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From Runaway Box, who brought you the One Semester of Spanish Love Song. Lyrics are available at the YouTube link. -via Digg

It’s 80s week for mental_floss’ lunchtime quizzes. Today’s quiz asks you to match 10 newsmakers with the scandal they were involved in. I scored 70%, because if I did one thing in the 80s, it was read the newspaper. It’s still hard to recall names of people you don’t hear about anymore. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14511

Instructables has 44 entries in their cake contest. Contestants were invited to focus on either tasty recipes or elaborate decoration. Voting is open until tomorrow, but you must register in order to vote. Even if you can’t decide between them, you’ll find links to recipes, photographs, and instructions for all the entries, ranging from a completely vegan chocolate cake to a tank birthday cake with a rotating turret. Link

A signature Pink Floyd giant inflatable pig escaped its tether and flew away during the Coachella music festival last weekend.

Former Pink Floyd star Waters said "that's my pig" as it drifted away during Sunday's gig.

Coachella spokeswoman Marcee Rondan said: "It wasn't really supposed to happen that way."

The pig was tethered to the ground with ropes and floated away as Waters was playing one of the versions of Pink Floyd song Pigs.

The tattered pig came to ground in the driveways of two families in La Quinta, California. The families will split a $10,000 reward offered by Coachella organizers. They will also share four life tickets to the annual music festival. Link -via Digg

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This ad for Clustarack print shop racks would make Rube Goldberg proud! http://www.clustarack.com/ -via Metafilter

The Poop Report is a blog of scatological humor, but this is a serious project where you can make a difference. Karanpur is a village in Uttar Pradesh, India with a school for 700 lower caste girls. The village has no plumbing. The girls must rise before dawn to attend to their toilet practices in a field before daylight. School founder Virendra "Sam" Singh wants to provide toilets for the village.

Here is an appliance that embodies his philosophy. A toilet protects its owner from the danger and humiliation of outdoor defecation. But it also provides a haven for neighbors to achieve the same standard of safety and dignity -- educated or not, Sam knows, no woman wants to poop in the fields. Here is an inexpensive way to improve health and spread sanitary practices beyond the walls of his students' dwellings.

Sam settled on the Sulabh toilet model, which collects and composts waste in alternating pits that need to be emptied only once every ten years. But as inexpensive as they are, they still cost too much for Sam to fund them on his own. He approached participants of the World Toilet Summit for fundraising help. My wife and I accepted his offer to tour the school and meet his students; and now I'm passing his plea for help on to you.

Sam's immediate goal is 43 toilets in Karanpur itself, followed by a toilet for each of the 700 girls in his school. Every cent will help achieve this goal. A dollar is lunch for four workers building a toilet. Twenty dollars may pay the labor cost altogether. And $250 -- which is no small sum, even for an American -- will fully cover the cost of bringing health, sanitation, and dignity to a student of Pardada Pardadi, her family, and her neighbors. For $250, Sam and his team can build a complete toilet.

Any amount donated will be appreciated. If you sponsor a complete toilet for $250, you get naming rights for the facility. Donations can be made through a PayPal link at The Poop Report. Link -via Boing Boing

Jim Corbett was a renowned tiger hunter who was born in India in 1875. Through many amazing kills and several close calls, he developed a profound respect for the big cats, including maneaters.

In a time when a hunter was measured for how many fearsome animals he could kill, Corbett exuded pride at never having killed a large cat for sport or financial gain. He refused even to hunt leopards which were often regarded as vermin at the time. "Those who have never seen a leopard," he said, "can have no conception of the grace of movement, and beauty of colouring of this the most graceful and the most beautiful in our Indian jungles. Nor are his attractions limited to outward appearances, for pound for pound, his strength is second to none, and in courage he lacks nothing." Corbett began lectures in various schools and nature societies with a message to protect the vanishing tiger and leopard populations. He referred to his youth as "days when there were ten tigers to every one that now survives."

