Are you looking for a good place to Netflix and chill? Or would you like to have a movie night with friends? The last standing Blockbuster Video rental store, which is located in Bend, Oregon, is open for business as an AirBnB rental property. There's a living room and an air mattress set up in front of a big screen TV among the rows of VHS cases on shelves. According to the hosts, the experience is authentic to its origins:

Whether you want to stay up until sunrise or pass out on the couch, we’ve created the perfect space complete with a pull-out couch, bean bags and pillows for you to cozy up with “new releases” from the ‘90s. Crack open a two-liter of Pepsi before locking into a video game, charting your future in a game of MASH, or watching movie after movie. But be wary of reciting “Bloody Mary” in the staff bathroom off of the break room, as you just may summon the ghost rumored to haunt the store. And help yourself to some NERDS, Raisinets and popcorn (heavy on the butter), but make sure you save room for a couple slices.

-via The Mary Sue | Photo: AirBnB

Proposing to your girlfriend is a risky venture. She could say no. Riky Ash's proposal had additional risks, as he waited until he had been set on fire before popping the question. The New York Post describes his stunt:

Ash, who’s been stunting as a body double for 27 years, says he was able to stay relaxed while on fire thanks to his kung fu training and says the nerve-wracking part was making sure the surprise went off without a hitch. “This one, I’m more nervous about the actual proposal than being set on fire.”

Ash's girlfriend, Katrina Dobson, says that she didn't know he would propose at that moment. She thought that she was simply joining him for a romantic photoshoot.

-via Instapundit

View this post on Instagram

5년동안 그려왔음에도 매순간 고민하고 도전하게 해주는 특별한 #thestarrynight

A post shared by 이강빈 (@leekangbin91) on Sep 2, 2019 at 6:33pm PDT

Lee Kang Bin is a food artist in Korea. He focuses primarily on colorful lattes, but also works with pastries. I'm struck by his departure from the often monochromatic use of latte art into a world of color. He imitates great artists with works you will recognize, but also makes original images of flowers.

View this post on Instagram

Nach dem Revival der Autokinos in diesem Jahr gibt es nun auch ein erstes Freiluftkino auf dem Wasser. 38 Elektroboote mit Platz für bis zu sechs Personen dümpeln derzeit am Seine-Ufer in Paris. Während so auf dem Fluss Mindestabstandsregeln befolgt werden können, gibt es auf einer großen Leinwand die französische Komödie „Le Grand Bain“ zu sehen. Obwohl konventionelle Kinos in Frankreich mittlerweile wieder geöffnet haben, ist das Interesse am „Le Cinema Sur L’ Eau“ (Kino auf dem Wasser) hoch. Fotos: Reuters • • • #openairkino #freiluftkino #autkino #bootkino #seine #paris #parisplages #legrandbain #frankreich

A post shared by TRT Deutsch (@trtdeutsch) on Jul 22, 2020 at 11:15am PDT

Dornob tells us about a new movie theater arrangement in Paris designed to be a bit safer than getting packed into a crowded hall. The Bassin de la Villette, an artificial lake in Paris connected to the Seine by a canal, hosted an outdoor viewing of a movie on July 18.

Organizers conducted a raffle for the audience. Winners got to watch the movie from boats. Losers still got to watch the movie, but from deck chairs onshore. Together, they watched Le Grand Bain, a 2018 French dramedy about a men's synchronized swimming team.

Schools around the world, including my own, are searching for new ways to teach students in engaging and meaningful ways online. It's pretty neat to create educational games. But coding video games is hard.

Today, I learned about H5P, which offers a branching game model used to create multiple choice scenarios. It's like a high quality Choose Your Own Adventure story. In this particular one, which the above screenshot comes from, a Canadian nurse makes a home visit to a client who, it becomes clear, is in a dangerous home situation. The producers did an extraordinary job of designing a scenario that tests a nurse's social skills.

-Thanks, Katie!

View this post on Instagram

#keklapissarawak #sarawaklayercakerolls

A post shared by Karen (@kitchen_confidante) on Jun 12, 2020 at 9:25am PDT

Kek lapis Sarawak is a uniquely Malaysian approach to layer cake design that emerged in the 1970s. The colorful layers are carefully baked, then sliced and rearranged into complex patterns that are as much a feast for the eyes as the mouth. Atlas Obscura describes the creation process:

Building these cakes requires a vivid imagination, an almost mathematical mind for detail, and perhaps most importantly, a steady hand.

