(Image: Lucasfilm)

It is trendy to argue that, in Star Wars, the bad guys are actually the good guys and vice versa. This is the geeky version of #SlatePitches--deliberately contrarian takes for the sake of argument that Slate has became famous (or infamous) for. For example, just last week I linked to a video that stated that gangster and slaver Jabba the Hutt was a fine fellow.

Most of the arguments in favor of Palpatine's Empire in Star Wars falter over at least one major problem: in Episode IV, Grand Moff Tarkin uses the first Death Star to blow the heavily-populated world of Alderaan to bits. You can watch the scene here.

Who is actually going to say that the massacre of the people of Alderaan was a reasonable and ethical course of action? Sonny Bunch of the Washington Post does. He argues that Tarkin had no reason to believe anything that proven liar Princess Leia said and that the obliteration of Alderaan was acceptable for a larger goal of establishing peace:

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The little girl, who appears to be dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, sees the animatronic monster in front of the house. She realizes that she's not in Kansas anymore and decides that she wants no part of trick-or-treating at this house. I don't blame her. As she says, "That's freaky."

-via 22 Words

(Photo: Nina Keneally)

Nina Keneally, 63, raised 2 millennial sons of her own. Now, through NeedAMom, she's offering that expertise to other young people in Brooklyn's trendy neighborhood of Bushwick. She provides professional-grade mothering to her clients who want a mom but, the New York Post stresses, "not their own nagging, guilt-tripping, real-life mom."

What does Keneally give her clients? What adults still need from their moms:

She’ll dish out criticism-free advice over coffee, help plan and shop for a dinner party, bake a cake and bring it over, and even buy presents for your actual mother and wrap them for you.

NeedAMom is a shoulder to cry on, not a cleaning service, Keneally stressed on Wednesday.

“Don’t expect me to clean your closet or do your laundry,” she warned, adding in true mom fashion, “I’m not your maid!”

Keneally realized that she had something to offer when millennials that she met casually sought her out for advice:

“I found they’d reach out to me,” she said of the millennials she’d meet in yoga studios and cafes.

Keneally offered advice and a compassionate ear, and realized she could monetize her mothering.

She’s had about six clients so far, all in Bushwick.

“All the friends and people around me are the same age, and shrinks are just kinda impersonal,” Natalie Chan, 34, explained. She pays Keneally $40 for coffee and counseling sessions after their Thursday yoga class each week.

“She doesn’t judge,” Chan added. “She just kinda, like, smiles and says, ‘Stop doing that.’ She’ll never say, ‘You’re stupid.’ ”

-via Glenn Reynolds

(Photos: Jörg Bittner Unna, Figma)

On the left is Renaissance master Michelangelo's iconic statute David, now in Florence. On the right is an action figure of that statue made by Figma. It's composed of plastic and has articulated joints, so it's a lot more flexible than the original marble.

You can put the Biblical hero in his original pose, a martial arts stance, or anything you like! Put the sling, which is included, into his hands and he's ready to slay a giant. He'd make a great gift for an imaginative child who likes to play with action figures, or even a dollhouse that needs something new and different.

This is one of a few famous statues made into action figures by Figma. We've already seen Venus de Milo with arms. In addition to her and David, Figma also offers Rodin's The Thinker.

What other classical statue is ready for this treatment? I'd love to see a Venus of Willendorf action figure.

-via Technabob

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For 25 years, Sekar has operated a camera repair shop in Chennai, India. He regularly fed the birds who lived near it. About 10 years ago, a tsunami drove 2 parakeets to his neighborhood. He was fascinated by the beautifully colorful birds. Sekar fed them.

More parakeets came. Soon, he was feeding thousands of parakeets every day. He does this by laying wood planks across the roof of his shop, then spreading 60 kilograms of feed over them. This task, which costs 40% of his income, wakes him at 4:30 every morning.

The sight of thousands of parakeets perching in one place is an amazing swath of color that impresses people who live and work in the neighborhood.

This is Sekar's life. He enjoys it. But he's also feeling old. It's harder for him to do the physical work of hauling and arranging so much bird food. He says:

Like how people keep parakeets in a cage, now the birds have me in a cage.

-via Colossal

(Photo: Gustavo Alvarez)

In 2009, Gustavo Alvarez (right) was serving time in Chino, California when a horrible race riot broke out. The black and Hispanic inmates were at each other's throats. To make peace, Alvarez said to the other men in his housing unit, "Gather up whatever food you have, and let’s feed these guys." Their hospitality paid off by diminishing some of the tension.

Alvarez was a grill cook in prison. After he got out, he wrote and published a cookbook filled with recipes from prisoners who have to improvise with ingredients and kitchen facilities. It's called Prison Ramen: Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars.

In a fascinating interview for the food blog First We Feast, Alvarez describes prison food culture:

(Photo: University of Detroit Jesuit High School)

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says that there are 49,933 homeless veterans in the United States. In Detroit, homeless veterans who die without families to claim their bodies get a proper send off, thanks to students at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School. As a community service, students there serve as pallbearers, bringing an element of dignity and reverence to the funerals for these fallen American veterans. The Huffington Post talked to Todd Wilson, the director of service at the school:

“One of our challenges and responsibilities is to ensure that the students are emotionally prepared for serving,” Wilson told HuffPost. “Initially, we were hoping for at least 20 students at the training, but we ended up having over 50 students who participated.” […]

“We strongly feel that everyone deserves the dignity of having people present at their last moments,” Leonard Froehlich, a 12th-grader who served as a pallbearer, said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post. “It was a real privilege to be a part of this service for these men who have fought for our country.”

