Both the top and bottom half of the image have the same number of dots, but the ones on top appear to disappear unless you’re looking at them. This is an example of a Hermann grid illusion, an optical illusion first documented by Ludimar Hermann in 1870. According to SharpBrains, “the illusion results from retinal cells adjusting the brightness of an image by adjusting the intensity of the light signal in many small sections, which allows you to see a wide range of both bright and dark details in the same image.” I don’t like it. I don’t like my eyes playing tricks on me. Or my friends playing tricks on me, so if you’re hiding around the corner ready to smack me in the face with a plate of shaving cream, you can forget about ever celebrating our one year friendiversary.

This is a video edit created by Cinefix reimagining a trailer for Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an intense drama, with far less jocularity than the original. Actually no jocularity — you probably won’t laugh a single time. I suppose it’s a lot like this website in that regard.

Because dream it, and, provided you’re making enough Youtube money, you can achieve it, this is a video of The Q constructing and riding a bicycle with tires made out of 60 tennis balls. I bet dogs love chasing him! It looks like it rides surprisingly well (and never needs air added for the life of the balls), and I wonder why bicycle makers have never offered tennis balls wheels (tennis bwheels) in the past. Or made wheels triangular. Or just stop beating around the bush and make hoverbikes already. This was supposed to be the future!

Seen here with his treasure horde like a dragon atop its pile of gold, this is a video highlighting the life of 13-year old Scruff, a border collie who collects plastic trash for recycling. Well, originally he picked up plastic trash to play with and discard, but after a meeting with Captain Planet his owners realized it would be better to actually recycle all the trash he picks up, which is what they’ve started doing. He collected over 1,000 plastic bottles in the beginning of the year alone, earning him the nickname “the eco-dog” in his hometown of Nuneaton, England. My dogs? They do not pick up plastic trash, but they can eat rabbit poop while I plead with them not to with the very best of them. Equal but different — that’s the lie I tell myself while dodging kisses.

Proving that pretty much anybody would make a just as good if not better version of Mario than Chris Pratt, this is a video of impressionist Brock Baker (fingers crossed friends call him BB) imagining a bunch of other actors delivering the “It’s a me, Mario!” line. Selections include Nicholas Cage, Seth Rogan, Jason Statham, Goofy, Tony Soprano, Dr. Zoidberg, Tigger, and, okay, maybe he went off the rails there a bit. My point is this: Nintendo should have asked Chef Boyardee to do the voice. Nobody knows Italian like that guy. His canned spaghetti and meatballs? WAHOO!

Because who wouldn’t want a hug from a lifeless hunk of tetanus, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich, and the University of Copenhagen put all their eggheads together to create HuggieBot 3.0, a robot designed specifically for hugging humans. Not this human! And why does it look like it was built in a kid’s tree fort?

Put simply, it’s just a basic torso equipped with two six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) padded robot arms. It boasts inflatable chambers that can be filled with warm air or deflated, complete with pressure sensors. Controlling everything is a 3D-printed head with an Ubuntu 14.04 desktop computer concealed inside, along with an ROS Kinetic, an Intel RealSense depth-sensing camera, a speaker, as well as a display for showing animated faces.

I guess it comes down to this: would you rather have a hug from a robot, or no hug at all? Or — OR — would you rather make out with a throw pillow? No need to answer that, I already know. Just to be clear though, if you come over you’re not allowed on the sofa.