Memes can come from anything as long as anybody finds a witty way to put words on a photo. Even the most mundane images or scenarios can be brought to life by memefying them, and putting another spin to the scene being depicted in the photo. Creativity is the key, as long as one has an eye for it, even the most obscure photos can become legendary. Just like these three military memes.

Of course, behind the memes that went viral online are real people who have encountered serious situations over their military career. The first meme is the "You don't operate, do you son?" featuring the retirement photo of former EOD specialist and Delta Force operator, Mike Vining. The second is the Grenade Meme, showing Chris DeBlanc, a Marine, who is casually throwing a grenade down a flight of stairs. The third is of Dan Pronk, a member of the Australian Special Air Service as a combat medic, who had been in Afghanistan doing a raid.

Despite these photos becoming viral on the internet, there's more to the stories of these three men than just those moments that were captured on camera. They share their stories as well as the tales behind the photos with Coffee or Die Magazine.

(Image credit: Mac Caltrider/Coffee or Die Magazine)

Queen Genepil was merely 18 years old when she was chosen by the Mongolian council to become the new wife of Bogd Khan. Her name was Tseyenpil and she was already married with children at the time, but the councilors had assured her that the marriage would just be for the sake of appearances as they merely wanted to maintain the image of the monarchy.

Had she refused the proposal, that would have been the end of it, and the councilors would have been forced to let the arrangement go. But Tseyenpil agreed and became the queen consort of the Bogd, and she was renamed Genepil. A year after their marriage, the Bogd died marking the end of the Mongolian monarchy.

Unfortunately, after the abolition of the Mongolian monarchy, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party took over and its leader, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who had been referred to as the "Stalin of Mongolia", became the supreme ruler. Much like Stalin, he began purging Mongolia of people whom the party deemed as dissidents and enemies of the revolution.

Being a former queen consort, Genepil was accused, tried, and convicted of treason. She and her family were arrested in 1937, and a year later, executed. Despite this, her daughter Tserenkhand escaped the fate of her family and recalls how her mother had been taken at night and simply left a piece of sugar on their pillows.

(Image credit: Joy V Spicer)

Simone Segouin had only been 15 years old when the Germans invaded France, and for the next three years of her life, she helped her father shelter and feed the resistance fighters. She became acquainted with Roland Boursier who taught her how to handle rifles, explosives, and guerilla tactics. He gave her fake documents and a codename, Nicole Minet.

At the age of 18, she became a reconaissance agent for the French resistance by stealing a bike from the Nazis in Chartres, and pedaling around the area uninhibited. Later, having become an expert in the use of weapons and tactics, she led more daring operations against the Germans, capturing troops, setting traps, and sabotaging German equipment.

It soon escalated to bigger and riskier operations which included blowing up bridges and derailing German trains. Leading up to the liberation of France in 1944, she continued to fight with her comrades with a submachine gun slung on her shoulder until the joint forces of the French army, the US infantry, and the French resistance were able to retake Paris.

She became a second lieutenant and received the Croix de Guerre for her service in the resistance. She and Boursier had six children together although they didn't marry. After the war, she became a pediatric nurse in Chartres, and lived to be 97 before passing away this year on February 21st in Courville-sur-Eure.

(Image credit: US National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons)

The 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been bestowed upon the funniest nature pictures of the year. Congratulations to Australian photographer Jason Moore, who was named the overall winner for his photograph titled Air Guitar Roo. The same photo won Alex Walker’s Serian Creatures of the Land Award. For his efforts, Moore wins a photo safari for two in Kenya, two camera bags, and a nice trophy. Not to mention global publicity and bragging rights. Let the Photoshopped memes begin! 

Jacek Stankiewicz of Poland won two awards with this picture he calls Dispute. It took the Junior category award plus the Affinity Photo 2 People's Choice Award. He figured the juvenile bird was either arguing with his parents, or else tattling on a sibling. See all the category winners and ten Highly Commended photos (I particularly like the Monday morning owl) in the winners gallery. 

The fairly new term "Anthropocene" refers to a proposed geologic epoch in which man made his mark on the earth. We are in that epoch right now, but when did it start? That's up for discussion. There are arguments that man began changing the world with the development of agriculture, but was that enough change to make a real difference? Was it the Industrial Revolution? Or maybe the first atomic bomb? No consensus has yet been reached.

There is a proposal to use Crawford lake in Ontario as a reference point for the beginning of the Anthropocene -or at least for studying and documenting it. It's a small lake, but it has some very specific and interesting properties that make it uniquely suitable for such a reference point. Besides it being perfectly suited for the purpose, it's already in a conservation area designated as an Ontario Area of Natural and Scientific Interest. Savannah Geary of Sci Show explains, and makes us want to visit Crawford Lake.

