A tiny dachshund named Daisy found a bone while strolling along the shore in Dunwich, England. But this was no ordinary dog bone -it was a fossilized thighbone of a mammoth! The bone, which is as big as Daisy, could be 2 million years old. Link -via Fark
Boris Tsikanovsky had a cat named Flo, who sometimes brought prey into the house. To stop this, he rigged up a Practical Image Recognition System. A profile image is taken as soon as the cat begins to enter. If the image is not the cat’s normal recognizable profile, the cat door will not open. So if the cat is carrying something in her mouth, she cannot come in the house! This system also keeps other critters from entering. The explanation is a bit technical, but the pictures tell the story. You can also track the activities of his current cats, Squirrel and Alexia, at the “Flo Watch†page. Link -via Reddit
Here is a cool puzzle challenge that will get your mind moving. Can you follow the clues and get to the top of the mountain to take on the wizard? The game uses the net in a pretty novel way, you can search and ask for clues. Good luck, you’ll need them.
Just a little side note: we’ve just moved Neatorama to a new host. The old server had put up a valiant effort, but at the end, Neatorama’s growth finally got the best of it.
It’s been a joy to see the blog grow in the past two years or so, but it comes with a certain degree of pain and frustration. Neatorama had been booted off a shared server and a virtual private server, and had outgrown two dedicated servers. The blog gobbled up a lot of bandwidth, and we had to outsource image and static content delivery to Cachefly.
We’ve just put the blog on a multiple-server environment that promises easier expansion capability as the blog grows (I hope!). This move has gone pretty smoothly, though it’s not without its minor kinks (like old caches, email and plugin issues). We’ll get these straightened out very soon.
I’ve moved servers before by myself in the past, and this particular move was the most complex yet it was the easiest, thanks to the awesome guys at Linux Admin who handled everything (and I mean everything from automated WP updates, server security, optimization, to performance tuning). They know what they’re doing and, as an unsolicited plug, I highly recommend anyone with a high-traffic website or wordpress blog to check them out: Link
If you really want to retire from the world, live in a really inaccessable place! Dark Roasted Blend takes a pictorial tour of four monasteries built on top, clinging to the side of, or inside mountains. This one is Sigiriya, in Sri Lanka. Link
This Flickr set is an art project to show you what the classifications underweight, normal, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese look like on real people. Can you guess how these three people are classified? Link -via Metafilter
Radar Online has a gallery of new designer purses juxtaposed with the scary movie characters they resemble. This picture is the least scary of the collection. Link -via Metafilter
This remarkable clip from National Geographic shows large killer whales literally beaching themselves to catch and consume sea lions. The strangest part of the clip involves the two whales playing catch with one another using a live sea lion, flinging it back and forth through the air. The video is worth a peak, even if animal footage isn’t normally your cup of tea. YouTube.
The Kiwi Express Leather Shine Sponge has been around for a few years, but since I used mine today, I decided to blog about it. I think it’s one of the most fabulous inventions in my lifetime. To polish shoes, you don’t need messy polish, or gloves, or rags. All you need is this little sponge. You use it simply by rubbing it on your shoe. And when you’re done, you just put the cover back on. Easy, fast, clean. I use mine once every few months and it’s always worked great.
Update from the comments: If you’re the type to do things “the right way,” here’s some very detailed instructions on polishing shoes, including the option of lighting the polish on fire (halfway down the page).
It’s a WarioWare-style collection of minigames, based on the Looney Tunes cartoon “Duck Amuck” (which you can watch above (in Italian?)). Those “guys” are Ghostbot, the game is cleverly called Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck, and it sounds great:
Now, you’re probably wondering exactly what the game is about, aside from the aesthetic inspiration from the original “Duck Amuck” short. In a sense, it’s about the same thing the cartoon is: Now you’re the animator, and you have your own personal Daffy to torment. The actual premise is simply that you’re playing a video game with Daffy, and trying to beat him. This means that you usually don’t control Daffy during the various mini-games in Duck Amuck; instead, you play some sort of adversarial role. If you do control him, then you need to use your influence as the animator to make sure Daffy’s efforts are never successful. These sequences are by far the most subversive in the game, since they turn most classic ideas of how to play a game on their head. You’re effectively trying to lose in the most spectacular fashion possible. As a result, they’re often the most interesting to play.
RSS
Comments Off
Just a little side note: we’ve just moved Neatorama to a new host. The old server had put up a valiant effort, but at the end, Neatorama’s growth finally got the best of it.
The Kiwi Express Leather Shine Sponge
