During World War II, servicemen shipping out to the South Pacific would write their name on a dollar bill and tack it to the ceiling of their favorite bar the night before leaving. On returning, they would head to the bar, retrieve their dollar, and buy a drink. A veteran who knew that tradition stuck a dollar into the ceiling of the tiki bar Forbidden Island in Alameda, California, some ten years ago. He used a little paper umbrella to attach the bill to the ceiling. That started a tradition, as other patrons followed suit, many of them decorating their bills with doodles and messages. The ceiling was covered in paper money, as well as nearby light fixtures, when the bar's owner, Michael Thanos, decided to take it all down.

It was a bigger job than they had first realized. As it neared opening time, they had to stuff the cash in four big garbage bags to deal with at later time. "And it was a really dirty job. We had to wear gloves and face masks because there was layers of fire retardant and dust," reported General Manager John Peterson. When they got back to sorting and counting it, they were surprised to learn they had a significant amount of money on their hands.

"$10,367 to be exact," said John.

The even better part of the tale is what they did with the money. Read the whole story at Boing Boing.

(Image credit: Rusty Blazenhoff)

The Indiana Supreme Court is considering a strange case involving surveillance with a twist. The Warrick County Sheriff's department placed a GPS tracker on Derek Heuring's vehicle, after obtaining a warrant to do so. Heuring discovered the device and removed it. It was not labeled as belonging to anyone. Heuring left the tracker in his barn. When the police eventually figured out that the tracker was no longer on the car, they got a warrant to search Heuring's property on the grounds that the tracker was stolen. While searching for the GPS tracker, they found drugs, which led to Heuring's arrest on a number of felonies -one of which is the theft of the GPS tracker. The thing is, all the drug charges were only possible because of the theft charge, and how could removing an unmarked foreign object from your own car constitute theft? The police say they were just trying to get their device back, but the justices are looking at the bigger picture.

"I'm not looking to make things easier for drug dealers," Justice Massa said. "But if something is left on your car -- even if you know it's the police that are tracking you -- you have an obligation to leave it there and let them track you? If you then take it off you're somehow subject to a search of your home?"

Justice Steven H. David was equally skeptical.

"If someone wants to find me to do harm to me -- and it's not the police -- and they put a tracking device on my car, and I find it and dispose of it after stomping on it twenty-five times, I would hope they would not be able to go to a local prosecutor and somehow I'm getting charges filed against me for destroying someone else's property," Justice David said.

It could be argued that the device was a gift from the police. An anonymous gift at that, so how was Heuring to return it? Police maintain that every step of the operation was legal, so how could justices disallow the search warrant? What do you think?  -via Fark

(Image credit: TrackingHAWK)

Have you ever wondered how the idea of railroad trains came about? You might never have considered it, but the rails came first, and the locomotive followed. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was laid almost 200 years ago with the idea that cargo would be eventually pulled by some kind of moving engine, instead of being pulled by cables attached to stationary steam engines as had been done elsewhere. But what form would those engines take? The Rainhilll Trials were conceived as a contest to determine the best locomotive design. The railway directors offered £500 to the designer of the best engine, along with the potential to make history and a lot of money manufacturing locomotives. 

Ten locomotives put forward their names but only five actually arrived for the competition which began on 6 October 1829. Out of these only three were in serious competition. These were the Rocket, designed by George Stephenson; Novelty built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite; and Sans Pareil, built by Timothy Hackworth. One entrant called Cycloped was an absurd contraption with a horse walking endlessly over a treadmill to generate power. Before exhaustion had killed the horse, it fell through the wooden platform and was disqualified. Timothy Burstall’s Perseverance was damaged en route to the competition, and spent the first five days of the competition in repairs. When it finally joined the race, the locomotive managed only 6 mph, lower than the minimum required speed of 10 mph.

That left three competitors. Read about the trials and the outcome at Amusing Planet.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition was the second to reach the South Pole. They had aimed to be first, but arrived to find Roald Amundsen and his team already there. Scott's men went down in history for not making it back back. Scott kept a diary, jotting down his experiences during that tragic trek as they coped with blizzards, exhaustion, and lack of supplies. Scott is believed to have died on March 29, 1912, soon after his last diary entry. He and his last two team members were only found eight months later. Scott wrote farewell messages to his friends and family, and a letter to his wife was written over many days. It says, in part,

Well dear heart I want you to take the whole thing very sensibly as I am sure you will — the boy will be your comfort. I had looked forward to helping you to bring him up but it is a satisfaction to feel that he is safe with you. I think both he and you ought to be specially looked after by the country for which after all we have given our lives with something of spirit which makes for example — I am writing letters on this point in the end of this book after this. Will you send them to their various destinations?

I must write a little letter for the boy if time can be found to be read when he grows up — dearest that you know I cherish no sentimental rubbish about re marriage — when the right man comes to help you in life you ought to be your happy self again.

I hope I shall be a good memory certainly the end is nothing for you to be ashamed of and I like to think that the boy will have a good start in parentage of which he may be proud. Dear it is not easy to write because of the cold — 70 degrees below zero and nothing but the shelter of our tent.

