Abraham Lincoln had neither a law degree nor did he pass the bar exam, but he was granted a license to practice law. Daniel Jackson Oliver Wendell Holmes Morgan never had a license to practice in any state, but beginning in 1949, he tried lawsuits and defended the accused in many states, under many names. Morgan studied law on his own when he was in prison, and he was quite good at it. He would set up shop under the identity of another lawyer, argued his cases hard and won more than he lost, and when anyone got suspicious, would flee to another state and find another lawyer's name to use.

In 1960, he defended three teenagers accused of murder, and they were sentenced to death. But when Morgan ended up in the same prison, he continued giving his clients legal advice -and they trusted him still. In fact, when Morgan was confronted by more of his clients who had been sent to court from prison to testify against him, they all spoke of his legal skills in glowing terms. The fact was that his services were badly needed in the Black community in the mid-20th century. Still, Morgan was in and out of prison for identity theft and practicing law without a license in one state after another.

But the law allows a person to act as his own lawyer, and Morgan did so many times, once even arguing his case before the US Supreme Court, a feat that degreed and licensed lawyers dream of. Read the crazy story of Daniel Jackson Oliver Wendell Holmes Morgan at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Ebony magazine)

Introducing the Thermonator, a robot dog that is equipped with a spotlight, laser guidance, and a flamethrower! The "first-ever flamethrowing quadruped robot dog" has a 30-foot firing range and is suggested for wildfire control (what?), snow and ice removal, and entertainment. What could possibly go wrong? Throwflame is taking orders for the Thermonator now. You can get one for just under $10K.   

If that sounds a little too evil for you, maybe this will make you feel better. Boston Dynamics has decided that its robot dog Spot has a brighter future in entertainment than anything else. After all, Spot's dance videos must be making bank at YouTube. Now they are looking to capture business from companies like Disney or even party rental rental places.



This is Sparkles, Spot's new robot dog friend that has the same structure underneath, but comes in a cute blue fur coat and enormous soulful eyes. Spot and Sparkles illustrate the magic of friendship by dancing! Now, does that make you feel better about the flamethrower? No? Me neither.

How wonderful would it be to get your order of french fries all fresh and hot with ketchup already applied? And better yet, the ketchup is on the inside of the fries, eliminating any danger of dripping ketchup on your clothing? It would certainly make eating them while driving easier. It doesn't even have to be ketchup- you might prefer cheese sauce, ranch, barbecue, or even mayonnaise if you are European.

Weird Universe tells us that Scott E. Brient of Roswell, Georgia, thought up a way to do just that, in 2006. He invented a device to inject sauce into individual cooked french fries on a conveyor belt, and received a patent for it in 2009. The device is thoroughly explained, and the injection is automatic, so wouldn't require more manpower than a fast-food outlet already has. There are 28 pictures if that makes it clearer.

So why aren't these in use already? One might suspect that the machine itself was never built. As it is, the patent is expired due to something about the fees, like they haven't been paid. -via Nag on the Lake

Cat chase POV pic.twitter.com/F9p86JJq8e

— Tweets of Cats (@TweetsOfCats) April 25, 2024

Someone attached a tiny camera on their cat's collar, which is always pretty interesting, at least if you know the cat. This one captures a dramatic encounter with another cat that starts with a challenge and then proceeds into a dizzying chase scene. No, you won't be able to keep up with the target because you do not instinctually chase small moving targets through the wilderness like a cat is born to do. You can hear the camera-cat begin to breathe heavily, but he is not giving up. The fugitive cat eventually decides that fighting will be less tiring than running, and it gets pretty confusing for a while, but then the chase picks back up. We don't know how long these cats went on; they might still be running for all we know. You have to wonder what this cat did to enrage the chaser so much. The only winner is the camera owner, because they got a viral video out of the incident. So far, this video has racked up 50 million views on Twitter (from one Tweet) and another 50 million on TikTok. -via Digg

In 1964, consumers suddenly had two pre-packed fruit-filled breakfast pastries designed to be heated in a pop-up toaster. They were called Pop Tarts (made by Kellogg’s) and Toast 'em Pop-Ups (made by Post). You might be surprised to learn that the original names for these products were Kellogg's Fruit Scones and Post Country Squares. The reason they were introduced at the same time was, of course, the longstanding rivalry between the two cereal companies (which we've covered in both text and video), but also due to an important innovation in packaging -developed by the dog food industry!  

