The classic tale of the magic carpet from One Thousand and One Nights is completely separate from the story of Aladdin, but we all know what we saw in the 1992 Disney movie. The YouTuber who goes by Alladin Skylab was inspired by watching Aladdin as a child and now is experienced in flying ultralight planes, paragliders, wingsuits, and hang gliders. But now he has truly recreated that childhood dream by fashioning a colorful carpet to act like a wingsuit! Watch him base jump from a high mountain (does anyone recognize the location?) and soar on his own magic carpet just like Aladdin! Lucky for us, he has a drone following him to catch the action. How is he going to land on that kind of terrain? For that, he pulls out another of his flying skills. You can see more of Aladdin Skylab's stunts at TikTok. -via Nag on the Lake

Richard Harris was known to my generation for playing King Arthur in the movie Camelot. You may know him better as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films. He relinquished the role when he died in 2002 of Hodgkin's disease. Harris had been staying at the Savoy Hotel in London while his condition swiftly deteriorated. He was eventually carried out in a stretcher and sent to the hospital. As he was carried past hotel guests, he yelled, "It was the food!" That had to cause some panic among those who had dined there. As far as we know those were Harris's last words.

But he wasn't alone in using his last words as a joke, or to confuse people, or to get back at someone. Read about five men whose last words were a first-class example of trolling. It's likely they didn't know those would be their last words, but they were nevertheless clever.

🇫🇷 Kevin Piette, paraplégique depuis un accident, est entré dans l’histoire aujourd’hui en portant la flamme olympique avec son exosquelette ! 👏

🎥 wandercraftofficialpic.twitter.com/HTy5MrYE6Z

— Le Média Positif 🍀 (@LMPositif) July 23, 2024

The Olympic torch relay has been going on since April, when the flame was lit at Mt. Olympus in Greece. It is a traditional honor to carry the torch, and many athletes, political figures, and celebrities of all kinds have done it. As the torch nears the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Paris, the more prestigious the torchbearers are. The torchbearers this year will include Snoop Dogg. The final torchbearers who lights the Olympic flame is still a mystery, and it's always a parlor game to guess which host nation superstar athlete it will be by process of elimination.

French athlete Kevin Piette is one of the 2024 torchbearers. Piette became a paraplegic 11 years ago, and will compete in the Paralympics in tennis. He is also a "test pilot" for the French company Wandercraft that developed the Atalante X, a self-balancing walking exoskeleton designed to be used by people with disabilities. Tuesday, Piette became the first Paralympian to participate in the torch relay wearing an exoskeleton.

Piette's Instagram post expressed his pride and gratitude to those who came out to show support (in French). -via Laughing Squid

A rogue planet is a celestial body that is not tethered by gravity to a star, but rather roams through space on its own. It may have once orbited a star, but was knocked off their trajectory by another object, or pulled away by another star, or may possibly be the remnant of a star system that exploded. It may be even possible that planets can form without ever being in orbit. We don't know much about them because astronomers have only detected rogue planets in the 21st century, and then only indirectly. 

But more recent data suggest that rogue planets are way more common than previously thought. Current estimates say that there are an average of seven free-floating planets for every star in the Milky Way galaxy! We just can't see them because they emit no light and only rarely cause a shadow. But they are out there, moving between star systems, colliding with other bodies, and sneaking through the darkness. Our newer, more powerful telescopes are expected to shed light, so to speak, on these so-far invisible planets. Read about the search for rogue planets at IEEE Spectrum. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Chris Gunn/NASA)

Fatboy Slim gave us an unforgettable video in 2001 with his song "Weapon of Choice" featuring Christopher Walken dancing solo through a Marriot hotel. Twenty-three years later, the students of St Wilfrid's Catholic School in Crawley, West Sussex, England, made their own version to celebrate the end of the school year. The star is their head teacher Michael Ferry. The school also posted a side-by-side comparison with the original to show how close they are.  



