Pop Culture Wedding Invitation
Image: Maureen Alarid
Maureen Alarid of Off Beat Bride created this invitation for her wedding, featuring Admiral Ackbar’s prudent advice about marriage. Alarid writes:
The wording [on the back] is my favorite part. It reads: ‘[We] request the honor of your presence as two geeks save the princess, resist the dark side and pledge their lives (extra, or otherwise) to each other.’ And we snuck a Hyrulian crest in there too!
Link via Geekologie
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Cereal Selection Flow Chart
The food blog Eating the Road presents this handy flow chart that you can use whilst shopping for cereal. Which cereal should you buy? The chart allows you to factor in issues such as current state of intoxication, nationality, ChurckNorrishood, and cultural pretentiousness. Larger image at the link.
Link via Radley Balko
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FUN PRODUCTS FROM THE NEATORAMA SHOP:
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Buckyballs
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The Dark Web: 500x Larger Than The World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is big. Really big. As of July of 2008, Google found 1 trillion (that’s 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once. The search engine has only indexed a fraction of those web pages (the last count I found was 25 billion in 2006).
But that’s nothing compared to the "Deep Web" – a part of the Internet that is not easily accessible by search engines (for example, dynamically generated content that exists only momentarily). People have estimated that the Deep Web is several orders of magnitude larger than the "surface Web". There is, however, another part of the Deep Web that is more sinister: the dark side of the Internet used by criminals.
Andy Beckett of The Guardian wrote:
The modern internet is often thought of as a miracle of openness – its global reach, its outflanking of censors, its seemingly all-seeing search engines. "Many many users think that when they search on Google they’re getting all the web pages," says Anand Rajaraman, co-founder of Kosmix, one of a new generation of post-Google search engine companies. But Rajaraman knows different. "I think it’s a very small fraction of the deep web which search engines are bringing to the surface. I don’t know, to be honest, what fraction. No one has a really good estimate of how big the deep web is. Five hundred times as big as the surface web is the only estimate I know."
"The darkweb"; "the deep web"; beneath "the surface web" – the metaphors alone make the internet feel suddenly more unfathomable and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: "darknet", "invisible web", "dark address space", "murky address space", "dirty address space". Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a "darknet" is an online network such as Freenet that is concealed from non-users, with all the potential for transgressive behaviour that implies, much of "the deep web", spooky as it sounds, consists of unremarkable consumer and research data that is beyond the reach of search engines. "Dark address space" often refers to internet addresses that, for purely technical reasons, have simply stopped working. [...]
Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur, is one of the foremost authorities on this other internet. In the late 90s he undertook research to try to gauge its scale. "I remember saying to my staff, ‘It’s probably two or three times bigger than the regular web,"’ he remembers. "But the vastness of the deep web . . . completely took my breath away. We kept turning over rocks and discovering things."
In 2001 he published a paper on the deep web that is still regularly cited today. "The deep web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined world wide web," he wrote. "The deep web is the fastest growing category of new information on the internet … The value of deep web content is immeasurable … internet searches are searching only 0.03% … of the [total web] pages available."
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Disorders That Make Us Stronger
Because you Neatorama readers are so smart, you might already know how sickle cell anemia makes someone resistant to malaria. This apparent evolutionary disadvantage has actually survived through the generations because it makes individuals more fit for survival in other ways.
While sickle cell anemia is the best known of these evolutionary diseases, it is not the only one. Migraines, depression and bipolar disorder are all passed down genetically, and there’s a good reason these traits that seem to be negative haven’t been eradicated through the millenia.
Migraines
Migraines don’t just cause majorly painful headaches, they also stimulate the nervous system, making people far more sensitive to light and sound. While this doesn’t really help modern day migraine sufferers, it could help save someone’s life in prehistoric times. Scientists speculate that migraines allowed prehistoric men and women to be one step ahead of their predators and their prey, making them more fit for survival.
Source Image Via Migraine Chick [Flickr]
Depression
While between 30 to 50 percent of all people suffer from depression at some point, it doesn’t seem the condition would offer any advantages. Surprisingly, depression actually helps people focus on their problems and then think more clearly about the possible solution to the issues that are bothering them.
