superlunary

Though the final arbiter of such things will be left in the capable hands if the International Astronomical Union, researchers have already hit upon a perfectly acceptable and sensible term for a natural satellite with its own sub-satellite: a moonmoon.
Despite the lack of such an arrangement present in our solar system, scientists have recently confirmed the existence of exomoons and believe that arrangements where smaller moons orbit larger one could indeed occur. The proposed term is also reviving a very silly meme in circulation last year about how the combination of one’s initials yielded an unfortunately derpy spirit animal name.

unuseless

Having encountered the idea of chindōgu (珍道具) previously, we appreciated coming across this deeper dive into the design conventions of the inventions, interventions and other “curious tools” that are categorized as unusually useless. These obsessive, eccentric and otherwise over-engineered gadgets adhere to a set of principles including:

• There must be the Spirit of Anarchy in Every Chindōgu
• Chindōgu are not Propaganda
• Chindōgu cannot be Patented

Discover a whole gallery of inventions created in this spirit at Open Culture and at the links above. The Selfie Stick was probably created according to these design commandments but broke through like so many backscratchers, shoehorns and other as seen on TV items to more mainstream retail.

i want the world to know—got to let it show

Observed on this day to commemorate the March on Washington of the previous year, the second one rallying for lesbian and gay rights and greater activism for the AIDS crisis in the US capital, National Coming Out Day was first held in 1988 and the annual awareness day—under the principle that close-mindedness and homophobia thrive in silence and prejudice and ignorance are quickly disarmed once people know that a loved one, friend or acquaintance have a gender identity that’s other than heteronormative—prompting a world where all individuals can live openly and truthfully. In the past three decades, it has expanded internationally with events held also in Ireland, Switzerland and the UK.

päntsdrunk

Though perhaps not as wholesomely shareable as the Danish concept of hygge and perhaps not as resonant as another word in the language jingfin that has prompted millions of Chinese to declare themselves spiritually Finnish, we appreciate that the Finns also celebrate the concept called kalsarikännit—roughly translated as the state of pants-drunkenness, extolled in a book by journalist Miska Rantanen subtitled the path to relaxation.
The government of Finland (which back in 2015 also created a pair of emojis to convey the concept) offers the definition of “the feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear—with no intention of going out.” Anecdotal evidence plus the country’s consistently high global rankings for happiness, openness, equality and egalitarianism suggests that there’s something to the practise and the balance it brings. Read more at Kottke at the link above.