Corbett knew tigers better than anyone. His conservation efforts went against the grain of the times, but his legacy lives on in a national park named after him, and a tiger species named Panthera tigris corbetti. Read his fascinating story at Damn Interesting. Link

Two NCAA Division II schools were playing softball. Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her college career, but with the score tied 0-0, she hit one out of the park. Two players on base ran home, and Tucholsky ran toward first base, missed it, then turned around. Her knee suddenly gave out and she collapsed. Tucholsky could not reach first base.

If she received any help from her coach or teammates, she would be out. The coach could replace her with another runner and keep a two-run single, but that would rob Tucholsky of her only possible collegiate homer.

That’s when the opposing team stepped in. Central Washington senior and scoring leader Mallory Holtman asked if she and her teammates could carry Tucholsky to each base.

"Honestly, it's one of those things that I hope anyone would do it for me," Holtman said. "She hit the ball over her fence. She's a senior; it's her last year. … I don't know, it's just one of those things I guess that maybe because compared to everyone on the field at the time, I had been playing longer and knew we could touch her, it was my idea first. But I think anyone who knew that we could touch her would have offered to do it, just because it's the right thing to do. She was obviously in agony."

Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky's left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game's history hit all three players.

After that, does it really matter who won the game? You can read the entire story at ESPN. Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Stephen Katin/WOU)

Update: See a picture of Tucholsky "running the bases" in this story.

Which is your favorite movie robot?

The time when our TV and cinema screens were full of clunky dustbins and oversized toasters just happy to help has long gone.

Now robots look more like supermodels and want to wipe us out. In fact, some of them are more hard-on than hard disc. Well, that’s progress for you. But we still love them, right? Despite the fact they want to kill us.

Whether you agree with the rankings or not, you can relive some memories with this list, with video clips for each robot. Link -via Digg

19-year-old Broderick Laswell was arrested in Benton County, Arkansas last September on a murder charge. He weighed 413 pounds at the time. Since then, he has lost 105 pounds, and is now suing his jailers for starving him.

According to the U.S. District Court complaint, an excerpt of which you'll find here, Laswell contends that he is being provided with so few calories that, about an hour after every meal, "my stomach starts to hurt and growl. I feel hungry again." This purported "lack of nutrition," Laswell claims, is reflected in miniscule biscuits and cake sizes, the small amount of chips accompanying sandwiches, and the occasional provision of "2 small cookies." And just in case anyone thought he was only concerned about junk food, the accused killer also complains about the "drizzle of dressing" placed on his "small side of lettuce."

Authorities report the jail food provides 2300-3000 calories a day. The Smoking Gun has a series of mug shots showing Laswell’s weight loss. Link

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I think the point is that you can get a lot of people in the vehicle. The Ford Ka is manufactured in Spain and Brazil. -via Digg

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If I had one of these, I’d never get anything done because I’d spend all my time fidgeting with it! http://www.shop.theneocube.com/category.sc;jsessionid=D97C4CB0460924556B16348FD7E7C1BC.qscstrfrnt03?categoryId=3 -via reddit

Today lunchtime quiz at mental_floss is on the fads of the 80s. Do you remember these? I scored a horrible 50%. Although I was around in the 80s, the questions seem to be aimed toward people who were very young in the 80s. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14451

A motorcycle with one wheel? No, it just looks that way. The Uno has two wheels, side by side. It runs on electricity and is controlled by body language. The only controls are an on-off switch. To go forward, you lean forward. Lean further to go faster. The Uno was invented by 18-year-old Ben J. Poss Gulak. Motorcycle Mojo has the story of how the Canadian engineering prodigy built the prototype Uno. http://www.motorcyclemojo.com/articles/the-uno/

It’s a pity that marvelous old architecture is left to rot, often due to lack of funds for repairs. But there’s beauty to be found in the ruins, as you’ll see in this collection of abandoned hotels from all over. The stories these walls could tell! Pictured is the Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino in Cambodia. Link -Thanks, Andy!