The Soviet Union had, on a small scale, a domestic production of video and arcade games. Tetris, is, of course, the most famous Soviet video game, if not the most successful cultural export of the Soviet Union. Many of these games are playable at the Museum of Soviet Video Games, which has locations in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

This particular arcade game tested players' strength. It simulates the motion of pulling up turnips and takes its inspiration from a Russian folktale about an entire family harvesting an especially massive turnip.

You can see photos of other Soviet arcade games at this 2019 post from the Arcade Blogger.

-via @after_history

Would you eat escargot-flavored ice cream? It might be a good way to prepare for your stay in Paris.

The New York Post reports that EasyJet, a British discount airline, is offering snacks befitting the destinations of its travelers. Those traveling to Paris are served ice cream flavored with garlic and crystallized sugar made to resemble the texture of snail shells.

Travelers to Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Morocco also receive special "jet-lato" flavors. I would enjoy trying the ice cream made to taste like cacio e pepe, a cheese and pasta dish from Italy.

You can see a promotional video for the program on Instagram.

-via Dave Barry

It's time to class up this shindig. Yes, a champagne fountain is nice, but it's also expensive and does not defeat the ennui of the modern party scene. But a pickle fountain will make sure that people talk about your party for years to come.

Born in Space has a roundup of TikTok videos showing people setting up and enjoying pickle fountains at events. The spigots are helpful for those of us who prefer to drink  pickle juice straight from the source. If you insist on staying traditional, you can offer champagne glasses to your guests for this purpose. But don't be surprised if I just stick my whole head under a spigot and open it up.

-via Dave Barry

Hello, Antarctica.

Unlike previously anticipated, from 460 km above, it is only pure white, no human activity is visible. pic.twitter.com/i7JawFYzW2

— Chun (@satofishi) April 2, 2025

Chung Yang, a billionaire investor and, now, astronaut is leading a current a SpaceX private orbital mission. The Times reports that Chun and three companions have a polar orbit, passing both the north and south poles every 46 minutes in their Dragon capsule. They found Antarctica transcendentally beautiful.

The four-person crew is also conducting 22 scientific experiments focused on how the human body reacts to space travel. These experiments include the first-ever X-ray performed on a human in space.

-via Massimo

Which of Hayao Miyazaki's films is depicted above? Yes, it's Spirited Away!

The palette of a film's most dominant colors can help us recognize it, sometimes instantly. NYC-based illustrator and graphic designer Hyo Taek Kim has, in the past, attracted our attention for his color palettes of Star Wars and Disney films.

Kim has also created a poster depicting Studio Ghibli fims, including My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, The Wind Rises, Porco Rosso, Ponyo, Nausicaä, Castle in the Sky, and Kiki's Delivery Service.

-via Spoon & Tamago

It is a truth universally acknowledged that men, as a broad generalization, enjoy gazing upon the bosoms of fair maidens. Why is this so? One popular belief is that some cultures sexualize human breasts and thus impose lasvicious desire upon the breasts, whereas other cultures regard breasts as no more inherently sexual than any other part of the body.

Is this belief true? Michal Mikolaj Stefanczyk, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Wrocław, and his colleagues recently published an article in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior on the subject.

The scholars examined a tribe in Papua New Guinea for which female toplessness was the norm until recently. The found that men who grew up in times when most women were topless were as fascinated with breasts as men who grew up after toplessness became uncommon.

This evidence suggests that a male interest in breasts is innate and, The Times summarizes, not culturally driven. Yet it is also clear that further research of breasts is necessary and appropriate as a scientific endeavor.

-via Dave Barry | Image by Jimmy Johnson

Candace Hicks works primarily with fabric arts, notably embroidery on canvas. Her use of this long-established medium is highly innovative as we see in her faux composition notebooks.

They're not static images. You (or, better, a museum curator) can open them to reveal personal journals in fabric form.

What if Studio Ghibli directed Lord of the Rings?

