These flags for each of the planets in our solar system were designed by redditor Weslii. He said it was just something to do during a boring afternoon. The minimalist designs incorporate only circles, lines, and arcs, but still say something unique about each planet. What do think of them?  -via Metafilter

Maru is a large cat. His roommate Hana is also getting to be pretty substantial. Their human, mugumogu, arranged an experiment to see how small a passageway can get before the cats cannot get through. The opening is lowered gradually until we have to laugh at Maru's struggle to fit under eight centimeters. How low can they go? Watch and see- it will remind you of a limbo competition! One thing we can be sure of- they had some kind of powerful incentive to get through. Maybe it's the challenge itself.  

Farmers don't normally name their poultry and livestock, but that rule doesn't apply at Caenhill Countryside Centre. Chris Franklin lets the gang out of the barn to start a new day and greets each one of the ducks, geese, chickens, and goats by name: Bunson, Bo, Cuthbert, Owen, Jean, Cee Cee, Catherine, Gilbert and Sully, Bumblebee, Lucy, Socks (the kitten), Kenny, and the rest. Thank you, Kenny! They've made four of these morning videos in the last four days, plus a charming look at the farm before the barn residents are released. Will they continue every day from now on? -via Laughing Squid

Update: Apparently so... there's another one this morning.

Time are a changing. They didn’t have an award for the first place male. Guess they weren’t expecting a female overall winner #bravelikegabe @fast_women pic.twitter.com/EUGJwN8IVC

— Ellie Pell (@gazzellie) August 10, 2019

The Green Lakes Endurance Run 50K (GLER) took place on August 10. Officials were ready with a first place plaque and another for the first woman to cross the finish line. Ellie Pell won both awards, finishing in 3:58:37. There was no trophy for the first man to cross the finish line, because it never occurred to the race organizers that the overall winner could be a woman.  

“It was great, but also an awkward situation,” [race director Tim] Hardy said. “Obviously there’s a lot of great women runners, but you don’t see them winning ultras outright a lot. When it happens, they get two awards.”

“I ended up taking both awards—the overall winner and the first place female,” Pell said. “I felt bad that the first place man didn’t have one, so I tried to convince them to blot out the ‘fe’ on ‘female,’ but they said to just keep both trophies. It was pretty funny.”

Hardy ordered another plaque to be given to Richard Ellsworth, who finished second but was the first man to finish the race. In the future, awards will be given to the top six runners, regardless of sex. Read about the race at Runner's World.  -via Boing Boing

After the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted in 1850, professional "slave catchers" would kidnap black people from free states and smuggle them into the South to be sold into slavery. Not all their victims were fugitives from slavery- many were legally free, whether from birth or from manumission. One of these victims was Henrietta Wood. In 1870, she filed a lawsuit against Zebulon Ward for $20,000 in reparations.

Born into bondage in Kentucky, Wood testified, she had been granted her freedom in Cincinnati in 1848, but five years later she was kidnapped by Ward, who sold her, and she ended up enslaved on a Texas plantation until after the Civil War. She finally returned to Cincinnati in 1869, a free woman. She had not forgotten Ward and sued him the following year.

The trial began only after eight years of litigation, leaving Wood to wonder if she would ever get justice. Now, she watched nervously as the 12 jurors returned to their seats. Finally, they announced a verdict that few expected: “We, the Jury in the above entitled cause, do find for the plaintiff and assess her damages in the premises at Two thousand five hundred dollars.”

The award, greatly reduced from the initial lawsuit, was equivalent to $65,000 today. Strangely, Wood's lawsuit was not a groundbreaking case that opened the floodgates for other former slaves to sue, and has almost disappeared from postwar history. Read about Wood's life, lawsuit, and legacy in an excerpt from the book Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America at Smithsonian.

(Image source: Library of Congress)

In this video, an artificial intelligence algorithm ostensibly deconstructs the first Star Wars film. That's obviously not the case, as this makes way too much sense to be anything other than the product of comedy writers. The first three and a half minutes is a plot summary from the perspective of the droids and other artificial beings (the humans are "unimportant"). Then it gets better, as the "AI" finds the historic and cultural references that influenced A New Hope. -via Geeks Are Sexy

These very good dogs are paying rapt attention. Are they watching Cats? No, the performance is Billy Elliot – The Musical at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. The dogs are not musical fans, but they may become fans with exposure! They are service dogs in training from K-9 Country Inn Service Dogs. They came to the theater to learn how to behave when accompanying their humans to the theater. It was one of the "relaxed performances" that the Stratford Festival is known for.

Relaxed performances are specifically designed to welcome patrons who will benefit from a less restricted audience environment. Patrons of all abilities are welcome, including but not limited to those with intellectual or learning disabilities, sensory processing conditions or autism. There is a relaxed attitude to noise and movement within the auditorium, and some minor production changes may be made to reduce the intensity of light, sound and other potentially startling effects. Babes in arms are also welcome to our relaxed performances.

