scarygodmother:

thedisgruntledgradstudent:

ruiterphotography:

“Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, “You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass.” Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows.” - Bill Bryson

Ok, I do love Bill Bryson, but this one has a well known and easy answer: lightning strikes. Now if he were asking about whose stupid/brilliant idea it was to mill wheat into flour, I might be up for the joke.

I’ve always wondered about the first individual to pick up a lobster and think, “I bet this giant ugly motherfucker aquatic insect is DELICIOUS with some clarified butter.”

You know what I want to know?  Who figured out that flipping a shark onto its back would put it in a trance.  Why would you think that?