It's been a very long time since I was a college student, so this was something new to me. There is talk on some campuses about an "old law" that says a house with a certain number of females living there is legally considered a brothel.
The story is often told to explain the absence of sorority houses on certain campuses. But for as many times as the tale is told, these laws have never actually been documented anywhere. In 1998, a group of eight Tulane University students searched through municipal and state law books going as far back as the 1800s and came up empty. I did a little digging of my own closer to home; I couldn’t find any laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the municipalities where I went to school.
This is a completely strange concept to any single mother with daughters, or anyone who ever lived in the old-fashioned dormitories that were segregated by sex (I have lived in both situations). Have you ever heard of such a thing? Read more about housing laws that do and don't exist at mental_floss. Link
Where's Wall-E? is a step beyond Where's Waldo?! This poster, created by Richard Sargent, features a crowd of robots that should be familiar to you from movies and TV. Can you find Wall-E among the many? Hopewell Studios is giving away a print to the person who can name the most of the robots. You can see a larger version, and get a numbered key for the contest, at their website. http://www.hopewellstudios.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=35 -via The Daily What Geek
Redditor worstenememe snapped a picture of his nephew as the child modeled the outfit he plans to wear for his first day of school. This little boy's teacher is in for a treat! Well, you know what they say, dress for the job you want, not for the job you have. Link
Sam Kean wrote a book about the periodic table of elements called The Disappearing Spoon. When the Chinese edition came out, he was surprised by the cover art, which included some element icons that were sexually suggestive and others that didn't make any sense whatsoever. Only a portion of the cover is shown here. He contacted the jacket designer, Bianco Tsai, who explained the thinking behind her choices for the illustration.
In the end, Tsai said, "I have to built a bridge to connect our culture to your book!" I still think her cover looks sharp, and if Tsai says that it bridges my book to Chinese culture, I believe her. If so, though, it's a one-way bridge. Trying to decipher the cover still leads to an uncanny feeling for me. Something I'd labored over for years, and written and rewritten until I'd practically memorized it, had became alien. It's what those poor characters in neurologist Oliver Sacks' books must feel like when they suddenly have a stroke or something and can't recognize their own faces in the mirror. It was yet another reminder that although the periodic table is universal, people's reactions to it are anything but.
Read the reasons behind the element icons and see if they make sense to you, at Slate. Link -via Buzzfeed
You know how people sometimes put a quarter into a picture with another object to show its size? What if you had a really, really big coin for that purpose? The Norwegian design studio Skrekkøgle makes (and sells) giant coins so that you can make everyday objects look like miniatures! Link | Artist's site -via reddit
World War II Bulgaria didn’t have a Schindler, and it didn’t have a list. It had a white-bearded mystic named Peter Deunov and an entire nation standing behind him. Together, they saved Bulgaria’s 48,000 Jews from the Holocaust.
Bulgaria wasn’t in the best position during the Second World War. Fenced in by the Soviet Union on one side and Europe on the other, it was forced into the middle of the action. That’s why it’s all the more impressive that Bulgaria is one of only three mainland European nations where the entire Jewish population survived the Holocaust. (Denmark and Finland were the other two, but their relatively small Jewish populations were geographically isolated.) For staying strong in the face of Hitler and his Nazi directives, the Bulgarians credit one man—Christian mystic Peter Deunov. As Albert Einstein would later say, “The whole world bows down before me. I bow down before the master Peter Deunov.”
Philosophical Fitness
Peter Deunov’s philosophy wouldn’t appear to be anything revolutionary at first. He based his beliefs on those of Christ and preached universal love and religious tolerance—only with a more mystical, cosmic slant. Known as Master Beinsa Douno, he garnered a following in Bulgaria in the early 20th century for his teachings, now known as Esoteric Christianity. In fact, during Deunov’s time serving as the Vatican’s ambassador to Bulgaria, the future Pope John XXIII called him “the greatest philosopher living on the Earth.”
But Deunov had his controversial qualities, too. A strong believer in astrology and phrenology (determining personality traits based on the shape of people’s skulls), Deunov also considered physical fitness to be crucial to spiritual development. He designed health camps for his disciples that included climbing to the 9,600-foot summit of Musala, Bulgaria’s highest peak. In addition, he promoted strict vegetarianism and liberal doses of water. But perhaps most controversial was his belief in Paneurhythmy (“sublime cosmic rhythm”), sacred dances Deunov invented to utilize “positive energies.” Unnerved by some of his more unusual ideas, the powerful Bulgarian Orthodox Church went so far as to denounce his teachings.
But far beyond scaling mountains and preaching the joys of good health, Deunov advocated world peace. Unfortunately, that too was seen as contentious by some. During one of his lectures in 1917, he spoke out against Bulgaria’s entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Although Deunov would later prove to be right about that decision, that didn’t stop the government from exiling him for a year.
Avoidance Tactics
At the start of World War II, Bulgaria picked the losing side again. Hoping to reclaim the ancestral lands it’d lost during WWI (Thrace and Macedonia), Bulgaria joined the Axis powers in 1941. And although the Nazis did gain control of those territories, Bulgaria reclaimed them in name only. What’s worse, Hitler forced the Bulgarian government to pass oppressive laws against its Jews as part of the deal.
