Walking across Lake Erie

One guy's account of walking across Lake Erie in the winter (which is apparently a thing some people do):

"A half mile north of the island, I passed a cluster of ice fishing shacks which could probably have incorporated as a city. Snowmobile tracks were everywhere, and I could make out a few old cars sitting by themselves out on the ice, perhaps waiting for a watery spring burial. A jeep with four people in it pulled up alongside me, and the driver asked me if I'd seen Fred. 'I don't even know Fred,' I said, and off he drove."

Full article ...

Wojtek the Bear

"Wojtek [...] was a Syrian brown bear cub found in Iran and adopted by soldiers of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company of the Polish II Corps. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek helped move ammunition."

More on Wikipedia...

Exploding glass

Destin (an engineer from Huntsville, AL, and the host of Youtube channel "SmarterEveryDay", with 1M+ subscribers) explains a phenomenon known as "Prince Rupert's drop".     There's some really good high-speed video of what happens:

Close enough

I ran across an interesting tidbit that I missed during my years in school.   Apparently 0.9̅ = 1.  (If you can't see the special character, the 0.9 is repeating, meaning 0.9999999...)  I initially didn't believe it either, since I, too, thought of this number as something approaching the limit of 1.    It turns out that you have to think harder about the nature of infinity in order to get your definitions right.   What helped me is this:  how small is the difference between 0.9̅ and 1?  It's infinitely small, or 0.

From Wikipedia:

"The equality 0.999... = 1 has long been accepted by mathematicians and is part of general mathematical education. Nonetheless, some students find it sufficiently counterintuitive that they question or reject it, commonly enough that the difficulty of convincing them of the validity of this identity has been the subject of several studies in mathematics education."

Link to article...

Also, the best part:

"Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"A: 0.999999...."

What your modem was doing.

Ever wonder what your modem was doing while it was connecting (assuming you are old enough to remember using a modem).   Here's a breakdown of what all that noise was about.    Reading through this, I can even remember what each part sounded like.

(click image to enlarge)

ht:Steve Gibson

Hexaflexagon!

More interesting than an octagon and more intimidating that a five-sided fistagon:  the HeXaFLeXaGon!   Surrender your mysteries to me, O many-sided device...

Pistol Shrimp

"A neutral observer would not find this world to be believable."  — N.D. Wilson

Consider the pistol shrimp.  It...

• ...can kill fish at a distance.
• ...is one of the loudest animals on Earth.
• ...is considered a nuisance by the Navy.
• ...is friends with one particular kind of fish and hangs out with it all the time.
• ...can generate temperatures equivalent to the surface of the Sun.

Pistol shrimp FTW.

Read on...

Maneki Neko

Saw one of these outside a Thai restaurant and wondered about it.   Now I know:

"The Maneki Neko is a common Japanese sculpture, often made of ceramic, which is believed to bring good luck to the owner. The sculpture depicts a cat beckoning with an upright paw, and is usually displayed — many times at the entrance — in shops, restaurants, pachinko parlors, and other businesses. Some of the sculptures are electric or battery-powered and have a slow-moving paw beckoning."

Wikipedia: Maneki Neko ...

Infographic: Tallest to Deepest

The tallest mountain to the deepest ocean trench, to scale, in this infographic.

"Death Wears a Snuggie"

Wired:

America and her nuclear warriors have an odd relationship. For decades, missileers (as we’re known in the military) have quietly performed their duties, custodians of a dying breed of weapon. But American citizens have no real connection with the shadowy operators who stand the old posts of the Cold War, despite the fact that they spend up to $8 billion a year to maintain our country’s nuclear deterrent. The truth is the job is an awesome responsibility, but it’s deeply weird.

Full text...

WP: Pfeffernüsse

"Pfeffernüsse are small, firm, round biscuits,
sometimes with ground nuts."  

WP: Chiefess Kapiolani

"High Chiefess Kapi'olani (c. 1781–1841) was an important member of the Hawaiian nobility at the time of the founding of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the arrival of Christian missionaries. One of the first Hawaiians to read and write and sponsor a church, she made a dramatic display of her new faith which made her the subject of a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson."

WP: Mystery Airship

"Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during 1896 and 1897."

Mike Mitchell

Behold, the truly, truly odd artwork of one Mike Mitchell.

Make a Bow Tie from a Neck Tie

Apparently, a neck tie can be tied into something resembling a bow tie.  Here are instructions for how to do such a thing.

WP: Chinook Jargon in English

"British Columbian English and Pacific Northwest English have several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon, which was widely spoken throughout the Pacific Northwest by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th century. These words tend to be shared with, but are not as common in, the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana."