Archive for March, 2007

Sandals You Can Drink to (or from).

With the Reef Dram Sandals, you can easily bring the drinks with you during those long romantic walks along the beach. Each sandal contains a generous three ounces of storage capacity for the drink or your choice (presumably hard alcohol). Link via Gizmodo

If you do plan to use these to stash some drinks for a date, at least remember a cup. Nothing kills a romantic moment like removing your sweaty sandals and sucking on them.

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Neatorama Shop » Shop by Character & Theme » Bacon Store
Bacon Watch	Bacon Wallet	Bacon Air Freshener
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3 Guys on 1 Guitar

Here’s three members of a band called Corpreal from Libertyville, Illinois all playing the same guitar. The songs appropriately called “All We Got”

I guess life is pretty tough as a starving musician. Maybe they’ll make enough money to each get their own guitar some day.
Link

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Desktop Tower Defense.

Desktop Tower Defense is a fun Flash game where you you have to stop your enemies from crossing your territory by installing defensive towers.

Link – via Didn’t You Hear

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Bathtub Sofa.

With this bathtub sofa from flavour design, you can stay in the tub all day! Link – via Smidigt

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The Bacon Tux!

There is a theory that "Everything is better with bacon," even fashion!

Online novelty store Archie McPhee has this Bacon Scented Bacon Print Tuxedo, tailored from chemically treated latex fabric print to smell like bacon sizzling in the pan!

Link – via J-Walk

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Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies
Pac-Man and Ghosts Candies	Bacon Gumballs	Nihilist Flavorless Mints
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Transfomer Transfiguration, a Suspicious Artwork.

A fun contest at Worth1000: fine arts that somehow seems suspiciously like counterfeits! I continue to be amazed at how good these photoshoppers are!

This one above is "a suspicious copy" of The Transfiguration by Raphael [wiki]

Link – via AQFL

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Mobius Chess.

Regular chess child play for you? Even the Extreme 3-D chess too easy for you? Then try mobius chess!

Puzzle: This chess board is on a Mobius strip. The length is infinite (and wraps) but the width is only four squares. There are no pieces on the hidden sides. Some of the pieces are hard to read: the White Queen is on top, the White King is on the left, and the Black King and Queen are on the right. Don’t worry about the direction of the Black Pawn.

White to move and mate in two.

Link (and solution) – via Cliff Pickover’s RealityCarnival

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"Pastafarian" Sent Home from School for Wearing Pirate Outfit.

Bryan Killian, who one day went to school wearing an eye patch and pirate accessory (um, an inflatable cutlass), was sent home. Now he’s fighting back, saying that the school violated his Freedom of religion:

“I feel like my First Amendment was violated,” Killian, 16, said. “Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That’s what I tried to do, and I got shot down.”

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his “pirate regalia” is part of his faith — the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The parody religion, whose “Pastafarian” members worship a sentient, airborne clump of noodles and meatballs, originated in a letter to the Kansas school board urging it to add the religion to its plans to teach evolution and intelligent design side by side.

Link

(Image credit: Steve Dixon)

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Light Acting Like a Liquid.

Image credit: Tatsunosuke Matsui, University of Utah

As if the wave-particle duality [wiki] isn’t weird enough, physicists at the University of Utah discovered something else that is strange about light: it can act as a liquid!

Picture shining a flashlight at your kitchen colander. While some of the light from the flashlight will travel through its holes, the solid part of the colander will keep much of the light from shining through.

In contrast, experiments described in the March 28 issue of the journal Nature demonstrated that terahertz radiation—a low-frequency light on the electromagnetic spectrum located between microwaves and mid-infrared regions—traveled around a thin sheet of metal, through patterned holes, and all of it came out the other side. Experts sometimes refer to this radiation as T-rays.

"You can get 100 percent transmission of light, even if holes only make up 20 percent of the area," University of Utah physicist Ajay Nahata told LiveScience. Nahata is one of the experimenters.