The school couldn't compete with the expensive special effects in the latter part of the original, so that's where having a volunteer chorus line comes in handy. This goes to show that there are still people having fun the internet these days.  -via Metafilter

I bought something this morning and had to choose between different versions from different vendors. The reviews of every one were awful. I eventually realized that most people who are happy with a product do not bother with a review at all, and everyone who has a problem will write one. But some people are born writers and love to tell a story. Linda wrote a review of Bic for Her Retractable Gel Pens.

I got these pens partly because people made fun of the fact that they were for women. I got them to write anti-feminist articles. Really I thought if I bought them I might actually get good at things like vacuuming and washing dishes and decorating. The pens work great but I'm still not very good at homemaking. Dang.

The funnier the product, the better the story. Sean C. bought some Liquid Ass fart spray, or at least told an amazing story about fart spray.

Got stopped by the police. I already knew why he got me (speeding) but of course, I was gonna ask him why he stopped me. I don’t have any extra money to give them so I decided to test my luck and humor. About a week ago, I purchased some fart spray and tried it on my wife, but wanted to see just how far I could push it. The bottle says to squirt about 2 sprays. Well as the policeman walks toward my vehicle I sprayed about 5 squirts. He gets to my window and asks me to get out. I said I can’t! He immediately stops in his tracks and he says lawd...what’s that?

That's just the beginning of the story that gets more ridiculous as it goes. Read that review in a roundup of 26 priceless customer product reviews at Bored Panda.  

(Image credit: Amazon)

Did we name that bone in our arms the humerus because it's the funny bone, or was it the other way around? That's the joke, because the bone is not spelled humorous; it's just a homophone. Or a homobone, if you're being silly. We call that horrible feeling of striking our elbow "hitting our funny bone" because it feels funny, but it's funny-weird, not funny-haha. What is causing that feeling isn't even a bone, anyway, it's the ulnar nerve, which is very important because it connects our brains to our hands. But the strange placement of that nerve that makes it vulnerable to strikes is necessary for the way we move. Our dexterity comes with a cost. This TED-Ed lesson from Cella Wright explains what's going on in our elbows when we hit our funny bone. There's literally nothing funny about it. But if you want to hit your funny bone figuratively, I would recommend a trip to Laughosaurus.     

Ed Wood's 1957 film Plan 9 From Outer Space is often cited as the worst movie of all time, mainly because it was shot in a few days on a budget of $60,000, which was far too little for the grandiose special effects in the storyline. The resulting movie was full of obvious shortcuts, like non-actors in roles beyond their abilities and cheap miniatures. Yet there were a lot of B-movies made the same way in the 1950s. Plan 9 From Outer Space got its reputation as a stinker from Harry Medved and Michael Medved who trashed it in their book The Golden Turkey Awards. The book brought renewed interest that made the film a cult favorite.

But is it really so terrible? If you look past the production values and special effects that resemble a homemade fan film, the story is surprisingly compelling. Its original title, Grave Robbers from Outer Space, gives away a significant plot point. Inverse looked at the movie's themes and overall story and found a study in grief, the specter of a government coverup, mankind's inherent selfishness, and the fear of nuclear annihilation. Read about the ideas behind Plan 9 From Outer Space, and you may look at the movie differently.        

(Image: Public Domain)

Here's a little tune that confirms what we've always known, but rarely admit: the beat is the most important thing in a song. The latest mashup by Bill McClintock (previously at Neatorama) just dropped today. This work of art combines the hard rock of Drowning Pool and their song "Bodies" with the 1978 disco hit "Get Off" by Foxy. That's not all, because the bridge is from the song "Strutter" by Kiss. McClintock calls this "Let the Bodies Get Off" by Drowning Fox. While the title may sound dirty, the song isn't. I'm sure you will enjoy it, and it might inspire you to dance. 

Still, when mixing rock with disco, the undisputed champion is this song.

There was a time when the hundreds of thousands of condoms handed out at the Olympic games would have been a scandal, but that doesn't even make the cut anymore. Since the modern Olympics began in 1896, the international sporting event has seen plenty of cheating, injuries, politics, fighting, terrorism, drugs, and one-upmanship. Some are news stories we'll never forget if we are old enough to remember, like the Israeli hostages taken during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Others you've never heard of, or else you'll say, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that one." And these scandals are just from the summer games, so you won't hear about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. But you'll relive the awful moments in ten historic Olympic scandals of the summer games at Mental Floss. The opening ceremonies for the 2024 Olympics in Paris are this Friday, but some qualifying events start tomorrow.