I spent $250 in Kling credits and 9 hours re-editing the Fellowship trailer to bring that vision to life—and I’ll show you exactly how I did it 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/IqUeBSH4H0

— PJ Ace (@PJaccetturo) March 27, 2025

The good people of X have, for the past two days, used ChatGPT to render famous photos and memes in the style of Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli films. This trend may have inspired AI filmmaker PJ Ace to use more sophisticated AI options to remake the trailer for The Fellowship of the Ring in the Ghibli style. It works quite well.

Miyazaki has not responded to this recent development, but he is on record as describing AI art as "an insult to life itself."

Iguanas are common on Marco Island off the southwestern coast of Florida. John Johnson, the owner of Down Goes Iguana, specializes in eliminating hundreds of these pests every year. Gulf Coast News in Fort Myers reports that Johnson advocates eating this invasive species--especially the eggs.

Although the eggs are small, enough of them put together make for a fine omelet. With 49 eggs harvested from his prey, diced ham, peppers, and onions, Johnson creates a unique dish. Johnson says that his iguana omelet "this touches the edge of the Florida man" meme. One local reporter says that despite their exotic origin, the iguana eggs taste like regular chicken eggs.

-via Dave Barry

X user @Msamlam shares this map owned by the National Library of Australia. It dates back to 1932, when Japan felt quite confident of its ability to be a major power in the world and the dominant power in eastern Asia. The illustrators depict in detail stereotypes of the peoples of the world.

The image of the United States includes a reference to the 1932 Summer Olympics, where Japan did quite well in swimming events.

The unplanned welcome crew!

Crew-9 had some surprise visitors after splashing down this afternoon.🐬 pic.twitter.com/yuOxtTsSLV

— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) March 18, 2025

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had planned to be on the International Space Station for only eight days and ended up stranded in space for nine months when their transportation plans fell through. But on Tuesday, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft rescued and delivered them home in a spashdown off the western coast of Florida.

When they arrived, USA Today reports, a pod of dolphins surrounded the craft. They splashed about as the retrieval team harnessed the pod to bring it to the awaiting ship.

As the Bard said:

Dog goes 'woof', cat goes 'meow'

Bird goes 'tweet' and mouse goes 'squeek'

Cow goes 'moo', frog goes 'croak'

And the elephant goes 'toot'

But this is true in only the English language. In other human languages, animal vocalizations are pronounced differently--albeit sometimes only slightly.

Vivian Li of The Pudding has charts with soundboards illustrating the onomatopoeia that express different animal sounds, including cats, ducks, and pigs. She goes into an astonishing amount of detail about the phonetic mechanics involved in making each sound in each language and draws connections between them despite these different languages originating around the world. 

-via Flowing Data

🍕Pizza ... with a side of gator? 🐊 Officer Tolson responded to calls about an 8-foot gator in a 55+ community, intercepted a terrified pizza delivery driver, and ensured a hungry customer was fed (and a hungry gator wasn't). All in a day's work! pic.twitter.com/kbG9TvIaOu

— Bradenton Police Department (@BradentonPD) March 12, 2025

UPI reports that Officer Tolson of the police department of Bradenton, Florida responded to a call about an 8-foot long alligator in a residential neighborhood. While addressing the situation, a pizza delivery driver arrived and attempted to take a pizza to the home where the alligator was lounging. He stopped the driver and, after communicating with the resident, brought the pizza to the back door.

The officer really went above and beyond for the resident who insisted on getting a photo of the gator. He took the woman's phone out to the front of the house to snap a picture of the gator.

-via Marginal Revolution

An understanding of the rhetorical situation in which a communicator is situated considers the intersection of speaker/author, audience, and the subject. The exigence--the motivation--of the speaker/author and the purpose--what reaction the speaker/author hopes to provoke from the audience--dictates the resulting genre of communication.

There is a proper rhetorical situation appropriate the online comment voice. But it is prudent to know when one is in that situation and when one is not. Kelly has not only selected an inappropriate content for his diatribe, but also the wrong audience to which to deliver it. Cartoonists Ian Boothby and Pia Guerra illustrate this common faux pas.

On the marvelously curious subreddit /r/DiWHY, redditor /u/carrieminaj asks why this door is shaped this way. One potential answer lies beneath the fold.