The 'Tender Abduction UFO Earring' is crafted and sold by Sofia Ajram of Etsy shop sofiazakia. I like it but not enough to pay CA$1,136.52 even though it's made of 14k gold and diamonds. How about you?
Via
Thursday, January 31, 2019
UFO Alien Abduction Earring
The 'Tender Abduction UFO Earring' is crafted and sold by Sofia Ajram of Etsy shop sofiazakia. I like it but not enough to pay CA$1,136.52 even though it's made of 14k gold and diamonds. How about you?
Via
Omnidirectional Motorcycle
This self-balancing electric motorcycle with omnidirectional spherical wheels was designed by engineering students at the San Jose State University.
The challenges posed by the control system include an attempt to balance an inherently unstable system, interfacing with multiple drive motors, and combining potentially noisy sensor readings such as those from an accelerometer into something usable and reliable.More here
Via
Gloves That Turn Sign Language Into Audible Speech
Twenty-five-year-old Kenyan engineer and innovator, Roy Allela, has created a set of gloves that will translate signed hand movements into audible speech. The Sign-IO project is currently in the prototype phase of development but it is hoped that it will address the language barrier between sign-language users and the general public..
Via
The Mystery Of The Bear's Belly Button
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| This view of the snow bear shows its scale. (Verity Stevenson/CBC) |
Earlier this week a giant snow appeared near the Lachine Canal, in the Montreal neighbourhood of Saint-Henri. The bear's outline was stamped out but there is a huge distance (at least two metres) between the the bear's sides and the belly button. So how did they make the belly button? Drones, a hockey stick, aliens? Read the comments to see all the possibilities.
PLEASE HELP SOLVE THIS MYSTERY: how did the artist(s) make the bellybutton?? https://t.co/AiTjf4cGhW— Kate McKenna (@katemckenna8) January 30, 2019
Read More: CBC News
On Jackie Robinson’s 100th Birthday
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| Ernie Sisto/The New York Times |
Today marks the 100th birthday of Jackie Robinson who broke major league baseball’s colour barrier in 1947. Robinson’s fight for equality in baseball was just one piece of his complex life. Today The New York Times celebrates his centenary with a 24-page special section.
See 100 pics here
Corruption Perceptions Index
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| Click for interactive map |
Every year Transparency International ranks the world's countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The United States lost four points since last year and has dropped out of the top 20 countries on the CPI for the first time since 2011.
Source: Maps Mania
Woman Can Taste Words
Julie McDowall @JulieAMcDowall has synesthesia, a condition in which one of her senses is understood by another sense, which means she can "taste" words. She invited her Twitter followers to ask her what their name tastes like and the response was overwhelming. Here are some examples of what names taste like to her:
More here
More here
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
SeaTube
SeaTube is a YouTube channel dedicated to videos of ships coming and going from ports around the world. Watch this time-lapse of container ships going down the Mississippi from New Orleans to Gulf of Mexico.
Via Boing Boing
Via Boing Boing
A Drink After Midnight
I dearly love old timey country music. This song by songwriter Dan Englund is right up my alley. It's performed here by The Country Side of Harmonica Sam, a Swedish country band (yes, really!).
Via The Chawed Rosin
Via The Chawed Rosin
50 Years Ago Today
On January 30, 1969, the Beatles played live together for the last time. The unannounced concert took place on the rooftop of the band's London headquarters. In a 42-minute set, the Beatles played nine takes of five songs before the police shut them down.
Via perfect for roquefort cheese
Via perfect for roquefort cheese
Flying Cars For Sale
It's time to meet the Jetsons! Flying cars are going to be expensive but would lessen road congestion and cut down on emissions. Here is a list of the 10 best flying cars currently available:
Read more about these futuristic vehicles here.
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| Image credit |
Read more about these futuristic vehicles here.
Landscape Light Interventions
Land artist Javier Riera designs and photographs geometric light projections onto landscapes that fit perfectly onto specifically shaped trees and their branches.
Link
Via perfect for roquefort cheese
Link
Via perfect for roquefort cheese
Tweet Of The Day
'Les Diableries’ a collection of stereoscopic photos depicting life in Hell in images that are both humorous and disturbing. The photos were published in Paris during the 1860's. pic.twitter.com/OhPzDPPGFj— Soniasuponia (@Soniasuponia) January 3, 2018
Magic Themed Hidden Compartment Coffee Table
Woodworker Adam Lundell demonstrates the latest iteration of his magic themed coffee table with lots of hidden compartments.
