Time is a relative term when you're in love .

Ed Stavers, 70, was on a blind date when he over stayed his time in a free parking space. When he returned to find the fine he wrote to the enforcement company telling them where he had been and appealing to their generosity, confessing: "There is nothing more foolish than a silly (financially pushed) old fool." Although the message may have melted hearts at the enforcment company, when he showed it to his new girlfriend she broke off their affair. In the letter, printed in the Sun, Mr Stavers explained that his life is “very dull” and he has been attempting to meet women at ballroom dances. When his efforts failed - as the “old birds” always attend in pairs - he set up a date online and left his car in his home town of Chester-le-Street, Co Durham, to get the bus to Newcastle to meet her, he wrote. “She was sat on a bus station bench looking a picture of loveliness,” he said of his “exceptional circumstances”. As the pair shared two coffees and discussed their instant attraction "the time had flown", the former staff sergeant admitted, and he forgot about the fact that his three hours free parking had expired. “I was on the wrong side of the law, BUT I may be in love, so why should I worry?”
 he wrote.

 

'Woman in red' sprayed with teargas becomes symbol of Turkey protests

Istanbul's police chief had said his forces would only use teargas as a last resort. But the images seem to show the officer targeting an unarmed woman.

 

"Big Yellow Duck," "May 35th," and Other Words You Can't Use on China's Twitter Today

Chinese authorities are working overtime to censor search phrases like "big yellow duck," "June 4" and even the simple search term "today" on Sina Weibo—aka China's Twitter—today. Why? Because those seemingly innocuous words all refer to the Tiananmen Square massacre, where the Chinese government brutally cracked down on peaceful pro-democracy protestors in Beijing on June 4, 1989. Tuesday marks the 24th anniversary of the bloody demonstration, and though the Chinese Communist party has officially forbidden any open discussion of the "June 4 incident," Chinese citizens still haven't forgotten what day it is. Instead, they're taking to the Internet and using, as the Guardian ever-so-perfectly puts it, "ever-more oblique references to commemorate the tragedy, treating censors to an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse. 

By Jennifer Lai /Slate /more

 

To be unbroken, what would that be?

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Germany's longest word is kaput

Mark Twain said they were not words, but "alphabetic processions … marching majestically across the page": the compound words the German language uses to capture precise or complex meanings, which are a cause of irritation for novices and a delight for those who manage to master the tongue. But one compound noun has proved too much for German bureaucrats, who have decided to ditch what had been celebrated as the longest word in the German tongue. Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz has now been confined to the linguistic history books by authorities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The word, which means "the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef", was introduced in 1999 during the BSE crisis. It was given the abbreviation RkReÜAÜG – which was itself unpronouncable. But the 63-letter word was deemed no longer necessary after the EU halted BSE-testing on healthy cattle at abattoirs.
The big question they are asking is which word will now take its place.

 

On a cold day, Punasaur watches the world go by from a heated sofa

Photograph: Charlotte Phillips

 

Puppies Dumped In Trash Rescued By Adorable Foster Momma Dog

Now the love between a foster mom and her pups is so cute it might break the internet.

 

Why Is There a Hole on the Sun?

To be honest, this image looks a helluva lot more like an eyeball or a marble than the glowing fiery orange orb floating in our sky that we call the Sun. But nope, it's our Sun all right. It looks off because the image was captured through three of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory's extreme ultraviolet filters 

But what's up with that gaping hole?  

 The hole is a coronal hole, areas of the Sun that are darker and colder than normal. The ginormous dark hole is the largest coronal hole that's been observed in over a year. We see a hole in the Sun because that's what the SDO sees. NASA explains: Coronal holes are the source of strong solar wind gusts that carry solar particles out to our magnetosphere and beyond. They appear darker in extreme ultraviolet light images (here, a combination of three wavelengths of UV light) because there is just less matter at the temperatures we are observing in. It's like changing the look of a picture with an Instagram filter! But something way more advanced than just that. NASA expects the massive coronal hole to generate some aurora down on Earth. 

via Gizmodo

 

Monday Morning Pup

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Why is HP Lovecraft more popular than ever?

