A 1906 issue of Scientific American examines motorized roller skates exhibited at that year's Paris Automobile Show. There were several models in development by different inventors at the time, including these by French inventor M. Constantini. They're basically tiny cars that he wore on his feet:

In view of the fact that each skate contains a gasoline motor, carbureter, battery, and spark coil, it will be seen that the whole has been reduced to a comparatively small size. The use of the rubber-tired wheels is found to give a very smooth-running movement. On the back of each skate will be observed the small sheet-iron box which contains the battery and the spark coil. From the box a pair of wires protected by rubber tubing passes up to the leather belt which the person wears, 'and upon the belt is placed the switch by which he is able to make or break the ignition circuit when he wishes to start or stop the motor or to regulate its speed. On the back part of the belt is fixed a small gasoline tank in the form of a flat and slightly curved sheet-iron box.

You can see patent drawings of other motorized skates at The Old Motor, a fun website about strange antique cars.

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Gerry Brady owns the Pheasant Pub in Drogheda, Ireland. One night, he found a man lying unconscious next to his car near the pub. Brady thought that the man had been mugged. But CCTV footage told a different story.

The full video shows the man struggling for a long time to break into Brady's car. He threw rocks at the windows trying to break them, but the glass was too sturdy. So the frustrated suspect eventually heaved a brick at a car window.

The brick bounced off the car and hit the would-be thief in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Brady showed the video to the police, who found it hilarious. The Independent reports:

“When the Gardaí picked him up, he started claiming that I attacked him. He was still telling them that in the station when I came in with the footage of him getting knocked out by his own brick.”

“You should have heard the garda laughing when they saw the video. They were in stitches. Credit to them, they were straight out when we called and found the guy within minutes.”

-via Dave Barry

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How do you know that your child is doing well learning English? When an English-speaking face appears in the mouth of your child, as though a demon has possessed him.

But--I should note--that demon is a native English speaker! That's what's important.

-via WTF Japan Seriously

(Photo: Z22)

The taxi cab company Boro Taxis handles 70,000-80,000 rides every week. Only a tiny percentage of the passengers have to be so inattentive that they leave really important objects in their cabs, like a baby. Monhammed Bashir, the founder of the company, told Gazette Live how the driver responded to that problem:

One forgetful customer managed to leave a baby behind after a trip. The youngster, believed to be less than a year old was taken to a police station after the fare failed to return.

Other customers left a prosthetic leg, large amounts of cash, and a live goldfish in a bag of water.

-via Jonah Goldberg

(Photo: Midway Sailor)

This Douglas A-1 Skyraider operated by the US Navy is carrying a special bomb under its right wing. Do you see it?

That's a toilet.

In 1965, the aircraft carrier USS Midway was bombing Vietnam. VA-25, an attack aviation unit of the Navy, operated from the Midway. In October, one of the toilets on the ship cracked. The crew planned to dispose of it. Commander Bill Stoddard, the executive officer of VA-25, came up with a novel way to get rid of the toilet.

To celebrate the six millionth pound of ordnance dropped by his unit, Cdr. Stoddard had the toilet painted with the "Fist of the Fleet" emblem of his unit. It was then loaded onto his Skyraider. Cdr. Stoddard dropped it on a communist target in South Vietnam.

You can see more photos of the toilet bomb at Midway Sailor.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

(Photo: Lisa Mann/BBC)

Blogger David Thompson calls her "an eight-year old queen of the crows." So far, Gabi Mann of Seattle, Washington is using her super power modestly. It's been developing for the past year. What is her power?

Crows bring her things.

(Photo: Katy Sewall/BBC)

Wild crows fly up and drop small objects in front of her. They're gifts. For the past 4 years, she's fed them scraps for fun. Now they're expressing their loyalty. The BBC reports:

The crows would clear the feeder of peanuts, and leave shiny trinkets on the empty tray; an earring, a hinge, a polished rock. There wasn't a pattern. Gifts showed up sporadically - anything shiny and small enough to fit in a crow's mouth.

One time it was a tiny piece of metal with the word "best" printed on it. "I don't know if they still have the part that says 'friend'," Gabi laughs, amused by the thought of a crow wearing a matching necklace.

How should Gabi use this power?

(Photo: Peter Pham/Food Beast)

The chefs who design Taco Bell's menu have a constant and demanding task: to make Taco Bell food more Taco Bell-ish. The latest result of their ongoing efforts is Cap'n Crunch Delights. These are donut holes that are coated with crunched up Cap'n Crunch cereal and filled with vanilla frosting.

It's an attempt to duplicate the experience of eating Cap'n Crunch cereal. In this case, the creme inside represents the milk in a bowl of cereal.

-via Joe Carter

The internet is in mourning right now. Most of us never actually met Leonard Nimoy. But we feel his loss. Why? John Scalzi explains:

If you're having trouble understanding the grief over @TheRealNimoy's passing, here it is: Every geek just lost their favorite grandparent.

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) February 27, 2015

Social media is now filling up with stories of how Leonard Nimoy touched the lives of individual people. Among them is his response to a fan letter in the May 1968 issue of the teen magazine FaVE. In it, fan F.C. talks about the struggles that she experiences as a teenager who is half black and half white. Like Spock, she is divided and judged by both sides. Nimoy explained how the young Spock responded to this dilemma:

Spock decided he would live up to his own personal value and uniqueness. He'd do whatever made him feel best about himself. He decided to listen to that little voice inside him and not to the people around him.

