Carrying two brown satchels, one filled with $777,000 in $100 bills and the other empty, an unidentified man, dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, walked into Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas last week. He exchanged his money for $500 chips, strode to the craps table and put all of the chips on the back line, which meant that he was betting against the woman who happened to be rolling the dice. She first threw a six, then a nine and finally a seven. Said the dealer: ‘Pay the back line.’ The man scooped up his chips, traded them at the casino cage for $1,554,000 in cash and shook hands with Jack Binion, the stunned president of the casino. Said Binion: ‘It was the biggest bet in a gambling house that I have ever heard of.’ As the man walked out of the casino with his two brown satchels, both now stuffed with $100 bills, and climbed into his car, he told Binion: ‘You know, this damned inflation was just eroding this money. I figured I might as well double it or lose it.’ With that, he drove off into the night, still unidentified.

— Time, Oct. 6, 1980

(A few more details here.)

10/10/2025 UPDATE: The gambler was later identified. (Thanks, Patrick.)

In Marseille’s Salvator Hospital, the French word for “dream” seems to hang in the middle of a corridor.

It’s an anamorphic illusion — the letters are painted on the walls and ceiling to appear in perspective as an ordinary font when viewed from the correct angle.

The cat I am seen wearing as a hat in the photo, is very much alive and absolutely free. If I place her in this head-dress attitude she will remain quite still until I take her off.

— Mr. T.S. Cunningham, Chirton, Devizes, to the Strand, April 1902

A New York Times story from 1946 observes that a man named Ole Lee, “after years of struggle,” had arranged to receive the license plate number 337-370.

“It was his name spelled upside down.”

I had my doubts, but here’s a photo.

Using a cardboard template, a cloth, and a tripod, psychologist Richard Wiseman found a way to make ordinary people tiny.

The illusion is an improvement on a technique pioneered by Jean Beuchet in the 1960s. More at the link below.

(Richard Wiseman, “A New Version of the Beuchet Chair Illusion,” i-Perception 7:6 [November-December 2016], 2041669516679168.)

Something alarming washed up on a beach near Cherbourg in 1934 — a 25-foot carcass with a camel’s head, a three-foot neck, two shoulder fins, and a seal’s tail. Its bluish-gray skin was covered with what appeared to be fine white hairs, and its liver was 15 feet long.

Was it a sea serpent? A relative of the Loch Ness Monster? Probably not: A local biologist guessed that a whale had pursued herring into local waters and been killed by a liner.

Thirteen years later a 40-foot carcass washed up on the shore near Effingham on Vancouver Island, Canada. At first rumored to be the remains of Caddy, the sea serpent that supposedly haunts Cadboro Bay, it was later identified as a shark.

See The St. Augustine Monster.

An optical illusion. All the edges in this image are straight, and each is either horizontal, vertical, or at a 45° angle.

Naturalists state that snakes, when in danger, have been known to swallow each other; the above three snakes have just commenced to perform this operation. The snakes are from the same ‘hatch,’ and are therefore equal in age, length, weight, &c. They all start at scratch — that is, commence swallowing simultaneously. They are twirling round at the express rate of 300 revolutions per minute, during which time the circumference is decreased by 1 inch.

We would like our readers to tell us what will be the final result? Heads or tails, and how many of each?

— John Scott, The Puzzle King, 1899

Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize certain entities. …

When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them.

It would appear, if this reasoning were sound, that in any ontological dispute the proponent of the negative side suffers the disadvantage of not being able to admit that his opponent disagrees with him.

This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not?

— Willard Van Orman Quine, “On What There Is,” 1948

‘I send you a post card which was delivered safely the day after it was posted. I think the address reflects credit on both the ingenuity of the sender and the cleverness of the Post Office officials.’ — A Folkestone Correspondent

(From Strand, December 1903.) (Click to enlarge.)

UPDATE: A number of readers have asked for the solution. The Strand gives none, and perhaps had none, but a diligent postal worker who viewed the envelope edge-on would have discovered that the circle is composed of four overlapping sets of letters, offset from one another by 45 degrees and each so tall and narrow as to be otherwise unreadable. When they’re viewed at an angle, perspective condenses the letters into four phrases:

By my best reading, the address is C.H. BRUCE, ESQR, EARLS AVENUE, FOLKESTONE, ENGLAND.