World’s Strangest

Number 10 Downing Street, that is. We do a lot of posts about the White House and its notable residents here on the _floss, but not quite as many on their counterparts. We’re looking to even the score a little bit today by featuring 10 on 10 Downing Street, the office and residence (sometimes – [...]

Happy Birthday to Isaac Newton (sort of… skip to #5 for the scoop on that)! Although he’s been a household name since his time, there’s more to Isaac than meets the apple. Here are 10 facts you may not have known about Newton. 1. He really did not like his stepfather. Newton was an avid list [...]

The Toy Zone has a list of historical desks on which the owner helped shape the world. Pictured is the desk Charles Dickens used to write such classics as Great Expectations. Also see the work spaces of Shakespeare, Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and others. Link -via the Presurfer

A recent Psychology Today article provides a list of clues that you might be boring someone during a conversation. I’ve certainly been trapped in conversations with people who didn’t understand how to pick up on subtle clues that their long narrative about a weird dream they had or a particularly awesome golf game they played [...]

A 33-year-old student has revealed a cigar that he was given by his grandfather at the age of 12 that would have been smoked by Winston Churchill …

The Know Your Meme Blog has a great introduction to the history and technology behind Auto-Tune, the audio effect first introduced in 1997 and made popular when Cher’s single “Believe” made heavy use of the effect in a way that was never intended — emphasizing the warbling of pitch correction rather than simply using it [...]

It’s no secret that Barack Obama has penned a couple of books – they flew off of the shelves during his bid for the presidency. In fact, most presidents have ended up writing their memoirs at some point after leaving the White House. But some presidents have chosen to write about the things that really [...]

Warm up the pierogies, Polish American heritage month is here again! Last year, we ticked off a list of 8 things you need to know about Polish Americans. This year, we’re going to change things up a bit and profile two men who helped make the very idea of a Polish American (or any other [...]

The Art of Manliness blog has an excellent post turning the wits of Winston Churchill into stylish motivational posters. I’d like to see Brett and Kate McKay of AoM Blog turn these favorite Churchill quotes of mine into a poster: Bessie Braddock: Sir, you are drunk. Churchill: And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning, I [...]

I hereby present the most awesome thing I’ve seen all year: an autotuned remix of an episode of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Entitled “A Glorious Dawn,” it’s the best trailer I’ve yet seen for the series as a whole — it’s genuinely a catchy song, and it actually communicates Sagan’s sense of wonder for the cosmos. [...]