The San Francisco Gate reports that officers in the California Highyway Patrol pulled over a gentleman driving his car alone in the carpool lane on Interstate 880 near San Francisco. A shirt and hat took the place of an actual person in the front passenger seat. The driver, though, said that the setup represented an imaginary friend.

The express lane system allows for reduced tolls for cars with multiple occupants. This driver, the police allege, was attempting to trick cameras into reading a passenger. This is not permissible.

What about an anime hug pillow if it depicts your waifu? I'm asking for a friend.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: California Highway Patrol

According to the respected Pew Research Center, which conducts public opinion polling on many topics, 12% of young Americans can operate a SSBN, which is one of these:

The SSGNs are US nuclear-powered submarines that, instead of firing nuclear missiles, fire non-nuclear cruise missles at land-based targets. Navy nuke school is famously demanding, passing only the most focused, intelligent, and physically fit people into the ranks of American submariners. Yet, despite the negative reputation of Generation Z, fully 12% of them have qualified. This percentage far outstrips that of older generations.

What's going on here? Pew does not actually think so many young people have actually earned their Dolphins. Rather, Pew conducted this study to illustrate that opt-in polling produces unreliable results. Opt-in polling means that the study designers do not restrict who can participate in a poll and thus cannot argue that the participants are a representative sample.

The study found that young people and Hispanic adults were especially likely to affirm absurd claims, although I don't see an explanation of why this is the case.

Anyway, when you see the results of an online poll that says that an alarmingly large number of people believe in something profoundly disturbing, such as Holocaust denial, realize that extremely faulty survey design may be the cause of these numbers. The population has not gone completely insane yet.

-via Megan McArdle

Teams test the new emergency chutes from the pad 40 crew tower in Florida pic.twitter.com/rWVj7zaHp0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2024

The commercial space industry is exploding, which is something that the private space exploration firm SpaceX knows well. It takes astronaut safety seriously and wants to be able to evacuate astronauts from the launch pad in a hurry if necessary.

Two weeks ago, we saw that NASA uses armored military vehicles for this purpose. SpaceX instead uses this rapid-deployment chute that quickly carries the 40 members of a launch pad team away from the pad and to the ground. It looks like fun! Chief Operations Officer Gwynne Shotwell personally tested it.

-via Super Punch

Would you like try some python meat? We're told that it tastes like a mix of chicken and calamari.

ABC News reports on a recent study conducted by conservationist Patrick Aust and his colleagues about the sustainability of python meat production. They examined the farming of Burmese and reticulated pythons in Southeast Asia and concluded that the mass cultivation of pythons could be an efficient way to provide meat to more people.

Pythons mature rapidly, reproduce in huge quantities, and efficiently turn their food, such as wild rodents and fish meal, into harvestable meat. They are also more durable to extreme weather than mammals. So try a slice of snake. Maybe add some hot sauce because, Aust warns us, python meat can be a bit bland.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife

Pull over, exit your vehicle, and keep your hands where officers can see them. The Kiddie Ride Police Patrol has noted your suspicious behavior.

Arctic, a Dutch performing troupe that engages in public pranks, created this pair of mobile kiddie rides for use in freelance law enforcement. The officers have plenty of euros to drop in their machines, so don't even try to escape.

Watch these hard-faced, tough-minded cops patrol festivals and ensure that the mean streets stay safe for ordinary, law-abiding people in these dangerous times. They're especially wary of intoxicated people and perform sobriety tests on passersby who appear to have drunk a bit too much.

-via The Awesomer

'

Rumors are circulating the internet with the exciting news that the Japanese division of McDonald's will soon offer perfume that will make you smell like McDonald's iconic French fries. The above image is from the official Twitter account of McDonald's Japanese branch, so it's probably true.

When do we gaijin get to enjoy such delights in the United States? I don't know. In the meantime, prepare for your dates by just smearing french fries on yourself.

-via Spoon & Tamago

If you visit a particular park outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, you may ask yourself, "Is that really a 4-foot long Cosmic Brownie?" There's only one way to know for sure, and that's to take a bite.

The M113 armored personnel carrier first entered service in the US armed forces in 1960 and remains in use by dozens of nations around the world. Among the agencies in the United States that used this venerable vehicle is NASA.

Yes, that's right: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration operated a few M113s from the 1960s through 2013 at the Cape Canaveral launch complex. Military historian Mark Felton explains that these vehicles served as part of an emergency system designed to get astronauts far away from a launch pad as quickly as possible.

If astronauts needed to escape, they would take zip lines for a quarter mile down to the ground, where a modified M113 was available. All astronauts were trained how to drive them. This modified M113 was heat resistant and had an enclosed oxygen system.

