The Modern Novel is a website curated by Mia Couto consisting of lists and descriptions of literary fiction by apparently every nation on earth, as well as many non-independent regions. Cuoto considers all fictional works of literary value from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.

It's fun to browse. For example, what authors are from Liechtenstein? Perhaps the most famous author of literary fiction from the tiny principality is Jens Dittmar, who wrote Sterben Kann Jeder. This title translates as Anyone Can Die. A summary is here.

Liechtenstein is--mostly--an independent nation. Chukotka, which is the westernmost part of Russia, is not. But this sparsely-inhabited region claims the author Yuri Rytkheu, who wrote the 1970 novel A Dream in Polar Fog.

Explore The Modern Novel. Do you see any surprises or are inspired to read some listed works?

-via Marginal Revolution | Image: Amazon

Ceci n'est pas une perceuse.

WOTC News tells us about Sylvester Franklin, a man in Savannah, Georgia, who ordered a drill from the online store AliExpress, a subsidiary of AliBaba, which is the "Amazon of China." Instead he received a photo of a drill. Frankllin also ordered a pressure washer and received a bit driver.

AliExpress has so far refused to refund his money. WOTC News reports that the company has a reputation for poor customer service, such as providing fake tracking numbers, as well as a history of counterfeiting.

-via Derek Guy

Ben Ashton is a British artist who is classically trained as a realistic painter. He can perfectly render portraits in the style of Old Masters and reflecting the highest standards of the Academic tradition.

Then he adds a twist. His images are not digital renderings with glitches, but are actually painted to look like that.

Instagram user @g0nghua is a food artist who creates conceptual and inventive products at Who Eats Art. Her recent work includes experiments with tea eggs, which are a food originating in China. Boil an egg, crack it, then boil it again in tea to brew tea flavors into your egg.

@g0nghua says that her grandmother would disown her if she discovers that she's been doing this to pigeon eggs. I assume that she used molds to shape the semi-cooked eggs into dice. This was part of an exhibition of edible art that invited guests to sample the works on display.

-via Gastro Obscura

Shinichi Furuya is a researcher in the field of the physiology of musicians, as well as a pianist. He wants to optimize piano playing, driving pianists to their physical limits. Do do so, New Scientist reports, Furuya and his colleagues have developed a machine that can improve the finger speed of users.

The exoskeleton wraps around the hand and jerks each finger up to four times each second and moves them in motions specific to piano playing. When tested on pianists, a mere 30-minute session with the device substantially improved finger speed. Brain scans indicated that the pianists had greater motion control after this training.

-via David Thompson

Colorado has the highest lighthouse in the United States and this is a photo of it.

But wait--why does Colorado have a lighthouse at all? It's landlocked.

Well, the Frisco Bay lighthouse is located close to the Dillon Reservoir outside of Denver. The site has an elevation of 9,017 feet, thus making this structure, which is a mere 26 feet all, the highest lighthouse in the United States.

It's actually functional, not just a decoration, as it provides a beacon directing recreational boaters to the nearby marina. K99 News reports that it was built when the reservoir was constructed in the 1960s.

-via Terrible Maps | Photo: CodeJeffrey

Neodymium magnets are immensely powerful--so much so that getting one accidentally stuck up your nose may require a hospital visit.

Grant Slatton, a software engineer, used the magnetic force of a set of magnets to good effect to build a levitating bed. When the magnets are set in opposition to each other--five in the frame and five in the base--they can hold his bodyweight in the air.

The guidewires keep the bed hovering in the proper spot. The magnets, Slatton explains, must be very close to each other to maintain repulsion.

Slatton appreciates the fame the bed brought him when he first shared it on the internet in 2012. But he also notes that the bed wasn't particularly comfortable.

pic.twitter.com/MqHLzdcjCl

— Chase Businelle (@ChaseBusinelle) January 21, 2025

From Houston to Pensacola, the Gulf coast is experiencing rather unseasonable weather. But in the South, we just roll with it. This sentiment is especially true in southern Louisiana, which had its first blizzard warning in history.

