Brick Experiment Channel shows us a LEGO machine that combines 20 different mechanical principles. Shown to us one-by-one, it's quite enlightening, although it gets more complicated as the numbers go up. If that were all this video had, it would be simply fascinating. You have to have a little awe for the engineers who came up with all these different ways of controlling movement. But these mechanism are all eventually combined into one LEGO device powered by one motor. Seeing them all work at once is glorious! They labeled the video as a "useless machine," but it is anything but useless as it demonstrates how all these moving parts work, and brings us joy to see the finished product. And besides, it rotates a Viking. How cool is that? You'll say "I want one!" and then realize the work that went into the hand-made project and decide maybe not. -via Boing Boing

Just when you thought air travel couldn't get any worse.

We teamed up with @guitarcenter to surprise a flight full of Customers flying out of Long Beach with a ukulele and a lesson. By the time they arrived in Honolulu they were pros. pic.twitter.com/XsEx10sRJK

— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) September 20, 2022

Southwest Airlines recently staged a surprise promotion for a planeload of people traveling from California to Hawaii. In a collaboration with Guitar Center, they provided a travel-size ukulele for every passenger, plus an in-flight ukulele lesson from Guitar Center's educational affairs specialist Alexandra Windsor. The passengers seem to have loved it, and the stunt got plenty of positive reaction online, but it made many folks think about the implications of a 6-hour flight with a plane load of ukuleles.

"Southwest Forced To Divert Landing As Passengers Bludgeon Flight Crew With Ukuleles"

— Matthew Garcia (@MGeosci) September 21, 2022

In their defense, Southwest said everyone put their ukuleles away after the 20-minute lesson. It could have been worse. It could have been banjos, accordions, or bagpipes. And I say that as someone who likes to listen to bagpipe music occasionally ...on YouTube. -via Fark

(Top image credit: TheYellowFellow)

America's newest military branch, Space Force, has unveiled their official song. The title is "Semper Sutra," meaning "always above." That is also the US Space Force motto. It sounds as if John Philip Souza had written a TV sitcom theme. It turns out that I am not the only one who thinks so.

Semper Supra is set to a jaunty tune reminiscent of The Liberty Bell, another Sousa march, from 1893 but now widely known as the theme to the British comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The reception on the internet has not been kind. Air Force chief of staff Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown Jr. said, "I'm sure it will grow on us." Metafilter suggests many other songs that would have been better. What do you think?

My daughter expressed frustration over constantly battling ants in her house. I told her even if you destroy a colony, there are always more. How many? I said, I don't know, maybe a billion on your small lot. I was totally making that up. But now there's a real study on how many ants there are in the world. Mark Wong had a goal to count all the ants, but he didn't do it by himself. He surveyed 489 studies of ant populations from around the world, and extrapolating the information he came up with 20 quadrillion, give or take a few. That's 20,000,000,000,000,000.

"We further estimate that the world's ants collectively constitute about 12 megatons of dry carbon," said Wong, an ecologist at the University of Western Australia's School of Biological Sciences. "Impressively, this exceeds the biomass of all the world's wild birds and mammals combined."

That's a lot of ants, and Wong believes it might be an undercount. But it's important to know, because ants, as annoying as they may be to humans, are environmental engineers that make a real difference in their ecosystems. Read what ants contribute to the earth and why it's important to keep up with them at Cnet.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Zainichi Gaikokujin)

Look at this cake! How did the baker get a red flannel shirt inside it? Professional cake artist Liz Marek of Sugar Geek Show shows us how she makes a lumberjack cake. Not that any of us are willing to put this much work into a cake. Even if we did, it wouldn't go this smoothly, nor end up as nice.



