Year: 2018

Slow week for the news and myself as we wind down for the holidays so just a few stories for you. See you next week!

A 71-year-old Frenchman set off across the Atlantic, hoping to reach the Caribbean within three months so long as the ocean currents cooperate. He’s in a barrel.

Turns out an Ancestry DNA kit sometimes isn’t the best gift for Christmas.

Chinese scientists have figured out a process to turn low-grade copper into material, “almost identical” to gold.

A Pennsylvania police negotiator ended a nine-hour Christmas Day standoff by signing a rendition of White Christmas, “it is not clear whether the man surrendered due to the perfection or the sheer awfulness of the rendition.”

Photo credit: Reddit user Kristophigus

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Field tests of Google’s self-driving cars in Arizona are not going well. Meanwhile, citizens in Columbus, Ohio have embraced their robot overlords are are happily riding self-driving shuttle buses around town.

Rocco, an African grey parrot, ordered strawberries, a watermelon, raisins, broccoli, ice cream, a light bulb and even a kite via his owner’s Alexa while she was out. “I have to check the shopping list when I come in from work and cancel all the items he’s ordered.”

A convicted deer poacher has been sentenced to one year and 120 days for his crimes. As part of his sentence he has been ordered to watch the Walt Disney movie Bambi once a month during his time in jail.

A police department in rural Alabama is blaming the recent spike in crime on Satan.

A koi fish sold in Japan for $1.8 million.

A federal court ruled that New Yorkers have a constitutional right to nunchucks.

The Indian Air Force is experimenting with bio-jet fuel for its aircraft.

Lamborghini is selling an SUV. The Urus (latin for “domestic cattle”) can go 0-62 mph in 3.6 seconds, 0-124 mph in 12.8 seconds and reach a top speed of 190 mph. Price? $200k.

Meghan Panu loved her tiny home. It simplified her life and allowed her to live wherever she parked. Meghan loved her tiny home, and then someone stole it.

Researchers have discovered a planet at the furthest reaches of our solar system, about 4 times as far from the sun as Pluto. This planet is so far out there that they estimate a single orbit around the sun would take 1,000 years. The planet’s name? Farout.

The 1923 hit Yes! We Have No Bananas enters into the public domain in just a few weeks.

Photo credit: banksy

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China sent a space probe to the dark side of the moon to plant potatoes.

Police in St. Paul, Minnesota responding to complaints of noise, walked in on a heated match on Nintendo’s latest Super Mario game. They ended up joining in and playing.

A Price is Right contestant won a six-night, all-expenses paid vacation . . . to Winnipeg, Canada.

A Russian electric car company released a model heavily inspired by the king of muscle cars, the 1967 Mustang.

A Vermont man was denied by city planners a request to build a large garage on his property. He put up a giant middle finger instead.

A San Francisco developer who illegally demolished a 1936 house designed by a renowned modernist must rebuild an exact replica of the home rather than the much larger structure the property owner had proposed.

Postmates, the food delivery service, announced that it will send out an urban-delivery robot on routes where drivers have trouble finding parking. Los Angeles is first.

Organizers of a Christmas event apologized to outraged parents after a fire alarm prompted Santa Claus to burst out of his grotto, rip off his beard and scream at children to “get the f**k out.”

Photo credit: Reddit user MeanMug3374

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Thanks to 9-year old Dane Best, the town of Severance in Colorado reversed a 100-year old ordinance that banned the throwing of snowballs.  After successfully convincing town leaders, Dane mentioned his first target would be his little brother.

Arlington County police and medics had to break up a large and unruly crowd when a promotion for free cheesecake got out of control.

Tumblr’s ban on pornographic content is going about as well as you’d expect. The AI software built to identify porn flagged a photo of hockey player Alex Ovechkin sleeping with the Stanley Cup as NSFW.

California Highway Patrol officers pulled over a Tesla on the freeway that was driving itself home. The owner was sitting in the driver’s seat, passed out drunk.

An art collective in Germany set up a website to identify participants at a neo-nazi rally and monitored individuals who used the site’s search function to put names to faces of those they had yet to identify.

