Continuing with my theme of art made from round carbon-based lifeforms, check out these amazing carved eggshells — as someone who’s barely capable of properly cracking an egg, I’m impressed.

Via Dumptrumpet

Here’s our first runner up:

We were two weeks into our sixth grade class when our teacher died.

Our substitute teacher, Miss Hanson, had been a Spanish missionary to South America. She showed us a picture of her guide face down in a dugout with a spear in his back. We were mesmerized. Then she gave us mimeographed copies of how to make a shrunken head: first, get a head. When we studied South America, we knew everything.

She found each of our gifts and encouraged us: Jimmy and his dinosaurs, Lester and his bug collection, and me? She told me if I didn’t keep writing, I would be wasting a gift from God.
Whoa. So I became a writer and editor.

My final memory of her was the day of the school dance. I was going steady with Merrill, the son of a Foursquare minister. I loved to dance and his religion forbid it. He asked for his ring back and then asked his best friend Glenn to ask me to go steady. I gave him his ring back, Glenn gave me a ring and we went to the dance. Miss Hanson asked Merrill to help her in the classroom during the dance and he created some great bulletin boards.

I don’t know where Miss Hanson is today but I thank her for changing my life.

- Adrienne Kristine

I know I just posted on how people have made weapons from LEGOS (with both a bit of awe and apprehension), but how unbelievably sad is it that this idea of bulletproof textbooks actually makes sense in these times? Proposed by Bill Crozier, a retired veteran and candidate for Oklahoma State Superintendent’s Office, the notion would be to create kevlar lined textbooks to prevent Columbine-style attacks from taking even more lives. The whole idea of kids wanting to take other kids’ lives is so utterly depressing. Anyway, you can read more about Bill and the specifics of his proposal here. Link via TheRawFeed

There are two types of kids in this world: those who spend their time building towns and castles and LEGO cities on a hill, and those who spend their time trying to figure out how best to tear down those towns, castles and elevated civilizations. Need proof? Let me point you toward evidence A) the LEGO flamethrower, and B) the LEGO 8-barrel rubberband chain gun (be sure to check out the videos). While I do find the MacGuyver-ness of it all somewhat thrilling, I’m also afraid of what I’ve been arming my nephews and nieces with every Christmas! Links via Hiptechblog

Having touched briefly upon the lamentable scouring-to-death of Bibiana, patron saint of hangover cures, we promised to elaborate further on this method of execution, and famous folk who have endured it. Unfortunately, there weren’t all that many famous people to be found: besides Jesus, who was scourged (but not to death) by Pilate, other scourgees include little-known martyrs like Jeremiah of Cordoba, executed in 851 by the Islamic rulers of his Spanish town for denouncing Muhammad in public. (Not exactly a household name, Jeremiah of Cordoba.) So we thought we’d expand our survey to include celebrity victims of keelhauling and drawing and quartering, and then promptly got sidetracked by the sheer multitude of elaborate, creative and horrible methods of execution thought up by our venerable forefathers (and mothers). Which got us to thinking: which would be the worst? Tell us what you think:

• Being scourged. For those of you who missed the memo, scourging is like whipping with a nasty twist: the whip has between three and nine ends (or “flays”), which often have nasty things like metal spikes sewn into them. (For you etymology geeks, “scourge” comes from the Italian scoriada, ultimately from the Latin: excoriare = “to flay” and corium = “skin”.)
• Being buried alive. A punishment exacted by Romans upon Vestal Virgins who had broken their vows. They were tossed into tombs with a tiny bit of bread and water, to give the goddess Vesta a better opportunity to save them, if she wanted to.
• Keelhauling. Given that this is uttered in nearly every sentence bespoke by movie pirates, precious few realize how nasty a punishment it really is. This is the least ancient of the tortures covered here — the Dutch navy officially sanctioned it in 1560 and banned it in 1853. Naughty sailors were tied to a rope that looped beneath the vessel, thrown overboard on one side, and dragged under the ship’s keel. As the hull was often covered in barnacles, you can imagine it wasn’t a pleasant ride.

More unpleasantness after the jump …
(more…)

1) On February 28, 1983, at exactly 11:03pm, water use in NYC jumped by several million gallons. Why? The final episode of “M*A*S*H” had just ended. As Jason mentioned in a recent post, it was the highest-rated television event in U.S. history, with 105 million viewers. Of course, that leaves us wondering: How come no one in the 1980s realized you could go to the bathroom during commercials?

2) Because South Africa’s apartheid regime was worried that television would give black Africans access to news from other countries, TV wasn’t introduced there until 1976.

This was today’s sneak peak at the new issue of mental_floss. These two facts are just a taste of the info-packed piece we’ve done on TV history in this issue’s “Scatterbrained” section.

I swung by the Life is Good Pumpkin Festival last weekend and thought I’d share some photos. Also, I’ll be carving my own pumpkin tonight, and I need some more inspiration. Ideas? Pics? Leave ‘em in the comments…

In keeping with yesterday’s Found Object theme, today I’m naming an archaic thingamajig—something often seen on Greek vases, sculptures and bronze artifacts. Check out the photo below… ever wonder what that funny looking curved thing is the Olympic athletes are often seen holding in their hands?

Well, it’s called a strigil, kind of an ancient squeegee, something both the Greeks and Romans used to scrape their skin with after a bath or a good sweat.

Some scholars think the Greek athletes used the strigil to collect scum from their skin after a sweaty competition because it held magical powers and could be offered up to the Gods in gratitude. I know, sorta gross, but worth mentioning.

Incidentally, our word “streak” comes from the Latin, strigilis, which means “to touch lightly.” So you see, even the antiquated thingamajig has some trivia worth.