Our family Christmas card for 2023 🎄❤️

📸 Josh Shinner pic.twitter.com/X9du9EkpaI

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) December 9, 2023

The Prince and Princess of Wales have just recently uploaded their family Christmas card photo for 2023. It features Prince William and Kate Middleton with their three children: George (10), Charlotte (8), and Louis (5). They're all fabulously wearing a casual white shirt and trousers, with the photo being shot by Josh Shinner indoors on a gray background.

If you look closely at the photo, as user Mendee Menkyu astutely points out, you will notice at the left hand corner of the chair that there seems to be two sets of legs, which apparently looks like they were a Photoshop edit gone wrong. Since Charlotte is wearing the same type of sneakers, perhaps it had been a different shot that got mashed up with the final one.

However, several users clarified that there was no Photoshop mishap, but rather just a little bit of an optical illusion, in which William's leg just happened to line up with Louis' black shorts making it look like there are a pair of legs unaccounted for.

Another user, BossyMother, also thought that they had Photoshopped Louis' fingers, making them look like as if he has six. However, as others corrected, the placement of his hand on the armchair only made the gap between his middle and ring finger appear as though a finger is hidden underneath. Although, to be honest, this one is a bit of a stretch.

(Image credit: The Prince and Princess of Wales/X)

In 2016, the cast of Will & Grace had a get-together to film a short video about the 2016 presidential campaign, encouraging Americans to vote in the elections. The video received so much attention that the old producers of the show thought there was enough to make a revival of the show. NBC brought the show back in 2017, and it ran for three seasons until 2020.

Two years ago, the Friends cast made a reunion special as an extra to accompany the 236 episodes of the original series which were released along with the launch of HBO Max in 2021. Although it didn't spark any interest in reviving the series, the special, along with the ten seasons of Friends, did contribute to drive subscriptions to HBO Max.

Now, the surviving cast of M*A*S*H, will have their own two-hour reunion special set to air on New Year's Day. After over 40 years since the last episode aired, this reunion special will feature interviews from the producers and cast members, never-before-seen footage, behind-the-scenes photos, and tributes to all the cast and crew who have since passed.

(Image credit: MASH/Fandom Wire)

The child in the photographs is Hans-Georg Henke, who was only 15 years old when he was forced to enlist in the Luftwaffe, the German air force. There are two conflicting accounts about the story behind those photos. The first comes from the child in the photo, and the other from the photographer who took it.

According to Henke, the moment that photo was taken, their troops were stormed by the Soviets in Stettin. After retreating to Rostock, they were completely overwhelmed by the Soviets and captured. He said that his tears came from the realization that he had lost everything he had ever held dear.

However, the photographer, American photojournalist John Florea, had a different recollection of what happened that day. First of all, he said that the photo was taken in Rechtenbach, not in Rostock. Furthermore, Florea asserted that American forces, not the Soviets, captured Henke and his troops. Finally, Florea said that he believe Henke had been crying not from a feeling of defeat, but from combat shock. As an added bonus, although Henke repeatedly stated he had always worn rags on his feet, the photos show that he was wearing boots.

What then could have explained Henke's alternate version of events? Most likely, he had changed the facts of the story to get on the good side of the East German Communists, who were wary of anyone who had surrendered to American troops. Henke died on October 9, 1997, and he went to his grave telling the same story all throughout his life.

(Image credit: Rohit Singh/Quora)

Over a decade ago, several news outlets published an exhaustive list of persons who were in the line of succession to the British throne. It had included 4,973 people, excluding the current monarch at the time, Queen Elizabeth II. One person in particular caught people's attention. Her name is Karin Vogel, and she is the last person in the line of succession.

What put her on the list? It goes way back to, presumably, the common ancestor of all the people in the line of succession, Sophia of Hanover, who was the granddaughter of King James VI and I (as King of Scotland and as King of England and Ireland, respectively, after the Union of the Crowns).

The Act of Settlement 1701 became the precedent for determining who belongs to the line of succession, and one of the reasons why Karin Vogel is included in it. The act states that the English and Irish crowns can only be passed to Protestants. Anyone in the royal lineage who became Roman Catholic or married one, was automatically disqualified.

Vogel is the youngest of three siblings and is working as a therapist in Rostock, Germany. When asked about her thoughts on being the last in line to the British throne, she simply relished the fact that she has no need to worry about Great Britain.

Her elder brothers and their children come before her in the line of succession so, only in the highly unlikely event that the almost 5,000 people who come before her suddenly disappear, will she have to worry about being crowned queen. For now, she is quite happy helping elderly people with chronic pain issues.

