Courtesy of Mr. Possum:
A Google street view of the main highway between Johannesburg and Cape Town. LOL one lane each direction. The weed whacking crew are trimming excess vegetation!
They are in the middle of the Great Karoo:
Here’s the Google Maps Street View linky if you want to have a look around.
The Kolarbyn Eco-Lodge, somewhere northwest of Stockholm, consists of 12 wood and mud huts. No electricity, no running water, no WIFI, no housekeeping or room service, and no warm place to go doodoo, all for about $80 per adult per night.
Okay, it’s rustic but there’s more to it than just the huts and a half-dozen shared “business buckets.” You get to have deep conversations about saving the planet with other eco-tourists who haven’t bathed either.
[Found here.]
KENT COUNTY, Mich. (WOOD) — The freezing rain created an unusual phenomenon in the Fruit Ridge area of Kent County: “ghost apples.”Andrew Sietsema sent in photos of the hollow ice apples to ReportIt late Wednesday night. He said he came across the interesting formations while pruning apple trees earlier that day.
Sietsema said the freezing rain coated rotting apples, creating a solid icy shell around them. When he pruned the trees, they would shake, causing many of the frozen apples to fall off, ice and all. However with a few of them, the mush slipped out of the bottom of the ice casing, leading to a “ghost apple.”
Sietsema says the temperature provided the perfect recipe: it was cold enough for the ice to remain, but warm enough for the apples to turn to complete mush, since apples have a lower freezing point than water.
Sietsema said Jonagolds are one of his favorite apple varieties, “but we’ll call these Jonaghosts.”
“Ghost Apple” photos were posted on Facebook by Andrew Sietsema on 06 February 2019. The following day the story (w/ photos) appeared on the website of WOODTV Channel 8, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
[h/t Pam M. via FB]
The tasselled wobbegong is a species of carpet shark in the family Orectolobidae and the only member of its genus It inhabits shallow coral reefs off northern Australia, New Guinea and adjacent islands Reaching 1.8 m in length, this species has a broad and flattened body and head.
I want to know what it tastes like. Somewhere somebody knows.
[Found here.]
A landslide in Ronchi di Termeno, Italy, January 2014, sent two boulders down a cliff, one destroyed the barn. The boulder in the foreground was already there from a previous slide.
From NatGeo:
Two huge boulders sent tumbling by a landslide narrowly missed a farmhouse in Ronchi di Termeno in northern Italy on January 21, 2014. The above photo, taken two days later, shows one of the boulders after it rumbled down the hill and destroyed the barn before coming to rest in the vineyard—halted within a meter of the house. The second boulder, hidden behind the house, stopped just short of the building.
[…]
While smaller boulders tumble down cliffs often, [geologist Ben Mackey of NZ] says, huge rockfalls like this one are fairly rare. In a given location, boulders of this size would fall maybe once in many thousands of years. “Generally, it would not be advisable to live under a cliff prone to rockfall like this,” Mackey says.
[Found in here.]
Sound or acoustic mirrors were one of the first early warning detection systems invented to give advanced notice of an approaching enemy aircraft. These worked by focusing the sound from the plane’s engine so it could be heard before it was visible.
Sound mirrors worked using a curved surface to concentrate sound waves into a central point, which were picked up by a sound collector and later by microphones. An operator using a stethoscope would be stationed near the sound mirror, and would need specialist training in identifying different sounds. Distinguishing the complexity of sound was so difficult that the operators could only listen for around 40 minutes.
9am daily. Pen on paper, 8-1/2 x 11, approx. 2 square inches per each 30 minute teleconference.
At right:
Baron Manfred Freiherr Von Richthofen sits in the cockpit of his Albatros fighter for a photograph with his squadron, Jagdstaffel III. Richthofen was credited with downing 80 Allied aircraft before being shot down over the Somme, Northern France, during what was known by pilots on both sides as ‘Bloody’ April, 1917. Manfred’s brother, Lothar, is seated at front (fur collar).
At left:
Album cover art from 1969, with silhouette of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster and a bit of proto-photoshopoopage.
[Found here, caption from here.]
Update: From the wikiness:
Manhunt, Frank Weir and his Werewolves (1962) A dark suspect is spotted by a posse of rodeo clowns riding Shetland ponies and the manhunt is on. British orchestra leader Frank Weir had several hits during his career, but this tune wasn’t one of them.
This is Pure Trolling Awesome.
Not everyone wanted to be a Pepper.
Intro to Facebook 2009 – a commentary.
Hydraulic Press Girl [via Memo Of The Air].
“And just where do you think you’re going?”
Remember those three circles [h/t Bunkerville].
I get email notifications whenever we get a new follower, and Admiral Bill made my day.
[Top image: The Cheetle. Story here, h/t Nate L.]
From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.
Mac the Moose, of Moose Jaw, Canada, was the world’s tallest moose sculpture at 32′-2″ until he was dethroned in 2015 by a Norwegian chrome moose (pictured above). He resides at a rest stop off the RV3 road in Stor-Elvdal, Norway, and stands 33′-1″ tall .
Residents of Moose Jaw were pissed, so they replaced Mac’s antlers with larger ones in 2019. Mac now stands at 34 feet tall. Here he is.
Mac attracted national attention in 2004 when part of his jaw fell off.
Tacky Raccoons 