Before television entered our homes, entertainment wasn't an everyday thing -in fact, it was hard to come by. And people would go to see anything that was out of the ordinary for a little respite from the daily grind. Mental_floss dug up some rather obscure events that drew crowds desperate for amusement, like the Dionne Quintuplets. The five girls born in 1934 were put on display by the Canadian government in a special facility in which they could be observed through glass. Three million people filed through to see them over a ten-year period! Read the rest at mental_floss. Link

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Swap-o-matic is a vending machine that doesn't use money. Instead, you swap something you have for something you want! It's also an art project that makes a statement about consumption and recycling, designed by Lina Fenequito with Rick Cassidy and Ray Mancini. It's a cool idea, but where I live, it would either stay empty or would become filled with old tires and obsolete electronics -things you have to pay to get rid of. Link -via Laughing Squid

Zeon posted a full-size Berserk sword earlier today, and then mentioned he wanted to see a full-size Final Fantasy VII Buster Sword. Mike Schropp at Total Geekdom made exactly that, Zeon! He also posted the illustrated process of making it. AND Schropp has a picture of himself and the completed sword in costume (for Halloween) with special Final Fantasy effects. If I posted that picture here, you wouldn't think it was really him. So I selected this picture instead. You can go see the rest. Link

One way to make yourself feel warmer this winter is to watch a movie in which people are even colder than you are. Unreality magazine has some suggestion you may not have considered, like the 1965 film Dr. Zhivago.

This classic epic about the Russian Revolution from Davide Lean is winter on steroids — frozen lakes, fur coats, and a palace encrusted in ice. This movie also features Obi-Wan Kenobi and one of cinema’s finest mustaches. You really can’t argue with that.

Plus Omar Sharif was really easy on the eyes. Link

Taman Negara in Malaysia is the world's oldest rainforest. It has flourished since the land rose from the sea during the Jurassic era, around 130 million years ago. Even ice ages haven't affected the forest.

Far outnumbering the human inhabitants are the flora and fauna of Taman Negara. Within the park boundaries there are tigers, Malayan tapirs, elephants, wild boar, various species of deer, leopards, sun bears, civets and wild ox, to name just a few.

Add to this between 200-300 species of birds and thousands of insects making their lives on the jungle floor. Taman Negara has one of the richest ecologies on earth, protected both by its impenetrability and Malaysian law.

Read more about Taman Negara at Environmental Graffiti. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user taylorandayumi)

Lynn S. Keesler of Houston, Texas, became stuck in mud January 15th in her rental car and survived on candy for a week, despite the fact that she was not injured.

Keesler told deputies she saw water by a dairy at 800 W. 500 S. and thought it was the river she needed to cross in order to reach the hotels.

According to the report, Keesler said she tried to drive around the outside of the water but got stuck in the mud. She said the first night that she was stranded, she flashed her headlights all night until the car’s battery ran down. She also said she was able to honk the horn a couple of times when the battery would power up enough.

Keesler said she lived on peanut butter M&Ms and water, and stayed inside the car because she’d always been told not to leave her vehicle if she became stranded.

On the 22nd, the water began rising and Keelser went to a nearby house for help. Paramedics checked her out, but she refused a trip to the hospital. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: video from Fox News)

It looks like redditor adepssimius is getting married! Ben made a little change to their "save the date" announcements, and didn't reveal it until after they were mailed. When Amy found out, she thought it was hilarious. If you can't see the addition he made, you can click to enlarge the photo or see an exploded version at Imgur. Link -via reddit

In the 1979 film Alien, there are two survivors. The hero Ripley, of course, and her cat Jonesey. Anne Billson knows that Jonesy is much more important to the film than most viewers realize. So she wrote the story of the spaceship Nostromo and its crew from Jonesey's point of view. Here's a small excerpt:

Nostromo is making hysterical hooting noises and flashing its lights on and off. This is all rather exciting, but as I'm being ferried through the passages and walkways I feel helpless, and would really rather be free to run around. Also, the can-opener is hurling herself around like nobody's business, so it's not a smooth journey, I can tell you. Anyhow we roll to a stop, and I can tell straightaway it's because we've run slap-dab into the hairless kitten again. Only I'm not sure I can call it a kitten any more - it's really big now. Honestly, it's like a super-giant cat. But since it's still only a few hours old and clearly hasn't been housetrained and hasn't a clue how to groom itself or behave in can-opener company, I shall continue to call it a kitten. Because, technically, that's what it is.

Later, Jonesey confronts the alien and tries to share the secrets of charming the "can-openers." From the delightful blog Cats on Film. Link -via Maximum Verbosity

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His species only lives for a minute, but he has a long bucket list. (via the Presurfer)

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If you ever have the occasion to install a door stop, be sure to get one with a heavy spring, because 1. puppies love to play with them, and b. they make that wonderful "thwannng" sound. -via Arbroath

A prehistoric creature found in the Canadian Rockies has been named Siphusauctum gregarium, which is both a new genus and species. It lived 500 million years ago, when the area now nickenamed the "Tulip Beds" was underwater.

Siphusauctum has a long stem, with a calyx – a bulbous cup-like structure – near the top which encloses an unusual filter feeding system and a gut. The animal is thought to have fed by filtering particles from water actively pumped into its calyx through small holes. The stem ends with a small disc which anchored the animal to the seafloor. Siphusauctum lived in large clusters, as indicated by slabs containing over 65 individual specimens.

Lorna O'Brien, a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto and her supervisor Jean-Bernard Caron, curator of invertebrate palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, report on the discovery today in the online science journal PLoS ONE.

"Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals. Recent advances have linked many bizarre Burgess Shale animals as primitive members of many animal groups that are found today but Siphusauctum defies this trend. We do not know where it fits in relation to other organisms," said O'Brien.

Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Royal Ontario Museum)

NASA has released a high-definition image of the Earth it calls Blue Marble 2012.

A 'Blue Marble' image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite - Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed 'Suomi NPP' on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

The original Blue Marble image was taken in 1972 by astronauts aboard Apollo 17. Until today, it was my desktop image. NASA has made the new image available for download in several sizes. Link to story. Link to image. -via Buzzfeed

(Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)

On March 21, 1920, the Sandusky Register reported on an astonishing invention in which W. W. Macfarlane, traveling in a car (driven by a chauffeur), held a conversation with his wife back at the garage -500 yards down the road! The article is reprinted at Paleofuture. Link

DeviantART member viria13 put modern fashions on Disney princesses (and Anastasia, too). The artwork is lovely, but can someone tell me who "Kida" is? Link -via The Daily What

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A misdirected email connects two people 9,000 miles apart who turn out to share more than the same name. This is the latest animation from the Rauch Brothers for StoryCorps. How do they find such great stories? This is one that is included in StoryCorps new book All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps which will be available February 2. Link