Leech swallows worm

YouTube link.

 Trigger warning: nature.

An alpine toboggan run for summer tourists

YouTube link.

The toboggan run is located at the top station of the cable car Oeschinensee. To get there, take the cable car (about 8 minutes) from Kandersteg to Oeschinen. Alternatively, can be reached via the trail to the toboggan run. The walk takes 1.5 hours.

Looks like total fun. 750 meters.  Costs only 4 Swiss francs (about US $4).

Via Neatorama.

Entrance to a subway

The shape is that of a German tramway car, depicted as emerging from underground in Bockenheimer Warte, part of the Frankfurt Metro line.

Photos via here and here.

HMB = "Hold My Beer"

HMB videos are a subgroup of the omnipresent "fail" videos. 

The best one I've encountered is "HMB while I hit a bottle with a baseball bat," which might also be titled "HMB while I elicit your schadenfreude."

There is an entire subreddit devoted to HMB, where I found "HMB while I park the car,"  "... put on my pants," "... skip rope," "... report on innertube tobogganing," and "... clear snow off the roof." 

Most of these have only implied ties to beer and are just reruns of the old fail videos.  But if you know of some good ones, feel free to place a link in the comments.

Umlauts explained

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

"Pildomatist"

"Then she ran into the garden and took refuge on a bench, a prey to feelings that stirred her young heart for the first time.  Raoul followed her and they talked until evening, very shyly.  They were quite changed, were as cautious as two pildomatists and told each other things that had nothing to do with their budding sentiments."

--- Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera, Chapter V.

This morning I encountered a mystery word.  I couldn't find "pildomatist" in my Random House Dictionary, or even in my OED.  More than that, there were no "pild..." words to which it might be related, both dictionaries leaping from "pilc..." to "pile."

The mystery deepened when a Google search turned up nothing except a few references to this same passage in The Phantom of the Opera.

Since the author was French, I found an online French dictionary, but it also had no pild... words.  One possible explanation was "if the word is spelled correctly, I'd guess that it had Latin origins
pil doma tist.  pil: to gather, to pillage, to plunder, to rob, to steal, to snatch, to heap up (as stones) and to carry off.  doma: home" (implying that a pildomatist is a house burglar, which would be consistent with the context).  But that didn't explain its absence from dictionaries.

Perhaps it's simply a typo that has been carried forward through various editions of the book (my copy was Dorset Press, 1985).  

Or an error by an early translator of the work.

Or a neologism by the author based on some slang used in 1911.

I'll turn this over to the unparalleled knowledge base of the readers of this blog, some of whom undoubtedly have obscure dictionaries and arcane knowledge of various languages.

Addendum:  We already have a presumptive correct answer in the Comments, but ponder the problem before peeking.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly questions/problems get solved here.

A peacock in flight

Cropped for emphasis from the via at the Pics subreddit.

Minnesota state parks expanding and thriving

This is what taxes are for - so governments can do things that individuals cannot do.

Across the nation, fewer people are enjoying the great outdoors. But Minnesota is swimming against that current, with more people using the state’s parks and trails. Visits were up nearly 20 percent overall last year — more people bought daily and year-round permits, and more stayed overnight to camp...

The state system, which predates the national system, includes 75 state parks and more than 600 miles of paved trails. Over the past 60 years, the annual number of visitors has increased from about 1 million to more than 8 million. And in 2015, nearly half a million people bought daily and annual permits. DNR officials point to the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment — which provides funding for parks and trails through a statewide sales tax — as the reason behind the recent rise in visitor numbers. Since the amendment passed in 2008, sales of daily and annual parks permits have risen by nearly 150,000.

Puente Nuevo

The Puente Nuevo ("New Bridge") is the newest and largest of three bridges that span the 120-metre (390 ft)-deep chasm that carries the Guadalevín River and divides the city of Ronda, in southern Spain...

The bridge was started in 1751 and took 42 years to build. Fifty workers were killed during its construction. There is a chamber above the central arch that was used for a variety of purposes, including as a prison. During the 1936-1939 civil war both sides allegedly used the prison as a torture chamber for captured opponents, killing some by throwing them from the windows to the rocks at the bottom of the El Tajo gorge...

My eye was drawn to the horizontal cleft in the rock on the right.  I would love for that to be a pathway carved in ancient times by humans, but I suppose it's probably just a natural cleft.

Finally some good election news

Though not from the U.S. -

Allies of Iran's reformist President Hassan Rouhani have won a landslide victory in Tehran...

This stunning election result will make a difference in Iran's engagement with the wider world. President Rouhani's hand has been strengthened in parliament to help open his country to greater trade and investment. That will help him, and others in his reformist camp, to deepen the dialogue with the West, which began with negotiations on a landmark nuclear deal. But much of this opening will continue to be with Europe, rather than the US. Iran's relationship with America is still complex and controversial. ..

Voting was extended three times on Friday as crowds reportedly flocked to polling stations. Turnout was more than 60%. Reformists, who want better relations with the outside world and more freedoms at home, were hoping to gain influence in the conservative-dominated bodies...