Once upon a time, a person's home was wherever they built it, and the places that didn't have homes were considered shared land. Then came the concept of purchasing private property and land grants and deeds, and poor people were out of luck. But in that transition period, people came up with schemes to work around that. One was the concept of tŷ unnos, a Welsh term meaning "house built in one night." It became a tradition that if one were to build an entire home in one night before the sun came up, they would own that house, plus however much land they could toss an axe to.

Young people would plan their adventures in building for a long time, making some components and gathering construction materials. Then on the planned night, all their friends and family would begin building when the sun set. These crude structures were merely four walls with a door and a roof, with a chimney because a fire was necessary. After the household was established, the tŷ unnos would be replaced by something more substantial. This tradition was not limited to Wales, though. A similar scheme existed under different names in Ireland, Italy, France, and in Turkey. Read about tŷ unnos and how that worked at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Steve Daniels)

Since Disney's very first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was released in 1937, Disney has had 62 animated films to date. We might like some more than others, but one thing is for certain - Disney has spread joy and the love of film and animation into the hearts of young and old alike.

When it comes to Disney's animated film canon, people have generally sectioned them off into various eras. Currently, we're in the revival era, which started in 2009, with The Princess and the Frog.

With a new Disney film coming out, Rolling Stone goes through all of Disney's 62 animated films to rank them. One can guess which films got into their top 10, as a majority of them come from either the golden era or the renaissance period, but a few other films that others don't consider to be top-tier Disney films also made it to the top.

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Looking for cheap tickets to your next travel destination can sometimes be like finding a needle in a haystack. Most tickets will be around the same price, and even the cheapest ones you can find will barely be within your budget. A few savvy travelers however, found that there's a very interesting workaround to get affordable airfare, but it might be very risky.

It's called skiplagging, and it's when you buy a ticket with a layover flights, but you hop off at your intended destination without boarding the connecting flight. It's a loophole with some serious consequences. Although it's not illegal, airlines strictly prohibit engaging in the practice since it will be a huge cost to them. If they catch people skiplagging, then they can either ban them from future flights, strip them of loyalty status, or have them pay the full price of the ticket.

Skiplagged is a website based on the concept of skiplagging. It's intended to help consumers find the cheapest flights to their destination. It was founded by Aktarer Zaman who noticed these cheaper layover flights, and so built an algorithm that searches for them.

There are a few caveats when skiplagging. You have to travel without checking your bags as those will be routed to the final destination on the ticket. And you can't do roundtrip tickets because it will get canceled for a no-show on the second leg.

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It seems inevitable that whenever we have holiday parties and family gatherings, we must make polite conversation with the relatives and guests to show proper etiquette. So, we try our best to make small talk, initiate the conversation, and keep it going. However, there comes a point when somebody comes up with some very personal and, at times, pointed questions which we would rather not answer. How then should we react without being flippant or rude about it? Communication experts suggest the swivel method.

The swivel method is basically pivoting away from the awkward topic by acknowledging it, showing appreciation and empathy, and then subtly moving on to another topic. It's a form of redirection that doesn't make the person feel as though they have stepped on a landmine. With the swivel method, you don't ruin the mood and you keep the momentum going.

Now, it's a different case if people continue to press you on those matters. Generally, people don't mean to put you in an awkward position. It's best to assume that they are well-meaning with their questions, just that they are unaware which questions cross boundaries. If, on the other hand, we find ourselves being the person others feel the need to swivel from, Debra Fine, an etiquette expert, suggests to never ask questions that we don't know the answers to.

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In the history of the US, there have only been four presidents who were assassinated, and out of those four, one stands out among the rest, and that's the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. As JFK was riding on a presidential motorcade, two shots struck him dead.

The Warren Commission officially identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the perpetrator, although Oswald himself denied that he was the one who did it. Two days after JFK's assassination, Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. Despite the reports and several pieces of evidence pointing to Oswald being the killer, 65% of Americans still believe there's more behind the assassination of JFK, according to Gallup polls.

Due to the mysterious circumstances that surrounded the JFK assassination case, many people formed conspiracy theories that suggested varying notions, such as the CIA or FBI being the mastermind as there were officials who disagreed with JFK's policies, or that LBJ ordered the assassination, or perhaps the most outlandish of all, that JFK's own wife had him killed.

The fact that JFK's assassination was done long range, compared to the other three assassinations, which were all in close range, lends the case suspicion from the public and conspiracy theorists. Despite the shock of how JFK's presidency ended, perhaps we can instead turn to what his term accomplished no matter how short it had been.