A very patient and adorable hedgehog named Max gets clean. That is all. Oh, wait, that's not all! Max's owner also posted a video to answer questions he received about hedgehogs as pets. Link -via Arbroath
Dress up a plain pair of shoes for a special occasion by making your own Twinkle Toes, colorful ruffles that contain LEDs to show off your fancy footwork. Becky Stern takes you through the process step-by-step, plus a video tutorial. Link -via Laughing Squid
An insect called the cottony cushion scale has developed a way to produce offspring without a mate. Some females develop with their father's sperm growing into an bundle of male tissue inside the female's body. This tissue can later produce sperm needed for the female to produce baby scales.
This parasitic tissue, genetically identical to the female's father, lives inside the female and fertilizes her eggs internally—rendering the female a hermaphrodite and making her father both the grandfather and father of her offspring, genetically speaking.
Though this new form of reproduction hasn't replaced cottony cushion scale sex, "this parasitic male has taken off like an epidemic in population," said study leader Andy Gardner, an evolutionary theorist at the University of Oxford.
"Once [this trend] gets started, it's going to sweep through the population so all the females carry it. So there's no point for regular males to exist," Gardner added.
If the females begin passing on the parasitic male to their offspring, there may eventually be no more need for "baby boy" cushion scales that grow up and produce sperm and fertilize females, Gardner said.
Self-fertilizing species do not flourish as well as those that reproduce by sex because the genetic variability tends to die out. Gardner clarified that the female insects are not truly hermaphroditic, as much as they are two different individual insects within one body. Link
Here's a law that strikes home here at Neatorama. There have been times when I've proofread, edited, and corrected the same thing ten times, but somehow a typo appears in the published version. I blame extraterrestrials. John Bangsund of the Victorian Society of Editors coined the term Muphry’s Law in 2003. It states:
1. if you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault in what you have written; 2. if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; 3. the stronger the sentiment in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; and 4. any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent
The law also goes on to state how readers will see these errors instantly. Link -via Boing Boing
The rights to the 1978 song "Y.M.C.A." generate a million dollars a year, even after all this time. But that money doesn't go to the Village People, who performed the original recording, or the songwriters.
Victor Willis, the original lead singer of the group, filed papers this year to regain control in 2013 over his share of “Y.M.C.A.,” whose lyrics he wrote, under a copyright provision that returns ownership of creative works to recording artists and songwriters after 35 years. His claim to “Y.M.C.A.” and 32 other Village People compositions, however, is being contested by two companies that administer publishing rights to the songs.
The companies, Scorpio Music, a French business, and Can’t Stop Productions, one of its American affiliates, do not deny that Mr. Willis, who dressed as a police or naval officer in the group’s live performances, is one of the writers of several of the songs, which have made many millions of dollars. But they have asked a court in Los Angeles to deny his attempt to exercise what are known as “termination rights,” arguing, among other things, that the two companies “employed defendant Willis as a writer for hire, and he therefore has no rights” to any share of ownership of the songs.
The defense said Willis was merely one of several creators of the songs, and in some cases only translated French songs. A lawyer for the plaintiff pointed out that Mr. Willis does not speak French and that France has no Y.M.C.A.s. Link -via Breakfast Links
It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Update: the object pictured is indeed a fireman's sand bucket, with a round bottom to keep anyone from borrowing it. The earliest correct answer came from Bill, but due to a technical glitch on my part, it was not posted. The first correct answer posted came from Berhard, so we are awarding t-shirts to both of them. There were a lot of wonderfully funny answers! A t-shirt goes to Edward for the suggestion that this is Pa Kettle's bowling bag.
(If you don't know who Pa Kettle is, see this video.)
A young bull was spotted in South Ayrshire, Scotland in a delicate situation. His head was wedged into a ladder. Passers-by called the SPCA to report the problem. The farmer who owns the animal was contacted and said he had no idea how that happened. It wasn't even his ladder!
Scottish SPCA Inspector Kerry Kirkpatrick contacted the farmer after being alerted to the cow's plight.
He said: "When the job came through my first thought was, this is a wind up, but I arrived at the field to find the cow looking confused but surprisingly calm despite having his head wedged tightly in between the rungs of the ladder.
"The farmer's family rounded up the whole herd into a holding pen and we managed to gently pull the ladder off the cow's head.
Mathematician Pierre de Fermat was born 410 years ago today, as we learn from the Google doodle of the day. The doodle recreates Fermat's Last Theorem, which he left scribbled in the margin of a book.
Fermat’s claim left mathematicians puzzled for over 350 years — as mathematicians proved it true for many sets of possible values of n — until the general case was finally proved by Andrew Wiles in 1995. The story about the proof is told in Simon Singh’s book Fermat’s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World’s Greatest Mathematical Problem.
Did Fermat really have a proof? Most likely not, since the techniques Wiles used to prove it weren’t developed until several centuries after Fermat’s death — and since, in the 30 years he lived after writing the note, he never wrote about the general case of the proof again — but nobody will ever know for sure. I’ll leave that, as they say, as an exercise for the reader.
