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

Red Hot Copper Ball Experiments: that’s one of the things I love about the Internet—distributed shenanigans.

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.

why do beds have to be so boring: yeah, sure, sure, pretty leaves. WHY ARE BEDS NOT ELEVATED FOR MAXIMAL STORAGE UNDERNEATH?

A city under the sand – The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille: said elsewhere in the comments, “I sometime wonder if in the 25th century people will be searching for the exact location of Hogwarts from Harry Potter.” It’s an odd thought. {via}

The Impossible Drone Shot: I’m not sure exactly what makes it impossible but it’s certainly an impressive tracking video.

Queenright vs Queenless Colony Sound: eerie. I hate bees and that’s why I stay inside mostly.

The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge: quite an exhaustive journey to satisfy his curiosity but I get it.

Enjoy the Silence: this looks like the boat version of hanggliding.

RedBull Airborne Skate Park: I guess?

Wonders of Street View: quite a rabbit hole.

Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band – Jaan Pehechan Ho: love this take!

The Killdozer: depraved actions of an insane man, but quite methodical and singularly focused.

The Antikythera Mechanism: a series attempting to recreate the mysterious ancient Greek device. There’s also scholarly interest, of course.

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.

Mars Decoder Ring – Secret Message on NASA’s Perseverance Rover’s Parachute: fun Easter egg that will likely never be found in situ. I like the idea of “dare mighty things.”

The Princess Bride – Home Movie: whoa. {via}

GORILLA GLUE HAIRDO
– I STILL CAN’T GET THIS GLUE OUT AFTER ER!!! – Might Be Time to Sue: this cannot result in a settlement. This cannot result in a settlement.

Gymnasts Try to Keep Up With Parkour Experts: parkour is so beautiful. The informality contrasts interestingly with the formal moves of gymnastics.

Barbie Of All Trades: in a different era, these would just be miniatures or dioramas. Still impressive! {via}

How Many Rubberbands Can Explode A Watermelon: a question I never knew I had until I found out about this video. {via}

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}

Was a $280 million emerald destroyed in California wildfire? PG&E is dubious: and they are right to be!

Urban BASEjumping – Fifty In Five: what would possess someone to do this? Look at all the close calls with street poles, for starters. Just do drugs, for crying out loud.

First Ever Life-Size and Drivable LEGO Technic Bugatti Chiron Is a Pioneering Piece of Engineering and Design: very impressive and repairs would be very cheap.

The Latest Private Jet Amenity Is a Theme Party for Your Children: for when iPads have lost their luster, I suppose. I am trying to not reflexively balk, but it’s tough.

XM42-M Store: world’s most affordable flamethrower. I’m not sure who the target market is, though.

Can today’s cars drive themselves?: this is about Tesla but this is an inherent flaw in automated systems that still require human interventions.

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!

Main Street Coalition: I sure hope this works because the progressive shareholder activism is aggressive and getting bigger.

BNSF Head On Collision Kismet CA: that is so hard to watch because you know what’s coming. It looks like someone from the other train disembarks at 0:28, but that seems like the worst place to be.

EUC contest 2016: very impressive! {via}

Snooty dog owners hijacked NYC park for ‘private’ kennel club: New York values run up against New York values.

United States Returns Thousands of Ancient Artifacts To Iraq: the other important Hobby Lobby case.

Juicero, Cold Press Juicer for Rich Weirdos: funny teardown.

Space Auction: bunk of NASA junk. These might be worth buying just to dare that one guy to eat them, you know that guy. [UPDATE: This one’s good for long trips.]

The Cake Server: holy crap! I am in awe.

Deluxe – My Game: simply amazing video by one of my favorite bands.

Montville Schools’ Failure To Report ‘Fight Club’ Activity ‘Egregious’: in his defense, the teacher didn’t leave a sub plan for him to follow.

Scott Frederick Wegener charged with making, blowing up improvised explosive devices in Fort Pierce: to be fair, the neighbor did steal his BB gun. Who wouldn’t make an IED to put under the thief’s house or at least try to blow up his chickens.

How It’s Made – Toilet Paper: mesmerizing. {via}

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.)

Business owner building his own highway off-ramp: good luck with that. {via}

Tesla – Robots are killing it: sometimes the incumbents are doing things a particular way for a good reason.

Introducing MARTY, Stanford’s self-driving, electric, drifting DeLorean: mmm, donuts. (More details here.)

Train Buffs Are Traveling Cross-Country in Super Luxe Railcars Hitched to Amtrak Trains: they’re called “varnish” but I’d prefer to call them “rail yachts.” I can’t imagine preferring this over private jets though (and I’m definitely in the “train buff” category).

450 W Grixdale, Detroit, MI 48203: ornate doesn’t even begin to describe this listing. {via}

Intern Crashes LGBTQ SxSW Meetup!: such intolerance.

Painful new engagement ring piercing trend growing in popularity: is there no limit to the efforts to stand out amongst the crowd?

The Politicization of the FBI: outstanding overview of the situation from a very-experienced source.

