As always, Japan gets there first. Sora News 24 tells us that public restrooms in the Umeda Station of Osaka will be the site of a new toileting experience. Technicians will install screens that will show video content, including advertisements. Railway passengers will be able to avoid the most awkward aspect of using a public toilet: not having a screen in front of them.

The photo that I selected is not from Japan, a nation with famously clean public restrooms. It's not even Texas's own Buc-ee's, which has a similar reputation. But I want to set realistic expectations for the time when this trend comes to America.

Photo: THe GoOgLeR

The Vulgar Chef, as you expected, produced this culinary marvel.

On Instagram, he says nothing. He just shares this image of the pastry masterpiece. On Facebook, he describes experiments with donut sorcery, including a shepherd's pie donut.

But he says nothing about how he created this salty, choclately beauty. The Vulgar Chef just lets us imagine it as we salivate hungrily and lick our computer screens.

The Little Free Library movement has inspired people to create free public activities and opportunities for strangers, such as art galleries, dog stick libraries, and even a bocce court.

You can think of these expansions of the Little Free Library movement as a Sidewalk Joy trend. People feel inspired to bring joy to passersby who need free experiences that help us feel like we're part of communities.

Portland, Oregon goes all out on Sidewalk Joy. You can follow a map to walk through the city and find opportunities to take and share toy cars, jigsaw puzzles, toy dinosaurs, or play miniature golf.

Photo: Free Toy Library

Phoebe Sanders can be called an experimental banjoist as she is constantly pushing the limits of how this classic American instrument can and should be played. In addition to traditional playing of traditional songs such as "Big Rock Candy Mountain," she's played her banjos underwater and built a functional banjo out of trash.

Sanders's performances include playing her favorite instrument while simultaneously controlling marionettes. In the above video, she makes her raccoon dance by pumping pedals that pull the strings of the puppet.

Canada and France share a maritime border, despite the ejection of France from North America in the Seven Years' War. Article 6 of the 1763 Treaty of Paris allowed France to retain the tiny islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to facilitate French fishing in the region. France retained control over them despite losing the Napoleonic Wars to Britain and her allies.

During the Twentieth Century, the great powers gained increasing interest in directly controlling the seas from which they were able to extract wealth in the form of oil. So the precise border between these French islands and the now independent Canada was not a matter to ignore.

The two nations concluded arbitration in 1972, leading to the sea borders illustrated above. The map is provided by Sovereign Limits, a website about maritime boundaries. France maintains a sizeable Exclusive Economic Zone dangling inside otherwise Canadian waters.

-via Amazing Maps

"Master of Puppets" is among Metallica's most famous songs. Since 1986, it has captivated audiences and been covered by many musical groups (my favorite of which is Apocalyptica's).

In this 2024 cover, the famous Kunst en Genoegen marching band in Leiden, the Netherlands, smoothly marches through the streets performing a perfect "Master of Puppets." The traditional marching band instruments work well for this thrash metal classic.

-via The Awesomer

The legend of the Bell Witch is still told in Tennessee, and tourists can visit the Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee, which doesn't really figure into the story but has a replica of the Bell house and some artifacts from the family. John Bell and his family started undergoing paranormal experiences in 1817. Most of the incidents were poltergeist activity, although the word was not yet used in America at that time. The hauntings went on for years. The family kept the weird phenomena to themselves for months, and when the word got out, other families reported similar events. 

The hauntings continued until John Bell, the patriarch of the family, died under mysterious circumstances in 1820. Bell had married his wife Lucy when she was 12 years old (he was 32). They moved to Tennessee after Bell beat a murder rap in North Carolina. The family eventually had nine children and a solid reputation in Tennessee. But the witch threatened Bell constantly, and some reports said his health was failing the entire three years of the hauntings. Or was he poisoned? Dr. Emily Zarka tells the tale of the Bell Witch. 

Picher, Oklahoma, was once a booming mining town of 20,000 people. The Eagle-Picher Company mined zinc and lead there for over a hundred years, but today it's a ghost town. The mine closed in 1967 and in 1983 Picher was declared a Superfund site, with dangerous levels of lead found in the city's residents. Underground mining left its buildings unstable. And a tornado wiped out 150 of the remaining homes in 2008. The government paid people to move away, and Picher city services ceased in 2009. Louise Story, who is on a quest to visit all 50 states, visited the eerie ghost town with her son, driving by the abandoned homes with the windows rolled up because of the toxic lead-filled air.  

