Despite the fact that zombies are fictional and the "rules" for zombies vary with the writers' whims, there are constant discussions about how to survive when the apocalypse comes and the world is full of corpses trying to eat you. A recent Tumblr discussion had some pretty good ideas.

1. Wear a suit of armor. You may have to make your own.

2. Increase your speed with a bicycle. They are quiet and require no fuel.

There are some other ideas in the discussion you can peruse here. Imagine if The Walking Dead were to use these ideas- the survival rate might go up, but the show would look a lot like a Monty Python skit.

(Image credit: AgainstTheAgainst)

This Belgian video is completely wordless, because it doesn't need words. The YouTuber spends a couple of minutes shredding various things, which is pretty interesting. Then he feeds an entire roll of bubble wrap through his industrial-strength shredder. It's cool to watch, but eventually you start thinking about the waste and the garbage produced. In the comments, he tells us, "For the environmentalists: All the plastic was cleaned from the grass with a vacuum cleaner, and disposed at the recycle center." Let's hope that in Belgium, they really do recycle the stuff they receive. -via Geeks Are Sexy

A thread of rating every horse emoji:

Apple, iOS 13.2

Total lack of withers explains lack of saddle. Back flatter than my coffee table explains lack of rider. Horse is ewe-necked, with a tiny head. Best suited for liberty training, would not recommend for performance work. 6/10 pic.twitter.com/PYtiMUvsth

— Horse Girl Autumn (@jelenawoehr) November 6, 2019

Horse Girl Autumn is both a writer and an equine enthusiast, so who better to judge the various horse emojis? They are designed to be cute, but that sometimes means that biological accuracy is sacrificed, more so from some services than from others, and completely unintentional.

WhatsApp 2.19.244

Here we see the opposite spinal problem, lordosis, or "sway back." Common in senior horses, but this animal appears youthful, so likely a congenital defect. Very heavy on the forehand. Smiling, should have good temperament. Suggest as companion only. 4/10 pic.twitter.com/G87qe1Et57

— Horse Girl Autumn (@jelenawoehr) November 6, 2019

You can read her original 14 horse emoji critiques at Threadreader, or in the original Twitter thread where people submitted more horse pictures for her analysis. And then she did another thread where she rated jockey emojis. -via Kottke

Adventure World is an aquarium in Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. They have an emperor penguin breeding program, in which baby penguin chicks are fed and cared for by staff in penguin costumes. It's not a social media stunt; but rather an attempt to keep the chicks from imprinting on humans.

Birds view the first moving things that they see as their parents. The aquarium found that the emperor penguin chicks that recognized humans as their parents do not mate after growing to adulthood, effectively ending the desired breeding cycle of penguins at the aquarium.

To raise the latest chick, staff members wore a penguin-shaped mask and a special left-handed glove resembling the head of a parent penguin.

Without saying a word, they fed the chick liquid food comprising mashed herring and krill five times a day with the chirping of the parent birds playing in the background.

The newborn chicks are cared for by humans for only a short time, then they are returned to their penguin parents. The staff hopes that the penguin disguises will enable the chicks to bond with their parents easier, and grow up to socialize better with other penguins, including mating. Read about the program at the Asashi Shimbun. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Hiroshi Ono)

The latest Cracked pictofacts list is like some sort of confessional. Everyone has some little quirk or obsession, often harmless and rarely shared. In a conversation a while back, I said, "Everyone has private habits, like counting stair steps as you go up, but it's not bad unless it affects your ability to live a normal life." My brother jumped in, "Oh, you do that, too?" Well, yes, but not obsessively. I couldn't tell you how many stair steps are in my house because it doesn't register as important. So knowing our own quirks, it's fun to take a look into those that other people have developed. You will be surprised at the variety, and have to wonder how that habit began.

I have worked at a grocery store. Plenty of people, from manufacturing to shipping to stocking, have touched that product, no matter where it is. That's why it is packaged. The very few customers who touch a product and don't take it do not affect that number much.

That someone is you! Or more likely, he/she is thinking about something like this. The way to prevent this feeling is to never ever watch a horror film. There are 39 of these private habits that will make you go "hmmm" at Cracked.

No one will be surprised at the dominance of The Beatles and Elvis Presley at the beginning of this data visualization from Data is Beautiful. But there may be some surprises for you as the years go by. What did Elton John do in 1997? Oh yeah, "Candle in the Wind 1997," after the death of Princess Diana. And I was surprised that Beyonce didn't stay on the chart all that long. But watch Psy tear right up the graph ...and fall just as fast. -via Digg

The RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg on April 14, 1912. The RMS Carpathia worked through the night to rescue survivors, but there were only 705 people alive of the more than 2200 aboard the Titanic. Someone would eventually need to go and collect those who did not survive.

Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, was the closest major port to the site of the disaster. A Halifax-based cable ship, the CS Mackay-Bennett, was quickly fitted out as a “morgue ship” and dispatched to where the Titanic had sunk two days earlier, more than 800 statute miles away. The Mackay-Bennett carried all the embalming fluid available in Halifax, approximately 100 wooden coffins, 100 tons of ice, and 12 tons of iron bars to weigh down bodies to be buried at sea. But it wouldn't be enough to cope with the huge number of Titanic victims.

The Mackay-Bennett arrived on the evening of April 19. By the next morning, the crew was ready to start recovering bodies. Captain Frederick Harold Larnder found far more victims in the icy waters than he expected. “We saw them scattered over the surface, looking like a flock of seagulls,” he later told The Washington Times.

With insufficient supplies to preserve all the recovered bodies, some had to be buried at sea. Read about the grim mission to recover the victims of the Titanic sinking at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company

Berlin, in times of freedom, has always been a haven for artists, outsiders, and freethinkers. But Berlin's freedom sometimes turns on a dime. The barriers that separated East Germany from West Germany fell on November 9, 1989, allowing freedom of movement between the previously-segregated sectors of Berlin for the first time since 1961. However, the technical reunification of the two nations was only accomplished a year later. Meanwhile, a group of young anarchists leapt to fill the political power vacuum in Berlin. They began by taking over an abandoned apartment building.   

They appropriated the five-story building, 47 Schreiner Street, and, in so doing, sparked a chain reaction across the city. Throughout 1990, DJs, artists and wannabe artists, middle-class students, activist filmmakers, clubbers, musicians, and other free spirits would occupy hundreds of apartment buildings, vacant shops, shuttered warehouses, and long-forgotten subterranean vaults. They came from East and West Germany, as well as from across Europe and beyond, to initiate Berlin’s rebirth as a cosmopolitan center after decades of reclusion. The Iron Curtain’s breach and Communism’s demise unleashed a groundswell of utopian energy and DIY zeal, most powerfully focused in the occupied spaces of East Berlin’s inner city districts, such as Friedrichshain. One couldn’t have known it at the time, but this ethos would infuse Berlin for years to come and does even today, earning Germany’s capital a reputation as one of Europe’s hippest metropolises.

In late 1989 and 1990 I watched East Berlin’s transformation through the lens of the 47 Schreiner Street squatters. I was twenty-something myself, a novice journalist living between Budapest and Berlin during the year of tumult. The Wall’s breach ushered in an exhilarating period of people power, improvisation, and revelry, which I both chronicled and took part in.

The anarchists were active both before and after that year, but for a brief space in time were ascendant in Berlin. Read that little-known chapter in history at the Boston Review.  -via Digg

(Image credit: Unknown)

I've met a few of these adult Disney women. Not in real life, but on the internet. They will proudly own up to it with no shame at all. Enjoy this clever little ditty from Max Ash. -via reddit

The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, has announced thus year's inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame. They are Matchbox cars, the coloring book, and the card game Magic: The Gathering.

English die casters Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith founded Lesney Products in 1947 and, along with partner Jack Odell, began making small toys to fill slack demand during wartime. In 1952, Odell was inspired by a rule at his daughter’s school that permitted students to only bring toys that fit inside a matchbox. He scaled down Lesney’s road roller toy, packaged it in a matchbox, and sent his daughter off to school. The Matchbox car was born.

The American company Mattel introduced Hot Wheels cars in 1968, and they were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Mattel now own both lines. Finalists that didn't make the cut this year include:

Care Bears, the Fisher-Price Corn Popper, Jenga, Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony, Nerf Blaster, Risk, the smartphone and the top.

The links in the first paragraph will take you to the history of each of the National Toy Hall of Fame inductees. -via Next Draft 

(Image credit: Riley)

Sobański palace is a lovely French castle in the tiny Polish town of Guzów. That in itself implies there's quite a story behind it, which goes back to the 1700s. The same wealthy local family owns the palace now as back then, but it hasn't been continuous. At least three times, new generations of the family had to buy back their home after hard times or confiscation. Along the way, Sobański palace has undergone additions, renovations, plunder, and decay.

