What's up with...?

...the Diving Bell Spider?
The tiny Diving Bell Spider lives underwater. Seriously. They build bubble-shaped webs that are condensed enough to trap oxygen but malleable enough for them to be able to poke in or out and grab water insects to feed off of. I'm not making this up; here's the Wikipedia article, an article from Discovery News, LiveScience, and the New York Times.

And a picture!

Not only that, but their webs work the same way fish gills do - the oxygen from the surrounding water leeches into the web-bubble while the carbon dioxide leeches out into the water. Over time the spiders have to rise to the surface to restock their air supply, but they're able to live completely in the water.

Discovering that this spider exists was the single-most disturbing news I'd had in a good long while. Spiders are bad enough as it is; their long legs are creepy, and while I don't mind looking at them (preferable in a container), I can't help imagining them crawling over me, sucking my blood dry. Imagining that happen unbeknownst to me while I'm peacefully swimming around at the beach, thinking all is right? I know, logically, that this spider is tiny and would be hiding from me, but I can't help thinking nature has some cruel, evil trick in mind with these things.

...James Tate and the Prom ordeal?

Sometime in early May, some kid at some school in some place, USA, asked a friend to prom by taping large cardboard letters to the side of the school at night. It was awesome, and she said yes (who wouldn't?), and the school suspended him for trespassing and banned him from prom.

The local news broke the story, which was picked up by nation-wide news because it was quirky and interesting. Soon afterwards, the internet found out, and broke into a riot (it wasn't visible, of course, because it was on the internet). People protested the school, demanding that James Tate be allowed to attend prom, since his stunt was awesome, and no one got hurt (or would have). The school's headmaster even gave a press conference on May 12th, saying that she was sticking by the boring school rules. Sometime in the next 48 hours, however, school officials folded, saying that James Tate could go to prom, and because the internet is powerful beyond belief, Tate rode there in a donated limo and was announced Prom King.

The best part of this story, however, is the 'What the heck?' factor. Why did the school ban him in the first place (we get the rules, yes, but we don't care)? Why, after giving a press conference saying they'd made up their minds, would they then change their minds? Why did this story pick up so much steam around the country? Why did so many people come together to change this kid's life, and why can't we all work together to change something that matters, really, in the long run?

We have way too much time on our hands.

...the Kardashians?

I mean, who the heck are those people? I'm positive that a five-second Google search would help me figure that out, but I'm not sure I want to know who they are. What's up with people always needing to know everything about random people they've never met before? And why would the internet allow people to get famous with a last name that's so hard to spell?

...the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

Everyone learned in history class that World War I (then called the Great War) started because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. What we don't learn is that the actual assassination was an act of fate.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand himself!

Franz was visiting Sarajevo, where the group that was planning on killing him decided they would make their move. The group leader set up six points around the city, all in the route of the Archduke's scenic car ride, and equipped his assassins with bombs and pistols to get the job done one way or another. Every single one of them failed; only one assassin actually made a move to attack the archduke, throwing a bomb into the street too late and wounding many people behind the archduke's open-top convertible (His open-top convertible, I stress, passed by six assassins, armed with pistols, and he made it safely to Town Hall)

At the Town Hall, he was given a welcome speech by the Mayor (which he interrupts by saying "Mr. Mayor, I come to visit and people try to kill me. Not cool." Or something like that). Then Franz had to wait before giving his own speech, because the written copy was in the car behind his that got bombed. When he finally got it, it was stained in blood. He ended his speech by saying "Thank you for clapping; that probably means you're happy I wasn't successfully murdered. I'm glad" (Or something like that).

Then, thoroughly stunned by the morning's events, the Archduke and his wife decided to scrap everything they'd decided to do that day and go visit the hospital where the people who'd been bombed (instead of himself) were currently dying. They decided to take an alternate, more direct route, but forgot to tell the driver, who made a wrong turn past a sandwich shop where one of the assassin conspiracy leaders was eating lunch, bummed out about having failed to kill the Archduke that morning.

The Archduke probably freaked that his driver was going the wrong way, and made him turn around. The driver tried to, and killed the engine because manual transmission vehicles are stupid. That's when the assassin, coming out of the sandwich shop across the street, noticed Franz, in his open-top convertible. Thinking on his feet, the assassin pulled out the pistol he'd been given and shot the Archduke and his wife.

Some bridge near the assassination.

Archduke Franz had every opportunity to get killed earlier, didn't, and then was killed because of a bunch of small coincidences. We can blame this on the weather, or the assassin's sandwich, or the stupid manual transmission open-top convertible, but ultimately this is the fault of Fate.  This world was destined to get into a major war at that time, and then to afterward fall into major economic depression, the Holocaust, World War II, the Cold War, and everything else since then. Destiny.

And I'm never driving a manual transmission.

...Pixar's Pre-Cameos?

It's true - certain Pixar movies feature cameos from characters still in production. It's not rare to see cameos in Disney movies from characters from other Disney movies, but the Pixar movies specifically feature characters that we haven't even met yet. Monster's Inc is a good example: the movie came out in 2001, but we see the fish Nemo (2003) in a couple different scenes.

There's also Doug, the dog from the movie Up (2009) in Ratatouille (2007), and Lotso from Toy Story 3 (2010) in Up.


...that stupid Diving Bell Spider?


Why does it exist!?! What's wrong with you, Nature?