The instructions for the game Color Tiles seem simple:
Click on a blank space. If the color matches the nearest neighboring tiles,vertically or horizontally, from the clicked space, you get the matching tiles.
Actually doing that is maddening. Find two matching tiles with a blank space in between, great. Find two catty-corner with a blank space adjacent, wonderful. But those are not easy to find! Once you start getting rid of tiles, the configuration changes, and there are more blank spaces. But you are timed, so don’t study too thoroughly. Is it a good idea to click all the blank spaces as fast as you can? No, because in addition to being timed, you also have a finite number of clicks. Tiles that are farther away from each other with other colors in between will also work, but are almost impossible to see. The highest I’ve scored so far is 45. If you are color-blind, you can toggle a mode in which symbols appear on the tiles. Try it yourself and let me know if I am just hopeless at games like this. -via Look At This
Three blizzards in one week left New Brunswick deep in snow. Does this train care? No, it just plows right through, despite the engineer not being able to see for all the snow flying. We can’t see what kind of plow the engine has; we can assume it’s a good one. After the first 80 seconds, there’s not any more to see besides a train crossing the road. -via Viral Viral Videos
A nursing mother cat in Russia is badgered by her four kittens, while she just wants to take a stroll. Four kittens? I see five, although that big white one looks a little out of place. It’s a puppy! The little intruder just wants to get in on that milk. Poor mama cat. Then a duckling shows up, too, making you wonder what kind of zoo nursery this place is. -via Tastefully Offensive
Japan has a Cat Island and a Rabbit Island, and now it also has a village of foxes! Zao Fox Village is a sanctuary with six different breeds of foxes, and is open to the public in case you want to get up close and friendly with the inhabitants. However, the staff does not recommend touching them, feeding from your hand, or bringing small children. After all, foxes are wild predators. You'll still find some folks bending the rules. See a ton of pictures of Zao Fox Village at Kotaku East. -via Fark
RadioShack once encouraged folks to make their own gadgets. When I was a kid, my father often picked up electrical components at RadioShack, although he sometimes lamented the demise of the local hobby shop when the chain moved in. RadioShack introduced a generation to computers with their TRS-80. And we all coveted the latest state-of-the-art TI calculators for math class. At one time, it seemed like the entire store was taken over by remote-controlled cars.
But bigger stores moved in, offering lower prices on electronics. Then the do-it-yourselfers became early adopters in buying the parts they need online. In 2007, the Onion wondered how RadioShack was still in business. The company responded to the changes by embracing cell phone sales, which became the majority of their business. The last time I was in RadioShack, they had little besides cell phones and accessories (although none from my provider).
In this fast-paced short film from Thomas Ridgewell, also known as TomSka (previously at Neatorama), a spy is sent to infiltrate a poker game. However, the film was funded by Comedy Central UK, so you know things don’t go as planned. Or maybe things went exactly as they should have. -via Tastefully Offensive
Three adults and three children are now homeless after their house burned down in Columbus, Ohio. The homeowner’s son started the blaze when the family was attempting to kill bedbugs on a couch.
“We sprayed the couch earlier but, uh, some alcohol you buy from the drug store which kills them on contact, and he was chasing one down with a lighter and the couch catch fire,” said Fred Horne, fire victim.
That caused the couch to go up in flames. They quickly tried to get the couch out of the house, but it got stuck in the doorway and caught the entire home on fire.
Jonathan Gordon said he had no idea this octopus was there when he scanned his camera along the ocean floor while diving in the Caribbean. He was actually focusing on a shell when the octopus emerged. How does an octopus hide so well? Yes, they change color to match their surroundings, but since octopuses are colorblind, how does that happen?
Big ship, large crew, little penguin. The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is in Antarctica, resupplying McMurdo Station before winter sets in. To get there, the ship had to break 12 miles of ice! While there, the crew posed for a group picture with the ship. That’s when a curious Adelie penguin strolled in and photobombed the picture. At least he caused the whole group to smile!
The Coast Guard has a long history with the penguins of Antarctica. You can read about it and see more pictures, at Buzzfeed.
(Image credit: U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 1st Class George Degener)
A little girl loves her daddy dearly, and admires him, too. Still, she knows more about her daddy than he realizes. She know he’s a liar.
It looks like the ad agency that does those Thai Life Insurance ads got hired to produce this one for MetLife Hong Kong. Better grab your hanky. -via Digg
The skeptic in me said that treating a cold with chicken soup is an old wive’s tale. But since I am an old wife and a mom, I also told myself it couldn’t hurt, probably warms the sick child up, and gives them liquid and nutrients. And don’t we all crave comfort food when we’re sick? But some old wives really knew what they were talking about. AsapSCIENCE looks at home remedies for colds and other illnesses that have been in use for a long time, and the fairly recent scientific research that explores their effectiveness. Another video tells us about the remedies that don’t work. -via Viral Viral Videos
Ah, the good old days, when one could round up some oil of vitriol, powdered glass, orpiment, mercury, saltpeter, fulminating silver, and sulphur out of the cupboards and have a grand old time! The book Endless Amusement: A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments is online in its entirety through Project Gutenburg. The table of contents has linked page numbers, so I zipped down to the section on detonating various things.
