(via Bad Newspaper)
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
The Ballad of Holland Island House
Holland Island sits in Chesapeake Bay, near Wenona, Maryland. The five-mile-long island was settled in the 1600s, and at one time had a population of 360 people and 70 buildings. Erosion ate away at the island, which sat on silt and clay, and the residents moved away between 1914 and 1918. The island’s church was moved in 1922, and only one house remained standing. It was built in 1888. For decades, the water ate away at the island, and the last remaining house finally collapsed in October of 2010. What’s left of the island is now a marsh, home to hundreds of sea birds. See pictures of the island and the house -and the cemetery- at the Baltimore Sun.
The Ballad of Holland Island House is a song and video by Lynn Tomlinson, with music written by Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle. The animation was done by manipulating a thin layer of oil-based clay. It tells the story of the house, from its beginnings as a home for woodland creatures as a tree, then generations of people, then birds, and finally fish. (via io9)
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Don Draper is no antihero. After seven years, Mad Men’s main character seems less epic and more mundane than ever.
The Oncoming Medical Disaster. The cost of living longer is dealing with more Alzheimer’s cases than we can handle.
8 things you should know if you want to be famous on Instagram. It sounds more exhausting than fulfilling, but whatever floats your boat.
37 Absurd Kitchen Gadgets You Definitely Need In Your Life. They only do one very specific thing, but they might do it well.
An abandoned Viking village in Iceland is not exactly historic, but a film set. The movie was never made, but you can tour the village for a small fee.
5 Theories About Why We Dye Eggs for Easter. Personally, I think we should dye curtains and cats and cakes as well.
James Krupa teaches evolution for non-biology majors at the University of Kentucky. This is more difficult than you might expect. (via Boing Boing)
Fixed Menu. Prison food in the 21st century. (via Metafilter)
21 Dogs Who Made Poor Life Choices. (via mental_floss)
Monday, March 30, 2015
John Oliver on April Fool’s Day
Nothing all that in-depth this week, because the HBO Last Week Tonight wasn’t even aired. In a nutshell, Oliver doesn’t much like April Fool’s Day. (via Uproxx)
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Redditor mopecore eloquently tells us what it was like to fight in Iraq. (via b3ta)
The World's Fair That Raised San Francisco From the Ashes.
In a country where all the animals are trying to kill you, the Gympie Gympie is a plant that just wants to make you wish you were dead. (via Metafilter)
Ten Weird And Wonderful Toys From Japan.
These Volunteer Toad Crossing Guards Help Nature Thrive In Philadelphia. The job is like hacking a game of Frogger.
31 Of The Weirdest Foods In America. You might laugh at these one at a time, but together they make it look insane.
How Matchmakers Work. You might be surprised at how many professionals there are in America.
10 of the Weirdest Dance Fads. Basically, the dance can be anything as long as the song is catchy.
10 Extreme Easter Eggs. Some you even have time to try yourself.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Alexandria Public Access TV
This won’t make a bit of sense unless you are current on the TV series The Walking Dead. If you are, it’s pretty funny. I also have a feeling this will be completely obsolete after tonight’s episode. (Thanks, Chaco Daniel!)
The Walking Dead as Zombieland
If The WalkingDead were a comedy, it would be the 2009 film Zombieland. This mashup trailer tries to make that a reality, although they had to look really hard to find a few smiles and quasi-lighthearted moments from five years of The Walking Dead clips. Contains lots of gore. (via Uproxx)
The season five finale of The Walking Dead is tonight. The death watch poll is still open for your votes and opinions.
