Some people celebrate the New Year with champagne, others with black-eyed peas. But many people who throw a holiday party offer a cake as well, decorated just for the occasion. That means there's plenty of material for Cake Wrecks. When I first saw the cake shown here, I thought it was shaped like a boot for some reason. But the cupcakes on the side look like a handle, so it might be a beer mug. So what's going on at the bottom? It may have been a case of a certain required number of cupcakes.  

The other cakes in a roundup at Cake Wrecks include one in which "year" is misspelled, and a cake in the shape of a clock that confirms some people can't read an analog clock. There's also a really well-crafted cake in the inexplicable shape of a bald man's head that emphasizes his very bloodshot eyes. But wait, there's more! A second post of New Year cakes gives us a cake in the shape of a champagne bottle that was so bad they added a label to explain what it's supposed to be, among other bakery abominations. 

It's the first of January of a new year, so, under United States copyright law, sound recordings from 1925 and other creative works from 1930 are now in the public domain.

You're free to print copies of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and sell them. You can make a horror film adaptation of Watty Piper's children's book The Little Engine That Could without consulting the Piper literary estate.

The above video from the Duke University School of Law highlights some of the newest public domain works. They include the Marx Brothers' film Animal Crackers, Bing Crosby's first screen appearance, and the first film with John Wayne in a starring role.

-via Internet Archive

What makes Noah Verrier's paintings so enjoyable is that they juxtapose the rare with the commonplace. His still lives are reminiscent of Baroque depictions of food still lives. But his subject matter, such as this box of McDonald's French fries paired with a flute of champagne, seem out of phase.

The duo known as Shuffle Pack demonstrates the dance called the airwalk. It's darned cool when they get to it, as they appear to float in the air slightly above ground level. Ignore the reference to a "stranger;" they do that all the time. Shuffle Pack consists of 14-year-old British twin brothers Alex and Alister, so they are always in tune with each other. 

The dance itself is an illusion. What's happening here is a classic example of misdirection, like a magician would use. Your eye is drawn to the part of the dance step that does not touch the ground, while the dancer's weight is supported by the other foot at that time. See another example here, where the shadows might give you a clue. Their tutorials make it look easy, but like the moonwalk, the final appearance depends on how smoothly you pull it off. They say that this will really strain your leg muscles if you do it for more than a few seconds at a time. See plenty more dance steps at Shuffle Pack's YouTube channel. 

We should all be wary of what we put into our bodies. If you think that something is okay to eat just because someone is selling it to you or because other people are eating it, remember that there's the possibility of a rare case in which things go terribly wrong. Those cases are liable to make global news. The good news is that no one actually died in these five medical stories, although all the patients most likely thought about it. 

I almost titled this post the Five Most Disgusting Medical Stories of 2025 (That Are Fit to Print), but thought that might scare you away from reading it. Hey, I read it while eating, so it isn't that disgusting, but the cases are frightening while still fascinating us. What they have in common is that they resulted from eating something. Find out what that was for each case and how it wrecked someone's body at Ars Technica.

(Image credit: Tamorlan)

Some people don't get out of the house much because they suffer from depression, loneliness, social anxiety, or they don't have the means to go anywhere. And then there are those who are fine but they just prefer to stay home. There's nothing wrong with that, and this video explains what's going on their heads. 

But this is a short video, and only looks at people who have friends and social opportunities and live alone. If you live with friends or family, it's likely you have all the social interaction you need. You might also have little control and no peace and quiet, or maybe you have both. While I loved the challenge and chaos of raising a family, I also appreciate the peace and quiet of living alone, not to mention the freedom to make my own schedule and cover a room with a project whenever I want to. -via Laughing Squid

Let's say that you passed on while alone at home, perhaps due to a fatal blogging accident. Would your dog or cat, cut off from outside support, eat you? How soon would they reclassify you from human companion to food source?

Popular Science examined the scientific literature and consulted animal behavior experts. Dogs in particular may start feeding immediately, as dogs are more natural scavengers. Cats tend toward predatory behavior, and so would hesitate before eating carrion.

Dr. Lena DeTar of Cornell University says that cats will likely to persist with hunting behaviors in these extreme scenarios, whereas dogs, who are wholly dependent on humans for food will just, uh, continue to depend upon humans for food.

-via Instapundit | Photo: PickPic

Some people who live in cold regions like to celebrate the new year by going for a swim in icy waters. In Canada, they've been doing the Vancouver Polar Bear Swim on New Year's Day for 105 years now! Similar traditions take place in Boston and Toronto and many places in northern Europe as well. To those people who return year after year to participate, it's a lot of fun, but what does it do to your body? 

Swimming in cold water puts your body through several processes, such as the cold shock, cold water incapacitation, hypothermia, and recovery, when your core temperature continues to drop after you get out of the water. Body temperature experts recommend limiting a polar swim to 30 seconds, especially for beginners. Never do this by yourself, and be aware of the symptoms of adverse results. Learn what to expect in cold-water swimming, the danger signals, and the mental health benefits that people report when they go for a New Year's swim at Smithsonian. None of this applies if you're heading for a tropical beach for the holiday. 

