Decisions, decisions -you make them constantly about big and little things. Daily decision making might be easier for you if you used these handy flowcharts. On the other hand, they might wreck your life! Choose wisely, but enjoy the ride.

Where should I eat?

Eating the Road has a handy flowchart to guide your decision depending on who you are, what you like, and what time it is.

How can I fix my computer?

You may as well do it yourself, as Randall Munroe laid out all the necessary steps in a flowchart at xkcd.

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Stonehenge is impressive, but pales in comparison to the massive stone pillars Mother Nature gave us. The real stories of how they came to be are as fascinating as the legends that people use to explain unusual rock formations.

England: Brimham Rocks

The Brimham Rocks near Nidderdale, Yorkshire Dales, England are said to have been carved by druids, but they date back to around 320 million years ago when the Yorkshire area formed from sand and other materials washed down from Norway and Scotland, leaving an area known as the Millstone Grit. Later glaciers carved the land down, leaving the strangely-shaped stones exposed, in the period from roughly 73,000 BC to 10,000 BC. The rocks now stand at a little less than 30 meters tall. Some rocks resemble animals or human faces, and have been named for their appearance or for the local legends that grew up around them. The Brimham Rocks area is owned by the National Trust and is open daily for visitors. Image by Flickr user floato.

Canada: Flowerpot Island

Flowerpot Island, Ontario gets its name from two rock formations on its eastern shore. A local legend says that two lovers from warring tribes eloped to the island and were somehow turned to stone. A profile of a face is visible on one of the stones if you view it at the right angle. The island is part of The Fathom Five National Marine Park and is a popular tourist destination. Image by Thesofa.

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Setting up a new blog is simple and free if you use public platforms like Blogger or Wordpress or Twitter. A few years after ordinary people discovered the joys of blogging, experienced bloggers are branching out into multiple blogs. This led to the rise of niche blogs, blogs devoted to a very narrow subject. The internet audience is so big that even the most obscure topic can gain an audience if it has two things: a good idea and enough material for regular updates. Since readers are often glad to contribute material, sometimes a good idea is enough.

Hotel Bed Jumping is one of the earliest niche blogs I noticed. We don’t know how many people would have never jumped on a hotel bed if there weren’t a blog showing other people doing it. The blog is a section of a commercial hotel reservations site, so the first thing I wondered was how happy the hotel owners had to be that this activity was being encouraged. Still, it looks like a lot of fun!

Many photo blogs depend on reader submissions, such as the super-successful I Can Has Cheezburger and its various offshoots. Animals with Light Sabers (pictured) takes the idea a step further and combines cuteness with science fiction. Photoshop makes it easy to add a light saber to any photograph, so everyone can participate. Presidents on Roller Skates is an entire blog dedicated to Photoshopped images putting US leaders past and present on wheels. Only about half the presidents were posted before updates stopped. Maybe the webmaster was counting on reader submissions that never came.

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Chiune Sugihara was born on January 1st, 1900, and lived to make his mark on the twentieth century. Thousands of people owe their lives in part to his willingness to buck authority. For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

That’s not the way Japanese children of his generation were raised. Sugihara walked to the beat of a different drummer even before the events that made him famous, when he went against his father’s wishes and failed a medical school entrance exam -on purpose. Instead, he enrolled in a Tokyo university where he was recruited by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.  Sugihara was assigned to Japanese-occupied Harbin, in Machuria, where he perfected his English, learned Russian, and joined the Greek Orthodox Christian church. As his career was taking off, Sugihara’s sense of justice led him to protest the way the Japanese military treated Chinese citizens. Instead of getting rid of the talented diplomat, the Foreign Ministry transferred him several times. He was eventually reassigned to Europe.

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Long before our modern industries developed the cleaning products, industrial solvents, and drugs that can kill when misused, people used simple plants to murder each other. Some plants were especially effective.

1. Nightshade

Atropa Belladonna is also known as deadly nightshade. The flowering plant is native to Europe and can grow up to ten feet tall if left to grow for years. Although all parts of the plant are poisonous, the shiny black berries are most poisonous. The words bella donna mean pretty woman in English. This name may have come from the use of belladonna to dilate the eyes in order to make a woman more attractive to men. Image by Flickr user peganum.

The alkaloid Atropine is one of the the active ingredient in nightshade. Atropine is used during surgery to regulate the heartbeat, decrease salivation, and paralyze muscles. In eye surgery, it relaxes the muscles and dilates the eye. Another drug found in nightshade is scopolamine, which has some of the same properties as atropine, and (in very dilute quantities) is also used for motion sickness and to combat drug addiction. Famous users of nightshade are not confirmed, but legend has it that when Agrippina the Younger hired the serial killer Locusta to kill the Roman emperor Claudius, she used nightshade. Before he became king in 1040, Macbeth supposedly used nightshade to poison an army of Danes who invaded Scotland. (more…)

What if a story about your little hometown became extremely popular and brought visitors from all over the world seeking a piece of it? When a book or movie puts a quiet little town on the map, you have to expect people will want to come and see it. Whether that’s a benefit or curse may depend on the movie.

