Recently, Dane Hirst, a cameraman with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, gathered crocodile footage at a crocodile park in northern Australia.

Nota bene: crocodile parks are a thing in Australia. Don’t ask me why.

Anyway, he piloted a drone over the surface of the water of a lagoon when one of the crocodiles leaped out of the water and snatched the crunchy drone out of the air.

The crew was able to recover the drone. It will not be serviceable again, but the video card was fine. The footage is invigorating to watch and a reminder to stay out of Australia.

-via Dave Barry

YouTuber Not Just Bikes is really excited about the Dutch approach to urban design. In this video, he explains why the way that sidewalks in the Netherlands are optimal for pedestrian and bicyclist safety.

The key feature is called “continuous sidewalks.” In the United States, the most common design for an intersection between pedestrian and motorized traffic is a crosswalk in which the sidewalk lowers and then disappears into the road. People walking across a street are entering the territory of cars.

In the Netherlands, it’s far more common for the sidewalk to remain at the same level and for the road to rise to the sidewalk. Cars crossing are entering the territory of pedestrians. Because there’s a rise, the sidewalk acts as a speedbump so that drivers are encouraged to slow down.

-via Nag on the Lake

New Scientist (paywall) reports that the US Navy has acquired a patent for a handheld device called AHAD. This invention has a long-range microphone that picks up people's speech and plays it back at a slight time delay which can disrupt the target from speaking intelligibly.

The delay--which is 200 milliseconds long--is timed in such a way that is not simply annoying to the speaker, but also, as a neuroscientist explains, actually prevents the target from being able to communicate verbally.

The range is limited to about 30 meters. It can affect only a small target area, which means that listeners may not understand why the speaker has become unintelligible.

I can't wait until this invention reaches the civilian market!

-via Dave Barry | Photo: US Navy

This mask design is now going viral and Sora News 24 is on the case. It combines the modern pandemic aesthetic of covering one's face while providing eye protection from bright lights. The shiny mirror exterior looks futuristic, which I guess is good enough until we get the flying cars that we were promised.

I built a mechanical table with a hidden table top for puzzles. pic.twitter.com/BtZcuzw4EO

— Simone Giertz (@SimoneGiertz) September 29, 2021

Roboticist Simone Giertz loves to assemble jigsaw puzzles. And if you've spent lockdown time on one, then you know that they take up a lot of room. Giertz applied her genius to this problem and designed an elegant table that is perfect for jigsaw assembly. Yes, there might have been simpler solutions, but Giertz says, "...I was, like, no, let's make it more complicated and overengineered than that."

It was two gearing systems taken from bicycles. The first rolls the top on and off. The second lifts and lowers the surface. So in addition to protecting the puzzle from damage during the long assembly process, the table space remains useful for other purposes.

Here is a long, often funny video illustrating the demanding build process.

J. Kenji López-Alt, a professional chef, has spent years studying the fine art of boiling eggs. Although he written about the subject in the past, López-Alt is updating us with the latest research.

And, yes, he means data-driven research. He's not speaking from just anecdotal experience.

López-Alt informs us that the age of the egg doesn't really matter, nor does adding vinegar or salt help make the eggs easier to peel. What does help is setting the eggs in the water after it's boiling to prevent the white from fusing to the shell. He also suggests using a needle to puncture the air pocket to relieve pressure inside the egg during cooking.

In this demonstration video, López-Alt demonstrates his perfect 9-minute eggs, which peel cleanly and without any difficulty.

-via Laughing Squid

The Liberal was a British journal which published between 2004 and 2012. For one of its earliest issues, the editors invited a contribution by Michael Finnissey, a British musical composer and pianist. The music blog 5:4 reports that the subject of that issue was space exploration. So Finnissey’s response was an ensemble piece that, in written notation form, resembles arms of the rings of Saturn.

Finnissey titled his work Back on Earth, inspired by childhood memories of his father saying, “Michael, please come back to Earth.” Perhaps, in this composition, we can hear the sounds of a celestial journey from Saturn to Earth. Listen and judge for yourself:

-via Futility Closet

Australia is sometimes called "British Texas". That's fair, but I'd like to propose that Florida is "Australian America," if for no other reason than due to the extremely dangerous wildlife.

Florida Man Roy Bonilla recorded video of fellow Florida Man Eugene Bozzi capturing an alligator by maneuvering it into a trash can. Toward the end, the gator fights with all his might to escape. Bozzi did not, though, kill and eat the gator (they taste like fish, by the way), but instead rolls the trash can down to a lake to set it free.

