Winners of the 2026 Ocean Photographer of the Year Contest. https://www.popsci.com/environment/ocean-photographer-of-the-year-2026-winners/ (via Damn Interesting)
Ouija board is parlor game, albeit one with no rules, strategy, or goal. What it does have is whiff of the supernatural, which is enough to make it a long-lasting hit. Vox brings us the history of the Ouija board, as part of its series called "Overrated." (via Tastefully Offensive)
The US and Britain have been described as two nations forever divided by a common language. It's a quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but never confirmed. Americans can sometimes get confused by British terms, and vice versa. When that happens, the best thing to do is note the accent, if spoken, or check the spelling in text. Whether some words ends in "or" or "our" will tell whether the source is in British English or American English.
Laurence Brown defines some words that are opposites in the two languages, like "public school." And some that are not quite opposites, but mean something very different, like "pants." And also "nonplussed," a word in which the meaning has drifted through incorrect usage. In any event, 'nonplussed" should always be avoided, because no one knows what it really means, and those who think they do invariably use it incorrectly. There's a 30-second skippable ad at 2:24.
If you ever had a soft spot for a spider named Charlotte, then you'll fall in love with a jumping spider named Violet. She's really cute, once you get over how hairy she is, and those eight eyes. Only two of them are big enough to be noticeable and they look at you with love. Claudia Araceli Reichard is an artist who makes miniatures. She's very allergic to cats and dogs, and she's afraid of spiders. Or was, until she met Violet. At a car wash. She took Violet home, and bonded with her. You might wonder how you know a spider bonds with a human, so watch how Violet follows Claudia around. Now Claudia had someone who could enjoy her miniature rooms and settings! (via Laughing Squid)
Some people manage to navigate in unfamiliar areas just fine, while others can get lost walking home from school. We used to be able to tell those people apart, until everyone became so reliant on GPS to do the navigating for us. When my daughters started driving through big cities, I told them not to panic when they realize they are in the wrong lane; just go with it. It's better to be lost than to crash, and they needed to learn how to get un-lost anyway. That's what my parents told me, too.
Science has determined where in the brain our navigation skills lie, and we've learned that part of our talents in that area are genetic. Still, we can get better at wayfinding by learning, observation, and practice. It's a pity that so many people have outsourced that task and no longer practice finding their way around without GPS. I can see a time in the near future when these same people outsource all their critical thinking to AI and lose that ability, too.
Sixty-three years ago today, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killed four young girls: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, and 11-year-old Denise McNair. Another 22 people were injured. It was the 41st bombing in the city in only 16 years. Four Ku Klux Klan membered were responsible, but it took years for any of them to be prosecuted, and one died before ever facing justice.
Even after the absurdity was added, you thought this was going to turn out to be a tragedy, didn't you? There is still some good in this world. This comic is from Rustled Jimmies. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Long distance travel these days can be pretty onerous, with intrusive security checks, unruly passengers, and boring layovers. But that's nothing compared to the way things were 400 years ago. When the Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower in England in 1620 headed for Virginia, they knew it would be a difficult trip. But it was even harder than they imagined.
First, the Mayflower was dangerously overcrowded, since the journey was planned for two ships. Also, the Mayflower was a cargo ship, not designed for passengers plus their livestock and all their worldly goods. It was not designed for intercontinental travel, either. The food was bad and illness followed. After 66 days at sea, the Mayflower landed- in the wrong place. It was good to be on dry land, but you know things got even worse from there for the Pilgrims.
Why Does Canada’s Capital City of Ottawa Have a Street Named After President Donald Trump? https://brilliantmaps.com/trump-ottawa/ (via Nag on the Lake)
Readers have been enjoying the short stories and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe for almost 200 years. What makes his literature so relatable over time? Scott Peeples dives into that question in this TED-Ed lesson. (via Boing Boing)
When I first saw a power line with a giant red ball in the middle, I thought it might be a prank. But then I saw more of them, and asked my father what they were for. He, being like Calvin's dad, made something up on the spot. "That's in case the wire falls, so they can find them." Not all the wires had them, so I took that answer to mean he didn't know. I was used to Dad's shenanigans by then.