The Worlds First Drone Sheepdog
Paul Brennan is a sheep farmer in Carlow, Ireland. He has embraced modern techniques for managing an old profession. Instead of a sheepdog, Brennan uses a quadcopter named Shep (of course) to herd his sheep! You can see it works rather well. Bonus: music. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Passover Funk
We’ve already heard Six13’s Passover parody of “Uptown Funk,” but Aish has one, too. With breakdancing! Passover begins this coming Friday. (via Metafilter)
Sorry Babe, You're a Feminist
Comedian Katie Goodman http://www.katiegoodman.com/ sings about celebrities who say they aren’t feminists. They don’t know what the word really means. Contains one NSFW word. (via Buzzfeed)
Arguing with a Husky
He says, “So my husky stole my dad's potato skin off his plate. This was the ensuing argument.” Both Dads and Huskys are extremely verbal, so many words flew back and forth. Redditor kurtu5 offered a handy translation:
Human - Bad dog! Bad dog!However, the dog was eventually resigned to the fact that he will never outtalk Dad. But hey, he got a potato skin!
Dog - Our species decided to work together 10,000 years ago to help each other to survive! We used to share the hunt!
Human - Bad dog! Bad dog!
Dog - All you give me is boring dry food! Taste is enhanced by smell and my nose is 1,000 times more sensitive than yours! My food is so damn boring!
Human - Bad dog! Bad dog!
Dog - What do you expect? This is torture! I can't stand my dry food anymore. I love you so much and I want to eat with you!
Friday, March 27, 2015
100 Years of Fitness in 100 Seconds
The way women have tried to stay fit sure has changed in the last 100 years. One thing you must remember is that the first couple of decades in this video were the days that women spent a huge amount of time carrying buckets of water from the well to the house, washing diapers by hand, and hauling firewood or coal for the heating stove. They deserved a good stretch! Later, when modern appliances and office jobs replaced household drudgery, we had to get more serious about fitness. The video was made by Benenden health to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary. (via Buzzfeed)
An Embarrassing Moment at a Press Conference
Nigel Hayes of the Wisconsin Badgers is a 6’7” elite basketball player, but you have to remember that he’s also a 20-year-old college student. During a press conference last week, he had a little fun with the stenographers that record everything for press releases, throwing out this quote:
“Before I answer that question, I would like to say a few words: cattywampus, onomatopoeia and antidisestablishmentarianism. (Laughs).”During another press conference a couple of days later, Hayes was given an opportunity to repeat that stunt for the stenographers. He chose the word “syzygy,” but was also impressed with Debra Bollman’s appearance. And just like a 20-year-old college student, he remarked about it to his teammate while forgetting the microphone was hot. And then became quite embarrassed. His adorable reaction makes the whole sequence golden. Another thing you might learn in college besides big words: Pride goeth before a fall. (via reddit)
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The Scene of the Crime: A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past.
Graphic designer Ben Harmon created a new font that integrates the worst features of the worst fonts: Comic Sans and Papyrus. Behold, Comic Papyrus!
10 Silly Inventions That Became Wildly Famous. If it’s good for a laugh, it’s worth $19.99.
29 Reasons Why Queensland Cops Are The Funniest Cops. They have the best Facebook account of any government agency anywhere.
11 Facts That Prove Seahorses Are Among The Most Fascinating Fish In The Sea. They have all kinds of strange talents, but still can’t swim worth a darn.
The Lasting Power Of End-Of-The-World Stories. It’s a chance to shed the mundane and focus on the important.
10 Groundbreaking Documentary Exposés of Closed, Secret Worlds. The new film on Scientology is another in a line of opportunities to peek inside places you don’t know.
A woman is suing a psychiatric ward after claiming she was diagnosed as being delusional because she told doctors Obama follows her on Twitter. Twist: he does.
6 Easter Traditions You Might Not Know. But you can try them out if you want to.
Brain Surgery
This skit from the BBC series That Mitchell & Webb Look came up in a discussion about potential presidential candidate Ban Carson.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Peeps in Space!
Every year when marshmallow Peeps go on sale in the Easter candy aisle, people let their imaginations run wild with them. Chicks and bunnies end up re-enacting famous scenes from TV, movies, art, literature, and history in dioramas. They go to public competitions and win prizes, and make us all smile. Some of them even go into space! Here’s a roundup of some of the ways Peeps participate in space exploration that I posted at mental_floss.