More: Geekologie
More: Geekologie
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Yo-Yo Ma's Video for the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1
Yo-Yo Ma has a long-documented love for the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, and it looks like he just made that love official in a fresh music video.
Via
Via
The Artist Who Influenced Our Vision Of Space Travel
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| Pre-flight. Image Credit |
Freelance illustrator, John Berkey, wasn’t even a sci-fi fan but his work shaped how we’d envision space travel forever after. In the 1960s he did some work for NASA, painting astronauts etc. He also created book covers for iconic sci-fi authors Isaac Asimov and Philip K Dick, and filmmaker George Lucas used his work as inspiration for the look of Star Wars.
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| Of Moon Stars. Image Credit |
See more of Berkey's artwork here
Via
Tweet Of The Day
People stuck in a 75-car pileup about 20km east of Montreal decided to get creative in passing the time 🏒 pic.twitter.com/JInUxB9ed7— CBC (@CBC) January 28, 2019
Monday, January 28, 2019
The Day Today, Britain’s sharpest TV satire
Huck posted a good article about The Day Today, a satirical news show created by Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci in the 1990s. The show set a new precedent not just for what comedy could do on TV, but also for what it could look like and where it could get its laughs from. The post includes some video from the show, including Pool Supervisor, one of my favourites.
Read more
Read more
Scenes from Bohemian Rhapsody Compared to Real Life
This video compares scenes from the recent Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody with real life events. There may have been some factual inaccuracies in the film but these scenes are spot-on.
Via Open Culture
Via Open Culture
Backstage at a Glamour Magazine Shoot in 1952
Eliot Elisofon took some shots backstage at a Frances Mclaughlin-Gill fashion shoot for Glamour magazine in January 1952. At the time the 33 year old Mclaughlin-Gill was at the top of her game as a photographer.
More: Flashbak
Dimensions.Guide
Dimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world. When they say comprehensive they mean it - the database covers everything from spherical poufs to hyenas.
More here
More here
Tweet Of The Day
It's an old tweet but new to me.
First day of training for this seeing eye pup. pic.twitter.com/DNqwygyiwm— Animal Planet (@AnimalPlanet) February 13, 2018
Sunday, January 27, 2019
MarbleLympics 2019 Qualifiers
Who knew that marbles had their own Olympic Games? The 2019 tournament will contain sixteen events in which the sixteen qualified teams will compete to win medals and points. The qualifiers took place on January 26, 2019, and the first event will take place on April 19.
Via
Via
Sunday Links
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| Frank Auerbach; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation |
Euston Steps Adam Scovell tracks down the scene of a 1980 painting by Frank Auerbach.
'Ghost Quitters'
The Story Behind the Sloth Family Portrait Via my very funny friend.
Identifying phishing can be harder than you think. Take this Phishing Quiz Via
Everything you need to know about Magnet Fingers Via
How to Bathe in January, c. 7th century Advice from Hierophilus the Sophist. Thanks Bruce!
So you think you can load dishes? The ‘right’ way to put stuff in the dishwasher is a highly fraught topic.
The 1959 Project: A snapshot of jazz 60 years ago, every day. It was a very good year. Via
How to Boot Users from Your Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Accounts
Your Dry January Is Obliterating Our Parent Friend Group Don't fret, the month is nearly over.
Makoto Funatsu’s scenic paintings induce “peace, nostalgia sorrow and joy”
In 1979 two families sought to escape East Germany in a hot-air balloon
The heroes of the Thai cave rescue Great story!
To Save the Sound of a Stradivarius, a Whole City Must Keep Quiet
Inverted Grand Canyon
Images of the Afterlife For the mediums of the Lily Dale spiritualist community, the frontier between the living and the dead is easily entered. The only difference is how they open the door.
Why Do We Forget? This post explains why Mr. Nag can never find his car keys.
Why Your Cat Thinks You're a Huge, Unpredictable Ape How to listen to your feline friend. Thanks Bruce!
The Tragic Tale of Cherokee Singer Karen Dalton
A first-ever find in Egypt: 4,000-year-old funerary garden at tomb entrance
Cooking with FOIA: The Soviet Army's 1948 borscht recipe
Contemporary Renovation Of A 200-Year-Old House From the outside ‘Casa D’Estate’ looks almost as it did in the 19th century—inside is a different story.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
1918 Gas Station Transformed Into A Unique Home
More: Curbed New Orleans
Via PfRC
How Do You Pronounce Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?
Watch Welsh weather presenter Liam Dutton correctly pronounce the name of the 58-letter town Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch without batting an eye.