But they also visited Commerce, Oklahoma, less than five miles away, the boyhood home of Mickey Mantle. Story told her son about how his father, Mutt Mantle, and his grandfather Charlie trained him to be a switch hitter baseball star from an early age. It was only afterward, with a little research, that the stories she told of the two Oklahoma towns became connected. Read that story at Atlas Obscura. 

(Image credit: peggydavis66) 

We've watched movies and TV shows about space travel since we were little kids. Most of us have also watched the miracle of real space travel, such as the many videos we have of operations on the ISS. Have you noticed the real difference between the two? In the real world, we have not achieved artificial gravity. Not that we've ever tried to. But it's in every show involving space travel. That one system must require a lot of power. 

Adam Schwartz (previously at Neatorama) took this idea and ran to its logical conclusion. When a ship's life support systems are failing, as happens a lot when you're trying to add drama to a plot, why not try turning off the artificial gravity system and use the enormous amount of power it's consuming for life support? One might think that the system is built like some modern electronics without an off switch. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

President William Howard Taft was America's largest president at 340 pounds (although he lost 70 while in the White House). It's very likely the only thing you know about him is that he got stuck in a bathtub and had to be rescued. A replacement tub big enough for four men was installed afterward. The photo above, which made the papers in 1909, proves it. Except it doesn't. The story of Taft's bathtub is usually attributed to White House staffer Irwin Hood Hoover, whose memoir was published in 1934, long after the supposed bathtub incident and a year after Hoover's death. Those who know suspect the anecdote was added by the book's editors. 

But there was a somewhat similar story about Taft's 1909 tour down the Mississippi River, and how the president's quarters aboard the steamship Oleander were outfitted with extra-large furniture- except for the bathroom, because fixtures couldn't be found in time. Read the real origins of the bathtub story that just won't go away at Smithsonian. Incidentally, the tub in the photo was never installed in the White House, but on another boat that took Taft to the Panama Canal. 

YouTuber Brick Technology (previously at Neatorama) built a LEGO traffic simulation as a miniature version of Yuki Sugiyama's full-size traffic experiment on what causes traffic jams. While this involves a round track with no intersections or turns, the results are similar to what we may encounter in real life.  

First he has to build a track using magnetic guidance, and then the trucks. They are programmed to act either like human drivers or robot drivers in the way they accelerate, slow, and stop. The results are dependent on the density of traffic, because one too many trucks will slow them all down. Then he throws in confounding factors: one drunk driver, then a real human with a controller, and finally he raises the speed limit. It's all chaos by the end. You might get the idea from this that robots drive better, but keep in mind there are no pedestrians or animals wandering onto this track. -via The Awesomer 

Do you want to get fit, but worry about being vulnerable to close-quarters melee attack during your exercises? Then sword yoga is for you! The New York Post reports that performing yoga routines while holding swords is becoming a popular activity in some studios in The City. It's a synthesis of vinyasa yoga, tai chi, and kung fu.

Sabrina Stoberg founded WeaponUp, a sword yoga fitness firm. Her background in Shaolin kung fu provided her with a foundation for this vigorous yoga practice that demands strength, balance, and flexibility. It also encourages women who participate to feel strong and develop what Stoberg calls "main character energy."

-via Jarvis Best | Photo: Sabrina Stoberg

In 1892, Arthur Hotchkiss patented what he called the "elevated railway." Hotchkiss and other innovators imaged rail travel for individuals by pedal-powered machines that rolled over specially-built rail networks.

My Modern Met introduces us to Amanda Meyer, an art student in Madrid who works with fashion, fabrics, paint, and tattoos. She spent 40 hours and 100 meters of thread to compose this mini dress that is literally made of leaves. The preservation process leaves the leaves looking like leather and somewhat sturdier than untreated leaves. Although the dress is delicate, it is wearable.

"Datalore" is the thirteen the episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In this episode, we learn more about Data's origins and are introduced to his brother (of sorts)--the villainous Lore who lacked his successor's moral character.

Dallas-based artist artist Heather Lynn creates in a variety of media, often drawing inspiration from the Symbolist and Art Nouveau movements, as well as images from high fantasy.

In this tattoo, she shows Data and Lore as they appeared in one particular moment of the episode, attending to the details of Lore's gesture and Data's first season uniform. Lynn's organization of the image is drawn from Art Nouveau playing cards.