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Don’t blame me, it’s been dead for 10,000 years. Kinda cute though, don’t you think? From Pink Tentacle
This was mainly due to the efforts of Sigtryggur Jonasson, an earlier Icelandic migrant, who wrote a pamphlet on behalf of the Canadian government entitled Nyja Island I Kanada (‘New Iceland In Canada’) and went back to Iceland to convince Icelanders to join him across the ocean.
Jonasson was part of an expedition to the north of Manitoba to find a suitable location for the colony. New Iceland had to be isolated, have good soil for farming and be close to a lake, for fishing. The only drawback of the eventual site, 18 miles upstream from the Icelandic River: an abundance of grasshoppers. For his efforts, Jonasson is remembered as the ‘Father of New Iceland’.
The very first Icelandic town in New Iceland was named Gimli, Icelandic for ‘Paradise’ [ed.: and Tolkien for dwarf]. Conditions were far from idyllic, however: low on resources, many colonists didn’t survive the first, harsh winter.
Twelve years later, Manitoba officially annexed the entire new nation, and the area, now home to Ukrainian immigrants and indigenous peoples as well as those of Icelandic descent, became the Gimli Municipality.
No one who knows and loves “What’s Opera, Doc?” will ever hear Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” without hearing, in their own minds, “Kill da wabbit … kill da wabbit.”
And now you will have the tune in your head all day. Link -via Fark
From the Queen’s University Live Building site:
The [Biowall] is hooked into the building’s HVAC control system
and fans pull air through the wall into the office spaces depending
upon the humidity and temperature in the rooms. Even when the fans
aren’t running, air still moves slowly through the wall.
Both useful and decorative. Nice. Lots more information about how the mechanism works at the link.
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Which hobby best suits your personality? Mine would be travel (if I had the time and money).
Getting there is half the fun and for you the other half of the fun means going even further once you’re there. You’re ready to travel anywhere at the drop of a hat: your passport is always up to date and you get diphtheria shots as your normal course of a doctor visit. All your clothing is made from thin, wickable, engineered fabric, so it travels light and layers well for any climate. You might like hobbies like travel blogging, backpacking across the globe.
Take the test to find yours! Link -via the Presurfer
Something you do NOT want to see on your bread! Good morning, Neatorama readers! (Found via Unique Daily, LOL’d by yours truly)
Here’s a Flash game for those of you who really like houseworks (or hate cleaning up so much that you’ll only do it online…): Nanny Mania, where you get to run around and keep order in a virtual house.
Link [Flash] – via Ursi’s Blog
Our pal Look At This has one of the world’s neatest post: a linkdump on everything having to do with Doctor Who (okay, nearly everything …)
Link (And ILuvNUFC, we didn’t linkjack your post …)
Image: Doctor Who [wiki]
Take one standard keyboard, add some cotton or other absorbant material, sprinkle in a healthy dose of chia seeds, and Voilà … you have your very own Chia keyboard. Looks like a great prank to pull on office mates, just make sure to water lightly, and only with the power off. Link (note: ads may be NSFW) – Thanks John!
And here’s another site offering some instructions on creating a similar keyboard garden
Beautiful artwork by the Japanese artist Yosuke Ueno.
Link – via remove the labels
Everybody wants to jump on the recycling bandwagon.
Link – via Mike Ballan
Here’s the perfect camouflage for bank robbers, no doubt inspired by the British military we saw previously on Neatorama:
Police are looking for a man who attempted to disguise himself as a tree and rob a bank in Manchester, New Hampshire Saturday morning.
Police say the suspect used duct tape to attach tree branches onto his body as a form of camouflage. He then walked into the Citizens Bank on Elm Street and demanded money.
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Yesterday’s 7/7/07 – considered by many to be the luckiest day of the century, so naturally, a lot of people scheduled their wedding for yesterday.
But seven "lucky" couples in St. Louis, Missouri, went further: they exchanged vows at 7:07 AM on 7/7/07 exchanged vows on Six Flag’s Tony Hawk’s Big Spin roller coaster, courtesy of a local radio station:
The roller coaster setting was chosen to honor the many "ups and downs and twists and turns" of marriage.
Link [video, kind of long]
Brammo Motorsports, who produced the neat Ariel Atom electric race car, is now making a "green" electric motorcycle called the Enertia: Link | Review on MSN Autos
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Flickr user Jungle_Boy took this photo of a man carrying a goat across a rickety wooden suspension bridge in Passu, Pakistan. One half expects Indiana Jones to burst out running across the bridge.
When is a worm not a worm? When it’s a jellyfish, of course:
The worm, Buddenbrockia, has been seen only a handful of times since its discovery in 1851 and exactly where it fits in the animal kingdom has long puzzled scientists. ‘It has no mouth, no gut, no brain and no nerve cord,’ said Professor Peter Holland of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology who led the study. ‘It doesn’t have a left or right side or a top or bottom – we can’t even tell which end is the front!’
Genetic sequencing has shown that it is not a worm at all, but instead a relative of the anemones and jellyfish.
