The billboards will tell you that you can see seven states from atop Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. However, three states meet where the mountain is, and when you look out from the summit, there are no boundary lines telling you what's out there. How far you can see from any particular place is normally limited by the curvature of the earth. Gaze out on a flat ocean or prairie land, and you can probably see about five kilometers away. However, if you are on top of a mountain, that sightline is exponentially longer. The same if you are looking at a faraway mountain jutting up from the earth. But air pollution also interferes with what we can see. The pandemic lockdown shut down factories and took so many vehicles off the streets, that one day people in Punjab were astonished that they could see the Himalayas, a sight that was normal for residents of the state some years ago when the air was cleaner.

There are other factors involved in how far one can see. Still, geographers have determined where the longest line of sight on earth is. Strangely, it is not the place where a person has actually taken the furthest photograph. Read about sightlines and where those places are at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Flickr user Sitoo)
 

Humans have laws that govern our interactions with others. Animals don't, but since they live with and among us, they sometimes get involved in human crime. Sometimes they are the perpetrators, and in a few cases are treated as such: jailed, put on trial, fined, or otherwise punished. Sometimes they are unwitting accomplices. Sometimes an animal can be a witness to a crime, or even the evidence that solves it. And at least once, a bird got right in the middle of a human crime scene.

In Canada, police had the opposite problem: Instead of dealing with an animal who fled the scene of the crime, they had to deal with one who wouldn’t leave their crime scene alone. A bird believed to be a crow named Canuck had already earned a reputation as a beloved troublemaker in Vancouver. In 2016, his antics got him in a tussle with the law. When police were dispatched to a car fire, they encountered a man wielding a knife. Canuck, who had been spotted sitting on the burned car, scooped up the knife and flew away with it. A cop had to chase him for a bit before the bird finally dropped his shiny evidential treasure.

So, did the bird save the day by stealing the knife, or was he tampering with evidence? The original account makes it clear that the police had already arrested the perpetrator and Canuck then made off with the evidence. This is just one of 25 stories of animals involved in real crimes that you can read about at Mental Floss. Or if you prefer, you can watch a video at the same link.

(Image credit: Shawn Bergman)

The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth installment of the Matrix franchise that started in 1999. It premiered less than a month ago and suffered from high expectations. Oh, people went to see it, mostly due to the franchise's history and the star power of Keanu Reeves, but The Matrix Resurrections underperformed both at the box office and in critical reviews. Fans didn't really want to see Neo as a senior citizen, or see the fate of the Matrix hanging by a love story. Screen Junkies has plenty of other thing to nitpick in The Matrix Resurrections, as you'll see in this Honest Trailer. Does this video contain spoilers? I don't know, I have yet to see any of the Matrix movies, so I would assume it does if I were you.

Is a hotdog a sandwich? How would a dog wear pants? Could Jack have fit on that door? People online will argue about the big things and the little things. Some of these arguments return again and again, and it's time we settled them. Neal Agarwal (previously at Neatorama) put up a page called Let's Settle This. It currently has 22 of the arguments you've heard on the 'net, and you have a chance to vote on each and then see how your opinion holds up against everyone else's. Yeah, there's a problem there. Just because the majority of people say something is so doesn't mean it is so. But then again, these aren't questions that will make or break your life. As silly as they are, people will continue to argue over these questions. But at least here you can register your opinion without getting trolled in reply. -via Kottke 

Geography can confound the life of a sea turtle. Turtles will migrate any place where the water is warm, and many end up in New England during the warm summers. When the waters off Cape Cod Bay quickly turn cold in the fall, they find returning to the sea difficult. Stunned by the cold, they become disoriented and end up stranded in the cape, often injured by waves bashing them against the land. These sea turtles include Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle species. The stranding is natural and has happened for thousands of years, but climate change has worsened the problem, and when a species is critically endangered, every turtle counts.



