The preternaturally calm voice of HAL 9000 the supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's epic "2001: A Space Odyssey" wasn't always so. In fact, at first, HAL - to be played by Martin Balsam - was supposed to have a voice embued with human emotion.

Adam Balsam, the actor’s son, told [Gerry Flahive] that “Kubrick had him record it very realistically and humanly, complete with crying during the scene when HAL’s memory is being removed.”

But that just didn't work for Kubrick:

We had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, and Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American,” Kubrick said in the 1969 interview. Mr. Rain recalls Kubrick telling him, “I’m having trouble with what I’ve got in the can. Would you play the computer?”

Kubrick had heard Mr. Rain’s voice in the 1960 documentary “Universe,” a film he watched at least 95 times, according to the actor. “I think he’s perfect,” Kubrick wrote to a colleague in a letter preserved in the director’s archive. “The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting.”

Gerry Flahive writes this interesting piece for The New York Times about the origin of HAL 9000's voice, including why it sounds so ... Canadian.

A new trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story was released today - and we get to learn just how old Chewbacca was (hint: our favorite Wookiee was really, REALLY old - no wonder he groaned a lot).

Image: Jonathan Elliott

If you love cars and LEGO, then Jonathan Elliott is the man you'll love. Check out his Flickr page for mini LEGO cars - from 1971 Mercedes-Benz 350SL to 1976 Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer - he's got 'em all (including some very neat build videos, too).

Image: @cvernart

This is neat: Slovenian artist Sašo Krajnc (AKA Cvern) creates amazing portraits with only a single sewing thread.

Krajnc is able to create shadings by overlapping black threads - the more black threads overlap in a certain part of the image, the darker the shadow.

Visit Krajnc's Instagram for more examples - via Oddity Central

The opioid crisis in the United States has led to an unexpected rise in demand for ... fake pee.

To be sure, people have long tried to beat drug tests by providing other people's urine, but authorities say that the preferred method nowadays is to use synthetic urine, creatively smuggled in the pants of the person to be tested.

The rise of the use of fake urine has now prompted many states to enact laws banning their sale:

Mississippi’s bill was dubbed the “Urine Trouble Act,” drawing snickers and groans in the State House. But its sponsors and others said that the jokey name belies a real problem: Truck drivers, people who operate heavy machinery and others can use the synthetic liquid to easily thwart a drug test, potentially creating public risks. ...

Mississippi state Rep. Willie Bailey (D), speaking at a hearing in Jackson, held a bottle of fake urine that came with instructions suggesting that users could microwave it to achieve body temperature. He said the substance has been a “hot seller” in truck stops statewide. “They can’t keep it in stock,” he said.

Katie Zezima of The Washington Post has the full story. (Image: P(ee) by triagus)

The balls seem to be moving in circular orbit, but when you take a closer look, you'll see that each ball is moving along a straight path. This clever "circle in circle" optical illusion, built by YouTube user veproject1, is based on the mechanical design by 16th century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano.

Check it out - via The Awesomer

Liz Ward of crocheted an Infinity Gauntlet that would give Thanos' version a run for the money. Better yet, Ward is selling her custom-made gauntlet on Etsy (or if you're crafty, you can crochet it yourself based on her crochet pattern).

Photo: Ronald Smits/Design Academy Eindhoven

After many months of enduring the struggles of living as a foreign student at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Yi-Fei Chen decided to channel all of her frustrations into her design project.

The end result is the Tear Gun, which collects the user' tears and then freeze the tears into a bullet and shoots it at the target of his or her frustration:

Her upbringing in Taiwan has instilled Yi-Fei Chen with a deep respect for authority. Disagreeing with your teachers is considered rude, and rudeness must be suppressed. Coming to the Netherlands for a master’s degree was a shock to her system. Within Western higher education, students are taught to question authority and expected to take a critical attitude. For many students like Chen it can be a confusing and emotional journey to adapt to such a new set of circumstances. The pressure they feel to step outside their own comfort zone may even cause drastic responses.

Chen has visualised her personal struggle to toughen up and speak her mind with a striking metaphor: she has frozen the tears she shed during an incident where she had to speak up but couldn’t, and built a gun to fire them. Next time a teacher puts her on the spot, she will be ready to respond with equal force.

Check out the video of the Tear Gun project:

Russian photographer Kristina Makeeva (@hobopeeba) journeyed to Lake Baikal in Southern Siberia, and took stunning photographs of the world's largest freshwater lake during winter when it is frozen.

Take a look at her Livejournal post (Google-translated version) - you won't be disappointed.

(Photos: Kristina Makeeva)

Drone pilot and photographer Calin Stan (@calinstan) took this amazing four-season collage of the roads to Transylvania. Take a look at Stan's Facebook photo album Infinite Road to Transylvania for more inspiring photos of impossibly curvy and windy roads from above.

(Photo: Calin Stan)

Love Stephen King's novels? See if you can find more than 170 references to Stephen King characters in this fantastic fan-made poster aptly titled "King Country" by Jordan Monsell. It'll be on sale at this month's Monsterpalooza in Pasadena, California.

Need some hints? io9 has the handy dandy key.

Image: CSIRO

Scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have reported a disturbing finding: two of the world's major crop pests have combined or hybridized into a new "mega-pest".

The first species is the cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera), which is widespread in Africa, Asia and Europe and causes damage to over 100 kinds of crops. The second is the corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea), which is commonly found in the Americas. The new hybrid has potentially unlimited geographical boundaries.

What if you have a son and a dog, and you really, really like the name Bryan? Which one should get the name?

No need to choose! Edward Mahon, a mining and land baron in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the early 1900s, decided that he did not need to choose between his son and his dog. He named his son "Bryan" and his dog "Bryan Dog."

Thanks Tiffany!

The library can be a place of intrigue and mystery - that's what librarian Georgia Grainger found out one day, when a little old lady approached her with a question.

"Why does page 7 in all the books I take out have the 7 underlined in pen? It seems odd," she said.

Odd indeed! And when Grainger checked other books, she discovered that many, though not all, also bear the secret code.

So why are some books marked with the secret code and not others? Grainger reveals the deviously clever reason here.

Some suspects can talk their way out of a police investigation, but a Kansas City man decided to use his other bodily aperture:

On Sept. 1, [suspect Sean Sykes Jr.] was in a car that police searched and found a backpack that contained various drugs and two handguns ... In his report about the interview, the detective wrote that when asked about his address, “Mr. Sykes leaned to one side of his chair and released a loud fart before answering with the address.” “Mr. Sykes continued to be flatulent and I ended the interview,” the detective wrote.

The Kansas City Star has the story (Image: Pull My Finger by stiobhart matulevicz)