Forks, Washington

Some towns revel in the notoriety that comes with a movie. Thousands of fans make their way to Forks, Washington (population 3,221) every month to enjoy the atmosphere of the setting for the Twilight books and movies. Local businesses have erected signs referring to the movies. The principal of Forks High School says the school has designated lockers for the characters Edward and Bella -for the benefit of the tourists. Sales of Twilight merchandise and tourist services have energized the small town that once depended on logging for its economy. Even those residents who don’t like the books welcome the money the tourists bring in.

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There are more haunted places and scary stories around the world than you can shake a stick at. Here are a few you might not be familiar with already.

The Haunted Tunnel

Moonville, Ohio was once a thriving mining town with a population that peaked at about 100 people. Nearby is a railroad tunnel that is purported to be haunted by any of the four people who died there. The most famous is a railroad brakeman who had too much to drink and tried to stop a train, but was hit in March of 1859. The train wheels mangled his leg and he died of his injuries within days. The other deaths were a miner who was trapped in a collapsed mine, a woman who was crossing the railroad trestle when a train passed, and a fellow who crossed the tracks after a train, but didn’t see another portion of the train that had become detached and was still moving in the same direction. Several accounts exist of people who see the brakeman near the tunnel, swinging a light in an attempt to stop the train, or see the woman who died in 1905 walking beside the tracks. Railroad workers occasionally see a semi-transparent man being hit, and sometimes they hear screams, but no solid body is hit during those events.

Devil’s Town

Djavolja Varos translates to English as Devil’s Town, and is located between Devil’s Gully and Hell’s Gully in Serbia. This area has hundreds of stone towers made of volcanic stone that rise when the surrounding soil is washed away. They only last a few hundred years, so the landscape changes and this led to the legend of demons fighting each other. The story goes that the devil placed a curse on the local waters and those who drank it forgot their ancestry. This led to a wedding between brother and sister. A fairy tried to stop the marriage, but the couple refused. The fairy was left with no choice but to turn them into stone, along with all the wedding guests. The legend is fed by the presence of mineral springs in the area, one that is used for medicinal purposes and another that produces red water. Acoustics play a part in the haunting as well. When the wind whips around the stone towers, you can hear eerie whistles, howls, cries, and squeaks. Image by Geologicharka.
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There are traditional Jack-o-Lanterns with a face carved on the front and a candle inside. Then there are art pumpkins, with skillfully carved scenes of all kinds. A third category contains the geeky Jack-o-Lanterns that do something strange and unexpected, like the ones we are looking at today.

1. RoboPumpkin

Yes, this is a real pumpkin! The RoboPumpkin is from artist Joseph Paul Johnston. The metallic spray paint makes it look like aluminum. A detached face, a few spare parts, and a string of Christmas lights make it into a robot. His Flickr set describes the steps to make it.

2. Snap-o-Lantern

The Snap-o-Lantern is a small robotic pumpkin that opens its jaws to reveal sharp, snaggly teeth! It’s almost a cross between the prank chattering teeth and a jack-o-lantern. A small battery-operated servo motor runs the hinged jaws, and LEDs light up the eyes. See a video of the Snap-o-Lantern in motion.

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The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana bills itself as “One of America’s Most Haunted Homes”. It operates as a bed and breakfast, so for as little as $115 a night (plus tax), you can stay there and see for yourself how haunted it really is.

The Myrtles Plantation house was built by David Bradford, who had been a respected lawyer in Pennsylvania until he took part in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Wanted for arrest, he fled to Louisiana, leaving his family behind, and bought 600 acres of land on which he built a house called “Laurel Grove”.  After a pardon in 1799, he brought his wife and children to live there.

The property passed to Bradford’s son-in-law Clark Woodruff who lost his wife and two of his three children to yellow fever. Legend has it that during Woodruff’s reign at the plantation, he had a relationship with a slave girl named Chloe while his wife was pregnant. Chloe became paranoid when Woodruff ended the affair, and he allegedly cut her ear off as punishment for eavesdropping. From that point, Chloe always wore a turban to cover the scar. Image by Flickr user stevesheriw.
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If you have the time and tools to make your own Halloween costume, all you need is a little inspiration to make it awesome, like these ten. Note: these are presented in no particular order. They all rank #1 in my book!

1. Big Daddy

Graphic designer Harrison Krix made a costume of the character Big Daddy from the video game Bioshock. This is a work of a serious propmaster. It took seven weeks of sculpting with foam, cardboard, and fiberglass. The finished product, complete with a working drill arm, is a work of art. The post includes many more pictures and a couple of videos of the drill arm in action.

2. Yip Yips

Sesame Street’s popular aliens, the Yip Yips always appear in twos, so this is a costume that should be worn with a buddy. It take two people to properly fit one according to this Instructable, so you may as well help each other out and into a great costume!

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