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Neatorama reader Jake Gorst wrote:
My 10 year old daughter Rebecca did this stop-motion animated video using my Nikon D60 and a few of her toys. She puts it all together on her iMac (my old machine). Rebecca also did another YouTube video called "Littlest Pet Shop – The Dance" – which has had over 42,000 views already. She’s putting me to shame.
When I was her age I had a Kodak Brownie 8mm camera and was thrilled if I got to show the films to my class. Times have changed. Its a rush to be able to teach my daughter how to do stop-motion – and see her take to it like this.
The "Unimal" is a fun little plastic toy designed by H.E. Babcock in 1950 as part of an effort by the Grange League Federation to teach children about agriculture and where their food comes from. When you press down on its back a bell rings and it lays either an egg, a pound of butter, a ham, a hot dog or a bottle of milk. This toy was featured in my documentary "Farmboy". We have a few of them here. Hours of fun!
Ten years old and already much more talented than me! Thanks Jake!
Morten Andersen is a Danish artist. He paints large, vividly colored and extravagantly detailed abstracts that sometimes look like a mess of graffiti and at other times approach the sublime subtlety of a Turner.
I’d link to his paintings directly, but although he has made himself a nice site he makes the mistake so many artists do and utilizes pop-up windows and other gimmicks. (When will they ever learn…?)
This is one tough mother: Ines Ramirez is the only woman known to have performed a successful Caesarean-section on herself!
The sun had set hours ago. The nearest clinic was 80km away over rough roads, and her husband, her only assistant during a half-dozen previous births, was drinking at a cantina. She had no phone and neither did the cantina.
So at midnight, after 12 hours of constant pain, the petite, 40-year-old mother of six sat down on a low wooden bench. She took several gulps from a bottle of rubbing alcohol, grabbed a 15-cm knife and began to cut.
By the light of a single dim bulb, Ramirez sawed through skin, fat and muscle before reaching inside her uterus and pulling out her baby boy. She says she cut his umbilical cord with a pair of scissors, then passed out.
That was March 5, 2000. Today the baby she delivered, Orlando Ruiz Ramirez, is a rambunctious 4-year-old. And Ines Ramirez is recognised internationally as a modern miracle: She is believed to be the only woman known to have performed a successful Caesarean-section on herself.
Could you imagine what grief she’d be able to lay on that boy when he misbehaves?
Link – Thanks Carelia!
A while ago, British TV show Swag (by Madonna’s hubbie Guy Ritchie, btw) staged a trap for would-be thieves. They parked a cargo truck with its door open, revealing a tempting assortment of goodies inside. When the bandit went in for a quick steal, they closed the door and unravelled the cargo truck’s covering to reveal a mobile cage!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks wade7!
Here’s another example: Thief trapped behind a security glass door after attempting to steal toilet paper in Redfern, Australia.
A Chicago tavern had a contest of sorts to promote its new chicken wings … the wings are coated in one of the world’s hottest peppers. So hot, in fact, that customers first have to sign a waiver agreeing not to sue for injuries!
That’s Elliott "Wing Tut" Maruffi-Cowley grimacing after eating chicken wings in the 14th annual Wingbowl event in Philadelphia. (Photo: Tim Shaffer/REUTERS)
Link – Thanks moronic50!
Here’s a step by step guide on how to fold your own origami Star Wars X-Wing Fighter from a 15 x 15 cm (about 6 in x 6 in) paper.
Original folding pattern by Alex Crosse: Link – Thanks Willo the Wisp!
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As a young boy, Reynold Marion was fascinated with submarines. When he was 11 years old, he built a fully-submersible river raft made from 55-gallon drums! It worked – once.
Now, Reynold had made his dream a reality: he built a boat/submarine hybrid submersible powerboat (called the Marion Hyper-Sub). This one’s a prototype named The Fathom: Link | Video [YouTube] – Thanks Jon Jason!
Due to differences between the West’s Gregorian and the Orthodox calendars, the Russian Orthodox church has is just today (January 7, 08) celebrating Christmas.