You know I have loved you, you know my thoughts must have constantly dwelt on you and oh dear me you must know that quite the worst aspect of this situation is the thought that I shall not see you again. The inevitable must be faced — you urged me to be leader of this party and I know you felt it would be dangerous — I’ve taken my place throughout, haven’t I?  

Scott's diary of the Terra Nova expedition is online -all 165 pages- when you have time to read it, but first read excerpts of his goodbye entries, inclusing the full letter to his widow, at Why Evolution is True. -via Nag on the Lake

People drink two billion cups of coffee a day! I'm only responsible for about ten of those. While coffee drinking is universal, cultures approach the drink, and prepare it, in different ways. Still, it's a kick to the system and an excuse to be sociable, so coffee is not going away anytime soon. -via Geeks Are Sexy

This is Smudge. Smudge doesn't care for salad, or in the words of the Tumblr user who led him to virality, "he no like vegetals." What Smudge does like is sitting at the table during the family dinner.

"He eats dinner at our table. He gets really upset if he doesn't have a chair," said Miranda Stillabower, 24, Smudge's owner.

"Someone got up from dinner and he must have thought, 'Oh, this is my chair,' and he sat there. My brother's girlfriend took the picture."

OK, but what's with that expression, the one Stillabower sums up as "super unimpressed?"

"I don't know why he was making that face, but it's the best thing he's ever done," she said.

You can see Smudge at the dinner table quite a bit at Instagram. Soon afterward, Smudge's picture was paired with an image from the TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which people found funny.

These photos together is making me lose it pic.twitter.com/kJi9d8MpbG

— chey (@MISSINGEGIRL) May 1, 2019

The pictures were soon given captions. Any argument will do. You can track the rise of the meme known as "woman yelling at cat" at Know Your Meme. Continue reading for some examples of the meme. -via Nag on the Lake

Colonizing Mars will be quite difficult, as the planet is cold and has hardly any atmosphere. So why is that? The difference between Earth and Mars is that we have a magnetic field that shields Earth's atmosphere from solar wind. Mars once had an atmosphere, but lost its magnetic field a few billion years ago, and its atmosphere was stripped away, its water froze, and here we are. But James Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, thinks it may be possible to install an artificial magnetic field on Mars.

Mars, of course, is frigid and dry now, but Green said the dynamics of the solar system point to a time when the planet will warm up again. He said that scientists expect the gradually increasing heat of the sun will warm the planet sufficiently to release the covering of frozen carbon dioxide at the north pole, will start water ice to flow, and will in time create something of a greenhouse atmosphere. But the process is expected to take some 700 million years.

“The key to my idea is that we now know that Mars lost its magnetic field long ago, the solar wind has been stripping off the atmosphere (in particular the oxygen) ever since, and the solar wind is in some kind of equilibrium with the outgassing at Mars,” Green said. (Outgassing is the release of gaseous compounds from beneath the planet’s surface.) “If we significantly reduce the stripping, a new, higher pressure atmosphere will evolve over time. The increase in pressure causes an increase in temperature. We have not calculated exactly what the new equilibrium will be and how long it will take.”

Scientists believe it would take a very long time, even with a magnetic field, but there's also the possibility of terraforming, or bringing in the gasses and life forms needed to make Mars a friendlier planet. Read about the idea at Nautilus. -via Digg

(Image credit: NASA)

Decades later, Art Nouveau was reborn as the hippie aesthetic. Even if you know all about that, you'll love the beautiful images in this video from Vox. Read more about San Francisco's concert posters of the 1960s here. -via reddit

The Muppets have been part of the beloved TV show Sesame Street for 50 years now. Each Muppet has an unseen performer (or two) behind it who puts their heart and soul into giving a personality to an inanimate object. It's not an easy job, but hey, it's showbiz! The Muppeteers love their jobs, and spend years learning the ins and outs of the craft.   

1. Sesame Street puppeteers usually get started lending a (right) hand.

Though there’s no definitive set of directions for puppeteers to get to Sesame Street, a number of performers selected to work on the show begin as apprentices with one specific task: operating the right hand of characters alongside the veteran cast members. “A lot of performers will almost only do right hands for a very long time,” Ryan Dillon, the puppeteer behind Elmo, tells Mental Floss. “Some characters, like Cookie Monster, require two performers with two practical hands.”

Dillon started working on Sesame Street in 2005 at the age of 17. He performed as a right hand and as supporting characters for years before scoring the Elmo role in 2013. Throughout that training, he accompanied the main puppeteer, who uses their dominant (usually right) hand to control the mouth and the other to control the left hand. The newcomer will manipulate the right, a duty informally known as right handing. “It’s a great training ground,” Dillon says. “You’re working directly next to a performer with years of experience. You become one character together.”

5. Sesame Street puppeteers can spend their entire day crouched on the floor.

Being a Sesame Street puppeteer requires more than just having performing chops. On set, characters that may be at waist level with their human co-stars are operated by performers crouched below frame, often on wheeled boards called rollies. “The first day or two, your back and everything else is sore,” Dillon says. “It engages your whole body. Your arm is up in the air performing.” Some actors, Dillon says, have developed knee issues as a result of a career bent over. Fortunately, not every scene requires contortions. Some sets are built raised so performers can stand up straight. Other times, they’ll have to situate themselves horizontally. Scenes set on a stoop usually mean the performer is lying down behind the steps.

