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Yes, those were the good old days, before violent video games . . .
This cautionary woodcut by Albrecht Durer is one of many used to illustrate Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (1494), an excellent example of a popular medieval genre which “describes the world and its human inhabitants as a vessel whose deranged passengers neither know nor care where they are going”:
In 1494, humanist Sebastian Brant published Das Narrenschiff, or The Ship of Fools, a long, moralistic poem written in the German language. Born in Strasbourg, Germany circa 1457, Brant earned degrees in philosopy and law at the University of Basel, then continued there as a lecturer. He wrote a law textbook and several poems prior to Das Narrenschiff, as well as editing books and broadsides for local printers. . . .
In Das Narrenschiff, Brant describes 110 assorted follies and vices, each undertaken by a different fool, devoting chapters to such offenses as Arrogance Toward God, Marrying for Money, and Noise in Church. Some of the chapters are united by the common theme of a ship which will bear the assembled fools to Narragonia, the island of fools. Das Narrenschiff proved so popular that it went through multiple editions, and was translated into Latin, French, English, Dutch, and Low German.
Brant’s message was enhanced by a set of stunning woodcuts, most of them believed to have been carved by a young Albrecht Dürer during a short stay in Basel in 1494. Each woodcut illustrates a chapter from Das Narrenschiff, giving either a literal or allegorical interpretation of that particular sin or vice. Most of them feature a fool in a foolscap decorated with bells engaging in the activity being ridiculed. Dürer’s detailed backgrounds show interiors furnished with slanted desks and diamond-paned windows, and hilly landscapes dotted with rocks and plants. Additional woodcuts are the work of the Haintz-Nar-Meister, the Gnad-Her-Meister, and two anonymous artists.
The work can be seen in its entirety at the Stultifera Navis web site, created by Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.
Moronland.net has a post about the top 13 worst slogan translations ever. At number 12 is one from Sweden:
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux.”
Seven cases of not-quite-standard arenas, athletes who aren’t what they appear to be, shortcuts, and hitting below the belt. Some go the extra mile to win, even if that includes bending or even breaking the rules. This article at mental_floss looks at some of the more egregious cases of unsportsmanlike behavior. Pictured is Charles “Kid†McCoy, whose story you won’t forget. Link
Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth that came into use during the Edo period (1603-1868); it was used in public bathhouses for spreading on the floor while undressing and for wrapping bathing articles. Today, furoshiki can be used to wrap gifts, serve as a tablecloth, as a decoration on a wall, etc…
The Ministry of the Environment Government of Japan has created a handy illustrated guide on using furoshiki for wrapping gifts.
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Almost by definition, garbage is stuff nobody wants. You usually have to pay someone to take it off your hands. Sometimes, if the garbage is really unwelcome or it just has nowhere to go, a company will pay another country to accept it. That was the case with the trash aboard the Khian Sea [wiki], a 466-foot garbage barge owned by Joseph Paolino and Sons. On September 5, 1986, it left Philadelphia, carrying 14,855 tons of incinerated household garbage (essentially just ash). The city, desperately short of landfill space, had earlier tried to get rid of the garbage by paying neighboring states to take it, but they were facing their own landfill crisis. So the barge headed for a manmade island in the Bahamas owned by the Amalgamated Shipping Company, which had agreed to take the garbage. On its way to the islands, however, the Bahamian government got wind of the deal and refused to give the barge permission to dock. Forced to turn back, the barge tried to unload the ash in Bermuda, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and the Netherlands Antilles. But everyone was suspicious of the garbage, figuring it had to be highly toxic. In 1987 the Khian Sea managed to dump 4,000 tons of it on a beach in Haiti, telling the government it was "fertilizer." The barge then headed east for Africa, trying to discharge the rest in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal. They wouldn’t have it. Like the Little Engine That Could in the children’s book, the barged puffed its way across the ocean to the faraway ports in Borneo, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. None of those countries wanted it, either. More than once, the barge was refused entry to a port at the barrel of the harbormaster’s gun. Even renaming the barge the Felicia in the hopes of sneaking it into a port unnoticed didn’t work. Neither did selling the barge to a new owner. The thing that did work was dumping the remaining 10,000 or so tons of ash into the sea in November 1988 when no one was looking. When the barge arrived in Singapore empty, officials got suspicious. In 1993 two executives at the company that owned the barge were sent to prison for the stunt. But that’s not the end of the story. In 1996, responding to the outcry of environmentalists, the U.S. government ordered the ash that had been unloaded in Haiti to be picked up. A new barge, the Santa Lucia, collected