Among the wild ducks of Lake Merritt, Oakland residents noticed and soon became fans of two that really stuck out from the crowd. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with a green head and a proud stance. She was a white duck with a plume of poufy feathers on her head. And they were devoted to each other. The two ducks became social media favorites, as people shared images and videos. But those who know ducks were worried.

“When you see a duck that looks a little different, it’s probably not supposed to be there,” says Kira Kiesler, who, along with her family, runs a Bay Area animal rescue organization called Genevieve’s Gentle Hearts Rescue.

This was the case for the Lake Merritt ducks, whom some in the community call Ebony and Ivory. Both are domestic breeds, not wild like the others around them. Ebony, the black duck, is a male Cayuga. Ivory, the white duck, is a female crested duck.

“They weren’t supposed to be at Lake Merritt, which is why they were so friendly,” Kiesler adds. “Someone actually hand-raised them. And unfortunately, they dumped them there, which is a very common story.”

Read the story of how Ebony and Ivory charmed Oakland and were finally rescued and given a proper home, at the Bold Italic. Do not miss the video of Ivory taking a bath surrounded by rubber duckies. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: bentonboy)

We've heard the deepest voice from a man, now let's hear from a cat! You'll be surprised at Jack's meow. I really thought this was overdubbed at first. But there's an explanation.

Jack has a very rare form of laryngeal paralysis and his voice changed after his first surgery.  

(via Fark)

Sure, he's adorable, but having a Force-sensitive child can throw a wrench into everyday parental activities. TJ Howard, who is a physics teacher and a woodworker, also manages to draw wonderful scenes featuring the characters in The Mandalorian. For example, if Mando and Grogu were a middle class family on earth, it would be a struggle to make the child do anything he doesn't want to, like brush his teeth.

Continue reading to see more.

If one were to make a movie about the life of Eugene Jacques Bullard, it would run into two problems. First, it would appear implausible, likened to Little Big Man or Forrest Gump, except Bullard's is a true story and he drove the narrative instead of merely being there. Second, it would have to be a miniseries, because feature films aren't long enough.

Bullard was born in Georgia, but ran away from home and made his way to Scotland, where he became a professional boxer. After a bout in Paris, he stayed and made his home there. He joined the French Foreign Legion and became a highly decorated hero of World War I. Then Bullard learned to fly.

Already viewed as a hero, he was able to pull the necessary strings to enter flight school, and became the first Black American fighter pilot in history.
He flew a SPAD VII C1 with a distinctive alteration to its appearance. Painted on the outside of the fuselage was a red heart with a dagger through it. Above the heart was his personal slogan, one he would later use for the title of his unpublished memoir: Tout Le Sang Qui Coule Est Rouge; roughly, in English: “All Blood Runs Red.”
He flew with honor and distinction until his career in the air came to an abrupt halt. The Americans had entered the war and the involvement of a certain Dr. Gros, a US Army Major with racist attitudes, led to the end of the Black Sparrow’s career as a pilot.
 
But the French continued to celebrate him. He ended this part of his military career with the Military Medal, Croix de Guerre, Volunteer Combat Cross, Medal for Military Wounded (twice), World War I Medal, Victory Medal, Voluntary Enlistment Medal, Battle of Verdun Medal, Battle of Somme Medal, and the American Volunteer with the French Army Medal.
And that is when his life got interesting.

Oh yes, that was just the beginning of his story. Bullard turned to the business of the Jazz Age and made a name for himself in Paris all over again in the 1920s, and the '30s, and the '40s. Read about the amazing life of Eugene Bullard at the Jax Examiner.  -via Fark

(Image credit: U.S. Air Force)

Update: Regarding the post title, the Jax Examiner calls Bullard the Black Sparrow, but he was actually known as the Black Swallow.

The world has made great leaps in miniaturizing electronics, bringing the computer from room-size down to one that will fit into your pocket. But how small is too small? Is there a market for an inch-tall game? Kevin Bates has produced the Arduboy Nano, possibly the smallest video game that you can use with your big old thumbs.

