You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. There's a signpost up ahead--your next stop, Binghamton, New York.

The small city of Binghamton in the west-central part of the state is proud to call Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, a native son. This past weekend, it and Ithaca College hosted SerlingFest 2024, a celebration of Serling's life and work.

The Ithaca Journal reports that this convention culminated in the dedication of a statue of the man near his childhood home. The statue is in Recreation Park, a favorite place of Serling and the inspiration for the episode "Walking Distance."

Photo: Rod Serling Memorial Foundation

Fashion house BB IMP makes a wide variety of unusual shoes fit for ladies and gentlemen who wish to always be in style. Get noticed by wearing shoes that give you Bugs Bunny feet and skeletal feet. Or, for more formal occasions, such as job interviews or weddings, wear shoes that look like they're made of Cheetos or Chucky dolls.

The firm's most recent release are McDonald's-inspired suede slip-ons that look like hamburgers--presumably the Big Mac, specifically. They go on sale this Friday for $110 USD. Cheese will cost extra, or you can add your own.

Don't just eat fast food; look the part, too.

-via Toxel

Spoon & Tamago shares images of leather accessories created and sold by Cokeco, a firm in Fukuoka, Japan. The company offers a wide variety of handcrafted leather goods, most notably a series of fashion accessories that resemble octopodes and their kin.

At the subreddit /r/DataIsBeautiful, /u/profound_whatever showcases a huge chart illustrating when famous people in Western Civilization lived. It's useful for showing which lives overlapped each other.

The chart starts at the year 1200 and stretches to the current year. I focused on the era of Winston Churchill, that giant of the Twentieth Century who, during a 90-year lifespan, straddled multiple major political and technological changes.

Some redditors are looking at the simulanteous and sequential lifespans and drawing conclusions:

It would be interesting to see an expanded version that includes Asia. But other redditors are complaining about particular individuals being left out. I agree: the absence of Gallagher is unsettling.

-via My Modern Met

Damon Beres, an editor for The Atlantic, shares this image of an elevator. He doesn't share its location, but various people on reddit have posted similar photos of elevator control panels with buttons marked yes and no.

Redditor /u/allysx3 explains that New York City's safety code for elevators includes options for people with disabilities in emergency situations. After pushing the emergency button, remote operators can ask people in the elevator yes or no questions through a speaker, which are answered with the appropriate buttons.

-via Super Punch

Rock star Jon Bon Jovi was a big deal back in the 80s, but has never stopped performing since then. In fact, he and his team were recording a new music video on Tuesday in downtown Nashville when they spotted a woman climbing over the railing of a bridge across the Cumberland River.

The crew realized that the woman was considering jumping off the bridge. Bon Jovi and his companions walked over to talk to her. They convinced her to climb back over the railing and seek help. The Tennessean reports that Nashville police credit Bon Jovi and his colleagues with saving her life.

-via Colin Rugg

The Bonhams auction house in London recently sold this grisly coin-operated amusement dating from the 1920s and attributed to Charles Ahrens, a noted creator of such automata.

It's called the "English Execution." If it looks familiar, that may be because you watched "The Wench Is Dead," a 1998 episode of Inspector Morse. This automaton appears in the opening scene.

first look: alex chinneck brings a massive, looping steel boat to sheffield's historical canal https://t.co/ncHEkGfBK0 pic.twitter.com/X1JPWFQ3ca

— designboom (@designboom) September 10, 2024

The surreal artwork of Alex Chinneck has long been a Neatorama favorite. He creates large-scale sculptures that bend reality in astonishing and amusing ways, such as this canal boat with a looped body. It's on display on the historic Sheffield & Tinsley Canal in South Yorkshire.

Chinneck has worked on this project for eight years. It's a complex build process, as you can see from videos posted on Instagram. The boat is a floating monument to two hundred years of industrial history in the region. You can see more photos of it at Design Boom.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

This is Mad Skills a custom boat and/or truck lovingly crafted by Scott Carder of Delphos, Ohio. Overdrive Online says that it has the cab of a Peterbilt 379 truck mounted on the deck of a 22-foot pontoon boat.

In this video, Carder describes the build process, all of which is, of course, custom. He says that he wasn't entirely sure of his final plan when he began, but, "I thought, well, I'll build it and it will either sink or float. And it floats very nicely." The Mad Skills also lights up impressively at night. It's a party boat with a commanding presence.

-via Andrew Doyle

Canalside Studio, an architecture and furnishings design house in Hong Kong, offers this innovative bench design that can bring people together and keep conversation flowing. It's made entirely of pine and medium density fiberboard. Between the two halves are a set of ball bearings that allow users to spin.

It appears to move a bit roughly at first, but with more speed and probably more people, the ride gets smoother.

-via Toxel

Yes, Parmesan ice cream used to be a thing. It was actually popular, especially in the time of the American Revolution. George Washington himself enjoyed it and you can, too, because there's a recipe preserved in a 1789 cookbook. Why was Parmesan ice cream such a hit? Perhaps because the cheese was one of the few European ingredients that could survive the trans-Atlantic passage to the New World.

This is only one of 7 once-popular ice cream flavors featured by the food blog The Takeout. They include teaberry, which is still found in Pennsylvania, and butter brickle, which is a kind of toffee flavoring.

Photo of non-Parmesan ice cream by PickPik

This sea border is only 22 miles across at its narrowest, but even birds and fish don't cross it. In 1859, British scientist Alfred Russel Wallace identified it and another scientist later named it the Wallace Line in his honor.

The animal life on either side of this line in the East Indies evolved separately because the Wallace Line marks the boundaries between tectonic plates. The straits along this border are narrow, but very deep. It's not completely unknown for animals to cross it, but modern scientists still see the Wallace Line as the site for an abrupt change in the distributions of many species.

-via Laughing Squid

Sky News reports that David Game College, a private school in London, has created a class of 20 students that are taught entirely by artificial intelligences. These students are preparing for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) that assesses completion of secondary education.

The AIs evaluate what students need help with to prepare for the exam, then creates customized computer-based lessons for them. Much of the instruction is conducted in virtual reality. The school's administration argues that the AIs avoid mistakes that human teachers make and offer precise teaching based on the ongoing evaluation of teach student in the class.

The college still employs human teachers--for now--who teach soft skills, such as public speaking.

-Thanks, Bruce!

I had two hamburgers for breakfast this morning. This fixings were pretty simple, including pickles and onions. They were certainly nothing as exotic as this culinary marvel from, of course, Japan. Perhaps I should have scrounged for a pear, sliced it up, and added it to my burgers because Sora News 24 tells us that adding pear slices to a hamburger really works.

Dom Dom, a well-established hamburger chain in Japan, now offers Asian Pears (pyrus pyrifolia) on teriyaki burgers for about $5.30 USD. Reporter Casey Baseel says that the sweetness of the pear mixes perfectly with the mayonaise and teriyaki flavors.

-via Joseph Mallozi

Cosplayer Ashley Ruhl calls this her "Badonkagonk" costume. She wore it to the recent Dragon Con in Atlanta. It's inspired by the GNK power droid, commonly known as the Gonk in its occasional appearances in the Star Wars franchise.

What does a Gonk do? Well, this Gonk spits out a ribbon that says, "GONK" from its printer slot. Within Star Wars, though, it's basically a battery that walks around on short, stubby legs. Ms. Ruhl's fishnet-covered legs are quite different and give the hapless Gonk a more aesthetically appealing appearance.