Five pirates found a treasure chest of gold! How do they divvy it up? It's up to the captain, but he has to have cooperation from the other pirates. Once you find out the circumstances here, you'll decide that no, you can't solve the pirate riddle. These pirates are too smart.
But if you decide you want to solve this on your own before the answer is explained to you, good luck and we'll see you much later. This is a TED-Ed lesson from Alex Gendler. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Sure, your cat loves any cardboard box, but wouldn't you rather see a TARDIS in your home? Or the Taj Mahal? Or a medieval castle? Or a Maya pyramid? A Bulgarian family makes these elaborate constructions from recycle cardboard and sells them through their Etsy store CacaoPets.
We are a small family of engineers which likes to think extraordinary. Ten years ago we got ourselves a cat – Shusha. Ever since, she has been a member of our family. Once while we were unpacking Shusha started playing in a cardboard box and thats when it came to us. Why not instead of throwing the cardboard, could we turn it into something much more useful. …The designs of the houses were thought in order to be liked not only by cats, but also by their owners. We have created beautiful designs that also match any kind of peoples interior.
They aren't cheap, especially when you have a cat that eats cardboard. But you'll never take the time to make one of these yourself, and they could make a great gift. -via Laughing Squid
My family did an audit once to find the wifi hot spots in our house. It became clear why one kid was always using the next door neighbor's wifi. The neighbor's signal was much stronger in her bedroom than it was anywhere in his house! Our signal was spotty, and completely dead where I put the family's shared computer only ten feet from the router. Wifi can be completely eccentric. Steve just went with the password that always comes to mind when these eccentricities are encountered, in the latest comic from Megacynics.
Justin Bieber is embarking on a tour in India next week. The contract for his accommodations has been leaked, and the demands are eye-popping. Indian promoters and venues will be scrambling to keep up with them all, much less fulfill them.
A convoy of 10 luxury sedans and 2 Volvo buses will be a the disposal of the artist and his entourage of 120 people throughout their stay with a Rolls Royce reserved for the Grammy winner himself. There will be special security cars comprising of Z+ level security and Maharashtra Police personnel apart from the artists’ global security who will be 8 in number.
10 containers will be flown in with items like a ping pong table, playstation, IO HAWK, sofa set, washing machine, refrigerator, upholstery, wardrobe cupboard, massage table that will be used backstage. Arrangements for a Jacuzzi have also been made for Bieber’s personal use to unwind before he takes to the stage.
Oh, that's just the beginning. There are specific instructions for the hotels he and his entourage will stay in, and how Bieber's backstage dressing room is to be equipped with curtains, clothing, food, drinks, and entertainment. Read the whole thing at TVOM.
(Image credit: Lou Stejskal)
His odds are 30-1, but many horse racing fans are pulling for Patch to win the Kentucky Derby, even if they aren't putting money on him. The three-year-old developed an infection in his left eye last year, and despite treatment, his eye was ultimately removed. Patch is not the first one-eyed horse to run for the roses, but in the internet age, he's the most popular going into the race.
What's even stranger is that Patch drew post position 20. That means he'll start on the outside edge of the track, to the right of all the other horses. Since his left eye is missing, he won't see his competition. Whether that will help or hinder his performance remains to be seen, but his team is optimistic. You can keep up with Patch through his Twitter account.
To celebrate the grand opening of a new shopping mall in Songdo, South Korea, a chorus line of Pikachus entertained the crowd with a song and dance routine. But a tragedy strikes right in the middle of the performance. It happens about a minute into this video.
What was that? Okay, when the Pikachu started deflating, his helper ran up to assist. The "men in black" didn't know that and thought the performer was being attacked. Who knew Pikachus were under Secret Service protection? Anyway, it was quickly sorted out and Pikachu went off to get repaired.
This video shows just the relevant parts of the drama. The poor Pikachu tried to rejoin his friends, but it was not meant to be. Poor Pikachu! -via Metafilter
Combine malapropisms and mixed metaphors, and you've got a malaphor. It's a "mixture of two idioms, creating a sort of malaprop in metaphor form." A famous example is the song "We'll Burn That Bridge When We Get There," although that was intentional. The unintentional ones are the funniest. The site Malaphors collects incidences of these idiosyncratic idioms. Here are some examples:
She called me every name under the book
I haven’t heard hide nor hair of that guy
He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the basket
Put your best face forward
Each example has the story of who said it and where. Check out more at Malaphors. This may keep me busy for a while. -via Daily of the Day
(Image credit: Skez)
Mazzy is two-and-a-half years old, but she is learning to cook. She even has a cooking show on YouTube! In this video, she helps her daddy make boba milk tea. It's a pretty straightforward recipe, but Mazzy makes it compelling. -via Digg
People around the world have stereotypes of Americans. We're overweight, rich, armed, loud, and we smile all the time. An exaggeration, of course, but Americans do smile more than other cultures. Why is that? Surely we aren't that much happier than other developed nations.