Studies show that people who are depressed tend to score better on complex problems in intelligence tests than those who are not. Side effects of depression, such as lack of sexual interest and lack of appetite, can even help prevent distractions from our problem solving abilities.
Source Image Via Darkwood67 [Flickr]
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder works in a much different manner. When individuals inherit severe bipolar disorders, they can have a hard time concentrating, making sound decisions, feeling comfortable in social situations and organizing their time. But, when someone gets the right combination of the genes that cause bipolar disorder, they can see increased creativity, courage and productivity.
Source Image Via Ventolinmono [Flickr]
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Short, Sweet, and Adorable
Hey, it’s a holiday weekend, so take 17 seconds to enjoy playing with a baby kitten. -via Arbroath
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Elk Accused of Murder
An elk has been identified as the perpetrator of a murder in Sweden.
In 2008 the body of a Swedish woman was found by a lake; she had been taking her dog for a walk, and failed to return. Her husband was arrested and briefly held in custody.
Now the case has been dropped after forensic analysis found elk hair and saliva on his wife’s clothes… The European elk, or moose, is usually considered to be shy and will normally run away from humans. But Swedish Radio International says the animals can become aggressive after eating fermented fallen apples in gardens.
The relevance of the photo will be compehensible only to fans of Monty Python.
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Top 10 Beautiful Snow Animals
In this two-part post, see animals you may or may not be familiar with all dressed in their best Arctic white!
Animals that live in the Arctic (either full time or seasonally) are adapted to extreme conditions. Many animals who overwinter in the Arctic (like the Arctic fox and the ermine) have a coat that thickens and changes color to white during the winter as camouflage in the snow
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Emirates Airline Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is the ultimate in airline luxury, and here are lots of photos to prove it!
The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. The largest passenger airliner in the world, the A380 made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname Superjumbo has since become associated with it.
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Lazarus Gitu
Kenyan contortionist Lazarus Gitu appears on a German television show. Gitu performs with Circus Mama Africa as The Snake Man. -via Bits and Pieces
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Peace in the News
Lorrie at Clueless in Carolina recently found a newspaper in her mother’s home announcing the news that World War II had ended. Besides news, it contained sponsored ads celebrating VJ Day.
You could almost feel the joy and relief wafting off of the page. Holding the newspaper made me feel happy, as if the happiness of the people who printed, delivered and received the paper was somehow still preserved. Okay, I’m a weirdo! But I wish I could put it in your hands and see if you felt the same way.
See scans of several ads and features from the Charlotte Observer, August 15th, 1945. Link
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Exploding Whale Reporter Looks Back
Oregon journalist Paul Linnman was 23 years old in 1970 when KATU in Portland flew him to Florence to cover the removal of a beached whale. Officials had decided to get rid of the carcass by blowing it up with dynamite. Almost 40 years later, Linnmann looks back at that fateful day.
“We’re hearing this noise around us and we realize it is pieces of whale blubber hitting the ground around us (from) 1,000 yards away. A piece of blubber the size of a fingernail could kill you if it hit you in the right part of the head, so we ran away from the blast scene, down the dune and toward the parking lot. Then we heard a second explosion ahead of us, and we just kept going until we saw what it was: A car had been hit by this coffee-table-size piece of blubber and had its windows flattened all the way down to the seats.”
The video taken that day is now the fifth most-viewed internet video of all time. Linnman said not a day goes by that someone doesn’t mention the story to him. Link -via Buzzfeed
Previously at Neatorama: The Infamous Exploding Whale.
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World's Strongest Beer is 32% Alcohol
Scottish brewery BrewDog has released its newest beer, named Tactical Nuclear Penguin. At 32% alcohol content, it’s the world’s strongest beer:
A warning on the label states: “This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.”
However Jack Law, of Alcohol Focus Scotland, described it was a “cynical marketing ploy” and said: “We want to know why a brewer would produce a beer almost as strong as whisky.”
