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In my previous post on matatus, the private buses of Nairobi, Kenya, a couple of commenters said that these vehicles don’t compare to the ones in the Philippines – and boy, they were right!
Here’s the symbol of Filipino creativity and the workhorse of Philippine transportation, the Jeepneys:
In an age of unending automotive innovation for fuel efficiency, aerodynamics, safety and creature comforts, the jeepney is an immutable, uncomfortable, gas-guzzling and polluting anachronism, severely lacking in safety features. Its boxed interiors – designed to cram up as many passengers as possible – is exempt from universal safety seat-belt regulations. Check out the spare tire, easily inspected on the driver-side, and the threads are usually so worn out, dental floss in the groove would stick out. Some are a thumb-tack away from a blown-tire.
Link – Thanks Smurf Kicker!
There’s a lot of neat examples of laptop engraving out there on the Web, but Glenwood of Oslo Press decided to do one better: he added good old fashioned wood inlay to the engraved parts!
Is Google God? The people at the Church of Google (and practitioner of "Googlism") think so, and they’ve even got 9 proofs of why Google is God. For example:
Google remembers all. Google caches WebPages regularly and stores them on its massive servers. In fact, by uploading your thoughts and opinions to the internet, you will forever live on in Google’s cache, even after you die, in a sort of "Google Afterlife".
Link – Thanks James Markenson!
"I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."
– ee cummings, poet (1894-1962)
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Our previous post on Swastika is all about how the symbol meant other things before it was co-opted by the Nazis.
Neatorama reader Gitai found something else: a town In Ontario, Canada, named Swastika that refused to change its name during World War II, claiming that they had the name before the Nazis ruined it!
During World War II, the provincial government sought to change the town’s name to Winston, in honour of Winston Churchill, but the town refused, insisting that the town had held the name long before the Nazis co-opted the symbol. Residents of Swastika used to tell the story of how the Ontario Department of Highways would erect new signs on the roads at the edge of the town. At night the residents would tear these signs down and put up their own signs proclaiming the town to be "Swastika".
Link – Thanks Gitai!
Ever since Yayo posted the uber-guide on How to be a Scottish Fold cat, I’ve been trying my darnest to resist posting this YouTube clip. But I have succumbed to temptation, so here’s a clip of cats taking naps inside of cooking bowls (Yawn! The music makes me sleepy… )
Enjoy! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d know by now that Myanmar (or Burma) is in the midst of a violent crackdown against peaceful demonstrations by monks and other citizens.
Because of tight control of information, news from the capital city of Yangoon trickle out too slowly through regular media channels.
Here’s where the Internet and blogs step in to fill the void. For instance, take a blogger named Ko Htike, whose website has become one of the main outlets of information:
Armed with a laptop, a blogger named Ko Htike has thrust himself into the middle of the violent crackdown against monks and other peaceful demonstrators in his homeland of Myanmar.
From more than 5,500 miles away, he’s one of the few people getting much needed information out to the world.
He runs the blog out of his London apartment, waking up at 3 a.m. every day to review the latest digitally smuggled photos, video and information that’s sent in to him.
With few Western journalists allowed in Myanmar, Htike’s blog is one of the main information outlets. He said he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said.
Myanmar’s military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives.
Links: CNN Article | Ko Htike’s blog [in Burmese and English]
I swear on my life this is 100% real. I was walking down the street looking for stuff to photograph and this guy is just sitting outside a coffee shop with this 80 year old woman and he is taking these little sofa things out of a bag. Then he opens another compartment in the bag and there are about five lizards like this guy. Then he would pose them and they would just sit there like this. Don’t really know why.
I don’t know what was more amazing–the fact that this guy kicked butt on piano, or the fact that (lo these MANY years after playing it,) I still remember exactly which levels these pieces were from…
Push Play or lurch to YouTube to watch. Thanks, BluesNews!
Someone has gone and mounted a birdcage inside a fish tank, do you call it a fishcage or a birdtank? Link
Oops! The Navy’s Coronado amphibious base and barracks, built in the 1960s, actually look like a giant swastika from the sky – as recently discovered by Google Earth.
Now, the US Navy is going to spend as much as $600,000 on landscaping and architectural modification to hide the shape.
Link – via FP Passport, Thanks Jennifer and esa!
Previously on Neatorama: "I am Not a Nazi" Swastika
If you’re ever in Nairobi, Kenya, you’ll see a fleet of private buses and old vans called the matatu ("tatu" is "three" in Swahili, the original fare in shillings).
Each bus or van is "branded" with its own paint scheme and individual names, inspired (mostly) by Western culture. This one above is the "Princess Diana" with the motto "Thay [sic] Shall Bow …"
Link to a gallery of Matatus – Thanks Rick Spencer!