For a study published in 2015, an international group of researchers looked at the number of “source countries” that have fed into various nations since the year 1500. Places like Canada and the United States are very diverse, with 63 and 83 source countries, respectively, while countries like China and Zimbabwe are fairly homogenous, with just a few nationalities represented in their populations.
After polling people from 32 countries to learn how much they felt various feelings should be expressed openly, the authors found that emotional expressiveness was correlated with diversity. In other words, when there are a lot of immigrants around, you might have to smile more to build trust and cooperation, since you don’t all speak the same language.
That makes plenty of sense, especially since so many non-immigrant Americans only speak one language. It may also be because we spend so much money on our teeth, we want to show them off. Other reasons for the American smile are explored in an article at the Atlantic. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Flickr user Kristo)
In case you need a little more nightmare fuel, scientists have been studying a fish eyeball parasite. Diplostomum pseudospathaceum infects a fish's eye as a larva. While the larva grows, it causes the fish to swim slower than usual, which protects both the fish and the parasite from predators. But when the larva is mature, it makes the fish swim faster and closer to the water's surface. That's so the fish will be eaten by a bird!
The eye fluke Diplostomum pseudospathaceum has a life cycle that takes place in three different types of animal. First, parasites mate in a bird’s digestive tract, shedding their eggs in its faeces. The eggs hatch in the water into larvae that seek out freshwater snails to infect. They grow and multiply inside the snails before being released into the water, ready to track down their next host, fish. The parasites then penetrate the skin of fish, and travel to the lens of the eye to hide out and grow. The fish then get eaten by a bird – and the cycle starts again.
The current research is about fish eyes that contain both mature and immature parasites. How do those fish act? Read about Diplostomum pseudospathaceum at New Scientist. -via reddit
(Image credit: winnu)
Flooding this week in Reyno, Arkansas, brought the river up as high as the bridge. That spelled trouble for a cabin that was floating downstream. It became stuck between a rock and a hard place. That is, between the rushing current and the concrete bridge!
This was no storage shed. It was clear that people lived there by what we see on the other side. See more of the flooding in Arkansas and Missouri here. -via Digg
If you need an excuse to watch the trailer for The Last Jedi again, we've got you covered. For Star Wars Day, Antonio Toscano (previously at Neatorama) redid the trailer for The Last Jedi in LEGO.
You can see a side-by-side comparison here. In case you need another excuse. -via Tastefully Offensive
As someone who has worked third shift, and even now naps in the daylight hors, I consider blackout blinds a miracle. They sure beat taping aluminum foil over the windows (which I never did, but had to live with at one time). But look at how cool these blackout blinds are! Strategic small holes make them into a nighttime city skyline. The blinds are from a Ukrainian company named HoleRoll. A machine translation from the site says,
We are engaged in the development and production of exclusive roller blinds. The illusion of the night city or the night sky is created with holes in the fabric.
I believe that means they aren't ready for retail sales. There's no price yet, or information about whether they will be shipped overseas. So far, they show skylines of New York and London, and a blind with no skyline, but tiny stars showing through. -via Laughing Squid
Jürgen Horn and Mike Powell are in Saigon For 91 Days. They got to take a peek at the Tay Son lacquer factory, which turned out to be more of an artist's studio than what we normally think of as a factory. They were tickled to see how those shiny, art-covered furniture pieces are made.
Lacquerwork has a long history in Vietnam, where it’s known as Sơn Mài. For centuries, it was purely decorative, used mainly to preserve wooden furniture from the tropic heat. But in the 1930s, a new generation of Vietnamese artists began to fuse French influences into their lacquer works. And since there’s nothing the West loves better than celebrating its own influence, lacquerware was soon being hailed as a newly-discovered Oriental style, and displayed at exhibitions around the world.
At For 91 Days, you get pictures of the factory tour, a gallery of artworks, and a video. Mike and Jürgen are getting ready to leave Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Where will they go next?
With eight movies now, the Star Wars cast has grown considerably. And they all went to school when they were young. Wasn't Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) a cutie with his French horn? See more of the Star Wars casts, from A New Hope to Rogue One, in their school yearbook pictures at TVOM.
