Redditor Sir_Make_Alot makes a lot of great artworks inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. Among them is this coin that has a hidden piece inside. When he moves his finger along the back, the eyes of the Beholder, a very dangerous monster in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, watches your every move. The text translates to, if I remember my Latin correctly, that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Yes, but don't get close enough for the Beholder to leer.
John Farrier's Blog Posts
— Этна (@EtoEtna) January 21, 2022
If you don't have electricity running to your yurt, it may be hard to keep a freezer going. For long-term storage of your perishable foodstuffs, you'll need something that makes use of cold weather, can endure short hot spells, and keeps your food accessible.
This clever man that some people on reddit think lives in northern China uses a clever, multi-stage process to build a functional deep freeze. What's necessary is both ice and carefully arranged hot water.
I don't know who he is, but making things with ice and hot water is appearently his thing. Here's a video of him making a smaller ice chest with functional hinges.
-via Nag on the Lake
Millie is a Jack Russell Terrier and Whippet mix who lives in Hampshire, UK. She wandered into the tidal mudflats near the coastal waters of Havant. This is dangerous ground, as it is difficult to traverse and easy to get stuck.
Rescuers encouraged her to move toward higher ground, but were unable until they brought in an aerial drone. A local resident cooked up sausages from Aldi, which the rescuers then dangled from the drone. Millie was hungry enough to follow the bait, which the drone pilot slowly moved toward higher ground that would not submerge with the tide.
-via Dave Barry
Tori Yorgey, a reporter with WSAZ-TV News in Charleston, West Virginia was on the scene, reporting on the effects of a winter storm. The roads were slippery from the snow, as evidenced by the car that slid into Yorgey.
This is her last week on the job, as Yorgey is heading to Pittsburgh to work there. She now has the ultimate end-of-work story. Despite the impact, Yorgey stood up and was reporting on weather conditions within a minute.
I'm also impressed with anchorman Tim Irr, who maintains perfect composure as a colleague is cut down in front of him.
-via Born in Space
anatolian shepherd dog puppy in training pic.twitter.com/KkGBSP89W3
— theworldofdog (@theworldofdog) January 11, 2022
Actually, I get this. My Pomeranian puppy thinks that she’s a guard dog just because that’s what adult Pomeranians do.
Likewise, this Anatolian Shepherd puppy is following her heritage. They’ve been sheepdogs for hundreds of years and she’s already in training for the profession that she was born to.
Some redditors point out that the puppy looks a lot like the sheep—at least by coloration. She blends in so seamlessly that some may think that she’s a lost baby lamb. They certainly aren’t the least intimidated by her, nor are they deferring to her for guidance. That will come later.
-via Boing Boing
ダイヤル式電話でDOOMを操作する猛者が遂に登場
— Yoshino@連邦(20周年) (@yoshinokentarou) January 10, 2022
たぶん過去イチ操作性が悪い
1 - ctrl、2 - 左、3 - 右 4 - 上、5 - 下、6 -スペース pic.twitter.com/oAsaqudefy
It's a popular challenge among computer programmers and tinkerers to find ways to play the 1993 first-person shooter game Doom on decidedly non-standard video game equipment. Past participants have tried rats, potatoes, a smart refrigerator, and a pregnancy test as platforms, power supplies, or controllers for the game. Now a new player has entered the game.
This video shows a man playing Doom using an old fashioned rotary phone. Strictly speaking, he's playing the game on a laptop, but he's rigged the phone to be a functional controller. 1 fires the gun, 2 moves left, 3 moves right, 4 goes up, and 5 moves down. I haven't figured out what 6 is supposed to do.
-via Super Punch
Vatican City consists of only 109 acres, but it boasts the arms of its famous Swiss Guard. Perhaps their uniforms and polearms look out of date, but they are modern, professionally trained soldiers--proper heirs to the Papal troops who fought with bloody savagery during the 1527 Sack of Rome.
The Swiss Guard is one of the long-established but tiny armed forces fielded by the microstates of Europe: Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. In this video, historian Mark Felton describes them.
I find microstates fascinating and have read much about them, but still learned something that I didn't know: Andorra maintains a 12-man army equipped with weapons passed down as heirlooms within families. Gun ownership is common, so the Andorran government is prepared to call upon the entire adult male population, if necessary, to protect the nation.
Foothill Division Officers displayed heroism and quick action by saving the life of a pilot who made an emergency landing on the railroad tracks at San Fernando Rd. and Osborne St., just before an oncoming train collided with the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/DDxtGGIIMo
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) January 10, 2022
In an action scene worthy of a Michael Bay movie, Los Angeles Police Department officers rescued an injured pilot from his crashed plane just a few seconds before a train hit the plane at high speed, destroying it completely.
The pilot had the bad luck of completing the crash landing of his Cessna on train tracks. This was in the Pacoima neighborhood near Whiteman Airport, a general aviation facility, at 2:10 on Sunday afternoon. Those tracks served Metrolink, a commuter rail service in southern California. Although responding police asked Metrolink to stop trains on that stretch, they were unable to communicate the need quickly enough. It was necessarily to pull the pilot out as quickly as possible.
