(Photo: Torben Hansen)

That’s according to Roberto A. Ferdman of the Washington Post. He writes that in the past few years, Oreo has come to dominate the cookie marketplace:

Since 2005, Oreo sales have grown by more than 60 percent, which is easily the largest increase among any of the top cookie brands sold in the United States. For context, consider that cookie sales market-wide rose by only 10 percent over that period, or that more than 7o percent of that growth is directly attributable to increased demand for Oreos.

Ferdman writes that Oreo’s popularity can be attributed to simultaneous but contradictory marketing strategies: it’s both innovative and stable. The company offers variants, such as Oreo Thins and key lime pie. But these are clearly labeled as different from the standard, which has remained constant for decades. If people want to eat an Oreo, they know exactly what they’re getting in the package.

-via Joe Carter

David Rind of ABC News awards that title to this glorious video. In 6 seconds, it summarizes the tragedy and comedy of the human experience: hope, victory, hubris, and defeat.

When this Vine is made into a feature-length film, who should play the hero?

-via David Burge

Izzy Swan loves to make machines that are driven by an ordinary battery-powered hand drill. He’s made a band saw, a lawn mower, and a mini bike this way.

His latest challenge was inspired by Theo Jansen’s famous kinetic sculpture Strandbeest. Swan’s walking machine uses the rotary motion of a 20 volt drill to move two actuated legs forward, pushing a little cart. It’s like a Segway, but way cooler. It can hold up to 370 pounds and move for a mile on a full battery charge.

(Video Link)

-via Make

(Photo: Laura Murray/Thrillist)

Matt Baldassano lives in a little apartment of the East Village of Manhattan. It has 550 square feet of living space, which I suppose isn’t tiny by New York City standards. But most of the space is taken up by his wine processing facility that produces 10 different wines using the 2 tons of grapes that are delivered there. It’s a lot of work, but Baldassano has help. He throws grape-crushing parties to do some of the work:

Twice a year, Matt throws a party where members and invited guests come over to crush. Most of them just grab a box of grapes and throw them into that electric crushing machine. But others take off their shoes and stomp on the grapes, because they’re in the club, and it’s their wine, so they can do what they want. The grapes ferment in vats in the yard for 8-10 days before they get pressed and racked (that’s a fancy way of saying the grape juice gets extracted and put into barrels). Once the wine is in the barrels, he sets the temperature in his apartment to a necessary 66 degrees. Then 10-18 months later, boom, you’ve got matured wine.

You can see more photos of his impressive in-house facility at Thrillist.

-via Nag on the Lake

(Photo: Tribune News Service)

In the Jim Crow era, racial segregation shamefully extended into many of America’s public libraries. Pearl Thompson experienced this herself in 1942. She went to the public library of Raleigh, North Carolina to check out a particular book. The library staff refused to issue her a library card because she was black. Thompson was permitted to read the book on site, but only down in the basement.

Now that injustice is being rectified. In a special ceremony at the Cameron Village Regional Library of the Wake County Public Libraries, Thompson was granted her library card. The News & Observer reports:

Ann Burlingame, deputy director of Wake County Public Libraries, said she was thrilled when Deborah Thompson reached out about getting a library card for her mother.

“I just feel like this woman was denied access to a library and a book,” Burlingame said. “I just wanted the opportunity to rectify that, not just for her but for us as the library system.”

Deborah Thompson said her mother loves to learn.

“That’s the legacy that she leaves,” she said.

Pearl Thompson could have spent the past seven decades being angry about what happened to her at the Olivia Raney Library, which now serves as a local history library.

But that’s not her style.

“I don’t hold any kind of hate in my heart, because that doesn’t do it,” she said. “That doesn’t get you there.”

-via Huffington Post

“I swear, man, that monster came out of nowhere!”

(Video Link)

This poor cat was just minding his own business and eating his lunch. While he dined, his human servant sneaked a huge cucumber right behind him, just out of his field of view. When the cat turned and noticed the cucumber about to attack him, he justifiably panicked.

-via Tastefully Offensive

We’ve previously seen a bathtub shaped like a hammock. But the Hydro Hammock goes much further. It’s a portable hot tub that you can sling between two trees or embed into the sand of a beach.

The structure is strong enough to hold over 700 pounds, which you can think of as more than 50 gallons of water and two full grown adults. The entire kit fits into a rolling hard case trunk with a built-in 12 volt battery. The water heater is powered by camping fuel. The system filters and recirculates the water for 3 hours.

The Hydro Hammock does come with a killjoy warning: “Please don’t hammock drunk.” Well, never mind, then.

Police in Victoria, Australia posted on Facebook that they had a warrant to arrest a man on traffic and drug charges. The suspect showed up in the comments to complain that the mugshot did not show his appearance in the best light. The police helpfully responded that they’d be glad to retake the photo at the nearest police station.