The beer has been launched on the day alcohol was at the top of the political agenda with the unveiling of the Scottish government’s Alcohol Bill including proposals for minimum pricing on drink.
Link via Geekologie | Image: BBC News
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Star Wars Facebook Updates
Yeah, but they’re teddy bears that eat people, so don’t feel too bad. Brian Murphy of CollegeHumor put together five Facebook update pages as though they had been written by Star Wars characters.
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ScratchBot Uses Whiskers To Maneuver in the Dark
(YouTube Link)
The Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of Bristol, UK has built a robot that senses obstacles not with cameras, but sensitive whiskers at the front end:
Researchers at the University of Bristol in England hope to deploy the poodle-size ‘bot in search-and-rescue missions where vision is impaired, like in mines or smoky rooms. Its 18 whiskers move back and forth five times per second. When a whisker bends, a sensor on its shaft signals software to orient the ’bot toward the object. Whiskers close to an object move less, while those farther away make wide, sweeping motions to establish the object’s exact edges.
Link | Bristol Robotics Laboratory
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Avett Brothers & The American Budget Network
Chris Higgins enlightens (again) with his Mental_Floss post of a collection of videos supposedly showing a Home Shopping Network scenario gone wrong. This is music video for The Avett Brothers’ “Slight Figure of Speech”, courtesy of Funny or Die, with Andy Daly providing some hilarious subterfuge.
But wait, there’s more! You’ll notice an 888 number on the video. Call it. It’s free and meta. And also check out Higgins’ post.
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Pig Farts Spark Gas Scare
Residents of Axedale, Australia called authorities when they smelled what they believed to be a gas leak. Firefighters responded to the home and found a 120 kilogram pet pig, which they believe to be the source of the gas.
“She got very excited when two trucks and 15 firies turned up and she squealed and farted and squealed and farted,” said fire chief Peter Harkins.
“I haven’t heard too many pigs fart but I would describe it as very full-on.”
Mr Harkins said the family had done the right thing by calling 000 to report a suspected gas leak: “It’s all bottled gas up here and a leaking cylinder could pose a major fire risk.
“It was because we took it so seriously that 15 volunteers still managed to attend the call out at 10.30 on Tuesday night.”
The pig’s owners are embarrassed over the incident and refused to let the pig be photographed. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: AAP)
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Amazing Staircase Design
This cool staircase/slide combo is known by London architect Alex Michaelis. It’s one of 15 awesome staircases featured on Web Urbanist.
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Plush Breast Cancer Cell
Looking to cuddle up with your own bit of disease? Try this breast cancer cell sculpture by Amyof Glitter, Vinyl and Thread. She was inspired by the beauty of the cancer cells and entered her creation in the Good Cause Challenge.
Link Via Craftzine Image Via Glitter, Vinyl and Thread
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The Eilean Mor Lighthouse Mystery
One of the most eerie historical mysteries of all time is that of the strange disappearance of the three ligthouse keepers of Eilean Mor. Some even think they might have been abducted by a giant bird or squid… and, of course, by aliens. Others say they have gone mad and murdered each other. And then there is of course the theory of a very local tsunami on the west coast of Scotland…
The Flannan Islands had been marked by superstition from the time they were named for the obscure Saint Flan. It was said that the “Phantoms of the Seven Hunters” so resented the intrusion of the lighthouse that they lured the men over the cliff to their death…
As a matter of fact, Ducat did not want to be stationed at Eilean Mor. He seemed to have had some sort of a premonition and said it was “not the most suitable place for a man with a young family”.
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How to Pull a Tooth
With the help of a remote control car and a cat. I wish losing my baby teeth had been this fun! -via reddit
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Timelapse of swarming monster worms and sea stars
If you thought three-foot carnivorous worms and flesh-eating stars only occurred in science fiction, then welcome to the weird and wacky world of McMurdoe Sound. Despite near freezing temperatures, there is plenty of life in the shallow waters of Antarctica as nemertean worms and five-legged sea stars prowl along the seabed in search of food.