(Image credit: Karin Vogel/Eurohistory)

Mental Map Oversimplification (MMO) is a real thing, but it might be overstating things to say people "suffer" from it. MMO is the tendency to think of geographic names and terms as straightforward, when real places on earth do not follow linguistic shortcuts and borders are not simply straight lines.

Americans tend to think of Canada as "the North" (and so do Canadians), but geographically, more than 60% of Canadians live south of Seattle. In fact, the most southern part of Canada is at the same latitude as California! We also look at South America as "south" when it's also very much east of North America. Brazil is much closer to Africa than it is to the US, but that's hard to visualize because of Brazil's continent's name. And you might not realize that Chicago, Illinois, and Rome, Italy, are at the same latitude. Well, Rome is very slightly further north. The local climate of those cities make that hard to believe.

Read more mind-blowing examples of MMO at Atlas Obscura. You'll start to look at maps in a whole new way.

(Image credit: Victoria Ellis)

Twitter user Ted Merz shares this photo that he snapped from New York City. It shows a conventional delivery bike, which are common in the city. But this one has a printer mounted over the front wheel. The printer is loaded with legal size paper and has a port (presumably a USB) to connect to laptops.

What's it for? In the Twitter thread, commenters suggest possible uses. One remembers a bicycle messenger who was also a notary public, which lawyers found particularly useful. Another suggests that it's designed for, specifically, printing and delivering contracts.

I'm also curious what kind of printer can take this kind of a beating and still work.

-via Super Punch

Janelle Shane has been testing the relationship between artificial intelligence algorithms, possibly to see if they can operate without human input. They aren't doing all that well. In a recent project, she had ChatGPT4 generate lyrics to Christmas songs and then had DALL-E3 illustrate them. This is their attempt at "The 12 Days of Christmas." While the neural network understands how to draw birds and tree ornaments, it doesn't really understand how to use them. Both programs dropped the ball when it comes to numbers and words.

Another prompt had the programs illustrating Santa's reindeer, as they were named in the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," which was also used as the intro to "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The name labels weren't 100% fractured, but the small print below was a mess. Were they supposed to be species names or the full birth name of each animal? The algorithms did better making cartoon illustrations of "Jingle Bells," if you don't count the spelling of the lyrics. Check those songs out at AI Weirdness. -via Nag on the Lake

You've heard the old saying, there is strength in numbers. There's also lots of money in groups who cooperate with each other to commit crimes. With money comes power, and money and power can attract more members and keep those members loyal to the group. There's always someone else who wants a piece of the action. Organized crime includes all kinds of cooperative groups, from street gangs to drug cartels to the Mafia, some of which have continued for hundreds of years. You have to be pretty organized to keep that running. The activities of these groups sometimes run over into politics and legitimate business wherever money and the power can be found. However, this video does not include political or religious terrorist groups, because that would be too broad of a subject. While violence is often involved, these crime organizations are mainly going after riches. Weird History brings us eleven stories of organized crime activities from all over the world.  

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports on a recent scholarly journal article which considereswhat is the aesthetically ideal shape for the male buttocks (content warning: nudity). The authors, who published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, surveyed 2,095 people, of whom 60% were male. The researchers showed the respondents photos of men's butts and asked for ratings.

In survey revealed a general preference for butts that are midway between flat and protruding, as well as between narrow and wide. Dimples are highly valued, too.

-via Study Finds

Photo via Andrea Fistetto because my wife says that I'm not allowed to just use a selfie for this post, even though that would be the obvious choice.

Rovaniemi, Finland, the capital town of Finnish Lapland, has long claimed to be the home of Santa Claus. The winter weather of northern Finland is certainly suitable for Santa Claus, his reindeer (which are native to the region), and his sleigh.

Children around the world are responsive to this claim and, each year, Santa Claus's cabin in the woods in Rovaniemi receives about 30,000 letters from children. That's a lot of mail and Santa needs your help sorting it.

That's why Airbnb is offering a one-night stay in the cabin, which has three beds and one bathroom.

Weird Universe points us to an undated story from Austin where a man gets his food budget down to $5 a day. That seems altogether extravagant as he had meat in two of his three meals. Having fed a family on much less per person, I could share the diet common in my area, where families eat beans and cornbread, with occasional poke sallet or collards and fried potatoes for years on end. But that's not altogether nutritious.