So today we get the real answer. The YouTube account Simple Things - Surprising Histories had a minute-long intro, so I was afraid we'd have to watch the whole thing to get the answer, but the narrator gets right to the point after that. These are called aerial marker balls. Then he tells the story of how those balls came about in the first place. They aren't as old as I had thought. (via Laughing Squid)
I believe Matt Mitchell has been to Cracker Barrel a few times. If there's a Cracker Barrel near you, you already know most of these rules, but he expands on them for your entertainment.
My church congregation never goes to Cracker Barrel on Sunday because of the crowd. But if we get together for a birthday lunch on a weekday, fine. Yes, I always get breakfast. Everyone knows that their gift shop is way overpriced because they cater to wealthy retired women on vacation who will buy anything for their grandchildren. But because I know this, I shop there for Christmas gifts that my circle won't see at Walmart. They have weird things that will appeal to a giftee's idiosyncrasies -and pralines. The golf tee game is still there, but you always have to grab some tees from an empty table because yours is missing a few. I didn't know about the stars on the server's aprons, possibly because no employee stays a year at my local restaurant, but that was the only thing that was new to me.
If you live on the internet, it stands to reasons that you eat at your computer. Surely, there's some way you can nosh a few inches away from you desk and still reach the keyboard when you really need to! I know you use the mouse a lot more than the keyboard. But if you can't manage that, you should shake the crumbs out a little more often. This comic is from Julian at Pretends to be Drawing. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
The 1952 gothic horror film The Black Castle features Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr. The story is not all that supernatural, but is full of evil people in a murderous plot set against the background of the horrors of colonial Africa. It earned great reviews for a B-movie, and in some ways is more chilling than atomic monsters and aliens. (Thanks, WTM!)
Harry Truman had a hard time as the 33rd president of the US. He tried to enact a lot of reforms, but was opposed by a Republican congress for most of them. He had to use an executive order to desegregate the military. Truman had an easier way internationally, as he oversaw the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II and initiated the Berlin Airlift. He was instrumental in the founding of NATO. But he will always be known as the president who deployed the first and only two nuclear bombs as weapons. Sure, it ended World War II, but it also ushered in the nuclear age and a 40-year Cold War. Oh yeah, and there was the Korean War. This quote is from 1952.
In 2026, when anyone brings up socialism, I have to tell them it's a meaningless word now (like "woke"), since everyone has their own definition and you can't change their minds. Yeah, I'm surrounded by conservatives.
Somewhere, probably packed away with my college work, is a picture of me atop the original 1 World Trade Center in 1979. It was once the tallest building in the world, for about a year until the Sears Tower was completed. I returned to that site in 2006, when there was still plenty of rubble, five years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. St. Paul's Chapel across the street was still displaying the tributes and memorials sent in from all over the world. Returning in 2008, most of the rubble was gone, and the site was a very large hole.
But since then, the World Trade Center is being reborn. The original seven buildings have been replaced by four skyscrapers (to eventually become six) plus a memorial fountain, a museum, a church, a performing arts center, and a transportation terminal. The new One World Trade Center skyscraper opened in 2013, but construction on the rest of the complex is ongoing. In this time lapse video, you'll see the progress through 2026.
Akeno the greater one-horned rhino was born at the Chester Zoo in England. He's reached the age where he's full of energy and wants to play all the time! That means even when his mother is exhausted and just wants to rest. It's the same for moms of many species. (via Laughing Squid)
Sure, she's seen horses before. She's also been on road trips, and she knows how it's supposed to be done. This comic is from Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble.
I've been posting videos of comedian Zach Anner since he first went viral in 2010. Today I found out that Anner got married this past June, to Karlee Currin. The wedding pictures are here, here, and here. In this video, they relate the story of their first date, in which Anner says the worst thing anyone can say on a first date. Lucky for both of them, it didn't spoil their future together.
