Spotted at Brickworld Chicago 2022 (my ban isn’t lifted until 2028), this M.C. Escher inspired LEGO fountain features water made of LEGO diamonds flowing uphill via LEGO-driven conveyor belts. Pretty clever. Granted it’s not the most convincing water I’ve ever seen, but we are talking about LEGO here — they’re angular plastic bits. Actual water is…actually I’m not sure what actual water is, but my doctor says I don’t drink enough of it and that’s why my pee is so thick.

This is a video of horse trainer Rebecca using a fake skeleton atop mare Bon Jovi (that’s no steel horse!) to get the horse accustomed to riders, and demonstrate to students how to properly ride a mount. Could she have used a crash test dummy instead? Probably, but those things are expensive. Besides, if a horse isn’t afraid of an undead rider, it certainly won’t be afraid of a human. You think this is how Ghost Rider got around before motorcycles were invented? Maybe that’s him in the video, he’s just lost his fire and is trying to get back to his roots. Definitely something to think about if you’re as bored and stupid as I am.

Keep going for the video, which is particularly worthwhile when Bon Jovi really starts rocking and Ghost Rider is bobbling all over the place.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have found that adding robotic googly eyes that turn to gaze at pedestrians the car has identified help make them safer, by letting humans know the car has recognized them and (hopefully) won’t run them over. Plus the cars look way friendlier too — nobody ever thinks they’re going to get killed by a car with googly eyes. Still, if you try crossing the street looking at your cellphone I guarantee it will take the opportunity to speed up and end you.

This is a video highlighting the work of JEM FX, a visual effects company that specializes in the destruction of vehicles in movies. A lot of their work involves structurally weakening vehicles (e.g. cutting the support pillars of a car’s roof) so that they get damaged the way they want when the camera is rolling. Pretty neat. I only wish I’d known this was a possible career path when I was younger and pursued it, then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this right now. The Butterfly Effect, you know. “Do you even know what that is?” Yeah, it’s about a fly that fell into a bucket of cream and churned it so long swimming that the cream turned to butter and it climbed out. It’s about perseverance.

Note: If you search for NASA DART on Google you get an Easter Egg.

NASA successfully smacked an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at 14,000 MPH in an attempt to alter its trajectory in a first-ever test of planetary defense, should an asteroid ever be discovered that’s on a collision course with Earth. The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft successfully crashed into asteroid Dimorphos, forever changing its orbit, and presumably dooming another planet to the same fate of the dinosaurs. Personally, I’m a firm believer that the biggest threat to the planet isn’t going to come from outer space, it’s coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE. I’m talking about humanity — we’re screwing the planet. And if I were the scientist that discovered an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, well, I can’t say I’d be too eager to share my findings. “I probably forgot to carry the 1 somewhere,” I’d tell my colleagues, waiting for doomsday.

Keep going for the actual impact, which is far less exciting than you might expect, as well as a sizzle reel for the project that was much MORE exciting than you’d expect.

This is a video from a trail cam in Colorado of a mountain lion playing with a log swing. Both the camera and swing were set up by local Thaddeus Wells with the hopes of recording some video of bear cubs swinging. No word if he’s managed to capture that footage yet, but he did get this mountain lion batting the swing around like it’s a cat. Because it is — it’s a cat. Just not one you’d want pawing at your ankles to wake up in the morning, because it’s going to be a bad morning.