It’s summer-vacation time and, thus, time to visit an amusement park that will scare the pants off you or your kiddos. Next time you’re boarding a roller coaster that makes you scream like a little girl, consider this list of “Theme Park Rides that Pushed the Limits of Common Sense” brought to us by popularmechanics.com.

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Google Earth is a really neat tool. You can see if your neighbor down the street has a pool. You can check out that beach house you rented on vrbo.com and see how close to the water it really is. But Google Earth, which recently celebrated a birthday, has done way cooler things than that. Here, popsci.com documents how the ground-breaking technology shared with us things about our planet we never knew.

It’s one of the pitfalls
of the social media age: Sharing too much, especially when it comes to our kids. We all know someone who — via Twitter or Facebook — posts details of their kids’ potty-training triumphs or perhaps thinks the minutiae of stay-at-home-parentdom is laden with interesting details. And sure, this site that mercilessly mocks those who do it is frequently crass, but it’s also addicting and hilarious, even if you’re occasionally guilty of the behavior being ridiculed. Just be forewarned: A PG-13 (at minimum) sense of humor is necessary for visiting this site.

Lean economic times evidently call for jewelry excess. And we don’t mean jewels. New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham dishes — in audio slideshow form — on the newest trend in baubles: Humungous, chunky necklaces and oversized cuff bracelets. The photos, and Cunningham’s enthusiasm for the trend, which he likens to Fourth of July fireworks, are pretty amusing.