HOME |
RSS | 
The new In the Year 2000 Flickr group is a place for “images depicting futuristic speculation from magazines and books from the past”.
Link [Flickr] – via Boing Boing Gadgets
From The Daily News:
Seven pound Jeshuah Fuller was born yesterday with six fingers on each hand and six toes on both feet. While one in 2,000 babies is born with an extra finger or toe, it’s much rarer to have extra digits on each appendage. The trait is much more common among African-Americans.
While Jeshuah is healthy, he will have his extra fingers and toes surgically removed in mid-September. His father, who was born with 6 fingers on his left hand, still has a tiny stump on his left pinkie.
The condition is known as polydactyly and usually an inherited trait.
Famously the family of Foldi, part of the Hyabites tribe living in Arabia, all have 24 digits.
Comments Off
See the full-sized image here. Via Super Punch.
Austrian designer Christian Wohlmuther recently sold a pair of “personalized luxury lederhosen,” studded with 166 diamonds, for $114,000. Read this article to see a photo of the lederhosen and who bought them. I found the photo you see above here, and posted it because frankly the luxury lederhosen are a big letdown.
Ten people died this year at a kite-flying competition in Pakistan. The Dakar Rally has been responsible for 48 competitor deaths. Pole vaulting has the highest death rate of any American sport! That’s just the beginning of the carnage in the Mental Floss article 6 Sports Too Deadly for Gym Class. Link
Yay! It’s time for another round of Neatorama’s guessing game, in collaboration with the always intriguing What is it? Blog. Can you guess what this strange object is for?
More photos (and clues about its size) at What is it? Blog. Contest rule is darned simple: place your guess in the comment, post no URL (let others play), and one guess per comment. You can submit multiple comments. No prize this week, just bragging rights.
Good luck!
[Update 8/31/07: Here's the answer:
These are horn weights for a bull. To keep bulls from seriously injuring each other when fighting, these weights were placed on the horns to make the ends point downward. They were also used to fix mismatched horns, where one horn grew slightly higher than the other. If a horn weight was left on for just a few weeks, it would easily change the higher horn’s angle of growth. Modern versions can be seen here.
Remember George Hotz, the teenager who unlocked the iPhone for use with other providers than AT&T? He has just traded in his unlocked phones for a shiny new Nissan 350Z!
Woohoo! Go geeks! Link – via i-am-bored
Where would the world be without overpriced, over-the-top gadgets like this crystal-esconced Tivoli Audio radio and MP3 player?
PC World has a gallery of the world’s most extravagant gadgets for you to gawk at: Link – via Boing Boing’s newest venture (sub-blog?): BB Gadgets.
Comments Off 
Miss C wrote a highly entertaining article for our blog pal mental_floss: a list of the world’s ugliest jugs (real jugs, you perv!) They’re ceramic jugs with faces – really ugly ones:
Jerry Brown heard that slaves made ugly jugs to distinguish the different liquids inside. Jugs with faces were for the ones you couldn’t drink, such as kerosene.
Potter Jim McDowell heard the history of the jugs handed down through generations. According to family lore, ugly jugs were used by slaves as grave markers, made ugly to scare the devil away. McDowell’s face jugs include messages, like this one that says “Don’t judge the color of my skin; judge me by the content of my character.”
According to Pawprint Pottery of Barnwell, South Carolina, ugly jugs were used to keep kids out of the moonshine. They were made as scary as possible for this purpose! These jugs with recycled porcelain teeth would do the trick.
These ones above (probably the prettiest of the bunch) are made by Georgia artist Brian Wilson.
Photo: John D. McHugh
Here’s a fantastic photoessay from Time Magazine, titled The World’s Wackiest Holiday, featuring such gems as Scotland’s Up Helly-Aa Viking festival (above), Summer Redneck Games, Spain’s Tomatina tomato fight, Japan’s Naked Festival, Thailand’s Monkey Buffet, and many more!
Maria of Limkis.com has an awesome gallery of vector art, all created in Adobe Illustrator! Link – Thanks Greg Taylor!
When this 3-year-old girl was asked what she was going to do if a monster came after her, the girl’s answer was far more intelligible than the recent Miss South Carolina hubbub.
Here’s what she’s going to do: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Travis W!
It’s an alcoholic weapon of mass destruction: a Vodka bottle shaped like a Kalashnikov!
Vodka Kalashnikov is based on a select recipe approved by Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47 Rifle. It was the first vodka ever to be created by combining salt, sugar, vanillin and glycerin.
Link (Yes, this has been around since 2003) – via Scaryideas – Thanks Justin!
If you know the background, jump to 01:45 for Jimmy Kimmel’s explanation.
Comments Off 
A goat with six horn stands in the herd of goats at a farm in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region August 28, 2007. The owner said the goat began to grow six horns shortly after its birth.
There was a confusion about who exactly was the Miss South Carolina in the clip that went ’round the Net a couple of days ago.