In the first two and half minutes, you'll know how the red flannel is done. She uses two layers of chocolate cake, two layers of red velvet cake, and two layers of yellow cake with some red dye to make the four layers of flannel shirt. Then she models a mostly-edible chocolate axe to go with it, then frosts the outside of the cake to look like a crosscut tree stump! I wouldn't go to this much trouble to make my own wedding cake. But if you have a hankering to try this one yourself, there's a tutorial with words that explains all the steps at Sugar Geek Show. -via Nag on the Lake

You may have never heard of the multiocular O. It is a letter that only appears in literature once, in a Cyrillic manuscript of Psalms dated to around 1429, which was, of course, hand-lettered. It was used in the phrase "many-eyed seraphim," which makes perfect sense. But even though it was used only once, the folks who develop and maintain Unicode are excruciatingly thorough, so in 2008 they made the multiocular O usable in the computer age. It looks like this: ꙮ. They also included the monocular O (ꙩ), the binocular O (Ꙫ), and the double monocular O (ꙭ), which have been used more in history, but are rarely seen today.

Anyway, the multiocular O in type only has seven eyes, while the original from the 1429 manuscript has ten. The Unicode Consortium was notified of this oversight by a Twitter thread. So earlier this month, in the spirit of being excruciatingly thorough, Unicode has updated the multiocular O character to ten eyes, as you see above. Presumably, there will have to be some software updating to Unicode version 15.0 before I can type it that way.    

While this is all very interesting, what we really need is the story of how that ten-eyed O came about. In the discussion at Metafilter, Eyebrows McGee gives us a tale of what probably happened. She begins with an explanation of how in addition to singular and plural words, there are some dual word forms that mean exactly two of something. The few English words of this form include "both" and "neither." But other languages have many.

ANYWAY, in some Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, where a dual form was used (most often to say "two"), the scribes would turn "two" -- двое-- into двꚙе with the "double O" glyph.

Some OTHER scribes thought this was amazing, so specifically in the word "eyes" -- "очи" -- which is a dual-form noun because they typically come in twos, they'd use the "double monocular O" (Ꙭ, aka "boobs") to make two Os and turn them into eyes, thus: ꙭчи. See? TWO EYES!

WELL. ANOTHER scribe comes along and says, "two eyes? Seraphim have MANY eyes!" and when he comes to the phrase "many-eyed seraphim (Серафими мн҄оочитїи), he chooses to render it as "Серафими мн҄оꙮ҄читїи҄". CAUSE THEY'VE GOT A LOT OF EYES, y'all.

ONE TIME. This occurs ONE TIME in ONE MANUSCRIPT, but Unicode is dedicated to making sure manuscripts can be replicated accurately in unicode, so in 2008 we get a multiocular O.

BUT IT GETS EVEN MORE AWESOME, because they're updating it to the full 10!. Although do look at the manuscript and note that the original 10-eyed multiocular O has FLAMES LICKING OUT ON THE SIDES, so Unicode should get on that!

Anyway, I 100% approve of literally all of this, because there is nothing I love as much as TAKING A JOKE WAY TOO FAR, especially when the joke is more than 600 years old.

Yes, we all love 600-year-old jokes, even those that were only funny to medieval scribes, especially when those jokes come back to make the internet laugh. You can find more links on this subject at Metafilter.

Even if you never watch sports, you'll love the League of Pigs. One guy in the UK has a lot of adorable young pigs on his farm, and he's set them up to compete in footraces. These pigs are serious about getting to the food trough first! In this video, you'll get to know and love the competitors: Ginger Hamilton, Bear Trotsky, Piggy Smalls, Pepper Sanchez, and Hoshi Oinku. Besides that, the production values are top notch, and the narrator is not only professional, but quite funny. Whaty we learn from all this is that it pays to eat as many dandelions as you can. This is the first race video; if you want to see more, there are other races at YouTube. -via reddit

Still life with Cat. Sebastiano Lazzari. 1760. https://t.co/CLVL7gpUdJ pic.twitter.com/HTbWY5OUp7

— Cats of Yore (@CatsOfYore) September 14, 2022

We have available evidence that cat photo memes are as old as photography itself. Before that, they had to be drawn or painted. Cats of Yore posted a thread of fine art in which a cat is in the corner doing what cats do- taking a bit of food for themselves. This makes the entire painting more relatable. It only makes sense that if an artist were to leave food out for hours at a time to model for a painting, eventually a cat would be drawn to the smell and help himself. The temptation is just too great. The result is a slice of life, whether you live in the 17th century or the 21st.