An 18-wheeler carrying jalapeños caught fire on a freeway in Texas.

Photo credit: Twitter user @PanosZahariadis

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Dutch police found around €350,000 stuffed inside the drum of a washing machine and accused a man of money laundering.

Facial recognition cameras installed in Chinese cities to catch jaywalkers misfired when a woman’s face was captured in an advertisement on the side of a bus driving thru an intersection.

Scientists concluded that it takes on average 1.71 days for a tiny, yellow Lego head to make its way through the human digestive system.

A Bank of America employee put $100 bills into the $20 tray at a Houston-area ATM and all hell broke loose.

A school in Connecticut had such a problem with parents visiting their kids at school they had to tell parents to stop. Some felt the new rule, “deprived them of cherished time to check in on their children and model good social behavior.”

A school in Michigan handed out hockey pucks to be used as weapons in case of an active shooter.

A blind man filed a class action lawsuit against Playboy.com for not supporting screen-reading software so he could, “fully and equally use or enjoy the facilities, products, and services.”

Knickers, the massive steer from Australia, was the most talked about bovine last week until mild-mannered Canada begged to differ.

Photo credit: 500px user Raylivez

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Scientists at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures voted to redefine the kilogram.

Hasbro updated its Monopoly board game with a Millennial Edition in which players collect life experiences instead of real estate, “because you can’t afford it anyway.”

The world of Professional Darts erupted in controversy when two players accused each other of farting onstage to distract their opponent. “It definitely came from table-side and it was eggs, rotten eggs, but not from me,” said one of the players.

A German teenager lost his license for excessive speeding just 49 minutes after earning it.

A Louisiana couple discovered some old lottery tickets while tidying up for Thanksgiving and discovered that one of them was worth $1.8 million. The ticket was due to expire within two weeks.

The latest broadside in the on-going trade war with China was lobbed by the Trump administration, to protect rubber bands.

A missionary kayaked to a remote island in the Indian Ocean to bring, “the kingdom of Jesus” to one of the last tribes on earth untouched by civilization.  He brought with him a football, a gift  from his home state of Alabama, and was shot dead on the beach in a hail of arrows.

Archeologists translated a Mesopotamian clay tablet from almost 4,000 years ago and discovered that it was a letter of complaint.

TWTW is a weekly collection of bits and pieces I run across each week while looking after things at SmartNews. Feel free to sign-up to get this via email, follow on Facebook, or forward to a friend.

Tanzania threatened to deploy the army to harvest the cashew nut crop from farmers who refuse to sell.

A Wisconsin company decided to give all its employees a gun for Christmas.

A New Jersey man, pulled over for driving under the influence told officers he did it because, the “Jets suck.”

A robotic bricklaying machine in Australia completed an entire house in just three days.

The Japanese government’s recently appointed head of cybersecurity admits that he’s never used a computer.

Oxford Dictionary announced that the word of the year is, toxic.

TWTW is a weekly collection of bits and pieces I run across each week while looking after things at SmartNews. Feel free to sign-up to get this via email, follow on Facebook, or forward to a friend.

An uninhabited island off the coast of Japan vanished. No one noticed until a photographer went looking to update his book of Japan’s “hidden” islands.

A former pro boxer was taken down by a croissant. Mario Melo died while choking on his third croissant in a croissant-eating contest.

Harley Davidson unveiled an electric motorcycle.

A Chinese pork-producer, facing a bit of a cashflow problem, is paying off its bondholders in ham. “Payment in kind becomes PIH (Pay In Ham).”

The Japan Post has begun unmanned drone document delivery in Fukushima.

Researchers in Sweden have figured out how to store solar energy in liquid form, essentially “bottling sunlight.”

A dead man was elected in Nevada. Dennis Hof, who ran the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada recently died while celebrating his 73rd birthday.

Two Marine Corps pilots were grounded after it was revealed that the “irregular flight pattern” they were flying drew the shape of a huge phallus.

Photo credit: Twitter user @muumi5x15

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