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A 250-year-old “treaty oak” in Jacksonville, Florida, was saved from destruction in the 1930s because of its history. Never mind that that history was just made up.
A 1917 newspaper headline called her “The Richest Negro Girl in the World.” Sarah Rector’s land allotment was small and rocky, no good for agriculture, so her father leased it to an oil company.
Sailed: A Dating App For Thirty-Somethings. Because if you haven’t found the perfect match by age 30, you’re a weirdo loser who will never find anyone to love you.
What you need to know about Angelina Jolie’s latest surgery. Preventing cancer can be a complex and deeply personal decision, no matter who you are.
What the English of Shakespeare, Beowulf, and King Arthur actually sounded like. You might not recognize it as English at all.
Sex and Suffering: The Tragic Life of the Courtesan in Japan's Floating World.
The real lesson of the Rolling Stone rape article fiasco.
The Berkeley Spampocalypse.
Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant.
8-Bit Cinema: The Walking Dead Seasons 3 & 4
8-Bit Cinema gave us their version of The Walking Dead seasons one and two already, and now we have seasons three and four in the second half of the project. (Thanks, Daniel Portolan!)
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Hedgehog in the Fog
Yozhik v tumane, or Hedgehog in the Fog is an award-winning Soviet cartoon from 1975. (via Metafilter)
Walt Disney Pictures Intro Logos
Since 1985, the Walt Disney Pictures logo that begins their movies always features a castle with a shooting star arching over it. It was the same logo for ten years, and then for Toy Story in 1995, they altered it a bit for that particular movie. In the 20 years since then, the logo has been customized for most of the movies (the Toy Story version became their default for Pixar films), while keeping the two basic elements. This video shows us the logos in front of 39 Disney films, and how they mesh with their subject matter. I also found out that there are a ton of Disney films I haven’t seen. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
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Is A Confederate Flag License Plate Free Speech? More specifically, is a state obliged to issue a specialty plate it doesn’t want to?
Spa Lady Cheese Ball. (via Boing Boing)
Exonerated And Out Of Prison—And That’s When The Trouble Starts.
21 Creepy Easter Bunny Photos That Will Haunt Your Dreams. Who was it that decided a fictional rabbit should be six feet tall and scary?
Can You Get Through This Post Without Calling Your Parents?
These Moving Photos Capture The Beauty Of Special Needs Cats. Photographer Josh Norem makes them look their best so they may be adopted into forever homes.
Why Tim Burton's Batman 3 Never Happened. Hint: it has to do with Happy Meals.
Waxing Moronic: 10 Wrong Facts From Song Lyrics. I immediately thought of three examples, and they’re all there.
Why it's naive to expect corporations to be nice to their workers. There’s no profit in that!
9 Strange and Different Easter Treats
Eggs go on sale the week before Easter, so you may as well stock up and do something with those little protein-packed symbols of spring. Not all of the recipes in a list I posted at mental_floss contain eggs, but they are all creative new ideas for spicing up your Easter feast, party, or holiday snacking. And save some for me!
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
An Honest Trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Screen Junkies gave us Honest Trailers for The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug, and now finally, the Hobbit Trilogy finishes up with the Honest Trailer for The Battle of the Five Armies. Whew -it’s about time! (via Tastefully Offensive)
Car Crushed by Falling Safe
Looks like Wile E. Coyote has been up to his old tricks again! Who else
would drop a vintage safe from some height right onto a parked car?
You’d be forgiven if you thought this must be an art installation, and
you’d be right, too. It’s a promotional gimmick on the streets of Limerick, Ireland, for Grandmother’s Giant Journey, a performance that is part of the Giant Saga by the French art company Royal de Luxe (previously
at Neatorama). Grandmother will arrive in Limerick September 5th to
stay through the 7th. Well, according to the legend, she will actually
fall from the sky, but I wouldn't worry about any cars being crushed -at
least none accidentally. (via reddit)
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The 10 most beautiful cars money can buy. The list is a little heavy on Batman-style sports cars, but that’s okay.