A good time was had by all. -via Laughing Squid

Rock Hudson had a few serious dramatic roles early in his career, like Giant and Written in the Wind, but he was soon typecast into romantic comedies and lightweight roles that brought in a lot of money in the 1950s and '60s, but little prestige. Hudson wanted more serious roles, so he fired his longtime agent and followed an opportunity to star in the 1966 science fiction movie Seconds. The plot of Seconds involved a man (named Wilson in the book, Hamilton in the film) who gets the chance to live a different life when a mysterious organization offers to give him a new face and identity. The film was to be directed by John Frankenheimer, a young Hollywood hotshot who had a string of hits to his name.

Frankenheimer thought the only actor who could play the before and after roles of Hamilton/Wilson was Laurence Olivier. He hopped on a plane to England and got the theatrical knight to agree to the role. But this wasn’t what Paramount wanted. They wanted a BIG NAME. A BIG BOX-OFFICE NAME that would bring as wide and as varied an audience to the movie as possible and therefore lotsa money. Through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, Rock Hudson was suggested as a possible lead to Frankenheimer.  The director couldn’t see it but agreed to meet with the actor.

Hudson wanted the part but he knew his limitations. He suggested to Frankenheimer that two actors should play the before and after roles rather than just one. It was a clever idea—one Frankenheimer thought would work. Hudson inferred he wanted the role because he knew exactly what it was like to be Hamilton/Wilson. Here was an actor who been forced to hide his true feelings since childhood and had had a whole new (fake) identity as America’s red-blooded hetero-beefcake foisted on him by movie studios. All because he wanted to have the one career he had always dreamed about.

Unfortunately, Seconds turned out to be a well-crafted box office flop, Frankenheimer's first. Hudson was so disappointed that he gave up on pursuing dramatic roles in prestige films and settled for the lighter fare he was known for. The story behind the making of Seconds is a fascinating read at Dangerous Minds.

The head of SpaceX is having a little trouble with his artificial intelligence. YouTuber Ctrl Shift Face used deep fake technology to put Elon Musk into footage of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, linking the story to reality just enough to make it super creepy. If you watch carefully at 1:16, you might notice a red Tesla roadster passing through the background. -via Geeks Are Sexy

In June of 1960, four Finnish teenagers went camping at Lake Bodom in Espoo, Finland. They were Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, Seppo Antero Boisman, and their girlfriends Anja Tuulikki Maki and Maila Irmeli Bjorklund. They all shared one tent.

The next morning, two boys hiking through the campgrounds on a bird-watching expedition noticed the tent from a distance. They weren’t close enough to see many details, but it was clear the tent had been torn and slashed. Nearby, a man with blond hair appeared to be walking away from the campsite.

The boys continued on, apparently thinking little of it. Later that morning, a local passed by the tent and was close enough to observe a shocking sight. Outside the tent lay Gustafsson and Bjorklund, bloodied and battered (by some accounts, Bjorklund was partly hidden inside the tent's fabric). Authorities found Boisman and Maki inside, their bodies displaying knife gashes and injuries consistent with being bludgeoned. Bjorklund, Boisman, and Maki were dead. Only Gustafsson had survived whatever assault had taken place. When police asked him what had happened, he could say only that a shadowy figure dressed in black with bright red eyes appeared and viciously attacked the group.

Gustafsson survived his wounds, and later said he didn't remember any details of that night. Who murdered the three teenagers? There have been quite a few suspects over the years, particularly when the case was reopened in 2004 with new DNA evidence, but no one was ever convicted of the crimes. Read the story of the Lake Bodom murders at Mental Floss.  -via Strange Company

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Someone, probably not George Bernard Shaw, once said that the US and Britain are two countries forever separated by a common language. With a little practice, we can decipher most of what the other is saying, but British English and American English have distinct idioms, some of which grate on the ear. There are quite a few phrases that were coined in America and seeped their way back into British use, and readers responding to a language article suggested the ones that bother them the most. Here's a taste:

6. “Touch base”—it makes me cringe no end.

7. Is “physicality” a real word?

8. Transportation. What’s wrong with transport?

9. Does nobody celebrate a birthday any more, must we all “turn” 12 or 21 or 40?

10. What kind of word is “gotten”? It makes me shudder.

Some of these bother older Americans, too. But some are just different word usage.

