Sign language

No need to wonder whether Sunriver Nature Center's sign about the swan is accurate.

And this one posted at a library pretty much nailed it, too.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Displacement test

Most bizarre seats in the house watching synchronized swimmers under water and upside down.

And this motion-tracking dartboard guarantees you a bullseye on every throw.

"Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that." -- Erich Heller

Cracking under pressure

This is what happens when you put a jumbo-size marshmallow gummy bear in a vacuum chamber and then raise it back to atmospheric pressure.

"You're one of the first people who's never lived in a world without Sesame Street." Or so says The Atlantic's life timeline.

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." -- Havelock Ellis

Cache and carry

Watch as this busy badger buries a cow carcass that's substantially sizier than itself. Mmmm, leftovers for weeks...

And the highest places in each of the 50 American states (altitude, that is), mapped courtesy of Atlas Obscura.

"Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that's bad for you!" -- Tommy Smothers

Bankers' hours

Surreptitious video of failed late-night bank break-in attempt by a gang of masked amateur thieves in France.

And strange laws from all around the world show humanity's varying beliefs and attitudes, a much of it to regulate morality.

"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty." -- Norm Crosby

Get your kicks

Best friends? Man at the beach tries to kick a dog and fails. And then it gets better...


And a quick, six-question quiz: Was the painting painted by a respected human artist or an ape?

"Life is a zoo in a jungle." -- Peter De Vries

Alternate covers

Excellent beer-bottle rendition of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" from the Bottle Boys.

And from Postmodern Jukebox, this upbeat version of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" as a vintage 50s R&B tune.

"Play the music, not the instrument." -- Author Unknown

Cast shadows

Ross Marquand not only stars in "Walking Dead" but also does some impressive celebrity voice impressions, this time of actors delivering lines for famous movies they never appeared in. Or was Brad Pitt in "Jaws"...?

And William Osman's detailed laser-cut ham and cheese bust of Vin Diesel might be an idea for your next luncheon.

"One man's daydreaming is another man's day." -- Terri Guillemets

Transitive property

Bodypaint artist extraordinaire Ilana Kolihanov manifests macabre makeup magic with this cutaway-view optical illusion.

And Flag Waver turns any image (URL or uploaded) into a waving flag on your screen.

"Imagination is the eye of the soul." Joseph Joubert

Count me out

Woman proves herself a (super)human cash-counting machine by tallying up hundreds of notes of different denominations at lightning speed.

And the evolution of the American dollar bill and all its design changes from 1862 on.

"Mammon, n.: The god of the world's leading religion." -- Ambrose Bierce

Centrifuge in F major

Wacky stunt from the Discovery Channel series "Street Outlaws" involves a homemade "nitro chair" that spins at high enough RPM to cause queasiness just from watching.

And a little steadier, Scott Weaver's amazing toothpick sculpture, with more than 3,000 hours and 100,000 toothpicks over a 30-year period to make.

"The microwave oven is the consolation prize in our struggle to understand physics." -- Jason Love

Divine spark

Even creepier than an AI Big Mouth Billy Bass is Project Yorick, which combines Alexa with an animatronic skull to make for a different kind of personal assistant. Plenty of time to get yours ready for Halloween...

And these rapping robots doing a tribute (or parody of?) The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" are evidence that at least one job (?) is safe from encroachment by the machines.

"Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." -- J.K. Rowling

Foam and games

The well-done action in these John Wick fight sequences reenacted with Nerf guns almost makes you forget that it's all toy projectiles.

And a little scary, this guy's homemade Nerf weapon that's powerful enough to shoot foam darts right through a can.

"Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe." -- John Milton, "Paradise Lost"

Removable media

Japanese laptop maker Mouse has come up with an interesting and creative way to hawk its wares with its agency to thank for this novel ad.

And from 1 to 10, there's no explanation why this guy who installs every version of Windows ever made with a bizarre way to test compatibility between upgrades.

"Computers have lots of memory but no imagination." -- Unknown

At home on the range

Yeah, clearly he meant to do that. Instructor almost accidentally creates the gun safety video of the year.


And from Matthias Hoegg comes The Power of Privacy, a short animated wind through legal developments in the world of privacy, starting with, believe it or not, the chimney.

"Better a thousand times careful than once dead." -- Proverb

Office productivity

The Chinese cubicle version of Martha Stewart cooks full-fledged meals using only random office equipment, bringing new meaning to the words multi-function printer. She uploads new episodes to her YT channel once every week or few.


And this startled snake decided to "give back" its lunch (a whole deer, by the way) to make a getaway. It's quite the process, and not for the faint of heart. [Gizmodo]

"Pre-heat the oven? Really? If I was the sort of person who planned ahead, I wouldn't be eating this Totino's Party Pizza in the first place." -- Adam Peterson

Heads nor tails

It's tough to describe this short piece from Kirsten Lepore called "Hi Stranger", part of an anthology from a rotating collective of indie animators known as the Late Night Work Club.

And a little easier to discern, an animated graph that shows how the U.S. has become more polarized in last 20 years.

"A hunter of shadows, himself a shade." -- Homer

Mental math

Get a glimpse into the prestigious world of ridiculously fast calculator operators on display in Japan, allegedly to the tune of nine keystrokes per second.

"I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally." -- Calvin Trillin