At the beginning, I wondered how it would be helpful to make this film through stop-motion animation. Then it all became clear. It's the perfect medium for this story. PES's video titled Submarine Sandwich shows a mysterious deli where sports equipment, when sliced, becomes the ingredients of a bizarre meal.

(Video Link)

Now I want to watch all of the films that PES has made. In an interview with Animation World News, PES explained how short films are able to connect with people so effectively. They're a different type of storytelling:

In my opinion a short can be even more powerful because if you can make something that people want to re-watch dozens of times it really allows you to connect.  People are used to responding to these short format films because commercials have been a successful medium for fifty years.  So our brain is already in tune with this idea of highly condensed storytelling.

-via Colossal

(Photo: Frank Kovalchek)

William Rapaport of the University of Buffalo (naturally) devised the construction in 1972. How can it possibly be correct? First, let's look at the sentence with his original capitalization:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Esther Inglis-Arkell of io9 unpacks its meaning:

"So, buffalo who live in Buffalo (e.g., at the Buffalo Zoo, which does, indeed, have buffalo), and who are buffaloed (in a way unique to Buffalo) by other buffalo from Buffalo, themselves buffalo (in the way unique to Buffalo) still other buffalo from Buffalo."

The sentence relies on a few tricks. The first is that "buffalo" is a verb as well as a noun and the name of a place. To buffalo someone is to confuse or fluster a person. There's also a missing "that." Under normal circumstances, we can sometimes drop a "that" from a sentence, as long as the nouns still make the meaning clear. For example, "things I knock down don't get back up," and "things that I knock down don't get back up," are equally clear. All-buffalo sentences muddle it up a bit.

Rapaport wrote it for a philosophy class experiment when he was in graduate school. You can read more about this sentence and see it helpfully diagrammed at io9.

-via Joe Carter

(Photo: Jerry Huddleston)

Dr. Eugenia Cheng is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sheffield (UK). She recently used calculus to determine the optimal hole size in a donut.

A larger hole produces increased surface area and therefore a donut interior that is cooked more thoroughly. So, if I follow Dr. Cheng correctly (which is highly unlikely), then the two qualities of a donut are what she calls “squidginess” and “crispiness.” The bigger the hole, the greater the crispiness.

The ideal ratio of squidgy to crispy is approximately 3.5:1, which is the result of a donut with a hole of 11 millimeters. An article in the Daily Telegraph about this discovery does not explain how Dr. Cheng arrived at this conclusion, but I’ll chalk that up to advanced math resulting from substantial experimentation.

(Video Link)

Thunder, an English Bulldog, loves to run. His humans, though, aren’t quite so fond of the activity. But they’ve found a great way to keep him going. They placed a GoPro camera on an RC car and convinced Thunder to chase it. They can just barely stay ahead of the dog. Go get it, Thunder!

-via 22 Words

(Photo via Angela Marie)

You may not think of donkeys as protective animals, but they can be successfully trained to guard farms from small predators, such as raccoons. Dogs can do this too, but donkeys will do the job without barking all night. That’s why trainers like Jan Dohner advocate giving them a chance to guard farms and flocks from nighttime threats. Tyler LeBlanc writes in Modern Farmer:

Donkeys are territorial animals and are not necessarily protective of the herd as much as they are protective of their territory and themselves. They do not patrol the pasture but rather feed and socialize with the stock until a threat appears. With their large ears and a wide range of vision, donkeys are alert while grazing yet are less spooky and skittish than horses, making them more likely to stand their ground and confront a threat.

Dohner says donkeys are instinctually aggressive toward canines, and are capable of dishing out crushing blows with both their front and hind legs as well as using their large teeth to bite raiding intruders.

Ideally, a guard donkey is a jenny (a female) or a gelded male who is introduced to a flock of sheep or goats while still a foal. The donkey grows up seeing the other animals as members of its family.

Steven Brundage is a magician in New York. While travelling from the city back to his home upstate, police in the town of Scotia pulled him over for driving 42 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. During the stop, police noticed that he had a large number of playing cards in his car. Brundage explained that he is a magician.

The officers asked to see a magic trick. Brundage obliged, hoping that entertaining the cops would get him out of an expensive ticket. He solved a Rubik’s Cube in a few seconds, then showed the officers how he could solve a jumbled cube (or appear to do so) by throwing it over his shoulder.

You can watch the encounter in the video below. Content warning: foul language.

(Video Link)

-via Jalopnik

Karson Shaldey, a product designer in San Francisco, calls this piece OOH OOH. It’s an upholstered gorilla that you can break apart into cushions for lounging around on the floor. The body becomes a chair, the arms become benches, and the head is a rug. This would be great for building pillow forts!

-via Dornob

(Video Link)

Some people on the internet are referring to this amazing object as a Thneed--a multi-purpose object that everyone needs in Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. The salesperson is a great performer, showing how the scarf can be transformed instantly into several different garments, including a skirt, a wrap, and several different types of shirts.