Link

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Is Dark Energy an Illusion?

Is dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy that acts in opposite to gravity at large scales, an illusion?

Astronomers were astonished to discover in 1998 that the expansion of the universe is happening at an ever-increasing rate. The mysterious repulsive force responsible for this was dubbed dark energy, though scientists still do not know what it is.

Now, physicist Syksy Rasanen of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, says we might not need dark energy after all. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the increasing rate of expansion might be due to the collapse of small regions of the universe under gravity, he says.

Link

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Do Fairies exist?

What appears to be the mummified remains of a fairy have been discovered in the Derbyshire countryside… The remains were discovered by a local man, who wishes to remain anonymous, while walking his dog along an old Roman road situated between the villages of Duffield and Belper…

The remains, complete with wings, skin, teeth and flowing red hair have been examined by anthropologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine.

Link – Presurfer

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L33t ads.

A recruitment ad doesn’t have to be understood by everyone, just by those who are qualified for the position, right? Some ads can leave the rest of us scratching our heads, like this billboard* seeking computer geeks. Texturl has more l33t advertising aimed at very specific audiences. Link -via Metafilter

*In case you’d like to try figuring this out on your own, I put the translation in the comments.

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The Perfect Wallet for Computer Nerds.

Zieak at Instructables has a great walkthrough on how to either make this wallet or a checkbook cover. All you need is a spare keyboard and clear packing tape. Link

Want something equally unique, but a little less nerdy? Try the duct tape wallet.

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Meet the Sciopods.

This peculiar character is nicely described in Field Guide to Monsters of the World:

First described in AD 77 by the elder Pliny in his masterpiece, Historia Naturalis, their name is Latin for ‘shade-foot.’ Also known as Monoscelans or “monopods,” these humanoids featured in stories told by Medieval writers such as Thomas de Mandeville, and they regularly appeared in illustrated religious texts, bestiaries and maps of the world. Their native region is often stated as Ethiopia, though they’ve been reported as far off as Libya, and they’re known for their habit of reclining at midday and using their single huge foot as a parasol against the blazing sun. As they keep cool in the shade, the sun bakes their soles into hard, black leather.

Tough soles aren’t a drawback, though, as the Sciopods’ feet are subject to a lot of punishment as they hop around the countryside. Being one-footed doesn’t slow them down, either. A Sciopod’s leg is enormously powerful, and the long hops it
makes can propel it faster than a horse and rider, and almost as fast as gazelles. That strong leg and hardened foot is useful in combat, too; a Sciopod’s kick can kill an armored man or break through a brick wall.

Travelers don’t have to worry about being chased down and kicked to death by these people, though; unlike some of the more savage humanoids, the Sciopods are entirely non-violent except as a last resort in self-defense. Not only are they vegetarian, but they don’t even kill plants. Instead, the Sciopods get all their nourishment from the aroma of the living fruit-plants they all carry. Should a Sciopod’s plant die or be taken from him, the powerful but delicate one-legged man will perish soon after.

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West Virgina.

The West Virginia Mountaineers won the National Invitational (basketball) Tournament (NIT) by beating Clemson 78-73. As they celebrated their win, the team was handed commemorative t-shirts printed by the NIT. Tournament sponsors normally print up t-shirts for both teams in the championship game, then destroy the unused shirts with the losing team name. You can tell they printed these in a hurry, because they misspelled West Virginia. The final “i” is missing! Link

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Use Your Hands as Mouse

This application called Podtech recognizes the shapes in the image, distinguishes your gestures and acts as a mouse so you can move things around the desktop using only your hands. I’d like to play Warcraft with this thing!

Link [youtube video] – via Chaosware

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Madrid - New York in Google Maps

If you ever plan to motor west… Don’t use Google Maps to trace your route. In the step 40 you can read

“40. Cruzar el Atlántico a nado, 5.572km”

It means:

“40. Swim across the Atlantic ocean, 5,572km”

Link

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Whoosh Boom Splat: How to Build a Potato Gun.

