Archive for May 28th, 2007

Busting Through Writer’s Block, Aristotle Style.

Do you get writer’s block? Turns out this malady is so ancient that in 367 BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle developed a rhetorical method to jog the author’s brain!

Here’s a modern adaptation of Aristotle’ concept at Beautiful English Online: Link

(BTW, Beautiful English Online is a new blog of Gail Hapke of Scribal Terror. She is also an author here on Neatorama. You can ask Gail anything about the English language. Actually, I have a Neatorama t-shirt ready for anyone who can stump her)

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The Holodeck is Here: CAVE Virtual Reality.

Photo credit: Christop W. Sensen

Engineers from Sun Microsystems and Fakespace Systems created this awesome immersive virtual environment that looks very much like the Holodeck in Star Trek!

Link – via Random Good Stuff

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12th Century Surgery.

This late 12th century English painting depicts various surgical procedures for hemorrhoids, nose polyps, and cataract!

The surgeries shown above are pretty dramatic, especially when you consider how often patients died from infections. How much pain would you have to be in to put up with this kind of treatment? But the alternatives were blindness or hemorrhaging. Patients needed some kind of relief or they faced serious problems.

Medieval surgery could be brutal and it rarely cured anyone, but it was better than the alternative. A person with a disability was no longer considered a productive member of their community – which often meant a life of begging. Because disabilities were considered a sign of imperfection, the Church frequently denied religious rites to people with disabilities, guaranteeing they would never go to heaven and everlasting life.

Yikes! Link – via Scribal Terror

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Funny Beer Ad.

Here’s a funny and creative ad for Carlton Draught, with a parody song inspired by Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Link [YouTube]

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Walter Pichler’s TV Helmet.

In 1967, Austrian artist Walter Pichler created this peculiar contraption of a TV helmet called "Small Room" which allows the user to watch TV in peace (and isolation!)

Link – via Smidigt

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Eric Zhang’s Bubble Head Webcam.

Every now and then comes a concept that is so promising that it is just begging to be made into real products! Eric Zhang’s Bubble Head Webcam is one such product – come on and make it, already! Link – via Eduyayo

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