Good Reads and Information

Why our sun makes a figure eight in the sky every year. It’s complicated.

The Ten Most Shocking Olympic Gender Scandals. Yeah, it should be “sex scandals,” but that title would lead you to think they were about sexual behavior.

Can a cat do a scientific experiment? We weren’t sure until she repeated it, just like a scientist is obligated to.

What can you do for a schizophrenic 6-year-old? There are no proper services available. The story continues on a blog. (via Metafilter)

Window replacement is one of the least cost-effective ways to make your home more energy-efficient. If you do it for the tax credit, be sure to read the fine print.

A love story of Olympic proportions. 25 years later, Al Joyner sees Flo Jo every day, in their daughter. (via Metafilter)

Rare Photographs of Now Extinct Beasts.

Government health insurance explained in simple terms.

Stairway to Heaven on Harp

Performed by YouTube user CKania13. Lovely! (via Arbroath)

Friday Fun Links

Rainbow cake!

The 6 Most Horrific Bosses of All Time. Read this and be thankful for OSHA, unions, and minimum wage laws.

The original Zoom Quilt Project. Hold your mouse button down; let go when you become late for work.

10 joke technologies that became reality. Now I’m convinced that Think Geek should post a money tree on April Fool’s Day, 2010.

5 Reasons Why "House, M.D." Is Science Fiction. This explains why I like it even though it centers around an unlikable character.

Get your insulin ready for an overdose of adorable. Here are nine videos of cute little bunny rabbits falling asleep.

The Snuggie Sutra could be very useful for those who like sex, but don't necessarily want to see their partner naked. Or who don't want to be seen naked.

Have you ever been hypnotized by a cat? You might not realize that they do this all the time. (via Gorilla Mask)

The weirdest news stories of the week.

Ten Pigs We Love

Pop culture is full of cute, smart, and talented pigs that we love. Sure, you adore bacon, but this list is going whole hog! One thing you won’t find here is swine flu, because we don’t love that. See the biggest and brightest in this list I posted at mental_floss.

Information Links

The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana. Bananas as we know them are all hybrid clones not found in nature, which leaves them in danger of sudden extinction.

30 Classic Games for Simple Outdoor Play. Nice to have the goals and rules spelled out for parents with poor memories, but where was this post in June when I needed it?

100 Ways to Use a Strip of Bacon. Relax, they all involve something good to eat.

Debt: The first five thousand years. The history of how we came to be beholden is linked to slavery, violence, and greed.

The Boy Who Heard Too Much. Blind teenager Matthew Weigman used his “telephone superpowers” to run a crime spree from his bedroom.

Physicist Richard Feynman explains why a mirror switches your left and right, but doesn’t switch your up and down. He also makes other points about mirrors that can lead to more head scratching.

Meet the forgotten 90 percent of your brain: glial cells, which outnumber your neurons ten to one. And no one really knows what they do.

Just as we thought: those environmental experiments people put themselves through are gimmicks to sell books. And why not? These stunts work better now than they did for Thoreau! (via The Popcorn Trick)

The Holy Mountain

A 1973 film by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Read more about it at Wikipedia. (via YesButNoButYes)

Fun Links

In case you missed it, this site is now four years old! The celebration post, with a heap of videos, is at Miss Cellania. Jonco made the picture for his anniversary greeting.

A western tale dramatized entirely by monkeys. And a dog named Plastic.

How to defeat your toddler using karate techniques. The farce is strong with this one!

Due to there being an unprecedented twelve coffee cups needing to be cleaned in the sink at work, it is understandable that Shannon would be outraged by this intrusion on her facebook and looking out the window time.

Raptors have dreams, too. (via YesButNoButYes)

The Top 20 Jewish Comedians of All-Time. Plus the chance to vote for your favorite.

Shitmydadsays is a Twitter feed of the things Justin’s dad says. It’s a hoot, but NSFW. (via Buzzfeed)

British police politely asked the Climate Camp to advise them of their schedule and locations so they can be there to protect and serve. Climate Camp replied with an equally polite video explaining that the answer is no. (via Boing Boing)

Le Freak

Performed by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

The Rise of the Flapper

Several factors were in play in the 1920s for the emergence of what came to known as flappers, teenagers and young women who flaunted convention and spent their time pursuing fun instead of settling down to raise children in the prime of their lives. Many entered college or the workforce and felt entitled to make their own decisions about how to live their lives. Learn more in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fun Links

Bad Designs in the Star Wars Universe. Yes, a robot that can save the world but can’t go down steps or speak English is a major design flaw.

If it’s ever been spilled by the truckload, it’s probably on Truckspills.com. Oh, you didn’t know horse blood and whale guts were transported by truck?

21 Oddly Named Places and the Stories Behind Them. I’ve managed to live near three of these in my life and never knew their stories until now. (via J-Walk Blog)

The Top Ten Daredevils (of the past and present). You can probably guess number one, and maybe number two, but have you heard about the 63-year-old woman who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel?

