We usually do not want any disturbances when we work, especially now that many of us are working from home, we are not amenable to our family members disturbing us for no good reason. How do you drive that home when you have children? David Kuhl, a father of five from Florida might just have a solution. He came up with a great way to keep the kids out of his office during his work hours: 

David Kuhl, a father of five created the sign for a company halloween contest, according to Good Morning America.

Kuhl explained that he was trying to strike a balance between having the kids home and having to work from home. He showed his coworkers the poster during a Zoom meeting. Once he noticed that it got people laughing, he decided to then go ahead and post it on LinkedIn, where it gained the most traction.

He had put up the poster on LinkedIn at the end of October around lunchtime. He said by the time he woke up, it had over half a million views. The poster itself is hilarious. They are "rules for when dad is in a meeting." If they don't follow the rules then they will lose screen time for two days. There are answers to very common questions that kids ask. The answers to the questions include

"In the wash"

"Ask mom"

"No"

"Unless you are bleeding it is fine"

"Pieces of fruit"

Kuhl said that there was an overwhelmingly positive response to his poster, with the occasional troll who thought the "ask mom" wasn't a great answer. However, he and his wife laugh about it. He says they both joke around and tell the kids to either go ask their father or go ask their mother about whatever it is that they may be asking. His wife also stays at home and works as well.

image via Moms

Creators never stop trying to conceptualize and test new objects that might be the next big thing, whether it's in terms of sales or in terms of helping society. Chuck Hoberman, artist, inventor, and tinkerer continues to develop new materials and objects. Hoberman is now creating objects for the future, as Discover Magazine details: 

Which brings us back to that ruler and the objects to the left. They’re the future: An entirely new taxa of inflatable, origami-based structures that he’s asked me not to describe in detail, partly because they’re not published or patented yet, and partly because they’re not his alone. 

They’re the kernels of wild design projects with engineers, roboticists, computer scientists, an origami expert, mathematicians and even biologists. They run the gamut from soft robotics (how can we fold up bots that can help people in disaster areas anywhere?) to collapsible habitats (how can I pack an origami house into my backpack, and take it to the moon as a place to live?) to printable, inflatable, replaceable organs (how can I pack the most blood vessels into the least surface area?).

Image via Discover Magazine 

On July 29, 1981, 750 million people tuned in to watch Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, marry a 20-year-old commoner named Diana Spencer. That's more than ever witnessed a previous royal wedding, or any other since. It was an event like no other, lavish and public and oh-so-expensive, and no detail was too small to be covered in the press. However, some of those details carried an ominous tone, as if to foreshadow the unhappiness that would come later.

The two were first introduced in 1977, when Charles—then dating Diana’s older sister, Lady Sarah—attended a party at the Spencer family’s Althorp estate. But as royal biographer Penny Junor tells History Extra, the prince only started viewing Diana as a potential girlfriend in the summer of 1980, when the pair crossed paths through a mutual friend. The 19-year-old nursery teacher’s assistant expressed sympathy for the loss of Charles’ great-uncle, who’d been assassinated by the Irish Republican Army the year prior, and in doing so, “really touched a nerve in Charles,” according to Junor. “[S]he said just the right thing to him, at the right moment, and he was moved by her.”

Under pressure to settle down after years of playing the field (including with on-again, off-again lover Camilla), the prince invited Diana to spend a weekend at his family’s holiday estate, Balmoral. During this “audition,” in the words of Vanity Fair’s Julie Miller, Charles’ relatives deemed the demure yet lively young woman an ideal candidate for marriage. Of both impeachable lineage and character, she was, most importantly to the royal family, a virgin “with malleable qualities necessary for a future queen,” writes Miller.

The two barely knew each other, but Diana checked off all the boxes for the role of future queen and mother to royalty. Read about the wedding of the century at Smithsonian.