To help these turtles make it back to their semitropical nesting grounds, turtles airlifts were organized, involving conservationists, volunteers, turtle rehab facilities, several organizations, and a group of pilots who run the organization Turtles Fly Too. The effort involves the public finding distressed turtles, rehab centers keeping them alive, flights to the Gulf of Mexico, more wildlife rehab for the turtles, and finally, freedom in the warmer waters near the turtles' nesting areas. Read how all that comes together to save Kemp's ridley and other sea turtles at Atlas Obscura.

Famous author Ernest Hemingway had a brother who was 16 years younger. Leicester Hemingway was a writer who always lived in his older brother's shadow, but he had some small share of the Hemingway brashness and creativity. Leicester once founded his own micronation called the Republic of New Atlantis. He was the president, and the "land" consisted of a bamboo raft anchored off the coast of Jamaica. New Atlantis had a flag (shown above), a constitution, and its own currency called the Scruple.

The definition of scruple is to hesitate on a moral basis, which was intended as a joke that those with too many Scruples should question their ethics. Additionally, the Scruples used in New Atlantis would not be printed paper bills. Instead, Scruples were shark teeth and other specially-marked nautical items.

New Atlantis has a purpose, which was marine research, and a money-making scheme in postage stamps. But it still didn't last long. Read the story of Leicester Hemingway's New Atlantis at Cracked.

(Image credit: Hyméros)

For years, David Bird was a designer for LEGO. After going freelance, he still designs characters, but these are his own. Bird makes small woodland creatures he calls "becorns," made from acorns, pine cones, sticks, and other natural materials. He sets the becorns outside and waits for real woodland creatures to approach, and then photographs the encounters. Bird says this technique requires lots of patience and birdseed. You can see some of the process in a promotional video.



For this one, the frog was already there, and stayed still while Bird placed the becorns around him. Continue reading to see more of Bird's delightful becorns and their new friends.

Three years ago, Morgan Cooper made a short film reimagining The Fresh Prince of Bel Air as a drama that delved into the social issues that caused Will to relocate from Philadelphia to southern California. It was so good that it caught the eye of Will Smith, the original Fresh Prince, who pushed to make the concept into a real movie or possibly a TV series. That series is now a reality. Bel-Air will premiere in February on NBC's Peacock streaming service. Cooper is the co-producer, co-writer, and director of the series, along with T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson. Will Smith is the executive producer. The first three episodes will drop on February 13.

This is a message to all those who make internet fan films- keep on working at it; lightning may strike for you one day. Or else you'll get better with experience and might get noticed. -via Boing Boing

Redditor TheTonz lives in Minnesota where the high temperature was -2F (-19C) on Friday. He wet a set of his kid's pajamas and set them outside to see how they would freeze. The result was a yard sculpture that was easier than building a snowman. On Saturday, the temperature had risen to 26 degrees (still below freezing) and the pajamas had melted "Matrix-style."

An update on Sunday found the pajamas once again frozen hard. How hard?



Hard enough for a child to stand on it. An adult trying that may have left them with broken pajamas. There may be more updates coming, you'll find them at The Tonz' reddit archive.

Sir David Attenborough is 95 years old, and has spent a lifetime teaching us about the wonders of nature. Yet he's not retired, and is still risking life and limb to bring us more Mother Nature. He is filming a new BBC Earth series called The Green Planet, which is about plants. You'd think that the subject matter would be a little safer for a man his age than chasing after animals, but no. Attenborough has been injured by a cactus. It's far from the first time he's been injured on the job.

Why would you want to touch a cactus? To prove how dangerous they are.

Point proved, I guess. And also because Attenborough is as hard as nails. He was once in a boat that got caught in an Indonesian whirlpool. He trapped a caiman in Guyana. He’s been crawled over by a bunch of wild mountain gorillas. He has met cannibals, and was knocked unconscious while filming dolphins in the Bahamas. There’s tough, and then there’s Attenborough.

A cheeky yet reverent article about Attenborough at the Guardian implies that Attenborough is expected to be okay. -via Nag on the Lake

The Green Planet premiered Sunday night on BBC.

