Copper Beech Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut (already known as a very expensive neighborhood) is for sale for $190 million dollars. But if you know how real estate works, you might be able to talk them down a million or so.

Copper Beech Farm spans 50 prized acres that boast roughly a mile of water frontage on the Long Island Sound, thanks in part to two offshore islands included in the offering. The main house, a French-renaissance mansion, boasts 13,519 square feet of living space including 12 bedrooms, seven full baths and two half baths, a wood-paneled library, an ornate dining room with a tracery ceiling and oak columns, a solarium, a wine cellar, a third-floor staff wing, and a three-story, wood-paneled entry foyer. The original kitchen, equipped with a dumb waiter, sits in the basement, originally part of the staff quarters. Fireplaces adorn most rooms in the Victorian manse and sleeping porches, once used during summer months before the advent of air conditioning, extend off of bedrooms.

Oh, there's also several other buildings on the property, two pools and a spa, an orchard, gardens, and a big forest. See more pictures at Forbes. Link -via Digg

(Image credit: David Ogilvy & Associates, Christie's International Real Estate)

Famed Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet made a beautiful and complex watch for Marie Antoinette. The works were mostly gold, and its value is hard to estimate not only because of its history, but because of its workmanship. But Marie Antoinette never wore the watch that eventually became known as the Queen.  

The watch ultimately took 44 years to complete. In the interim, the French Revolution and the resulting European upheaval led to the death of both the man who likely commissioned the watch and its intended owner. (Marie Antoinette, of course, fell under the guillotine. Seventeen years after her death, an incensed crowd, convinced that von Fersen had conspired to assassinate Sweden’s would-be king, beat him to death in a Stockholm square.) Breguet died in September 1823. His son, a talented horologer in his own right, finished the masterpiece in 1827. It traveled in the coat pockets of a French nobleman and later ended up in the collection of Sir David Lionel Salomons, a British polymath who brought the first car shows to England and patented an idea for buoyant soap. Salomons left his watch collection to his daughter Vera, a globe-trotting nurse who settled in Jerusalem after World War I and later used her father’s money to build the museum—and to house his collection of watches.

What made Breguet’s work so significant was his skill as both a watchmaker and a designer. His creations have pristine faces, delicate hands that end in apple-shaped tips, and movements that appear as complex as a computer circuit. The Queen was at once immensely complicated—it had all the features of a cathedral clock in the space of a pocket watch—and beguilingly elegant. Breguet even made a clear crystal face that allowed the owner to see the movement of the gears underneath.

Skip ahead to 1983, and the watch is stolen from the museum, along with other valuable watches. The investigation led nowhere for 23 years. But then, it gets really interesting again. Read the saga of the watch Wired. Link

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When his favorite song, "Make You Feel My Love" comes on, Rev wakes up and has to sing along with Adele! This dog may not pronounce all the words correctly, but he sure has an emotive voice. -via Viral Viral Videos

With great flour comes great delectability. To welcome the Big Wow Comicfest in San Jose, California, which starts this Saturday, Psycho Donuts is offering Spider-Man donuts. How do you think a Spider-Man donut should be flavored?

Link

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A child's personal project turned into a documentary Yuck: A 4th Grader's Short Documentary About School Lunch. The film is 19 minutes long and has won several film festival awards. The trailers here are just short clips, but you can find a schedule of screenings at the film site.

In the fall of 2011, fourth grader Zachary Maxwell began asking his parents if he could start packing and bringing his own lunch to school.  Unfortunately, they kept insisting that he take advantage of the hot lunch being served at the school.  After all, the online menu sounded delicious and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) website assured parents that the meals were nutritious.  Zachary wanted to convince his parents that the online menu did not accurately represent what was really being served at his school.

In an effort to prove his point, Zachary started sneaking a small HD camera into the lunchroom to show his parents the truth.  Over the next six months, Zachary would continue to gather "inside" footage and research the claims being made by the DOE and the media about the City's public school lunch program.

