The Golden Girls premiered in 1985 and ended its run in 1992 while it was still popular. It remains a cultural force with a lively fanbase to this day. But let's say that the series had never ended at all and NBC decided to run over a thousand additional seasons.

Animator Mike Hollingsworth imagines Blanche, Sophia, Rose, Dorothy, and Dorothy's ex-husband Stanley becoming immortal. Hollingsworth uses the original audio from the season 4 episode "Stan Takes a Wife" and adds in visual effects that appear to be inspired by The Jetsons or Futurama. The girls deal with relationship drama, but, sadly, the video ends before they all eat alien cheesecake together.

-via Laughing Squid

October 22 has been celebrated as International Caps Lock Day since the year 2000. It was so much fun that a second Cap Locks Day was later launched on June 28 in honor of pitchman Billy Mays. The pseudo-holiday is to celebrate the confounding habit some people have (or had) of typing all their internet messages in all capitals. We still don't know why people did that, but trying to get them to stop was difficult, if not impossible. In text, the use of all-caps comes across as shouting at the recipient, or even worse, the audience.

One method of changing habits is to get rid of the caps lock key altogether, which Google did in 2020, when they took the caps lock keys off their Chromebooks and replaced it with a search key. You can still turn on all-caps, but it requires the use of several keys. The habit of typing in all caps is dying out, though, and younger generations who text on smart phones rarely use capitals at all. But we still set aside this day to remember the struggles of the early internet when grandpa somehow found the caps lock key once and could never find it again to turn it off. -via Metafilter

(Image source: Know Your Meme)

It happens every year, and it's always adorable. The 34th annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade was held on Sunday in New York City, and thousands of people came out to show off their dogs or enjoy watching the parade. The pooches were dressed to the nines, with imaginative costumes and vehicles, including the number one Halloween costume this year, Bob from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Dogs were dressed as historical figures, pop culture characters, other animals, and more than anything, food. Don't miss the puppy dressed as the house from Up!, the Target shopping cart, and the pair of werewolves. Dog owners were out in costume, as well. One couple dressed up as their dog, who wasn't wearing a costume, making it a trio. If you want to see the whole parade, it's available at YouTube. See more pictures in this article. These are all very good dogs.

Archaeologists have long studied remnants of ancient cities that arose and then were suddenly abandoned, which happened over and over before civilization got a real toehold. It appears to have happened every couple of thousand years. Çatalhöyük in Turkey is the oldest farming community yet discovered, dating back more than 9,000 years, where the houses were so densely packed that people entered through the roofs. It was abandoned fairly suddenly in 6,000 BCE. By 4,000 BCE, other cities grew up in what is now Ukraine, but were abandoned a thousand years later.

The layouts of these cities and others show that in each iteration, people became somewhat more distanced from their neighbors. Could these communities have been abandoned because of communicable diseases? Could they have been bad enough to give up city living for a millennium? Scientists have found DNA from some diseases, and are running simulations to test their hypothesis about city density and disease in shaping the beginning of civilization, and you can read about it at the Conversation. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Murat Özsoy 1958)

We've all seen this illustration in movies and cartoons when a character has to make a moral decision- a small devil stands on one shoulder, and an angel on the other, whispering in the character's ear to persuade him to do the right thing or the wrong thing. The devil represents temptation, and the angel represents the conscience. It's pretty much the perfect way to illustrate a moral dilemma, but where did it come from? You won't be surprised to learn that the basic idea goes way back, at least a couple thousand years or so. But why are these figures small and standing on someone's shoulders? Duh, the easier to whisper in his ear, my dear. Everyone knows what it means, and it's certainly less boring than just using a disembodied voice to explain to the audience what the character is thinking. Which one will he listen to? Well, for that you will have to watch the movie.  -via Laughing Squid

New York Comic Con 2024 was held over this past weekend, and there were many awesome costumes that looked like they just walked off a movie set, or a spaceship, to be honest. However, I've always been drawn to cosplayers who show some imagination and cleverness. John Farrier was taken with a woman dressed as a Pizza Hut. My pick among those unexpected costumes is this guy who attended the con as a Muppeteer. He had the puppets, but which Muppet master would he dress as -Jim Henson or Frank Oz? Splitting his body down the middle, he didn't have to decide, and was able to carry two Muppets. You have to wonder if he did the voices, too. I tried to find out who this cosplayer is, but I have not found his name yet. This picture is just one among an astonishing gallery of 43 magnificent NYCC cosplay pictures posted at Buzzfeed.

Update: I heard from the cosplayer, and he is professional puppeteer Rick Lyon. You can find him on Instagram and at Facebook. -Thanks, Rick!

One way to get everyday people on board with a robot is to make it less like a human, and therefore less creepy. LimX Dynamics introduces the TRON 1, a bipedal robot that looks relatively unthreatening. It's only half the height of a human, and resembles robots we are familiar with from the movies (Tron, Star Wars, Robocop, Battlestar Galactica, etc.). All in all, it resembles an ostrich of sorts more than a human. For a two-legged robot, it balances really well, and has three different "foot" modes that can be switched out. And boy, can it dance!

