Fiber-optic materials in Ukrainian birds' nests

Yana Hrynko, senior researcher of The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, shows bird’s nests made partially with fragments of fiber-optic lines that were found by a Ukrainian serviceman on the front line and then passed to the museum, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 23, 2026. Both Ukrainian and Russian troops use drones controlled via long lines of optic fiber to bypass electronic warfare jamming, leaving miles of ultra-thin lines tangled in trees and scattered across the land in Ukraine’s frontline regions.  (Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters)

One of the Photos of the Week in The Atlantic.

Here's the video from Reuters on this topic - with a tip of the blogging cap to an unidentified reader.

An interesting NOVA program on "desert kites"

This one is many months old, because I save them to a DVR and watch whenever.  I believe what I've embedded above is full-length rather than a teaser trailer.

I didn't watch it when it came out because I thought the "desert kites" were quite obviously the terrestrial equivalent of fish weirs in coastal environments.  The interesting reveal to me was that the ancient people constructing these were able to create "death pits" using walls of just the right height so that an antelope's vision wouldn't see the presence of the pit, which was lined with smooth stones to prevent escape.  Basically like creating a "head-smashed-in buffalo jump" where there were no natural cliffs.  And these were very early people from the Neolithic era.

The video also takes advantage of modern computer image generation and drone photography in rather effective ways.  NOVA programs have always been of the highest quality.

A reflecting pool cocktail

There are a seemingly endless number of memes on the reflecting pool disaster.  Readers are welcome to provide links to their favorites in the Comments.  I thought this one posted by Sarah Dahlinger on Facebook was nicely done.

I've seen a lot of brilliantly made craft cocktails dedicated to the Reflecting Pool this past weekend, and I thought, something was missing. Something wasn't right. 

They didn't quite capture the level of class and sophistication that our Reflecting Pool currently has, so here's my version. 

To start, line your glass with a blue fruit roll up. Then you're going to need:

2 oz rum

4 oz juice that is kinda yellow (pineapple, mango, orange, lemonade, whatever you like)

1 oz blue curacao (you can adjust for color)

Garnish with lime zest

The yellow and blue liquids make a lovely shade of algae and the rum eventually melts the blue fruit roll up, which is, IMHO, the best part. 

Interesting library chair

Via Architecture Hub.

Details regarding the "Trump phone"

Lots of outrage expressed in various media stating that Trump sold phones to his supporters, failed to deliver them, and pocketed the $ without refunds.  The details are more complex, as summarized in the cartoon above and expressed by Heather Cox Richardson below:

As Judd Legum of Popular Information explains, on June 16, 2025, Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric announced the launch of a new, gold plated, Trump smartphone, “proudly designed and built in the United States.” It would be available in August 2025 for $499. Its website urged customers to “pre-order” the phone by depositing $100 toward it. Don Jr. said the phone would be “American hardware, built in America, without the potential of…[a] backdoor into the hardware that some of our adversaries have installed in there.”

And yet a disclaimer on the website said the Trumps and the Trump Organization were involved only in the branding of the phone; they had nothing to do with the design, development, manufacture, distribution, or sales of the item. As Legum notes, the idea of a superior U.S.-made phone was always a fantasy, and within two weeks the phone’s description changed from “MADE IN THE USA” to “designed with American values in mind.”

The phone never shipped, and on April 6, Trump Mobile updated its terms to say the $100 deposit was not actually a deposit for a pre-order, but rather “a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.” It went on to say the deposit “does not lock in pricing, promotions, service plans, taxes, fees, shipping costs, or other commercial terms” and that “[e]stimated ship dates, launch timelines, or anticipated production schedule are non-binding estimates only.”

A new phone has recently gotten clearance from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Trump Mobile executives say they are waiting for approval from T-Mobile, the company whose network Trump Mobile wants to use. Legum points out that T-Mobile relies on the federal government for approval for business activities, creating an enormous conflict of interest.

Can you find the missing seven states in this map?

Take your time pondering this clever map from xkcd.  When you give up, there is a link to the answer at the Kottke via.  (New England is o.k.)  I thought six of them were easy, but the seventh was hard.

"Blind Faith" - a new Banksy

Cleverly conceived, and well-executed.  Not apparent from this view is that the subject's front foot is going to lead to him fallling off the plinth.

Addendum:  Side view of the statue stepping off its plinth -

- cropped for emphasis from the original posted at the BBC.  Hat tip to a reader for sending me the link.

One more.  The best view, via Kottke:

Clever tee shirt

Offered on Facebook by Echos of Antiquity.

"Coyote tooth dentures"

Coyote tooth dentures on display at Eastern California Museum. These human dentures were made by melting celluloid toothbrush handles. In the early 1900′s a man who lost his teeth shaped melted toothbrushes to his gums, and then pressed the teeth of dead coyote into them." 

Reposted from 2016 while I visit the dentist today.  The photo and text are from a Tumblr site that has undergone linkrot, but I found the same information reposted at The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things. 

A lamp full of memories

Here's the owner's story, posted at Reddit:

The lamp is a glass jar full of all the things that my mom found in my pockets when doing my laundry as a child. I was born in 1986, and you can tell from a lot of the items in it.

