Monday links

The Physics of How Lawn Mower Blades Cut Grass (at 50K frames per second).

Photos That Prove Japan Is Not Like Any Other Country.

Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity.

On July 16, 1945 the atomic age began with the Trinity nuclear test. Related: 1954 film: How a Clean, Tidy Home Can Help You Survive the Atomic Bomb

Kazakhstan tax dollars at work: this 40 foot tall squirrel statue is part of an art project commissioned by city authorities.

Man Spends 23 Years Carving Sprawling Underground Temple Under His House.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky, the history of trial by combat, Bastille Day, Mozart's less family-friendly works, and how local authorities are surveilling U. S. citizens.

Friday links

June 24 is the birthday of Ambrose Bierce, author of The Devil's Dictionary.

The Weird and Very Long History of State Liquor Laws.

This explains a lot: In 1950, the U.S. Released a Bioweapon in San Francisco.

Awkward Pregnancy Photos.

The surprisingly interesting history of Pyrex.

Traditional Japanese Spider Fighting.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include the summer solstice, a gallery of cars with propellers, healthy summer advice from 1656, and the unsuccessful Cold War-era attempt to eavesdrop via transmitters implanted into cats:

"CIA staffers drove Acoustic Kitty to the park and tasked it with capturing the conversation of two men sitting on a bench. Instead, the cat wandered into the street, where it was promptly squashed by a taxi."

Clapping Mohawks - If you're happy and you know it, clap your hair

One of those WTF things:

Wednesday links

Anyone remember George Burns and Gracie Allen? Here's the story of Gracie Allen's 1940 White House Run.

McDonald’s Employee with Down Syndrome to Retire After 32 Years.

The Electric Baths of Japan.

The French word for “paperclip” is “trombone”.

One man's dream project to fly from Ireland to Africa by lawnmower gets under way this week

The Reason Nearly Every Film Ends by Saying It’s Fiction: Rasputin.

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include the invention of the Slinky, endurance tickling, Skynet self-awareness day, the history of pay toilets, and notable warning signs and labels.

Tuesday links

For Aldous Huxley's birthday, an infographic of Huxley Vs Orwell, a letter from Huxley to Orwell explaining why he (Huxley) was right, and audio of Huxley narrating Brave New World.

Toasters of the 1920s.

World War I in Photos: Animals at War.

The coldest places on earth.

Sir David Attenborough narrating Pokémon Go is a hoot. Related: the fatwa against Pokémon Go: it spreads Darwinism.

Huge Catfish Trigger Earthquakes In Japan (1855).

How Did a Grizzly Bear Get on California's Flag?

ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include a cringe-inducing set of fashion ads from the 1970s, a 1923 car that turned into a boat, diagnosing Hitler's flatulence, and a compilation of the 100 greatest action movie punchlines (NSFW language).

Extremely weird Japanese Donald Trump for World President commercial

Presented without comment:

A wearable robot that feeds you tomatoes as you run

This is actually from last year, but I'd never seen it. A Japanese vegetable juice company has designed a new a wearable robot that dispenses tomatoes for people to eat while on the go.

Tomatan is a robot that can be worn as a backpack. Weighing 8kg (18 pounds), it features a tomato shaped head with a mouth that opens to dispense the tomato into circular metal arms that then come down over the person's mouth to feed them a tomato.

Why would anyone need this, you might ask? Well, according to Kagome, which claims to be Japan's largest supplier of tomato juice and tomato ketchup, people running the Tokyo marathon really need this.

Dude! Glee, the sumo version: check out the dancing sumo wrestlers

Here's a gif, but see the whole video below.

via Kotaku:

Taiwan’s Lin Yu-chun, famous-ish on Japanese TV, apparently, for his rendition of “I Will Always Love You”, is starring in a new Japanese drama for streaming service dTV. Called Dosu-koi Musical, the show is like Glee meets sumo wrestling. According to Pouch, Lin plays a Taiwanese exchange student who is bullied because of his weight and decides to join the university sumo team.

Ridiculous Japanese Products

I've seen a few of these before, but not all, and they're pretty funny.

How much time have you wasted clipping one toenail at a time? You'll never get those minutes of your life back. But you don't have to waste any more.

Wash While You Walk: Now you can take your laundry on the go.

Allergies?  Tired of running out of paper products when you need to blow your nose?

These are stickers to wear on your eyelids when you want to sleep at work.

So, how about a vending machine full of used women's underwear?

See the rest of the set here. And, of course, there're these Japanese Robotic Buttock.  Here's a Compilation of Weird Japanese Commercials, and there are more here.

Toilet Museum Exhibit Lets You Wear a Poop Hat And Go Down a 16 Foot Toilet Slide, Just Like a Real Poop

A science museum in Tokyo has opened an exhibit all about toilets and what humans put into them. Visitors can learn about the formation and makeup of feces, the importance of toilets for health, and how toilets work.

But visitors can do more than just learn information. They can have fun! Visitors are given cloth poop hats, and then flushed into the giant toilet: the exhibit includes a 5-meter (15 foot) long slide into a giant toilet. As the sign welcoming visitors says, "You Too, Can Become Feces!". BYW, grammar nazis, that's their punctuation, not mine.

There's also a choir of singing toilets - see the video:

via Neatorama