UPDATE 1/24/22: AP reports that the Rhode Island Department of Health has completed its DNA examination of the Santa Claus evidence. It could not match the sample with DNA in its database, although there is a partial match a 1947 case in New York City.

ORIGINAL POST:

Chief Matthew Benson of the Cumberland, Rhode Island Police Department is taking this case very seriously. It began when, ABC 7 News reports, he received a letter from a little girl. It included part of a cookie and carrots that were left in her home last Christmas night. The cookie was for Santa Claus and the carrots for his reindeer. Would he run DNA tests on these objects and get back to her?

I'm not sure what a DNA test would reveal, but Chief Benson processed the evidence and sent it to the Rhode Island Department of Health for examination. Is Santa real? Do these remains point to the presence of Santa and his reindeer in her home on Christmas night? The police will follow up with the child and let her know.

-via Dave Barry | Photos: Cumberland Police Department

Rare UFO-like cloud forms in Turkeyhttps://t.co/STYPv1qr9L pic.twitter.com/TJk7LP2O9w

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 20, 2023

At least, that's what I'm going to call it until someone actually tastes it to verify its flavor.

If it's not a cinnamon bun, then the mysterious object that appeared in the sky over Bursa, Turkey on Thursday might be a lenticular cloud. The US National Weather Service defines those objects as clouds formed:

...when relatively stable, fast moving air is forced up and over a topographic barrier that is oriented more or less perpendicular to the direction from which the upper-level wind is blowing.

The forces that shaped this cinnamon bun must have been purely coincidental, I'm sad to say.

Fox Weather notes that sightings like this one are unusual. Lenticular clouds, which signal impending preciptation, are far more likely to occur over mountainous areas.

The Power of Decision is both a thrilling movie and an official US Air Force training film. Its production origin is unclear, although George Washington University has some details about this film gleaned from the National Archives as well as the Air Force.

The 55-minute film begins with the narrator, who is identified as Colonel Dawes, introducing the audience to operations at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command. At 9 minutes into the video, it switches to a dramatic presentation of how the Air Force would respond to a surprise nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

For a training film, this is remarkably good filmmaking. There's good camera framing and skilled acting by the participants who are obviously trained thespians instead of Air Force personnel who were conveniently nearby during filming.

I'm trying to find the identity of the actor who plays the narrator, Colonel Dawes. He is also the star in the 1963 US Army training movie The Battalion Commander. If you can find his name, please note it in the comments.

Until 1998, a point of order during a vote in the House of Commons could only be made while wearing a hat.

A collapsible opera top hat was kept with the doormen solely for this purpose, as seen worn by Tony Marlow in this clip from 1994. pic.twitter.com/evVm033phH

— Ned Donovan | فارس دونوفان (@Ned_Donovan) January 17, 2023

In its modern form, the British House of Commons dates back to 1801, although its origins can be traced to 1341. That's several centuries of developing tradition, including the rule that, if a member wishes to raise a point of order to the Speaker, s/he must be "seated and covered" -- the latter of which means wearing a hat of some sort.

Since headwear was in decline during the late Twentieth Century, it became customary to keep a single collapsable opera hat nearby. The member must retrieve it and then sit down before raising the point of order. One advantage of this practice is that it has:

...has undoubtedly been retained to deter honourable Members from raising points of order during divisions by making them appear ridiculous and feel acutely embarrassed.

This noble tradition was eliminiated in 1998.

-via Marilyn Terrell

It is not obvious what works of literature will enter into a literary canon by becoming assigned reading in college classes. The Pudding, a website devoted to data-driven longform journalism, notes that it is difficult to predict the future fame and respectability of recent books.

Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Munity won a Pulitzer Prize, was lauded by critics as a masterpiece, and was on the New York Times bestseller list for months. Yet rarely does it appear on college class syllabi now. All of Zora Neale Hurston's novels were out of print by the 1970s, when scholars elevated her from postmortem obscurity. Now Their Eyes Were Watching God is often required reading at colleges.

If we look at three sets of data--the New York Times bestseller list, Goodreads rankings, and literary prizes--what can we discover about literature from the 90s? Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a collossal success in the 90s, but is absent from most literary couse syllabi. Tim O'Brien's short story collection about the Vietnam War titled The Things They Carried is, though, widely assigned reading even though it was obscure at the time of its publication in 1990.

Ultimately, The Pudding offers no answer, only questions. What causes a work of literature to enter a literary canon (and how that canon can be defined) requires more research and study.

-via Marginal Revolution | Image: manhhai

There’s a definite appeal to being a sperm donor: in addition to a being small source of income, it’s a way for a man to ensure that his genetic legacy is perpetuated.

But, as UPI reports, the likelihood of a donor actually having a sample used in fertility treatment is low. Only 3.8% of donor applicants will have a sample used.

That’s because giving sperm samples is an onerous task. There’s a lot of preliminary screening and a commitment to regular participation. About 55% of potential donors drop out during the process. The clinics then reject 17% for medical reasons, 10% for donor lifestyle reasons, and 11% for low sperm quality. Fewer than 4 in 100 men will make the cut.

-via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Pixabay

Since the end of World War II, Americans have been fascinated with French cuisine and desired to incorporate it into the American diet. French cuisine has come to epitomize the refined palate--even for something as simple as a sandwich.