Frightening cell phone video of first responders pulling a pilot to safety seconds before a train slams into the plane that crashed onto the tracks near Whiteman Airport in Pacoima. @CBSLA #BreakingNow #news #crash #kcal 📸 Luis Jimenez https://t.co/NWGu2HhBUM @composerluis pic.twitter.com/D4VhNPGYID
— JASMINE VIEL (@jasmineviel) January 10, 2022
Here's a video showing the train impact from a different angle.
-via Super Punch
In the olden days, librarians would make printed guides to doing research for various topics. These were called pathfinders or research guides. Then the internet happened, and librarians adopted the practice for online environments. Then the Springshare developed LibGuides, which is basically an online content management system for libraries.
This isn't an advertisement for LibGuides. I just love their product. A professor can email me a class research assignment and I can throw a research guide for it online in as little as 15 minutes.
Now Rice University's Fondren Library has kicked up the game. Librairan Jeanette Sewell, who identifies as "the Official Golden Girls Librarian" offers her patrons (and us) a LibGuide on The Golden Girls. This is timely, given the recent departure of Betty White from among us.
I'm especially impressed with Sewell's scholarly bibliography on The Golden Girls, which would be especially helpful for both pop culture researchers and casual fans.
-via Rebecca Baumann
Tinsley is a Shiloh Shepherd and packmate of the human Cam Laundry. A few days ago, Tinsley, Laundry, and another human were driving down a snowy highway in New Hampshire. Laundry, who was driving, had an accident and crashed the car.
Other drivers saw Tinsley late that night, trying to get their attention. She led police to the scene of the crash, where Laundry and his friend were immoblized and suffering from hypothermia. EMTs rescued and treated the humans while Tinsley calmly observed.
After Laundry and his friend were released, he set about rewarding Tinsley for her work. He tells NBC 5 News that the dog has venison burger and backstrap in her future.
-via Laughing Squid
Imagine that you've spent years planning the perfect wedding for you and your spouse. You've got everything: a luxury resort destination site, elaborate bachelor and bachelorette parties, gourmet menus, an artistic cake, and a band to perform at the reception. All that you need now is a custom hashtag so that all of the influencers at your wedding can post their content on Instagram and Twitter.
That's where the problem comes up. Some other couple has already taken #FarrierWedding, so there's no obvious way to tag your wedding and only your wedding.
That's where Happily Ever #Hashtagged comes in. The founder, Marielle Wakim, started her firm in 2016 to respond to this market demand. She tells the Wall Street Journal that her carefully developed skill for inventing clever, original, and appropriate hashtags makes her $50 fees worth it. Wakim can write hashtags that incorporate specific themes, names, or ideas and create alternate versions for elements of the wedding.
Wakim isn't alone. Her business is one of at least several who are filling this #nicheweddingmarket. Read about them at the Wall Street Journal.
-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Marko Millivojevik
Due to the timing of their births, these twin siblings were born in completely different years. Alfredo Antonio Trujillo entered the world first at 11:45 PM at the Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California on New Year's Eve. Fifteen minutes later and seconds after midnight, his sister, Aylin Yolanda Trujillo, emerged. As a result, they have not only different birthdays, but different birth years.
A press release from the hospital says that the odds of twins being born in separate years is about 1 in 2 million births.
The twins are healthy and strong. The hospital expects for them to go home soon with their parents to meet their three older siblings.
-via My Modern Met | Photo: Natividad
I've just discovered the wonderful (and occasionally obscene) Twitter account Threatening Music Notation. It's filled with pictures of strange slices of musical notation, such as instructions to consume cocaine, mooing like a cow, slapping a fish, and producing fart-like sounds.
What's going on in the above selection? Twitter user @ONEiROSEB says that it's taken from the works of Victor Borge, a Danish-American musical comedian.
Borge was famous for his physical comedy while playing the piano on stage. In this recording, he plays Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2 with the help of Şahan Arzruni, classical pianist. At the 2:00 mark, Borge stands up, sits on the keyboard, then sits back down to continue playing with his fingers.
-via Rebecca Baumann
CS Lewis describes his new book to JRR Tolkien pic.twitter.com/agaxO9TBqW
— Eleanor Morton (@EleanorMorton) December 17, 2021
Comedian Eleanor Morton has a lot to say about the writing quality of The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.
To be fair, this matchup is drastically uneven. J.R.R. Tolkein was so committed to the task for his novels that he invented languages and composed lengthy histories to provide a narrative backdrop for The Lord of the Rings. Lewis grabbed a scattering mythological and folkloric elements like was he wandering through a narrative version of the Golden Corral while still tipsy from a late night meeting of the Inklings.
In his defense, Lewis was attempting to compose an allegory akin to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress rather than an epic fantasy series like The Lord of the Rings. These are very different writing tasks.
Content warning: foul language.
I keep my Instagram follows pared down to a short list so that I make best use of my social media browsing time. @AnokhiMehndi in the West Midlands of the UK is definitely worth following. She's one of the stars of Henna Instagram and this video is an example of why.
Her post doesn't explain exactly why this piece sparkles, but I gather that incorporating glitter into henna dye is a thriving practice. Here are the sparkly arms of @Bharathi Sanghani_Mendhi, who is an accomplished bridal henna artist in her own right.
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