Rotundus.com

Hatchet-wielding hitchhiker saves the day

This is one story in which "weird" seems like an inadequate description.

The Internal Memo That Allowed IBM's Female Employees to Get Married

"When Eleanor Kolchin worked at IBM in the late 1940s she had to keep her marriage a secret." The exception was if the wife was the breadwinner for the family.

Print Me a Condo on the Moon!

Can 3D printers and moon-mining make building a permanent moonbase a lot more feasible? That's what the European Space Agency is exploring.

We Have No Idea if Africa Is Rising

The words people are seldom willing to say - 'I don't know.' "Recent [Foreign Policy] contributors have said that Africa is and is not rising. They're both wrong because they don't have the numbers to back it up."

Brewing Controversy Over Proposal to Make Water Cheaper Than Beer

The first sentence: "In most restaurants and taverns across the Czech Republic, a mug of beer is, literally, cheaper than water."

HT: Diner's Journal

Seal attack! Hungry creature eats five blue sharks in rare images of sea mammal turning the tables on predator of the deep

Looks a bit unusual but not too surprising given that these seals were larger than the sharks. Apparently the seals were only interested in stomach and liver contents - would this be the more-ethical way to make shark fin soup? Reminds me a bit of the killer whales trapped in the Arctic a while back - given that killer whales are as the name suggests killers I wonder if them escaping is actually bad for biodiversity (as otherwise they'd have become fish food instead of feeding on fish (and whales).

IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’

Interesting. The IPCC already seemed to be doing a little backtracking with its Special Report on Extremes as noted here.

Drinking Wine Through Time, From a Chore to a Choice

"most wine for much of history was vile, nasty stuff. ... Yet people drank it anyway, because they had no choice. Other beverages like water and milk were disease ridden. Wine might have tasted awful, but alcohol was a built-in disinfectant."

15 Frugal Billionaires Who Live Like Regular People

"Have you ever wondered what you would do with a billion dollars? These 15 frugal billionaires have answered that question for real, and their response is 'not much.' Instead of dropping dough on jets, yachts, and mansions, they have saved up, lived modestly, and given away huge amounts of money to charity."