Making one cake can take anywhere from four to eight hours, depending on the complexity of the design. It’s a process that could go wrong at any point in time: bakers first must cook up cakes in deep pans, carefully adding even stripes of colorful batter with ten minutes in the oven between each layer.

But making the cake is only half the battle. Kek lapis Sarawak is unique because bakers must carefully cut up the cooled cakes and reassemble them using jam or condensed milk as glue. The end result is a complex, vibrant pattern that appears when the cake is sliced.

Many animals engage in what behaviorists call "contrafreeloading." This means that when presented with the opportunity to solve a puzzle and be rewarded with food or get free food for no work at all, animals that engage in contrafreeloading take the puzzle option. Rats, gerbils, mice, chimpanzees, dogs, and other animals demonstrate this behavior.

But not cats. Andy Fell writes for the University of California at Davis:

But not domestic cats. Given the choice, cats prefer eating for free to working out a simple puzzle to get their food, according to a paper by researchers from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine presented this week at a virtual meeting of the Animal Behavior Society.

UC Davis cat behaviorist Mikel Delgado with colleagues Brandon Han and Melissa Bain offered 18 house cats a choice between a food puzzle and a tray of free food. Cats ate more from the free tray and spent more time on the free food, they found.

“It wasn’t that the cats NEVER used the food puzzle, they just used it less, ate less food from it, and typically would eat from the freely available food first,” Delgado said.

Why do some species engage in contrafreeloading and cats don't? It's uncertain:

Although contrafreeloading has been known for almost 50 years, there is still no single theory to explain it.

“There are different theories about why animals might contrafreeload, including boredom in captive environments, stimulating natural foraging behaviors, and creating a sense of control over the environment and outcomes,” Delgado said.

It’s also not clear why cats don’t do it — perhaps because it does not simulate natural hunting behavior, she said.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Mikel Delgado

Do you think that you can cross in time before the train arrives? Maybe, but keep in mind that if you fail, you're creating an awful bloody mess all over the tracks for someone else to clean up. And the engineer will also be an emotional wreck, as he just watched someone--you--die in front of the vehicle under his control.

So the New Zealand Transport Agency, which operates the country's public train system, has created a series of mock memorials next to crossings. Scan the QR code on each to see video of a near miss.

-via reddit

Howdy Y'all! Meet Curbside Larry.... We Got'em! #libraries #curbsidepickup pic.twitter.com/Rkvzrt3ScU

— Harris County Public Library (@harriscountypl) July 22, 2020

Like a lot of librarians and library staffers across the United States, I'm working from home. The adjustment has its challenges, but also opportunities to rethink how libraries can and should operate. For example: you want a 5:30 AM virtual reference appointment? Sure, I'll be there!

Alas, I don't have Curbside Larry's engaging personality. He sells what the Barbara Bush Branch Library of the Harris County Public Library (that's the Houston area) has for you. This punk ass book jockey talks like a stereotypical Texas car salesman offering crazy deals on the latest and classic models. Texas Monthly reports:

Curbside service at the Barbara Bush Branch Library was already robust when the character—played by library staffer John Schaffer—was created. But according to Clara Maynard, the branch’s manager, Curbside Larry has brought even more awareness to the curbside pickup option at the library—and he’ll continue to do so, as she says that this isn’t the last we’ll see of the character. Schaffer, she says, has received a well-deserved promotion, and will be spending more time as both Curbside Larry and other characters to bring even more attention to the Harris County Public Library. 

-Thanks, Terry!

View this post on Instagram

Thanks for all the love on this #IndianSnackSeries 😫💕 The snack will be quite difficult to guess. It’s less of a snack and more of a refreshment! Also it’s sweet in taste! . . #naturalmakeup #makeupaddict #hudabeauty #shophudabeauty #eyemakeup #nyxcosmetics #urbandecay #milanicosmetics #indianblogger #sponjac #narcissist #morphebrushes #kyliejenner #rollerlash #bollywood #smokeyeye #dubaiblogger #dubaimakeupblogger #mydubai #amritasingh #bollywoodactress #hijabi #anastasiabeverlyhills #maryhadalittleglam #mumbai #bollywood #lays.

A post shared by Divya Premchand (@divsglam) on Jul 20, 2020 at 6:50am PDT

Divya Premchard, a resident of Dubai, recently launched a series on Instagram wherein she recreates popular Indian snacks as eye makeup. Honestly, I have no idea what these snacks are, but they look as delicious as the makeup looks lovely.