Japan is rightly famous for its vending machines from which it is possible to purchase all needful things. The Swedish embassy in Tokyo decided to make use of this cultural niche by creating a vending machine that sells only Swedish products. Unseen Japan visited and photographed this wonder.

The correspondent found for sale Swedish branded teas and coffees, lingonberry jam, and canned surströmming, which is a variety of salted herring that Sweden is famous for. You can shop from it yourself in the Ikebukuro shopping district of Tokyo unless it is isekai'd.

I wonder why the sign is in English instead of Japanese or Swedish.

Food Nibbles is a British YouTuber who makes foods from unconventional sources. His playlists include foods from defunct restaurants, school lunches around the world, and the favorite foods of UK Prime Ministers.

I'm quite taken with the idea of eating foods from countries that no longer exist--at least as independent nations. First on the list is my own Texas, which was an independent republic before the United States joined it in 1845. Naturally, Food Nibbles made chicken fried steak.

For Yugoslavia, which collapsed in the early 1990s. To represent this temporarily unified nation of the south slavs, Food Nibbles selected pljeskavica, which is a beef dish.

-via Boing Boing

Self-surgery is not new. Most famously, a Soviet doctor performed his own appendectomy in 1962 because there was no one else available in Antarctica to do it.

Dr. Chen Wei-nong, though, performed a less time-sensitive operation: a vasectomy. Oddity Central tells us that this plastic surgeon in Taiwan performed his own vasectomy, recorded it, and then posted the video online. I can confirm that this video is indeed available, should you wish to watch it.

Although a vasectomy normally takes 15 minutes, Dr. Chen is not a urologist, so figuring out the procedure and completing it took him a full hour. He suggests that men seeking to follow his example instead have it performed by a urologist.

For many years it was a tradition for local students sitting exams to make sure to ride this bus or a bus driven by this driver, who famously did not fall (in Japanese fall/fail can be the same word). Everyone remembers seeing this bus on a collapsed highway after the big… https://t.co/ETceFMbATL

— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) January 17, 2025

Wrath of Gnon, a culture critic who lives in Japan, shares this story about the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which struck southern Japan 30 yeras ago today on January 17, 1995. Bus driver Yusui Yoshimasa survived, as did his Mitsubishi Fuso Aerobus. In fact, the bus was put back in service and was popular among students preparing for exams.

NHK World-Japan interviewed Yoshimasa about his experience during and after this terrifying event. He's still driving, but a different bus.

Popular Science reports that scientists from Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam have just classified a species of giant isopod in Vietnam. They've named it Bathynomus vaderi after Darth Vader, as they see a resemblance between its head and Vader's famous helmet.

Giant isopods are a popular source of meat in East Asia, so it was easy for the researchers to acquire large quantities of them from fishermen for examination. The researchers' article in the journal ZooKeys makes no mention of mysterious powers from Bathynomus vaderi, such as the ability to choke people without touching them.

-via Dave Barry

Joe Velaidum of Prince Edward Island has a doorbell camera mounted at the front door of his home. CBC News reports that in July, that camera recorded a meteorite strike right in front of his home. Velaidum says that he had stood in that spot just a couple minutes before the bug meteor attack, so he's very lucky to have been elsewhere at the time.

Scientists think this is the first time that a meteorite strike has been recorded with both audio and video. They recovered about 95 grams (3.3 ounces) of extraterrestrial material from the site, which they are now testing.

-via David Thompson

USS Seadragon (SSN-484) was a Skate-class nuclear submarine that surfaced through the icecap at the North Pole on September 15, 1960. For recreation, the sailors laid out a softball diamond that used the marker for the North Pole as the pitcher's mound. When a sailor successfully cleared the bases, he circumnavigated the world.

-via US Naval Institute | Photo: Norman Polmar