One of the most ambitious shoots BBC LIFE attempted, the sequence was filmed under the permanent ice of the Ross Sea. But because sea stars and nemertean worms move incredibly slowly, the team had to use time-lapse photography to bring them to life. The trickiest part, however, was trying to rig the gear under 8 feet of solid ice. Every piece of equipment had to be brought through a specially drilled hole in the ice and be monitored every day. In the end, it took the crew over 100 dives to get the sequence.
Link – via adaphorismos
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The 15 Best Prison Movies
A setting such as a prison, jail, work farm, or what have you is fertile fodder for drama, character, and plot in a story. So it’s no surprise that there have been a lot of films made with that setting as a centerpiece.
Gunaxin has compiled a list of the fifteen best, including one I would be riveted to every time it aired on HBO in the 80’s: Bad Boys starring Sean Penn, which landed at number seven on the list.
Shortly after portraying everyone’s favorite surfer dude Jeff Spicoli, Penn signed up to play a teen hood sent to a rough and tumble juvenile detention center reserved for the baddest of the bad. Gritty and brutal, this movie is not for the faint of heart.
Did your favorite make the list?
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Fisticup: Coffee Mug with Brass Knuckle Handle
Fisticup – $14.95
For many of us, mornings are rough. If so, fight back with a strong cup of coffee and a coffee mug that’s tough enough to carry you through the day. Behold, the Fisticup. Strangely, this will work well as a Christmas gift because nothing says "I Love You, Dad" like a coffee mug with a knuckleduster handle.
From the Neatorama Shop: Link (Quantities are very limited – order yours today. When we run out, we run out) | More Unusual and Fun Drinkwares
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Backlash Against Helicopter Parents
Like the proverb says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and parenting is no excuse. Nancy Gibbs of TIME Magazine wrote a very interesting article about the growing backlash against "helicopter parents":
The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s "pencil-holding deficiency," hooked up broadband connections in the treehouse but took down the swing set after the second skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground and practice field — "helicopter parents," teachers christened us, a phenomenon that spread to parents of all ages, races and regions. Stores began marketing stove-knob covers and "Kinderkords" (also known as leashes; they allow "three full feet of freedom for both you and your child") and Baby Kneepads (as if babies don’t come prepadded). The mayor of a Connecticut town agreed to chop down three hickory trees on one block after a woman worried that a stray nut might drop into her new swimming pool, where her nut-allergic grandson occasionally swam. A Texas school required parents wanting to help with the second-grade holiday party to have a background check first. Schools auctioned off the right to cut the carpool line and drop a child directly in front of the building — a spot that in other settings is known as handicapped parking.
We were so obsessed with our kids’ success that parenting turned into a form of product development. Parents demanded that nursery schools offer Mandarin, since it’s never too soon to prepare for the competition of a global economy. High school teachers received irate text messages from parents protesting an exam grade before class was even over; college deans described freshmen as "crispies," who arrived at college already burned out, and "teacups," who seemed ready to break at the tiniest stress.
Link (Photo: Hugh Kretschmer / TIME)
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Rise of the Japanese "Herbivores"
There’s a peculiar trend afoot that bucks the macho man culture in Japan: young men who are heterosexuals but say they aren’t interested in girls.
Away from the strutting are the retiring wallflowers, a quiet army of sweet young men with floppy hair and skinny jeans. These young men are becoming known as Japan’s "herbivores" — from the Japanese phrase for "grass-eating boys" — guys who are heterosexual but who say they aren’t really interested in matters of the flesh.
They are drawn to a quieter, less competitive life, focusing on family and friends — and eschewing the macho ways of the traditional Japanese male.
They include men such as Yukihiro Yoshida, a 20-something economics student, who is a self-confessed herbivore. "I don’t take initiative with women, I don’t talk to them," he says, blushing. "I’d welcome it if a girl talked to me, but I never take the first step myself."
Multiple recent surveys suggest that about 60 percent of young Japanese men — in their 20s and early 30s — identify themselves as herbivores. Their Sex and the City is a television show called Otomen, or Girly Guys. The lead character is a martial arts expert, the manliest guy in the whole school. But his secret passions include sewing, baking and crocheting clothes for his stuffed animals.
