Airmen of the 19th Maintenance Squadron at Little Rock Air Force Base have altered the appearance of a C-130A Hercules transport aircraft on static display to resemble Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Beda Koorey of Huntington, New York is a serious Trekkie. She loves the franchise so much that when she owned a car, she got a custom license plate inscribed with the registry number of the starship Enterprise: NCC-1701 -- no bloody A, B, C, or D.

Koorey stopped driving four years ago and disposed of her car and its plates. But NCC-1701 is a popular custom plate request among Trekkies, so it's still associated with Koorey. She receives computer-generated traffic tickets in the mail when cameras see NCC-1701 in states where license plate records are not up to date.

-via Boing Boing

A popular saying goes, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." Perhaps this principle also applies to fire and firefighters, as well as crime and police. 

In California, where wildfires routinely destroy whole neighborhoods, some homeowners are preparing to immediately respond to fire threats by acquiring personal fire hydrants. The Wall Street Journal (alternate link) reports that options include hydrants that connect to personal tanks with thousands of gallons of water held in reserve or municipal water supplies. Especially prudent hydrant owners also purchase long firehoses and the training on how to use them effectively.

It's a strong selling point in the home real estate market, as you can see in the Zillow listing for this newly-built mansion north of Los Angeles.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Mike Birdy

On December 7, 1941 -- 83 years ago today -- US Navy Seaman Second Class John C. Auld died in battle while serving on the USS Oklahoma. He was one of 2,403 American servicemen who fell that day.

CBS News reports that, three years later, the Navy was able to recover bodies of many of the fallen sailors from the Oklahoma. In 2015, the Department of Defense studied DNA from the sailors' bodies to determine their identities. Now it has notified the family of Auld that they have identified his specific remains. These were interred yesterday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is his obituary.

-via Ed Driscoll | Photo: Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Colossal introduces us to the works of Caroline Dewison. Her website appropriately named A House of Wonders is filled with wondrously detailed tiny dioramas of scenes from nature. They are little worlds filled with the elements of nature . . . and the supernatural. Or at least the weird. This automaton, for example, presents aliens vessels circling over a lovely tree-lined lake.

This supreme act of gallantry and masculine virtue took place at the Fort Severn First Nation on the shores of Hudson Bay in northern Ontario. BBC News reports that a polar bear attacked the man's wife. He responded by leaping on the bear, which then turned to attack him. The bear mauled the man's legs and one of his arms. A local hunter then shot the bear several times, which retreated into the woods and died.

This heroic husband is badly wounded but expected to survive.

A polar bear expert advises against lying down if attacked by a polar bear. You must fight back to have any chance to survive.

-via Althouse | Photo: James Vincent Wardhaugh

Steve Tanner is a scholar who has, for fifteen years, been exhaustively studying the trash cans available to guests at Disney resorts and parks around the world. His site dubbed Magical Trash examines how Disney's park designers choose trash cans to convey specific messages (aside from putting your trash into them) or accept merely practical goals of waste management.

Above are trash and recycling bins at the DreamWorks Land district of Universal Studios Florida. Shrek, Trolls, and Kung Fu Panda are the core franchises featured and the bins are appropriately decorated with motifs for those intellectual properties. No detail is too small to deserve attention.

-via David Thompson

This past September, Guillaume Blondel, an archaeologist, led a team of students excavating a Gallic site near Dieppe, France. His group was not the first to dig at this location associated with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul. BBC News reports that these modern scholars found at the site a message sealed in a glass bottle left by a previous archaeological team in 1825. Their message, when translated into English, reads:

P.J Féret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations here in January 1825. He continues his investigations in this vast area known as the Cité de Limes or Caesar’s Camp.

Historical research forms that a local leader named Féret did indeed excavate the site.

-via Messy Nessy Chic | Photo: Guillaume Blondel

Touch2See is a device designed to help visually impaired people experience watching soccer games. A small disk floats across the simulated field in real time with the movements of the actual ball.

Daniele Cassioli, a champion water skier, tested it at a recent game between the Verona and Cagliari teams. L'Union Sarda reports that Cassioli was able to follow the action with the haptic feedback that Touch2See provided.

-via Massimo

Board racing is a traditional sport of the Zhuang people, an ethnic minority in southern China. Legend has it that the sport was devised as a military training technique. In this video, you can see why: the sport requires precise coordination and teamwork for squads of three people in order to remain upright and move faster than competitors.

This video is from the twelfth National Games of Ethnic Minorities, a sporting event which brings together teams from 35 of China's politically recognized ethnic minorities. You can see photos of the pageantry of this event at the state-run media outlet Global Times.

-via Massimo

We librarians must get creative in order to draw patrons to us and make our services relevant to current needs. And what do people need? To study the blade. The steel calls to our souls.

The public library system of Durham County, North Carolina wants to prepare patrons for the future. That's the clear message in its decision to provide a live demonstration of historical European martial arts conducted by the Triangle Sword Club.

Go and prepare accordingly. For now that the world is on fire and the barbarians are at the gate you have the audacity to come to the library for help.

-via reddit

A particular Walmart in Chesterfield County, Virginia was flooded with about 50 officers who were engaging in a "shop with a cop" event for children picking out presents. WTVR News reports that during this event, a Walmart employee informed an officer that a shoplifting was in progress.

The suspect had lifted about $1,400 worth of loot before officers converged on him from multiple directions, cutting off any opportunity to escape through overwhelming numbers. Lt. James Lamb of the Chesterfield County Police Department expressed amazement that the suspect chose this time to engage in criminal activity when dozens of marked police vehicles were in the parking lot and uniformed officers could be seen everywhere within the store. 

-via Boing Boing

Sir John Gordon was a Scottish nobleman who lived from 1707 to 1783. In 1723, the French sculptor Edmé Bouchardon composed this bust of him. The statue was present around the family estate in the town of Invergordon, but was, at some point in the 1970s, disposed of by the estate. BBC News reports that it was rediscovered in 1998 being used as a doorstop in the nearby town of Balintore.

Legally, the antique belonged to the community at large, so the Invergordon Common Good Fund is offering it up for auction. It's valued at over $3 million USD.

-via My Modern Met

The 1947 Treaty of Paris ended the war between Italy and the Allied powers. Articles 64-66 placed severe limitations upon the Italian Air Force, which the Italians hoped to circumvent.

For this purpose, the postwar Italian government sought assistance from the Order of Malta, a chivalric order that dates back to 1099 and exists to this day.

Are the Knights of Malta their own country? That's hard to answer. They have sovereignty over their headquarters building in Rome. They have diplomatic relations with 113 countries, permanent observer status in the United Nations, and issue their own passports which are recognized internationally.

For a few years, starting in 1947, the Order of Malta even fielded its own air force. This consisted of military aircraft transferred by the Italian government. The Order painted a roundel derived from its flag on the planes and flew them on transport and humanitarian missions.

After Italy joined NATO as a founding member in 1949, it was permitted to resume normal air operations and resumed control over these loaned aircraft.

-via Eric S. Raymond

The science fiction genre often falls into the escapist direction of storytelling, so it's no surprise that male writers tend to create ideal heroes, villains, and other characters. So the male gaze comes into play. That's not criticism--in fact, I'm a fan at times. There's a female gaze, too, although it is far from a direct equivalent.

This video shows a clip from the improvisational comedy show Make Some Noise. Comedian and actress Caitlin Reilly is tasked with depicting an idealized female character from a male writer. The character keeps us abreast of the true dangers facing the group in what I'm guessing is a Robert A. Heinlein story.