NASA used these vehicles until 2013, when they replaced them with the more modern Caimain MRAPs.

How could humanity quickly create a functional long-duration interplanetary spacecraft? In the science fiction novel Vorpal Blade, authors John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor propose converting a ballistic missile nuclear submarine for that purpose. And these authors have not been alone in suggesting that the qualities of submarines might carry over to the voids of space.

Could it work? How long would the crew of a nuclear submarine survive in space? Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist and the cartoonist behind xkcd, looks at the physics involved in this scenario. The crew would eventually die, but not because of the reason you might first suspect.

-via The Awesomer

Sky News reports that a healthy baby boy was born on a VietJet flight between Taipei and Bangkok. The cabin crew informed the pilot, Jakarin Sararnkskul, that a woman had gone into labor in one of the jetliner's toilets.

Mid-flight births on commercial airliners are rare--there have been only 74 between 1929 and 2018. So, despite his 18 years of experience piloting, this was Captain Sararnkskul's first time delivering a baby.

He left his co-pilot to handle the plane and supervised the successful birth. The New York Post reports that paramedics were on the scene when the flight landed in Bangkok.

-via Jalopnik | Photo: Jakarin Saramraksul

The Cleverlys is a comedy country music quintet that offers country-fied parodies of modern and popular songs. They perform in-character as hillbillies from an alpaca farm in Arkansas where, while not touring, they produce alpaca sausage and wool lingerie.

The band appeared on an episode of the country music variety show Larry's Country Diner where they performed a favorite song of older country fans -- "Walk Like an Egyptian" -- by the bluegrass band known as the Bangles. This song was a smash hit in 1987 when it led a dance craze of walking like the ancient Egyptians as they appear in hieroglyphics.

-via The Awesomer

Do you have overdue books at the public library of Worcester, Massachusetts? You can fork over your cash. But during March, the library will also accept photos of cats. The program is called March Meowness. The program is part of a calendar of events to celebrate Cat Month.

The library is showcasing books about cats, teaching you how to make cat eye makeup, staging a cat petting event, conducting a talk by a cat behaviorist, and providing a screening of the film Cats. This is a great opportunity for library patrons and staff to remember who's really in charge for the other eleven months of the year, too.

-via My Modern Met

As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, many languages used by small populations are dying out. The Endangered Language Alliance, which is headquartered in New York City, is committed to preserving as many of them as it can.

During its work, the organization has found that many of these endangered languages can be found in New York City itself. For example, Seke, which is used by about 700 people, originates in a few villages in Nepal. But because everyone eventually comes to New York City, about 150 Seke speakers live in two particular apartment buildings in Brooklyn.

The New York Times reports on the presence of endangered languages in the City. The article is paywalled, but you can find a long excerpt at Languagehat. It says that there are at least 41 endangered languages in Manhattan alone. The article also addresses what makes a language endangered and the characteristics unique to endangered languages, such as the absence of formal greetings. Seke has no word or phrase for "hello" because it is rare for a Seke-speaking person to encounter a stranger who also speaks Seke.

-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: ELA event celebrating the Galifuna language

I'd never heard of it, and it's fantastic.

Above all, it explains how Palpatine somehow survived: with Cerveza Cristal. https://t.co/JtNd4jOE3e pic.twitter.com/kuX3Cn0Ls8

— The Spaceshipper 🚀 (@TheSpaceshipper) March 3, 2024

According to internet rumor, the first three Star Wars films were broadcast in Chile in 2003. In order to avoid losing audience attention through commercial breaks, the broadcaster integrated beer commercials into the films themselves.

I would really enjoy watching a version of Star Wars that tried to cram in as many beer commercials as possible. How far can we take this concept?

Winchester plan for £100,000 Jane Austen statue triggers ‘Disneyfication’ fears https://t.co/Ks1LvK89Vf

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) March 1, 2024

Acclaimed British author Jane Austen died over two hundred years ago, yet still retains legions of fans around the world. I am not one of them, although, in my wild bachelor days, I once read Pride and Prejudice in order to impress a girl (it worked).

The earthly remains of Jane Austen are buried inside Winchester Cathedral. There is a plan underway to erect a statue near that site to honor her life and work. Many of her fans, The Guardian reports, strenuously object.

These fans argue that Austen was an intensely private person and would prefer not to be regarded this way. Furthermore, they are concerned about the "Disneyfication" of Austen's grave if fans travel there to take selfies with the statue. Worse, the statue may attract even more American tourists to the area than is the norm.

Sculptor Martin Jennings responds to these complaints by arguing that now, after her death, Austen belongs to the whole world. Her reserved nature in life need not be endured now by the living.

-via Marginal Revolution