The OTOHIKO fork from Nissin, for noisy ramen slurpers. It doesn't actually cancel out the noise. When it detects a slurping noise it causes your phone to make a louder, wave-crashing sound, which drowns out the slurping sound.
November 1949: Mrs. Valerie Humphries accused artist Rodney Roth of biting her bare midriff during a Halloween party — so hard that she yelled out in pain. Roth didn't dispute the bite but insisted that the sound she made was actually a "cry of ecstasy." The judge ruled in favor of Mrs. Humphries.
Classic headline and story from The New York Times - Jan 21, 1964.
My favorite line: "Mr. Scheir's snores of gigantic proportions are an animalistic roar, lionlike, that vibrate the rooms. The very anticipation of their beginning at about 2:30 A.M. every day has shaken my client and his wife, deprived them of sleep, injured their health, and, in fact, constitute an assault upon their persons."
The case was subsequently resolved by the construction of a soundproof wall.
The Ventriloquist Journal explains that this ad used to run in the back of comic books. What you got, if you sent away for it, was "a capsule-sized metal whistle thing you were supposed to put in your mouth... it was useless for anything except making whistle sounds."
He's a feisty old fellow! The list of complaints against 75-year-old Frankfurt resident "Günter D" include: urinating in flower pots, putting moldy bread in people's mailboxes, calling his neighbors prostitutes, writing lewd graffiti on walls, and repeatedly telephoning his neighbors up to 284 times a month. Gunter will soon have to defend himself in court against charges of disturbing the peace, damaging property, and making inappropriate threats. But he insists, "I've not done anything or offended anyone." [independent, bild]
If H. P. Lovecraft were alive today, sixteen years old and a Goth, this is the song he would have written. The only things missing are the word "eldritch" and some tentacles.
Reach the ancient heart of the stygian obscurity
Wherein all the names of mine are written
In pits profound,where festered dreams sigh
And longings scorched seek reason to return.
Admire the flame flowered mansions arcane
The sulfurous secrets gowned in rapture profane
Fear not the fire of all-knowing wisdom
Furiously burning with such ravishing splendour.
On the wings of my most fervent passion
Which the fools dare name blasfemia
To thee I have returned from the heart-dead sunworms domain
A coffin-shaped lair they have woven around me
For I've pledged no allegiance
To their fabulous sacred theories
Those spurious servants of a crownless king
Who holds their cross in vain.
No Phoenix phenomenon shall their fall contain!
Leave their carcasses scattered and slain!
And now I'm visualised
To blind-faithed eyes
Lofty and proud, to be recognized.
As the mourning-scented bloodstorm winds
Of their final downfall blow
Like a nightclad werewolf upon the moonlit glade
I shall hunt them down in the snow.
...and the frostbitten ground
now consumes their wretched gore
My victorious hiss fulfills the oceans ethereal
And the stars gleam nameless above
As shadows call forth the seas of Cthulhu
Be wide awake my dearest
Of my fiery necromantic kiss!
Thine arms soothing around me enfold
To cease my yearning cursed
The sweetest witchcraft thy lips do hold
Can only quench my thirst.
'Neath the enchantingly blazing corona of night
drown thy desire into mine!
With all the senses cast to a feverous grandeur
In the sins of the flesh we entwine.
People have long reported that they've heard strange clapping sounds coming from the Northern Lights. But scientists tended to ignore these reports. The people hearing the sounds were told they were imagining them, or that the sounds were coming from sources such as trees or falling ice. But now Finnish researchers at Aalto University have recorded the Aurora Borealis actually making these snapping/clapping sounds, and have confirmed (to their satisfaction) that the sounds couldn't have been coming from anywhere else. More info at space.com and at the researcher's website.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.