The substance of all my nightmares

Creepy ventriloquist dummies doing what they do best -- looking creepy.

Via BoingBoing.

talking parrots

“One developmental milestone is when infants begin to relate adult sound patterns to specific meanings,” wrote Berg’s team, who described their findings July 13 Proceedings of The Royal Society B. “Among these sounds, an individual’s own name is one of the earliest adult words for which infants show evidence of acoustic pattern recognition. Our study suggests that at least a moderately convergent process may occur in parrots.”

Whales might not be the only wild animals to have individualized names.  Wired reports.

A steal

Via Mitch, a stunning Sotheby's auction for the savvy buyer: James Joyce's war-time passport.  Here are the details:

JOYCE'S WARTIME FAMILY PASSPORT, AS ISSUED BY THE BRITISH CONSUL-GENERAL AT ZURICH, SWITZERLAND TO ALLOW "MR JAMES JOYCE, AND WIFE MRS NORA JOYCE TO PASS FREELY WITHOUT LET OR HINDRANCE...", PASSPORT NO.557, ISSUED AND STAMPED 10 AUGUST 1915

Granted, the estimated price is 50-70,000 GBP, but it's totally worth it.