St. Paul's Cathedral employs broderers

Observing my gaze upon the magnificent textiles, Anita drew out a richly-embellished cope from Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. ‘This is cloth of gold’ she indicated, changing her voice to whisper, ‘it ceased production years ago.’ 

‘There are still wonderful haberdashers in Kuala Lumpur and Aleppo,’ she informed me as if it were a closely-guarded secret, ‘I found this place there that still sold gold thread. If someone’s going to Marrakesh, we give them a shopping list in case they stumble upon a traditional haberdashery.’ Next, Anita produced a sombre cope from Winston Churchill’s funeral, fashioned from an inky black brocade embroidered with silver trim, permitting my eye to accommodate to the subtler tones that can be outshone by tinsel.

In this lofty chamber high above the chaos of the city, an atmosphere of repose prevails in which these needlewomen pursue their exemplary work in a manner unchanged over millennia. I was in awe at their skill and their devotion to their art but Anita said, ‘As embroiderers, we are thankful to have a purpose for our embroidery because there’s only so many cushions you can do.’

More details (and photos) at Spitalfields Life.  And today I learn that a person who embroiders can be called a "broderer."

Roll a 20-sided die...

Every time I see a d20, my thoughts go back to some awesome dungeon encounters in a friend's basement in Lexington, Kentucky decades ago.  But today, the die is used for a math puzzle:

We play a game. You roll the die, and can elect to bank [that number of $], or roll again. If you bank, you walk away with the dollar amount shown on the die, and the game ends. If you elect to re-roll, it costs you $1 for each new roll. You can re-roll as often as you like. (Your first roll is free)...

What is the optimal strategy to maximize your winnings? If you follow this strategy, what is your expected return?...

It's pretty clear that if we rolled a natural 20 at any time, we'd instantly stop; We're never going to get better. It's not a stretch to see that, if we rolled a 19, we'd also stop; The only number that could beat a 19 is a 20, and we'd have to pay an additional $1 just for the privelage of rolling to see about getting it. Even if we did roll a 20 (a small chance), we'd net out with no gain, so why bother? For 18, it's less clear; we have a one chance of breaking evening, one chance of improving, and lots of chances of losing more, if we rolled again.

Hint:  start with this, and simplify -

Or... see the answer at the link (it's not intuitively obvious).

Mathematical analysis of 4-digit PIN numbers

From a lengthy and very interesting (if you like math) post at DataGenetics:

I was able to find almost 3.4 million four digit passwords. Every single one of the of the 10,000 combinations of digits from 0000 through to 9999 were represented in the dataset. The most popular password is 1234 - it’s staggering how popular this password appears to be. Utterly staggering at the lack of imagination - nearly 11% of the 3.4 million passwords are 1234 !!!

The next most popular 4-digit PIN in use is 1111 with over 6% of passwords being this. In third place is 0000 with almost 2%. A table of the top 20 found passwords in shown [at the link]. A staggering 26.83% of all passwords could be guessed by attempting these 20 combinations! ...

Looking more closely at the top few records, all the usual suspects are present 1111 2222 3333 … 9999 as well as 1212 and (snigger) 6969 .

It’s not a surprise to see patterns like 1122 and 1313 occurring high up in the list, nor 4321 or 1010 . 2001 makes an appearance at #19. 1984 follows not far behind in position #26, and James Bond fans may be interested to know 0007 is found between the two of them in position #23 (another variant 0070 follows not much further behind at #28).

The first “puzzling” password I encountered was 2580 in position #22. What is the significance of these digits? Why should so many people select this code to make it appear so high up the list?

The answer to that last query is at the link, along with much more info.

"Deaf space"

YouTube link.

A very nicely-done video that presents a new "viewpoint" of architecture.  It's worth your 5 minutes.

Via Neatorama.

"Nature is not cruel"

This is just a brief post to share with the readership a "bon mot" - an insight that I thought was particularly well expressed.

While I was driving around doing errands today, I was listening to a late-January podcast of This American Life that I had previously downloaded and copied onto a CD.  The program was #545, entitled "If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS."

The theme of the program was an exploration of the ways people's personalities/personas change when they enter cyberspace.  The first act was "Ask Not For Whom The Bell Trolls; It Trolls for Thee," with obvious subject matter.  Then one on hate e-mail directed toward the program because of narrators having "vocal fry."

Act Three was "Words of Prey" -

"Jeffrey Brodeur worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was put in charge of an Osprey Cam — a live web feed of an osprey nest near his office. Which he thought was just charming — until the mother osprey in the nest began acting strangely."  

The mother abused and frankly attacked the chicks, and the internet "blew up" with demands from "featherheads" (bird lovers) for someone to rescue the chicks.  I won't tell the outcome here.  Rather I'll just share this comment...

"Nature is not cruel - that implies intent.  It is harsh, unforgiving, and often random."

You can hear the full story here (14 minutes).