HOUS is a Korean design firm that offers fresh, modern designs for home furnishings. Its product lineup includes a table that looks like a goofy monster and a mirror that frames the user within the perspective of a digital camera.

The firm's most recent design is a set of four stools that, when stacked on top of each other, resemble a hamburger.

I'll sit on one of the buns, each of which is cushioned.

-via Fairy Club

The Church of God with Signs Following is one of the few churches left in the US that practices venomous snake handling as a statement of faith, and also incorporates the practice of drinking poison, usually strychnine. The belief stems from a literal interpretation of Mark 16: 18 which says, in part, "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." The snake handling is a small part of a worship service, and comes after singing preaching, and speaking in tongues as many Pentecostal churches do. Churches who still practice snake handling are mostly limited to Appalachia, and are most common in East Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. People have died from the practice of handling snakes, which is prohibited by law in most states. When that happens, church members blame the death on a lack of faith.

The use of venomous snakes for worship in Appalachia is usually attributed to George Went Hensley. Hensley did not invent snake handling, but he certainly promoted its use in Pentecostal churches across the South in the early 20th century (he died of a snake bite in 1955). While it is believed that snake handling is dying out, it's hard to know for sure because the churches who do this are extremely secretive, especially since laws against it were passed. Read about the churches who still use venomous snakes as part of their worship at Danny Dutch.

(Image credit: Russell Lee)

Lascelles, Victoria, Australia, has a population of 93. There were about the same number of residents in 1917, or at least human residents. But there were also an estimated 100 million mice! The mouse population boomed after an abnormally warm winter, and every nook and cranny of the small town was full of mice. The residents of Lascelles buried 40-gallon drums to trap the mice, until they had killed 1500 tons of mice. You can imagine what a horror that year was, because a rodent infestation is a tried-and-true horror film plot and gave us the Black Plague, too.

But the story of Lascelles is just one story. There was also the time 11 million birds decided to roost in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and that wasn't all that long ago. Or the dust storm that was so thick it brought the temperature down 30 degrees in just minutes in Dodge City, Kansas. Or the historical shower of rocks from the sky that killed 10,000 people in China (that wasn't a small town, but it was still bizarre). Or the Michigan town that was swallowed by sand dunes. Read what happened in all these disasters at Cracked.

We all know its important to teach children how to use the emergency phone number, 911 in the US. However, it's hard to convey what an emergency is to a kid who's never experienced one, and it's hard to get very young children to take anything seriously. A toddler named Bennett in Moore, Oklahoma, who looks to be about three years old, was playing with an old cell phone. It had no service provider, but still had some battery life left, which meant it could call 911. What kind of emergency did he report? Emergency donuts!

The very patient dispatcher played along with Bennet, and may have eventually been able to talk to his mother. The Moore Police Department posted the video because it was so cute. They then went into action responding to the call, with a delivery of emergency donuts. You can see from that followup video that Bennett may have had some encouragement ("egging on") from his older brother. A good time was had by all. -via Boing Boing

Turkish delight was once a familiar term for a familiar candy that originated in Turkey. Its popularity has dropped in the past few decades as children now have an amazing variety of candies in different textures and artificial flavors to choose from. Many people are only familiar with the name from the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But there are specialty stores that sell genuine Turkish delight, often with fancy additions like nuts, coconut, or chocolate coatings.

The original Turkish delight is a very sweet and somewhat gummy candy that can sport all manner of flavors. The main ingredients are sugar, cornstarch, water, and flavoring. It's the cooking technique that makes it authentic, and that includes 45 minutes of stirring. So while it may seem like a lot of work, the fresh homemade candy in your favorite flavors will be a worthwhile experiment. Read up on the delights of Turkish delight at Atlas Obscura, and bookmark the included recipe. If you make it, be sure to let us know how it turns out.

Can you imagine Star Trek as a Western? It's not that hard. The original series had "Spectre of the Gun," which directly referenced the shootout at the O.K. Corral. The Next Generation had "A Fistful of Datas", one of the more forgetable malfunctioning holodeck episodes. The time travel episode "Time's Arrow" is arguably a Western.

This Starfleet science division (hence the blue) officer would fit right in at a Ten Forward set in Dodge City. Miss Molly Heart wears the fetching outfit for @StarfleetCosplay.

Alexandra Dillon is an artist in Los Angeles who paints human figures on everyday objects. These faces add personalities to the tools. I'm especially fond of this cleaver that, with a terrified face anthropomorphizing it, creates a sense of horror for the viewer.

For many years, innovative public libraries have offered physical objects that patrons can check out. These include household tools, fishing gear, and toys. Such a collection is often called a "library of things."

The Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts has a variety of things available for checkout, including a ghost hunting kit. This particular kit is sold by Ghost Stop, a paranormal investigation supply firm in Virginia. I think it's the Spirit Box Ghost Hunting Kit, which is on sale for $219.95.

This addition to the library's collections is a prudent choice, given that the Barnstable area has a known ghost infestation problem.

-via reddit

The roller coaster known as Kingda Ka was erected at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, in 2005. At the time, it was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. It also gave a memorable phallic feature to the landscape. But that was 20 years ago, and nothing lasts forever. The demolition of Kingda Ka was last month.



