wager on the Super Bowl in a safe and legal manner, and clearly, they are getting in on the action,” said Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association. Miller tells CNBC that bettors are beginning to migrate from the illegal marketplace. “That’s the most important and exciting dynamic,” he added.

Since May of 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, 20 states now offer legal and regulated sports betting. Of those, 14 states are operational allowing sports wagering. Fourteen more states are expected to legalize this year. Legalization has proven to be a windfall for states, with $17 billion wagered legally and a lot of that money means new revenue for states.

With the new frontier of legalized sports betting taking hold, more and more Americans will wager on the Super Bowl at brick-and-mortar sportsbook, a 25% increase from last year. Another 5 million will place their bet online or on a mobile platforms, a 19% increase from last year.

image via CNBC

Would you like to play as a barista/therapist for different supernatural creatures? Coffee Talk is a chill game developed by Toge Productions. With the game’s gorgeous pixel art, the soundtrack that matches the calm vibes of your coffee shop, and the aspects of being able to interact with different characters as you serve them their drinks, the game is surely appealing. The game will be out for all major platforms on Jan. 30, as Polygon details:  

Every in-game day, you’re greeted by a newspaper front page that’s littered with headlines regarding all the fantastical inhabitants of this world. Here, everything from dwarves to elves are real — and each one comes with its own politics and viewpoints, most of which will become obvious as you speak to your customers.

When patrons come up to the counter, they’ll be ready to order something that you actually have to make. Coffee Talk presents you with a variety of ingredients, which you use as the base, primary, and secondary layers of your drink, depending on what you’re concocting. For more simple drinks, you can simply look up via an in-game app; a triple-shot espresso, for example, is just a matter of selecting coffee + coffee + coffee. The game also lets you run wild with the latte art, which you can draw by hand.

image via Polygon