prison tattoos, decision making, taxidermy

Your friendly Russian prison tattoo primer

America, meet your puppetmaster - How Eddie Bernays got you to buy books, wear hairnets, and eat bacon for breakfast

I don't know what to say about this taxidermy. Except it's amazing.

library songs, paradoxes, victorian surgeon

Song of the library staff and for good measure (ha!) Song of the cataloguer

11 "Brain Twisting" Paradoxes

One of history's most famous (infamous?) surgeons

San Francisco

Great set of photos (two sets, actually) blending the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and current scenes of SF shot from the same place.
Part 1
Part 2

Bonus: The now-abandoned building that used to house a pool so large it was patrolled by lifeguards in rowboats.

molasses, vowels, con man, honda

I know it's weird to say this, but this is my favorite disaster, possibly because it's so strange. Or at least it's one of them, I have a fascination with disasters.

How Americans near the great lakes are changing the sound of English.

Allegedly at least, the smoothest con man who ever lived.

This guy drove 1,000,000 miles in his Honda. So Honda threw him a parade.

1948 Olympics, books

Some neat info on the state of the world last time London hosted the Olympics (1948) and a very interesting female athlete to boot.

Judging books by their covers - a six year old guesses what classic books are about by looking at the covers

water, college, gone

12 unusual lakes. by which i mean ones that boil, and ones that nobody's ever seen.

Meet the man with 29 college degrees.

Very cool things that no longer exist.. but once pretty much defined their neighborhoods. I'd go see most of these.

nuclear testing, photos of london, letters of last resort

Photos of London reflected in puddles.

Letters of last resort are carried by British nuclear subs, and detail what to do in the event the government of Britain is no longer functioning. "According to Peter Hennessy's book Secret State: Whitehall and the cold war 1945 to 1970, the process by which a Trident submarine would determine if the British government continues to function includes, amongst other checks, establishing whether BBC Radio 4 continues broadcasting."

(Mostly) unseen photos from 1955 atomic tests in Nevada. This whole area sort of fascinates me, along with the fact that visitors to Las Vegas used to have atomic test picnics and watch the blasts.

legal gay marriage, trekkies, secret town

11 countries where gay marriage is legal On June 8, 1901, Elisa Sanchez Loriga, dressed as a man and using a male alias, married her girlfriend Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Once the truth was discovered (and published in two newspapers) the women lost their jobs, were excommunicated, and had to flee the country in order to escape arrest. Despite all this their marriage was never annulled, making theirs the first recorded gay marriage in Spain’s history.


We're Trekkies and we know it


Great set of pictures: In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government acquired 70,000 acres of land in Eastern Tennessee and established a secret town called Oak Ridge. More info about the photography from the U.S. Department of Energy: Most of them were taken by Ed Westcott [pictured above], who was the only person allowed to photography the Oak Ridge reservation during the Manhattan Project. Aside from documenting the operations of the project, he spent a lot of time capturing everyday life within the 70,000 acre top secret city. All of the photos with people were meticulously posed.

Vintage Red Cross, Bach-loving Japanese and Ellis Island

Vintage Red Cross photos Which apparently I cannot preview here. But they're neat, I swear.


10,000 singers belt out Ode to Joy. A good explanation of why 10,000 Japanese people would do so is here. IMHO, the good part starts at about 6:45, unless of course you enjoy the entire piece of music.


A great set of photos from Ellis Island