The Ghoulish Dance of Papua New Guinea’s Skeleton People. The Chimbu tribe’s fearsome body paint is meant to intimidate enemies and impress strangers.
We got it all on UHF: An oral history of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s cult classic. If you’ve never seen the movie, this may inspire you to give it a try.
10 Films Featuring Fantastic Female-Led Casts. They all have a realism underneath that men’s fantasies can’t touch.
It’s a story told in notes taped to the office refrigerator. The turkey and swiss sandwich is missing, and the thief is holding it hostage. (via mental_floss)
Manual Labor, All Night Long: The Reality of Paying for College. (via Digg)
A classic: Alien vs. Pooh. (via b3ta) http://www.b3ta.com/
What 37 Famous Stories Would Be Titled by Modern Websites. (via Neatorama)
Can You Identify 15 Species of Big Cats and Wild Cats? (via the Presurfer)
Awful Robots
Some of them are sinful or evil, but most of these robots are just plain incompetent. You seen them before, but all together they will make you laugh again! (via b3ta)
Monday, March 23, 2015
Before They Were Famous: The Walking Dead
Where did all the principles in The Walking Dead come from? Either Britain or The Wire. Or someplace else. Screen Junkies gives us a peek at their earlier roles. (via Uproxx)
Color for the Colorblind
EnChroma, Inc. worked for ten years to develop lenses that enable colorblind people to distinguish more colors than they ever have before. Those glasses went on the market a couple of years ago, and are available to the public for $350-$400. Of course, affected people have varying levels of colorblindness and the enhancement from the glasses varies among them.
As part of their Color for All campaign, Valspar Paint invited a few colorblind people to try the glasses out and got their reactions to seeing vivid colors for the first time. It was quite emotional for them, and yes, they got to keep the glasses. Valspar also offered them to some commenters at YouTube who shared their stories. (via Viral Viral Videos)
The Business of Municiple Violations
Jon Oliver tells it like it is, from last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight. Contains NSFW language. (via Uproxx)
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Jeff Minetti of Philadelphia is getting married, but first, there’s the bachelor party. Joey DiJulio of Seattle was invited, although he has never met Jeff or any of his friends -he just got put into the email loop by mistake. (via The Chive) http://thechive.com/
A deaf man who doesn’t know English was jailed for six weeks without an interpreter for stealing an iPad that was found fairly quickly. Sorry, it’s too late to take back your plea bargain. (via Fark)
15 Jokes That Only Geologists Will Fully Understand. As the daughter of a geologist, I can assure you they’re not that difficult.
What’s the difference between Ferguson and Bengazi? The way Fox News covered it.
23 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Mad Men, According To The Cast And Creator. With only seven episodes left, it’s time learn all we can about the series.
Neil Gaiman’s 11 geekiest cameo appearances. He’s always ready to play himself, so people who don’t even read his books known him.
Want to Get to Know Someone? Make 'em Laugh. Laughter makes people more open to sharing details about themselves.
10 Diseases That Used to Be Death Sentences. Some are now rare, and others can be survived thanks to modern medical intervention.
10 Small TV Towns with Dark Secrets. Just like real life small towns, where the living is cheap and the neighbors are weird.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Kitten Discovers the Ceiling Fan
Wampa the kitten sees a ceiling fan in action for the first time. He’s fascinated! Should he attack it? Or should he just keep an eye on it? (via Tastefully Offensive)
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Batman Chapter One: The Electrical Brain
This is the first episode of the 1943 serial based on the comic book character Batman. “They represent the American youth who love their country and are glad to fight for it.” Yeah, it’s wartime propaganda, and as such it contains some offensive wartime racial terms. Other episodes are available at YouTube. (via mental_floss)
Friday, March 20, 2015
Falling Reporters
On-the-spot news reporters are always close to the action, and therein lies danger. Every once in a while, a reporter slips or gets knocked down live on air. Once we find out they are not seriously injured, it’s funny because the embarrassment is so public, Then, we you put all those clips together, we see news reporters as an endangered species because of their clumsiness and proximity to calamity. (via Tastefully Offensive)
Introducing Friends to Aerobatics
Aerobatic pilot Sebb Stratta takes full advantage of his job by sharing it with his friends. Want to go for a plane ride? Get ready for spins, loops, and strangely-moving horizons! Plus, he has a dash cam ready to catch their reactions. It’s a thrill they will remember fondly -after they are safely on the ground. (via Viral Viral Videos)
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One doctor overwintering in Antarctica is responsible for the health of around 150 people, 2800 miles away from the nearest hospital, with no transportation available for months at a time. Combine that with the danger of freezing, and you have a rather stressful job.
