February 12, 2014
- Traffickers and local police have colluded to keep Eritrean refugees in torture camps in Egypt and Sudan for the past decade.
- Audience attendance at Sochi is abysmally low—at times 50% less than stadium capacity—seats are now offered to volunteers.
- American bars are too loud and cafes too quiet to facilitate meaningful or revolution-fomenting dialogue.
- Proposals to change Paris's abandoned metro into public swimming pools.
- Scientists can't explain animal behavior on rational terms—they can explain "why sex is fun," but not why fun is fun.
- As India's tiger population rebounds, violent attacks on humans rise and conservation efforts are questioned.
- Farmers carrying sprawling agriculture or transport crates that obscure their top halves.
- Examining the flat, mediocre art on TV shows.
- The entire text of On the Road in driving directions that trace Kerouac's 17,527-mile-long path.
- New York Fashion Week outfits that resemble Bon Appétit recipes.
- The list of incestuous or pedophiliac themes in Woody Allen movies keeps growing.
- Teledildonics are the latest invention spearheaded by the sex industry—others include online payments and HDTV.
- In the latest This American Life, stories of people going to extremes in the pursuit of love.
- Astronomy photo of the day: iridescent nebulas nicknamed "Heart and Soul."
- On frequent-flyer mile addiction.
- Related: Travel is mostly boredom—and if you’re not bored, you’re pretty sure that everyone else is having more fun.
- How to build snow forts.