(Image credit: Paul Williams)

Tough time for the people at Beech Mountain today. 🥶 pic.twitter.com/fg671LruRn

— Trey Shirley (@TreyShirley831) January 8, 2022

You might be a little anxious about your first skiing trip because you might ski into a tree and break a leg. But you would never in your wildest dreams anticipate this nightmare.

On Friday, a skier at Beech Mountain ski resort in North Carolina ran over a hydrant and broke it. The hydrant was right under the ski lift. What's the worst that could happen? The ski lift stopped and restarted as the spray affected skiers going in either direction, drenching them in water in single-digit temperature conditions. Some opted to jump off, at a height of about 25 feet. You can see a much longer video of the incident here.

We don't know yet how the particular person in the Twitter video fared, but several people were injured by jumping off the ski lift to avoid the spray. Two were sent to a hospital by ambulance and are said to have non-life threatening injuries. Others sought medical help on their own. -via Fark

There are 26 letters in the current English alphabet. Some of them could be done away with if we wanted to- there's no real reason to keep a "c" when we have both "k" and "s", and the "q" could be dropped if we were to use "kw" for the sound. But that would be weird. However, plenty of letters have been dropped from the English alphabet. Old English and Middle English had letters we don't use anymore, and each has a story behind it. For example, the letter "yogh" (shown above) looks like a three and was used for several sounds.

Yogh represented quite a few sounds in Middle English. According to English scholar Dennis Freeborn’s From Old English to Standard English, in just the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it could stand for the “y” sound in yet, the “ch” sound in German Bach or Scottish loch, and many more.

You can see how this would be confusing, but yogh only started to die out when it was replaced by "gh", which has just as many varied and confusing pronunciations. And like many letters, its final death knell was the printing press, as typesetters didn't really want to keep up with so many letters. Read about yogh and nine other letters that are no longer used in English at Mental Floss.

(Yogh image credit: Person or Persons Unknown)

What a delightful combination: cats and trains! Katze vs. Gartenbahn is a series of five YouTube videos featuring a giant cat attacking passenger trains. No, that's not it. It's about a model train in a garden that occasionally disturbs the cat who naps there. In video number three, shown above, the cat is occupying a trestle, and has no place to go when the train comes through, except up on top. Continue reading to see more.

Neatorama readers are familiar with Centralia, the town on a Pennsylvania coal seam that's been burning for 60 years. That's nothing compared to Burning Mountain in New South Wales, Australia, where an underground fire has been burning for at least 6,000 years! Like Centralia, it is also a burning coal seam, and it's moving along the seam at a fairly steady rate, which gives away its age.

The fire is estimated to be about 30 meters deep, and moving south at about a meter per year. The smoldering fire leaves the ground above it warm and kills off vegetation as it moves. The difference it leaves in the forest above is the clue to how long it's been burning, although it may be more ancient than we know. As the coal burns, it causes shifts and cracks in the earth above it, which let in just enough oxygen to feed the fire.

The area is a nature reserve, and is far enough away from settlements to pose no threat to people. How long will Burning Mountain continue to burn? No one knows. Read about this astonishing natural phenomenon at ScienceAlert. -via Strange Company 

(Images credit: Beruthiel)

Saratoga Springs, New York, is famous as the birthplace of the potato chip. The story goes that in 1853, railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt dined at at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs and sent back his fried potatoes because they weren't thin enough. Chef George Crum maliciously compiled with Vanderbilt's demand, and fried up super-thin potato slices until they were extra crispy. But Vanderbilt loved them, and the potato chip was born. Crum opened his own restaurant, and became famous for his chips.

Since then, earlier recipes for the same dish were found, but Crum's chips caused people to make the pilgrimage to Sarasota Springs to try them. That was just the beginning of the story, as other people made the snack accessible to all, from the Ohio man who got them into grocery stores, to the California woman who bagged them for freshness, to the movie star who dared us to try to eat just one. Read the history of the potato chip -or chips, since you can't eat just one- at Smithsonian.