‘We wouldn’t have Ghostbusters if it weren’t for Lovecraft’ … one of Ian Culbard’s illustrations for The Shadow Out of Time

 "Lovecraft made a world where humans are alone, floating on a rock in a terrifying larger universe that we cannot possibly comprehend because our time in it has been so short and we are so insignificant compared to the horrors from the Cthulhu Mythos. So much of modern horror is based on that idea.
 We wouldn't have Ghostbusters if it weren't for Lovecraft – and that's the best argument I can think of for his work." says Erica Henderson.

 

Simplified blogging

Dinner out

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Blue-eyed tiger cub is conservation's cry for help

"Life. That's what's in this picture that's missing in pictures of ivory, or poached animals," says photographer James Morgan. This blue-eyed tiger cub changed the focus of Morgan's photography when he stumbled across a tiger rescue in Bangkok, Thailand. This cub and 15 others were found hidden in a fruit crate behind the cab of a truck bound for Laos. Morgan had a flash of inspiration: rather than continue to bombard the world with pictures of tusks and animal carcasses, essentially information about what is already lost, he decided to remind us of what we still have, in the hope that we'll feel more compelled to protect it. Here, veterinary practitioners are sampling the cub's DNA in order to find out where the batch of 16 came from. This should help authorities better trace and crack down on the criminal network. Though it's still unclear who put them in the back of the truck, it's almost certain that they were being traded for their supposed medicinal qualities. Traditional Chinese medicine views tiger parts as providing good luck and protective powers, but cubs are also often traded for their fur or as pets for the elite. For this cub, and others like it, the story doesn't end happily. According to Morgan, it faces a lifetime in captivity at wildlife breeding centres because it is too risky to release these sought-after animals back into the wild. Morgan's hope is that images like this one – taken on behalf of a WWF campaign – will appeal to the conscience of those who buy animal products. 

By Julia Sklar

 

Nice Shirt

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

 

Finger food, literally!

Some inventions change the world, while others simply make life a little easier.

Why does France insist school pupils master philosophy?

Other countries have school-leaving exams which cover the history of ideas and religion and so on. But the French are very clear that that is not what theirs is. The purpose of the philosophy Bac is not to understand the history of human thought but to leap into the stream that is the actuality of human thought. If you learn about what Kant or Spinoza once said, it is not so much to understand their argument as to use their argument. Napoleon launched the Baccalaureat in 1809, and philosophy was one of the subjects in the first ever exam (though back then it was oral, and in Latin, and only 31 males took it).The idea behind philosophy was itself entirely philosophical. In the newly created republic (and yes, I know Napoleon had just made himself emperor, but the point still holds) it was important to create model citizens. Had not the great writer and thinker Montesquieu himself said the republic relied on virtue, and virtue consisted in the capacity of individuals to exercise their own freely-formed judgment? So the purpose of teaching philosophy was - and remains, in theory - to complete the education of young men and women and permit them to think.

 By Hugh Schofield /BBC News / more

 

Porch Dogs

Nothing says summer like a dog on a porch.

 

Is this the best breakup letter ever?

The letter was posted on Imgur yesterday by Nipplesquirrelham and has already been viewed more than 180,000 times.

 

Turkey protesters hold Istanbul square after days of violent clashes

Residents of Turkey's largest city awoke Sunday to scenes of rain-soaked municipal workers and volunteer activists cleaning up the garbage left after days of violent clashes and angry demonstrations against the government. Demonstrators remained in control of Taksim Square after Turkish security forces abandoned the district Saturday following 36 hours of vicious clashes.
 By Ivan Watson and Gul Tuysuz, CNN / continue reading

 

This Is It !

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Here, hair, here

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How to Train Your Dinosaur

By deviantArt user *zoiks81

 

This is isn't living! I quit!

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The baby girl that has learnt to fly, fix Dad's car and even do the decorating before she can crawl

She's only a year old, yet Signhild Nystrom has mastered flying, can wield a sword like a ninja, and even do a spot of DIY. Yet, despite the photographic evidence, Signhild's prodigious skills are actually the result of the lengths her father went to to make his little girl smile. Swedish photographer Emil Nystrom and his partner Isabelle, both 25, wanted a family album with a difference.
With a little help from Photoshop, their daughter looks capable beyond her years.
 

May the force be with you, and your kitchen decor.

25 Ways To Make Your Home A “Star Wars” Heaven.