Every year, the SnowVillage in northern Finland is reconstituted with a new theme. This year, winter is not only coming, but has arrived. The village is now styled after scenes and characters from the Game of Thrones television series. You can sleep peacefully at night as the Night King watches over you, or just visit the hotel to take a tour or dine at the restaurant.
You can see more photos of this wondrous facility at its Instagram page.
In 1934, Edward Powys Mathers, a crossword puzzle designer, published Cain's Jawbone. It's a mystery novel sorted onto 100 separate pages. It's also a puzzle, as the pages arrive in no particular order. The goal of the puzzle is to put the pages in the correct order. There are 32 million possible sorting orders, but only one is correct.
For the third time, someone has solved the puzzle. That accolade goes to British comedian John Finnemore, who took up the task during lockdown. Public Radio International reports:
“Originally I had a look at it and decided that it was too difficult for me and there was no point. So I just put it back on the shelf,” Finnemore says. “Then the pandemic came knocking...and suddenly said, ‘You know all that time you wanted, to do that thing? Well, here you go, knock yourself out, you’ve got as much time as you want.’” [...]
If you’re looking to undertake the puzzle yourself, Finnemore has some advice: use Google.
“It’s full of really obscure references to literature and geography and all sorts of things...You need to know about licensing laws in 1930s London, like, where, in London, you were allowed to buy a drink without a sandwich and where you could only have one with food after 10,” he said. “The history of prisons comes into it, geography...there’s references to people who turn out to be tennis players in the 1930s and when they played a particular match.”
-via Oddity Central | Photo: Ryan Baumann
Now isn't that a pretty sight?
Etsy seller Anna Robinson of Wales paints Bob Ross-inspired landscapes and other images on jeans. People will definitely appreciate the fine arts as you strut down the street in these pants, enjoying every detail of the scenic view you offer.
-via So Super Awesome
During the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, the Manning family was beset with tragedy after tragedy. They lived in the town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 1875, the couple, Van and Mittie Manning, watched as a second child, Mittie, died in front of them
The mother, Mary Mitting, went insane with grief. Atlas Obscura describes the unusual grave they erected for the little girl:
When it came time to bury her second child, Mary had a breakdown. She refused to allow Van or anyone else to place her daughter into the ground. A compromise was made and Mittie Manning was buried in a sarcophagus above ground.
However, this did not fully console Mary, who wanted to be able to see the face of her daughter. In the marble slab that covered the tomb, a sliding window was installed, allowing Mary to see her daughter.
According to some local legends, as Mittie’s body began to decompose, Mary became insane from grief and refused to leave the grave. Eventually, Van was forced to bury Mittie underground. The original slab, with its window, was left in place.
Photos: HauntedHolly
The Trolley Problem is an ethical dilemma. A train is heading down the tracks toward five people. If you do nothing, those five people will die. If you switch the tracks, the train will kill only one person. What do you do?
Exploring this conundrum is what Dr. E. J. Masicampo, a social psychologist at Wake Forest University, does for a living. He enlisted the assistance of his two-year old son Nicholas, who offers a unique and fresh solution that had never occurred to me before.
-via Born in Space
Bredo Morstoel of Norway was 89 years old when he died in 1989. His frozen corpse is now the center of an annual party in Nederland, Colorado.
There's quite a bit to unpack here. The official website for Frozen Dead Guy Days details how Morstoel's grandson had the old man cryogenically frozen in California. After four years of deep freeze, the family was forced to abandon the body in a crudely-built cryogenic storage shed in the little town of Nederland.
Starting in 1995, local resident Bo Shaffer and his friends visited the body every month to repack it in dry ice. And every March, they threw a big party about their hobby. This party has grown into a festival with live bands, drinking, and coffin racing, which you can see pictured above. Participants call themselves Frostifarians.
They had to cancel this past March, but plan to relaunch it next year. It looks like a wonderfully lively carnival!
-via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Frozen Dead Guy Days
Or maybe it's the same monolith that inexplicably appeared, then disappeared, in Utah last week. The construction of this monolith on Pine Mountain in Atascadero, California is definitely cruder, suggesting that's an imitation of the original alien object. Atascadero News describes it:
The three-sided obelisk appeared to be made of stainless steel, 10-feet tall and 18 inches wide. The object was welded together at each corner, with rivets attaching the side panels to a likely steel frame inside. The top of the monument did not show any weld marks, and it appears to be hollow at the top, and possibly bottom.