Apparently, there were two Laurens – both are very pretty, but that’s where the similarity ends. There’s Lauren Caitlin Upton, the Miss South Carolina/Internet sensation who came up with the less-than-brilliant answer at the Miss Teen USA Pageant. And then there’s Lauren Elizabeth Lytle, who is the Miss South Carolina Outstanding Teen and by all measures, a very smart and able girl as well.
Neatorama reader JOwens, Lauren Lytle’s aunt, told us that her niece is getting a lot of bad publicity because people mistakenly thought she was the one:
She’s getting a lot of negative feedback regarding the “other” Miss SC Teen USA which is not affiliated with the Miss America Organization – there is a BIG difference. You should grab her on-stage interview question where she recently competed in the Miss America Outstanding Teen and aced her question.
The Teen USA pageant is based more on beauty (leave it to Donald Trump) where America Teen is based on academics, COMMUNITY SERVICE, public speaking, mentoring etc. It is horrible that these Miss America Teens work so hard for their states and now all pageants and all title holders are seeing one clip from this Miss Teen USA pageant.
My niece had the highest GPA (4.6) of all contestants and received a scholarship at the Miss America Outstanding Teen pageant a few weeks ago. America Organization gives scholarships to teenagers and it isn’t about the grand prizes awarded. Please help my niece, Lauren Lytle – Miss South Carolina Outstanding Teen clear her name and let people know that she’s not the same person as Miss South Carolina USA Teen!
Consider it done, JOwens! (And if you want to know the difference between Miss America, Miss USA, Miss Universe, Miss Teen USA, and Miss America Teen pageants, Sid Morrison has the answer for you – scroll down to #29)
Here’s the part that really interested me:
Then they “totally had a breakdown” and eventually began to use humour to help them get through the ordeal.“I told my brother ‘your wife is going to have to marry someone else’”, Meng Xianyou told the newspaper.
His brother replied: “I laughed too. I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang.
“But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it would be hard for her to remarry.”
Wife’s probably going to serve him urine every chance she gets, right? Read the whole thing. Photo found here.
After seeing The Butt Biting Bug clip that is all the rage in Japan, Neatorama reader Travis told us about the current rage in Germany: the Gummy Bear Song.
I apologize in advance: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Travis!
We’ve had some pretty neat "light drawings" on Neatorama before, but Eric Staller’s are in a class of their own!
Link: Gallery at Centripetal Notion | Eric’s website – Thanks Mikolka!
Previously on Neatorama: Eric Staller’s Conference Bike
Image: Neato Coolville [Flickr]
That’s a roadside sculpture of a caveman skeleton walking a dinosaur skeleton in Murdo, South Dakota!
Roadside America has more info: Link – Thanks Rich (who is on day 46 of a 100 day road trip around the US. I’m so jealous! He’s documenting the entire trip on his Flickr photoset.)
In Neatorama’s recent post The Sweepstakes Winner, there is a little gem of an anonymous tip about Nasubi.
Wikipedia explains what happened to poor ol’ Nasubi [wiki]:
Nasubi (born August 3, 1975) is a Japanese comedian who was locked up in an apartment for "Susunu! Denpa Shonen" (January 1998—March 2002), a Japanese reality television show on Nippon Television after winning a lottery for a "show business related job". He was forced to enter mail-in sweepstakes until he won ¥1 million (about $10,000 USD). During this time, he was made to wear no clothes, was cut off from outside communication and broadcasting, and had nothing to keep him company except magazines.
Nasubi lived in front of the camera, with only the possessions he won via the sweepstakes, and the stacks of postcards for entering the sweepstakes. Due to his nudity, an eggplant cartoon graphic was strategically utilized when Nasubi was standing on camera. Nasu is the Japanese word for eggplant. He was called as such due to his bony face which slanted like an eggplant.
Upon reaching his goal, he was clothed and blindfolded to be taken to a surprise location. Nasubi happily went along believing he was going to get a special treat for his hard work. After they unblindfolded him, he found himself in Korea where he was shown around the town and taken to an apartment. They once again stripped of his clothes and forced to do the same thing again there to win enough money to get back home. His entire ordeal lasted some 15 months, during which time his diaries on his experience of being locked away from the outside world became a best seller in Japan.
You can read the long version here (quite funny): Link – Thanks anon, whoever you are!
Side-by-side diagrams of a few common espresso drinks.
Link – via Digital Inspiration
Alan Weisman [wikipedia] theorizes what would happen to the planet if humans suddenly dissapeared.
Hover over each time period to see what happens.
Link – via Militant Platypus
Blueblythe has posted pictures of her latest felt creation, an Underwood typewriter.
Here’s a list of the gangs of London, including the “Shakespeare Youts.” Via Coudal Partners.
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Mustache Bottle Opener |
 |
My Cryptozoological Family - Family Car Stickers |
 |
Zombie Hand Bottle Opener |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