DETONATING BALLS.
Procure some glass globes, between the size of a pea and a small marble, in which there must be a small hole; put into it half a grain of fulminating silver. Paste a piece of paper carefully over the ball to prevent the silver from escaping. When you wish to explode one put it on the ground, and tread hard upon it, and it will go off with a loud noise. These balls may be made productive of much amusement in company, by placing a chair lightly on them; for whoever sits down upon them will cause them to explode. These globes may be procured at the barometer-makers.
The company may be much amused, but the person having to clean up broken glass or pick it out of their skin and hair will most likely not see much mirth in the situation. I skipped over to the section on amusing experiments in electricity.
The Unconscious Incendiary.
Let a person stand upon a stool made of baked wood, or upon a cake of wax, and hold a chain which communicates with the branch. On turning the wheel he will become electrified; his whole body forming part of the prime conductor; and he will emit sparks whenever he is touched by a person standing on the floor.
If the electrified person put his finger, or a rod of iron, into a dish containing warm spirits of wine, it will be immediately in a blaze; and if there be a wick or thread in the spirit, that communicates with a train of gunpowder, he may be made to blow up a magazine, or set a city on fire, with a piece of cold iron, and at the same time be ignorant of the mischief he is doing.
Any volunteers? Not all the experiments are so ghastly. Making invisible ink couldn’t possibly cause injury.
Invisible Ink.
Put litharge of lead into very strong vinegar, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Strain it off, and let it remain till quite settled; then put the liquor in a bottle.
You next dissolve orpiment in quick lime water, by setting the water in the sun for two or three days, turning it five or six times a-day. Keep the bottle containing this liquor well corked, as the vapour is highly pernicious if received into the mouth.
Write what you wish with a pen dipped in the first liquor; and, to make it visible, expose it to the vapour of the second liquor. If you wish them to disappear again, draw a sponge or pencil, dipped in aqua fortis, or spirit of nitre, over the paper; and if you wish them to re-appear, let the paper be quite dry, and then pass the solution of orpiment over it.
Count me in -I’ll just run down to the pharmacy and ask for some aqua fortis and litharge of lead. There are plenty more dangerous experiments among the math puzzles and party tricks in this book from an unknown author and an unknown date, although the seventh edition was published in 1847. -via Metafilter
It’s true; I have never heard of any of these fabulous medieval creatures before. The descriptions all compare parts of the beast to those of other known animals, which was necessary but not at all accurate. Then the animals are dressed up with strange powers from someone’s nightmares. There’s one that can move its horns around independently, another with wings even though it’s a fish, and then there’s the Bonnacon, a bull of sorts with a built-in flamethrower.
According to the Aberdeen Bestiary, "in Asia an animal is found which men call Bonnacon. It has the head of a bull, and thereafter its whole body is of the size of a bull's with the maned neck of a horse. Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed. But the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels. For when it turns to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches. In this way, it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement."
All these weird animals are illustrated with medieval art. You’ll need to scroll right on the post instead of the page to advance the list at Medievalist. -via Everlasting Blort
A couple in Fort Oglethorpe, Tennessee, were arrested for shoplifting from Walmart. Police found $600 worth of merchandise in their car. Half of that value was in cheese- there were 57 blocks of it! Joshua and Erika Caldwell, both 21, are facing charges of theft and drug possession.
It's not clear why the couple decided to steal that much cheese or what they were planning on doing with all of it. But they did have their child with them, though, and police found pot in their car.
"The officer noticed a lot of cheese in places throughout the vehicle and the diaper bag for the child as well," said Fort Oglethorpe Police Chief David Eubanks.
Joshua Caldwell's car looked a lot like the Walmart dairy section when police found it last week. Fifty-seven blocks of stolen cheese were stuffed in the floorboards, in bags and throughout the vehicle.
Maybe they had the munchies. However, throughout history, cheese has proven to be the most stolen food item in the world. They were also in possession of ten bottles of Tide laundry detergent, which is commonly stolen and resold. The Caldwells are currently out on bond. -via Arbroath
If you would like some evidence that learning is enhanced by music, look at this little girl. She really knows her ABCs! Well, she may need a little work on her elemeno, but she’s only two years old. If you don’t need any such evidence, watch this little girl anyway, because she’s adorable. -via reddit
