(Photo: Sam Hodgson/New York Times)

Amy E. Herman is an expert on visual perception. She teaches people how to observe things and gain information from them. This is an essential skill for police officers, so she frequently trains cops how to be better observers by taking them to art museums. Herman shows police officers paintings and asks them what they see. The New York Times describes one such class:

Ms. Herman also displayed a pair of slides featuring reclining nudes: Goya’s “The Nude Maja” (1797-1800) and Lucian Freud’s 1995 “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” who is very fat. Ms. Herman asked the group to compare the pictures. “Most cops, when I ask this question, say it shows someone before and after marriage,” she said.

Several officers raised their hands.

“Uh, the woman at the bottom is more generously proportioned,” one said.

“She is morbidly obese,” said another.

“Right!” Ms. Herman said. “Don’t make poor word choices. Think about every word in your communication.”

Police often look at art differently from art historians. When they're in the museum, they're taking down criminals:

“Sometimes they’ll say, ‘We have an E.D.P. here’ — an emotionally disturbed person,” Ms. Herman said. Once she showed some officers El Greco’s “The Purification of the Temple,” which depicts Jesus expelling the traders and money-changers amid turmoil and mayhem.

“One cop said, ‘I’d collar the guy in pink’” — that would be Jesus — ‘“because it’s clear that he’s causing all the trouble.’”

-via Glenn Reynolds

A photo posted by Catherine Marshall (@zizzyballord) on Mar 25, 2016 at 9:21am PDT

Catherine Marshall is a South African travel writer and journalist who lives in Sydney, Australia. While flying over the Strait of Messina separating Sicily from the Italian peninsula, she snapped this amazing photo of her plane's shadow transposed over a rainbow.

-via Marilyn Terrell

The movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy includes a surreal battle scene between rival news crews. After the fight, Ron Burgundy remarks that it was very odd for an argument between reporters to turn into a bloody brawl:

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He says, "That escalated quickly."

In 2012, this line became the subject of a popular image macro meme. People usually quote it when they see someone overreacting in a wonderful or terrible way.

Google Trends, which tracks web trends, reports that the use of "that escalated quickly" escalated quickly at the time.

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In an elevator in China, a man gets handsy with a woman. After he's had plenty of warning, she delivers a right cross, then a groin kick that puts him on the floor. She follows up with a knee to his face.

It's a lovely, heart-warming scene.

The origin of this video is uncertain. Mashable reports that some people think that it's fake. But a Chinese news outlet has confirmed that the woman is an actress named Du Qiao. She says that it's real:

Qiao confirmed to Tencent on Thursday that she was the woman in the video, but insisted it wasn't staged. "I was just minding my own business, but he forced a reaction from me," she said.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

(Photo: Urban Prep Academies)

Urban Prep Academies is a 3-campus all-boys school in Chicago. Six years ago, we told you about an impressive achievement of the school: every one of their graduating seniors was going to college.

That was followed by another year, and other. It's 2016, and for the seventh year in a row, every single senior has committed to a 4-year college. CBS Chicago (auto-start video) reports:

Founder and CEO of Urban Prep Tim King says the students have been admitted to more than 220 colleges and universities this year.

“We’ve got two guys going to my alma mater, Georgetown University, we have our first admit to Yale University this year,” said King. “We have students who’ve been admitted to University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Morehouse College, schools all over the country. It’s a huge level of diversity in terms of the types of schools these young men will be going to in the fall.” […]

“Every year, I’m just wowed by these young men by what they are doing,” King said. “They really make me proud. We started Urban Prep with the goal of moving the needle when it comes to black male achievement and these guys proved to me, the city and the world every year, that we did the right thing when we founded Urban Prep ten years ago.”

-via Huffington Post

(Image: Marvel Studios)

WARNING: Spoilers of season 2 of Daredevil.

(Photo: Mark Holloway)

During World War I, warring nations developed large, heavily armored, self-propelled vehicles that could support infantry attacks. They called these war machines "tanks." Why?

It was the British who came up with the name. The engineers wanted the vehicles to remain a secret from the Germans, so they told workers assembing them that these machines they were building would be used to carry water onto the battlefield. They were mobile water tanks. The History Channel (auto-start video) explains:

To keep the project secret from enemies, production workers were reportedly told the vehicles they were building would be used to carry water on the battlefield (alternate theories suggest the shells of the new vehicles resembled water tanks). Either way, the new vehicles were shipped in crates labeled “tank” and the name stuck.

