[Found here, here and in here.]
Category: Bizarre
Another Great Gift Idea: Remover Installer
Wright Brothers’ Early Spacewalk Test (ca. 1915)
Using a pressurized helium-vapor suit, Orville and Wilbur Wright sought to solve future problems of space exploration, and their younger step brother “Nottle” volunteered to be the test pilot. Once afloat, the tethers snapped, and he sailed over the horizon. He landed in France and enlisted with the 43rd Balloon Company, serving as a practice target in WWI. Out of eleven volunteers, he was never shot down by the Boche once, and he survived the friendly fire, too.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t a spacewalk test, and maybe it had nothing at all to do with WWI, but maybe it did, depending on how you look at it.
[Original image found here.]
Partly Cloudy With A Chance Of Hot Links
11 Epic RickRolls. This one’s classic-al in case you missed it. Here are two more.
Andrew Loomis’ Fun With A Pencil [1939] was his first book, and my all-time favorite. Download it and give it to your favorite budding artist.
Pink Halibut is not a medical affliction.
Tardigrade plush animals [via].
How to read divinations signs from candle burning – the Hoodoo Method.
An image of a woman wearing hat and sunglasses with a plastic bee on her nose is available for purchase here.
The Divje Babe flute, estimated at 43,000 years old, is the oldest surviving wind instrument. It was played by Neanderthals.
The Geißenklösterle flute is pretty old, too.
[Top image of a drive-in restaurant movie theater found in here.]
The .Gif Friday Post No.461 – Playing with Echeveria
Yeah, I was bored.
Thailand Rodeo
Detroit’s Handicap-Accessible Sidewalks To Nowhere
Detroit’s in a financial mess but at least they’ve got curb ramps with truncated domes.
Consider the cost of this nonsense.
[(Demo + curb ramp + truncated domes) x 8 curb ramps per intersection x number of Non-Compliant intersections] x 1.2 for Union Wages = Some Serious Clams for a city with no money to be forced to provide handicap accessibility for ghosts.
In a city where poverty is high, schools are broken and crime is rampant, the federal government has forced Detroit to spend more than $50 million in the past decade for sidewalk ramps that often lead to nowhere.
Many of the nearly 35,000 ramps, which are for people with disabilities, are on inaccessible sidewalks or streets with no homes.
My guess is the construction cost per curb ramp is closer to $3500 apiece, not including striping, and it gave the Detroit Public Works employees something to do. On the other hand, it’s probably cheap insurance because the Americans with Disabilities Act is enforced via litigation and not local jurisdiction.
[Photo essay from here, via here. See Appendix D Page 43 for estimated costs.]
Monday Morning Puzzle
The photo was taken after an earthquake in the Tottori Prefecture on October 21st, in a hotel owned by the Kishida family.
Given:
Cabinet with glass panels, earthquake-shifted valuable bowls.
Task:
Extract the bowls intact without breaking any glass.
There are some great solutions offered, like this one:
Open the cabinet door just enough to allow the nozzle of an expandable insulation foam canister. Fill up the cabinet with expansive foam, wait for it to set. Open the door and chip off the insulation with a screwdriver.
I don’t know who posted that solution, but it’s brilliant.
[Found here.]
Roof On A Tin Cat Hot Links
- lima bean (n.)
- 1756, associated with Lima, Peru, from which region the plant (Phaseolus lunatus) was introduced to Europe c. 1500. Among the earliest New World crops to be known in the Old World, Simmonds’ “Dictionary of Trade” (1858) describes it as “esteemed,” but it has the consistency of a diseased dog kidney.
I grew up with a subscription to Mad Magazine. Check out what writer Dick DeBartolo is doing these days.
Interesting list of “hate crimes” that were hoaxes (with links).
Grifters. I’ve seen ’em everywhere I’ve ever lived. I remember growing up in Ohio and hearing the warning that “the Williamsons are in town.” Their gig was to offer to reseal your asphalt driveway with hot mop. The “hot mop” washed away with the next rain, and by that time they were out of town.
10 Best Leon Russell Songs (R.I.P. 1942-2016).
A turkey’s gender can be determined from its droppings–males produce spiral-shaped poop and females’ poop is shaped like the letter J. More fun turkey facts here.
[Top image from here.]
Tacky Raccoons 