Here’s a funny ad (but don’t try this at home, kids) for William Gurstelle’s new book Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior’s Guide to Building Projectile Shooters.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Bill!

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VIZCap.

The VIZcap is a new bottle/cap system that allows one to store vitamins and supplements dry (so they don’t lose potency) in the cap of a bottle.

Once you’re ready to drink, just push the top to release the mix into the liquid, shake, and drink.

Link – Thanks Stephen McMennamy!

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Weird Japanese Climbing Wall.

This climbing wall in Japan uses picture frames, mirrors, and deer’s head as climbing holds!

Link – Thanks Rocky!

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Neatorama Shop » Computer & Office » Road Mice
	Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a wireless cool computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Corvette shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life!
See more Road Mice »

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Take a Cork Out of the Bottle Without Breaking It.

Here’s a magic trick for you: push a cork into a bottle and take it out without breaking the bottle!

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Chanel!

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The Arusha Cleaner: Paper Bag Waste to Souvenir Dolls.

Ramadhani "The Arusha Cleaner" Juma is a guy in Arusha, Tanzania, who got the brilliant idea of collecting plastic bag that lying around the city as garbage, making them into puppets, and selling them to tourists!

A few years ago i decided that I wanted to do something about that. In 2002 I started to collect plastic waste bags to make puppets out of them. In that way I helped keep the environment clean, and provided a living for my family. They help me with the sewing of the puppets.

Link – Thanks Marten!

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Overclocked.

Setting the clock, or setting the time? From Sheepfilms, who has more surrealistic clips here. Push play or go to Revver. -via b3ta

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Boy survives 90-foot fall.

Five-year-old Young-Jin Kim fell nine floors from the balcony of his apartment in Hamilton, Ontario and survived! The ground was soft from recent rains, which probably saved his life. He left the imprint you see in the picture. The boy suffered two broken legs and a broken pelvis, but no life-threatening injuries. Link -via Arbroath

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7 Great Sports Scams, Scandals, and Hoaxes.