Student investigated after allegedly saying a math symbol looked: zero tolerance for saying the g-word. The authorities searched his home and decided against criminal charges for the observation, but he may still face discipline at the school. (I know it’s different city and a different agency, but this got investigated thoroughly while actual threats were passed over?!)

The Winter Olympics Feature 2,951 Of The World’s Greatest Athletes, And Also This Woman: by hook or by crook, I suppose. I completely understand how galling it must be to Olympians who actually worked hard to get there.

Jamison Bachman, the Worst Roommate Ever: the range of people in this world will always surprise me.

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?

Passengers Recall ‘Flight From Hell’ After 3-Year-Old Screamed for 8 Hours Straight: I’m surprised no one on board was arrested. I can’t even imagine but I can easily believe it.

The #MeToo era is making dating more confusing: my favorite was the line “men have the power in courtship.” A backlash is surely coming.

‘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.

Entrepreneur developed a solution to smartphone addiction now used in over 600 U.S. schools: elegant solution, now they just need one for cars.

Vitapods – Pod-Shaped Multivitamins: love this idea. Naturally people are commenting that this is irresponsible. {via}

The blue marble: whoa. {via}

Live Views of Starman: something about this whole stunt just rubs me the wrong way. The attention whoring? The precious details that put it over the top? The possibility that somehow taxpayers are paying for this malarkey?

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.

The Fascinating Company That Tears Cars Apart To Find Out Exactly How They’re Built: this is an astounding amount of work. (I found out about this company when they revealed some Tesla Model 3 build issues. On that front, I suspect that the quality issues are due to the rumored hand assembly.)

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.

‘Emotional support peacock’ barred from United Airlines plane: this is blatant avian discrimination. What is wrong with people!

Woman Takes Service Turkey on Flight for Trip to Scatter Husband’s Ashes: no one sat next to this lady?! Hard to believe. It’s just a matter of time before someone brings some motherf’ing emotional support snakes on the plane.

Patent US1926420 – Combined racing greyhound harness and rider supporting means: the 30s, what an era! Look at the first image. {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}

What are some slang terms a 50 year old dad can say to his daughter to embarrass her?: this is great stuff, even though I don’t understand half of it. {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.

The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st-Century Agriculture: the scale is so impressive. It explains why our food has never been cheaper. {via}

Minister Pours Cold Water on ‘Boaty McBoatface’ Plan: if they think that that ship will not forever be known by that name, they’re dead wrong.

Ukulele Batman Vs. Bagpipe Superman – Theme Song Battle: whoa. {via}

Flapit: this is a neat little idea but pricey. {via}

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

Atlas, The Next Generation: wow, but that guy’s a real jerk at 1’30”. Geesh.

OK Go – Upside Down & Inside Out: if only I liked their music.

Watch ‘Sticker Boy’ Troll Hillary’s Iowa Speech: whoa. Looks like he was just having some fun.

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

CafePress Fake Electric Outlet Sticker: this looks super handy!

Jeep GoPro Selfie Fail and Aftermath: selfie comeuppance. Love it! {via}

I love the Victorian era. So I decided to live in it: uhh, a) I’m glad that these two found each other, b) they sound absolutely insufferable, and c) their story was written by her on a Web site that, by all rights, they should have no idea even exists. Of course they have their own Web site. Money line: “Not everyone necessarily wants to live the same lifestyle we have chosen, of course.” {via}

Battle Sports Inc: Canadians have sublimated anger?

Huge wave hits cruise ship: yikes! {via}

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

The Japanese Have Just Perfected the Skateboard: yeah, I’d agree. Except… none of the video show the user with neck bent and head down texting or scrolling through Instagram. {via}

Amazing Tongue Twister Rap: forget the tongue twister impressiveness, that’s some serious breath work. {via}

“Server Couldn’t Ignore the Things She ‘Overheard’ Two Firefighters Say During Breakfast”: ignore the “what happened next” headline. This is an uplifting story about kindness and generosity on all sides.

Arduino AR-15 Sentry Gun: pretty slick, but the training is pretty weak. Colors only? I agree with one of the commenters: OpenCV would make this more useful—video mentions it—and Airsoft would make it more legal. {via}

The Weird Origin Story of the World’s Most Viral Scooter: only $595?! so tempting… {via}

The University of Michigan opened an ultra-realistic testing site for futuristic cars: this is so cool and I hope it actually helps with the development of self-driving cars. (I fear that it’s not “real world” enough.) It seems like Detroit could’ve provided a much larger, more realistic setting for a lot less. {via}

I want this when I die: it’s all about leaving a legacy for future generations to benefit from. I hope I can be this crotchety someday.

Green Dawn: sub-reddit for photos of army men in public places. Of course it exists. {via}

Surprising Applications of the Magnus Effect: surprising, indeed. More about the rotor ship, which is fascinating.

Comic Con the Musical: Whitney Avalon is amazing! Check out her Princess Rap Battles after this one.

MINI Basketball Fail: important life lesson: don’t gloat until you’re out of range.