A tavern in Australia got a visit from what turned out to be a celebrity last weekend. Patrons took pictures and called friends to come over to see the koala who came in, presumably to get out of the rain.
Kevin Martin, who works at the Marlin Bar on Queensland's Magnetic Island, was stunned a wild male koala wandered inside just after 8pm on Saturday.
"He sauntered up to the bar ... I asked him for ID and he got all disgruntled ... walked around the bar and then climbed up a pole and sulked," Mr Martin said today.
"We have a big stuffed marlin on the roof and he just sat under the marlin in front of the speaker, listening to the music.
"He fell asleep."
Rangers were called to take the koala back to his natural habitat. Magnetic Island is known for its large population of koalas. Link -via Fark
Jeffrey Martin shot 8,000 photographs of London and then spent six weeks stitching them together to create this amazing seamless 360-degree panorama of the city. You can zoom in and lose yourself looking at details, or zoom back and admire the city as a whole. The quality of this panorama was impossible to achieve only a year ago -and at 80 gigapixels, it is the largest 360-degree panorama in the world! Open the map to find specific landmarks, or take the tour to see places you'd never think to look for on your own. This is the next best thing to traveling to London, and you don't even have to leave your desk! Link
When a bat used at a Major League Baseball game gets cracked or otherwise rendered unusable, it's not just chucked in the garbage. Oh no! They are made into souvenirs, like this bottle opener. Each one has a unique hologram number that lets you look up what game the bat was used in -sort of a modern certificate of authenticity. Link
Now open in London, England, Lily's Kitchen serves a very specific clientele: dogs. Cats are welcome, too, but they don't serve people. And it's free!
Lily’s Kitchen recently opened on Pimlico Road, in London’s upscale Belgravia neighborhood, and dog owners were quick to have their pooches test out the menu, for free. That’s right, your four-legged friends get to sit at one of the restaurant’s three tables and fill up their bellies with organic food served by a waiter, and you don’t have to pay for it. It sounds to good to be true, but this is just a clever way a dog food company has found to promote their line of organic foods.
During the six week period Lily’s Kitchen is open, dogs will get the chance to be the stars, for a change, while their owners relax or take care of their daily chores. The dogs are served their favorite dishes in paper bowls, by waiters who actually love serving canines, because they never complain about the food, check or stuff like that. After they’ve filled their stomachs, dogs have a wide range of pleasant activities to enjoy. They can have their bellies rubbed, snooze on a comfy sofa, have their aches soothed by a holistic vet, or even enjoy a nice story, read to them by members of the restaurant staff.
This building which houses the health department in BilBao, Spain is described as "origami-like". I can see that, but my first impression was that some special-effects giant monster is trying to burst out of it! The unique design is not just for looks. The city building code requires multi-story buildings to have stepped setbacks, so they incorporated that into an artful design. There are also environmental benefits from the folded glass appearance. Read about it and see more pictures at Jetsetta. Link
Do you ever feel like you are just a cog in a machine? This Indian ad for a pain reliever illustrates that feeling, as humans are turned into industrial machines and vehicles. -via the Presurfer
The website Can You Draw the Internet? wants your imagination. They recruited a bunch of children to illustrate the idea of the internet. And they invited a bunch of graphic designers and advertising people to do the same. Now they are asking for your input as well! You can submit a drawing or vote on the drawings already there. This particular artwork is by Dan Sollis of Digital Distortion. Link -via Breakfast Links
On October 17th, a landslide destroyed the pier at Chibatão Port on the Amazon River in Brazil. This video from a security camera shows the destruction as it happened. The river had been at it lowest level since records started being kept in 1902. A cracked developed along the river bank and cargo containers were sucked down as the banks collapsed. Link -Thanks, Chris!
As the 19th century turned into the 20th century, woman tried their hands at sports that they were previously prohibited from participating in. See vintage photographs of women playing soccer, baseball, cricket, bowling, tennis, and other sports. The boxing match pictured here took place on March 7th, 1912 between Mrs. Edwards and Fraulein Kussin. Link
You've probably seen the 1957 move The Bridge On the River Kwai, but you might not know how much of the film was real and how much was fictionalized. The real history of how the railway between Burma and China was built, including the bridge, is a horrific story. The British didn't build the railway in the 19th century because it would be too expensive. During World War II, the invading Japanese took on the project, but expected it to take five years to complete. Those plans were drawn before they found a source of free labor: the Allied POWs. Because of the inhuman amount of labor forced on the prisoners, the railway line that was expected to take five years to complete was ready in only 16 months.