To the surprise of no one besides his parents, the published menus differed quite a bit from the actual lunches served in schools. To be fair, all the lunches at his elementary school are free, and I've seen much worse. But Zachary Maxwell has a wonderful career ahead of him in filmmaking, journalism, or whatever he decides to do.   

(vimeo link)

The film has a website. Link -via Boing Boing

By the way, Zachary now gets to bring lunch from home. Read more about his experience at the New York Times. Link

If you could arrange a race between famous science fiction spaceships, who would win? Would it be the Milliennium Falcon, the Jupiter 2, Serenity, the Enterprise, or some other ship? Find out in an online race to destinations light years away at Slate. They also explain the results, according to the canon of each science fiction universe as we know it. Link -via mental_floss

Three years before his death, author David Foster Wallace gave a commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. In that speech, titled "This is Water," Wallace explained to the bright-eyed grads what real adult lives are like, and in the process, gave them an invaluable advice on life and a simple yet elegant explanation of the real value of education.

YouTube user The Glossary showcased Wallace's speech in the most interesting 10 minute video clip you'll see today: Link

Bridget Evans, founder of the Illini Service Dog Program, received her Masters degree from the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Saturday. She was accompanied at the graduation ceremony by her service dog Hero. Evans said,

Hero knows over forty commands to assist me! He loves to retrieve objects for my like envelopes, pens, my crutches, etc. He also turns off the lights, opens doors, and he pulls me in my wheelchair up ramps! I couldn't have gone to college without him!

Hero grabbed a lot of attention and photographs at the graduation. These were posted by two different redditors, in threads that tell more about Bridget and Hero. In both, it was mentioned that while Bridget got a Masters, Hero was awarded a "dog-torate."

Link and Link

Regarding the previous post about Merida getting a makeover to become an official Disney Princess, Neatoramanaut ROJOMOKE points us to a comic from Dork Tower that sums up the feelings of the majority about her new look. Link -Thanks, ROJOMOKE!

(Image credit: John Kovalic)

It's not easy to improve upon the gorgeous skies that Mother Nature paints herself, but photographer Matt Molloy managed to pull it off: the Canadian photographer stitched together a composite of hundreds of individual photographs to create stunningly beautiful effects in this "time stacks" photography series.

Seulbi Kim, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, offers this one-handed solution to transporting food from your local burger joint. She writes:

The carrier will reduce the volume by about 50% compared to that today because I tried to simplify the design and minimize the amount of paper used with a hook for French fries, a sleeve for a burger, and a hole for soda drink, which causes people to carry it easier, and more materials saving. It is one-handed, convenient, practical, and compact, so your hands can be more free by holding all in one.

Link -via Foodbeast | Designer's Website

Never misplace your lunch again! Wear it instead. Tumbler blogger Jaya blogged about how her friend made a stylish jacket out of Ziploc bags. Best of all, the jacket still functions to carry food in an airtight seal! Link - via Geekologie

Teen Raymond Walter doesn't expect to live long because he has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disease that causes muscles to waste away. That's why, he said, that he's been on an accelerated course to accomplish as much as he can with his life. Starting with graduating from college with 3 degrees at 18 years of age:

“I don’t anticipate living as long as usual,” Raymond said. “In some respects, there is a lot of pressure to get as much done as I can. I don’t waste time. I skipped three years of grade school and to some extent I’ve continued my acceleration since I reached the university level. I finished my undergraduate economics course work in my freshman year. So as a sophomore I began to take graduate courses.”

Raymond is continuing his studies by pursuing two separate doctoral degrees in math and physics. Simultaneously, of course.

University of Arkansas Newswire has the full story: Link - via io9

The Albion Beatnik shop in Oxford, England, has this sign in a window. Respect! The text is a reworking of This is a Printing Office by Beatrice Warde. Link -via Buzzfeed

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As much as Disco talks, it's a good thing he knows a lot of different phrases. He jumps from one pop culture reference to another, sometimes garbling them a little, just enough to make you laugh! -via Tastefully Offensive