Less than an inch tall, the Arduboy Nano can stand on a quarter without completely covering the coin. Inside the case, which is made from three 3D-printed parts that all slide together, is a 0.49-inch, 2,048-pixel OLED display, a 25 mAh rechargeable battery good for about an hour of gameplay, and an incredibly quiet 15-millimeter speaker, all of which are powered by the same ATmega 32u4 microcontroller you’ll find inside the larger Arduboy. The Arduboy Nano is fully playable, assuming your fingers are tiny enough to hit the individual action buttons and your eyes have the focusing capabilities of an electron microscope.

While this is an interesting experiment in miniaturization, Bates has no plans to mass-produce the Arduboy Nano, unless buyers express interest. They might, just for giggles. But how much would you pay for a tiny game that will not only frustrate your eyesight and thumbs, but may well get lost in the couch cushions forever?

Empress Elisabeth of Austria was the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, and held her title for 44 years, plus that of Empress of Hungary after the dual monarchy was created in 1867. She was an educated, independent, and beautiful woman known for her travels and her magnificent hair. Elisabeth's life was quite an adventure, ending with her assassination in 1898. But her fascinating life had low points. Her son, crown prince Rudolph, committed suicide at age 30, a scandalous incident that contributed to a sequence of events that led to World War I. Empress Elisabeth is said to have only worn black for the rest of her life after the death of her only son.

The picture above shows one of Elisabeth's mourning outfits with a mask made of black velvet, surrounded by beads, lace, and ostrich feathers. It tops a dress with a long train, now in the possession of  the Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna. See more pictures of the outfit at Haute Macabre. -via Damn Interesting

Unlike house cats, wild animals can't be too picky about their next meal. This encounter between a bobcat and a rattlesnake was caught on a trail cam in the Angeles National Forest. Notice how the cat stops to celebrate her victory before carrying off her lunch. -via Boing Boing

In ancient times, the color purple was reserved for royal clothing, because the dye was so rare and expensive. Purple dye was harvested from the tiny glands of certain mollusks, and had to be processed by experts. Archaeologists had found evidence of the dye in the remains of ancient mollusks and in ceramics, but now for the first time, they've uncovered 3000-year-old royal purple dye on wool fibers. In Israel.  

Biblical stories describe King David and King Solomon clothed in garments of purple—a color long associated with royalty. Now, reports BBC News, archaeologists in Israel have discovered fragments of purple fabric dated to around the time of these ancient monarchs’ purported reigns.

The team discovered the material in the Timna Valley, at a site known as Slaves’ Hill. Carbon dating places its creation around 1000 B.C. Religious lore suggests that David’s reign spanned roughly 1010 to 970 B.C., while Solomon’s lasted from 970 to 931 B.C.

The time period is right, but there is no evidence that the purple wool belonged to either David or Solomon. There were other kings in the Levant, and the Timna Valley was part of the kingdom of Edom at the time. But the find is intriguing, whoever wore the dyed wool. Read more about it at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Dafna Gazit/Israel Antiquities Authority)

I can tell you what it was like, because 1977 is when I first saw Star Wars. I had missed the hype, because I was in college and saw no TV all that year. But some friends I worked with during the summer back in Kentucky insisted I go with them to see Star Wars. I had no particular expectations, but when the Imperial Star Destroyer filled the big screen during the opening scene, and got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, I knew it was something special. We went back to see it again and again, even though that meant an hour-long drive to the theater each time. I was hooked. This video gives the perspective of different people who recall their first impressions.

Each language has its own grammar rules, which means that you cannot translate word-by-word and get anything that makes sense. It's the same with food, as every culture has its own unwritten rules that are easy to learn as you grow up with them, but difficult to understand in a cuisine that's new to you.

Yes, much like language, cuisine obeys grammatical rules that vary from country to country, and academics have documented and studied them. They dictate whether food is eaten sitting or standing; on the floor or at a table; with a fork or chopsticks or with fingers. Like sentence structure, explains Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, a cuisine’s grammar can be reflected in the order in which it is served, and a grammar can dictate which foods can (or cannot) be paired, like cheese on fish, or barbecue sauce on ice cream.

The classic example is spaghetti and meatballs. In traditional Italian cuisine, the pasta is served first and the meat later, yet Americans put meatballs or meat sauce right on top of their pasta. However, as people and their cuisines move around the world, these rules are broken, either as a misunderstanding or an adaptation to local expectations. Sometimes they lead to arguments, but just as often they lead to delightful new meals. Read about food grammar at Atlas Obscura.