Yes, the Philly Taco is exactly what it looks like. It is a quintessentially Philadelphia experience, where the city of brotherly love lovingly combines two perfect food items. Despite the seemingly simple recipe and the cheap paper plates, though, the creation of a Philly Taco is an art that has been carefully refined since its invention over ten years ago.

The first step, the Philadelphia Inquirer explains, is to visit Jim's Steaks, which is famous for its cheesesteak sandwiches. Some creativity in the toppings is permissible with the Philly Taco while remaining canonically correct. What is essential is to immediately proceed 436 feet away to Lorenzo and Sons' Pizza. There, buy a huge slice of cheese pizza and wrap it around the sandwich. Fans disagree about whether the taco should be eaten from one end or cut down the middle, but they agree that the combination is awesome.

-via Atlas Obscura | Photo: Al Dia

The city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, calls this special bus pass a 'health ticket". You can pay a regular fare or do twenty squats in front of a camera. If you do so, you get to ride for free for the next seven days.

The news website Romania Insider reports that this service, which is so far available at only one station in the city, has been very popular. When it was installed last year, users completed about one million squats total over a three month period. The system has been reinstalled and is again available for residents  who would like an incentive to exercise.

Would you use this service if it was available in your area?

-via Debby Witt | Photo: Sports Festival

Every year, schools in China must administer jump-rope tests for kids. If students want to be eligible for scholarships, they have to score well. Failing to get a top score can mean a future of academic and, consequently, career mediocrity. Because the stakes are so high, some parents hire special tutors to coach their kids jump-rope skills.

The Wall Street Journal (paywall link) describes the testing standards. First graders must skip 17 times a minute. That goes up with age. At the fourth grade, boys must skip 99 times a minute and girls 103 times. Moving slowly or tripping a single time can result in a very low grade. This is why parents are willing to pay professional coaches as much as $50 an hour to train their children to be top competitors. These coaches have studied the body mechanics of jump-rope carefully and can spot minor errors that throw kids off of their full athletic potential.

-via Super Punch | Photo: Pixabay

I have a well-rounded appreciation for art, especially that which is inspired by past events. The arc of history bends toward justice, taut against the thin confines of social expectations.

And so I am perplexed as to why some women in Italy think that this newly unveiled statue by Emanuele Stifano does not do justice to the subject, which is the 1857 poem "The Gleaner of Sapri." That poem, by Luigi Mercantini, honored the revolutionary Carlo Pisacane and his companions, who launched a failed expedition to overthrow the Kingdom of Naples.

We can only surmise, as the sculptor did, that what is pictured above is what those brave men fought and died for. The maiden beckons us to walk behind her and follow her. Who could not accept such a call to adventure?

The Guardian reports that Italian politician Laura Boldrini and her colleagues claim that the gleaner has been sexualized. The sculptor denies the allegation, claiming that he originally planned to render the subject nude. Stifano was determined not to waste too much time debating critics "who absolutely only want to see depravity."

-via Super Punch | Photo: Italia 2 TV

Perhaps you've grown used to a very simple relationship with your toilet. Perhaps you use it for only one purpose. But that will change in the future. Competing research teams across the United States are developing "smart toilets" that, with cameras, can identify each user by their "anal print" and diagnose health problems.

The Wall Street Journal (paywall link) reports about various emerging smart toilet designs that will closely monitor your urine and feces. Stanford University's design will chemically test all urine. Duke University's will take stool samples to test for blood and proteins. Other designs will measure blood pressure and heart rate.

Who needs these toilets? Perhaps not you, but the start-up companies working on health-monitoring smart toilets see future markets in assisted living facilities, where staffs could appreciate early warning signs about patient illness.

-via Dave Barry

In the olden days, the homes of poor Irishmen would not have wooden floors--just dirt ones. They were thus inappropriate for dances that require a clacking sound. So the residents would remove the door--the largest piece of wood available--and place it on the floor. They placed four cups filled with water on the corners. Whoever spilled the least water won the dancing competition.

-via Laughing Squid

Weird Universe alerted me to this unusual book, which I acquired through interlibrary loan. The Bear Facts by Polly Culbertson and Paul J. Fennell was published in 1948. It addresses three specific political phenomena of the late 1940s: the threat of communism to the free world, the lack of a consensus among Americans as to the need to mobilize against that threat, and the belief that air power would be the primary means of securing freedom from communism.