"Love" in 1915, but "mud" by 1917: The words that most frequently pop up in World War One poetry.

The title says it all.

Reddit user u/est-1913 used The Poetry Foundation's information to create a visual representation of the most common words used in World War One poetry.

Knowing what we know of The Great War, its brutality, its outcome, etc., what's striking is the emotional progression of how the war finds itself represented in language, which u/est-1913 displays in the following graph.

"Love" leads the way in the hopeful beginning stages of the war in 1915. Two years of trench warfare later, and "mud" dominates poems by 1917.

In the decade following the war, "dead," "died," and "time" become most commonly used.

Love. Mud. Dead. Time.

The history of World War One in four words.

It doesn't take much to wonder why.

Serena Williams announced her engagement by writing a poem on Reddit.

Serena Williams became engaged to Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit the other day, and announced it to the world via a poem on--surprise!--Reddit. Somewhere, Twitter is pissed.

Specifically, Williams announced on the forum "ISaidYes" (aka: r/isaidyes), where brides and grooms share stories of how their own proposals occurred. If you're happily married, by all means, enjoy the tenderly sweet tales and occasional videos and photos. Alternatively, if you're frustratingly single, I'd recommend having a bottle of cheap bourbon nearby before perusing.

As for Williams and her poem, it is as follows:

I came home

A little late

Someone had a bag packed for me

And a carriage awaited

Destination: Rome

To escort me to my very own "charming"

Back to where our stars first collided

And now it was full circle

At the same table we first met by chance

This time he made it not by chance

But by choice

Down on one knee

He said 4 words

And

r/isaidyes

This engagement doesn't look like it's off to a flying start. She's already coming home late? That doesn't happen until at least a solid five years into any healthy relationship, never mind before you're actually engaged.

College dropout Bill Gates went on Reddit to tell people why a college education is important.

"Hey, I like big game. What can I say?"

This is like when a supermodel tells you it's okay to be ugly. It's easy when things worked out beautifully for you.

Bill Gates is the supermodel of this story. It's one thing if someone is telling you to go to college, but another when that person is one of the richest people in the world and a college dropout.

Bill Gates went on Reddit for an "Ask Me Anything" session, when he dropped this knowledge:

"I think the value of getting a great education - that is going to college - is easy to underestimate. The most interesting jobs require a college education. The STEM related jobs are probably the most interesting although they are not for everyone. The value of staying curious - reading a lot and learning new things even after college is also underestimated."

It's easy to underestimate college when you dropped out and still made $50 billion.

I personally enjoy wondering why STEM jobs are the most interesting though. It seems to matter who's delivering the message. I assume it's because Ernest Hemingway didn't share his opinion on life and interesting career choices and tell us that gunning down water buffalo as a career big game hunter is where it's at.

Norwegian library discovers it has one of the rarest Ottoman-era atlases.

When we all think of Norway, we conjure images of frostbite, Bjorn Borg, and a connection to the Ottomans. If Oslo isn't a Nordic interpretation of Istanbul, nothing is.

And that connection continues today, as a research librarian at Norway's National Library stumbled upon a rare Ottoman atlas buried deep in the archives. So rare, in fact, that it's only one of possibly 14 known left in existence. And how did he figure out the rare Ottoman atlas was, indeed, that?

From Reddit, of course.

Anders Kvernberg, the librarian at the center of this story, could make out that the atlas was Ottoman and from 1803, so he posted a picture of it on /r/MapPorn on Reddit, just for fun. As way leads to way, someone commented on his picture and let Kvernberg know it wasn't just any atlas, but the Cedid Atlas Tercumesi, the first atlas published in the Muslim world. Only 50 copies were ever made, with one being given to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire at the time, Selim III. Today, only 14 known copies remain, although some estimates suggest the total is closer to 10 copies.

So how did such a rare book end up "lost" in a library? The atlas was cataloged originally when they came to own it 60-years ago, but after being stashed away it went unnoticed during a digital cataloging years later, and remained "lost" until Kvernberg stumbled upon it.

If only there was a map to all the lost maps in the world.



Bjorn Borg is Swedish, but you didn't even notice that, did you? Because Sweden, Norway, and Finland are really just one giant snowy land mass filled with blonde people and ABBA.

photo: Cedid Atlas Tercumesi on /r/MapPorn

UPS delivers a government drone to college student by mistake.

A college student who ordered a workout bench was delivered just that from UPS. In the process, UPS also delivered a $350,000 United States government drone as well.

In a surprise to no one, the student didn't order said drone from Amazon.

The student, who refuses to be identified, posted his delivery to the website Reddit, displaying photos of what appears to be a drone for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses them to monitor wildlife and the environment. NOAA had sent eight boxes containing all the parts of a drone from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL, to a facility in Massachusetts, but only seven arrived.

According to the website Vice.com, the student wrote that he called UPS to let them know of the gaffe, but Big Brown said they didn't know what they could do for him.

“Just called UPS," the student wrote. "They told me that it was one of the undelivered packages in their office, and asked if I’ve ever had an undelivered package. I said no, but he insisted that it was mine, and said that it was up to me if I want to keep it or not."

Not the type to monitor wildlife via drones, the student contacted NOAA on his own. The agency, through the anonymous student's help, is currently in the process of getting their drone back.



photo: via Reddit

Children read books to homeless cats.

At the Berks Country (PA) Animal Shelter, children between between grades 1-8 have taken up reading to the shelter's homeless cats, all part of a reading program called Book Buddies.

The program started around August 2013, when a then-10-year old son of the shelter's coordinator, Kristi Rodriguez, was having trouble reading. She recommended he read to the cats. As Rodriguez told TIME, "The cats aren't going to care if you mess up."







From this sprung up the program. Now participating children can earn rewards for reading often to their feline friends, earning small prizes with every five books they complete.

According to the Berks County Animal Shelter website, the benefits work both ways. "The program will help children improve their reading skills while also helping the shelter animals. Cats find the rhythmic sound of a voice very comforting and soothing."

You'll never seen Mr. Whiskers more comatose than when you read a little Virginia Woolf to him, trust me on that one.




photos: Berks County Animal Shelter

Pope loves the web, but not so sure about some shady people on the internet.

"This is something truly good, a gift from God," Pope Francis said about the internet last week.

But before you go thanking God for Amazon, food blogs, and Pinterest, the Pope is going to be a bit of a Debbie Downer.

"We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm [regarding the internet]. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient if we want to understand those who are different from us."

Yeah, but if everyone did that Reddit would cease to exist. Priorities, Papa!