High Wycomb is a small town west of London. Every year, the charter trustees elect a mayor, who, upon taking office, is immediately weighed on a huge scale by officials wearing period costumes from the Eighteenth Century. At the end of his or her term, the exiting mayor is weighed out. It is imperative that the outgoing mayor not weigh more than at the beginning of the term. If s/he does weigh more, public jeers follow.

Why? The New York Times tells us that the tradition dates to 1678, when the mayor developed a reputation as drunken lout who had got fat at the expense of the taxpayers. High increased weight was taken as proof of his profligacy with municipal funds.

Now, the ceremony is an excuse for a party and fun. The macebearer will read out the weight at the beginning of the term and say "and some more" if the mayor has gained weight or "and no more" if the mayor has not.

-via Amusing Planet | Photo: Mayor of High Wycombe

We librarians value patron recommendations for collection acquisitions. These usually come in the form of suggestions verbally presented to us. But 8-year old Dillon Helbig, a patron of the Lake Hazel Branch of the Ada Community Libraries of Boise, Idaho, took a more assertive approach to contributing to his local library. 

Last December, Dillon wrote and illustrated an 81-page graphic novel in a blank notebook. Titling it Dillion Helbig's Crismis Adventure, he snuck it into the library and slipped it onto a shelf in the children's area.

Library workers discovered the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Branch manager Alex Hartman read it to his 6-year old child, who found it, the Washington Post reports, "one of the funniest books he'd ever known."

So, with Dillon's permission, the library staff added it to their collection as a circulating book. It's become so popular among patrons that there is a 55-person waitlist for Dillon's novel about the star on a Christmas tree that explodes, catapulting the young boy through space and time.

This is the sort of demand that would normally lead a library to purchase additional copies. But as it is a one-of-a-kind item, we will have to wait until The Adventure of Dillion Helbig's Crismis is available as an ebook.

-via Jessamyn West | Photo: Ada Community Libraries

The 255th Rule of Acquisition says that "A wife is a luxury; a good accountant a necessity." Managing your business enterprises requires prudent, detailed attention. This is even more true for "legitimate businessmen" who work in organizations unfairly maligned as mafia families.

Crime bosses hire accountants. Are those accountants actually skilled at their work? Pietro A. Bianchi and his colleagues, all professors of accounting at various universities, conducted a study of accountants who, due to criminal records, are associated with criminal organizations in Italy.

Their peer-reviewed paper, published last November, affirms that, in general, financial statements compiled by these accountants of dubious employment are of superior quality to those of a control group of accountants who lack such criminal connections.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Paramount

I have nothing to hide.https://t.co/aW5hXYjg7p pic.twitter.com/6LcZK9O422

— Alex Falcone (@alex_falcone) January 25, 2022

Alex Falcone, his website tells us "is the only comedian and writer living in Los Angeles." That means that he's in high demand in the entertainment desert that is southern California. He's appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Portlandia. That's probably just a starting point for now, until casting directors start dragging warm bodies off the streets of Los Angeles to fill roles.

He has a very public face, but Falcone is also a private, even secretive person. He likes to hide special things in hollowed out objects, such as books. Strap in for a journey as he takes you through the many layers of his apartment, where nothing is as it seems. Warning: there are drugs involved.

-via Jessamyn West

Masks making it hard to understand people either audibly or because you rely on lip reading? Just got this hacked together - it displays my speech in real time with @DeepgramAI! pic.twitter.com/lPu4CZboIk

— Kevin Lewis (he/him) (@_phzn) January 4, 2022

Do you wear a facemask on a regular basis? One of the challenges that this presents is that people who read lips to communicate can't see what you're saying. I've seen people use masks with transparent centers to help, but these often fog over.

Computer programmer Kevin Lewis has responded to this need with an amazingly accurate speech-to-text recognition app that uses the Deepgram AI. I've never seen a speech-to-text transcription tool as accurate as this one. Lewis displays that text in realtime on a screen on his chest so that people who lipread can just read what he's saying. It's like living with subtitles turned on.

-via Hack A Day

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.

https://t.co/6LZxNGFHKL

— 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
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

— Yoshino@連邦(20周年) (@yoshinokentarou) January 10, 2022

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