Although tiny houses are becoming increasingly popular, many people wonder if they could ever actually live in one. Well, those folks would be particularly challenged by a new gingerbread-style house, as it’s smaller than the width of a human hair.
https://newatlas.com/science/worlds-smallest-gingerbread-house/

It's calendar season!

I once subscribed to William Least Heat Moon's premise that the best restaurants (and presumably homes) have three calendars. Alas, I'm down to one, at least on paper. https://amzn.to/2SlK5Pi

It’s time for Caps Lock to die

I can't argue with this

https://medium.com/forwardtick/its-time-for-caps-lock-to-die-81c9eaa4dfa7

The Octopus from Outer Space: The most beguiling sea creatures were once feared and hunted—and even wrestled—for sport. But new research and a few surprising encounters are changing how we view them. https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2019/12/2/the-octopus-from-outer-space

Not that long ago, a carton of cigarettes was considered a perfectly delightful Christmas gift.

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/12/vintage-ads-cigarettes-for-christmas/

Since 1960, the average snow season has shortened by 38 days, while “seasonal drift” has pushed the coldest weather from December to the early months of the year. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/19/snow-machines-fleece-blankets-inside-ski-industry-battle-with-climate-change-alpine-resorts

Researchers at Ohio State found that even when people are provided with accurate numerical information, they tend to misremember those numbers to match whatever beliefs they already hold. https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/12/people-who-are-given-correct-information-still-misremember-it-to-fit-their-own-beliefs/

"Frequent churchgoers may have a good sense of what kind of sermons to expect from their own clergy: how long they usually last, how much they dwell on biblical texts, whether the messages lean toward fire and brimstone or toward love and self-acceptance. But what are other Americans hearing from the pulpits in their congregations?"
https://www.pewforum.org/2019/12/16/the-digital-pulpit-a-nationwide-analysis-of-online-sermons/

When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, their wedding breakfast included a 300-pound fruitcake which kickstarted a trend for future British royals to serve the often-insulted confection on their big day. Pieces of Victoria’s cake still exist. And hers are not the only slices of centuries-old royal cakes floating around today as collectibles. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/royal-wedding-cake

Randy Suess, Computer Bulletin Board Inventor, Dies at 74, reports @CadeMetz

I will whistle a sound like a 1200bps-modem in his honor

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/technology/randy-suess-dead.html

Three hundred years after the death of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and seven hundred years after the death of Ramon Llull, Jonathan Gray looks at how their early visions of computation and the “combinatorial art” speak to our own age of data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/let-us-calculate-leibniz-llull-and-the-computational-imagination

A florist from Finleyville, Pennsylvania built a palatial Gilded Age dollhouse to rival the Queen of England’s. https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/12/20/oh-me-oh-my-check-out-every-room-in-this-gilded-age-dollhouse

To celebrate the release of the film Little Women, 2,000 copies of the classic novel, each with a personal note from Emma Watson, have been hidden around the globe. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a30242139/emma-watson-little-women-book-fairies/

There is an urgent need to digitally capture the planet’s surface, providing a record for future ecologists, archaeologists, and historians. The Earth Archive project plans to do just that. https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/lidar-mapping-earth/

How plausible are the planets in Star Wars? Four experts evaluate the science of the saga. https://www.futurity.org/star-wars-science-space-2236972-2/

Through science, art and technology, we are able to reconstruct the faces of the dead based on their remains. The researcher who did this work for descendants in Sutherland explains the process. https://theconversation.com/how-art-and-technology-helped-bring-faces-of-the-dead-to-life-127844

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver began its partnership with EnChroma glasses, which offers lenses engineered for people with color vision deficiency. https://hyperallergic.com/532758/color-blind-museumgoers-in-denver-can-now-see-art-in-full-color/

Wakanda (fake Marvel country) listed as US trade partner on USDA website
The fictional home of "Black Panther" appeared on an agricultural tariff tracker maintained by the USDA, NBC News reported. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usda-tariff-tracker-removes-wakanda-fictional-home-black-panther-free-n1104231