Starvation provisions, overloading of work, dismal or absent accommodation and sanitation, and the individual viciousness of Japanese and Korean engineers and guards, took their expected toll. Disease (predominantly dysentery, malaria, beriberi and cholera), brutality (69 men were beaten to death by their guards) and 12 to 18 hour daily work shifts made for a high death rate. In fact, the work went on 24 hours a day with the aid of oil pot lamps and bamboo/wood fires that were kept burning all night long. When looking down on the wok area at night it looked like working in the “jaws of hell” - thus the workers gave it the name “Hellfire Pass”.
Read the rest of the story at Environmental Graffiti. Link
During a recent automobile trip to Washington, D.C., the author noted with alarm that two cities, Washington and Baltimore, appeared to be moving away from each other.
Figure 1.
Materials and Methods
The author made his observations while driving on route I-70 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C.
I used the following equipment:
1) a 1996 Saturn 4-door sedan (silver) equipped with an in-dash chronometer; and
2) a 35-millimeter camera.
Time measurements between road signs were taken, and photographs of the road signs were made using 400-speed color film.
A bag of tortilla chips was consumed during the experiment. Later mathematical modeling and analysis showed both the bag and the chips to be unrelated to the main results of this study.
Results
Two observations tell the story.
An interval of 48 minutes, as recorded by the in-dash chronometer, elapsed between the taking of the photographs that are here labeled Figure 1 and Figure 2.
Figure 2.
In the first observation (see Figure 1), it is clear that Washington and Baltimore were 125 and 127 miles distant, respectively. The two cities were—at that time—separated from each other by a distance of 2 miles.
The second observation (see Figure 2) was made just 48 minutes later. At that time, Washington and Baltimore were 67 and 71 miles distant, respectively. The separation between the two cities had increased from 2 miles to 4 miles.
A simple calculation shows that, during that 48 minute period, a drift of 2 miles had occurred between the cities. The drift rate was a whopping 220 feet per minute (2.5 miles per hour).
Interpretation
A late-twentieth-century USGS topographical map of the northeastern United States, including the Baltimore-Washington region. This map may have to be revised.
Ruling out time dilation effects (which we can do because our Saturn automobile never exceeded the 65 miles-per-hour legal speed limit, which is several magnitudes of order below the speed of light), the most likely explanation is the existence of a previously unknown tectonic plate, with a fault line lying somewhere between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland.
The discovery of this plate (call it, say, the “Palucka Plate”) and the associated fault line (which I propose to call “Not Palucka’s Fault”) marks a new chapter in the history of geotectonic research.
Discussion
The drift rate greatly exceeds reported drift rates of other tectonic plates, which are generally on the order of 1 inch per year. This has many implications. The most immediate is that the White House, the Capitol, the Smithsonian Institution and other government buildings will become beachfront property in just a matter of days from now. This implication itself has implications, which unfortunately are beyond the scope of the current paper.
A couple of weeks ago, we posted a story about a crocodile attacking a baby elephant. That news article said that crocodiles don't normally attack elephants. Maybe something has changed, because it's happened again -this time in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park. Swiss tourist Martin Nyfeler caught several photographs of the encounter between a mother elephant with her baby and a Nile crocodile. Link-Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
Remember the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare? Sure, you watched it for the slime, but if you remember more than that, you may do well on today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored 20%, because I am clueless, but the average score right now is 65%. Link
Minnesotastan found this 1944 photograph titled "Alter Silvester in Urnäsch" at FOTOGRAFÍA and did some investigating. Silvester means New Years Eve, so the child is not asking for treats on Halloween, as one might assume. Commenters helped fill in the blanks.
To specify further: technically the boy's not carrying a cow bell but a trychel (Treichel in German, Treichle in Swiss German). Wikipedia puts the difference thus: "As opposed to regular cast metal bells, trychlen are made of hammered sheet metal. This results in a less clean, clanking sound, but at the same time results in a bell that is less heavy and thus easier to carry".
What are little kids doing wearing masks and carrying cow bells on New Years Eve? Find out at TYWKIWDBI. Link