Don’t we simply used to call these guys nerds? Louisa Lim of NPR has the story: Link (Photo: Louisa Lim/NPR)
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Why Hammerhead Sharks Have Hammer Heads
Why do hammerhead sharks have, well, hammer-shaped heads? The mystery may now be solved: it’s all about binocular vision.
[Michelle McComb and Timothy Tricas] then placed sensors on the shark’s skin to measure its brain activity, specifically testing whether the animal would react to beams of light shone from different locations around the tank.
By doing so, they could measure each shark’s field of vision.
"This study confirmed that hammerhead sharks have anterior binocular vision," says Dr McComb.
That means they can see directly ahead while swimming and can accurately judge distance, particularly to any prey they hunt. What’s more, the researchers show that the degree of overlap between the two eyes increases with head width.
Previously on Neatorama: Stop! Hammerhead Time
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Flying with Cranky Kids: What Would You Do?
Last month, Pamela Root and her son Adam got kicked off a Southwest flight when the 2-year-old toddler got unruly during a pre-flight safety instruction. Later, Southwest apologizes and gave her vouchers for her inconvenience (though not for the decision to yank her off the flight).
Amy Alkon of Advice Goddess Columns disagrees with Southwest’s apology. She wrote this op-ed at the Los Angeles Times on how parents with unruly kids are "stealing from the rest of us":
There is a notion, reflected in numerous blog comments about the incident, that other passengers should "just deal" and "give a kid a break." This notion is wrong. Parents like Root and others who selfishly force the rest of us to pay the cost of their choices in life aren’t just bothering us; they’re stealing from us. Most people don’t see it this way, because what they’re stealing isn’t a thing we can grab on to, like a wallet. They’re stealing our attention, our time and our peace of mind.
More and more, we’re all victims of these many small muggings every day. Our perp doesn’t wear a ski mask or carry a gun; he wears Dockers and shouts into his iPhone in the line behind us at Starbucks, streaming his dull life into our brains, never considering for a moment whether our attention belongs to him. These little acts of social thuggery are inconsequential in and of themselves, but they add up — wearing away at our patience and good nature and making our daily lives feel like one big wrestling smackdown. [...]
I know, I know — because I am not a parent I cannot possibly understand how hard it is to keep a child from acting out. Actually, that probably has more to do with the way I was raised — by parents I describe as loving fascists. As a child, I was convinced that I could flap my arms and fly, but the idea that I could ever be loud in a public place that wasn’t a playground simply did not exist for me.
I hear claims that some children are prone to tantrums no matter how exquisitely they are parented. If this describes your child, there’s a solution, and it isn’t plopping him in a crowded metal tube with hundreds of people who can’t escape his screams except by throwing themselves to their deaths at 30,000 feet.
What do you think? Was Amy right? Link
(Photo: Karen T. Borchers / Mercury News)
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Santas Demand Flu Shots
The Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas is asking that costumed Santas be put on the priority list for swine flu vaccinations this year.
“I have heard across the country numerous Santas who have actually had the swine flu, but I have not heard reports back of any of our Santas being able to get the swine flu shot as of yet,” said AORBS president Nicholas Trolli, who claims the shots will not only benefit the Santas, but the public at large.
Another major Santa group, Santa America, is ordering its members to wash their suits daily, rather than weekly and to stop wearing gloves to make hand washing easier.
Link Image Via Steve Rhodes [Flickr]
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Bumper Car Cars
Did you know you can modify an old bumper car into an actual minicar? The results are pretty cool looking, as evidenced by these cars made by Tim Wright.
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The Green Flash
The “green flash” is not a superhero, but an optical phenomenon more talked about than seen.
The truth is the green flash does exist and its cause is well understood. Just as the setting Sun disappears completely from view, a last glimmer appears startlingly green… The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low, distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds… the effect is caused by layers of the Earth’s atmosphere acting like a prism.
There is a gallery of photos in Wikipedia; the one embedded above comes from the archives of Astronomy Picture of the Day, a wonderful source for photos of both astronomical and atmospheric phenomena.
Link.
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