-via Danielle Baskin

View this post on Instagram

So many of you got this right on Twitter! This piece is inspired by the one and only Dory - who should I paint next? I posted a progress video of this piece over on @tiktok - My user name is the same everywhere 💙 . . . . . . #art #digitalpainting #digitalart #disney #disneyland #disneyart #pixar #findingnemo #drawingoftheday #procreate

A post shared by isabelle staub (@isabelle_staub) on Mar 13, 2020 at 10:29am PDT

Inspired by the great stories of Disney films, Isabelle Staub re-imagined non-human female characters as walking, talking, humans, losing fins and paws in the process. Staub is a remarkably skilled artist and her whole Instagram feed is worth exploring. The distinctive style of her women is captivating.

What would be easier: adopting a new nomenclature in order to avoid spreadsheet errors or customizing MS Excel to accomplish the same?

Exactly. So, The Verge reports, that's what geneticists are doing:

“It’s really, really annoying,” Dezső Módos, a systems biologist at the Quadram Institute in the UK, told The Verge. Módos, whose job involves analyzing freshly sequenced genetic data, says Excel errors happen all the time, simply because the software is often the first thing to hand when scientists process numerical data. “It’s a widespread tool and if you are a bit computationally illiterate you will use it,” he says. “During my PhD studies I did as well!”

There’s no easy fix, either. Excel doesn’t offer the option to turn off this auto-formatting, and the only way to avoid it is to change the data type for individual columns. Even then, a scientist might fix their data but export it as a CSV file without saving the formatting. Or, another scientist might load the data without the correct formatting, changing gene symbols back into dates. The end result is that while knowledgeable Excel users can avoid this problem, it’s easy for mistakes to be introduced.

Therefore the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee has created a new system that has resulted in 27 new gene names in the past year.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Pixabay

View this post on Instagram

🏋🏼‍♀️ Today... i feel Good 🏋🏼‍♀️ #scaf #anamorphic #opticalillusion #3d #abandoned #art #spraypaint #fitness

A post shared by SCAF 🇫🇷 (@scaf_oner) on Jun 22, 2020 at 7:05am PDT

SCAF, a French street artist, makes images that, when viewed from just the right angle, pop out of two dimensions and into three. Many show magical animals that seem to come to life and interact with passersby who are daring or foolhardy enough to approach. It's an exciting, surreal world inside SCAF's head.

Women, amirite? Who could possibly flip out at free king cobra left as a surprise in the bathtub? Well, Andre du Preez, a hobbyist snakecatcher in South Africa, married someone who doesn't appreciate a random romantic gesture. After rescuing the freezing, hibernating snake from construction site, he brought the cobra home to warm up in his bathtub.

Du Preez then stepped out to set up a terrarium for the snake when his wife discovered what her husband had been up to. The Daily Star reports:

But he didn't know his wife Tossie, 55, had returned early from a shopping trip – only realising when he heard her screams and the slamming of the bathroom door. [...]

He said: "When I heard all the screaming I knew I was in for it but I had only planned to give the snake a few minutes to warm up and I thought she would be gone half an hour.

"She may not be very tall but she has a temper and can be more dangerous than a cobra!

Du Preez was able to avoid getting bitten, though.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Silverfox Snake Rescues

When the bubonic plague returned to Florence, Italy in the 1600s, enterprising wine merchants found a way to continue selling their wares to fearful customers. They cut tiny windows into their exterior walls through which they could pass bottles or glasses of wine. About 150 remain in place today and some, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, have been returned to service. The New York Post describes this revived architectural phenomenon:

“Everyone is confined to home for two months and then the government permits a gradual reopening,” the Wine Window Association website reads. “During this time, some enterprising Florentine Wine Window owners have turned back the clock and are using their Wine Windows to dispense glasses of wine, cups of coffee, drinks, sandwiches and ice cream — all germ-free, contactless!”

“Everyone is confined to home for two months and then the government permits a gradual reopening,” the Wine Window Association website reads. “During this time, some enterprising Florentine Wine Window owners have turned back the clock and are using their Wine Windows to dispense glasses of wine, cups of coffee, drinks, sandwiches and ice cream — all germ-free, contactless!”

-via Comfortably Smug | Photo: Wine Window Association