When Sunshine the dog needs a lift, she calls Nicholas the tortoise. Nothing to Do with Aborath refers to Nicholas as the tortoise taxi. But he's really more of an Uber tortoise because he doesn't have a taxi medallion and is only available on-call through an app.
John Farrier's Blog Posts
(Photo: WPPilot)
This is the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant in Florida. Christopher Le Cun was recently scuba diving nearby. He saw three shadowy objects beneath the water and decided to investigate. They were water intake vents for the nuclear plant. Each was about 16 feet wide. When he got too close to one of them, it sucked him in.
For five minutes, the strong flow of the vent pulled Le Cun around the interior of the plant in total darkness. After a quarter mile journey, the vent spat Le Cun into a water tank used to cool the nuclear reactor.
Le Cun is now suing Florida Power and Light, which operates the plant. The New York Daily News reports that the company insists that it was diligent in protecting wayward Florida men:
However, the company claims that there was a sign telling potential visitors to “stay back 100 feet” to avoid getting sucked into an unwelcome James Bond-style thrill ride.
It also said that Le Cun intentionally swam into the intake pipe and got past equipment meant to prevent anything foreign from getting into the pipe.
So far, Le Cun has not developed superpowers. Presumably repeated exposures to nuclear energy are necessary for that effect.
-via Florida Man
‘Sea-nomad’ Moken children can see underwater https://t.co/UwQqVPdfGc https://t.co/tZ4C9vVY9P via @BBC_Future pic.twitter.com/LBReVUVAvq
— Marilyn Terrell (@Marilyn_Res) March 6, 2016
The Moken people of western Thailand are sometimes called the Sea Nomads because they live almost their entire lives in the shallow waters of the Andaman Sea. From a very young age, they can swim as well as walk and hunt and fish in the water for their food.
They see remarkably well underwater. How? In 1999, Anna Gislén of the University of Lund in Sweden decided to find out.
BBC Future explains the problem. When we put our eyes underwater, our vision necessarily gets blurry:
Light is refracted when it enters the human eye because the outer cornea contains water, which makes it slightly denser than the air outside the eye. An internal lens refracts the light even further.
When the eye is immersed in water, which has about the same density as the cornea, we lose the refractive power of the cornea, which is why the image becomes severely blurred.
But the Moken children are taught to narrow their pupils to compensate for this change:
“Normally when you go underwater, everything is so blurry that the eye doesn’t even try to accommodate, it’s not a normal reflex,” says Gislen. “But the Moken children are able to do both – they can make their pupils smaller and change their lens shape. Seals and dolphins have a similar adaptation.”
It's an impressive adaptation. But it isn't permanent. Gislén found that the Moken lost this ability as they reached adulthood.
(Photo: Tina Franklin)
In 1903, Mary Franklin of Birmingham, Alabama was riding on a streetcar during a winter rainstorm. She noticed that the driver could barely see out the windshield because the rainwater adhered to the glass. That gave her an idea. The History channel tells the story:
Anderson began to sketch her wiper device right there on the streetcar. After a number of false starts, she came up with a prototype that worked: a set of wiper arms that were made of wood and rubber and attached to a lever near the steering wheel of the drivers’ side. When the driver pulled the lever, she dragged the spring-loaded arm across the window and back again, clearing away raindrops, snowflakes or other debris. When winter was over, Anderson’s wipers could be removed and stored until the next year. (This feature was presumably designed to appeal to people who lived in places where it did not rain in the summertime.)
Anderson tried to sell her invention, but no one bought it and her patent expired. But other inventors followed with other designs that were put to good use. You can read more about the history of their windshield wipers at Jalopnik.
(The Fall of the Alamo by Robert James Onderdonk)
180 years ago last Thursday, the representatives of the people of Texas voted to declare independence from Mexico. During that time, approximately 200 men stood in the old mission of the Alamo in San Antonio. Arrayed around them, from February 23 on, were the 1,800 soldiers of the dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Lt. Col. William B. Travis commanded the vastly outnumbered Texan forces. On February 24, Travis wrote to his countrymen, asking for immediate reinforcements, but pledging to hold on regardless:
The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country VICTORY OR DEATH.
Because he has a deathwish, the man loaded an app on his phone that makes it sound like an electric shaver. He turned it on, approached his mother from behind, and swiped the phone across the back of her head, as though he had just cut off a huge swath of her hair.
May he rest in peace. If a man must die while commiting a prank, this is the way to do so.
-via Tastefully Offensive
Donut Media presented Peggy Glenn and Audrey Linden with a Lamborghini Murciélago.
Just as a loan, mind you, and only for 5 hours.
Peggy and Audrey used the popular commuter vehicle to do their shopping. Before they arrived at the shop, though, they paraded down the street slowly, showing off the Lambo. Then, after picking up some groceries, they searched the car for a trunk. If there is one, it's hidden and tiny.
So perhaps the Lamborghini Murciélago is not ideal for this purpose. But it did help the two grandmothers in their efforts to flirt with a hot guy that they met.
-via American Digest
(Photo: Michael Marteen)
Frederick Callison of Sacramento, California had hit rock bottom, but he wasn't going to stay there.
He sat outside a grocery store, trying to get the attention of passersby. But he didn't ask for money. Instead, he was passing out his resume. Callison has extensive experience working in restaurants, which his resume listed. And he wrote on that resume that "I am firm believer in proactive productivity rather than reactive."
