In this series called Starlight Meadows, Jason King is trying to tell us a story "about an imaginary world, a very small imaginary world populated with people that appear to be half-animal, like a primitive mythology". The political commentary shines through his animal-masked subjects.
Cooks by day, rappers by night: New York Chinatown’s rap group Notorious MSG is hilarious. If you don’t like rap or don’t appreciate satire, then skip this one.
Petaluma animal control workers expected to find a horde of cats when they knocked on the door of a 67-year-old man whose neighbor complained of stench. Instead, they stumbled onto a scene straight out the movie, "Willard."
About 1,000 pet rats — ranging from 3-year-old adults to little, pink newborns — shared the one-room house with Roger Dier.
Ah, funny retro fashion never ceases to tickle our fancy. James Lileks wrote about this one above:
Don’t think we listen? Oh, we listen! We asked you, and you, and you: what’s the fresh new look for the season? And the answer always came back the same: you want to look like an aging French gigilo trying to blend into a harlequin convention.
Here our man Yves contemplates his next move. Dinner at the Ritz? The Opera? Servicing a married man who will throw the money at him afterwards and get angry? Je ne sais pas! Whatever the night demands, make sure your waistband is equidistant from crotch to nape. And keep a hand in your pocket where you keep the knife. The streets c’est froid, mon ami – but stylin’!
This went ’round the Net a month or two ago (we’re very late on this one. It’s one of the most watched clip on YouTube). Watch closely – do you think it’s fake? Watch the pedestrians …
The intersection in the video clip seems to be Westminster and Harbor [Google Earth] in Santa Ana, Southern California. – via Vudeja
Posted by Alex in Art on June 25, 2006 at 12:35 am
Artist (and engineer!) Jenny Chowdhury built this portable phone booth to provide privacy for cell phone talkers…
As I grappled with these issues of privacy, personal space and nostalgia for a "simpler time", the idea for portable phone booth was born. The portable phone booth, which I call the "Cell Atlantic CellBooth", is a wearable object you can carry around with you and set up when you need a moment to talk . The deliberate nature of setting up the booth and standing in place while one talks enforces the idea that the call is important -not something to do while picking up the kids, working out, or driving. Ultimately, I desired to recreate the illusion of privacy and stillness afforded by oldschool, 4-walled phone booths, but also to update the booth as a portable object that would fit into a modern life.
If you can afford Boca Raton Resort and Club’s membership fee of $40,000 and additional yearly fee of $3,600, then this $100 hamburger is probably cheap for you:
Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams could barely speak between bites as he devoured the 20-ounce, $100 hamburger billed as the "beluga caviar of sandwiches."
At about 5 1/2 inches across and 2 1/2 inches thick, the mound of meat is comprised of beef from three continents — American prime beef, Japanese Kobe and Argentine cattle.
The bill for one burger, with garnishing that includes organic greens, exotic mushrooms and tomatoes, comes out to $124.50 with tax and an 18 percent tip included. The restaurant will donate $10 from each sale to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Neatorama reader Richard Joslin suggested this photo of a blender powered by a V8 engine (?), built by Jim Mason:
HOLY COW!!!! The gas-powered flame-throwing margarita mixer that puts the one you posted earlier look like NOTHIN!!!
I’ve seen it in action – it runs on an electric motor that actually moves the pistons up and down in normal fashion at very high speed – a tank of propane supplies the flames. There is also a stick shifter to control speeds in typical 4-speed auto configuration.
A neat collection of photos of Japan’s futuristic flood prevention system called G-CANS [wiki] in Edogawa:
The G-Cans project (Shutoken Gaikaku Housui Ro, means drain outer Tokyo metropolitan area.) is an underground infrastructure in Tokyo, Japan built for preventing overflow of the city’s major waterways and rivers during rain and typhoon seasons.
Work on the project started in 1992; it consists of five concrete containment silos with a height of 65 m and a diameter of 32 m, connected by 6.4 km of tunnels, 50 m beneath the surface, as well as a large water tank with a height of 25.4m, with a length of 177m, with a width of 78m, and with 59 massive pillars connected to a number of 14,000 horsepower (10 MW) turbines that can pump up to 200 tons of water into the Edogawa river per second.
