Norfolk Island is a community of about two thousand people in the south Pacific Ocean that are governed by Australia. They have a unique heritage with much of the population descended from the mutineers of HMS Bounty. The island is a mixture of Tahitian, English, Australian, and mutineer cultures.

There's even an American element. During the Nineteenth Century, American whalers frequently visited Norfolk. When an islander became the American consul, he decided to put on an American Thanksgiving Day celebration.

The practice stuck, although Gastro Obscura explains, the Norfolk approach has a local flavor. Churches are decorated with corn. There are pumpkin pies, but there are also coconut pies. Tahitian fish salads and many banana dishes appear at the feasting table. Norfolk is almost self-sufficient agriculturally and the Thanksgiving Day menu proves it.

It had never occurred to me that one could use a Bundt pan to prepare yeast breads. But it makes sense. Bluesky user Neven Mrgan is a genius! A ring sandwich continues indefinitely with no end until you bite into it. And you don't have to think too much about which part to bite into first because they are identical.

Question: could one prepare a sandwich in the shape of a Möbius strip? If so, how?

-via Super Punch

Traffic Management in the Gobi Desert. 行人停，骆驼行。 pic.twitter.com/kaQEW2xgEN

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) October 13, 2024

R. Nicholas Burns, the current US ambassador to China, shares these photos of a traffic signal in the Gobi Desert. CNN reports that government officials in Gansu province installed them three years ago to make it clear when camels should and should not cross the road.

They're unusual and have thus become a popular destination for tourists, who take advantage of the large camelid population to hire rides. Keeping those tourists safe from camel collisions is a priority for the government, hence the traffic signals.

-via Super Punch

CTV News in Vancouver reports that people in the town of McBride, British Columbia have spotted a deer wearing what appears to be a high visibility vest--the kind of vest that hunters wear to avoid being mistaken for deer.

It's uncertain how the deer ended up wearing the vest, although the best explanation is that someone managed to wrestle the deer into it. This activity is, wildlife officials warn, very dangerous to both the humans and the deer. They hope to be able to locate the deer, tranquilize it, and the remove the jacket safely.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Andrea Arnold

Think of this facility as optimized for multitasking. If you're already going to make one mistake, why not make a second one at the same time?

Chuck's on the Avenue is a locally-famous liquor store in New Orleans. It occupies a prominent place in the city's celebrations. Now, the New York Post reports, you can book it as a wedding venue. On November 16, a couple got married next to the beer cooler. An ordained minister/Elvis Presley impersonator presided over the ceremony. A brass band provided Dixieland jazz music and a little girl threw beads instead of flowers.

It was thus a supremely New Orleans event. You can book your own happy wedding here.

-via Dave Barry

Chemists at universities in England not Italy are responsible for developing nanopasta--the world's thinnest spaghetti. It's not just a minutely fine thread of material but, specifically, white flour so it's technically pasta by, at least, English standards.

The nanopasta measures 370 nanometers across. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. You can read the science-y bits in the article published a few months ago in Nanoscale Advances. Their process is called electrospinning, which I gather means using electrical current to create fibers small enough that you wouldn't be able to roll it out on your cutting board.

-via Dave Barry | Images: Nanoscale Advances

You may associate virtual meetings and conference calls with Skype, Zoom, or Webex. But the task of gathering together large numbers of people to communicate with each other across vast distances long predates our century.

IEEE Spectrum reports that the large conference call dates back to 1916, which 5,100 engineers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco gathered in live discussions that took place across telephone lines. There were even breakout sessions when local groups met privately to discuss particular topics.

The revolutionary nature of this event was widely understood at the time. President Wilson sent a telegram of congratulations, which was read to the participants. After musical performances, a keynote speaker addressed the virtual gathering and then the engineers conducted a formal business meeting.

