Thursday Overnight Open Thread - January 15, 2026 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings! Thursday night ONT time. Appreciate you being here!

Feel good story

Fiancé Surprises His Bride with Wedding Shower in the Preschool Where They First Met as Toddlers

Engaged to be wed this month, a young Texan wrangled the support of an entire preschool class to throw his fiancée a surprise bridal shower.

Walking into her preschool class at Shlenker school in Houston, Zoe Kampf was surprised by a troupe of children dressed in floral garlands and bow ties who handed her a tiara and a sash.

In the middle of it all was her hubby-to-be, Sean Folloder, in the very room where he had first met his beloved.

“When I walked in, I was really surprised,” Kampf told the Jewish Herald-Voice. “They had cookies and decorated the classroom. They gave me a sash and a veil and crown. It was really cute.”

Well played, Sean.

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Unexpectedly!

One Glacier Is Actually Growing–and Perplexed Scientists Hope to Discover its Secrets

Over the decades, a glacier in Central Asia appears to have been growing when almost every other glacier on Earth has been shrinking.

Now, a scientific expedition has recovered ice cores containing 30,000 years of frozen water in the hopes that somewhere inside lies some indication of how we can help these rivers of ice survive as the planet warms.

Located in the Pamir Mountains, the Kon-Chukurbashi high-altitude ice cap in Tajikistan defies convention. While a substantial number of glaciers have completely disappeared, it has grown in size, and scientists want to know how and why.

You don't need to check out the whole thing. But it is a hoot to still see these climate doomers before they go the way of the dodo.

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AI is asshoe.

Court Invalidates Marriage Due to Incorrect AI-Generated Speech During Wedding Ceremony

On January 6th, the District Court of Overijssel, in the Netherlands, invalidated a wedding ceremony held in April of last year in the city of Zwolle. Despite the married couple’s pleas, the Court decided that their marriage had never legally existed because the wording of their wedding speeches, which had been generated by ChatGPT, did not include certain mandatory phrases.

The Dutch couple had appointed a friend to officiate as a temporary civil registrar, known as an eendagsbabs in the Netherlands, and he decided to have ChatGPT generate more romantic and informal speeches for the newlyweds. The bot came up with a more relaxed version of the usual wedding speech, but one that did not include a mandatory declaration.

Using ChatGPT to devise your wedding speech? Asshoes!

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Only 11 years for our Wednesday ONT host to finish growing up?

T. rex took 40 years to become fully grown

An analysis of growth rings in the leg bones of 17 Tyrannosaurus rex individuals reveals that the dinosaurs matured much more slowly than previously thought, and adds to the evidence that they weren't all one species

The largest-ever analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils suggests the giant and fierce Cretaceous predator was a late bloomer, taking 35 to 40 years to reach maturity.

The findings also further the debate about whether there were several T. rex species instead of just one and whether smaller specimens, once thought to be juveniles, are in fact a more diminutive species called Nanotyrannus.

Keep growing, lil Dino!

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Pedal to the metal!

A remote stretch of desert interstate could become ‘America’s autobahn’

Americans love driving fast cars fast. It’s the mystique of white-knuckling a sports car to its limit that made the German autobahn and Paul Walker famous.

An Arizona lawmaker wants to give drivers the green light to drive as fast as they deem “reasonable and prudent” on some of the state’s long, straight stretches of paved road, saying the lack of a speed limit will actually reduce deadly crashes. A traffic safety advocate said the bill invites catastrophic wrecks that could lead to higher insurance premiums for the state’s slowpokes.

Probably good arguments against this, but it sounds kinda kewl to me!

Kraftwerk agrees

DJ Doof - Guess The Theme

Easy peasy! Difficulty level 1 out of 5

What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif?

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posted by Open Blogger at 10:07 PM

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