It’s both cute and awkward when a star struck fan gets to interview Rupert Grint from the Harry Potter movie series. You don’t have to understand a word to know what’s going on.

A woman saw a bear in her backyard, but there is no footage, or even a picture of the actual bear. How do you make a compelling video report for the evening news?

The Beloit College mindset list for the class of 2013, mostly born in 1991. This annual list can make you feel downright arthritic, but Britney Spears is NOT played on MY classic rock station.

Shimura Zoo’s chimpanzee celebrity Pan-kun is shown some magic tricks. He is the perfect audience for this type of entertainment, but to us, he IS the entertainment.

Links for Fun and Entertainment

Wizard Rap Battle. Harry Potter and Voldemort are bustin' rhymes to decide the fate of the magical world.

Man And His Dog. A collection of photos guaranteed to make you go "Aww". (via the Presurfer)

When a storm sewer overflows, it seriously overflows! Watch where the manhole cover ends up in this video.

A slideshow of the 25 best redneck wedding photographs ever. The photos are real. The weddings may or may not be real. A

Two girls, one bicycle. You have to wonder how many injuries they sustained to become the best in this odd sport.

How does a child really feel when he finds out he's going to have a little brother or sister? Put yourself in his place, and consider how you would feel. (via Now That's Nifty)

Sugar Gliders can be cute but frightening pets. Unless you live to be leaped on, as this collection of videos shows.

10 Nursery Rhymes and Their Origins. Although some origins are just conjecture, they make more sense than the rhymes themselves do. (via Unique Daily)

Cat Under a Bed Sheet

(via Arbroath)

Informative Links

The ultimate backyard status symbol is a tree that has been to the moon. There are hundreds of them, and most are unaccounted for.

For kids with xeroderma pigmentosum, sunshine is deadly. It was magic when the New York Yankees put together a night to remember for these kids who never get to do normal things. (via YesButNoButYes)

The Top Ten Notorious American Biker Gangs. There are plenty of others; these are just the ones getting all the headlines. (via Gorilla Mask)

How to harvest honey from a bee hive. A sweet and scary job that’s best left to those who know what they are doing.

The Best Science Visualization Videos of 2009. Earthquakes and plasma and nuclear reactors, oh my!

Get a peek into how scientists think and converse with two posts and comments about relativity. How fast can a stadium wave go, and does it matter anyway?

11 Things You Didn't Know About Pinball History. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pinball. (via Neatorama)

The Business of Human Smuggling on the Mexican Border, part one and part two. The author visits Altar, Mexico, a crossroads of drug dealing and emigrants waiting to enter the US.

Adopt a Dog

It may need just a little training. (via the Presurfer)

Hey Alan!

The Amazing Life of Audie Murphy

Audie Murphy was a star in more ways than one. He was the most decorated hero of World War II, after being rejected for service because of his youth and size. He returned from war hailed as a hero, only to see hard times once again as he tried to find civilian employment. But that was just the beginning of his story, as he became a movie star, songwriter, veteran’s advocate, and a role model as you’ll see in this article I wrote for mental_floss.

Fighting Fire with Grace

Former Ku Klux Klan leader Johnny Lee Clary talks about how Wade Watts singlehandedly defeated the Klan.

Good Reads and Information

Details Magazine ranks the top 25 fast food items in America. Even though I've never had one, I could have guessed their pick for #1.

The 100 Most Iconic TV Show Intros Of All Time. Scroll through to find your favorites, or skip to the top ten (like I did).

You've heard about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? Here's the math.

10 Must-Dos for the First Week of College. "Find a date" can wait until week two.

Why Humans Don't Have Fur. Could it be because of all those fleas?

How to select and use screws and nails correctly. (via Interesting Pile)

What Does it Take to Really Disappear? Matthew Alan Sheppard found out faking your own death is not as simple as it looks.

7 Awesome Acts of Nature (That Science Can't Explain).

7 Flowcharts for Fun

The funny flowchart is a subject I keep coming back to, because there's a never-ending supply of geeks with great ideas they put in chart form on every subject imaginable. Today, it's the fourth installment of funny flowcharts in this post I did for mental_floss.

Fun Links

The burning question is, how much time did Bill Murray spend stuck in a time loop in the movie Groundhog Day? Wolf Gnards combs through the clues for a definitive answer.

Small Penis Alert! Don't pee in my building unless you see a toilet.

The 5 Stages of Grief, applied to everyday situations. We may have a new unified theory for all human behavior.

I've had a lot of fun with a generator that marries random Twitter updates with the graphics from Dinosaur Comics. Refresh often for more surrealism. (via Metafilter)

Invent is a creative printer ad that Hewlett-Packard ought to use and pay the creators well. Don't ask me how much is really paper and how much of it is special effects.

Little Big Love. A bittersweet short film about a robot who falls in love with a teapot. Cute AND creepy.

The top 10 workplace time wasters. Being on this list is my goal in life.

The 30 Weirdest Shoes in the World. Going barefoot never looked so good!