Still life with cat and fish. Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, 1728. https://t.co/zFHySok2N9 pic.twitter.com/S9oJSQ6NLJ

— Cats of Yore (@CatsOfYore) September 14, 2022

Yes, not all the original paintings are still lifes, and some of them are cropped details. But this is an important detail! In the replies, people posted images of their own cats stealing food, and they offer the occasional fine art contribution.

im in ur base killin ur d00dz

— 'As You Know' Bob (@asyouknowBob) September 14, 2022

The images above are a small sample of the cats in the Twitter thread. Check it out- you might find a work of art you'll want to hang in your own home. -via Everlasting Blort

Corvo is the smallest and northernmost island of the Azores. It has a Wikipedia page that does not mention the subject of this video, but you can find a few articles about it elsewhere on the internet. It concerns a story with no evidence, but we all know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. At the same time, the way the story has grown and evolved over time, any truth behind it is probably nothing like what is told today. What am I talking about? It's the statue of Corvo, which was supposedly placed there before the island was ever "discovered," and was either a guidepost to the west or a warning of the end of navigable waters. If it ever existed at all. -via Digg

There is nothing more dramatic than death in legendary stories. And we've learned that often the most logical, satisfying, and thought-provoking stories do not have happy endings -at least not for all the heroes. But what do you do when you've killed off your most popular characters and then audience screams for more?

The Star Wars franchise deals with this dilemma in a number of ways. In several of the movies, dead characters were brought back as ghosts. In The Rise of Skywalker, we saw characters come back after we thought they were dead (Chewbacca) and characters we were sure were dead, too (Palpatine). Darth Maul popped up in Solo out of thin air, continuity be damned. On the other hand, they are bringing back Cassian Andor by setting the TV series Andor earlier in the timeline, as a prequel. That's a least believable.

However, Squid Game is a different story. Writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk never anticipated his series would be such a hit that a second season would be requested. A prequel with the same characters would be impossible because none of them knew what they were getting into. A sequel with the same characters would bring them back from the dead.

"I want to revive Ji-young, but her best friend Sae-byeok also died, so I'm thinking what to do," he told a joint news conference in Seoul with the drama's crew and cast.

"So many characters died, especially beloved ones died. I'm sorry I killed them so easily; I didn't know this was coming."   

Is there any way that could happen? What do you think? -via reddit

Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond (previously at Neatorama) tells us about a few American town names he finds quite odd. Brown selected seven towns with unusual names, and you've probably never heard of most of them. Such lists usually start with Intercourse, Pennsylvania, but not this one. These towns were not selected for salaciousness but for the interesting stories behind them. The exception is Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, which we've all heard of, but still makes a good story. Honestly, I believe these particular seven towns were actually selected because of all the possible puns.  

If you'd like to go further down the rabbit hole of interesting place name origins, look up Ink, Arkansas. The story goes that when selecting a town name, the ballot said, "Please write in ink." And they did.

Chicken, Alaska, was supposedly named such because no one could agree on the spelling of their first choice, which was Ptarmigan.

Hungry Horse, Montana, was named after two legendary horses, Tex and Jerry, who escaped and almost starved to death.

Peculiar, Missouri, has two origin stories, both worth reading at Wikipedia.

Why, Arizona, was originally named simply Y, after a highway intersection that was y-shaped. The postal service requires a town name to have at least three letters, so it was changed to Why.

Nome, Alaska, has several possible name origin stories. The most interesting is that a handwritten notation on a map said "? Name" but was read as "C. Nome," interpreted as Cape Nome.