Indeed he was. Callison also had his Social Security card, ID card, and copies of his food handler's license. He was ready to start work. That impressed local resident Michael Marteen, who posted Callison's story and resume on Facebook and created a GoFundMe page on his behalf.
Word spread about Callison's efforts and a restaurant named Pizza Rocks hired him. The Today show reports:
"He was ecstatic about landing a job and very grateful for the opportunity," Marteen said. "He was up the night before studying the menu for hours."
The restaurant gave him clothes to wear and a friend is providing Callison with a place to stay until he can get back on his feet.
"It's easy to look at someone and not see anything but a homeless man, but after talking to him I realized he's so much more than that," Marteen said. "He's a well spoken, cool and friendly guy who knows what he wants and is going after it."
-via Huffington Post
(Photo: Library and Archives Canada)
Sir Winston Churchill, the Man of the Century, saw the dangers of Nazism before almost anyone else in the free world did. Then, after having defeated that threat and been promptly tossed out of office in 1945, he began warning the West of a new danger: Soviet Communism.
70 years ago today, on March 5, 1946, Churchill spoke as a private citizen at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He delivered a speech titled the "Sinews of Peace." But it has come to be known as the Iron Curtain speech. For in that speech, Churchill gave to the free world a startling visual metaphor for what had happened in Europe over the course of a year:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
You can listen to an audio recording of the full speech here.
-via VA Viper
(Photo: Pebbles Ryan)
Aliyah Ryan, 2, of Greenville County, South Carolina needed to put on her pants in the morning. This required more coordination than she was capable of. She needed help, so she picked up the phone in her home and called 911.
The dispatcher was confused by the child's need. But, as is standard procedure, he sent a Greenville County Deputy Sheriff out to the location.
Deputy Martha Lohnes drove to Aliyah's home. Her grandfather, who didn't know about the 911 call, answered the door. Then Aliyah walked up to the door with one leg in her pants.
Deputy Lohnes helped her put on her pants the rest of the way. 7 News reports:
“I just ended up sitting down on the stairs helping he put on the rest of her pants and then it was almost like a reward, she just wanted a hug,” she explained.
Needless to say, when mom, Pebbles Ryan, got the call at work, she was a little surprised.
“I came home to “oh, the police helped your daughter put pants on”. I was like “OH! Ok?” Then she wouldn’t let any of the police leave because she wanted hugs,” said Ryan.
-via Huffington Post
Prospective juror brought toddler to court with him. Power move.
— Popehat (@Popehat) March 4, 2016
Ken White is an attorney who blogs at Popehat. He's getting ready for a trial right now. On Twitter, he mentioned that during the jury selection process, one prospective juror brought a toddler to the court. This is certainly a "power move," as it would helpfully convince a judge to bounce him from the jury pool.
@Popehat GP Is the toddler even the juror's kid?
— The Gormogons (@Gormogons) March 4, 2016
Business idea: Rent toddlers to prospective jurors outside courthouse.
This incident inspired Twitter user @Gorgomons to propose a business idea: provide a rent-a-toddler service right outside of the courthouse. This way, potential jurors could equip themselves temporarily instead of raising their own toddlers, which is an expensive and time-consuming process.
This is brilliant! And, as White later comments, if this business was combined with a pre-existing child care business, then you'd have capital goods (i.e. toddlers) already available.
The concept is similar to the disabled person rental service available (discreetly, mind you) at Disney World. People in wheelchairs get to go to the front of lines at rides, so families sometimes hire people in wheelchairs to accompany them to the park.
There seems to be nothing that Shelley Gifford can't do with her daughter's hair. Every day, she sends her 6-year old daughter Grace to school with an inventive style. It takes her about 15-20 minutes to weave this kind of astonishing artistry.
And she's entirely self-taught! Gifford has been braiding for only 2 years. She tells the Today show that it's a great creative outlet:
"I try and think of a new style each night for the following day," said Gifford, who teaches mothers how to braid and does special occasion braid work. "I like trying to be creative with my braiding."
(Photo: Crazy Pedro's)
Chocolate creme eggs are nature's perfect food. They belong everywhere and pizza is no exception. That's why Crazy Pedro's a pizzeria in Manchester, UK invented the creme egg pizza. It's called "I Am The Resurreggtion." This 10-inch pizza has meringue, marshmallows, chocolate sauce, brownie chunks, and, of course, a whole creme egg sliced in two. This is Crazy Pedro's unique way to celebrate the upcoming Easter holiday.
-via That's Nerdalicious!
Ben Frost (content warning: artistic nudity), an artist from Australia, has added images of cartoon characters to packages for drugs that, somehow, match the characters perfectly. They include Peter Griffin from Family Guy on a package of gas relief pills and Cookie Monster on OxyContin. You can see more in the series at Khool.
Gallaudet University in the Washington, D.C. is a school for the deaf. It's been around for a century and a half, so many of the old buildings look like what you might expect on a college campus. But that's changing. Architects are redesigning the campus to optimize the architecture for the sensory experiences of deaf people. This approach to design is called "DeafSpace."
Some are fairly straightforward, such as classrooms with desks arranged in a U-shape so that everyone can see each other at the same time. Others are less intuitive to those of us who can hear. For example, if two deaf people wish to walk and talk, they need an optimal distance between each other so that they can see each other's signs. This means building wider hallways. It also means building ramps instead of stairs so that users can look at each other instead of constantly watching their footing.
You can learn more about DeafSpace from Derrick Behm of Gallaudet University in this video by Vox.
-via Khool
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