Why men interrupt women.
A doctor, and then an engineer, tell us what happens in the Emergency Room, to accompany a photo from an EMT. Bring your hanky.
What are your chances of going to prison? A lot higher now than in the past, especially if you are black. (via Digg)
10 Perfect Songs to Greet the Spring. With videos you’ll want to sing along with.
Matt Stopera of Buzzfeed became an accidental internet celebrity in China. A story about his stolen phone became a social media manhunt that paid off big time.
No Punctuation Is Funnier. Twitter, with its character limit, is shaping the way we punctuate our language -or actually, the way we don’t.
800 Years of the Magna Carta
The Magna Carta turns 800 years old this summer. The British Library thinks we should all learn a little more about that document on this auspicious occasion. That’s why they’ve given us two beautifully illustrated videos on it, narrated by Terry Jones of Monty Python. The Magna Carta itself didn’t change life much for everyday people, but it started England -and the world- on the path from absolute monarchy to the rule of law. It eventually led to the idea and the ideal of democracy. The second video in the series explains how that happened.
Learn more about the Magna Carta at the British Library. (via Digg)
Thursday, March 19, 2015
The Art of the Boulder Scene
The character Indiana Jones was first introduced to us as he was looting a sacred cave and ends up having to run for his life. That told us the basics about the character in an almost-wordless sequence while we were being entertained at the same time. Cinefix gives us an inside look at the scene’s background and how the soundtrack, cinematography, production design and special effects all meshed perfectly to create the scene we all know and love that opens the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Thanks, Daniel Portolan!)
10 Other March Madness Tournaments 2015 (part two)
Tuesday, I had a roundup of March Madness tournaments that you can participate in online, that have nothing to do with basketball. There are quite a few more that might be right up your alley. You can be a part of crowning a new king, queen, or thing through bracket elimination! See ten of them, plus bonus links, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
The Love You Save
The Jacksons had their own TV variety show in 1976-77, and this performance of "The Love You Save" is from one of those episodes. Michael would be about 17 or 18 (he was only a month older than me), and you can see him dance rings around his brothers here, despite the fact that every step is perfectly choreographed. Yeah, I know I posted this same performance before, but it keeps disappearing on me. Bonus: "I'll Be There."
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Even a Mars One finalist thinks the mission is deeply flawed. Selecting mission participants shouldn’t be the first step, and where is the money coming from, anyway?
A cave in Belize has earned the name The Midnight Terror Cave in Belize when it was discovered to contain many thousands of human bones of children not local to the area. Could it be a case of human trafficking in order to supply sacrifices to the gods for rain?
The Science of Near-Death Experiences.
I made some fake self-help books and left them at the local bookstore.
Why Workers Won’t Unite.
Trinkaus: Another Informal Look.
A Family of bobcats moved in and took over a historic building at Fort Griffin State Historic Site in Texas. So they set up a camera to record them.
A single mom finds out what a boner is.