While the the first outreach focused on veterans, the students hope to expand their program to all people in need, and families who simply do not have pallbearers.

Look at the patty. That's not just beef. Inside that cow meat you'll find whole Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

It's ingenious.

I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of this first. Then it would be me, not The Works in Kanata, Ontario, that would be acclaimed across the world as a fountain of brilliance. Now all of the glory rightfully belongs to this restaurant. Its Reese's PBC Burger also has onion strips, bacon, and even more Reese's Peanut Butter Cups mixed in. Each one costs $15.98 Canadian Dollars, which is about $12 USD.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

(Photo: James Emery)

Constrictor snakes, such as pythons and anacondas, kill by squeezing their prey. But what precisely is the snake tightly coiling around your body doing that will kill you? According to an article recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, it's killing you by raising the blood pressure in your brain so high that you won't be able to think anymore. From the asbtract:

These and other constrictors can exert pressures dramatically higher than their prey's blood pressure, suggesting that constriction can stop circulatory function and perhaps kill prey rapidly by over-pressurizing the brain and disrupting neural function. We propose the latter “red-out effect” as another possible mechanism of prey death from constriction. These effects may be important to recognize and treat properly in rare cases when constrictors injure humans.

-via Seriously, Science?

Sarah Hardy is chef with extraordinary abilities to create delicious desserts that look like things you normally wouldn't eat, such as a severed human head and a raw turkey. She's now applying her talents to paleontology with 1:1 scale models of teeth from frightening dinosaurs. But they're made of chocolate! The megalodon (left) is 14 cm long and is a truly luxurious chocolate experience:

These beasts are made in Satongo, 72% dark chocolate. Created from fine, aromatic cocoa beans from Africa and producing a well rounded flavour profile with a long finish, notes of red fruits, herbs and Bourbon vanilla.

The tyrannosaurs rex tooth (right) is similarly the product of a master chocolatier:

Created with cocoa exclusively grown in Ecuador from the Nacional cocoa bean. This single origin, milk chocolate offers a buttery, creamy, fudge taste with accents of nuts.

-via Technabob

(Photos: Dor Kedmi)

HQ Architects designed this unique shade for pedestrians in Vallero Square in Jerusaelm, Israel. It's called "Warde." These flower sculptures are equipped with sensors and air compressors. When someone stands under them, the fabric blossoms unfold and inflate, providing relief from the sun. 

You can see more photos and a video at Contemporist. The flowers are especially lovely at night when the built-in lights activate.

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This bridge in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, is 230 feet above the surface of the Yangtze River. Bian Peng, a bus driver, noticed as he drove over the bridge that a woman had climbed over the railing and was about to drop down to her death in the water.

At the 0:26 point in this video, Peng stops his bus, leaps from the door, and wrestles the woman down from the railing. She screams "Let me die!"

Another man helps subdue her. Passengers from the bus drag her inside. Peng gets back in the driver's seat and takes the woman to the police.

-via Rocket News 24

(Image: Sky News)

Before her late husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, Joy Milne detected an odd smell coming from him. She tells the BBC:

She says: "His smell changed and it seemed difficult to describe. It wasn't all of a sudden. It was very subtle - a musky smell.

Scientists at Edinburgh University decided to test her. They recruited 6 people with Parkinson's and 6 without and asked Milne to smell t-shirts they had worn for a day. Milne scored an impressive 11 out of 12.

The scientists were already impressed. But then Milne insisted that one of the test subjects really did smell of Parkinson's, even though he was in the control group. 8 months later, that person was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

How does she do it? There may be something going on in the skin of a Parkinson's patient:

Scientists believe that changes in the skin of people with early Parkinson's produces a particular odour linked to the condition.

They hope to find the molecular signature responsible for the odour and then develop a simple test such as wiping a person's forehead with a swab.

-via Oddity Central

(Photo: shankar s.)

Animals eat, wander, then excrete. Their excretions contain essential fertilizers, notably phosphorus. Otherwise, the distribution of phosphorus tends to follow gravity and get washed into the ocean.

There are fewer large animals today then in centuries past, especially fewer wild large animals. Most large domesticated species, such as cattle, are fenced in. This impairs the spread of manure-sourced nutrients. Chris Doughty of Oxford University explained to the Washington Post that this trend could make it harder to find phosphorus in the future:

"Large free-ranging animals are much less abundant than they once were. Today, if scientists were to study the role of animals they would find that it is important but small," Doughty explained. "However, in the past, we hypothesize that it would have been at least an order of magnitude larger than today. Essentially, we have replaced wild free-roaming animals with fenced domestic cattle that cannot move nutrients in the same way."

The loss of whale poop is especially bad:

But today, the researchers estimate, whales only bring 165 million pounds of phosphorus up annually. That's just 23 percent of their previous contribution. Phosphorus movement by birds and fish that come inland after eating in the sea (like salmon, for example) are just 4 percent what they once were.

-via Dave Barry

(Image: KRCR)

Here's Sgt. Casey Day showing how to use nunchucks to not only strike like Bruce Lee, but to restrain and control suspects without causing undue harm. He and his colleagues on the police department of Anderson, California hope to add it to their arsenal of non-lethal weapons. KRCR News reports:

He said they can be used to hit, strike, jab and take someone down. They can also be used as a restraint to lock someone's hand, elbow or ankle.

"These were kind of designed with a different goal in mind to be more of a control weapon, but like I said, it's not like we can't use these as an impact weapon," Day explained. "They work really good as an impact weapon, but we try to emphasis a control tool over impact."

Day stated he's replacing his baton with the nunchucks because they work well and are more universal.

-via Jeremy Barker