A 2,500-lb. pumpkin was dropped on a school bus in Lancaster, Minnesota, as part of a fundraiser for the local literacy council. 🎃🚌😲#ViralHog #giantpumpkin #schoolbus #Minnesota pic.twitter.com/mtJmGwNz6j

— ViralHog (@ViralHog) October 23, 2023

Charlie Bernstrom of Lancaster, Minnesota is a competitive pumpkin grower. For several years, he's grown some of the largest pumpkins in the world. On Saturday, a crane lifted his 2,501-pound pumpkin high into the air, then dropped it on a school bus. Fortunately, there were no children inside the bus at the time. The pumpkin, who was named Joy (yes, really), did not survive the encounter.

This pumpkin was only one of several that Bernstrom raised and then dropped. The others weighed 2,131, 2100, 1655, 1524, and 1352 pounds.

The event was part of a fundraiser to benefit the Kittson County Literary Council, an organization that promotes reading among kids. The fundraiser generated $1,500.

WHAT A MESS! Homes in Montana were buried under tumbleweed as some piles rose so high that they flowed over the roofs of homes. #mtwx pic.twitter.com/VhQ9U1hGOW

— FOX Weather (@foxweather) October 18, 2023

I've never seen one in real life, but I gather that tumbleweeds are predators that swarm their prey, overwhelming larger opponents through sheer numbers. I learned this from the 2008 documentary Killer Tumbleweeds.

This video shows one such swarm of tumbleweeds consuming houses in Great Falls, Montana on Tuesday. Or, to be more precise, attempting to hunt the humans inside those houses. Winds reaching speeds of up to 50 MPH aided the tumbleweeds as on their journey according to KRTV 3 News. Firefighters are looking into response options, but it really sounds like a job for the National Guard.

-via Super Punch

The Beer Marionette is a drinking game from Bavaria. This ingenious invention requires precise maneuvering, attention, and thirst. Each rig costs €169 ($178 USD) as well as the beer necessary to motivate the player. The company's Instagram page shows how hard it is for all but the most skilled puppeteers to successfully lift a glass to one's lips for a sip of German nectar.

-via No Context Humans

As Rick & Morty (NSFW) teaches us, squirrels are not just cute, furry little creatures, but a well-organized collective conspiring to maintain their domination of the human race.

They're smart, but sometimes they screw up. On reddit, a user with a username that I can't repeat in polite company found a building outside of New Braunfels, Texas that Google Maps identifies as "Secret Squirrel Facility." The campus includes several satellite dishes, which are presumably used for sicurian mind control projects.

Google Maps no longer reveals this label, so we can assume that the squirrels have quickly corrected this error. Their intrigues continue.

-via Dave Barry

The title of the YouTube channel 5-Minute Crafts implies that this is a craft that can be completed in just 5 minutes. I'm skeptical that this rather involved prop creation can be done that quickly, but perhaps it is possible with a lot of prep work, like on a cooking television show.

Would this be a good decoration for your upcoming home Halloween party? Yes, but I propose another use beyond confusing your intoxicated guests looking for relief. A terrifyingly monstrous mouth eating humans from the bottom up is exactly what a toddler needs for toilet training. This mouth toilet would make going potty all the more fun.

-via Technabob

I have an highly effective, reliable, and entirely organic snore detector. When I start snoring, the snore detector gently taps me on the chest and mutters, "You're snoring." This snore detector is so efficient that I married her.

Not everyone is as fortunate as I. YouTuber Naveen Kumar proposes a technological solution that makes use of artificial intelligence. The Nicla Voice sensor board detects the sound of snoring as determined by a snoring sound data set. Then it provides haptic feedback in the form of mild vibration to encourage the snoring user to reposition so as not not disturb other people in the classroom.

-via Hack A Day

Tom Scott, the famous world traveler who shows us amazing places around the world, is concerned about becoming "that weird elevator guy" because he has made many videos about unusual elevator designs. But his fans have insisted that he explore a particular elevator in Hanover, Germany. The shaft of this elevator is curved.

The town hall is unusual because it has a dome, which is not the norm in Germany. The elevator and the building were constructed in 1913, but I gather that the architectural plan did not call for an elevator. So the builders had to find a way to locate a shaft in a convenient place.

That meant the cupola, which has a curved shape at the top. The track bends and the elevator follows this track precisely, sometimes coming within 5 mm of the walls. 