We all know who won that battle, as pop tarts became a generic term for toaster pastries. Jerry Seinfeld stars in a new Netflix movie titled Unfrosted about the origin of Pop Tarts debuting next month. Before you see the comedy, read the real story behind the battle of the toaster pastries at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Evan-Amos)

Some people have odd habits in what they eat, or how they eat, like the maniac that eats a KitKat without breaking it into pieces. That's weird, but forgivable. We are familiar with the argument against pineapple on pizza, salads encased in gelatin, beans for breakfast, and the merits of mayonnaise vs. Miracle Whip. But some stories are just plain strange. Tales from an AskReddit thread tell of a woman whose mother always put mayonnaise in chili mac and thought that was the way it was supposed to be. You've heard of the hamburger served on a bun made of two doughnuts, but what about the person who put a chicken patty between two Pop Tarts for a sandwich? One person tried a bell pepper filled with whipped cream because their sister liked them that way, and found them abominable. And apparently there are folks who mix ice coffee with lemonade. And that's just the beginning of a gallery of 35 crimes against food that people have actually witnessed that you can read at Bored Panda.

(Image credit: OGRamRod)

James Bond movies have it all. Bond invariably saves the world, seduces beautiful women, and plays with the world's most innovative gadgets. Some of those gadgets from the movies are on display at a new exhibit titled 007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. They include a Bell Rocket Belt, the jetpack that Bond used to escape after he killed a target in the 1965 movie Thunderball.

When the movie was filmed in 1964, the stuntman flying the jetpack wasn't just a stuntman, he was Bill Suitor, test pilot for the Bell Rocket Belt who worked directly under its inventor Wendell Moore. Suitor knew the jetpack's limitations. It carried enough fuel to fly for exactly 21 seconds, and if you weren't near the ground when the fuel ran out, you were in trouble. When Suitor donned the jetpack on the set of Thunderball, he put on his helmet for the flight. The production team didn't like that at all, since they had already filmed Sean Connery's closeups for the jetpack sequence, and he wasn't wearing a helmet. Suitor knew the danger involved, and wasn't going to give in. Read about the innovative Bell Rocket Belt and the way it was filmed for the James Bond movie at Smithsonian.

It's a bit jarring to think that the turn of the millennium now qualifies as "history," but here we are, explaining the strange Y2K event for those too young to remember it. By 1999, the world was wired to run on computers, but those computers were running on operating systems that weren't designed with the year 2000 in mind, so the dates were assumed to always start the year with 19. Was this a problem? Yes, but not nearly as big a problem as the media made it out to be. Until the "millennium bug" made the news, many people didn't even realize how much of the world's infrastructure depended on computers running smoothly. As the date grew near, programmers worked hard to fix the problem in one system after another, so that when the time came, it turned out to be a big nothingburger. Personally, I don't recall as much panic as this video illustrates, but I was busy with young children. I did take the precaution of turning off my computer before midnight, just in case. I later found out that Macs were never vulnerable to the Y2k problem because they had always rendered the year in four digits.

This video includes a skippable ad from 4:12 to 5:47.

Statistics show, and you know this intuitively, that the music we listened to in our early teen years will be our favorite music through our lifetime. Sometime around age 30, we quit seeking out new music, and settle into a preference for the familiar songs we already know. Reasons given for this include too many choices and too little time. That sounds rather simplistic, but it makes sense from the perspective of busy people taking a poll. Younger people are students with more free time on their hands than adults who are working or caring for children. I recall when I was a kid, music was everywhere I went. If the radio wasn't on, it was because a friend insisted I turn it off to listen to this new album. You didn't have to put in effort seek out new music at all.

I was exposed to new songs throughout my 20s, 30s, and 40s because it was my job. I judged and memorized plenty of new music all the way to middle age, and liked a lot of it. But still, those songs I know from my thirties are not associated with particularly vivid memories like the music of my pre-teen and teenage years. Maybe the intense emotions of that stage of life are coded with those songs. I still like new songs, just not quite as many in my old age because the playlist in my head is pretty crowded. If you are afraid of "getting stuck in your ways" as you age as far as music goes, you are not alone. People who want to find new and varied music will find a way, but those songs won't replace the ones you loved as a kid. Read the research on what has been termed "music paralysis" at Stat Significant.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: YouGov)

This is what happens to a guy who was probably an adolescent when he saw the movie Back to the Future and really, really wanted a DeLorean but all he could get hold of was a Tesla. So Supercar Blondie had his favorite mechanic shop convert the Tesla into his image of a badass time machine, complete with DeLorean branding and even a vanity plate. It may not be jet-powered, but it's got flamethrowers coming out of the rear! It's also got a "flux capacitor," the "garbage to energy" converter from Back to the Future 2, all the dashboard controls from the movies, and even a hoverboard stashed inside. They went to a lot of trouble to make the electric car sound like a gas-powered machine, because the noise is important.