Hitler himself spent a lot of time there, and actually signed the orders for the final capture of Warsaw in the living room. “Until the end of the occupation,” wrote Gabriela, “the Reich came to Guzów to guard this salon. Hitler left a letter to my father saying that he was very ashamed that the army had destroyed the palace so much…and then left.”

The Nazis murdered nearly 200 people in the area before leaving, including the Sobański Countess. As the Red Army approached, they fled in such haste that some Nazi soldiers were allegedly found locked in the basement by Russian soldiers, who continued to plunder and destroy the palace. The rest is basically communist history: in light of the agricultural reform, the palace was forced to become a now derelict sugar factory.

But now Sobański Palace is once again on its way back to glory. Read about the mansion and see plenty of pictures at Messy Nessy Chic.

The staff at MIT’s Biomimetics lab took their nine Mini Cheetah robots outside to play. Aren't they cute? They run around, play soccer, do some calisthenics, show off to each other, and have a great time on the grounds. -via Geeks Are Sexy

This personal story is a bit different from what you'd usually find at Collectors Weekly. Twenty-five years ago, Ben Marks' young son inspired an interview with the creator of a fairly new game that was becoming popular. At the time, no one knew how popular or long-lasting it would be.

In June 1994, Richard Garfield was the rising superstar of hobby gaming. A Ph.D. in combinatorial mathematics, Garfield had launched his wildly successful collectible card game, “Magic: The Gathering,” barely a year earlier, but it had already sold 170 million cards. From its “Alpha” release in August 1993, the game’s initial inventory of 295 individually named cards had swollen to 500, each featuring an original illustration on its face. Taken together, the cards painted a picture of a fantastical land filled with wizards, demons, sorcerers, and enchanted stones. Hobby-and-game shops routinely sold out of the meager inventories they received from Wizards of the Coast, the game’s publisher, which struggled to keep up with demand. And when my then-6-year-old son, Sam, was bitten by the Magic bug, I smelled a story.

I pitched an article about Magic to a magazine in New York. Somehow, I convinced this well-funded monthly to fly Sam and I from San Francisco to Seattle so I could interview Garfield. My plan was to get the game’s inventor to explain his creation to a general-interest readership, cherry-pick a few details to give my story color (“Garfield appears slightly dazed as he sits cross-legged and shoeless on an office chair, his feet warmed by a pair of rainbow-hued tabi socks … ”), and then write up the play-by-play of a game of Magic between my child and the gaming Goliath.

The interview came off better for Sam than it did for Ben. All these years later, Ben tells of the many connections discovered between his family, Garfield, and one unique piece of art, sometimes bordering on the eerie.

In most professional sports, the role of the team doctor is pretty sweet: besides performing regular checkups and giving health lectures, you get to attend all the games and only go to work when there's an emergency. Things are different for a team dentist in the NHL, as emergencies happen all too often, and you keep a dentist chair on hand to patch up player's mouths. Hockey players don't expect to finish a season, much less their career, with all their teeth intact. Their dentists all have tales to tell, each gorier than the last.

Or consider Game 4 of the 2010 Western Conference finals, when, after getting smashed in the mouth by a shot, Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith spit out seven teeth like sunflower seeds on his way back to the bench. "It sounds gross and bad," Keith says, "but it happens all the time to guys."

During a game, an NHL team dentist's main priorities are triage, improvisation and speed: Stop the bleeding, yank or file down any dangerous edges and numb the pain so the player can return to the ice as quickly as possible. Restorative oral surgery -- things like root canals, crowns, bridges or removable teeth the players call "flippers" -- is saved for the fully equipped dental office. So it was that Keith left a breadcrumb trail of bicuspids all the way to the Blackhawks' training room, where at one point he counted seven needles in his mouth. He missed just six and a half minutes of the game and returned to the ice, mumbling instructions through numb chipmunk cheeks while setting up the game-tying goal. (Two and a half weeks later, Keith was drinking out of the Cup, presumably through a straw.)

"Gotta leaf it all on the eyesh," he gummed to reporters after the Sharks game.

Read more stories about the dentists who care for hockey player's teeth and the pros that suffer for their sport at ESPN.  -via Metafilter

This ad parody from The Kloons is what we used to call a shaggy dog story. Go ahead and laugh at it, when you finally get to the punch line. However, it does illustrate studies that show how acquiring possessions, no matter had coveted they are initially, tend to lose value over time and ultimately contribute little to our overall happiness. The alternative, experiences, bring happiness before, during, and after the actual experience. -via Digg