How reliable and safe is Tesla's autonomous driving program? The New York Post reports that one owner recently traveled in a completely autonomous mode from Los Angeles to South Carolina, thus completing the first coast-to-coast autonomous trip in the United States.

David Moss, the owner of the Tesla FSD V14.2, never disengaged the autonomous mode--even to park during rest stops. He charged 30 times along the way for the 10,638.8-mile journey. Moss's trip also set a record as the first use of an autonomous Tesla FSD for over 10,000 miles. You can read his X thread about the voyage here.

-via Instapundit

Matt Nelson of We Rate Dogs has been introducing us to the goodest boys and girls for ten years now. Yes, every dog gets a rating, but they are never less than 10/10, and usually much higher. Every week he ranks the top ten dogs of the week (which often include dogs just being funny on video), and now he's ranking the top ten dogs of 2025. Some are hero dogs that risked life and limb for the people they love. Others used their intelligence. Some are inspirational comeback stories. Some were even martyrs. You'll find links to more information on each story at the YouTube page, but you'll have to supply your own hankies. As Matt would say, the dogs have been very good this year. 

But a top ten list cannot contain enough of the good dogs of 2025. So here's the megamix you've been waiting for. 



Because dogs don't have to be heroes. If they are only cute, funny, loyal, or loved, that is plenty, and more than we deserve. 

Risk is a fun board game, but Instructables user madkins9 suggests building a spherical board for a "more frustrated, expensive, and time-consuming" experience. Fortunately, he's done the planning work, which is where most of the difficulty comes from.

madkins9 used steel hemispheres to make the globe and glued magnets to the game pieces from an original 1962 set. He then stained and polished wooden base comes with hexagonal drawers for each of the six player colors.

The final product must make for a more realistic game, as, for example, Alaska and Kamchatka are no longer on opposite sides of the board. Thus the spherical design provides for superior practical training for world conquest.

-via Hack-A-Day

In a fan-favorite scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones must flee from a huge boulder rolling toward him as he performs, er, "archaeological research" in a tomb.

That stunt came remarkably close to reality during a recent show at Disney World in Florida. The New York Post reports that a 400-pound rubber ball serving as the boulder fell off its planned track at an actor playing Indiana Jones and toward the audience.

Heroically, a staff member intercepted it, blocking its movement with his own body. He was injured but, Disney World asserts, is recovering. The show schedule is continuing unchanged.

-via Super Punch

Neatorama readers are familiar with Led Zeppelin's habit of covering old songs and taking writing credit, from "When the Levee Breaks" to "Stairway to Heaven." You most certainly know about the time that George Harrison was sued for plagiarizing "He's So Fine" by The Chiffons. But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to songs that ripped off other songs. Sometimes it's just a sample that was used without permission, but sometimes it's the entire tune or even lyrics. Did you know that "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John was a direct ripoff of a Pat Boone number? Or that "Come Together" by the Beatles has some eerie resemblance to a much faster Chuck Berry song? The 1979 Rod Stewart song "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" sounds suspiciously like a Brazilian song that you just have to hear. You know the hits, but in a list at Cracked, you'll hear the originals for comparison. You know, the ones that brought the lawsuits.    

They made sure to append the title of Wake Up Dead Man with A Knives Out Mystery in its marketing materials so that the fans of the previous two films would at least hear about it. The previous two were Knives Out in 2019 and Glass Onion in 2022. The third installment assures us that Daniel Craig has landed a steady job after leaving the 007 movies. Here he reprises his role as detective Benoit Blanc solving a mystery by talking his way through it, just like the classic whodunits we've seen so many times. 

It's not really a spoiler to reveal that Blanc solves the murder mystery. That's pretty much a given. But beware that this Honest Trailer reveals whodunit right away, before they even introduce the many suspects (the Wikipedia plot summary does, too). If you are determined to see the movie without knowing who the killer is, then rest assured that Screen Junkies enjoyed Wake Up Dead Man, although they do poke fun at its over-the-top characterizations. So expect another Knives Out mystery in 2028. 

You should have a new calendar by now, and you can start filling it up with important events: family birthdays, your next teeth cleaning, the Olympics, and some important stargazing events you won't want to miss. 

If you live in Europe, you may be able to witness a total solar eclipse on August 12th, 2026. Depending on where you are, Americans have a chance at seeing a total lunar eclipse in March. But even in the right place, you'll need to adjust your sleep schedule. There's also a "parade of planets," when six of them appear at the same time, and another when five will align. You might want to observe a "full blood micromoon," which is when the moon seems small because of its distance while also being the second full moon of the month. Jupiter shows up in a spectacular manner in January, and of course there are the usual meteor showers you'll want to catch. Check out all these 2026 events and more with a rundown at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: NASA/STSCI (S.T.A.R.S))