The Tesla part is in the first eight minutes. Keep watching to see a conversion car from Resident Evil. It has a gun rack, a rocket launcher, an armor cage, and more apocalyptic details.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

While the Brothers Grimm were real people, Mother Goose is a catch-all name for the author of nursery rhymes that have been handed down, generation by generation, for hundreds of years. Charles Perrault used the term for a collection of stories published in 1695 that included both fairy tales and nursery rhymes, although at least one individual poem had been attributed to Mother Goose before then. Tracking down the inspiration for a fictional author of folk poems so far back is difficult, but extrapolating from both history and rumors of history, Mental Floss has come up with two good candidates. They were both queens, both named Bertha, and both were notorious for having large or webbed feet! There is no evidence that either actually wrote the nursery rhymes that we know and love, but they may have inspired the name and mental image of the old woman who always had a rhyme ready for every occasion.   

(Image credit: Blanche Fisher Wright)

Honeybees are incredibly talented for insects. They manufacture honey, wax, and other bees. They pollinate our crops, they communicate by dancing, and they remember where the flowers are blooming. And they can deliver a pretty good sting when they need to. But bees can also be trained to do things that bees won't normally do by instinct, like solve puzzles or play ball games. The research on bees' dances have led scientists to focus on how they can judge and communicate distances. Experiments that test a bee's geolocation ability is how we found out that bees have some understanding of numbers, which is rather mind-blowing. I'm also very impressed by the scientists who managed to figure out what the bees are saying when they dance. This episode of Ze Frank's True Facts series is unusually wholesome, almost devoid of salacious jokes. Honeybees are probably smart enough to appreciate that. There's a one-minute skippable ad at the 5:15 mark.

It's the end of an era. Many years ago, no one knows exactly when, a new sidewalk on West Roscoe Street in Chicago was laid, and a rodent left an imprint of its body in the wet cement. In January, the rat-shaped hole went viral. Since then, people have been coming from all over to make a pilgrimage to the site of the Chicago rat hole. They leave coins in the hole, and have left flowers, photographs, signs, and other trinkets. A plaque was made. At least one wedding was staged at the site. Someone filled the hole with plaster, and others dug it out.   

This left some of the neighbors in Roscoe Village annoyed with the crowds and the garbage they left behind. The Chicago Department of Transportation had a dilemma: replace that portion of the sidewalk to please the locals, or let tourists and fans have their fun? Some of the neighbors wanted the rat hole to stay. The city finally decided to replace the sidewalk section, which happened on Wednesday, but they took pains to preserve the concrete that contained the rat hole. The square slab was successfully excavated and will be saved. Will we ever see it again? The city has not yet decided on what to do with the rat hole slab, although they are listening to those who say it belongs in a museum. After all, it is now a piece of city history. Read more on the fate of the Chicago rat hole. -via Fark

(Image credit: JunLpermode)

When we disturb the tombs of ancient mummies, we fear a curse or worse, but we also forget that they were people of their time when they were alive. They had no concept of guns. Sure, you can't kill a mummy, because they are already dead, but it can sure hurt them, and baffle them besides. This mummy has to recalibrate and ponder the possible technological innovations that have occurred since he was buried. But he's still supernatural, otherwise he wouldn't have known the date of his death was 2,600 BC. Think about it. While we marvel at the skill with which they preserved human remains so far back, they had nothing on modern morticians, not to mention plastinationists. When our civilization has ended and another arises, will they fear a resurrection of the bodies we leave behind? Probably not- they can just use their laser weapons.  

You might recognize the rotoscope technique of Joel Haver in this video. Redditor WiiFitBalanceBoard, who made this video under the name Cool Giant at YouTube, says he made this after watching Haver's animation tutorial. -via reddit

People love visiting national parks. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee saw 13.29 million visitors in 2023! In fact, it's getting to the point that a park experience can be diminished by the very number of people in those parks. Like Yogi Berra once said, "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." However, there are some US National Parks that are quite un-crowded. The least visited is Gates of the Arctic in Alaska, which is quite scenic but has no roads, trails, or campsites. And it can get pretty cold. However, the second least visited US National Park is a tropical paradise. So why do few people visit it?

The name of the park is the National Park of American Samoa. It is our only national park south of the equator, and it's not easy to get to. First, you have to get to Hawaii, then take a plane 2,600 more miles to the island of Tutuila, and flights only happen twice a week. Despite it being American territory, you'll need a passport to prove your citizenship. There are limited hotels, and no visitor center. But once you are at the park, you'll have the solitude of a desert island while you hike, swim, snorkel, or just enjoy the scenery. Read about one intrepid traveler's experience at the National Park of American Samoa at BBC Travel.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: The U.S. National Park Service)