The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous. Many other therapies have a better track record.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
How To Become Gluten Intolerant
Gluten intolerance is a real medical condition that’s fairly rare and a real hassle for those who suffer from it. However, it’s become the latest fad self-diagnosis that so many people have jumped on that even real sufferers have become suspect -like autism or ADHD. If you want to contribute to this problem, JP tells you exactly how to do it. (via Viral Viral Videos)
8-Bit Cinema Presents The Walking Dead
If the AMC series The Walking Dead were a retro arcade game instead of a TV series, it would look like this. You’d spend your time shooting zombies, or driving them over with a vehicle, hooting people, or running, instead of getting to know people who are going to stab you in the back or do something incredibly stupid anyway. In this version, there are no poor parenting decisions, adultery, or laundry. In other words, no Lori. In case you’re avoiding spoilers, this sequence only covers seasons one and two. (via Uproxx)
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Muhammad Ali Explains His Greatness
If you are only familiar with Muhammad Ali in his later years, suffering the effects of Parkinson’s, here’s a reminder of what a silver-tongued self-promoter he was in his prime. In this press conference at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1974, a few months prior to his world championship fight with George Foreman, Ali explains how good he is, in terms that can only be described as poetry.
I have wrestled with an alligator(via reddit)
I done tussled with a whale
I done handcuffed lightning
Throwed thunder in jail
11 Other March Madness Tournaments 2015 (part one)
Everyone is getting into the spirit of the NCAA March Madness tournament- even people who don’t care at all about basketball. That’s because it’s not just basketball. There’s a tournament and a bracket for every subject under the sun this month, and you can participate in one that reflects your interests. Here are eleven of those online tournaments going on now, in a list I posted at mental_floss.
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A Girl, A Shoe, A Prince: The Endlessly Evolving Cinderella.
ISIS and Iconoclasm: The History of the Museum Smash.
Why are Calico Cats Almost Always Female?
The Eurasian lynx was a part of the British forest ecosystem until about a thousand years ago. Conservationists at Lynx UK Trust plan to ship lynx from Eastern Europe to preserves in England and Scotland. (via Digg)
Twenty years ago, the Smithsonian Institution received a donation of a wheelchair. The article is nominally about the wheelchair, but it’s really a tribute to Ed Roberts, an early leader in the disability rights movement who was called “the father of independent living.”
15 Jokes That Only Biologists Will Fully Understand. That’s not quite true; you don’t have to be a biologist to understand them, you just need to know some basic biology terms.
Brawl through the fourth wall: 11 tips for surviving a movie bar fight. In the real world, it’s best to just run.
Tobacco kills, but it’s not the plant’s fault. With a little genetic modification, it may end up saving lives by producing disease-specific antibodies.
15 Delightful Facts About Saint Patrick’s Day. May you have a very Éirinn go Brách day!
Monday, March 16, 2015
Daryl’s New Bike
With all that’s going on in The Walking Dead, no one is thinking about the motorcycle. But it already has its own history and video. And, unlike Buttons, you won’t cry if and when it dies. -via Uproxx
The Sad Life of an NCAA Athlete
Everyone is making money on NCAA basketball …except the players who make it happen. John Oliver tells it like it is in yesterday’s episode of Last Week Tonight. NSFW language.
The Brother Mike Tapes: 1985
Mike Cohen shares a snippet of life with his parents from thirty years ago. He recorded his father nagging him about the state of his room. Now a friend of his has animated the sequence, and it will resonate with anyone who was ever twelve years old. (via Digg)
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I am Ben Lesser, author and survivor of concentration camps in the Holocaust. AMA. You may find it easier to read only Mr. Lesser’s answers. (via Metafilter)
Who Was Saint Patrick?
Win a Historic Inn in Maine by Writing an Essay. (via mental_floss)
How would you convince a woman that the baby was hers? With a totally ridiculous scenario.
The Haunting Stories Behind 10 Abandoned Lighthouses. They include shipwrecks, murder, prisoners of war, plane crashes, suicide, natural disasters, ghosts, and men driven mad by loneliness.
How to Survive the College Admissions Madness.
The top 50 science stars of Twitter. (via Cliff Pickover)
10 Fascinating and Fabulous Cultural Eccentrics. We are lucky that they were more entertaining than dangerous.
The Most Remarkable Globe in The World Is in a Brooklyn Office Building. The Fliers and Explorers Globe is has the routes of famous explorers and aviators -and their signatures, too!
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