Fenway Park, Boston, Sept 27, 1950 - Due to 1950 Great Smoke Pall, huge amounts of smoke from Chinchaga forest fire in Canada, Fenway Park must turn their lights on at 4:30pm for an Red Sox game. It was one of biggest forest fires in North American history burning 3,500,000 acres pic.twitter.com/AflikNbQms

— Old-Time Baseball Photos (@OTBaseballPhoto) May 8, 2020

The Chinchaga fire of 1950 was the largest recorded forest fire in North American history. The fire started in June of that year, and by autumn had burned between 3,500,000 and 4,200,000 acres in the forests of Alberta and British Columbia. It was policy at the time to let wildfires burn as they will in "unsettled areas." And since no one was fighting the fire, it didn't make the news much. So it was a surprise when, in late September, the smoke from the Chinchaga fire moved east to blanket the large cities of the eastern US and Canada. On September 24, it was so dark in Ontario the street lights came on during the day. Planes at La Guardia airport in New York City had to land by instruments. The smoke affected Europe, too. Some people thought it was a nuclear attack; others thought it was the end of the world. Read about the Great Smoke Pall of 1950 at Fishwrap. -via Strange Company

The Muppets perform the song "Sclrap Flyapp" on The Ed Sullivan Show in November of 1968. The title is also the entirety of the song's lyrics, except for an occasional "merp" from the smallest monster. This was before Sesame Street, SNL, or The Muppet Show. Jim Henson's puppets had appeared in plenty of regional TV commercials and a local Washington, DC, show, but to see them in the '60s, most of the US had to wait for a rare guest appearance on a variety show or late night talk show. It was always a treat because the monsters were just so charmingly silly. The "Sclrap Flyapp" song was a recurring bit that was done on several shows, varying somewhat each time. You can also see a 1965 version from The Jack Paar Show or a 1966 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show. Here's another unidentified version with still different puppets that more resemble the Sesame Street cast. The skit eventually evolved in to "Hugga Wugga" on The Muppet Show. -via Laughing Squid

ain’t nobody got time for dat #NFID23 #NFHS pic.twitter.com/2jfgxeebMm

— laila (@tooturntlai) September 13, 2022

North Farmington High School in Farmington Hills, Michigan, has made a name for itself in the past few years by allowing their senior class to dress any way they want to for their school ID pictures. It's their fourth year at the school, so the administration pretty much knows them all by the time they reach their senior year. Many of them take the opportunity to show off their cosplay skills! The class of 2023 recently had their photos done, and the students are posting their pics on social media, as expected.

Welcome to the jungle! 🎸🎸#NFID23 @Slash @gunsnroses pic.twitter.com/DqQzdJPx2X

— Katie Rose (@katieorose_) September 13, 2022

We thought Slash's real name was Saul, but it turns out to be Katie. But Jack didn't need to dress up at all.  

“Well, I got her number. How do you like them apples?” #WillHunting #MattDamon #NFID23 pic.twitter.com/22LAbXuMed

— Jack Poirier (@JackPoirier10) September 13, 2022

These students have had years to think about their costumes. Many of them went with a pop culture character they already resemble somewhat, while others go the whole nine yards to make a fantasy come to life.  

Holy smurfing smurf it’s senior year!!#NFID23 @SmurfsMovie @Nfhs2023 pic.twitter.com/7yUg6MS0Vw

— Izzy Cimmino (@IzzyCimmino) September 13, 2022

Bored Panda has posted 30 of the best student IDs from this year's senior class, ranked by votes. Let us know which one really impresses you!
 
See also: The North Farmington High School IDs from previous years.

Every fantasy world has a character who is there to show that there's a range of personalities among the principle characters. The easiest way to show this is to make him annoying. This goes double for when a fantasy is made into a movie, where this character is often portrayed as short with a high nasal voice. You can spot them a mile away. They may be heroic or villainous, or only brought in for comic relief, or they may end up having the key to the entire conflict. Alasdair Beckett-King, the man with the reddest hair on YouTube (previously at Neatorama), illustrates this in a hurry in a very short film, even managing to mention examples along the way. You can write reams about this trope, but if you've seen a few fantasy films, you'll already know what he's talking about. Here he gets a lesson in judging people merely by their annoyance level, because that's relative.