After a couple purchased a 200-year-old building in the Cape Cod town of Chatham several years ago, local zoning boards stopped them from making some minor changes they desired. When they learned that there are no local rules on paint color, however, the homeowners chose a distinctive look.

Painting your house like a can of 7-Up, out of spite? Yeah, I can get behind that.

Back in 2008, designer Fabian Brunsing made a statement on commerce encroaching on public space, with his “PAY & SIT” private park bench. As seen below, the bench has uncomfortable spikes which will only retract when a coin is inserted. After a few minutes, an alarm beeps and the spikes pop back up.

Fabian Brunsing’s PAY & SIT bench

The only problem? Park officials in China ignored the artistic statement and decided to put the idea into practice. Parks in China suffer from chronic overcrowding, and officials at the Yantai Park have apparently implemented the idea. Ouch.

The Pavlovsk Experimental Station was started in 1926 by Nikolai Vavilov, as one of the world’s first seedbanks, designed to protect the biodiversity of the world’s many plants and crops. During the Siege of Leningrad in World War II, Russian scientists lost their lives protecting it. They starved to death while surrounded by the bounty of the earth, knowing that the contents were too valuable to eat.

Now, a real estate developer has won a court case which will allow them to take over the land where the center is currently housed. Such a move will destroy this incredible resource, as the delicate nature of the plants means moving them is painstaking and slow, if not impossible.

The linked article, written before the case was decided, describes how the property developers argued that because the station contains a “priceless collection”, no monetary value can be assigned to it and so it is in actuality worthless. Twisted as this is, they further argued that because the collection was never registered, it does not officially exist.

Sorry, future generations. Perhaps you can invent a way to derive sustenance from bitter Kafkaesque humor.

Recently, officials from Greece to Long Island have used Google Earth’s satellite imagery to track down unregistered or unpermitted swimming pools. It may be possible to hide from the eyes of tax officials, but it’s difficult to make a pool invisible to satellites floating overhead. Indeed, while the suburbs of Athens had just 324 taxpayers report their swimming pools, a Google Earth-based examination discovered there were actually 16,974.

Now, Foreign Policy has a fascinating article describing the many ways these maps have been used around the globe.

If you’re not reading this new blog, you’re missing out. The site collects real quotes from politicians and other public officials, including gold like:

“I spoke with Nathan this morning and let him know that I endorse his candidacy.”

Karen Handel, previously a Republican candidate for Georgia governor, conceding to her Republican rival Nathan Deal one day after she called him a “corrupt relic of Washington.” [Link]

and:

“Drop dead. Your days are over, they’re numbered, we’re not going to take it anymore, we’re sick and tired.”

New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, shouting at the city’s bedbugs from the steps of City Hall. [Link]

Be sure to ingest all site contents with a liberal dose of cynicism.

For whatever reason, I’ve always been fascinated with hedge mazes. Perhaps you enjoy puzzles, or maybe you just like The Shining, but it’s distinctly possible you’re interested in hedge mazes too. If so, you’ll be interested to see what Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci has created:

The maze is now nearly done, and set to open in 2012, fulfilling Ricci’s long-time dream of creating the world’s largest. However, when Ricci first told a friend about his plans, decades ago, he did not exactly receive a supportive response.

The former publisher said he first confided his ambition to Jorge Luis Borges, who characteristically told him the world’s largest maze already existed and was called a desert.

Jorge Luis Borges was kind of a dick.

Letters of Note was previously linked back in April, and it remains a great site. Most of the letters are thought-provoking, or touching, and occasionally they’re amusing.

The Tiger Oil Memos, however, are simply incredible in their own right. Tiger Oil CEO Edward ‘Tiger Mike’ Davis sent the linked memos to his employees over the course over several years. May you never have a boss like Tiger Mike.

One of my favorite bits was this:

No one will ride in our vehicles other than company employees…What I am trying to say is no hitchhikers or free rides for family members or non-employees. They will be terminated if caught.

When read as written, Tiger Mike seems to be indicating that any non-employees found in company vehicles will be killed. It’s probable that even he wasn’t that crazy, but one never knows.

I’m not terribly surprised to learn that Glenn Beck enjoyed a tweet posted by a group of White Nationalists (read: White Supremacists (read: racist idiots)).

I am surprised to learn that Glenn Beck, or the person who runs his Twitter account, was dumb enough to mark such a tweet as a favorite, though. Apparently, he didn’t know that favorites on Twitter are visible to anyone who cares to look.

Commutapult is a prospective surface-to-air-to-surface commuting system. Operating between the congestion on the ground and the altitudes of commercial air travel, Commutapult will send you wherever you need to go around Seattle, and soon, the world.

The Commutapult site includes a helpful FAQ, with useful information like this:

Q: Can I time travel back to high school using Commutapult™?
A: No. Get over it. She’s still not going to like you.

View their full site to get a peek at the commuter transport method of the future, today.

The linked article’s headline reads:

Monkeys Hate Flying Squirrels, Report Monkey-Annoyance Experts

It’s very early, but it’s probably safe to declare this the best headline of the day. The sub-head gets even better.

Japanese macaques will completely flip out when presented with flying squirrels, a new study in monkey-antagonism has found. The research could pave the way for advanced methods of enraging monkeys.

So now you’ve learned at least three things:

1. Macaques hate flying squirrels.
2. There are “monkey-annoyance experts”, who work on “monkey-antagonism”.
3. Our current methods of angering monkeys are simply not sufficient. Someone, perhaps just the reporter but perhaps the scientists, is looking for newer, more effective ways of enraging monkeys.

The article also includes a monkey crowd reaction video from 2006. At that time, scientists were just beginning to work on weaponizing the flying squirrel. When the inevitable Monkey Wars come, we’ll be glad they did.