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There has been a lot of talk about AI in recent times as new developments continue to push the limits of what it can do, worrying some and getting some backlash from others. But as many have pointed out, despite the processing and predictive power of AI, it's not a perfect system. It cannot replace humans in one of the most critical aspects: creativity and innovation. And a new study proves just that, by pitting young children against the AI.

The children and the AI tools, specifically large language model (LLM) programs, were instructed to do some basic problem-solving tasks such as drawing a circle using one of three tools. The goal was to figure out which of the tools would be the best way to draw a circle. All of the human children were able to correctly choose the appropriate instrument, meanwhile, the AI only scored correctly 76% of the time.

Of course, there are limitations to the study, and it doesn't negate the fact that AI is very useful in performing many other tasks that are difficult, tedious, and time-consuming for humans to do. After all, humans built the machines in order to make our lives more convenient and efficient.

Perhaps what this study shows is that the threat of AI to upend human society is non-existent, if not merely insignificant. It's all about how people are using AI, and for what purpose, as many routine or menial jobs get relegated to algorithms and machines, thus displacing people. The challenge, then, is how we can keep up with the developments happening around us.

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Hayao Miyazaki is a titan in Japanese cinema. For over six decades, Miyazaki has been working as an animator, and has established himself as one of the legends in Japanese animation. He's such a commanding presence that he was even able to convince Takeshi Honda, a veteran animator, to set aside his role as one of the animators of the new Evangelion film in order to work on Miyazaki's latest and supposedly, his last film, The Boy and The Heron.

Honda recounts Miyazaki's appeal saying that this would most likely be his last film because no one in the Miyazaki family ever lived beyond 80. And so Honda acquiesced and agreed to work with him on the film. By the way, Miyazaki is now 82 years old and appears to have more left in him as there are further rumors that he has ideas for another film in the future.

As for Honda's experience working with Miyazaki, one would think that everything would be smooth and cooperative between two industry veterans, but to Honda's surprise, Miyazaki was very meticulous when it came to how the film was to be animated.

During the first few years working with him, Honda found Miyazaki commenting about the style of animation, which is distinctive of Ghibli films, and how he wanted certain features drawn in a particular way. However, Honda remarked that, after a while, he reverted to his own style, to which Miyazaki simply relinquished his persistence.

It took approximately seven years for The Boy and The Heron to be completed, and much of that time was spent trying to get the details just right, as one would expect from any Ghibli film. This is Miyazaki's eleventh feature, and purportedly based on his own life. The Boy and The Heron is scheduled to be released in North America next month.

(Image credit: MEXT/Wikimedia Commons)

When the US president goes anywhere, the security involved is a logistics nightmare involving hundreds of people. You deal with that when there's a diplomatic reason for travel, but when the Commander in Chief needs a weekend to relax and refresh or a summer vacation, it's a lot easier to have a spot already in place with permanent security. Security is important, but that spot also has to be nice enough so that the president will want to stay there. That's how Camp David was born in the 1930s. The facility is also perfect for hosting meetings with other heads of state for the same reasons, especially for extended meetings like peace talks. Half as Interesting explains the history of Camp David, plus the measures taken to keep it feeling like a luxury resort to its guests while maintaining security that makes a supermax prison look weak. It's a delicate balancing act, but someone has to do it.  

Parents lose sight of their child at the airport pic.twitter.com/1phO6vwbma

— Crazy Clips (@crazyclipsonly) November 23, 2023

Airport security requirements can be rather strict. There are some items that you may keep as carry-on luggage and take with you into the cabin. Other items must be checked and travel in a plane's baggage compartment.

But a child is not one of them. You may (and should) keep your toddler with you in the cabin, even though other passengers may wish otherwise.

Business Insider reports that a little boy climbed onto the baggage conveyor belt system at an airport in Santiago, Chile. He appears to have enjoyed the experience, but baggage handlers nonetheless shut down his ride and returned him to his parents.

Does your family have turkey for Thanksgiving? Some families do. I mean, to each his own, I guess. But I agree with Kimberly Darling of Chicago who prefers to serve her family alligator.

She's one of many Thanksgiving celebrants described in an article published in The Wall Street Journal (sorry, it's paywalled) who serve exotic meats to their families on Thanksgiving. S. Ottomanelli & Sons, a butcher shop in New York City, reports that about 25% of its orders for the feast are for exotic meats, which include alligator, kangaroo, python, and rattlesnake.

Other alligator meat producers inform the Journal that they see similar upticks in orders during the holiday seasons. It's a time to eat hearty and impress guests, so alligator suits them.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: S. Ottomanelli & Sons