I wonder how long he had to practice...
Via
I wonder how long he had to practice...
Via
Friday, January 25, 2019
This Wallpaper Bugs Me
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| Image: Jennifer Angus |
Wisconsin-based artist Jennifer Angus has created an installation called In The Midnight Garden for the Smithsonian American Art Museum‘s Renwick Gallery. The textured wall pattern is made up of 5,000 insects, collected from Southeast Asia, wrapping the interior in iridescent colour.
These are real, though not endangered, insects and this raises ethical issues which Angus alludes to here.
The Monks Who Practice an Ancient, Once-Forbidden Religion in Japan
In his everyday life he is like a dirty old man who surrounds himself with girls.
Mountain Monks from Fritz Schumann on Vimeo.
More: Open Culture
Mountain Monks from Fritz Schumann on Vimeo.
More: Open Culture
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Crocheted Skeleton and Organs
Canadian textile artist Shanell Papp has crocheted a life-size skeleton stuffed with colourful removable organs. The skeleton took four months to create and the organs took another four months. The final work was displayed on an actual mortuary gurney.
More: Colossal
Hotdoggers Wanted!
Want a job you can relish? Oscar Mayer is looking for drivers for its Wienermobile, the 27-foot-long hot dog on wheels which has been making trips across the country since the Depression Era. The “Hotdoggers” will spend a year traveling the country as the brand’s new goodwill ambassadors.
Oscar Mayer is on a mission to get their hot dogs in everyone’s hands. No matter where. No matter what.
Universe, the Documentary that Inspired Kubrick’s 2001
Universe, a 1960 documentary from the NFB, follows the work of Canadian astronomer Donald MacRae at the David Dunlap Observatory in Ontario, which is accompanied by a tour of the solar system, galaxy, and universe. It caught the eye of Stanley Kubrick, who used it as inspiration for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
More here
More here
The Pub
This video does not make me want to pop down to the pub for a brewski.
The Pub from Joseph Pierce on Vimeo.
Via everlasting blort
The Pub from Joseph Pierce on Vimeo.
Via everlasting blort
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
The World’s Longest Continuous Walk
If you take this walk you won't be home for dinner. The distance from Cape Town, South Africa to Magadan, Russia is 22,387 km (13,910 miles).
Google Maps estimates it would take 4,492 hours to walk it, which translates into 187 days of non-stop walking. But that's just crazy. If you walked 8 hours a day, it would take you 562 days to complete the whole walk.
More: Brilliant Maps
Via
Google Maps estimates it would take 4,492 hours to walk it, which translates into 187 days of non-stop walking. But that's just crazy. If you walked 8 hours a day, it would take you 562 days to complete the whole walk.
More: Brilliant Maps
Via
Epoch
Epoch is a dizzying visual representation of our connection to earth.
EPOCH from Kevin McGloughlin on Vimeo.
EPOCH from Kevin McGloughlin on Vimeo.
A Magazine Is Born
This short video from 2011 shows the work that goes into the making of Little White Lies magazine.
Via things magazine
Via things magazine
Every Place Referenced in The Beatles' Lyrics
This video shows locations mentioned in the Beatles lyrics, from Liverpool to the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota to Moscow, where the balalaikas are always ringing out but it’s laced with inaccuracies.
More: Open Culture
More: Open Culture
How To Start a Fire Using a Lemon
If I'm wandering around in the bush I'm more likely to have matches than citrus fruit and metals. But maybe you're not like me.
Via
Via
Tweet Of The Day
Read this thread.
"BOBCAT?!" 😨 pic.twitter.com/7KIHFEbw5F— Best of Nextdoor (@bestofnextdoor) December 29, 2018
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Speechify: Audiobook Anything
"World's first" Vegan Hotel Room
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| Image: Hilton London Bankside |
I'm always excited when food design studio Bompas & Parr launches a new project, Their newest is the world's first vegan guest suite at the Hilton Bankside London hotel. It was created without the use of leather, wool and feathers throughout its interiors. All of the snacks, stationery, and cleaning products used in the suite by housekeeping staff are also free of animal products.
More here
Previously: The Non-Melting Ice Lolly, the Gherkin Chandelier, the Walk-in Breathable Cocktail, £6000 Jellybots, and the Magic Crystal Tiara.
Is the Gilet Jaunes Movement Passé?
