The smallest countries of Oceania, spread across the Pacific, aren't rich, but some of them make a surprising amount of money by getting creative and looking to the future. Vanuatu makes a ton of money by selling citizenship. Tuvalu prospers by leasing its .tv internet domain. And Tonga was fortunate enough to be the retirement home of a satellite expert, who saw a fortune in the starry skies above his new homeland. There's money to be made in selling, or in this case renting, what you have plenty of. For Tonga, that was its isolation, which gave them a large swath of the empty space overhead. Half as Interesting explains how Tonga leveraged its location and international pacts about the use of space to make millions of dollars passively. What happened to the money is another story. This video is only around five minutes- the rest is advertising.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
How Tonga Made $100 Million Renting Space in Outer Space
Ebenezer
Oh look! It's July, and we have a trailer for a Christmas ghost story! The trailer says "The name you know, the story you don't." Hogwash. Everyone knows the story of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. There have been over a hundred movie and TV adaptations of it. Knowing the story doesn't keep us from watching it again and again. The 2026 version titled Ebenezer stars Johnny Depp in the title role, along with Rupert Grint as Bob Cratchit, Daisy Ridley as his wife, and Ian McKellen as Jacob Marley.
The trailer focuses on the star power of Depp and the many oddball characters he's played before. We can assume with this cast that the acting will be good. As far as I'm concerned, the success of Ebenezer will depend on how they portray the ghosts. Meanwhile, it is kind of nice to see scenes of falling snow while we swelter in the summer heat. Ebenezer opens on November 13th.
Cats Groovin' to the Oldies
The Two-Minute Wave
Pro surfer Koa Smith caught a wave off Namibia's Skeleton Bay that took him for a nearly a mile! He surfed a single wave for a distance of 1.5 kilometers for two minutes that took him through eight barrels. It was captured on video, both from a drone and from Smith's own GoPro POV. Both videos are mesmerizing.
My whole day surfing I try to InVision that one dream wave that I want to experience. I picture it clearly. What it will look like. How it will feel. The emotions pouring out of me when the wave is complete. Then this happen :)(via Laughing Squid)
Survival of the Fittest
A flying fish wins the Darwin award for bragging about years of evolution instead of generations of evolution. This is the latest from pleumier, a biologist who makes comics. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Friday, July 24, 2026
It's A Man's Man's Man's World
Did you know that James Brown performed this as a duet with Luciano Pavarotti? Yes they did, but not in the same language. (via Nag on the Lake)
An Increasingly Tiny Mailbox
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is an informal motto of the US Postal Service. However, mail carriers are not obligated to deliver your mail when you're obviously messing with them.
Vlog Creations, a YouTube channel dedicated to non-harmful pranks, invested in a long series of mailboxes of varying sizes and heights, and gradually installed smaller and smaller ones to see how long it took for the mail carrier to notice. Yeah, he noticed, but he's more amused than annoyed. Then it became a battle of wits to see how small they could make the box and still get their mail picked up and/or delivered. My mail carrier will never pick up outgoing mail unless he has some to deliver. This carrier put up with ridiculous challenges all the way through.
You can see a much longer video detailing this prank here.
Miss Cellania's Links
This Indian Maharaja Saved Hundreds of Polish Orphans During World War II, Offering Them Refuge When No One Else Would.
People are watching the Reflecting Pool like reality TV. It's a microcosm of the Trump administration, at the junction of corruption and incompetence. (via Fark)
The Legend of a Lost Roman Legion in China.
A Plane Crash Killed 92 People—And Exposed a Major Government Secret. (via Damn Interesting)
Castlemap is an interactive map of the world's great castles and fortresses. (via Metafilter)
‘We were at their mercy’: inside the Amazon tactics that hiked prices across the internet.
An ad for high heeled shoes. I bet they had to pour the blood out when she finally took them off.
Feds have a new teen pregnancy prevention plan: Fertility and ‘reproductive goals.’ (via Fark)
Duck Plays Fetch
How do you train a duck to play fetch? He must enjoy it. The real question is, can he play Duck, Duck, Goose? (via Blame It On The Voices)
Thursday, July 23, 2026
The First Guy To Ever Be In Witness Protection
Authorities explain to Ryan George how he'll be protected by becoming someone else. The jokes are pretty rapid-fire here, so pay attention.
New X-Files LEGO Set
Watching someone open a box has never been my cup of tea, but what's inside this one is pretty cool. Gillian Anderson comes out of retirement to portray FBI Special Agent Dana Scully confronting a mysterious delivery. Inside is the new 1,478-piece LEGO set depicting The X-Files TV series! It was submitted to LEGO Ideas by Brent Waller of Brisbane as part of the LEGO Ideas ’90s Nostalgia Challenge. It has Fox Mulder’s office on the bottom, topped by an eerie forest scene, over which a UFO is hovering. It includes eight minifigs, both human and alien.
Kids won't be all that excited about this theme, since the show ran from 1993 to 2002. But adult fans will want to check out the set, and read more about its features here. (via Laughing Squid)
