A robot to brush your teeth, pirate democracies, van dwelling across Europe, stunning storms, death by pooping, cats vs goats, and more.
 
Upvoted Weekly

This week’s issue covers tons of awesome content from a variety of communities, but first I want to talk about Keenan, whose story rose to the top of r/videos this week (warning: this video is graphic, showing the draining of his keloids).

Normally we try to surface things in this newsletter you wouldn’t have seen on the frontpage, but within a day of the video being posted to the site, redditors from all over the world pitched in to help raise over $30,000 for his keloid removal. I was so moved by your response to his plight, I chipped in myself, and it’s always serendipitous stories like these that make me proud to work at Reddit. I’m hoping we can get a followup from Keenan when his treatment is done.

In other news, Stephen Hawking is in the process of doing an amazing week-long AMA on r/science, we laughed at this hypothesis for how Tom Riddle came up with his evil alias (which must not be named), a redditor caught an awesome photo of Saturn just from his backyard, and this massive squid… egg… blob… thing… captivated us all. We get to see so many awesome stories every week, and it’s only because your upvotes and downvotes make this whole thing work.

Thanks for a great week,

kn0thing
Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder
 
ARDUINO
simsalapim made a helmet robot to brush her teeth
 
submitted by simsalapim

simsalapim made a bold “contribution to the shitty robots of the world” with this device. She’s not stopping there, either. She’s already discussing future robots to help you floss, put on makeup, and shave. (Yikes!)

In the meantime, if you want to make your own, she’s got you covered with this tutorial.

Comments 118 read more 1695 Upvoted
 
HISTORY
Pirate ships operated as true democracies

Apparently, pirates cared about a lot of the same issues we do. Equal votes for everyone, fair distribution of loot, and following some very intricate rules (check out some of the articles from Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts’s ship). They also had some pretty crazy political campaigns—read about all the crazy stuff Blackbeard did to keep his crew convinced he was the most badass of them all. Ah, pirates. They’re just like us.

Comments 303 read more 1896 Upvoted
 
PERFECTLOOPS
This perfectly looped gif is absolutely mesmerizing
 
submitted by guyinthesky
Comments 48 read more 2041 Upvoted
 
IAMA
CISA, a privacy-invasive “cybersecurity” surveillance bill, is back in Congress, and several privacy activists answer your questions

It could result in another broad surveillance program that public or even members of Congress don’t know about. The bill allows companies to share virtually any type of personal information, exempt from existing privacy laws. Once the government gets this information, they can stockpile it and search through it for reasons that have nothing to do with cybersecurity.

Comments 930 read more 6044 Upvoted
 
VANDWELLERS
oceancalling explores Europe in a van-turned-tiny-home
submitted by oceancalling

Check out some of their pics from inside the van and on the road, as well as how they converted it.

Comments 12 read more 123 Upvoted
 
CONFESSION
Exis007 responds to a man’s micropenis confession with great advice for all of us

I don’t even have a penis and your words resonate with me.

Comments 709 read more 4195 Upvoted
 
BOOP
This kitty doesn’t know her own strength
 
submitted by catsngoats

And on the note of other fierce felines, this adorable baby bobcat is on the prowl.

Comments 8 read more 597 Upvoted
 
BODYWEIGHTFITNESS
r/bodyweightfitness built a free app to help you get started

If you’ve been thinking about getting back in shape or trying something different in your fitness routine, now might be a great time. This community has created an amazing wiki full of routines, video tutorials, and FAQs, which imanateater used to build fitloop.co, a site to help you easily build your routine. When imanateater made that code open source, mazurio then used it to create both an Android and iOS app to help you get healthy. So now there really are no excuses. Sorry…

Comments 84 read more 362 Upvoted
 
SQUAREDCIRCLE
When wrestler Tyson Kidd received a severe spinal cord injury, r/squaredcircle banded together to show their support
submitted by CrimsonCub2013

Over 400 redditors, led by cbartholomew, worked together to create this mosaic composed of images from his wrestling career and included over 350 get well messages on the back of it. Needless to say, he loved it (and he’s also recovering well!). You can see more pictures of the final product and the process of creating it here.

Comments 476 read more 3641 Upvoted
 
TIMELAPSE
A breathtakingly beautiful timelapse video from a storm chaser
 
submitted by damsteegt

The music from it is pretty epic as well and definitely makes the video even more fascinating to watch.

Comments 3 read more 40 Upvoted
 
EXPLAINLIKEIMFIVE
Ever wonder why the phonebook is full of Mr. Greens or Mr. Blacks but no Mr. Orange*?

That explains all the Smiths out there, but what about all the Joneses? MacGyverMacGuffin explains here.

*except in Reservoir Dogs

Comments 1822 read more 4259 Upvoted
 
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS
 
 P.S.

If you’re going to die, you’d probably rather not be found dead on the toilet with your pants around your ankles, but apparently that’s actually super common. Farts_McGee explains why so many people die while pooping, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Peter Dinklage or a crossbow.