HOME |
RSS | 
The Sea Organ (morske orgulje) is located on the shores of Zadar,
Croatia, and is the world’s first pipe organ that is played by the sea.
Simple and elegant steps, carved in white stone, were built on the
quayside. Underneath, there are 35 pipes with whistle openings on the
sidewalk. The movement of the sea pushes air through, and – depending
on the size and velocity of the wave – musical chords are played. The
waves create random harmonic sounds.
– Odd Music.com
More information and an audio file at the link. Via Mirabilis
Bloggers often struggle with ways to expand their readership. Over the life of a blog most bloggers will, at least once, resort to dubious schemes to increase traffic. John Wesley brainstormed a few of his own schemes via a series of funny hand-drawn comics. See his whole brainstorming session at Pick the Brain.
World-famous physicist Stephen Hawking experienced eight rounds of weightlessness on Thursday during a better-than-expected airplane flight that he saw as the first step toward a trip in space. Link (There is also a must see video).
3 Delicious Animals We Charbroiled Into Extinction – and 1 That Tasted Nasty But We Killed It Anyway"Good to the last drop" proved to be a great slogan for Maxwell House coffee. But the "Good to the last existing representation of the species" tagline hasn’t worked so well for these delectable creatures. Here are four animals that prove that slow and tasty never wins the race. The Dodo
The Sea Cow
They were big, slow, tasty, and defenseless, all of which is a bad combination around a slew of hungry humans. A cold-water relative of the manatee and dugong, the sea cow was discovered by Europeans in 1741 when the explorer Vitus Bering and his crew were shipwrecked in the area between Siberia and Alaska. And since the adventurous lot couldn’t really explore the land, they took to exploring their palate. Our shipwrecked gourmands quickly discovered that sea cow [wiki] meat tasted like veal and remained fresh for a surprisingly long time. And there was a lot of meat, too, since the beast reached as much as 26 feet in length and weighed up to 8 tons. They resembled a modern manatee, with looks like your mother-in-law – if your mother-in-law has big expressive brown eyes, a small head, external ears the size of peas, and bristling whiskers. Estimates are that only about 20% of the sea cows shot or harpooned were actually caught, but they all died. By 1768, the gentle, delicious beasts were naught but lip-smacking memories. The Great Auk
The Passenger Pigeon
|
|
 |
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!
|
Imagine walking into your local bank and being greeted by the live horse and a passed-out drunk seen above? That’s what happened to one early morning bank customer in Berlin on Tuesday.
The German rider, identified as “Wolfgang H.”, said he had a “a few beers” and decided to sleep them off in the bank’s foyer. His horse, Sammy, apparently decided to make his own deposit while he slept. Link [Washington Post]
Renault-Nissan and Indian carmaker Tata Motors are both planning to introduce sub-compact cars for under $3,000 next year. While the cars are being marketed to developing nations, I’d probably buy one if it came with a warranty (even if it does only have a 33-horsepower engine). via treehugger
The Chaoscope website offers a 3D strange attractors rendering software, an ongoing project created and maintained by Nicolas Desprez . The images in the gallery are gorgeous, and you can make your own if you’re clever enough.
Game designers are creative people…but sometimes, they get lazy. That’s when we start seeing video game characters who look just like celebrities.
What do you think? Does the second guy in your family in Family Feud on the Genesis look like Chuck Norris [wiki]?
You can read the piece here. Found at Digg.
What could possibly happen when a can of Pepsi is sent back to 1885?
Back in 1985, Pepsi made this neat commercial.
Click play or go to Link [YouTube].
Note: this story was debunked by Cerebral Soup, as quoted in this post. It was subsequently declared an official urban legend by Snopes That said, here’s the original post:
OK. Maybe it’s an urban legend in the making and maybe not, but the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep. Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say
were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were
poodles.
company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable
accessories, available at $1,600 each.
that much in Japan.
went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or
eat dog food.
they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.
One couple said they became suspicious when they took their
"dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.
Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by
the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact
that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look
like.
Cerebral Soup (from Japan) is thus far the first blog I’ve found that uses facts (rather than simple cries of incredulity) to critique the story:
* another couple of blogs support that the actress was not talking about herself but a “friend”
* Hokkaido is not a huge place – and it just happens to be the centre of sheep breeding in Japan. There are even sheep festivals.
* as popular dogs go Toy Poodles are in the top 5. They are all over the TV. You can’t miss them. Not only that but there are also several Japanese websites dedicated to poodles, poodle clubs and breeder sites. You can’t walk into a pet store without seeing one. Poodles are everywhere.