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| Image source |
Fashion has appropriated the yellow vests that have come to represent the struggle of the French working class. According to The Guardian hi-vis is everywhere:
I predict the dilettantes will stop wearing their "labourers' tuxedos" as soon as someone mistakes them for a trash collector but now that the working class look has been commodified can the end of the gilet jaunes movement be far behind?At Paris fashion week in June, I clocked fashion director Marc Goehring in a security guard-like fluoro tabard, while Virgil Abloh was rocking a next season Louis Vuitton neon utility holster of his own design. At the AW18 shows, there was so much hi-vis, attendees might have thought they’d wandered on to a construction site.
I'll leave you with this:
Today's Google Doodle
Google honours Azerbaijani physicist Lev Davidovich Landau's with a doodle on his 111th birth anniversary. Born in Baku, in 1908, Landau won the 1962 Nobel Prize for his research into liquid helium’s behaviour at extremely low temperatures.
Embroidery Looks Like Paintings
Russian embroidery artist Vera Shimunia creates outstanding miniature nature landscapes.
See more: Bored Panda
Thanks Bruce!
See more: Bored Panda
Thanks Bruce!
Tweet Of The Day
Shoebill Storks are living Dinosaurs pic.twitter.com/dtNZZ4J3eU— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 19, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
These Wizard Of Oz Socks!
Textile artist Susanna Lewis created these masterpieces of needlework for The American Craft Museum in 1978.
Via
Pokemon Dress Shirts
The Pokemon company has teamed up with Japanese shirt manufacturer, Original Stitch, to create original Pokemon themed custom-fitted dress shirts. Which Pokemon character do you like best? I'm partial to Pikachu.
Turtle is also adorable.
More Spoon & Tamago
Via
The Largest Vocabulary In Hip Hop
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| Interactive version here |
Matt Daniels has updated his project which compares the number of unique words used by famous artists using each artist’s first 35,000 lyrics. He's added newer lyrics data and 75 additional artists,
More here
Via
Tweet Of The Day
These are real, actual butterflies. The green dragontail butterfly (Lamproptera meges) is one of the smallest species of swallowtail butterfly and one of the very few species with wing transparency.— Center for Bio Div (@CenterForBioDiv) January 16, 2019
Footage by Kazuo Unno, insect aficionado extraordinaire and photographer. pic.twitter.com/E9Ugf5IkAj
Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders
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| (Left to right: Stokely Carmichael, Margaret Leonard, Kredelle Petway, Paul Green) |
In 1961, hundreds of black and white volunteers occupied segregated waiting areas, lunch counters, and restrooms in the southern United States to compel the federal government to enforce a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared discrimination in interstate public transportation illegal. The journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of the courageous men and women known as the Freedom Riders in the 1960s.
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| Gloria Bouknight, at 20 years old, and at 74 in 2015. While living in New York City, she discovered the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, on a visit to Harlem, and became an active member. Since then, she started a business representing European designers in the United States, and she now works as a wardrobe consultant for executive women. | Credit | Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; Eric Etheridge |
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| Buy it here |
More: The New York Times
Via
Sunday, January 20, 2019
The Window
This animation is about 4 wounded soldiers who are recovering in a hospital room but only one of them can see out a window. He describes to the others what he sees.
The story seemed very familiar to me so I did a search and found a video that describes a similar scenario. Not sure if I posted it before.
Via Miss Cellania
The story seemed very familiar to me so I did a search and found a video that describes a similar scenario. Not sure if I posted it before.
Via Miss Cellania
Instagrammable Las Vegas chapel looks like it's 2D
Joshua Vides' chapel at the Palms Casino Resort in Vegas is called Til Death Do Us Part. It features white surfaces covered in thick black lines that mark out the shapes of four rows of benches, the pulpit and doorways and is intended to create an ideal backdrop for "Instagram-worthy" pictures.
More here
Walter Chandoha’s Cats
By the time he died, on Jan. 11 at age 98, Walter Chandoha had taken 90,000 cat photos, nearly all before cats had become viral darlings of social media. “The Mob” (below) depicts five determined-looking cats walking on his farm in Annandale, as if looking for trouble. “It was about time for dinner, and I called ‘Kitty, kitty, kitty,’ and all the cats came running,” he told CNN in 2016.
Via MetaFilter
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| The Mob - Walter Chandoha |
Via MetaFilter
Meet Dr. Fruit
Wang Yexiao started making short videos of his ‘fruit operations’ to entertain his two-year-old son.
He now makes them to raise medical awareness and has become a media sensation on Beijing-based video-sharing platform Kuaishou.
More here
He now makes them to raise medical awareness and has become a media sensation on Beijing-based video-sharing platform Kuaishou.