Food & Wine magazine brings us eight French sandwiches that we must try soon. Among them is the pan bagnat, which is from the Provence region in the south of France. It uses a particular type of sourdough bread. Inside are anchovies, capers, black olives (specifically niçoise olives from the Nice area), tuna, hard boiled eggs, and roasted red peppers. I want to make one, but perhaps I should go to France to get an authentic pan bagnat.

-via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Arnaud 25

The Sheriff's Office of Jefferson County, Missouri needs you to get inebriated and will provide you with the booze to do it.

On Facebook, the Sheriff's Office explains that, in order to provide practical training for officers in conducting field sobriety tests on drunk drivers, they ask that volunteers get liquored up at a designated facility. The officers will then run the volunteers through standard field sobriety tests, including a breathalyzer. This event is called a "wet lab" and is apparently a common practice among police departments.

Participants will be provided with a free ride home (not to jail, the author emphasizes) at the conclusion of the exercise.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Pixabay

The gentleman, who is named Tanner, was stopped by police in Cleveland, Ohio on November 23 for driving erratically. Cleveland 19 News reports that the officers suspected that he was intoxicated beyond the legal limit and performed a sobriety test.

Tanner insisted that he was in full control of his faculties and not impaired. To prove it, he asked for and received permission to do a backflip. It worked!

Well, his backflip worked and Tanner landed on his feet. But he failed the test, which involved walking in a straight line, and police arrested him.

Here's the full video of the encounter/performance.

-via Dave Barry

I made this thing called LOL Verifier: a device that only lets you type lol if you’ve actually laughed out loud pic.twitter.com/Gsc63yGEm0

— Brian Moore (@lanewinfield) January 3, 2023

Because we live in fallen times, it has become commonplace for people to use initalisms, such as LOL or LMAO, instead of actually communicating in the English language properly.

Once upon a time, people used the initalism LOL to represent actually laughing out loud during text-based communication. Then that degeneration of the English language decayed into representing mild amusement.

Now LOL is a punctuation mark that has no meaning beyond an acknowledgement of having read something that someone else has typed. It is a sort of online grunt that emerges as a sputtering, eschatological gasp from a dying civilization.

Standing athwart this catastrophic outcome is digital tinkerer Brian Moore. His LOL Verifier records you to make sure that you're actually laughing when you type LOL. It will not allow you to proceed unless you are, indeed, laughing out loud.

-via Laughing Squid

This is Jason Grosboll. KIII-TV News in Corpus Christi, Texas reports that Grosboll has been working at Cinemark's Century 16 movie theater for ten years. During that time, the "Popcorn Guy", as he has become known, has practiced and refined his acrobatic craft.

When you want someone to sling some popcorn your way and to do it so that it's more interesting than Avatar 2, then Grosboll is your entertainment hero.

Recently, TikTok user Oscar Leal observed Grosboll in action, recorded an everyday performance of the master at work, and posted it for the people of the internet to enjoy. Grosboll has since become a viral sensation.

-via Born in Space

The short answer is hard.

The longer answer involves advanced technological aids.

Jacob Schopf represented Germany at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, where he won a silver medal in the sport of canoe sprinting. The Olympic events for this sport include separate categories for men and women, singles and doubles, as well as distances of 1000 meters, 500 meters, and 200 meters.

This video from last year shows Schopf using a stationary simulator. I can't find much information about the simulator, aside from this video which shows how complicated it is to enter a kayak in it. Instagram user @CanoeSport illustrates a variety of exercise machines that appear to be made specifically for canoe sprinting.

-via Super Punch

Every year, many classical creative works enter the public domain on January 1^st under US copyright law. Most are forgotten and forgettable, but some still draw in audiences. Smithsonian magazine has a roundup of some of the more famous works that will no longer pay royalties to the estates of their creators. Among them are the original Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle, who died in 1930.

Another is, appropriately, the song “The Best Things in Life are Free,” written by Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson in 1927. This song, which revived in popularity due to film performances in the 1950s, is still commanding popular attention—it was recently featured in the TV series White Lotus.

Some classic films are also entering the public domain, including Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Learn about them and more at Smithsonian.

-via Amanda Brennan | Photo: Kim Traynor

The force is strong with this one.. 😂

🎥 IG: marissa_chrzan pic.twitter.com/9JogbN1zu2

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 26, 2022

Instagram user @marisa_chrzan must have been delighted to watch her son appear in the church’s Christmas pageant. The boy, though, had only a shaky grasp on the plot and appeared to think this was an action film. Dressed as a shepherd, he advances upon another shepherd and engages in mock combat.

Some commenters are saying of the boy, “The Force is strong in this one.” Yes, and clearly someone who is skilled with video editing should find a way to replace the staffs with lightsabers and add in appropriate sound effects. The shepherds’ outfits are pretty close to Jedi uniforms as they are.

-via Buitengebieden

Redditor /u/the_colorist is an adherent of the Burning Man lifestyle. Every year, he attends that countercultural festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.

One of his recurring problems is that the beers that he carries on his bicycle go flat as it bounces around. He needed to hold them steady, so the_colorist invented and printed this automatic stabilizer.

In the reddit thread at the Burning Man subreddit, many commenters urge him to patent the idea, as they think that it has great money-making potential. He refuses to do so, but freely gives the CAD files to anyone who wishes. As a true believer in the Burning Man lifestyle, he sees profiting from the joy he can bring his fellow festival-goers as morally indecent.

-via Core77