Imagine if aliens landed on earth to find out what residents of this planet were all about. It would be easy for them to figure out that humans are the dominant species, even though we've seen jokes that say otherwise. If a guy in a flying saucer were to land at a ballet school, he would probably enjoy the experience, but would leave with a skewed view of humanity. Before you know it, there would be green men pirouetting across the galaxy. Would that be such a bad thing? But the bigger question is, has there ever been a science fiction ballet before?

Tutu Academy is an ad produced by Dean Alexander Productions and ad agency Design Army for the Hong Kong Ballet. It's only two minutes long, followed by a long list of credits. A lot of people put a lot of work into this! -via Nag on the Lake

We know that the world's first computer program was written by Ada Lovelace in 1848. It would have run a theoretical computer called the Analytical Engine designed by Charles Babbage, but he never actually built the computer. However, computer programs are made up of data, flow charts, and calculations. People understood those things, at least some smart people did, long before the algorithms they produced were usable.

For example, if you had enough data, you could forecast the weather. British mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson compiled the necessary data in 1913 and worked out how to calculate the weather of the future. The problem was that the calculations took so long that the "forecast" had passed before it was predicted. If he had a computer, it would have worked much better. Various people worked out the same types of algorithms for playing chess, tabulating the census, and generating random numbers. They worked, but not well, because human calculation just isn't fast enough. Read about the algorithms that predated the computers that would make them work at Cracked.

National Geographic gives us a film about the wolverine. It is the largest member of the weasel family, but that's about all we learn about it, because the narrator got bored, and so the film is unexpectedly short. He does give us some hints about they way a wolverine smells. The narrator is Deadpool, or actually Ryan Reynolds, who plays Deadpool. Is this really an ad for Deadpool & Wolverine, which opens this weekend? That would explain why the subject is a wolverine, but this was really released by National Geographic. It turns out this is an ad for a National Geographic show, and the Deadpool & Wolverine movie was just a convenient opportunity for a collaboration that people would actually watch. If you ever get an opportunity for Ryan Reynolds to write your advertising copy, go for it. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Rolling Stone published a list of the 50 worst albums covers of all time. For young folks, an album cover was a 12-inch square cardboard sleeve that covered a vinyl recording of songs. The artwork on the cover was very important, and often involved a team of designers trying to make a statement that would sell records. But sometimes that design went very wrong. The music may have been wonderful. The album may have sold millions of copies. Or it might have tanked and ended up in the discount bin because the cover art looked so bad.

Rolling Stone didn't bother with small town studios or self-published album covers, which can be hilariously bad. No, these are from major record labels, featuring at least some artists you know well. Some of the selections seem like a case of laziness. Others are trying too hard, or the aesthetic was off-putting, or an idea they though was edgy turned out to be just plain silly (it could have been the drugs). The examples above are from the list, but they are far from the worst. I don't want to make anyone queasy if they decide not to see the entire list.  -via Metafilter

No, these aren't the latest jeans from a luxury fashion house selling for thousands of dollars, but considering some we've posted before, you would be forgiven for thinking so. About six years ago, the fashion reseller behind Darn Vintage came across a unique pair of jeans at an estate sale. Click to the right to see them from all angles. From the Instagram thread we learn that they had been left outside for twenty years and all the organic material (cotton) had degraded and left nothing but the metal zipper and the synthetic fibers. It's amazing what people will save and sell. A textile artist believes these are the Lycra or spandex fibers left behind in stretch jeans.

It's somewhat ironic that 100% natural fiber jeans last longer/wear harder than synthetics but also break down completely whereas synthetics lose their elasticity quickly but last 100+ years in a landfill.

@darnvintage tells us that the Wrangler company bought these and is keeping them in their historical archives. -via Nag on the Lake