You can have your own Tron I for just $15,000. I'm sure it can do things besides walk upstairs and dance, but what it's supposed to be useful for isn't really explained. I can't see it pushing a lawnmower or washing dishes. I'm sure it would be easy to attach a machine gun or a flamethrower to it. -via Boing Boing

What most people know about alchemy is that alchemists were looking for a magical way to convert lead or other common material into gold. They were also looking for a magical formula for immortality. This is a rather simplistic view of a discipline that changed and evolved over a thousand years' time.

In the beginning, alchemy was science, although rudimentary from our modern point of view. You could call it beginner's chemistry. Alchemists did experiments to learn the properties of materials and what could be done with them, although their theories were often derived from philosophy, religion, and a belief in what we would today call magic. Alchemists were mysterious, because those hoping to manufacture gold kept their activities private, and even with those who didn't, it was hard for anyone to understand what they were doing.

In the 16th century, there came to be a split between alchemy and pure science without the philosophy attached. Religion also moved on and considered alchemy to be heretical. But the alchemists made some pretty important discoveries while they were trying to manufacture gold. Read about alchemy and how it changed over time at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Joseph Wright of Derby)

There are many great cosplays at the New York City Comic-Con, which is one of the largest fandom conventions in the world. X user Tanooki Joe shares photos of this woman who is festooned to resemble a Pizza Hut restaurant from the 1980s and 90s.

The iconic red booths are immediately recognizable to any 80s kid. The cosplayer offers other visitors to the convention what appear to be shakers of Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper for a fake pizza.

-via Super Punch

Medical researchers in the UK recently dissected the body of a 78-year old man who had donated his remains for research. They were surprised at his genitalia: the man had three penises.

Diphallia, which is the state of having two penises, is rare. But, according to the researchers' article in The Journal of Medical Reports, there is only one other known case of triphallia in medical literature.

This gentleman had one primary and two secondary penises. The largest had a functional urethra which it shared with the medium-sized penis. The smallest of the three penises did not have a urethra at all. Each, however, had a corpora cavernosa and a glans penis.

-via Dave Barry | Screenshot from Inglourious Basterds

The 1990 film The Hunt for Red October is a thrilling film about a Soviet submarine captain who tries to defect to the United States with his advanced ballistic missile submarine. It's an adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel of the same name. It's an exciting, well-paced movie with highly effective visual effects, even by today's standards.

One of the most essential props in the film is a model of the Soviet boomer. X user Winston Smith (possibly not his real name) adores the movie and was able to purchase the model.

He mentions that he has yet to tell his wife about the purchase. I think he may need to make an emergency dive soon.

The Catholic Pipe Company is the firm of artist Caleb C. Mitchell. From his workshop in Hebron, Nebraska, Mitchell produces ornately designed and precisely rendered images of Catholic saints. For him, it's an act of veneration.

Above is Saint Sebastian, who was martyred under Emperor Diocletian during approximately the year 288.

In the movies, pirates are charming scalawags who operate outside of the normal limits of civilization. This might give you the wrong idea about the Golden Age of Piracy in the mid-17th century. Sure, some governments turned a blind eye to certain pirates, as long as they carried out activities that benefitted some nations in their competition over other countries. Most pirates were just fine with deadly violence, whether in war or in plundering coastal villages or even in competition with each other. They could be pretty brutal overall. Captains reinforced the pecking order and kept their crews in line with the threat of a painful death, and rivals were treated even worse. Short of death, permanent maiming was on the table, too, which explains the hooks and peg legs. Those eyepatches had their uses, but they might have hidden a missing eye as well. Some pirates weren't above a bit of torture, either, to get what they wanted. Weird History relates some stories of pirates that might tarnish their cinematic reputation.

In the early 1950s, author Kurt Vonnegut was trying to get his writing career off the ground. His first book received favorable reviews, but the money wasn't coming in. With a family to support, he tried all kinds of jobs and ventures to bring in income. One he was particularly dedicated to was the development of a board game. It was a straightforward military strategy game called General Headquarters, and drew on his experience in World War II. But he never found a publisher that was interested.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and game designer Geoff Engelstein heard about the lost game and contacted Vonnegut's estate about it. He obtained 40 pages of Vonnegut's notes, rules, revisions, and rejection letters. From those, Engelstein put the game together and now it's available, 70 years after its inception, at Barnes & Noble. Read about General Headquarters at Open Culture. -via Nag on the Lake

Being a Russian historical figure is never a picnic, but Emperor Ivan VI had it worse than many. He was born in August of 1740, the son of a duke and duchess. His mother was the niece of the reigning Empress Anna, who had no children. At the age of two months, he was declared the heir to the throne just before Anna died. A year later, the toddler Emperor Ivan VI was overthrown by his cousin Elizabeth Petrovna, and he and his parents were imprisoned. At age four, he was separated from this parents and put into solitary confinement and the public was led to believe he was dead. While his guards were kept in the dark as to their prisoner's true identity, Ivan was taught to read only so he could read the Bible, and was otherwise left alone. He grew to be mentally ill due to years of isolation, and weak from the lack of any medical attention during his confinement. However, Ivan knew who he was, and eventually some of the guards knew, too.

When Catherine the Great ascended to the throne in 1762, she issued secret orders that the "nameless one" was to be put to death if anyone ever tried to take him out of his prison. And that's exactly what happened in 1764, just before Ivan's 24th birthday. Read about the hapless emperor at Wikipedia with more commentary at reddit.  -via Messy Nessy Chic

(Image credit: Ivan Ivanovich Tvorozhnikov)