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Got a calendar? Circle this date: Sunday, August 12th. Next to the circle write “all night” and “Meteors!” Attach the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won’t miss the 2007 Perseid meteor shower.
“It’s going to be a great show,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “The Moon is new on August 12th–which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors.” How many? Cooke estimates one or two Perseids per minute at the shower’s peak.
The annual Perseid meteor shower is caused by the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle intersecting Earth’s orbit. For the best view, go somewhere away from city lights. And if you stay up late enough, you’ll get a good view of Mars rising the same night! Link -via J-Walk Blog
The Chinese are at it again! This time they have unveiled what could be the world’s largest bathroom – a 4-storey building with over 1,000 toilets spread out over out over 32,290 square feet!
Some urinals are uniquely shaped, including ones inside open crocodile mouths and several that are topped by the bust of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary; some areas even have TVs and “gentle music†to help you poo.
Link – via Say No to Crack
The Erazm Baracz Chamber in the Wieliczka Salt Mine, Poland
The Last Supper carved in rock-salt, in the St. Kinga’s Chapel, Wieliczka Salt Mine
(Photo: Adam Kumiszcza, Wikipedia)
The Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland, is the world’s oldest salt mine – in fact, it’s the only mining site in the world that has operated continuously since the Middle Ages!
Today, the mine still produces table salt, as it has been since the 13th century (actually the mine was in operation long before that – the earliest written account of it was dated in the 1105 AD).
The mine is deep and long: it reaches a depth of 327 meters (1,072 feet) and has over 300 km (186 mi.) of tunnels and shafts. Many of its chambers are decorated and fashioned into chapels, complete with amazing artwork sculpted from the very rock salt that made the mine.
Links: Official site (with virtual tour) | Wikipedia entry – Thanks norberto!
Previously on Neatorama: Salt Hotel in Bolivia (this post was suggested in the comment by norberto)
Neatorama reader Tori alerted us to the sequel to David Blaine’s Street Magic parody (the first one here).
See it or he’ll make you piss orange soda: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Tori!
A couple of years ago, LiveJournal users zestyping and metamouse created this awesome sideways room – and lived to tell about it!
Link – via how to do stuff and OKfuture
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South Africans are serious about braaing [braai = barbecue]. It’s so serious there’s even a hierarchy – first the tong master, then the boerie layer, and finally the fork pronger.
Hit Play or go to Link [YouTube]
The Visual Dictionary is a collaborative project to collect photographs of words in the real world. People can sign up and send in photographs of words, be it signage, graffiti, advertising, tattoos, etc.
Link – via The Presurfer
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Mashable, who previously posted the Online Media God – The 400+ List, has now put together a list with 100+ tools for the photo sharing and management website Flickr.
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A plane crashed and caught on fire near the Ft. Lauderdale airport. The three occupants walked away uninjured, but two squirrels on the ground suffered burns and broken bones. They were taken to the local Wildlife Care Center for treatment, and are expected to make a full recovery. Link (with video) -via Fark
Neatorama reader Jamie Shannon wrote to us:
This is my Nana. One day she came on set and we surprised her by singing a song from our preschool television series inspired by her called "Nanalan’" The series takes place in a puppet recreation of my Nana’s backyard that we called Nanaland. If you don’t find her the most cute lady ever you must be missing something.
Link: YouTube clip | Nanalan’ (official website, wikipedia entry) | Nanalan’ episodes at YouTube – Thanks Jamie!
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed the newest addition to their family: their 17th – seventeenth! – child.
And after Jennifer Danielle was born Thursday morning, her parents already were talking about having more children.
“We’d love to have more,” Michelle Duggar said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. “We love the ruffles and lace.”
Oh, and two more things:
All of Jennifer’s siblings also have names that start with J. They are: Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.
Among the “fun facts” listed on Discovery Health’s Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the family has gone through about 90,000 diapers, and Michelle Duggar has been pregnant for 126 months — or 10.5 years — of her life.
Link – Thanks David R!
This building, a hotel in a remote Bolivian salt desert, is constructed solely of salt blocks!
The hotel, seen above on July 14, is among a handful constructed solely of salt blocks on the white plains of the Salar de Uyuni in southwestern Bolivia.
The 4,085 square-mile (10,580 square-kilometer) region is the world’s largest salt desert. The desert was once a lake 40,000 years ago, and it is now a hot spot for adventure tourism.
Link – via BLDBLOG, Thanks Marilyn Terrell!
Haiku For You is a collaborative Internet art project where users submit stories which are then turned into a "visual" haiku.
This one above is the Howard Dean haiku, which inspired by a story submission by Erin from Fort Collins, CO:
Oh Howard Dean, my special moment in time.
My boyfriend Cliff and I were in Maryland for his uncle’s inauguration (he’s a politician) when Howard Dean rolled up to the party with a bright, shiny white smile. Cliffy’s mom asked us, “Do you want your picture taken with Howard Dean?” and we said “Yes please!”
She marched right up to him but he was busy talking to politicians. This didn’t bother her and proceeded to tap him on the shoulder repeatedly saying “Excuse me! Excuse me!”
Howard Dean was very busy, see, and kind of ignored her, but she just kept right on with the tapping and “Excuse me! Excuse me!” Finally, Howard Dean rolled his eyes, turned around, and took a damn picture of us… and we were the happiest kids in the world!
Link – Thanks Danny!
This is a neat music video, called Ankle Injuries, from the English band Fujiya & Miyagi, where the "ASCII"-styled animation was done with hundreds and hundreds of dice. (CGI? Hand-done like Honda’s amazing ad “Cog“?)
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Fujiya & Miyagi official website, wikipedia entry – Thanks Caitlin!
Update 8/4/07: Spluch posted this a while ago – no wonder it looked familiar… sorry for the repost!