During the Great Depression, food was cheap, but people didn't have enough money anyway. Sociologist Gladys Sellew conducted an experiment with herself as the subject to see how cheaply one person could eat and get adequate nutrition. To the point, Sellew wanted to see if people could actually eat on 15 cents a day. The diet she worked out over the course of five years came to 13 cents a day! Sellew spelled her diet out for the newspapers, but don't expect to use her tips today. You no longer get a discount on day-old bread, turnips are not sold in most supermarkets, and bacon ends go to the butcher's dog instead of the sales bin. That said, eating that cheaply isn't the most pleasurable experience, but as you can see at Weird Universe, Sellew wasn't about to give up her cocoa. -via Strange Company       

(Image credit: Austin American Statesman, June 3, 1942)

Travis Pastrana's Nitro Circus is running a series on "life size toys." What does that mean? In this video, they consider the humble yo-yo. It was meant to be a kid's toy, but adults got more out of it. I could never get a yo-yo to return when I was a child, but as an adult, I could spin it both down and up. That can be pretty satisfying in a mindless way, but there are those who can make yo-yos into a world class floor show. However, these guys wanted to make a yo-yo big enough for a person to ride on it! They built a yo-yo eight feet in diameter, with harnesses so a person could ride on each side. Then they suspended it from a crane. Will it work? No one on the crew wanted to try it. If you want to skip the exposition and get to the action, go to the four-minute mark in this video. I get the feeling that this is way more fun to watch than to do.  -via Born in Space

Living in a big city, one gets used to the busyness all around - how everyone is always in a rush, cars honking at each other, the busy chatter of people walking by - that it's quite refreshing to capture moments of stillness amidst the cacophony. And that's what British photographer Oli Kellett chases after in every expedition he goes on around the world.

He takes photos of crosswalks, that part of urban life that one would expect to be busy most of the time. But, once in a while, he would find a moment as if the whole world has stopped turning, frozen in time. This collection of photos has been the subject of his new art show titled "Waiting for a Sign".

In most of the photos in the collection, it almost always features the subject illuminated by sunlight, standing still at a crossing, waiting for the light to turn green. At times, subjects would be a bit animated, pointing at something in the sky or talking to their companions. But, there's always this element of solitude and peace.

Check out some other photos in the collection on CNN.

(Image credit: Oli Kellett)

My favorite photo

(Image credit: Oli Kellett)

The ancient Greeks, Romans, and the knights and other warriors of the Medieval Ages saw a lot of violence and bloodshed.

War was a typical occurrence in those days, and although we read about how wars started, how they ended, and why they were even waged in the first place, we never really got an idea of how people who experienced wars back then felt about it. Much less, how they coped with the trauma brought about by the horrific experiences of war.

We may not have firsthand accounts or anecdotes from survivors of wars in ancient times, but we can infer from other documents how those people coped.

In Medieval Europe, many turned to religion. There were many cleansing rituals and forms of penance recorded in the Ermenfrid Penitential that speak of what warriors needed to do to absolve themselves from "moral injury". Some justified the war by considering it as a holy act to release themselves from the guilt.

Ancient Rome used gladiatorial battles to desensitize warriors by making them accustomed to violence. Moreover, as the Romans were superstitious and legalistic people, they always sought the counsel of the gods before going into war. If they did not have the favor of the gods, then they typically will not go into war.

For Ancient Greece, their way of dealing with trauma was through drama. They processed their distress and memories from battles through plays, seeing them as a form of catharsis.

(Image credit: Birmingham Museums Trust/Unsplash)

Mosquitoes are the creatures that have killed the most number of humans on average each year. An estimated 1 million people die because of the myriad diseases they carry, which they transmit through biting.

All mosquito bites come from females as they are the only ones with the mouth structure to pierce and suck blood. The male's proboscis does not have the piercing power that the females have, thus they do not feed on blood but rather, they eat flower nectar and fruit juices.

Researchers, however, have found the oldest-known mosquito fossil in Lebanon, and these come with some surprising features. It showed two male mosquitoes which have the specialized mouth anatomy to pierce and suck blood. Therefore, at some point, male mosquitoes evolved from being hematophagous to simply feeding on plant nectar.

This also indicates that, originally, all mosquitoes were hematophagous and with the emergence of flowering plants, the males simply transitioned into becoming nectar-feeders. The significance of this is that the usual trajectory for hematophagous insects was for nectar-feeders to become blood-feeders.

With these mosquito fossils, researchers will have a better idea of the evolutionary pathway that mosquitoes took, and it will give them new avenues to study how and when those changes took place.

(Image credit: Erik Karits/Unsplash)