Looking back at the most significant battles and military operations in history, deception has always been an important strategy, and in modern-day Russia balloons are one of the most important tools of deception.

Bouncy castles aren’t known as the most effective tools of war, but in Russia, they are just as important as actual weapons worth millions of dollars. That’s because bouncy castles designed to mimic actual weapons cost a hundred times cheaper than the real thing, and can be deployed and moved a lot faster. And if your goal is to deceive the enemy, to appear stronger than you really are, drawing their fire, or simply buying time by forcing them to verify targets, this inflatable army is an important piece of your arsenal.

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A computer programmer has been dubbed ‘Britain’s biggest hoarder’ after it was discovered that he had amassed a huge collection of items stored in several homes and garages and valued at £4 million ($5.2 million).

Ramann Shukla, 64, passed away earlier this year, but has posthumously been dubbed Britain’s biggest hoarder for filling his three-bedroom house, a rented flat, two garages and 24 large trash cans with some 60,000 items he had collected over the last 20 years. After the computer programmer died suddenly of a heart attack, his brother was shocked to discover that Ramann’s home had been converted into storage space for thousands of items, some of which were still in their shipping packaging. It’s believed that the Nottingham man was planning to sell of his treasure trove to fund to set up his own retirement fund.

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A popular gym in Krakow, Poland, managed to stay open under new coronavirus restrictions by declaring itself a shop where people can “test” equipment for a fee, and a church offering “religious meetings” to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Over the weekend, Krakow police entered the “Atlantic Sports Fitness Gym Squash Klub” fitness center where a dozen or so people were exercising despite the government ban on gyms designed to slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Officers ID-ed both the staff and the visitors, but didn’t issue any fines, because representatives of the gym claimed that they were operating legally. Because the firm already has a business classification allowing it to carry out retail services, Atlantic Sports declared itself a shop where people could come in and test fitness equipment for a fee.

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Galina Chuvina, a retired woman from the small Russian town of Sasovo, took up knife throwing as a hobby and ended up becoming an eight time national champion, European champion and even world champion.

Chuvina was 56 years old when she discovered knife throwing, back in 2007. The pensioner had landed a simple job in the coat check section of the local pool, taking people’s clothes and handing out numbers. One day, two young people came by to discuss the possibility of opening a knife throwing club on the premises, and Galina became one of the first people to enroll for knife throwing training. Just a month and a half into her training, the pensioner learned that her home town would soon host a knife throwing competition with around 50 participants, including special forces soldiers, professional knife throwers, as well as amateurs like her. She signed up, and shocked the audience by wining first place.

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A Swiss couple has named their baby daughter Twifia after Internet start-up Twifi and won themselves 18 years of free wi-fi internet.

The young couple responded to a Facebook ad from Twifi, a Swiss Internet provider, which dared parents to name their newborn Twifus (if it was a boy) or Twifia (if it was a girl) in exchange for 18 years of free internet. The parents, aged 30 and 35, ultimately decided that Twifia wasn’t that bad of a name, and the thought of getting free internet for 18 years and putting that money in a savings account for their daughter was appealing. So after thinking it over, they decided to make it official, putting down ‘Twifia’ as their daughter’s middle name on her birth certificate.

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The Brigham Young University in Idaho has launched an investigation into claims that some of its students are intentionally trying to get infected with SARS-CoV-2, to then sell their antibody plasma for cash.

Officials at Brigham Young University, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, strongly condemned the the alleged behavior of its students and announced its decision to suspend anyone caught attempting to contract the virus on purpose. The university is currently investigating incidents on campus, and has urged students not to put themselves and others at risk for financial risks, because the risk is not worth the reward.

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Can you imagine looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person staring back at you. That’s what Lena, a 29-year-old Russian woman suffering from prosopagnosia, a rare condition that makes it impossible to recognize faces, including her own.

Lena Ash only learned that she was suffering from prosopagnosia last year. Before that, she had always tried to convince herself that she wasn’t simply slower than other people. Even as a child, Lena had problems recognizing faces, and talking to her parents about it didn’t really help. She doesn’t blame them for it, as they didn’t even know such a condition existed, and it’s not like they could simply google her symptoms back then. Not even the neurologists she went to for her headaches, migraines, low blood pressure and nausea could figure out the cause of her health problems, and this all made her feel ashamed of herself.

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An Italian woman was recently sentenced to four years in jail after she admitted to spiking a work colleague’s drink with sedatives, so she would underperform.