the ash in 2000 and docked in Martin County, Florida. Eastern Environmental Services, which was linked to the now-defunct Joseph Paolino and Sons and therefore responsible for the ash, tried to convince Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, and Broward County in Florida to take the stuff, but neither wanted it. Like everyone else, they thought it was contaminated. In 2002 Glenn Henderson, a columnist for the Palm Beach Post, went aboard the barge to see what the ash looked like. He reported: "Squeezing between multitudes of spider webs, I peered down into the ‘hold’ and couldn’t believe my eyes. Australian pines were everywhere, some as tall as 10 feet. There were dandelions, weeds with small blue-and-yellow blossoms, patches of seemingly manicured grass, and tall brown weeds resting in layers across grayish piles punctuated by pure-white chunks of who-knows-what. And there was a hibiscus plant with pretty pink blooms." Soon after, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, city of Philadelphia, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and U.S. Biosystems all tested the ash and determined it to be nonhazardous. Finally, it was disposed of at the Mountain View Reclamation landfill in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, just miles from its point of departure 16 years earlier. In the introduction to his book, Mark wrote that "Bookstore shelves are lined with volumes dedicated to the finest things in the world: the most exquisite dining experiences, the greatest athletes … While it’s good and proper to bestow honor upon those individuals and items that shine at the top of the heap, the truth is that the really entertaining stuff is taking place well below." And how true that is: The World’s Worst is one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in a long while! Get it here: Link Previously on Neatorama: Worst Molasses-related Disaster: Great Boston Flood of 1919
Khian Sea barge docked in Florida in June 2002 (Image: Nature)
The article above is reprinted from The World’s Worst: A Guide to the Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept, and Dangerous People, Places, and Things on Earth by Mark Frauenfelder, the co-founder of the popular blog Boing Boing.
Hamutsun Serve is a delightful Japanese "popper" duo who performs a street dance style known as popping [wiki].
Check out their performance here: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | More Hamutsun Serve [list of YouTube vids] – Thanks Chris!
Don’t believe the photo above? Trends in Japan got a video clip of this incredibly crowded wave pool in Tokyo Summerland: Link – Thanks Michael!
Other crowded places: crowded beach in China, Korea; crowded subway in Japan.
Pic-Tac-Toe is a nine-picture grid puzzle where the three pictures in each row, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal, share a common theme. You figure out what they have in common! The middle square has to pertain to four different themes. Todd constructed one online; can you figure it out? Link to the puzzle. The answers are in this forum; you’ll have to highlight text to see the guesses. -via Ken Jennings
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It’s Walk vs. Don’t Walk in this video by Joeri Holsheimer. Push play or go to YouTube. -via Viral Video Chart
Birthday Stars is a generator that will find a star whose distance matches your age in light years from earth. For example, if you are 28 years and 6 months old, it will find a star 28.5 light years away from earth. The light arriving now from “your†star was generated at the time of your birth. Light travels at over a billion kilometers per hour {wiki}, so these stars are very far away. Link -via the Presurfer
Origami Resource Center will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about Toilegami – the origami-style folding of toilet paper.
-The future is right around the corner.
-The future is now.
-The future is in the past.
In 2002, just after his 13th birthday, Justin Schwartz was bitten by a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. Here’s his story, complete with gruesome photos of the wound and more than 10 surgeries he endured to finally get well again.
Link to story | Photo gallery (warning: very gruesome photos) – Thanks Inna!
If one bullet is good, then a million bullet has got to be better, right? At least that’s the thinking behind Metal Storm weapon systems, which got its inspiration from an ink jet printer…
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via New Scientist Invention Blog
So far, they’ve got a couple of prototypes, like the Area Denial Weapon System, Sentry Gun (36 barrel) and even a 40 mm grenade launcher!
This Chinese man has a particularly electrifying way of keeping his body fit: he let electric current pass through his body!
Zhang, who controls the voltage, once cooked a fish which he held in his hand as the current flowed through his body. He has used electrical current to treat people suffering from rheumatism, arthritis and kidney pain.
Zheng was examined at Xinjiang Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994 and experts said that he has a physical dysfunction, but did not give details.
I wonder what that “physical dysfunction” is … Link
Michael Tavarez created this awesome animation where Pablo Picasso’s painting the Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier) came to life …
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Michael’s website
How cute is this?! A magnetic paper clip holder shaped like a porcupine by Korean designer Mika Kim.