-via TYWKIWDBI

When Richard Adams's first novel was published in 1972, one critic wrote "I announce with trembling excitement the looks of an exceptional story." This was Watership Down, a masterfully crafted tale of adventure, courage, tyranny, and freedom.

The characters are rabbits.

This surprised readers, especially those who suspected that they were reading a children's novel. But there is war, death, and cruelty in Watership Down, a thoroughly adult story. It enthralled an entire generation and became a bestseller.

Watership Down became a movie in 1978 and an animated television series in 2001. Now Adams's famous story is returning to the big screen. Deadline reports that Neflix and the BBC plan to turn it into an animated miniseries. They've recruited the best actors for it, including John Boyega of Star Wars, James McAvoy of X-Men, and Ben Kingsley of Ghandi.

As a devoted fan of Richard Adams's work, I'm thrilled. Watership Down, though not deep, is a truly perfect novel. If you've enjoyed it, I suggest also reading Adams's greatest and most neglected novel, Shardik. You may also enjoy Adams's autobiography, which describes the real-life people that inspired Hazel and Bigwig.

-via The Mary Sue

The home of police officer Margo Feaser of Longwood, Florida caught on fire on Monday night. Neighbors smashed in windows to give Feaser an escape route from the home, which was rapidly filling with smoke.

Feaser got out, as did her dog and her husband, who promptly collapsed on the front lawn. But their 4 and 2-year old children were still inside.

Maxx, the family's German Shepherd mix, led firefighters back inside to the location of the kids. The entire family, including the dog, suffered severe smoke inhalation. But they're all alive, thanks to Maxx the dog. The Orlando Sentinel quotes Deputy Sheriff Dennis Lemma:

"The family canine was just absolutely remarkable leading firefighters inside," Lemma said. "It absolutely saved their lives."

Lemma said the Sheriff's Office is grateful for the quick-actions of neighbors and fire crews, but also called the deputy a hero.

"She came out and her No.1 concern was to get back in there and save those kids," Lemma said. "She's a hero and acted as such."

-via Ace of Spades HQ

I think that Captain Mal Reynolds is more likely to be chaotic good, or possible chaotic neutral (he did kick a guy into a running engine). But I agree that you shouldn't cross him when he's equipped with his pretty floral bonnet.

Geek and Sundry, which previously created Dungeons & Dragons character sheets for Harry Potter characters, now brings Firefly into the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Here you can find stats for Jayne, Inara, and Kaylee. 

-via Nerd Approved

Need to patch a flat tire? This mechanic in the Philippines does not have a modern shop by the standards of a developed nation. But he will get you on the road again.

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After pulling out the nail, the mechanic builds a fire in a can. Then he puts a piece of rubber beneath the can and mashes the can inside the tire with a clamp. The heat melts the rubber enough so that it seals the hole.

Now it's time to refill the tire. I'm not sure what the truck tire is for. Perhaps he's siphoning it for compressed air. In either event, he's able to refill the tire and get the van moving again.

-via Jalopnik

You get the Hobie Mirage Eclipse. The premise for this product by the Hobie Cat Company (which makes watercraft, not cats) is that paddleboarding can be a vigorous form of exercise when users pedal stairs that flap fins on the bottom to provide locomotion. You steer it by squeezing handlebar-mounted levers, which control the rudder. It comes with an optional crate that straps onto the back end for storing snacks or fishing gear.

Unlike a conventional stairclimber, the Mirage Eclipse offers more adventure than a stationary device inside a gym.

-via The Contemporist

(Image: US Patent Office)

Recently, in the office, while passing by a co-worker, I held up my hand for the purpose of exchanging a high five. He ignored me and kept walking.

This was a dark and traumatic moment.

And it's one that I could have escaped if only I had Albert Cohen's patented apparatus for simulating a high five. It is made specifically for solitary people in need of some high five action. Cohen writes in his 1993 patent paperwork that his machine is designed for sporting events, but it's clearly applicable in all of the other many high five events that constitute the typical adult's day.

-via Simone Giertz

(Photo: dann_grace)

The Place, an Italian restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, has invented an entirely new way to cook, serve, and eat pizza. It's called The Bomb.

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The Bomb consists of the uncooked (or at least partially uncooked) pizza ingredients inside a bubble of dough. The server pours oil over the top and lights it on fire. The dough burns. When the fire goes out, the server cuts open the bubble with a pair of scissors and slices the bottom half.

-via First We Feast

Laura Keeble, a British artist, takes stained glass from old churches and turns it into everyday objects. This McDonald's Happy Meal becomes a symbol of the Eucharist titled The Glass Supper. In other pieces, memorial church glass becomes a security camera and a phone booth becomes a confessional.