You know what they say -when you find a look that works, stick with it. However, if you look back far enough, you'll see that he's tried other styles as well. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Many words are born from the name of the person associated with what that word means. An eponym is a word derived from a person’s name, whether real or fictional. In this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss, you'll be given a word definition and a clue about the person, and you figure out what what the word is. Simple? Not exactly! I scored 70%, which would have been 80% if I could spell correctly. Link

The city of Detroit has shrunk to a population of only 900,000 people -half as many as in the 1950s. Empty houses and businesses are apparent in every part of the city. City officials are weighing different plans for what to do about Detroit's long-term health. One idea is to return the outer parts of the city back to agriculture. Residents are already getting started in gardening.

Now the seeds of a remarkable rebirth are being planted – literally. Across Detroit, land is being turned over to agriculture. Furrows are being tilled, soil fertilised and crops planted and harvested. Like in no other city in the world, urban farming has taken root in Detroit, not just as a hobby or a sideline but as part of a model for a wholesale revitalisation of a major city. Some farms are the product of hardy individualists or non-profit community groups. Others, like Hantz Farms, are backed by millions of dollars and aim to build the world's biggest urban farm right in the middle of the city.

Mark Covington, 38, is one of those 21st-century pioneers, though he stumbled on his role almost by accident. Finding himself unemployed after losing his job as an environmental engineer and living back with his mother two years ago, he started tidying up an empty lot near his Georgia Street home, planting vegetables and allowing local people to harvest them for free. An orchard of fruit trees followed, as did a community centre – made by converting a pair of empty buildings – which keeps local youths off the streets. The result is a transformation of the area around his childhood home. Local kids come to movie nights held amid the crops. Residents love the free, fresh food in an area where no major supermarkets exist. The Georgia Street Community Garden is never vandalised.

Link (with video) -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

OK, here's a Friday fun quiz from The History Channel. How fast can you answer questions on American history? Challenge yourself, or your friends with the Ultimate History Quiz. I scored 1,332 in the first game. I'll be playing this again! Link -via Digg

How about a strange interactive website for some Friday fun? Nails has ten 27 different scenarios to explore with your mouse. No, they don't make any sense, but you keep clicking anyway! Link -via Gorilla Mask

There are more insects in the atmosphere than you'll ever see. In fact, you don't see them all because they fly really high. How high? NPR has an animated video with the surprising answers.

When British scientist Jason Chapman told us (listen to the radio piece or watch our video) there are 3 billion insects passing over your head in a summer month, he was talking about his survey in Great Britain. Closer to the equator, he says, the numbers should rise. He wouldn't be surprised, for example, that in the sky over Houston or New Orleans there could be 6 billion critters passing overhead in a month.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128389587 -via reddit

We can always dream up new products that make life easier, no matter how difficult they would be to actually produce. In 1939, Popular Science predicted that we would one day received newspapers printed at home with data transferred by radio broadcasts. That particular invention never came to be, at least in the sense it was envisioned at the time. Why print out the news when you can just read it on your computer screen? This item is one of nine products that were never developed, although some of the end results came to us by other inventions. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Something tells me that these guys aren't at all gloomy! This is one of ten creatively-named night spots in Namibia listed at Buzzfeed. Did I say "creatively-named"? It's possible these bar names were pulled out of a hat! Link

On Tuesday, workers digging a new level for a vehicle security center at the World Trade Center site ran into a set of evenly-spaced wooden beams. Had someone been building a boat in a basement?

“They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction.

By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered about 20 to 30 feet below street level on the World Trade Center site, the first such large-scale archaeological find along the Manhattan waterfront since 1982, when an 18th-century cargo ship came to light at 175 Water Street.

The ground where the boat was found had been undisturbed for 200 years. Back then, the site was much nearer the Hudson River. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

If you were impressed that 19-year-old fugitive from justice Colton Harris-Moore has a Facebook fan page with almost 90.000 fans, listen to this: an unnamed fugitive monkey in Florida also has a Facebook page with over 80,000 fans! The rhesus macaque has been roaming the Tampa Bay area for a year.

Home video shot by Tampa residents and broadcast on local TV stations shows the macaque rummaging through trash bins, scaling walls in a single bound, even hanging out poolside and swiping fruit.

