Jim Haynes, who died earlier this month, was an American in Paris who was famous for inviting strangers to dinner at his home. Starting in the late 1970's, he operated an open-house policy at his home every Sunday evening for more than 40 years. Up to 120 guests would be milling about his home. An estimated 150,000 people have come over the years. The guests came from all walks of life and countries.

But, Jim wasn't just a generous host. He lived a remarkable life. Born in Louisiana in 1933, he had lived in Venezuela as a teenager; founded the alternative culture centre Arts Lab in London, where he mixed with David Bowie, John Lennon and Yoko Ono; ran a sexual liberation magazine in Amsterdam, and all before becoming a university lecturer in sexual politics in Paris, his home since 1969. Jim also established in Edinburgh, Scotland the first paperback bookshop, co-founded the Traverse Theatre and helped kickstart the Fringe festival.

He even wrote guidebooks for couchsurfing in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of the standard descriptions of sights and hotel listings, the format was like an address book, including the contact details for hundreds of in-country hosts. The idea was that if people could not easily see the Western world themselves, he would bring it to them via travellers. It was "couchsurfing", but offline.

Read more of Jim's amazing story at BBC.

Image Credit: Jesper Haynes

Image Credit: Michael Kurcfeld

You might ask yourself if a movie that makes a "best of" list can be a cult film at all. Why yes, in the internet age it's quite likely. Once upon a time, a box office failure would only live on in late night TV, but with home video and online group chat, any movie can have a second life by finding its audience.

To kick things off: a ranking. This ranking was assembled through the votes of Ringer staff members. And though there is no official definition for a cult movie—most times, you know it when you see it—voters were asked to consider only films that (a) were not successful at the box office, (b) were not widely and initially praised by critics, and (c) gained popularity only after they left theaters, whether by word of mouth, midnight screenings, or home-video success.

A cult movie may be the "so bad its funny" kind, but most of the films on this list were ignored by first-run audiences for other reasons, like not being the feel-good feature audiences expected, or being too confusing to appreciate in a single viewing. Still, there are points to argue, for example, you can't really call Monty Python and the Holy Grail a box office failure. Check out the list and the reasons why each movie became a cult film at The Ringer. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Adam Villacin)

When governments need money, they often go for a new tax wherever the money is. That makes sense, even when it is flagrantly unfair or even corrupt. But sometimes a tax can be used as a method for changing behavior, which was the impetus for a Russian tax on beards a few hundred years ago.

It’s often claimed that King Henry VIII of England introduced a tax on beards, despite there being no records to prove it. Russia’s Peter the Great, however, did place a tax on his bearded subjects. In 1698, in a bid to bring Russia up to speed with Western Europe’s trend for cleaner shaves, he imposed an annual beard tax. His poorer subjects were allowed to wear a beard for just two kopeks a year, while wealthy citizens had to pay 100 rubles. Bearded tax-dodgers could be forcibly shaved by the police, while those who paid the tax were given a copper token to carry, which proved that their beard was fully paid for.

Whatever the reason, there have been some pretty strange taxes imposed on various societies throughout history. Read about taxes imposed on single men, political enemies, and urine, among other things at Mental Floss.

Korakuen is a chain of ramen restaurants in Japan. Last year, the company offered customers bowls of chocolatey ramen noodles for Valentine's Day. It plans to do so again this year. In addition to traditional chocolate, it will also offer a white chocolate ramen, both of which are from the famous Lotte candy company. Sora News 24 reports that each bowl will cost about $6.20 and broth refills will cost about $0.96.

Photo: PR Times

Tim Storms holds Guinness World Records for the lowest vocal note by a man and the greatest vocal range of a man. That's 10 octaves from G -7 to G/G#5!

His singing voice is unearthly beautiful. In this recording, he sings the Gospel classic "I've Got to Walk that Lonesome Road" by J.D. Summer.

This interview about Storms's work demonstrates how that low singing voice plays into conversation. Storms also does voiceover work, in which he offers renditions of Tony the Tiger, Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, and Darth Vader.

-via Twisted Sifter

Two and a half years ago, we posted the lovely story of a guy who found a cat and her four newborn kittens under his bed. British filmmaker Paris Zarcilla was astonished, and soon fell in love. He promised to protect them, and he's kept that promise by keeping all five cats. He named the mother Forever, and the kittens Pancake, Ronin, Mac, and Dobby. Zarcilla posts regular updates on the cats' antics at Twitter, and you can catch up on their story so far at Bored Panda.

Every year, one book wins the Diagram Prize for the oddest book title of the year. The year 2020 is the 42nd such competition, and a Canadian author has won for the first time. That would be anthropologist Gregory Forth of the University of Alberta.

A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path showed a remarkably clean pair of paws to the rest of the field, notching up 49% of the public vote—26 percentage points clear of second-place finisher, Introducing the Medieval Ass.   

Horace Bent, The Bookseller legendary diarist and The Diagram Prize administrator, said: “There has been little to shout about in a difficult year, but A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path is something to cherish, as long as you stay a good metre or two away and, perhaps, wear some stout wellies. Congratulations to Gregory Forth and McGill-Queen’s University Press: I am sure the champagne—or I guess something else—will certainly be flowing as they celebrate A Dog Pissing’s hard-earned victory."   

The book is about animal metaphors in Indonesia. Other titles in the shortlist were Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music, Lawnmowers: An Illustrated History, The Slaughter of Farmed Animals: Practical Ways of Enhancing Animal Welfare, and How to Make Love to a Despot. Read more on the award at The Bookseller. -via Kottke

Johann David Steingruber (1702-1787) was an architect in what is now Germany. In 1773, he published this alphabet book which used letters as outlines for building shapes. Although some letters, such as T, turn into buildings very easily, others, such as P, R, and Z, look delightfully eccentric.