Unlike its Utah sibling, the Atascadero obelisk was not attached to the ground, and could be knocked over with a firm push. The Atascadero News estimates it weighs about 200 pounds.
The material appeared to be stainless steel, similar to a hood above the stove in a commercial kitchen.
So it's more likely to be from pranksters rather than our actual alien visitors.
-via Celine D. Ryan | Photo: Atascadero News
The moon is one of landscape photographer Zach Cooley's favorite subjects. Last October, he nailed his timing when capturing a shot of the moon passing through the opening of a natural arch. With humans resting on the edge, it looks like the eye of a god.
cheers pic.twitter.com/pVFNfVXHUY
— Food (@fooduz) November 28, 2020
At your office Christmas party, you may find that you don't have enough plates to serve everyone cake. So, once you have drunk all of the wine, just slip the upended glasses over the cake to slice off a piece. Then you can spoon it into your mouth. Or just be the first person to grab a chunk of cake with your hands, which is my usual approach.
-via Born in Space
Are you heading to the airport for some holiday travel? Impress your fellow travelers with your refined sense of fashion with this purse by Etsy seller ConcaveOblivion. It's available in a variety of leather colors and finishes. The timer, which looks delightfully realistic, has a secret compartment that you'll need if people keep staring at your handbag.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all music is improved with the inclusion of bagpipes. Yet, until I heard of it today, I did not know that prudent jazz musicians have adopted the pipes.
This is Gunhild Carling, a performer of many talents. She is most famous for her work with the trumpet (or 3 trumpets simultaneously). In this 2014 performance in New York City, she works her magic with bagpipes. Her actual piping begins at the 1:04 mark.
For another treat, watch Carling playing "Happy" by Pharrell Williams while switching between ten different instruments.
-via Super Punch
Frank L. Koralewsky (1872-1941), a German-born American metalsmith, made this amazing lock that tells the fairy tale of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." It's made of iron, gold, silver, and bronze. The lock won Korwalewsky a gold metal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. It's now the property of the Art Institute of Chicago.
-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Art Institute of Chicago
Spam brings joy to our hearts, stomachs, and now our ears. The Spamp Man, a mysterious engineer in Liverpool, UK invented several different versions of this musical feast. What does this Spam-canned guitar amplifier do? Spamp Man explains:
SPICE adjusts the gain prior to the distortion stage.
HEAT adjusts the post distortion signal level going on to your amp or following effects.
The SPICE and HEAT controls have a detente at 50% to help with location when you are not looking or it is dark.
CHILLED no distortion, just the warm tone of JFET amplification.
FRIED a subtle application of even harmonics for a warm fuzz.
GRILLED blends in odd harmonics for a meatier, overdrive sound.
It sounds delicious!
-via The Awesomer
Every year, the people of Halifax, Nova Scotia, send a grand tree to be erected in Boston Common. Why? It's an annual act of gratitude for disaster relief provided to the Canadian city of Halifax over a century ago.
It's December 6, 1917. Canada has been at war for three and a half years. The United States has been an ally in that war for several months. There is a feeling of fraternity between the two nations. That feeling would be strengthened that day and soon afterward.
A French ship packed with explosives blew up in the city's harbor. It was a catastrophic explosion that killed 1,963 people, injured 9,000, and destroyed much of the city. Then a blizzard struck the beleaguered city.
As the Twitter feed for Canadian armed forces in the US describes, the outpouring of help from Americans was huge and immediately. A US warship, the USS Tacoma, immediately steamed to Halifax. The people of Massachusetts raised nearly $2 million in relief funding within an hour and sent a train with doctors and nurses twelve hours after the blast. In a single day, the Maine National Guard established a hospital in Halifax. This American help continued for several months.
Halifax was and remains grateful for what Americans did during the disaster. And so, every year, they cut down a good tree and send it to Boston as an ongoing way to say "Thank you, America."
-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Canadian Forces in the US
Last week, a strange metal object reminiscent of the monoliths from the book and movie 2001 appeared in a Utah desert. Its origin and purpose were unknown to local humans who investigated.
The state Bureau of Land Management now reports that the monolith has inexplicably vanished without a trace. In a Facebook post, the BLM makes it clear that it wants nothing to do with the possibly alien object:
The BLM did not remove the structure which is considered private property. We do not investigate crimes involving private property which are handled by the local sheriff’s office.
-via Instapundit | Photo: Utah Bureau of Land Management