On at least a dozen occasions Florida Fish and Wildlife officials shot the plucky primate with tranquilizer darts. Increasingly large doses barely fazed him. One professional trapper, hunting the monkey, wondered whether the monkey had become a "drug addict."

The monkey's origin is still unknown. Link -via Environmental Graffiti -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

Fallout Protection for Homes with Basements is a pamphlet produced by the US Department of Defense to help the average family deal with nuclear attack. The 1967 revision is available online for your edification and ...amusement, yes, because even during the dark days of the Cold War, most people knew that preparing a fallout shelter was akin to rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. However, this booklet has some handy tips for fortifying your basement, or improvising a shelter out of household items, as shown above. Link -Thanks, Steven Johnson!

1. At the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY, humans get less respect than their hoofed pals. Although 179 horses have been inducted there, only 91 jockeys have made the cut.

2. Being a jockey doesn't come with a great benefits package, either. All jockeys are self-employed, so they're responsible for their own business expenses, such as agent fees, travel costs, equipment, and some of the highest health insurance premiums in professional sports.

3. They also can't own the horses they ride, or pick the colors they wear. Instead, jockeys use the registered patterns that belong to whoever hired them.

4. Of course, there are some pluses. While most riders make $35,000 to $45,000 a year, the best earn upwards of $2 million in prize money.

5. Frank Hayes is the only deceased jockey to ever win a race. In 1923, the stable hand somehow convinced one of the owners to let him ride at Belmont Park. To everyone's amazement, he and the horse, Sweet Kiss, won. Unfortunately, Hayes didn't live to see it. He died mid-ride from a heart attack, though his body somehow stayed upright through the finish.

6. Hayes' victory was just as bittersweet for his horse. Sweet Kiss had to endure the nickname "Sweet Kiss of Death" for the rest of his life.

(Image credit: Flickr user Travis Isaacs)

7. Speaking of funny names, the odd position that jockeys lift themselves into while racing is called the Monkey Crouch. The stance was universally mocked when American jockey Tod Sloan first introduced it in 1897, but it ended up revolutionizing the sport. Not only did Sloan win a remarkable 48 percent of his races the following year, but according to a study published in Science, "horse-race times and records improved by 5 to 7 percent in 1900" as other riders began copying the position.

8. In horse racing, making weight is no joke. To compete in the Kentucky Derby, a jockey plus his equipment can only weigh 126 lbs. That means most weigh less than 118 lbs.

9. This results in some strange eating habits. In an effort to stay trim, Laffit Pincay, Jr., the world's winningest jockey, would take a single peanut, slice it into slivers, and eat just half of it for lunch.

10. This wasn't Pincay's only secret to success. He also used to speed-walk instead of run to void putting on any extra muscle. (It's a trick other riders still use.)

11. On the other hand, there's no height limit for jockeys. The tallest rider on record is former NBA player Manute Bol, who stands 7'7". He was licensed by the Indiana Horse Racing Commission to race in a charity event.

12. There are some pretty tall non-NBA riders, too. The next tallest jockey is Denmark's Louise Moeller. She's 6'1".

__________________________

The above article was written by Rob Lammle. It is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the July-August 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

I Write Like is a generator that proposes to analyze your writing and compare it to published authors. The above is the result I got when I entered some text from an article I wrote for mental_floss. However, the results do not tell me why my writing resembles James Joyce's prose. Then I entered another sample, this time from an article I wrote for Neatorama.




Again, no explanation for why the results are different. They might even be random. Grab a few paragraphs of your writing and try it out for yourself! Link -via The Daily What

Wayne Daniels delivered mail for the British Royal Mail service -until March, when it was discovered that he had dumped 420 letters instead of delivering them. The 25-year-old man pleaded guilty to theft and delaying the mail on Monday. Daniels' defense lawyer explained why he did it.

Fran Tyler, defending, said: “He suffers from dyslexia and he was struggling to read the addresses.

“He said it was an impulsive action born out of frustration and said it was a disgrace to himself and to the Royal Mail. He had not discussed the problem with colleagues because of a mixture of pride and embarrassment.”

Daniels was ordered to pay a fine and perform community service. Link -via Arbroath

(vimeo link)

Shannon immortalized his proposal to Jessica for eternity. Or at least until the wall is repainted. -via Buzzfeed