You come here to mental_floss for your daily dose of knowledge on a wide variety of topics. Our quizzes and entertainment posts also cover a great range of subjects. But sometimes, you like to find something so different and specific that you didn’t even realize there was enough material for a website, much less a blog. And that’s why we bring you updates about the huge variety of strange and wonderful niche blogs about extremely narrow subject matter, because if some blogger somewhere can dream it up, its there for you to enjoy on the internet.

Students at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design created a Tumblr blog of cats that explains how the world’s most quirky buildings became so quirky. It’s called Furrrocious-forms. Here you see a cat putting the finishing touches on Frank Gehry’s Dancing House in Prague. The pictures get even stranger around finals week.

I’m not sure what qualifies a picture to go on the blog Hipster Babies, but the ones that do sure are cute. Evidence presented here is a photo from Mickey’s Girl. Hipster Babies also posts cute pictures of hipster pets on occasion.
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You don’t have to look beyond the borders of the good old USA to find the answer to today’s mentalfloss.com Brain Game Tuesday Test Time challenge. Good luck:

What do these five U.S. states have
in common that no other U.S. states do?

California, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Utah

Here is the ANSWER.

Tuesday’s 5 Questions quiz exhibits a little ah-cha-cha and more than a smidgen of: -ink a Dink a Doo

Is your alma mater on the list of America’s 1,000 best high schools? That’s okay, mine wasn’t, either.
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The annual Star Wars Weekend at Walt Disney World has come and gone continues through June 10th. This year, your favorites characters get down to LMFAO at the dance-off. Yes, really.
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The government of Kiev, Ukraine, is placing their bets on a telepathic pig to predict the outcome of European championship soccer matches. Or it could be a publicity stunt, you never know.
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Hugh Jackman interviews for a teacher’s job at Harlem Village Academies, because teachers are the real superstars. I’d hire him, wouldn’t you?
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The 18 Best Ideas People On The Internet Have Ever Had. This food for thought should last you five minutes and three “I should’ve thought of that”s.
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The hype machine blared loudly about the film Battleship, then suddenly went silent. Turns out that relatively few paid to see the film on its opening weekend.
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Staff Sergeant Nick B. found an abused puppy in Afghanistan, and moved mountains to get Bodhi sent to the U.S. They were reunited over the weekend in Florida.
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The official trailer for the 23rd James Bond film is out. Skyfall will hit theaters in November.
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Microsoft’s new social networking site is called So.cl, pronounced social. Here’s what you need to know before trying it out.
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Blimp vs. Zeppelin: What’s the Difference? For one thing, I never owned an album by Blimp.

The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that killed millions and set the continent of Europe on the path to further calamity two decades later. But it didn’t come out of nowhere.

With the centennial of the outbreak of hostilities coming up in 2014, Erik Sass will be looking back at the lead-up to the war, when seemingly minor moments of friction accumulated until the situation was ready to explode. He’ll be covering those events 100 years after they occurred. This is the 18th installment in the series. (See all entries here.)

May 21, 1912: Germany Ramps Up and Albanians Take Up Arms

Even after the failure of the Haldane Mission and dire warnings from Winston Churchill, there was a slim chance that Germany still might choose the path of moderation and suspend the European arms race, if the Reichstag voted against the military spending bills proposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and the naval novelle added by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. On May 21, 1912, those hopes were dashed when the Reichstag voted to pass both increased military spending bills by a large majority.

The bills represented an unmistakable increase in the tempo of the arms race. Tirpitz’s naval novelle called for three additional dreadnoughts to be built over the next five years, adding one ship per year in 1912, 1914, and 1916. On land, under the original five-year law passed by the Reichstag in March 1911, the German army was supposed to gradually increase in strength to around 515,000 by 1915-1916; under the terms of the Army Bill passed on May 21, 1912, this was increased to 544,211, beginning in October of that year. Including non-commissioned officers and one-year volunteers, the German army’s peacetime strength would increase from 626,489 in 1911 to 655,714 in 1912.

By contrast, the peacetime strength of the French army in 1912 was 519,000, and France was already conscripting a larger proportion of its young men every year due to its smaller population (40 million in 1912, compared to Germany’s 64 million). To keep up, the French government would eventually have no choice but to extend the standard term of military service from two years to three years – a politically unpopular move at home, which would add more fuel to the European fire abroad (justifying, for example, yet another round of increases in Germany).

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Last week the Social Security Administration released stats on the most popular baby names of 2011. Earlier today, we asked about popular boy names. How many of the top 10 girl names can you come up with in 3 minutes?

Take the Quiz: Name the Top 10 Baby Girl Names

The Future Is Now
Because in the 1960s the future was 50 or more years from then, which could be now. So now is the future for the 1960s. The same could be said for the 1890s, when 50% of the future was 51-500 years from that point in time. But when is the future now? Oh, just look at this chart.

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On Writing & Snoopy
Everyone’s favorite cartoon Beagle waxes philosophical on writing – and gets some help from some people that know a thing or two about it.

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My Arm Itches. Oh Sweet Lord, It’s Flesh Eating Bacteria!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Probably. It might just be an itch. But I’m pretty sure it’s flesh eating bacteria.

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We Have Some of the Best Readers and Commenters Around
But we do get the occasional spammer trying to sell us cheap Uggs. Here’s how Tumblr keeps out the trolls.

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Today Is Mr. T’s 60th Birthday!
Celebrate by reliving that magical Christmas of ’83 when Laurence Tureaud played the White House Santa.

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Courtesy of SCP Auctions

Former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor’s ring from Super Bowl XXV fetched $230,401 in an auction over the weekend. Over the years, several athletes and at least one owner have relinquished ownership of their championship bling for various reasons. Here are some examples.

1. Because a Little Girl Made You

In 2008, New England Patriots safety Je’Rod Cherry was challenged by a girl at a youth conference to sell his Super Bowl XXXVI ring to raise money for charity. Cherry did, helping raise nearly $150,000. “I do not disrespect the idea of what the ring represents,” Cherry told reporters. “I tried to elevate it to something even better.” It probably made Cherry’s decision to sell the ring a little easier knowing that he still had two others.

2. For Good Dental Hygiene

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Last week the Social Security Administration released stats on the most popular baby names of 2011. How many of the top 10 boy names can you come up with in 3 minutes?

Take the Quiz: Name the Top 10 Baby Boy Names

I need a favor.

On Wednesday — and if it goes well, at least once a month — we’re going to chain Matt Soniak to his desk and make him answer 20 Big Questions.* Is there anything you’ve been dying to know?

Leave a comment with your question suggestion. We’ll pick one person at random and send them a copy of Joel Stein’s new book Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. And if we answer your question this week, we’ll send you a mental_floss t-shirt. The stakes are high!

Stacy Conradt and Kathy Benjamin are also pitching in Wednesday. (Of their own free will. No chains.) And to steal a phrase from Bill Simmons (and the creator of Batman), I’ve put out the Bat Signal to Erin McKean. Come teach us word things!

* Here are examples of past Big Questions.