There is no scientific reason or phenomenon behind this occurrence. It’s just pure cosmic coincidence, and a wonderful coincidence too! This week, seven planets (sorry Pluto, not you) in our solar system can be seen at various points in the day in our skies. Venus and Mercury are bright enough to see in the mornings, while Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn will be easier to see at night. If you’re interested in seeing all of the planets, check out CNN’s full piece here.

Image via CNN 

Meet the ClearMask, the first ever FDA-cleared, fully-transparent surgical mask that can be used in hospitals, clinics, schools, retail, hospitality and other settings. The mask was developed to help healthcare workers, teachers, and others to have less difficulty when trying to understand each other (since regular masks hide our lips and facial expressions). The mask offers a high level of protection for medical use in environments such as operating rooms, as Designboom details: 

‘after three years of research, development, and testing, we are thrilled to bring a human-centered mask to everyone who needs it, especially those who can benefit from improved visual communication, such as children, older adults, deaf and hard of hearing people, and those who do not speak the same language. the ClearMask is well-positioned to join the fight against the current pandemic,’ says allysa dittmar, president of ClearMask. 

to date, the company has provided the masks in bulk volumes, typically in the tens to hundreds of thousands. the consumer masks can now be purchased through ClearMask’s website at buy.theclearmask.com, starting at a box of 24 masks. the company has partnered with several distributors, including cardinal health canada, mckesson, oaktree products, and grainger to help get the masks out to as many people as possible.

‘regulatory clearance and mass production are two significant milestones in ClearMask’s mission to get the ClearMask out to as many people as possible,’ says aaron hsu, CEO of ClearMask. ‘this achievement is a testament to our company’s hard work and commitment to serving different communities in need during this time.’

Image via Designboom

We’d expect that in the 20th century, people would be more open to less traditional ideas, symbols, and techniques. The century opened its doors to the rise of artistic movements we know today – Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Dadaism, Surrealism and Pop Art, among others. But the change and rise of these new movements weren’t initially welcomed with acceptance or open arms. Some were considered ‘controversial’ for the content some artworks depict or the artworks’ style. Check out the most controversial artworks of the 20th century here. 

Image via The Collector

Now, this is a great way to breathe new life into these things (ha!)! Industrial designer Sachi Tungare turned the 300 cigarette stubs she collected into different sculptures, such as bowls, lamp shades, and vases. The Delhi-based designer wanted to find out how can people properly repurpose or dispose of cigarette butts, as Fast Company detailed: 

So Tungare began experimenting with ways to transform cigarette waste into something new. For weeks, she donned plastic gloves and gathered thousands of cigarette butts, ending up with enormous bags in her backyard. “It was a very stinky, dirty process,” she recalls. She found a way to sanitize the cigarettes with an enzyme-based organic bleach, then separated the plastic from the paper in order to recycle both. She dissolved the cellulose acetate, creating a solution that could be poured into molds. When the water evaporated, it hardened into the designs she created. She then paints them before leaving them to dry. “The beauty of the process is that when the water evaporates, it leaves a swirl pattern,” she says.

Image via Fast Company 

Don’t worry, it’s not a human tooth! A woman found a massive tooth at a beach in South Carolina. When Missy Tracewell posted the photo of her find on Facebook, social media users quickly put on their thinking hats on and started speculating on what type of creature could have owned the tooth: 

"I would hate to meet face to face the mouth that it came out of. It had to be a big shark," one user wrote. 

"Man I'm SO jealous!! I'm here at hunting Island right now and I've found about 48 smaller teeth so far but I've never found any that big. I'm so so so jealous," another replied.

Some, including Tracewell, suggested that the tooth belonged to a megalodon, an extinct species of shark that roamed the depths millions of years ago. They were the largest shark to ever live at nearly 60 feet in length.

Image via Fox News 

A World War II bomb was found in Poland. Weighing 12,000 pounds, the “Tallboy” or “Bomb, Medium Capacity,” detonated as Navy divers attempted to diffuse it. Yikes! Good thing all divers were out of the blast radius when the bomb went off, as Nerdist detailed: 

Reuters described the Whoops-a-booms-y in a recent report, which comes via Digg. According to Reuters, the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped the bomb in 1945 near the port of Szczecin, in an attack on a German cruiser. It lied there, dormant, until September 2019, when workers deepening the waterway near the port discovered it. (Unfortunately, no signs of either the One Ring to rule them all, nor Godzilla, were reported along with the discovery.)