Some say the U.S. national pastime is baseball. Others say it’s football. Or basketball. Or jai alai. But you can forget all those, because these seven examples prove that when it comes to sports, mankind’s favorite pastime is lying, cheating, pulling pranks, and spreading hoaxes! Play ball! 1. A Black Pox on the Black Sox The 1919 Chicago White Sox Team Photo (Image Credit: Wikipedia) This is pretty much the mac-daddy of all sports scandals. The 1919 Chicago White Sox was one of the greatest baseball teams ever to take the field, including superstar left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. But two gamblers, "Sleepy Bill" Burns and Billy Maharg, backed up by gangster Arnold Rothstein, changed that by bribing eight players with $100,000 to throw the World Series [wiki]. The fix was a success, the Sox lost, and nobody really suspected a thing until late in the next season, when the eight players were indicted.  Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all from baseball for life, and they all had it coming. Except one. "Shoeless" Joe did all he could to avoid being involved: he told Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the scam, but was ignored; he asked to be benched for the Series, but was refused; he even batted .375 for the Series and had 12 base hits (a Series record at the time) and the only home run. Due to the scandal, Jackson is still not in the Hall of Fame, though many players have supported his induction. 2. Stella "the Fella" Walsh In 1980, a 69-year-old member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping mall. Police immediately ascertained that the victim was Stella Walsh, the greatest female track-and-field athlete of her day. Stella, born Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Poland, won a gold medal for Poland at the 1932 Olympics and a silver in 1936, and set 20 world records. But when the police took the body to be autopsied, they found something very unusual on the 69-year-old woman: male genitals?! Further studies showed that she … er, he … had both male and female chromosomes, a condition called mosaicism. When the shocking news got out, it took approximately 2.7 seconds for the great runner to get a new nickname: Stella the Fella. 3. Mighty Sports Illustrated Fans Strike Out The greatest baseball pitcher of all time was actually a figment of George Plimpton’s imagination. His article for the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Illustrated was entitled "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch." It told the story of an English orphan, raised by an archaeologist, educated at Harvard, and trained by a yogi in Tibet, who showed up at the Mets training camp in Florida. He could throw a fastball at 168 mph (the record at the time was a comparatively sluggish 103) and preferred to pitch with one foot bare and the other in a large hiking boot. As of the magazine’s publishing date, Finch hadn’t yet decided if he was going to play for the Mets. The response was massive. Sports Illustrated received over 2,000 letters immediately following the story, many expressing their hopes that Sidd would play. Two weeks later, the magazine fessed up to their hoax. Of course, the clever Plimpton had included a subtle clue in the article’s subhead: "He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent lifestyle, Sidd’s deciding about yoga …" Confused? Just take the first letter of each word: "happyaprilfoolsday." 4. Rosie the (Underhanded) Runner On April 21, 1980, a young woman crossed the finish line to win the 84th Boston Marathon in the record time of 02:31:56. For someone who had just ran over 26 miles, Rosie Ruiz [wiki] looked notably sweatless and un-rubbery in the legs. Race officials checked photos and video from various spots in the race, and Ruiz appeared in none of them. So how did she do it? Here’s the prevailing theory: She started the race with the others, then left the course, hopped a subway, then reentered the course about a half mile from the finish line. She was disqualified and stripped of her title. So, how’d she fine tune her con? By cheating in another marathon, of course. Rosie had sneaked her way past New York Marathon officials, and her time qualified her for the Boston race. 5. Simonya Popova: aka How the Women’s Tennis Association Got Served With the advent of computer-generated imagery, the art of the hoax really came into its own. Take the case of Simonya Popova, a female teenage tennis sensation from Uzbekistan who made Anna Kournikova look like Billy Jean King. In the fall of 2002, a Jon Wertheim article in Sports Illustrated profiled Popova, proclaiming her the next great phenom on the tennis circuit. It covered five pages and even had a picture. But Popova was a complete fiction; her image was computer generated. Even the name Simonya was chosen as reference to SimOne, a movie about a computer-generated actress who becomes a star. The story was done as a fictional what-if, intended to be a comment on tennis’s need for a hot new superstar to give the sport some mojo. But the Women’s Tennis Association wasn’t exactly amused. A spokeswoman for the organization lambasted the magazine, claiming they should’ve used the five pages to cover real tennis players. And, for the record, they said, "We have tons of mojo." 6. The Great Potato Caper The date: August 28, 1987. The scene: Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The AA Reading Phillies were in town to play the hometown Williamsport Bills, when Bills catcher Dave Bresnahan decided to pull a stunt he’d been thinking about for weeks. With a runner on third, Bresnahan threw the ball over to the head of the third baseman and into the outfield. The runner jogged home, thinking he had an easy run. But unbeknownst to him and the 3,500 fans at the game, Bresnahan still had the ball. The object he had thrown was a potato, meticulously peeled and shaped to look like a baseball. Everyone got a chuckle out of the hoax. Everyone, that is, except Williamsport manager Orlando Gomez, who promptly ejected Bresnahan and fined him a whopping $50. Bresnahan had the last laugh, though: Instead of the money, he gave Gomez 50 potatoes. 7. A Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl Is a Rose Bowl (Except When CalTech’s Involved) It seems fitting that what is widely regarded as the greatest college prank of all time was pulled off by the college where pranking is practically a major: CalTech. (Students once changed the well-known "Hollywood" sign to read "CalTech," despite the massive security around the joint.) Since the Rose Bowl game is played in CalTech’s backyard of Pasadena, the students and their head pranksters, the Fiendish 14, were miffed at the lack of publicity the event generated for their school. So they finally decided to take it out on the game’s participants in 1961 (neither of which happened to be CalTech – the game was between the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota). The students learned of an elaborate halftime spectacle planned by the Washington cheerleaders that involved 2,232 flip cards. One CalTech student, disguised as a high school newspaper reporter, interviewed Washington’s head cheerleader to learn their plan. The CalTech students then stole on of the instruction sheets, made 2,232 copies of it, altered each one by hand [wiki], then swapped them with real cards while the cheerleaders were visiting Disneyland. The next day, live on national television, thousands of Huskies fans held up cards to make a picture of a Husky. Instead, viewers saw a Beaver, CalTech’s mascot. One of the next card formations read "Seiksuh" (read it backward and you’ll get it). And finally, the pièce de résistance: The cards read, in giant letters, "CalTech."