31. My brother now uses the term “season” for a TV series. Hideous.

In the US, we understand that a TV "series" is a show that can run for years, as opposed to a special, TV movie, or a mini-series, while a "season" is a year of that show (or in the case of reality game shows, it's one multi-episode game, since they often have two or three per year). The British use "series" for a year's worth of a "show." Neither is wrong, any more than calling fries chips or calling cookies biscuits. Read more of the annoying American terms that are invading British English at LitHub. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Rei-artur and Kjoonlee)

Scurvy is a deficiency disease, suffered by those who don't get enough vitamin C. At one time in our evolution, humans manufactured our own vitamin C in our bodies, sort of like how we make our own vitamin D. But somewhere along the way, we lost this ability, and had to learn to seek out vitamin C the hard way. -via Digg

It’s real, it’s delicious and it’s for your enjoyment. Look for limited edition SPAM® Pumpkin Spice 2-packs coming Sept. 23rd to https://t.co/cdPAAqrwms and https://t.co/EEa1WIc63I. Eat one, save one! #SPAMBrand #pumpkin #pumpkinspice #PSL #fall pic.twitter.com/T9XwqwfPw8

— The SPAM® Brand (@SPAMbrand) August 15, 2019

The SPAM company is getting on the pumpkin spice bandwagon. There's no mention of the SPAM including any actual pumpkin, but the spices that trend for autumn are there: clove, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. The staff at Food&Wine give us a review.

Spam sent over a can of its autumnally-inspired creation for us to try. First thing's first, Spam itself, I acknowledge, is somewhat of an acquired taste and one that I've generally not acquired. That said, it's a staple for many people and often used in certain regional cuisines, so adding a hint of spice to this hearty ingredient could offer some interesting variations on classic and familiar favorites. The pumpkin spice flavors are certainly present, though more subtly than I had expected. Pumpkin Spice Spam certainly seems to err on the side of a breakfast food, and could easily be slathered in maple syrup as you might with breakfast sausage. The brand suggests putting slices into a breakfast sandwich, serving it alongside some pancakes or waffles, or baking it into some cornbread, which seems to echo that notion. One colleague even compared it to gingerbread plus ham — maybe this Christmas you could even build a little village out of it? Whatever you choose to do, just take satisfaction in knowing you're on the bleeding edge of pumpkin spice innovations.

Pumpkin spice SPAM will be available beginning September 23 at Walmart and at the online SPAM store.

This is absolutely terrifying. I'm a disabled person who falls a lot and occasionally needs assistance. Am I going to have to need to start looking up whether I'll be able to use public conveniences without violent and humiliating consequence, because of moral panic?

— sophia, vulture appreciator (@pylonfan) August 16, 2019

The city of Porthcawl in Wales plans to replace its Griffin Park public toilets with new units that feature high-tech systems designed to police the behavior within, specifically people who go in to have sex or the homeless who would sleep there. Step out of line, and the doors can fly open, alarms sound, and you may get hit with a spray of water. The toilets will cost £170,000 (approximately $200,000), so people will have to pay a fee to use them.

Movement sensors inside the toilets will respond to "violent" activity, while weight sensors will be installed to detect the entrance of more than one person, triggering the deterrent measures. The toilets have also been designed to prevent rough sleepers taking shelter inside: If a user remains in the toilet for too long, a warning message will play, while the lights and heating will switch off.

The planning documents also include a high pressure floor and wall washer, which could activate after every use of the toilet, or less frequently. An automated 10-minute "deep clean" process will take place every night.  

What could possibly go wrong? An overweight person, a wheelchair, a caregiver, or a parent helping a child could trip the weight sensors. Spilling water or a wasp could spark anyone to violent activity. These measures could actually attract exhibitionists and those who need a shower. And how is all that automatic cleaning and spraying going to affect the electronics? One would think that the fee for access would in itself be a deterrent, but at the cost of the technology, the city could hire a staff of human attendants who would not only deter mischief, but avoid false positive responses. Read about the plan at CNN. -via Boing Boing

It is thought that the Brothers Grimm based their story of Snow White on a real person, Maria Sophia von Erthal, born in 1725 in Lohr am Main, Bavaria. The young German aristocrat had a great life until her mother died and her father married a woman who disliked and abused her stepchildren. Here's a partial list of details from Maria's life story.  

Sophia's father, a nobleman called Philipp Christoph von Erthal, remarried after his first wife's death, and Sophia's stepmother had the reputation of being domineering and acting in favour of her natural children

Lohr was a famous centre for glassware and mirrors. Sophia's father owned the mirror factory, and a museum in Lohr today proudly displays one of those mirrors with the inscription: "Amour propre" (French for "pride")

A scary forest features in the tale, and a forest near Lohr was notorious for robbers and dangerous wild animals

Snow White ran over seven hills before reaching the cottage inhabited by the seven dwarfs, who toiled in a mine; and a mine outside Lohr, now disused, can be reached by crossing seven hills

The town of Lohr am Main has embraced the possibility that Maria inspired the story of Snow White, and the castle the family lived in is now a museum. Another part of the historical saga is in place now, as Maria's gravestone has been found after going missing for decades. Read that story at the BBC. -via Strange Company