I had to read this twice to get what's happening, but it was worth it. This comic is from Respawn! comics. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Tuesday, February 03, 2026
Monday, February 02, 2026
The Haunted Comedy Store
The Comedy Store in Los Angeles opened in 1972 and soon became a mecca for those hoping to break into the big time in standup comedy. The nightclub became famous for incubating the careers of some of the biggest comedians of the last 50 years. Of course, there have been plenty of comedians who graced the stage at The Comedy Store or else waited tables and never made it big. And some of them swear that the place is haunted.
Homeowner's Procrastination
When you buy a house within your means, the rest of your life will be spent dealing with time and money and priorities. You look at the place, as I did with my first house thirty-some years ago, and say, "The first thing that has to go is these drop ceilings." Then you move in and instantly need to build a shower, because your large husband displaces so much water in the small tub he can't get warm, much less clean. Then there's the heating problem, and the plumbing problems, and then the kids arrive and you need more bedrooms and bathrooms. When I moved out 14 years later, the drop ceilings were still there. Laurence Brown talks about this phenomena in his latest video about owning a Chicago home. There's a 90-second ad at 3:15.
The Mona Lisa's Eyebrows
We can admire the Mona Lisa's smile, her eyes, and where's her eyebrows? Did Lisa del Giocondo, the model for the portrait, have her brows plucked out? Or did Leonardo just leave them out of the picture?
August Moon takes us through serious research on the subject of the Mona Lisa's eyebrows, and what they are supposed to look like. In the process, we find that many of the world's greatest paintings are not what they seem on the surface. That surface is constantly being messed with in the hopes of keeping the paintings clean and undamaged, which still ends up damaging them. And we get a lesson in what really makes the Mona Lisa such a unique and memorable portrait. (via Laughing Squid)
Miss Cellania's Links
Robot struggles to shovel snow.
Who Faked the Zillow Listing for This Endangered Frank Lloyd Wright Home? And is it really worth saving? (via Metafilter)
How Battlefield Tech Was Used in Minneapolis.
The Medicinal Wood That Turned Water Blue. Or was it red or green? (via Strange Company)
John Scalzi bought a church.
The Cosmic Odometer calculates your personal mileage as you travel around the earth's axis, around the sun, and through space. (via Boing Boing)
The Profound Link (and Love) Between Humans and Dogs. (via Nag on the Lake)
50 Times Job Seekers Ruined Their Own Interviews. Common sense is a dying art.
42,000 Match Sphere Gets Lit
I've actually thought about the curves and a possible sphere when playing with matches. But it's been long time since I've played with matches, and I never had enough free time to amass this many matches and put this experiment into action. YouTuber All Is Art did it.
What happens when you start gluing matches together? Because the heads are slightly wider than the wooden bodies, they begin to form a sphere. This was an experiment in how many matches it would take to get all the way around to make a perfect globe. After months of gluing and gluing and gluing we made it to the other side.The answer is 42,000, give or take a few matches. What do you do with this sphere afterward? Light it up, of course! Don't let the length of this video deter you- that all happens in the first three minutes. Then we get to see it from all angles, then in slow motion. (via Geeks Are Sexy)
Captain Obvious Strikes Again
What's most amazing about this is the fact that the WSJ needed a “study” to figure it out.
— TweetLD (@tweetld.bsky.social) January 31, 2026 at 10:33 PM
[image or embed]
Sunday, February 01, 2026
Dazzle Camouflage
We think of camouflage as what animals use to blend in with their background. A ship that has zebra stripes that aren't even straight is not what a normal person would call camouflage. But a still photo doesn't do it justice, because ships are always in motion, and the enemies looking for our ships are seeing it in motion. If a ship sits still, it's probably not in a battle zone.
Razzle Dazzle camouflage was developed in World War I in response to submarines attacking them with torpedoes. In order to understand the mechanism behind the idea, we have to put ourselves in the place of an enemy submarine aiming a torpedo. The bedazzled ship doesn't have to be invisible; it just has to be hard to destroy. Did it work? Not as well as hoped for, but any edge is worth the effort to save a battleship and its huge crew. Half as Interesting takes us through the steps behind the design. The camouflage ends around 5:35; the rest is an ad for a good cause.
ICE Briefing
Pete Davidson paid a visit to last night's Saturday Night Live to portray Tom Homan for the opening skit. They were altogether too kind to Homan, but the real focus was the group of ICE agents he was addressing in Minneapolis. Feedback from last week's opening made it clear that SNL cannot just ignore the biggest news of the week, but they had to find the one aspect that could be made somewhat humorous.
Turning a Car Into a Computer Mouse
Simone Giertz teamed up with William Osman to modify her tiny electric car, Cheese Louise. They turned it into a computer mouse. The aim is to draw a picture on a computer screen by driving the car. What you might need to know is that Giertz had only recently earned her driver's license, and the car is around 30 years old. So the picture isn't all that much, but the project was a success and the video is entertaining. Osman's video about the project goes into more detail about how they did it, and it's funny, too, but longer.
The story of how Giertz came to own such a ridiculous car is here. (via The Awesomer)
The Bully
Bullies may begin this behavior to get your lunch money, but those who turn it into a lifestyle are doing it because they enjoy the cruelty. This victim removes the satisfaction of the cruelty. This comic is from Zack Weinersmith at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
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