More here
Football Nanny
A London family is offering £75,000 to someone who will live in with them and turn their two sons into professional soccer players. The 8 and 10 year old boys are talented players and dream of playing professional soccer when they are older. The ideal candidate will be ex-coach or player who has some childcare experience (good luck with that!).
See the full ad here.
Link
Thanks Bruce!
Sunday Links
An Insane Ghost City of Fake French Chateaux
Watergate Courtroom Sketches by Freda L. Reiter: Drawing Nixon and The President's Men 1973–75
Finally, A Personality Quiz Backed By Science Guess what? I'm not very agreeable.
How the song Midnight Train to Georgia started out as Midnight Plane to Houston
52 Places to Go in 2019 I've been to a few. Puglia and the Azores have been on my radar for awhile. How about you?
The Musical Instruments in Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights Get Brought to Life They sound as horrible as one might expect.
The Last Wild Caribou in the Contiguous U.S. Is No Longer Wild Thanks Bruce!
A Food Tour Through the New York City Crime World "Sometimes, you don’t know which meal is going to be your last."
Download Vincent van Gogh's Collection of 500 Japanese Prints
African elegance in the pre-Instagram era
Filtergram gets rid of clutter on Instagram.
Art of the Chinese Courtyard: Respectful Renovations Keep Hutongs Alive
From Lady Liberty to Hollywood to the Middle East, These Are the Most Exciting Museums Opening in 2019
100 Gardens to Visit Before You Die
7 maps trace Ottawa's history from humble lumber town to thriving capital.
German train-delay scarf sells for €7,550 on eBay
Paterson’s Roads (1826 edition) : possibly the closest thing the nineteenth century ever got to Google Street View.
16 Medical Procedures and Devices from the Early 1900s that are Straight Out of a Nightmare
The Egg Thief For decades Jeffrey Lendrum helicoptered up and rappelled down to aeries on cliff faces from Patagonia to Quebec, snatching unhatched raptors and selling them, investigators believe, to wealthy Middle Eastern falconers.
Herding Thanks Bruce!
A tale of woe: Catskill Keep: An Abandoned Cursed Castle In Upstate NY
Carnivorous bunnies Snowshoe hares eat meat, and they don't seem all that picky about what kind of animal it comes from.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
The Block Tower By Toby Harriman
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with an overall density of an estimated 6,300 people per square kilometer. More than 7 million people live on about 1,108 square kilometers (427 square miles) of land, and 29.1% of the Hong Kong population lives in public rental housing estates.
More here
More here
I Am Thinking of Pierre Cardin
This video directed by Matthew Miller was commissioned by the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film on the occasion of Pierre Cardin: Pursuit of the Future, a major retrospective exhibition.
I Am Thinking of Pierre Cardin from Matthew Miller on Vimeo.
I Am Thinking of Pierre Cardin from Matthew Miller on Vimeo.
Super Blood Wolf Moon
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| PHOTOGRAPH BY DIMITAR DILKOFF/ AFP/ GETTY |
Read more here
Ceramic Zoetrope Animations
Ceramic artist Kenny Sing of Turn Studio has created ceramic pieces which double as zoetrope animations when spun.
More: Colossal
Take A Closer Look To Get This Artist’s Message
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| Image: Ricky Rhodes for The New York Times |
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| Image: Ricky Rhodes for The New York Times |
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| Image: Ricky Rhodes for The New York Times |
Go to Opdyke's website to see an interactive version.
Read More: The New York Times
Thanks Bruce!
Friday, January 18, 2019
I have seen the future: robot dogs in driverless vans
German firm Continental, in conjunction with Anybotics, unveiled a concept delivery system that uses four-legged robot dogs to hop in and out of its driverless delivery vans, carrying packages right up to someone’s door.
More here
Banksy artwork found in Wales sells for “six-figure sum”
An artwork that appeared in the small Welsh town of Port Talbot, later confirmed by the artist himself to be the work of Banksy, has sold for a “six-figure sum”.
More: It's Nice That
More: It's Nice That
The Roentgens' Berlin Secretary Cabinet
This cabinet is the most important product from Abraham (1711--1793) and David Roentgen's (1743--1807) workshop. Owned by King Frederick William II, the Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size.
Tweet Of The Day
More two-word horror stories:— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) January 17, 2019
Eye contact
Lunch meeting
Surprise party
Planned engineering
Sing along
Conference call
Signal failure
They’re here
Team building
Low carb
Record highs
Unexpected item
You busy?
Quick word
Friend request
Leg day
Your parcel
Tax return
Happy birthday
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