It started off with mostly sticks, rocks, and marbles. But over time it ended up having all sorts of items ranging from Pogs, a Gameboy game (Super Mario Land), a Magic School Bus McDonald's toy, yo-yos, and Laser Quest scorecards. There are also plenty of sticks, springs, rubber-bands, and twist-ties because I went through a phase where I remember telling my parents I was going to build a robot with just those items.

I will admit that there are a few items in there from my early 20s too, as like any lazy college student, I let my mom wash my clothes while staying at home from college between semesters. And clearly, my mom was still collecting my things.

Growing up, whenever I left something in my pockets and put them in the dirty laundry, before she would wash things, she checked my pockets, and if she found anything, she put it in a glass jar on the top shelf in the laundry room. I remember as a kid, wishing soooo hard that I could get some of the items back, but it was forbidden to even go near the jar.

By the time I was old enough to be sneaky about it and get into it, I had just learned to accept that that was how it worked and I wouldn't get those things back.

Years went by and I had completely forgotten about it, until this last May. I got married, and at our rehearsal dinner, when my mom and dad stood up to give their thank you speech, my mom pulled a large gift bag out from under the table. She started by giving a short speech explaining that over the years she had collected stuff from my pockets, and it was in that moment that I thought, "I'm gonna get the jar!" I started tearing up before she had finished talking. When she did, I opened the bag and found that not only was I getting the jar, I was getting it back in the form of a lamp (and yes, she has sealed the top of the lamp to it so that I still CANNOT open it).

This has definitely been the best gift I've ever received.

What a wonderful and thoughtful personalized gift.  Closeup photos here.

Reposted from 2012.

Clever rebus

"The “Hi Neighbor” is just a tagline for the Narragansett beer company, so you can ignore that on the coaster."

Found at the rebus subreddit, where there are many may more.  I've put the solution in the first comment.

Try to guess the purpose of this table design

Described at the WhatIsThisThing subreddit as "A table with a slightly recessed top with a depressed surface near one end. Found at a thrift store, the table is about 25” tall, 3’ long and 18” wide.  The table appears to be made of painted beechwood while the surface is stained wood. The depressed area makes me think the table is made for sorting or is intended for some sort of game."  

Image cropped to highlight the object, which many of us have seen without knowing so.

An interesting specialized tool

Posted at the often-interesting whatisthisthing subreddit, with the following thumbnail description:

"Thin yet heavy metal pen-shaped object with a removable clip.  One end is ball-shaped (but no ink could possibly flow), and the other end has a fishing-line-type loop."

A major clue is that the ball at the end is magnetic.

Here are two replies:  

    "It's a tool to remove foreign objects from your eye, used most often in welding and machine shops. The other end is a nylon loop that holds a drop or two of sterile water to attract non magnetic debris in the eye.

    "Optometrist here. If you have a medical eye doctor nearby you can save the ER trip. I've removed a ton of these in office myself, and any ophthalmologist can. Just don't go to a lenscrafters or pearl vision etc. and expect anything beyond glasses/contacts."

Lots of comments at the link from metalworkers.

This is a sandwich I could make

A chicken and cheese sandwich with various condiments.  From Hungry Planet, via Neatorama.

Van Gogh torc

I think this is properly termed a torc rather than a necklace.  Clever.

The artist is not identified at the via, where the discussion is about taste (or lack of same).

Reposted from 2018 for the Halloween season.

Olive oil in a squeeze bottle

I spotted an unusual (for me) food product in a Bloomberg article: olive oil in a squeeze bottle.  All my life I've poured olive oil out of uncapped bottles, and the oil -  perhaps because of its surface tension? - invariably drips down the side of the glass bottle, which then has to be wiped clean.

Graza had introduced its two olive oils—Sizzle, for cooking with heat, and Drizzle, for dipping... a little more than a year after it hit the market, Graza was already in Whole Foods and preparing to expand its distribution to both Walmart and Target.

The squeeze bottles are the kind of move that seems almost gallingly simple in retrospect. Sometimes packaging is just as much the product as what’s contained inside it... inventing a new approach to package a familiar commodity has historically gone a long way toward convincing consumers that your product is the best. Before Kleenex’s pop-up tissue box, bundles of kerchiefs were often sold without storage boxes, and before Colgate’s toothpaste tubes, you had to scoop the stuff out of a jar with a little spoon...

Canadian "wheat sharks"

Image cropped for size/emphasis from the original.  Creation credit here.

New design for a coathanger

Kudos to this young woman for coming up with an interesting invention.  Her "Coat Hinger" is carefully designed to serve a niche market, and her presentation of the product is very professionally done.  Worth viewing, IMHO.  Details at her Kickstarter page.

"The Eye of Soren"

Our doorstep last night was graced by the visits of numerous neighborhood children, dressed as superheroes and monsters, or wearing the predictable bright pink jumpsuits.  But the prize for most innovative costume goes to a young man named Soren, who crafted this himself.  Those familiar with The Lord of the Rings will appreciate the wordplay.

This is a "living seawall"

When humans build vertical seawalls to fend off rising sea levels, the process eliminates the conventional gradually-sloping "intertidal zone" and the habitat associated with those environments.

This vertical seawall incorporates manmade structural elements that provide at least a semblance of suitable habitat for some marine creatures.

The Guardian has the full story and additional photos.