A more fanciful architectural alphabet from 1753 can be found here. Perhaps the two approaches could be combined into single buildings.

-via Kottke

Meet the Longopac, a garbage bag that is able to extend its utility while cutting down waste. The bag, created by Swedish company Paxzo, is 410 feet in length. The ‘endless’ part comes from the fact that upon placing the Longopac into a garbage bin, you can fill it up however much you desire and cut it off at the top, tie it shut, and throw it out. Input Magazine has more details: 

"The bags are manufactured from three-ply polyethylene-low material consumption and [offer] high strength. Independent life cycle analysis shows less than 1/3 koldioxid compared to traditional bags. [The bags are also] lower weight and [their] more compact packing gives less transport cost."

If you ask us, it looks like a mix between a one-size-fits-any condom in bag form and Saran wrap, and we love it.

Paxxo calls their creation "endlessly clever" and while we can't vouch for that, it's definitely a creative spin on the average garbage-bag-and-can setup. Because though we try to only take out the trash when it's full... sometimes that's just not feasible. Sometimes we dispose of something foul or food scraps that can't be composted and will be foul soon enough, and we have to throw the bag out even if's only half full.

Image via Input Magazine 

Alright, TV remote control apps are not a new thing for phones or tablets. However, the existing apps either don’t work well or have limited features. 9to5mac’s Filipe Espósito  tested the newly-updated “TV Remote”,  created by Adam Foot, the developer of the Shift Keyboard for Apple Watch. The application now supports the following brands: Hitachi, Toshiba, Sharp, LG and Samsung.

The first time you open it, the app identifies all the connected TVs in your Wi-Fi network for quick pairing. You just have to choose your TV from the list and then authorize the app to work as a remote control. If you want to add more than one TV for use with the TV Remote app, you can do so.

With just a few seconds, your TV will be paired with the app, and you can control it from your devices. There are navigation buttons to explore the interface and menus, volume and channel controls, as well as shortcuts to media playback, mute, and access the home screen. Tapping the three-dots button reveals even more options, such as subtitles, channel list, and sleep timer.

In my experience, the app works just as I expected. I have a Samsung QLED TV, and its official remote app is pretty bad as there’s a considerable delay between tapping the buttons on the iPhone and the TV responding to the commands. With the TV Remote app, everything works nearly instantly, and I don’t have to wait a few seconds until the app identifies my TV, which happens every time with the Samsung app for some unknown reason.

Image via 9to5mac 

AMP Robotics has designed a three-handed robot that can sort 80 items of recycling per minute, which is twice as fast as human sorters! The  company hopes to use it to reduce the tedious and tiring labor of manually sorting tons of recycling. The robot uses computer vision and machine learning, as Inverse details: 

Ultimately, this technology could play a key role in closing the loop of recyclable manufacturing and creating a world free from waste (or, at least, recyclable waste.)

When it comes actually sorting these waste materials, AMP Robotics' technology has two main parts:

AMP Neuron — the machine's brain and eyes

AMP Cortex — the machine's body and hands

Using computer vision, the same kind of technology employed by self-driving cars to "see" the road, the AMP Neuron first "looks at" incoming recycling and using machine learning to quickly analyze what type of material it is and makes a decision on what it should do next — either call on its suction cup arm to scoop it up or let it move past.

Image via Inverse 

Aesthetically-pleasing furniture is one way to amp up your home (and your Instagram account, for sure), but what about functionality? Some are now leaning towards furniture that is more focused on function and utility. While less abstract and visually-stunning, these furniture pieces are designed to provide comfort and efficiency in one’s home. YankoDesign focuses on Smart Furniture, a genre of tech-enhanced items that can make our lives easier. From smart work desks that run on food waste to smart beds that charge our devices and come along with an integrated home theatre system, these pieces are not something to overlook! Check the full piece here. 

Image via YankoDesign

Yezo is a small yet spectacular property in the Northern Hokkaido Mountains of Japan. The retreat, designed by Japanese architecture studio Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design (LEAD), combines experimental design with natural inspiration - and the result is a wonderful treat for the eyes, indeed (and I only saw the photos, imagine seeing that in real life!), as LuxuryLaunches details: 

Built using wood, stone, water, and light in major proportions, the Yezo Retreat is an ideal place for those craving solaces in the lap of nature. It features floor-to-ceiling windows and one large area complete with a bed, seating space, fireplace, and a staircase in place of separate bedrooms.

The resort’s highlight is the roof, where there is a sundeck of sorts, complete with two chairs. With elements such as a central concrete chimney and a curved roof (shell structure made using glue-laminated -GluLam wooden beams suspended from a central concrete chimney and covered with locally sourced black slate), the Yezo retreat has also managed to win the 2020 Golden Needle Design Award.

Image via LuxuryLaunches

That's 5.56 full extension punches every second.

Russian boxer and biological punching machine Pavel Trusov secured a Guinness World Record at a gym in Slovakia last year in this amazing display.

I notice that for the first half of the event, he appears to be breathing entirely through his nose. I wonder why. Would mouth breathing be slower even though it would take in more air?

i put eyes on the cat’s bed and could not be happier with the result pic.twitter.com/0D72nyc0aq

— towler (@HeyitsTowler) January 25, 2021

Twitter user Towler's cat uses a clamshell bed. To make it more amusing and ominous, he added eyes so that it consumes its feline prey. What was hidden in the mouth of this bed that so cunningly lured in the cat?

-via Richard Eisenbeis