* It seems very odd that this breaking story does not appear anywhere in the Japanese media. Now this is exactly the kind of story most news shows would spend hours on screening – complete with tearful, blurred out victims, and the anchors being able to express total outrage. Thorough investigations into the differences between poodles and lambs. A few “experts” in ties thrown in to give it all credibility. For sure Wai-wai would have jumped all over it months ago. [I checked WaiWai, and there's nothing--g]
* this blog entry. . . tells the exact same story as the actress – which was told to him by a co-worker when they went out drinking. Almost word for word it is the same story that Maiko Kawakami told on the TV show on April 18. X-san takes their “poodle” to a vet because they think it’s ill. The vet reveals that the “poodle” is not ill – but a sheep!
On this evidence, I’m going to posit that Ananova, Sydney Morning Herald, Metro UK, The Register, and a variety of other British and Australian media outlets have been fleeced — and Neatorama readers might well have been the first to bring this to the attention of the American media.
“The electric board will stop tracking the ducks, but the stove has been burning for about a century and a half, and the fire will never die out,” Jiang Junxian, chairman of the board of Quanjude Group Co. Ltd. said in an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday.
He said the restaurant will keep embers burning in an ancient cooking vessel that will be kept on-site during the renovations. According to Jiang, special staff will be assigned to add fuel each day to keep the fires burning.
From 1963, the first TV ad featuring the character Ronald McDonald. {wiki} You might recognize NBC weatherman Willard Scott under the makeup. -via Random Good Stuff
This piano piece was created by assigning notes to the digits 0 through 9 in the constant known as pi. Pi has no repetitive patterns, so the piece sounds random, but has a mathematical beauty all its own. Link -via Everlasting Blort
| The following is reprinted from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.
More of the stories we now recognize as American myth, but were taught as history for many years. These might surprise you. MANHATTAN ISLAND
The Truth: Minuit did give 60 guilders (roughly $24) worth of beads, knives, axes, clothes, and rum to Chief Seyseys of the Canarsee tribe “to let us live amongst them” on Manhattan Island—but the Canarsee actually got the best of the deal…because they didn’t own the island in the first place. They lived on the other side of the East River, in Brooklyn, and only visited the southern tip of Manhattan to fish and hunt. The Weckquaesgeeks tribe, which lived on the upper three-fourths of the island, had a much stronger claim to the island, and were furious when they learned they’d been left out of the deal. They fought with the Dutch settlers for years until the Dutch finally paid them, too. THE LIBERTY BELL
The Truth: The bell, installed in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in 1753, was almost bartered off as scrap metal in 1828 when the building was being refurbished. According to one account, “The Philadelphia city fathers…contracted John Wilbank, a bell maker from Germantown, Pennsylvania, to cast a re-placement for the Liberty Bell. He agreed to knock $400 off his bill in exchange for the 2,000-pound relic. When Wilbank went to collect it, however, he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. ‘Drayage costs more than the bell’s worth,’ he said.” The city of Philadelphia actually sued to force him to take it. But Wilbank just gave it back to them as a gift, “unaware that he’d just bartered away what would become the most venerated symbol of American independence.” WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE
The Myth: Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting is a dramatically accurate portrayal of General Washington’s famous crossing. The Truth: According to Scott Morris, there are inaccuracies. HAMILTON WAS AN INNOCENT VICTIM
The Myth: Alexander Hamilton, who was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804, was too decent a man to shoot his rival. So he shot in the air instead…and died when Burr paid him back by shooting to kill. The Truth: “For nearly two centuries,” Steve Talley writes in Bland Ambition, “history saw Hamilton as something of a martyr who…never meant to harm Burr. But it now appears that he lost the duel…because he tried to use an unfair advantage to kill the vice president.” Talley continues: Reprinted from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. ©1999 by the Bathroom Reader’s Press. |
|
 |
The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader.
This special edition book covers the three “lost” Bathroom Readers – Uncle John’s 5th, 6th and 7th book all in one. The huge (and hugely entertaining) volume covers neat stories like the Strange Fate of the Dodo Bird, the Secrets of Mona Lisa, and more… Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute
|
It’s rare that a sitting U.S. President engages in a debate, but President Bush made an exception to debate the one political figure who could match his intellect and oratory skills. Hit play, or click on the Link [Comedy Central], to enjoy this historic moment.
Comments Off
Of course not all jobs are constantly tedious through and through, but only a bunch of precious few jobs are exent of periodical boredom. And it is when boredom kicks in that something beautiful happens: people seek refuge from despair in drawing away, or making unexpected sculptures, writing rhymes… That is the Artwork from the Workplace.
Submissions are welcome. Link Thanks, jonkysit!
