There's something very enthralling about watching Mantenka Hime, a Japanese calligrapher, work at her desk. Sora News 24 tells us that she's popular in Japan, where a fanbase supports her enormous talents. There's a lot to watch here:
Mantenka Hime’s videos are focused on visual examples, and often include an overhead view or her writing in a separate window in the video’s top left corner. As a result, even viewers who don’t speak Japanese can learn the proper order, number, and direction of strokes to write each character. Watch closely, and you’ll even be able to spot where she performs hane, the subtle flourish where the artists leaves behind brush strokes while drawing the bristles away from the paper at the end of certain strokes.
And thanks to the scientists in MIT who first thought of the concept of the internet in the 1960s, we get to experience the fine arts of so many cultures around the world. Verily, it is an uplifting tool for all humanity.
I often hear skeptical voices say that today's youth don't have what it takes to thrive in a changing, demanding world. But then I read uplifting stories like this one in the New York Post. Teenagers are taking advantage of masking requirements to disguise themselves as old geezers and buy alcoholic beverages:
The “prank” has taken social-media platform TikTok by storm, with videos of users bedecked as boozehound bubbies — seemingly victorious, bottles in hand — racking up millions of views. [...]
“PSA: use ur fakes as much as possible bc if you wear a mask they can’t see ur whole face lol,” one adolescent posted to her not-of-legal-age brethren.
“Now that we have to wear masks, this is the best time to buy alcohol with a fake ID since the early 80’s . . .” standup comedian Jason Lawhead posted on Twitter.
Humanity being as it is, it is inevitable that, at some point, one person will murder another in space. Legally speaking, how will that criminal case be adjudicated? Popular author Sam Kean writes in Slate that one possible precedent may be a 1970 murder perpetrated by one scientist upon another in a temporary Arctic research station. It all began when Mario Escamilla shot Bennie Lightsy, his boss, over a bottle of raisin wine. The locations of the murder was unusual:
Escamilla worked on T-3, also known as Fletcher’s ice island, a Manhattan-size hunk of ice that at the time was floating north of Canada in the Arctic Ocean, roughly 350 miles from the North Pole. T-3 had been occupied off and on since the 1950s, and 19 scientists and technicians were stationed there during the summer of 1970, studying ocean currents and wind and weather patterns.
Which nation had legal jurisdiction? It was unclear:
T-3 was technically run by the U.S. Air Force, but Escamilla was a civilian, so they couldn’t court-martial him. The nearest land mass was Canada, but T-3 lay well outside Canada’s territorial waters, so it had no jurisdiction there. Perhaps the United States could have claimed the ice island—similar to the many uninhabited “Guano Islands” full of rich, natural fertilizer that the U.S. government seized during the 1800s. But unlike the Guano Islands, T-3 was temporary—it would melt away in the 1980s—so under international law, no nation could claim it. Perhaps the law of the sea applied? After all, T-3 was in some sense the literal high seas, being high-latitude frozen seawater. Except, the law of the sea applies only to navigable areas, and T-3 wasn’t navigable.
A few days later, US Marshals arrested Escamilla and brought him back to the United States. Federal prosecutors in Virginia charged him, which was legally messy:
First, there was the question of whether the government even had the right to try Escamilla, given T-3’s legal limbo. Second, there was the question of venue. Technically, the marshals and Escamilla had landed in Greenland first on the trip back home, so according to international law, he should have been tried there. The U.S. government simply ignored this. Federal prosecutors also attempted to charge Escamilla under special maritime law for crimes committed on vessels, despite the fact that T-3 wasn’t a “vessel” in any real sense.
After an initial conviction and then appeals, Escamilla ultimately went free. But the case, Kean (who is not an attorney, I should note) argues, may suggest how complicated resolving space crimes could become:
About the only existing law governing space is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. But the treaty focuses almost entirely on what nation-states can and cannot do (e.g., deploy nuclear bombs, seize celestial bodies). It’s virtually silent on what private companies or individuals can do—which suddenly seems like a glaring loophole given the rise of private space companies like SpaceX, which recently transported its first astronauts to the International Space Station. These private vessels are far murkier in a legal sense. [...] So consider this scenario: a German woman poisons a Congolese man on a spaceship owned by a Chinese-Belgian conglomerate that’s headquartered in Luxembourg. Who the hell’s in charge then?
Toy maker extraordinaire Steve Casino has made, for some happy child, a pull toy that shows the duel between the Beatrix and Gogo in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Let us hope that it is only the first in a line of toys that will educate young children about Quentin Tarantino's cultural legacy. I'd love to have some toy cars with which to re-enact the car chase scene from Death Proof.