From mental_floss’ book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History’s Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission. Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog!

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VideoSift: Nature Channel.

It’s VideoSift time! Let’s check out their nature channel: (this turned out to be harder than I thought, because a lot of the neat clips had wormed their ways to Neatorama already, but don’t worry – VideoSift got plenty more) The cutest clip you’ll see today: sleepy otters holding hands while floating in the pond … What? Not cuter than the ticklish baby koala, you say? How about Mocha the hamster eating its first broccoli? Yum! Can’t call it the nature channel without the prerequisite strange animal matings, now can we? So, here’s the weird mating habit of … slugs! Link Nature’s not all about cute animals – something disturbing: parasites that live on our skin. "At any given time, there are as many creatures on our bodies as there are people on earth." If you’re squeamish, do not – I repeat – do not watch this: Link Nature can be scary: here’s some amazing footage of tornadoes, flash floods in Israel and Australia, and last but not least: the gates of hell itself (in Centralia, PA, no less!) (Yay! I spelled "scary" correctly for a change!) Let’s end with something truly relaxing – from the Cloud Appreciation Society: a beautiful clip on clouds and soaring high above them. Link For more the web’s most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.

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Bizarro: "American" Crash Test Dummy.

Here’s our weekly collaboration with Dan Piraro – don’t forget to check out: Bizarro

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How NOT to Pickup a Woman.

Men – have you ever had a few great dates, but then when you take the belle to your pad everything cools off? If so, the problem might not be you, but your apartment.

Take the guy in this picture, who refuses to take down his stuffed baby seal when women come over. Or a 70 year old wealthy suitor whose walls are pink and cabinets are singularly filled with canned milk so he never needs to go shopping. Sounds appealing, right ladies?

More examples and tips for revamping your place via the New York Times.

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Gotcha Box.

Don’t you just love the look on someone’s face when they unwrap a present only to find that it contains something — tasteless? pointless? absurd? And you see them, just for a moment, working out how to smile naturally and say something like "Wow! Another singing fish for my collection. Thanks, Uncle Walter."

The Onion Store offers Gotcha Boxes to achieve that special moment of cognitive dissonance without the lasting effects:

Real Boxes. Fake Products.
Give that special someone a gift that will confuse, disappoint and
possibly anger. Give it to them in an Onion GotchaBoxâ„¢. These special
gift boxes, printed with fake product graphics and descriptions, hold
your actual gifts inside. The victim/recipient will congratulate you
(eventually) for providing them an utterly perplexing and wonderfully
humbling moment.

Via Real Tech News

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We Are Happy To Serve You Mug.

For those who don’t know, the graphics on the mug are featured on deli coffee cups all over New York City, it’s as New York as the footlong and knish combo at Madison Square Garden. The maker of the mug version really thought this one out, replicating the shape and approximate size of the original. The best part of the cup is the thickness and matte finish… ahh, it feels great in your hand. The finishing detail is that they’ve included a raised strip, replicating the area where the paper is glued together (never realized how functional for grip this is). Everyone loves this thing.

As seen on Turntable Lab.

Update > You can check out their very own website right here. Thanks Anne!

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Neatorama Shop » Computer & Office » Road Mice
	Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a wireless cool computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Corvette shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life!
See more Road Mice »

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