Halloween is nearly upon us, so many people are carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns. Later, we'll make pumpkin pie. But in the heartland of America, people engage in a more daring seasonal pumpkin activity: boating.

Until yesterday, the Guinness World Record for paddling a pumpkin as a boat was 37.5 miles down the Missouri River in a pumpkin weighting 846 pounds. Steve Kueny of Lebanon, Missouri has broken that record record by paddling the same river for 38.4 miles in a pumpkin weighting, depending upon the report you credit, either 1,208 pounds or 1,299 pounds. Either way, Kueny has gained fame and the adulation of the American Midwest.

-via Dave Barry

In 2019, the Red Bull Formula One racing team set an astonishing record of completing a pit stop in 1.82 seconds. It appeared impossible to beat that record untli last Sunday, when the crew servicing Lando Norris's car at the Qatar Grand Prix completed the job in just 1.8 seconds, thus establishing a new world record as reported by Top Gear.

A lot takes place at a Formula One pit stop. At minimum, the tires are swapped out. That's what happened at this stop, where the pit crew's perfect work contributed to Norris placing third in the race.

-via Joe Pompliano

The term hostile architecture often refers to designs for public spaces which discourage homeless camping. Ellen Hallström, a student at the Lund University School of Industrial Design in Sweden proposes the opposite motivation in her recent design titled Driftwood.

The bench design offers common seating rest for anyone. But at night or in foul weather conditions, one half folds over the other, providing shelter for sleep. If I understand the design correctly, the slats are shaped to drive the rain down the roof rather than through it. The appropriate name for the piece, Driftwood, suggests that society's drifters may find a place to stay.

-via Core 77

The Balmoral Castle and Estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland is open to the public and popular with bicyclists and hikers. A couple of weeks ago, YouTuber Andrew McAvoy and his friends were riding over the rocky trails. They saw armed guards around the area, which was fitting, as the place is a royal residence.

What they did not expect was to see King Charles III himself hiking alone along a trail. They chatted with the king for a bit about hiking, bicycling, and the estate and then went their separate ways.

Would you like to speak on your phone--even loudly--without disturbing other people? Or are you concerned about the privacy of your conversations? Shiftall, a technology in Tokyo, has a solution: the Mutalk.

Design Boom reports that this Bluetooth-enabled microphone wraps around the head and, when activated, reduces the volume by about 20 decibels. A normal conversation is about 60 decibels, so this is a substantial reduction. When shouting, the volume level reduction is about 30 decibels.

Mutalk comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, so it can be used with headphones. This is especially helpful when using separate microphones and earphones.

The challenge in implementing this invention is that the people who most need it are also the least likey to do so.

My contribution to the confusing sign discourse. Spotted on a ferry in Quebec. pic.twitter.com/knGN0JaYdv

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 1, 2023

Due to a recent incident at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., Twitter is lately discussing allegedly confusing signs. Mark Joseph Stern, a writer with Slate, shares this image that he photographed at a ferry in Quebec.

I read this sign as expressing that centering oneself requires that adults must find within themselves their inner children and the child must seek out their adult future selves. This is necessary on the journey to enlightenment.

The designers probably made the sign like this because the text would be too long if it was necessary to write the sentiment in both English and French.

-via Super Punch

Robert J. Cumming, an astronomer in Sweden, and several colleagues at various astronomical research institutions in Europe, have submitted for publication a scholarly journal article arguing, in all seriousness, that every observatory should have a disco ball.

The authors note that pinhole cameras are frequently used in observatories. A disco ball, with its hundreds of mirrored surfaces, is basically a pinhole camera with hundreds of different apertures. They are cheap and readily available, thus avoiding serious expense in acquiring a specialized tool for observing bright objects, such as the sun. The article describes at length how the authors use a disco ball to observe a solar eclipse.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Pexels

I am on a mission to find the best songs that can be played on this Fisher-Price piano:

# 1 - I Miss You by Blink-182 pic.twitter.com/Lfg9krWtgo

— Nathan W Pyle (@nathanwpyle) September 19, 2023

Nathan W. Pyle is the cartoonist responsible for the Strange Planet series about aliens adapting to live on Earth. It's now a television show. So Pyle is a busy man. But he stays focused on his most important job: being a dad. Pyle's Twitter feed is often filled with doting paternal reflections, including a recent research project into popular songs that can be performed on a Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Light Up Piano.

Blink 182's "I Miss You" does well on the mere eight notes that the toy piano offers. The Twitter thread also has performances of songs by The Cure and ABBA.