-via Nag on the Lake | Image: IEEE

You’re not allowed to stop and watch the Las Vegas Formula One Grand Prix without a ticket and stopping in a pedestrian walking zone or on a bridge with a view will get you a ticket, a fine or worse trouble. A few locals and tourists are circumventing this by utilizing the… pic.twitter.com/u8d35JdDkF

— Jen G. (@vegasstarfish) November 24, 2024

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is an elite racing event. Tickets are extremely expensive but 306,000 people paid to watch it, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

Vegas Starfish, a Las Vegas tourism guru, reports that other enterprising people found a way to watch the race up close for free. All that was necessary was that they ride escalators continuously without stopping, making laps next to a good viewing position.

As the saying goes, frog pizza is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The Independent reports that this is an option at some Pizza Hut restaurants in China. The thick crust pizza is topped with a bed of parsley, serving as the frog's grassy home. The whole bullfrog is fried and served below two halves of a hard boiled egg which are decorated with black olives so that they resemble eyeballs.

It is unfortunate that this culinary masterpiece is available only in China. As an American, I fear that we are slipping behind China in pizza technology.

-via Dave Barry

Elle Cordova is a musician and comedian who specializes in one-woman sketches in which she personifies different objects. In the past, we've seen her conversation among different fonts. Most recently, she brings together the Holy Grail, Excalibur, and the Ark of the Covenant.

The three holy relics interview an applicant to join their crew. It's a modern object of desire and veneration common in households yet surprisingly elusive at times. Watch the elders ask insightful questions of the newcomer, testing her commitment to the lifestyle of a legendary artifact.

At the end of the sketch, the trio consider other applicants for the position.

-via Laughing Squid

Hoyte van Hoytema, the cinematographer behind Her, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer, brings to us this long-form narrative commercial for Volvo's XC90 SUV.

The point is, of course, to sell us cars. The hook for the ad is buried deep into the soul of every parent who has ever seen his or her child in life-threatening situation. It's a common if not normal experience and one that never leaves your mind completely.

Hence the genius of van Hoytema's commercial. It taps into both the delight and fear that begins with first learning that you're having a baby and ends . . . somehow, depending on about a million everyday decisions.

-via Normie MacDonald

for my last lunch in paris i went to a bistro where, at the end of your meal, they bring you card and a fountain pen to write yourself a letter which they will send in a year’s time 🤎 pic.twitter.com/h4hsahQuby

— kitty 🤎 (@pastryangel) November 20, 2024

X user @pastryangel tells us about a unique restaurant in Paris in the fashionable and quaint Saint-Germain district in Paris. Bistro des Lettres offers gourmet dining with amazing dishes that you can view on Instagram. It's a memorable experience for that reason alone, but also because you can compose a letter to your future self which the establishment will send your way in a year.

Frisk Me Good is a fashion designer who creates original and innovative outfits from other objects, such as bodysuits and corsets made from shoes.

She is catching eyes with this bustier made out of tape measures. It's pricey at $375, but that comes with a guaranteed fit (A to DD) because everything in the package has been measured precisely. And, because this is an American firm, it's made with normal inches, not that weird foreign metric thing.

Surfers usually prefer to not get bitten by sharks. Recent research by Dr. Laura Ryan of Macquarie University in Australia and her colleagues may offer a means to reduce the number of shark attacks on surfers.

The Guardian reports that Ryan towed seal-shaped objects through the water in Mossel Bay, South Africa. When the researchers attached LED strips to the undersides of these silhouettes, the number of shark attacks plummeted. This is likely because sharks have poor eyesight and may have found the shapes confusing.

This research indicates that LEDs on the undersides of surfboards may disrupt the silhouettes that draw sharks.

-via Dave Barry

Okay, that headline is a lot, but it is about as succinct a summary as I can provide. Sora News 24 has the full story.

A taishoku daikou is a company that a worker in Japan will hire to inform his/her current employer that he is quitting. This is apparently a thriving industry in Japan for cultural reasons that elude my understanding.

Momuri is the name of one such company that has processed over 20,000 resignations. Recently a rival firm contacted Momuri and informed it that a Mormuri employee was quitting. This particular employee had, prior to his employment at Mormuri, been a customer who had hired Momuri to help him quit the job that he had at the time.

You follow that?

Photo: Lukas Bieri