Why leather armor for a rabbit? Well, a rabbit's key ability is dexterity. Although mail and plate armor may raise a rabbit's armor class, it can also induce a dexterity penalty and cause encumbrance problems if your dungeon master is a stickler for those rules.
So it's best to keep to leather armor or magical armor options for when you must take your rabbit adventuring. Etsy seller The King's Shilling can properly equip you and your furry pal.
Cosplayer Christopher Lavallee, a less famous Tony Stark, built this combat suit inspired by the Doctor's cybernetic foes, the Cybermen. Lavallee properly calls himself a "foamsmith" due to his mastery of foam cutting and molding.
Step 2 involves eating a dozen donuts (well, in my version), because you'll need to empty the Krispy Kreme box of its contents.
Andy Clockwise, though, is more straightforward and simply assumes that you have an empty Krispy Kreme box. Follow his simple instructions to make a sweet-smelling face shield.
— Ingenuous Firebrand (@ING2Firebrand) July 14, 2020
Don't think of your face mask as a burden. It's an opportunity! Twitter user Ingenuous Firebrand proposes sewing on a pocket and using the mask for more everyday carry gear.
I suggest making the mask from heavy canvas to make sure that it doesn't sag too much from the extra weight you store in the pocket.
A post shared by عذراء (@dr.azra) on Jun 24, 2018 at 12:55pm PDT
While browsing Instagram, I was struck by the henna designs of dr.azra. Her amazing work makes use of and then breaks through traditional forms. Waves and forms sweep over and through her hands.
He might look something like this, according to New Yorker cartoonist Madeline Horwath. A cute little fella and mostly human. Not to be specist or anything. Some of my best friends are humans.
Content warning about Horwath's main Instagram page: porn.
Chavis Flagg gets your attention by rolling through Atlanta on his motorized unicycle, all without skipping a single beat. He keeps your attention by being a great musician. If you see him at night, you may also be treated to a mobile light show.
Flagg earns his living through busking. Hopefully, his new album can take him further. CNN describes his work:
Flagg's impromptu performances aboard a Onewheel electric skateboard have helped double the 24-year-old musician's social media following over the past two weeks and earn him some money during a time when live venues have closed around the city, he told CNN.
On Saturday, from about 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET, Flagg earned roughly $300 in tips from people stopping to thank him for his music and to request songs. Since he started playing along the Beltline roughly two weeks ago, he's performed music by Prince, Jimmy Hendrix and Pop Smoke. Flagg's equipment includes a small amplifier and two JBL speakers attached to the Onewheel.
A post shared by Bridget Beth Collins (@flora.forager) on Jul 17, 2017 at 5:45pm PDT
Bridget Beth Collins is an artist Seattle who goes by the name Flora Forager. As she wanders the natural world, she finds leaves, flowers, moss, and other fruits of the living world. Collins arranges them into collages inspired by great works of art, popular culture, and her own vivid imagination.
What if someone you know and trust, perhaps all of your life, is secretly a cake? What if you are a cake and don't even know it? What if the universe is a cake that is about to be sliced open?
This compilation video of amazing creations by Red Rose Cake and Tuba Geçkil, a team of sorcerers in Turkey, will make you question reality. Will you eat the red cake or the blue cake?
The entertainment manager in my nan's care home decided to recreate album covers with some of the residents. This is my nan. pic.twitter.com/0e6bAzVW97
Residents of the Sydmar Lodge Care Home in Edgware, UK are, with the help of the home's entertainment manager, rocking out their top hits. Tim Frost's photo thread includes remakes of Madonna's True Blue, Blink 182's Enema of the State, Bruce Springstein's Born in the U.S.A., and Taylor Swift's 1989.
A speed camera in Italy awarded a driver with a $960 prize for taking her Ford Focus up to 437 miles per hour, or approximately 10 times the maximum speed of that vehicle. Alas, she was to be disappointed, as it was a computer glitch which caused the reading. Fox News reports:
The Autoappassionati report said local police failed to double-check the camera’s findings before mailing the woman a ticket – which placed 10 points on her license and carried a fine of 850 euros, or just under $1,000.
Giovanni Strologo, a transportation spokesman for the community of Offagna, in Ancona province, where the incident happened, advised the driver to appeal to the local government for compensation, according to the report.
In a Facebook post, he noted that police should have checked the details before sending the driver a ticket and joked that “even with a missile” the car could not possibly reach speeds that high.