The G-Cans project is also a tourist attraction, and can be visited for free. The main water tank resembles a temple and has been used in some movies and TV programs to create mystic scenes.
Separated from them by a yellow wire he thinks is an electric fence, Whopper the trained bear impresses some Boy Scouts. His trainer dreams of setting aside enough wild land in California so that the state animal can roam as it did before it disappeared from the state in the 1920s. (California, 1999)
What would happen if a large meteor hits the earth? This Japanese animation illustrates this doomsday scenario in terrifying clarity.
The earth’s crust of 10km in thickness where ground in the earth is composed is wholly peeled off. This is called,"Earth’s crust tidal wave". There is 1km width of the rock, and it flies to the sky it by the impact. The impact surges to the Japanese Islands and,as a result, the Japanese Islands are crushed. The splinter of the crushed rock easily exceeds the height of 1000Km. After exceeding the atmosphere it reaches space. Afterwards, the splinter of the rock falls again in surface of the earth. The edge of Crater completed by the collision of the meteorite is 7000m in height. It looks like a huge mountain range. The diameter of Crater has 4000Km. Crater is big to swallow a part from Guam to a Chinese continent. But,it was only an introductory chapter of the tragedy that would start in the future…..
Posted by Alex in Politics on June 24, 2006 at 1:01 am
Saddam Husein ended his hunger strike after missing just one meal….
The former Iraqi leader had refused lunch on Thursday in protest at the killing of one of his lawyers by gunmen, but the spokesman said he ate his evening meal.
Remember the tree branch bike previously on Neatorama? Here’s another cool wooden bike: Flickr user Kenpower snapped this photo of a working wooden bike with unconventional "handle bar" on his trip to Kashgar, China. Link
And of course, you can browse through some awesome bikes on Make Blog: Link
Gary McKinnon hacked into NASA websites looking for evidence of UFO and found this:
I had remote control of their desktop, and by adjusting it to 4-bit color and low screen resolution, I was able to briefly see one of these pictures. It was a silvery, cigar-shaped object with geodesic spheres on either side. There were no visible seams or riveting. There was no reference to the size of the object and the picture was taken presumably by a satellite looking down on it. The object didn’t look manmade or anything like what we have created. Because I was using a Java application, I could only get a screenshot of the picture — it did not go into my temporary internet files. At my crowning moment, someone at NASA discovered what I was doing and I was disconnected.
I also got access to Excel spreadsheets. One was titled "Non-Terrestrial Officers." It contained names and ranks of U.S. Air Force personnel who are not registered anywhere else. It also contained information about ship-to-ship transfers, but I’ve never seen the names of these ships noted anywhere else.
Uncle Sam was not amused and tried to extradite him to be tried in the US.
It took me 2 years and I tried everything I could think of. Pneumatic tires, bigger wheels, stronger motors, and my favorite, a hellish jet ski/snowmobile looking thing with wheels. The last one was ugly, expensive, and will make someone a strong anchor. My father-in-law was in my garage one day and I was complaining about my latest plight and he said, "Wouldn’t it be neat if you could put some tracks on it? Like a tank?"
The light bulbs went off in my head and we hit the computer to see who has tracks out there. We found the tracks you see on the tankchair. I won’t bore anyone with my next challenges but we worked them all out.
My wife went "hiking" for the first time since her accident, (over five years ago) and the smile on her face was a sight to behold. My wife has a smile that can rival a sunrise. We have taken the tankchair through snow, mud, sand, gravel, upstairs, and downstairs. This chair isn’t the answer to someone who is paralyzed, but it can give them ALOT more options. Turns out that other people want a Tankchair so I’m going in debt and am going to build them. Everyone needs to be custom made because of different factors for the client. Their injury, weight, and physical size all come into play. The tankchair I built for my wife wont work for someone who weighs 300 pounds and has a T1 break. But I can build one for that person. It will just look a little different for their safety.