The police told the BBC that the suspect has yet to show up for the new photo. He says that he wants to get a lawyer first, which seems like an odd professional to have at the site of photoshoot.

-via Daily Telegraph

(Photo: University of Illinois Archives)

In 1917, the American people launched into a major war on a scale unlike anything that had been seen for more than 50 years. The whole nation was mobilized for the effort, including the librarians. The American Library Association (ALA) formed the Library War Service to establish more than 30 camp libraries among the troops. Pictured above are some of the librarians who accompanied 10 million books sent to American troops. Taking the job very seriously, they wore uniforms designed especially for them. NPR quotes ALA archivist Cara Bertram about the work of these volunteers:

"In both wars, librarians back at home or on the front were key in collecting and distributing books to soldiers," Bertram says. "During World War I, librarians maintained camp and hospital libraries," and in both world wars, "librarians promoted books drives and encouraged donations."

Librarians were especially active during World War I. The ALA reports that between 1917 and 1920, its Library War Service established three dozen camp libraries with the support of the Carnegie Corporation and raised $5 million in public contributions. Special uniforms were created for librarians in World War I. The American Library in Paris — established in 1920 by the ALA and American expatriates, and seeded with books from the LWS — continues to this day.

-via Daily of the Day

The is the CanopyStair. It’s a portable and removable spiral staircase that straps securely to the trunk of a tree. Robert McIntyre and Thor ter Kulve designed it after a visit to the Azores. They stayed in a house near the sea, but because of obstructions, they couldn’t see the sea until they climbed a tree. It occurred to them that there had to be an easier way to get to the top of a tree for recreational purposes. For their final project at the Royal College of Art, McIntyre and ter Kulve built an apparatus that will do precisely that.

The CanopyStair is made with an aluminum frame and held in place with ratchet straps. It takes about 3 hours for 2 people to assemble. Pads protect the tree bark from damage by the stairs. A railing makes it safer for people to climb the full 20 feet that the CanopyStair rises into the air. 

-via Dornob

Justin, Jola, and their son Piko live in New Zealand in an amazing house built over the back of a truck. It’s both a completely functional home and a moving work of art. This video tour of it is over 11 minutes long because their fantasy castle is packed with a seemingly unending array of features.

(Photo: Living Big in a Tiny House)

This wonder fit for riding through Jurassic Park incognito is Sue, a custom tricycle that is 12 feet long and 8 feet tall. It has a 9-speed drive train that can take it up to 15 miles an hour (which is roughly 1/3 of the top speed of a real Tyrannosaurus Rex). The owner is selling it on Craigslist from . . .

Can you guess which city?

. . . yes, Portland, of course! As Sean Fallon of Nerd Approved says, if you buy it, “You’ll be the most Portland person in Portland.” I think that it’s the ultimate commuter vehicle, but the owner insists that “she is not a daily-driver dinosaur.” We’ll see about that.

(Photos: Lugs)

When he was 3 months old, Sarah Ivermee’s son, Freddie, was diagnosed as deaf. He later received cochlear implants, which are surgically implanted hearing aids.

When a young friend of Freddie who is also deaf refused to wear her hearing aids because they made her look different from other kids, Ivermee devised a solution. She added decorative nail stickers to make them look pretty. The little girl loved them. So Ivermee saw an opportunity. She founded Lugs, a company that makes hearing aid covers in styles that kids appreciate. They look like superheroes, cartoon characters, and animals. Ivermee tells the The Mighty that the market has been tremendously responsive:

“I get emails from professionals to thank me for what I’m doing; it just amazes me,” she told The Mighty. “People all over the world are wearing the little kits that I make in my living room; it’s unbelievable!”

-via 22 Words

(Photo: Oyvind)

A 529-foot stretch of Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand has a gradient of 1 to 3.41. There are roads elsewhere in the world that are steeper, but no one is crazy enough to live on them.

But the Kiwis do not take such challenges lying down. They prefer leaning over, which is why they get to claim this Guinness World Record title.

How did this happen? City planners in London considered that a grid plan is the best way for a city to develop, so they designed it that way for Dunedin. They did not give much regard for the local topography. You can see more photos of this amazing place at Twisted Sifter.

People will look at you funny if you wear a normal life jacket everywhere.  And, honestly, it gets bulky and cumbersome. The Kingii is a better option. It fits onto a wrist. There’s a pull lever that activates a CO2 tank, which inflates a small bag. It’s bright orange and has a whistle, which can hopefully signal rescuers. There’s a compass in case you have to navigate on your own. Now if you suddenly find yourself if the water, you’ve got a better chance of surviving. And the strangers at the mall who laughed at you will be drowning while you’re still alive and safe.