Oddities spotted in the news

[robkelk]

Answer: This famous University of Ottawa alumnus donated another $2.1 million Saturday to a school forum that bears his name.

Question: Who is Alex Trebek?

Here.

[Bob Schroeck]

How The Smithsonian Restored the Classic Enterprise Model

[robkelk]

2019: Squirrels' stash of winter walnuts causes car trouble for American couple




2015: Squirrel blamed for car engine stuffed with nuts




Good thing they figured out it was squirrels, and not, say, a crow.

[classicdrogn]

It's old news (2016) but I only just spotted it, so...

Anyway, behold the oldest fluffy tail!
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016...-evolution
Wanna touch...

[classicdrogn]

Scientists let rats drive tiny cars, and they loved it

(video from the linked article)

[Star Ranger4]

what I find frightening is they drive better than a lot of my fellow los angelinos.

[DHBirr]

You're surprised that rats are skilled in the rat race?

[robkelk]

According to The Register, BBC News now has an official TOR onion mirror, maintained in-house.

[Star Ranger4]

No, being snarky about a percieved lack of skill in everyone else on the road

[Labster]

Migrating eagles run up huge data roaming charges

No, not The Eagles, just eagles.

[robkelk]

Why is it when somebody says he was just doing his job, he's usually just done something noteworthy? In this case, saved another man's life.

Video and details

[robkelk]

"We call it the intensive care unit for a reason"

To create awareness of the problem and raise funds to build a new hospital, SickKids partnered with Airbnb recently in a campaign that likely surprised people who came across it on the accommodations website.

For $2,392 per night, people could rent a bed in a mock SickKids Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for a three-hour experience they'd share with three other guests. The cost represented the actual cost of running a single PICU bed for a night, and the money went to the hospital's fundraising drive.

The experience sold out.

[robkelk]

I think this goes beyond the usual acqua alta.

Venice submerged by highest tide in over 50 years

Venice's Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, walking through St. Mark's Square on November 12:

[Star Ranger4]

I think this goes beyond the usual acqua alta.

Venice submerged by highest tide in over 50 years

Holy hanna Rob.  I was just reading a K-U book that had a scene set in Venice and thought for SURE the author was pulling my chain.

[hazard]

Keep in mind that the only thing that prevents this sort of thing happening in the Netherlands is a vast and expensive network of water control systems. To no small extent because Venice is, strictly speaking, just above the water level, and vast sections of the Netherlands are not.

[nocarename]

Fun Netherlands fact: There is a system of locks that could flood large parts of the country, which if you internalize the fact above is unsurprising. The surprising part is that large parts of the country knows how these systems work and are able to operate them in an emergency. The Netherlands determined that everyone at the time should how to prevent the country from flooding and added it to the curriculum.

Public education works if you let it.

[robkelk]

Before this thread gets swamped...

Can you sing like Freddie Mercury?

[Black Aeronaut]

Quantas Airlines has shattered the previous longest duration and longest distance with an experimental long-distance flight from London Heathrow to Sydney in an effort to convince regulators to permit ultra-long-haul flights.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/qanta...index.html

[Dartz]

Firearm drawn at Father Ted convention

on the GUBU spectrum, this is midly Grotesque, somewhat unbelieveable, totally bizarre and apparently unprecedented.

[Bob Schroeck]

50 Years Ago, Americans Made The 2nd Moon Landing... Why Doesn't Anyone Remember?

[Labster]

Now that's an acqua alta!  Just a reminder that unlike in Aria, this is a medieval city -- the older parts of town have the sewers just dump into the canals.

Anyway, another story: Greensboro Man Creates Dating App Where He's The Only Guy Allowed

[robkelk]

Underground farming

"Underground" as in "take a disused bomb-shelter bunker and grow salad greens in it".

[classicdrogn]

That's supposedly how the Lars farm worked in Star Wars, as I understand it.

[DHBirr]

What does it take to stop a bad guy?  Try a fire extinguisher ... and a narwhal tusk....

As Mako said in one Chuck Norris movie, "The warrior uses what is at hand!"

[Bob Schroeck]

In surprise breakthrough, scientists create quantum states in everyday electronics.