Fishermen saved by ‘Help’ message on same tiny island where ‘SOS’ saved three others: palm fronds, good to know.

That self-appendectomy: you’re the only doctor on station in the Antarctic and your appendix bursts, what do you do? Click through if you want to see for yourself.

meow.camera: watch Chinese cats eating. For some reason. {via}

Barbaras Rhababerbar: I think this is a comedy song about a villager named Barbara and her famous rhubarb cake. {via}

Tenochtitlan: I am a sucker for architectural reconstructions of the past. It’s easy to forget that the Aztec Empire was huge and developed completely independent of the Greco-European civilization with which we’re more familiar.

Venice’s streets and their strangeness: the general term for these sorts of constructions is “defensive architecture.”

AskHistorians – What does McCain’s monument in Hanoi say?: I’ve seen American politicians repeatedly go there to pay homage—Biden most recently—but they should not.

Mercedes-Benz Museum: this really gives a sense of the space—though it’s far too rapid to replace a visit—and I look forward to this becoming a thing that happens regularly. {via}

Sweden Solar System: neat, seemingly organic representation of celestial bodies.

Delightful Acapella Versions of Familiar Jingles: this is some acapella that doesn’t annoy me.
[UPDATE: Brand new one today!]

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife: the same guy who did The Wave also painted this in 1814.

CAR vs. WORLD’S STRONGEST TRAMPOLINE- 150ft (45m) drop: it’s 10 seconds of footage expanded out to fifteen plus minutes but that 10 seconds is totally worth it! {via}

A Russian Oligarch’s $500 Million Yacht Is in the Middle of Britain’s Costliest Divorce: that is a nice ship. The crew is always the one that suffers in a divorce.

Injuries at annual cheese-rolling contest in UK: this is such a ludicrous event—and it’s apparently been going on for centuries. Google Street View goes to the top of Cooper’s Hill.

Gravity Industries: lots of questions about the jet suit specifications but this is damn impressive nonetheless!

; DROP TABLE “COMPANIES”;– LTD – Overview: classic joke, excellent IT consultancy name.

EUC contest 2016: very impressive! {via}

Items Found During #WeaponSweep: look at all the rope that can’t get cut now thanks to the London police. Phew! (In other news: if you may have committed a crime, manage to escape, and are close enough, they can now spray you so they can maybe find you later.)

Stockholm family wraps home in greenhouse to warm up weather: not a bad idea if you live in a very cold climate, I’d say. (I don’t.)

In Ethiopia, A New Ban On Foreign Adoptions Is About National Pride: this is quite troubling. Who cares if the children are condemned to a life of orphanages or abandonment, they must stay put.

Toronto restaurant shocks vegans protesting meat: you want to avoid meat, fine. You want to force me to avoid meat, we’ve got problems. (Frankly, why not throw animal blood—or paint—on them like they would always do to fur wearers.)

It’s a JOKE!: excellent take on the British travesty. (Lots of warranted cursing.) {via}

Exchange students in Italy set fire by cooking pasta without water: 20-years old is an adult. How do you go through life that long without knowing that pasta is cooked in a microwave?! Geesh. {via}

China wages war on funeral strippers: that’s just weird. Imagine the first family that did this, before it caught on. Awkward!

Plyscraper city – Tokyo to build 350m tower made of wood: I don’t get the impetus behind this at all. What’s wrong with steel?

‘Super blue blood moon’ leaves Venetian gondolas stranded on dried-up canal banks: it looks so eerie. Poor Venetians have to walk like those Florentine suckers.

English Sports: that pretty much nails their inscrutability to me. {via}

Britain’s Giant Airship: I’ve read his book and it is wonderful. The writing is so compelling.

Ehang’s passenger-carrying drones look insanely impressive in first test flights: I really thought this was vaporware when it was announced at CES two years ago. The problem—at this point—is much simpler than autonomous cars, but will face a very real coordination problem at scale.

Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle: this was presaged by the events in The Lost City of the Monkey God. Far from being a dead field, archaeology is going to have a boom soon just to deal with excavating the findings from LIDAR.

Fast rail – watch 1,500 Chinese workers build train station track in 9 hours: I’m a sucker for these time-lapse videos of Chinese construction. It almost makes you forget the perils of an authoritarian regime.

After Building New AU Headquarters, China Spies on Addis Ababa Facility: if you’re not paying for something, then you’re the product being sold. {via}

Nutella ‘riots’ spread across French supermarkets: looks like the desire for a good deal isn’t limited to ugly, fat Americans, eh?

Cubes: there’s a key, if you’re curious. {via}

TrapAdventure 2: makes Flappy Bird look easy by comparison. More details here. {via}

Dutch police to ‘undress’ youths wearing clothes deemed too expensive for them: heaven forbid you store a cookie when visiting a Web site without consent. Europe. {via}

Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service=: sometimes you just need a good reminder of technology’s utility, especially if you’re a fan of Black Mirror. {via}

Omoshiro Block – A Memo Pad That Excavates Objects as it Gets Used: so very clever. {via}

Kazakhstan Cheers New Alphabet, Except for All Those Apostrophes: Turkish does seem the obvious route to pursue, but for the stubborn opinion of a doddering dictator. {via}

Hubble just spotted something massive coming out of Uranus: and the news continues. {via}

Swiss town denies passport to Dutch vegan because she is ‘too annoying’: she’s married to a Swiss citizen so she’s not going anywhere. {via}

Queen Elizabeth’s Life in Banknotes: neat watching a life encapsulated in 20 seconds. If you’d rather read about it, the Washington Post has the text version. {via}

3 football player vs 100 kids player in Japan: it sure took them awhile to score. Geesh. {via}

Death of Man in Skyscraper Fall in China Puts a Spotlight on ‘Rooftopping’: it’s unfortunate but inevitable. I hope people stop doing this.

Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen/PIKO-TARO: 80 million views. 80 million.

Wintergatan – Marble Machine: whoa. Just wow. {via}

Ancient Rome: HBO’s Rome brought ancient Rome to life more, for me. But this is very captivating still. {via}

China’s Enormous Derelict Shopping Mall Does Not Bode Well For Humanity’s Future: wow, that’s such a waste.

The World’s First Underwater Tennis Court Could Cost $2.5 Billion: no amount of assurances would convince me to be a spectator there.

Caminito del Rey: holy crap. And I thought that trail in China was death-defying! As scary as it is (boy howdy is it scary!), the sobering thought is that people built this in the first place.

Scarfolk Council: blog about a fictional dystopian town trapped in the 1970s. I don’t understand one bit, but it’s well done.

Battle Sports Inc: Canadians have sublimated anger?

Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit: absolutely sickening. {via}

Dismaland: I feel like they’ve really captured its essence.

Ridiculous Sky Pool Lets People Swim Between Buildings: ridiculous is right but, man, that first time would be great.

Banksy Dismaland show revealed at Weston’s Tropicana: go visit nihilism-land and hate yourself!

Researcher makes himself into a GOAT with prosthetics to follow herd in the Alps: species is a social construction. “Funded by the government.” You don’t say! {via}

Jack the Ripper unmasked: what a wanker (literally).

On the Roofs: holy, holy crap. Someday, these will be the evidence for a posthumous Darwin Award.

Sentinelese people: residents of North Sentinel Island of whom very little is known. The number of contacts over the last two hundred years can be counted on two hands, maybe.

This is Shanghai: what an incredible video!

20 Amazing Hotels You Need To Visit Before You Die: linkbait taken. These are stunning.

Kim Jong-un executes security minister by FLAME THROWER: bloodthirsty dictators need to get creative to stay engaged. Mortar round? Come on, that’s the province of the bored.