The article below is reprinted from Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S. by Alex Boese. Technology junkies are always eager to buy the most up-to-date doodad that will make their lives easier in a thousand ways. They spend hours fantasizing about the cool new stuff engineers are dreaming up. (I know because I’m a technology junkie myself.) This may keep them off the streets and out of trouble, but it also makes them vulnerable to hoaxes. Technology junkies must watch out for three main categories of deception: phony product rumors, vaporware, and nonexistent products. What they are: False leaks that purport to provide details about highly anticipated new products. Photos are often doctored or staged to add credibility. Hoaxes of this kind are typically work of amaetur pranksters, though some suspect that professional marketers use them to create buzz about upcoming products. Example: Three days before the 2004 Apple Expo in Paris, while Mac fans were busy speculating what new hardware Steve Jobs would unveil at the show, photos appeared online showing a flat-panel contraption said to be the new iMac G5. The photos, supposedly taken in an elevator at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, turned out to be bogus. The so-called flat-panel iMac G5 was just a LaCie LCD monitor stuffed inside a PowerBook box. Similar hoaxes preceded the arrival of the Tungsten T5 handheld and the newest versions of popular games such as Half-Life. As a result, tech fans have learned to take all rumors (even ones acocmpanied by photos) with a grain of salt. What it is: Technology that a manufacturer promises will soon arrive in stores but that keeps getting delayed and never materializes because the imminent availability of the product was deceptively announced while the product was actually in the early stages of development and not ready for the market Another notorious vaporware product is Microsoft’s Longhorn operating system, which was supposed to be shipped in 2004 after long years of development, but didn’t. A popular joke is that Longhorn has been renamed Longwait, and will eventually come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever. [Note: Longhorn or Windows Vista was finally shipped in 2007, after the article was written] What they are: Products that don’t exist in any way, shape, or form. Such products are pure scams designed to bait suckers and their investment money. Often these products would have to defy the laws of physics to do what their inventors claim they do. Example: The nineteenth-century inventor John Worrell Keely told investors he had developed a vibratory generator capable of producing enough power – using only a quart of water as fuel – to run a train for over an hour. (Devices that produce energy for little or no cost are a favorite of con artists.) For fourteen years, until he died in 1898, Keely strung his investors along with promises that the nonexistent generator was almost perfected. More recently, Czech businessman Sheldon Zelitt claimed to have invented GroutFree technology that could seamlessly join multiple LCD screens into one large screen, and was developing this product at Visual Labs, his company in Canada. With this promise, the company achieved a valuation of over $300 million, but when Zelitt finally gave a demonstration of the product, his investors recognized that what he was showing them was simply a forty-two-inch plasma television, available at any consumer electronics retailer. Faced with criminal charges, Zelitt fled to the Czech Republic. He was extradited back to Canada in 2005, where he’s now serving an eight-year sentence. Given the pace of technological change, it’s difficult to predict what strange turns technology might take. But has technology really taken any of these strange turns? Did Popular Science magazine publish the image above in 1954, predicting that this is what a home computer might look like in the year 2004? In 1954 computers really were this size, so if someone had tried to imagine what a home computer would look like fifty years in the future, they might have dreamed up a monstrosity like this (including the steering wheel). But Popular Science never published such a picture. The photo was created in 2004 by Danish software sales and support technician Troels Eklund Andersen as an entry in a Fark Photoshop contest. (Fark is a popular weird news website – its Photoshop contests challenge Farkers to digitally alter images in amusing ways.) Andersen took a photo of a submarine’s maneuvering room from an exhibit at the Smithsonian, made it black-and-white, then pasted in the teletype printer, the old-style television, and the man. Then he added the text at the bottom. He never imagined the image would end up fooling thousands of people, but that’s what happened once it started circulating via e-mail. It even fooled Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, who displayed it at a computer conference as proof of the impossibility of predicting future technology. The image was one of the most forwarded e-mail attachments of 2004. (Image Credit: DVD Rewinder) Did Microsoft engineers install a computer system inside a portable toilet, thereby creating the iLoo, the world’s first Internet-enabled Johnny-on-the-spot? On April 30, 2003, as part of Microsoft’s goal to allow people to log on "anytime, any place, and anywhere," MSN UK, a division of Microsoft, announced the imminent introduction of the iLoo, the world’s first Internet-enabled Porta Potti. The iLoo would include a wireless keyboard, a height-adjustable flat plasma screen, a six-channel surround-sound speaker system installed under the sink, broadband Internet access, toilet paper conveniently printed with URL suggestions, and (last but not least) a toilet outfitted with vacuum suction to guarantee maximum hygiene. As the press release declared, this was no "bog-standard affair." Microsoft promised the iLoo would debut at music festivals throughout England in summer 2003. The media was incredulous. Wouldn’t the queue for this thing be miles long? Were beer-soaked, sweaty music festivals really the ideal place