Read the rest of the 15 secrets from the Sesame Street puppeteers at Mental Floss.

This animation is billed as a parody trailer, but it's really an entire story set in the Frozen universe, minus the ending. Anna is jealous of Elsa's popularity, which leads to a sisterly spat, or rather, a war that goes off the rails. You might want to watch this before considering showing it to your children. The real Disney sequel, Frozen 2, opens next weekend. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The winners have been announced in the 2019 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The overall winner is the picture above by Sarah Skinner entitled “Grab life by the…” We hear that the moment ended peacefully, as the cub missed his target. The Spectrum Photo Creatures In The Air Award went to Vlado-Pirsa for this photo entitled "Family disagreement."



See all of this years winners in the competition's gallery, and the 40 finalists here. They are all funny!



-via Earther

The Disney renaissance began with The Little Mermaid in 1989, and the next big princess movie was Beauty and the Beast in 1991. The studio's animation department had a lot riding on the project, mainly to prove that they could continue making magic after Ariel's success. To create buzz for Beauty and the Beast, they proposed screening it at the New York Film Festival, two months before its premiere date -even though the movie wasn't finished.  

The programming team had been putting the finishing touches on that year’s festival slate, which included pictures like Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique and Jacques Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse — not exactly the kind of movies among which one would expect to find a musical romance from the Mouse House. Disney was seen as corporate, antiseptic, G-rated, while the New York Film Festival had introduced American audiences to the early work of Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Martin Scorsese.

What’s more, Beauty and the Beast was only about 60 to 70 percent finished. The “work-in-progress” version incorporated four different stages from the movie’s long, arduous creation: storyboards, rough pencil-sketch animation, cleaned-up black-and-white animation, and final color footage. You could see coffee stains and paper folds and marginalia. Sometimes a character would be accompanied by arrows and hand-scribbled numbers. (The film had been in production for four years but in development for decades. There had been numerous abortive starts, and the project had come close to having the plug pulled on it several times.)

Directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale were very nervous about the film festival screening. Read what happened at Vulture. -via Digg

(Image source: YouTube)

Everyone has a hobby, usually something that is very different from their career, but who knew that musician Rod Stewart was a model railroad enthusiast? Well, most likely other model train enthusiasts knew, but now the extent of his hobby is there for all to see, in the magazine Railer Modeller. For 23 years, he's been working to build an intricate model of a city in his attic in Los Angeles.

The scenery and structures are his forte, rather than the locomotives and tracks. "I find beauty in what everyone else sees as ugly - rugged skyscrapers, beaten-up warehouses, things that are very run down."

Photos of the layout show dozens of highly detailed buildings plus bridges, ships, vegetation and streets teeming with vintage cars and taxis.

"When I take on something creative like this, I have to give it 110%," he said. "For me it's addictive. I started, so I just had to finish. I'm lucky I had the room. If I'd have realised at the start it would have taken so long, I'd have probably said, 'No! No! Nah!'"

Read about Stewart's project and see impressive pictures of the model city at BBC News. -via Kottke

A mason came and made a deal with the Norse gods to build them a great (but expensive) wall to protect Asgard from the enemies outside. Loki drove an even harder bargain. Would the mason be able to complete the wall under the extreme restrictions from the gods? The mythological tale gets a little crazy at the end, and you do not want to miss the punch line. The original saga probably didn't refer to it as a punch line, but that's the way it comes across.  

«Бро должен быть рядом, бро - не багаж». "bro gotta be around bro, is not luggage".

Mikhail Galin traveled from Riga, Latvia, to Vladivostok, Russia, with his 22-pound cat Viktor. That's a long trip. Galin booked the flight on Aeroflot, which has a rule that any pet over eight kilograms (18 pounds) must travel in the cargo hold. The rule was not invoked in Riga, but when Galin transferred in Moscow, he was told Viktor would have to fly in cargo.    

Galin refused to store Viktor in the plane’s cargo hold on the eight-hour flight to Vladivostok. So he forfeited his ticket, and then took to Facebook to find a good Samaritan in Moscow with a cat that resembled Viktor, but weighed less than 18 pounds.

That is how he found Phoebe, the cat that would act a Viktor’s body double. Galin then used his Aeroflot miles to book a business class seat to Vladivostok the next day. That cat’s owners met Galin at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, where it was weighed in Viktor’s place.

Once Aeroflot’s animal handlers were satisfied they were looking at a suitably-sized cat, the gang made their way back to the terminal and swapped out Viktor’s body double. The two boarded the plane in business class on a ticket Galin bought with his Aeroflot miles.

He would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for social media. Galin posted the story on Facebook, which went viral in Russia. Aeroflot got word of the subterfuge and suspended Galin from their loyalty program. He lost the 370,000 miles he had already accumulated. Read the details of the story at NBC.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Mikhail Galin)