And it came down exactly as planned, and not even a tree was injured. But when that tower hit the ground, every beam and strut just fell apart like they were toothpicks! This might give you the impression that the tower wasn't all that sturdy for the 19 years it was in operation. But it's better to assume that the experts who planned and carried out the demolition loosened those components before detonating the final explosion that brought it to earth. -via Boing Boing

(Top image credit: Dusso Janladde)

The International Space Station (ISS) is way cleaner than your home. The modules of the station and the equipment it uses were built in dust-free and nearly sterile conditions. The items taken to the station are regulated and monitored. The vast majority of microbes that are introduced into the environment of the space station is brought in on the astronaut's skin. But is such a clean environment actually healthy?

A study of the microbes on the inner surfaces of the ISS show species from 6.31% of the phylogenic tree, which contains all known species. Compare that to an average household, which can contain twice that percentage or more. One scientist compared the microbial life on the space station to a COVID-19 isolation ward, where every surface is disinfected or sterilized as often as possible. Living in such a clean environment may be the reason that astronauts in space often suffer from immune system maladies. Read about this discovery and its implications at Ars Technica.

(Image credit: NASA)

I can feel a great disturbance in the Force. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural. One of them is throwing rap beats in Star Wars. But Star Wars is already full of unnatural things, so why not make the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise into a rap song? All it takes is some imagination, an artificial intelligence program, and a willingness to offend the few prequel purists that still exist.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as AI shenanigans in the Star Wars universe go. Another scene from the same movie (Revenge of the Sith) by a different YouTuber makes Palpatine a head banger as he delivers his climactic political speech declaring the birth of the empire in a metal song.



This desire among a faction of Star Wars fans to turn the saga into a musical might eventually get the attention of Disney/Lucasfilm as they continue their quest to wring every possible dollar out of the franchise. -via Born in Space

We often see lists that show us how adorably cute cats are, or how funny they can be in some situations. Every once in a while, it's healthy to acknowledge that they come with murder mittens and are, in fact, pointy on five ends. After all, your fat and lazy house cat is descended from wild predators, and they feel the need to remind you of that fact every so often. Even the tiniest of kittens can be proud of the weapons they carry around on each paw. The little guy above may have an inflated view of the actual menace he projects, but he will eventually grow up.

And by then, a cat will know how to use those claws to get what they want. So enjoy cats, but always keep in mind that they are capable of inflicting great pain if they so choose. You can marvel at these murder mittens in complete safety with a gallery of 50 cats showing off their claws at Bored Panda. 

When you are very much used to something, it's hard to perceive how weird it is to outsiders. Most nations of the world are small enough to exist in only one time zone. And then there's China, which is very big and still only has one time zone, but that's a different story. Anyway, I live pretty close to a time zone border, and have always been conscious of how to calculate the time elsewhere. When living in Central Time, I got used to everything on TV being an hour earlier than it should. The lines between zones aren't straight, and the reasons why are inexplicable. And then we're going to throw Daylight Saving Time in the mix. Someone who has never had to deal with time zones may find them quite confusing. Laurence Brown of Lost in the Pond explains how he first encountered American time zones and what it took to get used to them. There's a 77-second skippable ad at 3:20.

We refer to early theatrical movies as silent films, but they were never presented silently in theaters. In high-class theaters movies were accompanied by an orchestra, and in small towns a piano player provided music and maybe some sound effects. Then Robert Hope-Jones developed the theater organ by electrifying and expanding a church pipe organ to include percussion and sound effects pipes. With a theater organ, a single organist could provide the music of an orchestra plus sound effects for movies! Hope-Jones wasn't much of a businessman, but Rudolph Wurlitzer, who bought the company, was. In the early 1920s, organs were rapidly being installed in theaters across the US. Seeing the latest Hollywood film with a skilled organist providing the soundtrack live on an instrument that may have thousands of pipes was a magical experience, but it didn't last long. The first "talkie" came out in 1927, and theater organ sales ground to a halt.

However, today there are still around a hundred musicians who are skilled in playing a theater organ, but only a handful who make a living doing so. The American Theater Organ Society (ATOS) would like you to experience cinema the way it was presented in the early 20th century, and works to preserve existing theater organs and promote their use. Smithsonian explains what makes a theater organ so special, and has a rundown of eight places where you can still enjoy old movies accompanied by a live organ performance. This would be well worth a road trip this summer.  
 
(Image credit: Andypiper)

During World War II, the sky was battleground as much as the ground below. When your plane was attacked and destroyed, you had to rely on your parachute to get you safety back to earth. But there was always the possibility that your parachute could be destroyed along with your plane, and you'd be out of luck. But three men on the Allied side- a Ukrainian, an American, and an Englishman, survived miles of freefall and survived! Two were picked up by German forces, but were given care for their injuries and survived the war as POWs.

Shown above is American Alan Magee, who was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress in 1943. First his ball turret was wrecked, then he found his parachute shredded, and finally he was blown out of his plane completely. He fell four miles, unconscious, and crashed through the glass ceiling of a train station in France. He suffered horrific injuries, but came into the care of a compassionate German doctor. Read Magee's story and that of the two other survivors who made it back to earth without the aid of parachute at Military History Now. -via Strange Company

(Image source: American Air Museum in Britain)