On January 20th, Barack Obama will become the first black US president. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss looks back at some other presidential firsts. Who was the first president for eleven different questions? I only scored 45%, because, um, I didn't know the answers! But I learned quit a bit. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20949

Ernest is a 15-year-old cat who lives at a shelter in Godshill on the Isle of Wight. He suffers from entropion, a condition where the eyelids roll inward and cause inflammation. Surgery might correct the condition, but veterinarians were concerned about how such an old cat would react to an anesthetic. The solution? Contact lenses!

Centre manager Paula Sadler, 56, said: 'Before Earnest was given the contact lenses he was quite squinty and had trouble seeing where he was going.

'Now his eyes have opened up and he has a new lease of life.

Link -via Fark

(Vimeo link)
Check out this excellent animated robot fight scene set in the year 2045. Vincent Chai produced this for his final project at the University Of Hertfordshire. It doesn't end like you think it will. Link -via Digg

Bath salts are a popular Christmas gift for the person who has everything. Now you can make them yourself with the classic scent of bacon!

Step 1
Heat up 4 strips of salt pork in a microwave. You could also use bacon, but the salt pork has more fat, giving you more grease for your mixture.

Step 2
Pour 2 cups epsom salt in bowl, then 1 cup borax.

Step 3
Drain fat away from meat and mix with a few drops of liquid smoke. The liquid smoke helps make the scent, it won't smell right without it.

Step 4
Mix the grease/smoke mixture into the salt mixture. Mix thoroughly by hand, or else it will not blend all the way. If there seems to be too much grease, add more borax and salt. If it is too dry, heat up more salt pork and repeat steps 1-4.

Step 5
Enjoy bacon scented baths by adding your salt whenever you take a soak. To store, just put it in a bottle and save it for later.

Link -via Unique Daily

Update: I just found out you can buy this already made!

With The Benny Hillifier, you can add the soundtrak of Yakety Sax by Boots Randolph to any YouTube video. Here's an example I put together. The Benny Hillifier does not speed up the video, which is the other classic Benny Hill feature. Link -via Digg

December 31st will be a long day this year. One second longer, to be exact. The earth's trip around the sun doesn't exactly correspond to our calendar, as it takes 365.2422 days. That's why we add a day for leap year every four years, but it still doesn't come out even, so every once in a while, another second is added to the last day of the year.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is the organization that monitors the difference in the two timescales and calls for leap seconds to be inserted or removed when necessary. Since 1972, leap seconds have been added at intervals varying from six months to seven years — the most recent was inserted on Dec. 31, 2005.

Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Flickr user slack12)

I didn't know you could do this.

An owner of a Fuji apple orchard printed up custom stickers of iPods and the Apple logo. He then put the stickers on his Fuji apples while they were still young and on the trees.

A month later after the apples had matured, he removed the stickers.

I'll have to try this myself next year! Link -via Grow-a-Brain

With a title like Death Metal Puppy, you might want to think before you watch this video, since the music is, yeah, death metal. But it made me laugh! Turn your speakers down a bit and give it a chance. Link (embedded video clip) -Thanks, Kiltak!

To celebrate the release of mental_floss’ first iPhone application, a game called Big Fat Lies! every Lunchtime Quiz this week involves lies. Today’s quiz asks you to figure out which statements about Alaska are big fat lies. Remember, you need to select the LIE, not the true statement! I couldn't take the quiz, because my IPS hates me today. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20838

To celebrate the release of mental_floss' first iPhone application, a game called Big Fat Lies! every Lunchtime Quiz this week involves lies. Today's quiz asks you to figure out which statements about TV are big fat lies. Remember, you need to select the LIE, not the true statement! I scored 60%, which is about average for this quiz. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20826

Simon Tofield, the creator of the Simon's Cat series (previously at Neatorama) has turned his attention to his sister's dog. This video was created for the RSPCA's campaign to fight pet obesity.

There is of course a serious message to this animation. According to leading vets, pet obesity is one of the biggest issues affecting pets’ health and one in three of the UK’s dogs and cats are now overweight. Fat pets can develop serious health problems – including diabetes, arthritis and even organ failure.

The RSPCA has more information, and has even created an online community to help people keep their pets slim and healthy. Link -Thanks, Jayne Carverhill!

Dark Roasted Blend has lots of pictures of abandoned places in Antarctica, where the trouble to remove material is high and the low temperatures curb natural destruction. There's also a lot of strange facts about the continent.

While the South Pole and environs doesn’t have a permanent population, there are on average 2,500 people living there during the year -- approximately 4000 in summer and 1000 incredibly hardy ones in winter (source). While no complete necrologies exists for the Antarctic, at least 268 people have died there since humanity first decided it was a good place to visit. So if the ghosts divvie the work evenly, each one only has to haunt 9.68992 inhabitants.

Link

Two mirrors, a little bait, and a camera. Put them together and you have Mother Nature making a kaleidoscope! Music by the Swiss band Larytta. Video directed by Körner Union. A pleasant way to spend three minutes. Link (embedded YouTube clip).

PetCentric offers your dog or cat a personalized holiday greeting to send to his internet friends! The sample above is my daughter's cat Biscuit. You can select from three songs and several holiday outfits. Link -via Ursi's Blog

The embedded flash is autoplay, so I put the finished product on the next page.

Wired celebrates the 40th anniversary of the unveiling of the first computer mouse on December 9th, 1968.

Computer scientist Douglas Engelbart kicks off the personal computer revolution with a product demonstration that is so amazing it inspires a generation of technologists. It will become known as "the mother of all demos."

The presentation included the debut of the computer mouse, which Engelbart used to control an onscreen pointer in exactly the same way we do today. For a world used to thinking of computers as impersonal boxes that read punched cards, whir awhile, then spit out reams of teletype paper, this kind of real-time graphical control was amazing enough.

Englebert also demonstrated other computer abilities such as hyperlinks, windows, and videoconferencing, among other ideas we use today, although it took the computer industry decades to implement them. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/12/dayintech_1209

In addition, Wired has a gallery showing the evolution of the computer mouse. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/multimedia/2008/12/gallery_40_years_mouse

(image credit: SRI International)