Posted by Alex in Fashion on June 23, 2006 at 11:18 am
An international research team has discovered three shell beads that are between 90,000 and 100,000 years old and suspect that they’re ancient jewelry.
Two of the ancient beads come from Skhul Cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel. The other comes from the site of Oued Djebbana in Algeria.
The finds, which pre-date other ancient examples by 25,000 years, are described in the US journal Science.
The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or bracelet, the researchers believe.
During spring in Denmark, at approximately one half an hour before sunset, flocks of more than a million European starlings (sturnus vulgaris) gather from all corners to join in the incredible formations shown above. This phenomenon is called Black Sun (in Denmark), and can be witnessed in early spring throughout the marshlands of western Denmark, from March through to the middle of April. The starlings migrate from the south and spend the day in the meadows gathering food, sleeping in the reeds during the night. The best place to view this amazing aerial dance is in the place called "Tøndermarsken," where these pictures were taken (on April 5 from 19.30 to 20.30 local time).
So, you’re out in the boonies and you’re jonesin’ for some nice cold, blended margarita. What to do, what to do? Just pull out the gas-powered blender and you’re good to go!
The maker phinch wrote:
You’ll need a gas powered weed wacker type trimmer. If you use an electric trimmer, you’ve pretty much missed the point of this project.
Of course, I’m still working on how to make ice without electricity.
This ingenious device "helps you improve communication with other drivers and express yourself" said the maker. This means you can say thanks to the driver who let you into his lane, or flip a high-tech finger to someone behind you – all with a flick of a button.
Just remember this: a high-tech flip-off may result in a primitive road rage response of running you off the road.
Happy Ivy doesn’t have a bathroom or a kitchen in the bus he calls home. He does, however, have a video-editing station.
Living in a squalid, Woodstock-style bus parked in a Fillmore, California, orange grove, the 53-year-old homeless man charges a power generator from a utility shed and uses Wi-Fi from a nearby access point. From this humble camp, he’s managed to run a ’round-the-clock internet television studio, organize grassroots political efforts, record a full-length album and write his autobiography, all while subsisting on oranges and avocados.
Apparently, the Net is more important for the homeless than ever before:
Many of those now living without a permanent roof over their heads have cell phones in their pockets or laptop computers at their hips. While people living in shelters and alleys have found it difficult to cross social divides, the digital divide seems to disappear on the streets. Nearly all homeless people have e-mail addresses, according to Michael Stoops, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. "More have e-mail than have post office boxes," Stoops said. "The internet has been a big boon to the homeless."
Matt Harding got the travel bug – and boy, did he travel. And danced. Badly. Well, anyhow, we think it’s some form of dancing …
In February of 2003, [Matt]quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around the planet until it ran out.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. This turned out to be a very good idea. Now Matt is quasi-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet.No, not that guy. The other one.No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny."
The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride long-lasting gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.
At the start of 2006, Matt left on a 6 month trip through 39 countries on all 7 continents. In that time, he danced a great deal.
Hit play to see some of the cool places he’s been or go to Link [YouTube]. My favorite is when he danced on Kjeragbolten. Don’t forget to visit his website: WheretheHellisMatt – Thanks Martin Lopez!
It’s like the nursery rhyme Goldilocks, but in reverse: a woman in West Vancouver came home to find a bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen!
"It appeared to be a one to two-year-old bear – a juvenile – within the kitchen enjoying some oatmeal it had obtained by breaking a ceramic food container," Sgt Skelton said.
But the bear paid scant attention as police arrived on the scene, and continued tucking in with little sign of fear or remorse.
"The bear didn’t appear to be aggressive and wasn’t destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing.
"Eventually the bear decided to make its way out of the residence and down toward a forested gully," Sgt Skelton said.
Tom Zarrilli is a yard sale addict. He has spent nearly every saturday morning for the last 20 years going to yard sale in various neighborhoods in Atlanta (he rarely buys anything, but he always goes!) And he’s got photos and a blog to prove it!
The photo above is from a yard sale in Lake Claire [wiki], Atlanta, where interestingly enough, there never was an actual lake there. It’s telling, don’t you think: a wax candle of Lenin, bunnies, and a Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD!
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