Image via Nerdist 

Listen, these crazy stunts are stupid. It doesn’t mean people will stop doing it for clout, though. This video of someone blowing substances into their Xbox Series X has gone viral. Well, to be exact, videos of people’s consoles overheating, with smoke flowing from the device. This has of course worried potential buyers of Microsoft’s next-gen console, but an unofficial Xbox Studio Twitter account has called out the videos as fakes: 

Apparently, all it takes is for someone to blow vape smoke into the console to pull off the effect.

Almost ironically, the revelation of how the “trick” worked resulted in even more people trying out this DIY Xbox Vape. The situation may have gone completely out of hand that Xbox finally made an official statement: Do not blow vape smoke into the console.

Image via Slash Gear 

Scientists drilling a hole through a glacier accidentally triggered an enigmatic type of flood. While it is a scary incident, it also gave the researchers a chance to study glacial floods. Scientists are still perplexed by how this type of flood occurs regularly at certain glaciers, and why they occur: 

On a field campaign to Iceland’s Vatnajökull ice cap in 2015, Eric Gaidos at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and his colleagues drilled a borehole that hit a body of meltwater encased within the glacier. Over the next five days, that pool drained through the borehole into the lake below Vatnajökull, causing a pressure increase beneath the glacier. When the pressure built up enough, a flood of icy water was released into the nearby Skaftá River.

Such an event could happen without human assistance, the authors say, if natural cracks in the glacier allowed water to drain into the underlying lake.

Image via Nature 

We all know Claude Monet  from his magical paintings of landscapes. His artworks also played a key role in the development of the Impressionist movement during the 19th century, even though critics initially rejected Monet’s artworks. How did Claude Monet receive the love of the critics and enthusiasts all over the globe? Art News dedicates a feature article on the history of the painter for his birthday (November 14). 

Image via Art News 

Catherine Prowse made the animated short Nobody is Normal for the charity Childline. It emphasizes that no matter how weird you feel, you aren't the only one. We adults know that, but we aren't always good at relaying the concept to young people. Beside all that, the animation is adorably goofy. -via Laughing Squid

Star City, Russia, is home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Under Soviet rule, the existence of the town was a state secret. It is still a closed city, with unauthorized visitors prohibited, but people come and go in support of the country’s space program. In April, the coronavirus found its way into the city, and into the space center. Dr. Natalya Lebedeva headed the ambulance service for Star City’s medical clinic. The paramedics she supervised were among the first known victims of the virus, which is understandable as they come into close contact with sick people, but the authorities were looking for someone to blame for the outbreak. Lebedeva herself fell ill, and was hospitalized.  

Her illness wasn’t severe. “Her temperature was a little over 37 degrees,” or 98.6 Fahrenheit, and “her lungs were affected only to a small degree,” her friend Antropova said.

During several calls from the ward, Lebedeva repeatedly said that she was being blamed for being the source of the outbreak, a friend said. “She called me and said … ‘I am going to be jailed. It’s the end for me.’”

“I said … ‘How were you supposed to have prevented this, how? How? Come on. What are you, God?’” the friend recalled.

But Lebedeva was in tears. She said she had been contacted by investigators from the police.

Lebedava did not survive the outbreak, but she didn’t die of COVID. Read the account of Star City’s ambulance service director in a special report at Reuters.   -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flicker user Samantha Cristoforetti)

The Wobble Dog 9003i is a machine specifically designed to test the wobbliness of hot dogs, which YouTuber Atomic Shrimp considers to be their most important feature. If the idea of wobbly hot dogs makes you giggle inside just a little, you’ll want to see them in action. This video is an excerpt edited from a much longer video in which our host studies canned hot dogs. -via Kottke