Of the four airliners hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93 was the one that was delayed, so that the passengers became aware of what was going on that day. They knew the plane was doomed to crash into another target. The passengers stormed the cockpit and caused the plane to crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, instead of the target, which some involved claimed to have been the US Capitol Building. All 44 passengers and crew, plus the hijackers, died that day. But the Air National Guard was on the way to do the same thing. Heather “Lucky” Penney piloted one of those aircraft that day. Since her jet was unarmed, she would have to crash into the airliner. Penney was ready to die, but didn't, and has spent the last 25 years working to make sure that an event like that never happens again.
Here's a 9/11 story you may not be familiar with, or might have forgotten. Tens of thousands of people were pouring out of the World Trade Center and nearby buildings, and they were stuck in Manhattan. Businesses shut down. The bridges and subways were closed. That's when the boat operators on all sides of the city converged to get people away from the site. They took half a million people away from the disaster site in about nine hours. (via Nag on the Lake)
It was 25 years ago that four hijacked planes attacked the US. Two of them slammed into the World Trade Center skyscrapers, causing their collapse. A third crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane was delayed long enough for the passengers to learn what was going on, and they attacked the hijackers and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The death toll was 2,977 people. I won't ever forget that day.
I worked the afternoon shift back then. In the morning, I went down to the DMV to renew my driver's license. The clerk asked about my daughters, ages three and four, and suggested I bring them in to get a "bicycle license." I'd never heard of such a thing, but said I would do that. They and my husband were up when I got home, so we all went back downtown. As we were headed out the door, a friend called and said to turn on the TV. We didn't, but turned on the car radio. The morning DJ at my station was talking about "some idiot" who had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. He obviously was under the impression then that it was a small plane, which had happened before. But when we got to the DMV, everyone was huddled around a TV set, and it became clear this was something much bigger. Still, the clerk took my kids' pictures and made bicycle licenses, which have no information beyond their pictures, but are laminated and important-looking.
On the back, she jotted down the date before laminating them.
Back home, we were glued to the TV, and I cried. I know now that for my daughters, it was like the day President Kennedy was shot when I was five years old. They knew it was important and awful, but didn't understand much more than that. We saw the second crash and when the buildings collapsed. Yeah, I should have sent to kids out of the room, but I couldn't anticipate when another tragedy would be shown live, and they didn't want to be alone anyway.
When I got to work, we were in emergency mode. No music, no ads, just the live network news feed, for about a week afterward. A few days in, the office informed me that we had to make up all the ads we missed, so I would run 15 minutes of ads and 15 minutes of news until we caught up. No matter- by then, no one was listening anyway. The station owner bought the biggest American flag I'd ever seen (outside of the Smithsonian) and hung it over the front of the two-story building. For months afterward, we couldn't even check the weather outside the studio window. And they hung it wrong, with the blue field on the upper right. I mentioned it, but they said it was too much trouble to change it.
What are your personal memories of that awful day 25 years ago?
What American Newspaper Front Pages Looked Like on September 12, 2001.
Redditors explain what the world was like before 9/11, and what has changed.
Manitoba Has an Ambitious Plan to End Homelessness. Wab Kinew’s approach involves moving thousands of unhoused people into permanent homes. (via Metafilter)
As we observe the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it's natural to take a look at what has changed on the years since. Those horrific moments when we all watched the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapse live on TV were particularly scarring. You have to wonder how safe such tall buildings really are, as those towers were a model of safe architecture in their day. It might be reassuring to know that we've come a long way in both design and materials since the World Trade Center was designed in the 1960s, and especially in the past 25 years since they fell. (via Digg)
They really are just openly trying to buy votes now. Trump says every adult American will get a $5,000 “Trump dividend”, but only if Republicans win both the House and Senate in November.
Trump promised $5,000 stimulus checks from DOGE cuts. You got 0.
Trump promised $2,000 stimulus checks from tariffs. You got 0.
Trump promised $1,000 checks from Obamacare cuts. You got 0.
Trump promised $1.98 gas. You got $4+.
Trump now has more promises for you.
