(via Fark)
Friday, October 16, 2026
An Owl Uses Sound to Hunt Under the Snow
If you're a rodent out in the forest, there's nothing more frightening than a hungry owl. They stare at you with those super predator eyes and glide in silently for the kill. Under a thick blanket of snow, however, they can't see you.
The great grey owl will find you anyway. These birds have superpowers, and they can hear voles moving underneath the snow. They have excellent hearing, and their whole face is designed to enhance that ability. We need special effects to detect what the owl can hear. They also use physics to fine-tune their attack on a fast-moving vole they cannot see. The owl's survival depends on it.
This nature sequence is from the CBC show The Nature of Things, from a series called Secret World of Sound. If you're interested, you can see how they got this amazing footage in a behind the scenes video explaining the acoustic camera. (via kottke)
The History of Domino's
The original title of this video is How Domino's Became #1 With Bad Pizza, but I'm not using that because many folks like Domino's pizza. I haven't eaten one in I don't know how long and besides, pizza is like sex. Anyway, Domino's is the number one pizza chain, and often it's the only name people can remember. Most of that is the work of Tom Monaghan, who founded Domino's in 1960 with his younger brother Jim. Success came from hard work, streamlining the restaurant's menu, delivery, and inventing of the pizza box. Name recognition came, too.
In the last 60 years, there have been many Domino's Pizza news stories that you will recall once you hear them again. Not all were detrimental to the company. but they all add up to a pizza place that everyone knows, even if they don't particularly care for the pizza.
Miss Cellania's Links
When Gilded Age New York City went to war against banana peels. (via Strange Company)
Legends Haunting Cemeteries. (Thanks, WTM!)
A Calvinesque and Hobbesian look at the midterms. The latest from Tom the Dancing Bug.
The Werewolf Trials That Predated the Salem Witch Trials By 200 Years.
R2D2 got teabagged at the Quebec Comiccon. An embarrassing episode.
The Zenith Balloon Tragedy of 1875. Like Icarus, they flew too high.
A Blast from the Past (2013): The Haunted Hospital.
Pumpkin Killing
Tennessee YouTube member hickok45 showed us how to carve a jack-o-lantern with a handgun (twice), and how to chop down a Christmas tree with a shotgun. Here, he presents the many different ways you can destroy a pumpkin after you're done with it. The chosen methods tend toward the violent, which is no surprise. Some men really do love their their power tools and weapons! But somehow I doubt if he expects you to emulate his skills with a light saber. His favorites are shown a second time in slow motion.
This is actually hickok45's fourth video in the Pumpkin Killing series. You can see more pumpkin mayhem in parts one, two, and three. (via Viral Viral Videos)
Zombies
I've been hanging out on the internet too long. I've read this discussion on so many websites that it doesn't even seem weird in context. That's why, of all the implausible things on The Walking Dead, the most implausible was the lack of discussion on the nature of zombies. This comic is from Alex Culang and Raynato Castro at Buttersafe.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Paid Vacation
You will not be surprised that that United States has no mandatory paid days off for workers. But you might be surprised that we are the ONLY nation with over a million people that does not mandate any paid days off for workers. Gig work doesn't have any paid time off at all. In radio, most stations I worked for gave you a week's vacation if you lasted a whole year. However, they always made you feel bad for taking it. And you had to work extra hours for anyone else who took one, so we paid for it during the year and management wasn't out any cash. The rest of the world doesn't expect everybody to work all the time forever.
Stop Wearing So Much Black
A cat notices that humans are wearing black all the time now. What has happened to make us give up color? The cat has several theories, none of them good. Is it a statement of rebellion? Camouflage against the dark times? Maybe it's ennui, nihilism, or just plain exhaustion. Salem knows a thing or two about wearing black, but he can't change that, and he doesn't look at himself in the mirror anyway. But while the cat notices everything, he also has hope for the human species.
Octopus Chases a Laser Light
The ROV (remotely operated vehicle) Hercules was down 323 meters (1059 feet) in the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary west of Hawaii, looking around for researchers aboard the EV Nautilus. A small octopus was just doing octopus things when the ROV's measurement lights became clear on the ocean floor. What did the octopus do? It chased the lights, just like a cat would chase a laser toy, much to the delight of the scientists watching it.
That's only the first two minutes of this video. There are other clips of small octopi looking for hidey holes and changing their colors. And as usual, the most delightful part of Nautilus' videos are the remarks from the researchers, who do this all the time and still find wonder in watching deep sea creatures in a their natural habitat. (via Metafilter)
If Driving Was Taught Like Sex Ed
The way we teach sex education in American schools is so weird that you can’t compare it to anything else, but if we did, it would be weird. Don’t do it, if you do it, don’t enjoy it, but don’t do it. (via Buzzfeed)
When All the Billionaires Exploded
Click to the right to see how this story plays out. I've always said that just being a millionaire is a sin, because hoarding more money than you can possibly use while some people don't have enough to live is the worst thing you can do. In this story we finally convince people that excessive wealth is not good for them personally.
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Mr. Sardonicus
In the 1961 Willian Castle gothic horror film Mr. Sardonicus, physician Sir Robert Cargrave is summoned by his ex-girlfriend Maude to a spooky eastern European castle to treat her new husband, Baron Sardonicus. The Baron suffers from a face paralyzed into an evil grin that interferes with eating and speaking -a result of his grave robbing incident. He rules his roost with cruelty, and Dr. Cargrave is drawn into his plans to cure his malady with experimental procedures because he's afraid of what may happen to Maude. (Thanks, WTM!)
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