As Carolyn Cox of The Mary Sue puts it, "he was born with a silver brick in his mouth." The Legoland park and resort in Windsor, UK recently got a unique minifig. Lucas Atkinson was born there last August when his mother went into labor in the parking lot of the theme park. That wasn't intentional. She was just making a detour on the way to the hospital. Little Lucas was ready to be born at that very moment.
Park officials have responded by giving the boy a lifetime pass. That's a whole lot of adventure and constructive play to pack in!
Keith Fraley is a software engineering student at Michigan Tech University. His roommate, Mark, is a mechanical engineering student. One night, Mark got drunk--very drunk. While thoroughly sloshed, he designed an airplane in substantial technical detail, complete with mathematical calculations for the design. Fraley described the event to The Guardian:
My friend Cody and I both looked at Mark as he then began to spew information about his whiteboard designed craft and the calculations behind it. Cody and I were in tears from laughter because the aerospace mathematics he tried telling us about sounded like a slurred robot. I did no encouraging towards the creation of this, but I did encourage him to continue talking because it was hilarious.
The guys that Mark shared drinks with were with him for more of the night than I was. They explained to me that Mark began a tantrum and began creating his design. Alex, a friend of Mark’s, said that he began staring at the ground and said that he asked for pen and paper immediately. After he sketched some designs, he said that he needed to leave and grab his aerospace mathematics textbook and whiteboard.
According to his drinking buddies, he was drawing frantically explaining his thoughts out loud and at the time he was very intoxicated. He was passing out on his whiteboard from time to time as well.
Later, Mark sobered up. He had no memory of the event. But his roommate did and explained. Mark isn't certain that the plane will fly, but he plans to build an RC model to find out.
I'm a librarian. If I got completely drunk, then creative at work, what might be the result?
This is Hilde Lysiak, 8, the founder and chief reporter of The Orange Street News. It's a monthly newspaper and, in fact, the only newspaper for Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, a town of about 5,000 people. Hilde is and old-fashioned, gumshoe journalist who focuses on hard news. The Columbia Journalism Review followed her on the job as she investigated the effects of a local tornado strike:
An older man with an ample potbelly answered, and apologized for being shirtless. With a mix of affability and confusion, he looked down at the freckly blonde 8-year-old standing before him. She had her pen and pad in hand. Homemade press credentials dangled from her neck. “Hi. I’m Hilde from The Orange Street News, and I was wondering if you could tell me what happened a couple nights ago.”
He gestured to his neighbor’s property. “This gentleman over here got the worst of it,” he said. “It went through his house and then went out in the middle of the Susquehanna River and went to the south.” Hilde took notes. She asked the man for his name and spelled out the letters in her notebook: “B-O-B M-A-Y-H-E-W.”
George Lucas intended for his films to, in a way, rhyme. This inspired Pablo Fernández Eyre to find the similarities in visual narrative between the original trilogy and the new trilogy. Lucas intended to tell a very old story--not simply one that set long ago--but one intimately familiar to people. Star Wars resonates with people for that reason. In this video, Eyre shows Lucas did that in often small ways.
Cats are enormously popular as pets. In Europe, they recently overtook dogs as the most popular companion animal. You love your cat. But, animal behaviorists tell us, your cat doesn't actually love you.
Researchers at the University of Lincoln (UK) found that although dogs experience separation anxiety when their humans are absent, cats don't really care. As long as their physical needs are addressed, the absence of their humans is unconcerning. Sarah Knapton writes for the National Post:
“Previous research has suggested that some cats show signs of separation anxiety when left alone by their owners, in the same way that dogs do, but the results of our study show that they are, in fact, much more independent than canine companions.
“It seems that what we interpret as separation anxiety might actually be signs of frustration.” To find out if cats needed their owner to feel secure, the researchers observed how 20 cats reacted when they were placed in an unfamiliar environment together with their owner, with a stranger or on their own.
The study monitored the amount of contact sought by the cat, the level of passive behaviour, and signs of distress caused by the absence of the owner.
“Although our cats were more vocal when the owner rather than the stranger left them with the other individual, we didn’t see any additional evidence to suggest that the bond between a cat and its owner is one of secure attachment,” Prof Mills said.
The researchers insist that cat owners should take their findings as a compliment. A cat doesn't stay with you because it emotionally has to, but because it wants to. The National Post quotes cat expert Celia Haddon:
This study shows cats do not need their humans to feel safe, they look after themselves. But in a way that’s a real compliment. Cats won’t live in an unhappy home, they’ll just walk out.
In the seminal film Fight Club, Tyler Durden lives in a decrepit, crumbling hovel that leaks during the nearly constant rain. The directors designed it this way as an homage to Blade Runner. Durden's home is dark, wet, and dreary, just like J.F. Sebastian's home. That's 1 of 7 neat facts that CineFix tells us about Fight Club. This is a sequel to a previous list behind-the-scenes secrets of Fight Club.
Jimmy Craig, who plays the cat in this funny sketch video, explains how property transactions occur in the dog world. Of course, the dog with a higher and stronger stream has a somewhat more enforceable claim in court. Mark your territory accordingly, both at home and the workplace.
A highly trained German Shepherd of the US Army is falsely accused of biting his handler. He's on the run with a $200 bounty on his head. Now Joe wanders across America, helping people he meets while seeking the dog who committed the crime.
The Little Free Library is a public service concept that began in Wisconsin and has sweptacrossthe world. People are building birdhouse-sized libraries, filling them with books, and leaving them in public places. Take a book, read it, and leave a book.
The UK's Little Free Library Project grew (you don't build a TARDIS, but grow one) this suprisingly roomy library. Despite its Gallifreyan orgin, most books inside are in English. It will tour Britain, bringing reading experiences across the country. Just listen for the signature womping sound of it materializing near you.
Unlike conventional Jenga, you aren't trying to remove cats from the stack without causing it to collapse. Instead, you're trying to stack your cats higher than your opponent.
This is Cat Jenga, a game invented and marketed in China for the past few years. Each pack contains 6 cats made of teak. How high will your cats climb?
This CCTV footage from Malaysia surfaced in July. It shows a mugger getting the losing end of a business transaction on the street. He parks his motorcycle, then attacks a woman, brandishing what looks like a knife. He grabs her purse and takes off running.
The victim decides to ride rather than walk home. The mugger has helpfully provided transportation.
Christina Elizabeth, a professional opera singer, offers an extra squeaky "Deh Vieni Non Tardar" from The Marriage of Figaro. Her already extraordinary vocal range is made only greater with the addition of helium. It's delightful! I would sit through an entire opera if it was performed this way.
Redditor randall_p_mcMurphy found this necklace and earring set for sale in a gas station in Morehead, Kentucky. Another redditor says that the text translates as "Chinese towers." In Hazzard County and Bikini Bottom, these are the epitome of style.
If you want to ride to the beach to surf, you may have a problem: a surfboard is too heavy and too cumbersome to carry while riding a bike.
That's why Horse developed the Side Car Bicycle/Surf/Work platform. It's a modular system that can be a bike, a flatbed cargo trike, and, with the addition of a slotted cover, a means to transport up to 4 surfboards simulatenously.
The sidecar is available in oak or, if you wish, reclaimed boardwalk wood from Coney Island lost in Hurricane Sandy. You can see more photos at Design Boom.
The humans have put wavy things on their moving dens. They exist to frighten and confuse cats. Sometimes they even squirt water. You may bat at them, but you will never be able to catch one. This compilation video shows cats doing their best to defeat the fiendish windshield wipers, but never succeeding.