It's amazing! I thneed it!

-via 22 Words

I did not grow up with Peggy Parish’s Amelia Bedelia books, but my kids are. Maybe that should change.

Amelia Bedelia is a household maid (and occasionally other professions) who is kind and generous, but has a major problem: she takes everything literally. If you tell her to dust the furniture, she’ll spread dust on the furniture. If you tell her to dress a turkey, she’ll take a turkey out of the refrigerator and put it in clothing.

Andy Kluthe and Andrew Bridgman of Dorkly tell a new Amelia Bedelia story that reveals how horrifying this tendency is. You can read the rest here.

(Photo: Mercury Press)

Not every cat looks like Hitler. Some prefer the styles of other mass murdering dictators. Meowseph Stalin looks like the Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin. He lives with Anne Sofie, a student in Oslo, Norway. He’s kind of a jerk. Leon Watson quotes Sofie in the Daily Telegraph:

"When we got him home he turned out be a real [expletive deleted—ed.] doing all kinds of things we didn't want him to; stealing food off the kitchen counter, and tearing down and breaking our stuff.

"I have a framed photo of my deceased mother high up on a shelf which he managed to tear down and break, so it appears he has no compassion - suitable to his name.

"Now he is a bit more grown up and luckily isn't as wild as before. He's really turned into a cuddle bug that loves his treats."

Gaston, the pompous village bully in Beauty and the Beast, knows that he will eventually marry Belle. But Isabella, a little girl visiting Disney World, disagrees. She thinks that Gaston doesn’t have a clue or a chance of wooing Belle or beating the Beast in a fight.

(Video Link)

-via BuzzFeed

(Photos: University of Wollongong)

Some women may find it difficult to engage in vigorous exercise without pain because of excessive breast bounce.

(Or so I’ve been told.)

This is why sports bras exist. But even a good sports bra may not be able to contain breast movement comfortably. So researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia are developing the bionic bra. It has fibers that tighten up to restrain bounce when needed, but loosen when the breasts are stationary. A press release from the University of Wollongong describes progress on the Bionic Bra project:

Our ability to make things from advanced materials has been greatly enhanced recently with the advent of new approaches to fabrication. The advent of approaches such as 3D printing has enabled us to assemble structures containing new sensing technologies to more accurately monitor movement and new artificial muscle technologies to control it. These advances have inspired us to (re)confront the challenges involved in creating the Bionic Bra," Professor Wallace said. […]

“Results indicate that our technologies can sense breast motion and provide additional breast support. The challenge now is to integrate these technologies into a functional, comfortable bra,” Bionic Bra team member Dr Sheridan Gho said.

-via Dave Barry

(Video Link)

For 2 seconds, the trailer for the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, shows an astromech with a spherical lower body. It quickly rolls across the desert, then disappears from the screen. That droid has been the subject of much fascination in the internet.

What's so exciting to fans is that although this is the first time that the droid has appeared in a Star Wars film, it has already appeared in a George Lucas film. It was in the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark. So it is something of a homage to the founder of Star Wars.

-via Moe Lane

(Photo: Matthew Tucker/BuzzFeed)

The Cereal Killer Café is a new restaurant in London. It offers one food: cereal. It serves a vast variety of cereals, including rare brands not commonly available in grocery stores, as well as other treats filled with cereals.

(Photo: Matthew Tucker/BuzzFeed)

It’s the brainchild of Alan and Gary Keery, two brothers from Belfast. They conceived of the project after looking for a bowl of cereal at restaurants one afternoon, but finding none available. Surely, there had to be other people who wanted cereal and would be willing to pay for it!

The Cereal Killer Café opens on Wednesday. The staff of 8 will serve customers from 7 AM to 10 PM. Small bowls cost £2.50 ($3.91 USD) and large bowls cost £3.50 ($5.48 USD). Ailbhe Malone and Matthew Tucker of BuzzFeed visited the establishment. You can view more photos from their tour here.

(Photo: unrelated Tim Hortons via Peter Broster)

Meanwhile, in Canada, a Tim Hortons customer in Sasktatoon has trying to address a serious defect in his breakfast order. He wanted the onions on his sandwich diced. No, sliced or chopped was not enough. They must be diced. When the restaurant employee refused to comply, the customer quite rightly responded by throwing a snake at him. The National Post reports:

Staff told police that two male customers were arguing with an employee about their breakfast order – specifically that they wanted their onions diced. When the argument escalated, one of the men reached into the pocket of the other man, pulled out a garter snake and threw it behind the counter.

And for this fairly bland response to outrageously bad customer service, local police arrested the men!

The two men, both 20, are facing charges of mischief and causing a disturbance.

That’s a Tim Hortons that I definitely won’t visit in the future.

-via @library_cait