This disturbing story of work rivalry taken to the extreme dates back to October 6th of 2017, when Mariangela Cerrato brought a round of coffees for her colleagues at an office in Bra, a town in Italy’s Piedmont region. She brought the coffees and cappuccinos from a nearby bar, as she usually did, so no one suspected anything shady. However, after downing her cappuccino in one gulp, one of Cerrato’s colleagues, Alice Bordon, started feeling dizzy and lost her balance walking to her desk. She was taken to the hospital where doctors checked for a potential stroke, not knowing that something more insidious was at play…

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Italy is the world’s second largest kiwi producer after China, but for the past eight years farmers have been battling a mysterious enemy that has so far killed over twenty percent of the country’s kiwi plants.

It starts with the leaves. They wither and face downwards, and within 10 days they all fall to the ground, leaving the kiwi fruits exposed to direct sunlight. Underground, the roots of the vine darken and begin to rot. In a year or two, the whole plant withers and dies. There is no known cure, and by the time farmers start noticing the symptoms described above, it is already much too late to do anything about it.  The farmers call it morìa, or “die-off”, and it had devastated plantations where kiwi vines have thrived for decades.

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A longtime fan of the ‘Alien’ franchise has spent three years turning a Barcelona apartment into a faithful replica of the Nostromo spaceship interior depicted in Ridley Scott’s original ‘Alien’ film.

43-year-old Luis Nostromo watched Alien when he was still a child, and even though he found it scary, he fell in love it with. The Barcelona man has spent the last two decades collecting Alien-related memorabilia, and for the last three years he has been working on his very own Alien Museum, an apartment decorated as the most iconic locations depicted in the movie. Today, his epic project is nearly complete, and it looks absolutely amazing.

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Footage of a young cleaning woman who appears to be drinking water straight out of a toilet has sparked a heated debate on Chinese social media this week.

The caretaker of a fertilizer company located in Shandong province, China has put herself at the center of controversy after a video showing her drinking water out of a toilet she had previously cleaned went viral online. The young woman, surnamed Luo, reportedly resorted to the extreme gesture in order to impress her bosses, who can be seen applauding her as she downs a plastic cup of toilet water. Accused of encouraging the employee to humiliate herself, representatives of the company insisted that the caretaker’s gesture was voluntary, adding that she has done drunk toilet water several times over the last couple of years.

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Vallabhbhai Kathiria, the chairman of a federal body on animal husbandry in India, recently sparked controversy among his countrymen by promoting cow dung ‘chips’ that can allegedly reduce mobile phone radiation and shield users from disease.

Named ‘Gausatva Kavach’, the cow dung chip is said to be manufactured by Rajkot-based Shrijee Gaushala (cow shelter) as part of an initiative to promote cow dung products. The aim is to have 500 gaushalas produce the anti-radiation dung chips, which cost between Rs. 50 ($0.70) and Rs. 100 ($1.40). Through Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayoghe (RKA), the federal body on animal husbandry, the Indian Government wants to popularize cow dung chips in India, but also sell its products abroad, including in the United States.

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A Scottish fan of rap superstar Eminem has set a new Guinness record for most tattoos of a single musician after getting 28 tattoos inspired by her idol inked on her body.

35-year-old Nikki Patterson got her first tattoo, a smiley face, when she was 18, and she has added dozens of them since then. Three years ago, she got her first portrait of Eminem, whose music she had adored ever since she heard “Stan” for the first time, and she kept adding to them. Today, out of the 52 tattoos on Nikki’s body, 28 of them are inspired by Eminem, and 16 of them are portraits of the musician.

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Hidefumi Yoshida, a self-described ‘tear teacher’, encourages people to shed a few tears every once in a while as a way to relieve stress and lead a happier life.

Japanese are among the least likely of all nationalities to cry, and some would go as far as to say that there is a stigma surrounding crying in the Asian country. But according to Hidefumi Yoshida, a man who has dedicated the last eight years of his life to bringing people to people’s eyes, Japanese people originally had a predisposition to cry easily, but that all changed to the point where children and adults alike are discouraged from crying and they end up becoming closed off. Yoshida has been trying to change this perception, by educating people on the benefits of crying as a way of relaxing and combating stress. He claims to have helped over 50,000 people shed tears over the last seven and a half years.

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Luxury fashion brand Ralph Lauren has been slammed and ridiculed online for selling a pair of paint-covered overalls for $695.

If you’re going to spend just under $700 on a pair of designed overalls, you at least want them to look expensive, right? No? Well, maybe that’s just me, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t them to make you look like you just finished painting an entire house. And yet that’s exactly the look that Ralph Lauren went with for its new “Paint-Splatter Coverall”, a pair of black denim overalls covered in white and orange paint stains and featuring beat-up knee areas.

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