Douglas Hughes built a kinetic sculpture of the TV game show Jeopardy! featuring the late host Alex Trebek. Three notable contestants work their buttons while Trebek moves around reading the questions. Add a little audio track from a real Jeopardy! game, and the whole thing comes to life. You can read the specifications of the build at BrickNerd. -via Boing Boing

Almost all the US presidents had pets in the White House of one kind or another. As you might expect, dogs and cats are the most common, but over the years, presidential pets have included cows, horses, goats, pigs, sheep, rabbits, bears, a hippo, a hyena, a raccoon, all kinds of birds from a macaw to a mockingbird, mice, and silkworms. At least two presidents had pet opossums.

No pet in presidential history embodies America in all its disgusting glory quite like Billy Possum, Herbert Hoover’s possum. A few years before Hoover’s arrival in D.C., pet superfan Grace Coolidge saved a raccoon on its way to the Thanksgiving table, named it Rebecca, and built it a treehouse, where it happily lived out the Coolidge administration. When the Coolidges left the White House, so did their pet racoon, leaving an empty racoon-sized treehouse on the White House lawn.

Enter Billy Possum. In some accounts, he was caught by White House staff on the grounds and then deliberately allowed to live in Rebecca’s treehouse; in others, he just asserted squatter’s rights, possum style.

But even the more mundane pets had their days.

George Washington had several dogs with memorable names—Sweetlips, Drunkard, Tippler, and Tipsy, to name a few—but only one dog who stole an entire ham, making Vulcan the obvious leader of the pack. An account of Vulcan’s heist is found in the memoirs of George Washington’s son George Washington Parke Custis.

Slate ranked all the presidents by their most notable pets. You might disagree with the rankings, but you’ll enjoy many great stories of notorious presidential pets. -via Metafilter

(Image souce: Library of Congress)

What does “working at home” mean for a house cat? An invasion of space, for one thing. That computer-generated voice usually drives me away from a video, but this time it stands in for the cat’s voice, and the cat really has some good things to say. Or at least funny things.

“I’m not sure what I did to deserve having my life ruined. I’ve been a perfectly adequate cat for most of my life.”

Enjoy this feline POV video from The Dodo.

Russian matryoshka dolls fit inside one another. You might be surprised to learn they aren’t all that ancient- the first set was made in 1892. But how many dolls can you fit inside other dolls? The answer at this point is 51. Youlia Bereznitskaia holds the world record for her hand-painted set of Russian nesting dolls, shown above. The largest is one foot, 9.25 inches (53.97 cm) and the smallest is 0.125 inches (0.31 cm) tall. When I first learned that, I wondered why Bereznitskaia didn’t keep building them larger or smaller after gaining the world record in 2003, but there are more than 60 dolls in this picture, so maybe she did. -via TYWKIWDBI

About spells, charms and incantations. #spells pic.twitter.com/ydVXIBUHSB

— Roger Acosta Villanueva (@1989rav) January 29, 2021

The above picture, taken from the 1971 book The Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft by Kathryn Paulsen, has been making the rounds of the internet over the past week or so. You have to admit that cheese is magical -it can turn a hamburger into a cheeseburger and make nachos irresistible. The spell as written seems a bit dumb, but it is only out of date. Cheese has been thought of in supernatural terms for a long, long time.

It’s not entirely clear why cheese is seen to have magical properties. It might be to do with the fact it’s made from milk, a powerful substance in itself, with the ability to give life and strength to the young. It might also be because the process by which cheese is made is a little bit magical. The 12th-century mystic, Hildegard von Bingen, compared cheese making to the miracle of life in the way that it forms curds (or solid matter) from something insubstantial.

In the early modern period (roughly 1450-1750) the creation of the universe was also thought of by some in terms of cheesemaking: “all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.” The connection with life and the mysterious way that cheese is made, therefore, puts it in a good position to claim magical properties.

Cheese has been used to produce dreams, to reveal those guilty of crimes, and to tempt people into sin. Witches were blamed for stealing milk or spoiling it, and were accused of using cheese in their nefarious magic.

I like cheese. pic.twitter.com/VxBrxewlVK

— Jay Gravatte (@thatKYWitch) January 29, 2021

Read the details of how cheese and witchcraft go together at The Conversation. -via Strange Company

Also check out the previous post 4 Holy Women Transformed by Cheese.