Put on sunglasses: say line

Fish with a transparent head

Now with video!

Fish with a transparent head

Link to story

Leningrad/St Petersburg

Photos of Leningrad during WW2 siege, meshed together with photos from today from the same spot

Don't lie with food

Comparison of food ads and the real thing

Bacon

Man will eat only bacon for one month

Best sleeping bag ever

Link

Physics

Death in nature

Link to many everyday, terrifying deaths

What makes a polka dot different from other dots?

Apparently, nothing:

"The word polka is a borrowing from Czech, where it means 'a Polish woman'; it is the feminine of Polák 'a Pole'. Despite the Polish reference, the polka itself was of Bohemian origin. Introduced into Prague in 1831, the dance was named in tribute to the (unsuccessful) Polish rebellion against the Russians in 1830.

The polka dot is a dot repeated regularly to form a pattern. It was so named not because of any Polish origin, or even because of any popularity of the pattern among polka dancers, but because of the popularity of the dance itself. The polka was such a hit in mid-nineteenth century England that the word polka was attached to various commercial products without any real connection to the dance: "The polka was so popular," wrote a historian in 1898, "that it absorbed every other dance for a time. Articles of food, of clothing and of ornament, were named after it.""

TV in Japan

The President

Man and toaster

Guy is attempting to make a toaster from scratch, starting with the raw ore

Home made Russian sub

Story here

Kiddy durry

No one saw the financial crash except for...

Peter Freaking Costello in 2007

"I think the fall-out from the US sub-prime market has a considerable way to go. It is not yet entirely clear who is holding all of the risk on these defaults. There will be different financial institutions around the world which will identify losses and in the interim financial institutions as between themselves are restricting credit or driving the price up. That is going to put a lot of pressure on the international economy. It is possible if this continues in the United States that it will work its way out into the real economy. The US economy may well turn down."

I love this photo so much

This was taken at the train station outside the horse track. The trains were not running, it was hot and everyone was drunk and upset. The boyfriend is getting arrested in the back. I later heard this girl is 17 years old.

80% less nuclear weapons - a good start

Fantastic news - link to article. Even better is the part where Obama implies he will ditch the missile shield.

The missile shield is the most immoral weapon since Genghis Khan invented the testicle crusher. It is sold as a defensive system, but in truth it's useful only as part of an offensive strategy.

Think about it, if it was intended only for defensive purposes, the greatest missile shield imaginable would not cope with an attack of enemy missiles each with multiple warheads and their own countermeasures.

But as part of an offensive strategy, where the aggressor attempts to crush the enemy with a first strike, a missile shield makes sense. After devastating the enemy with hundreds of missiles (fired from submarines only a few miles from the coast), the missile shield would be useful in mopping up the odd one or two retaliatory missiles the attacked country could fire off.

Ragnar Benson: author

Of such books as "Mantrapping" and "Breath of Fire: Homemade Flame Throwers"

Buy his work here, from Canada of all places