Fake London Underground signs: these are hilarious and look like they belong.

Rudolf Virchow – The Sausage Duel: riskier than, say, pistols?

Holland vs the Netherlands: what’s the difference? Watch and learn.

Extremely Scary Ghost Elevator Prank in Brazil: borders on cruel but very good execution.

Jefferson Perez – Would he run ?: pretty elaborate setup to answer that one.

What is the most remarkable single physical performance in Olympic history?: every answer’s a winner, but I was floored by this gymnastics routine.

Hidden treat – The Easter Island heads also have BODIES: I had no idea. How has this been known for decades and it’s the first I’d heard of it‽ {via}

In Seoul, retailer uses 3D QR codes and the sun to deliver discounts only during its quiet times: that is tremendously clever.

25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English: love these sorts of lists. {via}

25 Death-Defying Photos by Vadim Mahorov: whoa. Just mother-f’in whoa.

10 Worlds Most Dangerous Airports: sweet sassy molassey! Worth watching to the end.

Mieders Alpine Coaster (with no brakes!!): whoa. Just whoa. {via}

Climbing Red Gates in Moscow: chilling and nauseating.

Scientists undo evolution to create a chicken with a maniraptora ‘snout’: not allowed “for ethical reasons” to hatch the animal?! Come on, maybe it’s delicious! {via}

How to get $12 billion of gold to Venezuela: the proper response to a dictator trying to get his inflation hedge as he simultaneously tries to wreck his economy? “The gold stays put.”

Goodbye to Chuquisaca: look at the hamburger joint sign a little more than halfway down the set of photos.

An Inland Archipelago: freaking Europeans.

Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg: awesomeness just got awesomer.

Valentin Beinroth, Florian Jenett: gun-shaped licorice makes for great photos. {via}

iDish: I myself have used an iPad as a tray for a meal. {via}

“Black parents give birth to white baby”: wow, that is quite a genetic quandary.

Portable Watermelon Cooler: I assume you could use it for keeping other watermelon-shaped items cool when watermelon’s out of season, like hams, severed heads, or jugs of milk. {via}

Running from Camera: it’s the new phoon, as far as I’m concerned.

Hardcore Rollerblading: it’s too bad you couldn’t see the reaction of the motorcyclists he’s passing. Also, how does he stop? {via}

The Taiwanese News CG Reenactment: I have no idea what’s being said but this video says all I need to know about the Tiger Woods accident. {via}

Sniper Sniper!: uhh, practical jokes don’t generally end with needing to change your underwear.

Liu Bolin: very well done camouflaging, but I have a problem calling it art.

Uhh, Weird Asian Photos?: the site is in Russian but the theme is pretty obvious. This collection makes the Japanese (I assume) look both more and less exotic.

Bare Essentials of Safety: in-flight safety video from Air New Zealand. You’ll quickly notice where it differs from others in this genre. From the “Nothing to Hide” marketing campaign.

Level Crossing Man: missed it by that much.

“Zimbabwe revalues currency again”: by fiat, lops off 12 zeroes—that’s a trillion folks. Inflation is unofficially at 658 billion percent; unemployment is at 94%. {via}

“No Snickering”: okay, Penistone I can believe. But Butt Hole Road? Come on, Britishers.

Sleeping Chinese: pictures of Shanghai residents sleeping in public, though I have to wonder how some of them are even possible.

“Vicar hospitalised with potato up his bum”: I thought that only happened in the Appalachian Emergency Room. {via}

“France to halt games when anthem is booed”: “We cannot tolerate our Marseillaise being jeered.” Oh those surrender monkeys, so quick to offend. {via}

Unbeatable Banzuke: the craziest Japanese athletic game show I’ve ever seen. There’s plenty of video of it on YouTube. It makes me wish I had G4 still.

Guy Skis Down Tube Escalator: HOLY CRAP! I CAN BARELY WATCH THIS! {via}