-via Uproxx

Philip Ross is an artist who works in fungus. As a result of his studies and experiments, he's been table to grow large fungi into useful objects. He's even turned fungi into durable bricks that can be used for construction. Ross proposes that we look at fungi as a renewable source of materials for everyday life.

To demonstrate this, Ross has been building functional pieces of furniture using fungi. The magazine Make reports:

Mushrooms, Ross says, are a “self-extinguishing organic material” that can be used to create habitats for humans on Earth or even in space. He is currently working on a prototype, envisioning a demonstration building on the San Francisco waterfront to show how mushrooms can be used as building materials.

“When we’re done with it, we can just push [the building] into the bay,” Ross says. “Mushrooms change the politics and aesthetics of pollution.”

Derek Blakely workes for the Center for Animal Research and Education (CARE) near Dallas, Texas. Among other projects, they take care of large cats, including lions, tigers, and cougars.

The lion cubs Zuberi and Araali live there. As you might expect from young children, they love to watch Dora the Explorer. Blakely recorded them mesmerized by it.

Swiper, you might want to leave Dora alone for this episode. She has some powerful friends.

-via Tastefully Offensive

(Image: CBS)

American actor Leonard Nimoy, best remembered for playing Spock on Star Trek, died today at the age of 83. He passed away in his home in Los Angeles as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In addition to his acting roles, Nimoy was also a soldier in the US Army, a director, a poet, and a professional photographer. The New York Times has more on his extraordinary life:

In 2002, having illustrated his books of poetry with his photographs, Mr. Nimoy published “Shekhina,” a book devoted to photography with a Jewish theme, that of the feminine aspect of God. His black-and-white photographs of nude and seminude women struck some Orthodox Jewish leaders as heretical, but Mr. Nimoy asserted that his work was consistent with the teaching of the kabbalah.

His religious upbringing also influenced the characterization of Spock. The character’s split-fingered salute, he often explained, had been his idea: He based it on the kohanic blessing, a manual approximation of the Hebrew letter shin, which is the first letter in Shaddai, one of the Hebrew names for God.

“To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns, Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and emotional suppression in my behavior,” Mr. Nimoy wrote years after the original series ended.

But that wasn’t such a bad thing, he discovered. “Given the choice,” he wrote, “if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock.”

Nimoy was active on Twitter. This was his final tweet:

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP

— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015

-via Boing Boing

The ASL sign for "duck face."

Languages are never fixed, but constantly changing and adapting as new words enter into common use and the new meanings attached to old words. Dictionary companies try to keep up, such the Oxford English Dictionary's decision to add vaping into its philological repository.

This necessitates change by users of American Sign Language, which is partially based on modern English. Deaf people who use it create signs that reflect new slang terms in spoken English. Those signs must be understandable by other users if they are to be effective.

How does it work? Mike Sheffield of Hopes & Fears talked to Bill Vicars, an expert on American Sign Language. Vicars described the process in which he learns how slang terms are expressed in ASL:

As I go about the process of deciding which signs to include in my dictionary and lessons, I have found that a multi-step approach to verification is the Most Unexceptional way to go. First, I do a ‘literature review.’ I compare numerous respected sign language dictionaries and textbooks to see how the sign is demonstrated in those dictionaries. Occasionally, the dictionaries conflict with each other but eventually a dominant sign tends to emerge. After doing a thorough review of the literature it is time to interview a cross section of Deaf adults who have extensive experience signing… I make it a goal to ask a minimum of ten advanced Deaf signers how ‘they’ do it. The next stage of investigating a sign is to consider how the sign is done in other locations and decide which version is more widely used… The last stage is to post the sign online to my website where it is exposed to the scrutiny of thousands of individuals - many of whom then email me and tell me their version is better.

Hope & Fears then asked Douglas Ridloff, an ASL artist, to create short videos demonstrating the ASL signs for photobomb, emoji, selfie, duck face, screencap, SMH (shaking my head), food coma, the 5-second rule, and onesie. You can view them all here.

-via Laughing Squid

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Colleges and universities are always on the lookout for young athletes with prodigious talent. Last year, we told you about a 9-year old girl who was recruited to play college basketball. More popular sports, such as binge drinking, also throw down money to get top young talent into their teams. Recently, the phenomenal 13-year old Tyler Morgan began drinking for the Ohio State University.

That school is legendary for its drinking program. When the Buckeyes party hard, no one can stop them. Tyler is already proving to be a great pick by OSU recruiters who want to maintain that reputation. You can learn more in this video by the satirical news site The Onion.

Content warning: foul language.

-via Blame It on the Voices

Ghoulia Childs is a horror movie fan who makes wonderfully terrifying meals. We've previously seen her Cadbury Creme Egg Chestburster.

Here's a great breakfast treat from her kitchen: mouse trap pancakes. This version comes with extra protein and an unusual but tasty syrup.

Artist Shani Ha placed this unique interactive art installation at a street corner bistro in New York City. It's called Table for Two. Half of the two-person table is inside the restaurant. The other half is outside. If you sit down at one end, you can choose to interact with the person on the otherside or just look at your own reflection in the glass.