He impaled himself on a pole and then hiked down a mountain

David Cifaldi and two of his friends had been hiking for about seven hours up Montana’s tallest mountain on July 20 when he slipped on a rock and fell. He saw one of his trekking poles on the ground, but the second one was nowhere to be found.Then he rolled over. Something wasn’t right. Mr. Cifaldi, 32, had impaled himself on the pole. He immediately went into nurse mode: Mr. Cifaldi is a wound nurse at St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, Mont.The pole was jutting at an angle into his left lateral muscle, below his armpit, and out through his back. He wasn’t in pain, there was no blood, he was able to take deep breaths and could feel the trekking pole through his skin. He was two to three miles from the summit of Granite Peak, elevation of about 12,800 feet. Hoping to avoid an expensive lift off the mountain via helicopter, he walked around and found he wasn’t lightheaded and told his friends, “I think we can get out of here.” (via the NYT)

Harp therapist plays music for lemurs, rhinos and fish at Canberra zoo

Most musicians would be disappointed if their performances were met with silence. But not Alison Ware. Every fortnight, the Canberra harp therapist performs for some of her most attentive audience members — rhinos, lemurs, lions and a school of Amazonian fish at the National Zoo and Aquarium. For the past five years, Ms Ware has been volunteering at the zoo, using music as a form of animal enrichment. Armed with several different harps of varying sizes, she moves between enclosures, carefully adapting her performance to suit each animal. Alison spends time watching each animal, adjusting the tempo, tone and volume of the music as she gauges their response. Some animals wander over to investigate. Others simply settle where they are. But Ms Ware's audience extends beyond furry and feathered animals. Even the aquarium's South American pacu often swim toward the music as Ms Ware plays. (via ABC.net)

He won $2 million then the company said it was a glitch and refused to pay

A Betfred punter denied a £1.7m jackpot over an alleged software glitch has won a legal battle to claim the winnings. Andy Green, from Lincolnshire, scooped the prize in January 2018 while playing a blackjack game on his phone. The bookmaker refused to pay out, claiming the error meant the game was not operating properly. High Court judge Mrs Justice Foster ruled in Mr Green's favour and said the company had no grounds for withholding payment. The judgement means Mr Green, from Washingborough, will finally receive his payout, plus interest, after a three-year battle. Speaking in 2018, he said he had gone "absolutely crazy" after scooping the jackpot on the Frankie Dettori Magic Seven Blackjack game. Following the win, he extended his overdraft and spent more than £2,500 celebrating with family and friends. A few days later, a Betfred director called him to say there had been a "software error" and it was rejecting the claim. Mr Green said he felt like he had been kicked and had his "insides ripped out" after receiving the call. (via the BBC)

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

They paid to watch a house full of cam-girls and then tried to rescue them

Chaturbate tends to attract a particularly obsessive kind of porn watcher. These are the simps, men who get off on slavishly following, praising, and paying the women of the attention economy for slivers of time and intimacy. The most devoted among them congregate on a private Reddit-esque message board called SimpCity, where they discuss their favorite streamers. Eventually, there were hundreds of pages of comments discussing one operation on SimpCity. The men fawned over the models, traded clips from streams, and questioned their professed backstory: a group of innocent young friends had met in high school and started streaming together for fun. “The likelihood is pretty close to 0% that any of them are virgins,” one poster griped.But some men in SimpCity perceived a darker undercurrent. They noticed signs of tension, models with bruises, and men who seemed to lurk just offscreen, running the show. Sometimes, these men yelled at the models or threw things at them. (via The Cut)

This horsehair bed is said to be very comfortable and it only costs $75,000

A new car will cost $40,000 or so. A nice vacation could easily run in the low-five figures. A reasonably-priced mattress could be as cheap as a few hundred bucks. And then there are those people who buy themselves the Hästens 2000T. A queen-sized one can be yours for the low, low price of $74,180. The bed isn't made of solid gold, despite what the price suggests. The 2000T is actually filled with horsehair — yes, hair from actual horses, and primarily from their tails. When you buy a high-end car, you often bring the car back to the dealership and they do whatever is necessary to make sure the vehicle is in fine working order. If you spend college tuition on a 2000T, Hästens will offer you the same type of service. Called their “Bed Spa” program, technicians will come to your house and restore the mattress — opening it to redistribute the horsehair and cotton fillings, restoring the loft of the natural materials, inspecting the bed, and performing any needed maintenance. The company notes that, with this periodic maintenance, the mattress can remain comfortable for decades. (via Now I Know)

Squirrel discovers that he likes being petted

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com