As we observe the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we must remember that each of the 2,977 people who died had a life and a story.
Betty Ong was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, and was the first person to alert anyone about the hijackings. She stayed calm and focused during the emergency, and left a lasting legacy.
When you think of tin, you probably think of midcentury toys or canned food. But in the hands of skilled craftspeople, it can become a work of art. (via Metafilter)
One vignette after another of surreal body horror rendered in simple and colorful animation. Well, maybe horror is too strong of a word, since there's no realism and little gore, despite plenty of heads exploding. There's also honestly very little meaning behind most of them, although I do like the image of exercising your fingers by scrolling on your phone as if they were walking on a treadmill. Many of these sequences build tension due to what you think will happen, when sometimes it's a surprise left turn, and often nothing happens at all. Lumps is the internet pseudonym of animator Sam Drew. You can see more of his designs at his website. (via Memo of the Air)
The stated goals is to cut a watermelon into "triangles." It took me a few minutes to realize they really meant "wedges," which is a very normal way to cut a watermelon. I don't know where they found all these confused folks. It's a simple matter of... cutting a watermelon. (via Digg)
Zydereen of Neptune may be considered a TV movie. It is a compilation of three 1955 episodes of the Flash Gordon serial. The episodes are titles "The Witch of Neptune," "The Brain Machine," and "Struggle to the End." Zydereen is the witch, and she's messing with the oxygen generator on Neptune. Flash Gordon must find and stop her before the oxygen runs out! (Thanks, WTM!)
This may ruin a childhood classic for you, but the premise is that Mary Poppins and Bert are friends with benefits. It's not easy when you're a one-man band. (via Memo of the Air)
We know Elle Cordova is extremely witty and can make us laugh about the most arcane subjects, but this time she's outdone herself. And it's all about fonts.
The "Major-General's Song" from the musical The Pirates of Penzance has long been a medium for parody, with the fast-paced and difficult lyrics repurposed for other subjects, most notably Tom Lehrer's "Elements Song" and Randall Munroe's "Every Major's terrible." Cordova follows suit by reciting all the fonts for better or worse, along with her opinion on their importance. The ability to sing the song is enough to impress me, but the more you know about typography, the funnier it becomes because there are jokes within jokes in these lyrics.
In 1969, Mrs. 'Manx' Morgan decided to surprise her husband and spend Christmas with him in Adelaide, so she drove their from their home in Sydney. However, Mrs. Morgan was a cat breeder, so she packed up and took 55 cats along for the ride. The Australian Broadcasting Company interviewed her about the journey. (via Metafilter)
Crows have a reputation as scary and sometimes even evil. We can thank Edgar Allan Poe for that, even though his poem was about a raven. Different bird, but few can tell the difference. In this story, the crow is supposed to be bad, but this cute little bird doesn't want to be bad!
Max Miller talks about piña coladas to the point you want to get up and make one, except you'd have to go to the store and get the ingredients. But what would you buy? He explains the normal piña colada you'd be served in most places today is made with coconut cream and pureed pineapple and is quite sweet. That's the recipe we got from Puerto Rico in 1954. Then there's also the older piña colada, made with coconut milk and didn't always contain rum, which originated from Cuba.
But wait a minute. When I was a kid, the only "coconut milk" you could get came in a can and was thick and sweet like sweetened condensed milk. That was also what I used to make piña coladas when I was a bartender in the 1970s. But today, you can get cashew milk, almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, etc. etc. which are made by blending water with food solids. I would imagine that makes a very different piña colada. You have to wonder how it compares with the original from Cuba, which was no doubt made with the thin, sweet water straight from the inside of a coconut.
People will still argue about using pureed pineapple vs. pineapple juice, or whether to add cream, and always which rum is best, but I don't think I've ever met a piña colada that I didn't like. There's a skippable ad from 3:10 to 4:20. (via Laughing Squid)
This is 8-year old girl Samaya Clark-Gabriel, showing off her skills to the Harlem Globetrotters at Madison Square Garden. Atta girl! (via Boing Boing)