to introduce it? And what about keeping it clean? God only knew what fluids would get on that keyboard. Microsoft representatives explained that a security guard would be posted outside the toilet, and a cleaner would swoop in between uses to keep it spotless. Nevertheless, reporters kept asking questions with increasing concern, until, almost two weeks after the announcement, Microsoft abruptly admitted that the entire thing had been a joke. There was no iLoo, the company said. It was just a flight of fancy. This was strange, since Microsoft had never before issued a fake press release. Not even on April Fool’s Day. But the next day the software maker changed its mind and stated the iLoo actually wasn’t a hoax. The project had been under serious development in the United Kingdom, a Microsoft representative said, but "corporate headquarters in By this time everyone was confused. Was the iLoo real, or wasn’t it? And why was the company changing its mind so often? Microsoft never explained. It has stood by its final statement that the iLoo was a real, but never completed, project. (Though one gets the feeling that the software giant wishes it could flush the entire iLoo episode down the toilet. When I queried them for details they politely, but firmly, stated they weren’t able to help me.) Is there software that will keep pesky bugs and flying insects away from your computer as you work? Thai computer programmer Saranyou Punyaratanabunbhu wanted to help computer users work without fear of bug-borne malaria, a big problem in Thailand. So he developed software that makes computer speakers emit high-pitched frequencies inaudible to the human ear but annoying to mosquitoes. The software was downloaded fifty thousand times in the first three days after it debuted, and Saranyou soon came out with a version 2.0 that also repels cockroaches and rats. A South Korean company, SK Telecom, now offers anti-mosquito software for cell phones. So the software does exist. The more relevant question is whether it works. Probably not. Pest-control experts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln note, "There is no scientific evidence to suggest that cockroaches (or any other insects) respond negatively to ultrasonic sound waves." Even if it did work, there’s one more thing to consider before installing it on your PC: some users report getting headaches after sitting for hours in front of a computer emitting a high-pitched whine. __________ The book Hippo Eats Dwarf got its title from this news clip that circulated in print and on the Net: A circus dwarf, nicknamed Od, died recently when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus waiting to appear in the next act. Vets said Hilda the Hippo’s gag reflex caused her to swallow automatically. More than 1,000 spectators continued to applaud wildly until they realized the tragic mistake. Highly enjoyable. Check it out here: Link [Amazon]
Phony Technology
Phony Product Rumors
The fake photographs: iMac G5 hoax (Image Source: MacBidouille)Vaporware
Example: In 1997 the video-game maker 3D Realms announced it would soon release Duke Nukem Forever [wiki], a follow-up to its popular Duke Nukem. Nine years later, fans are still waiting. In 2003 Wired magazine, on its annual updated list of the top vaporware products, gave Duke Nukem Forever a lifetime achievement award for its perpetual vaporware status. Impatient fans have taken to calling the sequel Duke Nukem Whenever or Duke Nukem Taking Forever. One Wired reader pointed out that "NASA has planned, designed, developed and successfully landed a rover on Mars in the time this game has been in development." Nonexistent Products
John Worrell Keely, photographed in his laboratory in 1889. (Image Credit: Bettmann Archive)Strange Computer Technology
1954 Home Computer
DVD Rewinder
The perfect gift for the technologically challenged. This gadget plays a "customizable rewind sound" when you put a DVD on it. It also comes with a USB port for rewinding MP3s. Sold by 1783 Productions, LLC.iLoo
Richmond Redmond, Washington, looked at it and decided maybe this wasn’t a good idea."Antimosquito Software
The excerpt above is reprinted with permission from Hippo Eats Dwarf: a Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S, by Alex Boese (also the curator of the excellent website Museum of Hoaxes). The book covers hoaxes and other shenanigans from the present day pop culture, and includes subjects like photography, eBay, ads, business, politics, and war.
Update: Anita Bath has more details.
This funny computer video, titled Coffee Break Machine, was created by Jim Henson in 1967 as an IBM training video. At the time, the monster was named “Arnold the Munching Monster”.
He still holds down a job rearranging the merchandise at Andronico’s supermarket in the Sunset District two days a week.
“I like what I do and they like me,” he said. He said he’d worked for Andronico’s for 50 years, more or less, and he plans to be back on the job today as usual. “The retirement benefits are good there,” he said.
Link to story. Link to video from last year. -via Metafilter
The Alliance Cake:
The Horde Cake:
Wow! Simply… Wow!
These gamers celebrate their birthdays with these cake masterpieces. For more photos see: Link to Alliance cake | Link to Horde cake – via Kotatu
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Mustache Bottle Opener |
 |
My Cryptozoological Family - Family Car Stickers |
 |
Zombie Hand Bottle Opener |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
Bigger than turkeys and more naive than happy taxpayers, the 
Rich in protein, chock-full of nutritious fats and oils, and great for baiting fishhooks, this flightless seabird was, well, great. Found on the rocky islands and coastal areas on both sides of the North Atlantic, 
The naturalist John James Audubon once reported seeing a flock of 
The Myth: In 1626, Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Canarsee Indians for $24 worth of beads and other trinkets.
The Myth: The Liberty Bell, which rang at the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, has always been a precious symbol of our nation’s heritage.
