I was slightly disappointed to find out that Muktar's birthday was a viral ad.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/05/16/flashmob-surprise-party/

But it really was his birthday, and he was really surprised. The bus company arranged the party in order to make an ad.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/05/mukhtars-birthday-celebration-goes-viral.html#

Duh. That's an instrument of torture.

Good call, Alex!

A mental_floss post by a Neatorama author. These are problematic for us to frontpage.

Yes, the folks who came up with these stats failed to take into account the fact that all those people who played Pac-Man would have been wasting time on some other website otherwise.

I don't think so. This vid was made by Dyson. They already had a bunch!

Kalel, I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

You can still play the Google Pac-man.
http://www.google.com/pacman/

At the end of the item, where it says "Link", press that to go to the contest itself.

It's been remodeled extensively. I may be wrong, but I think the extension we see to the left in the picture here is in front of the old facade. I know the first thing they did to change it was reshape those windows.

Thanks, corrected.

I at first saw 2009, but looking really hard, it says 2007.

Well, duh. Sorry about that... I blame my poor eyesight. Corrected.

northofthere, Ernest Shackleton and his team were still shipboard when the ice crushed their ship. Robert Falcon Scott and his team hauled their supplies by manpowered sleds. He died from exhaustion and cold trying to return from the south pole. Douglas Mawson's team hauled in all their equipment and supplies by dogsled. They ate the dogs on their way out. Mawson was the only survivor. The Antarctic was explored for decades before engines that could run in that environment were developed. It takes a lot of energy just to survive there, much less haul possessions.

That is awesome! What a surprise! And it will go a long way toward convincing my kids that I am still somewhat cool.