Following up on Miss C’s recent post of strange deaths, here’s one suggested by Alistair Strachan of Fortean Times, the case of a misplaced faith and atheist lion!
A man shouting "God will save me if he exists", lowered himself by a rope into the big cats’ enclosure in Kiev zoo, Ukraine, on Sunday, 4 June, when the zoo was packed with visitors. He then took his shoes off and went up to the lions. A lioness knocked him down and severed his carotid artery, killing him instantly.
For more strange deaths, see Fortean Times’ collection, Strange Days: Strange Deaths – Thanks Alistair!
And of course, check out Neatorama’s own 30 Strangest Deaths in History
Masayuki Sumida and colleague at the Hiroshima University, Japan, had created a frog with transparent skin!
The researchers say the see-through frogs can help in the study of diseases and in the development of medical treatments by allowing laboratory scientists to check the status of internal organs and blood vessels while the frogs are alive and without having to dissect them.
According to Sumida, the transparent frog is the result of breeding two specimens of Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica) that had a genetic mutation giving them pale skin. By selectively breeding their offspring, the researchers were able to create a frog that remains transparent for its entire life cycle. Most of the world’s known transparent creatures live underwater, and transparent four-legged animals are extremely rare.
Link – Thanks Andrew!
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Images: superlocal (left) and shezzz (right), both from Flickr
That’s the tornado potato, a new snack found on the streets of Seoul, South Korea: take a spud and carve it into a long spiral and deep fry it to a crisp. Yum!
Link – Thanks pockette!
"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States."
– John Bartlett Brebner, Canadian historian (1895-1957)
Firefox sure has a devoted user base, some of whom go through great lengths and cost to promote the open source browser. Take for instance Nathan Lineback of Toasty Tech, who made pencils with Firefox logo and give ‘em out to his office mates.
Here’s his account on how to make (buy) your own Firefox logo pencil: Link – Thanks mikolka!
PC World has a gallery with some amazing images from Google Sky.
The ingenuity of College and University students continues to amaze me again and again. So, what have the kids at Dordt College in Iowa done that is unique? Well, how about a mural completely created from Post-It Notes! After 6 days since it was put up “The Man” (Dordt College Authorities) took it down. Boo!
Hit Play or check it out on Youtube.
Behold the 17 lb (7.75 kg) baby born to a Siberian woman in Russia!
A Siberian woman who gave birth to her 12th child – doing more than her fair share to stem Russia’s population decline – was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 17.1 lb (7.75kg). [...]
"We were all simply in shock," said Nadia’s mother, Tatyana Barabanova, 43. "What did the father say? He couldn’t say a thing – he just stood there blinking."
"I ate everything, we don’t have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," she told the reporter, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 5 kg.
Two criminals, believed to be women, went into and robbed a Pittsburgh suburb gas station dressed as ninjas! Their weapon? Swords, of course!
Link [YouTube] – via Fortean Times
American media mogul Ted Turner owns more than 2 million acres of land in 7 states.
He owns nearly 2% of the state of New Mexico. Combined, his land is larger than the state of Delaware.
We’ve featured Janus, the two-headed turtle before on Neatorama, but this one is slightly different: this mutant turtle is joined in the butt!
Jay Jacobi, the shop’s exotic reptile manager, said: "The two heads seem to have their own thoughts, operating independently.
"But sometimes they seem to put their two heads together and
move in the same direction, feed together, walk together."
The owner is yet to name the turtle: Link
When Crystal Adams and James Chandler’s mobile home caught on fire, the quick-thinking couple grabbed their pet dog and fled. But they left their young boy inside!
Police said the firefighters learned that the boy was still inside the burning mobile home when Chandler and Adams told firefighters that they had forgotten the child. Police said that was about 20 minutes after the couple had gotten out.
"They were asked numerous times by law enforcement — I overheard at least once or twice — ‘Is there anyone else in these trailers?’" Brucker said.
The boy was conscious when a firefighter found him in a bedroom, Brucker said.
"You tuck your kid in bed, you should remember that he’s still in there," Brucker said.
Link (with video)
Only my second day of authoring posts here at Neatorama – thanks Alex – and I’m already doing self-promotion. Here’s a spoof ad gallery I put up as a bit of fun at my ad agency site. Non-North Americans may not get the joke as it is a spoof on a product called HeadOn – a homeopathic headache remedy (“Apply directly to the Forehead”) which is heavily advertised here on prime time tv. The ads are repetitive, annoying, have minimal production values or visual appeal, but are incredibly successful.
Here is my spoof gallery
Here is the original HeadOn in all its glory at YouTube:
and here is a NBC Nightly News piece on the ads
Clever macro photography of backlit oil and ink mixed together. (Presumably water too.)
flickr set by Paritosh Narayan here
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