Daniel Corrigan of Citypages has a slideshow of the Christmas Eve services in northeast Minneapolis.
Jessica of Zakka Life Crafts blog wrote to us about how to make photo bookmarks:
That’s my husband, Jason who reluctantly posed for the picture. The conversation went something like this. Me, "Jason come over here, I need to take your picture". Jason, "What’s this for anyways". Me, "Don’t worry, it’s just for the blog". Jason,"That’s what I was afraid of". But there he is, in all his bookmark glory.
This craft only takes about 10-15 minutes to make. It would look great to make the person climbing into the book as well. I would have taken a picture of this but I didn’t want to push my luck.
Now easy craft projects like this I can do! Link – Thanks Jessica!
I happen to like Rudy Giuliani (over what he did as a mayor to revitalize New York’s seedy Times Square and reduce crime rates), but I still get a kick from Andrew Arnold of Heada’State‘s political swiftboat attack, er … parody cartoon.
Republicans, don’t get your knickers in a twist … next up is Hillary Clinton (if Andrew could manage the budget). Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks drew!
Webupon has a neat article about the 10 most notorious convicted hackers of our time. This one to the left is Jonathan James, who looked straight out of The Matrix:
Jonathan James was the first juvenile, at the age of 16, to be jailed for computer crimes in the United States. His crimes were directed toward NASA and the US Department of Defense.
NASA claimed he downloaded $1.7 million worth of proprietary software. He then admitted to installing a "sniffer" on the Department of Defense’s computer system which allowed him to intercept over three thousand messages passing to and from employees, along with numerous usernames and passwords of other DND employees. At least ten of the computers he hacked into were military computers.
Link – Thanks Jon Jason!
Now this is a clock for math whizzes! The clock sports math equations involving the number 9 and is made by the Triple Nine Society, a high-IQ organization:
Each number is expressed as a calculation involving three instances of the number 9.
For example, 5 o’clock is the square root of nine (3), factorial (3x2x1 = 6), minus 9/9 (6-1 = 5).
The trickiest time is 7 o’clock, whose calculation works out to 6.99999…, with an infinite number of nines. Wikipedia assures us that 0.99999… really does equal 1, so no worries that the clock is cheating there.
Link – Thanks bactac!
Amidst intricate carvings of mythical animals and saints, there is an unusual figure in the wall of the New Cathedral in Salamanca, Spain: an astronaut!
Well … actually the spaceman figure was put in by workers when the Cathedral was renovated in recent years. (BTW, the "New" Cathedral was built in the 16th-18th century)
Previously on Neatorama: Darth Vader Grotesque on Neatorama’s Top 10 Divinely Designed Churches (scroll down), Dinosaur carving in Ankor Wat
The “Dub Pimpstar” rims start at only $12,000 a set and comes in 22-, 24- and 26-inch guises. Each wheel has a built-in microprocessor and wireless adapter, as well as the key component, a set of LED lights that create images while they spin. The effect is stunning.
I wonder if they are even legal?
We’ve all heard that dinosaurs were killed off by a giant asteroid 65 million years ago. There seems to be a lot of problems with that theory, so a group of scientists have come up with a new theory that seems to make more sense…
Was disease spread by mosquitoes, mites and ticks the major factor that finished off the reptiles?
Refried beans aren’t fried twice. The name came from the Spanish frijoles refritos which means well-fried beans.
Some people out there are fearless. Take this guy for instance; he doesn’t seem to be the least bit distracted by the vehicle that’s passing him and at the same time, being video taped. I wonder what possesses a person to do such a thing.
Video: LiveLeak
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."
– Lily Tomlin, actress and comedian (b. 1939)
Comments Off | The following is an article from Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader
The Simpsons is loaded with references to cultural moments, historical people, and current events. But occasionally things happen on The Simpsons first … and then they happen in real life. ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 2001 episode “Hungry Hungry Homer,” the local minor-league baseball team – the Springfield Isotopes – want to move to New Mexico and become the Albuquerque Isotopes. IN REAL LIFE: When the Calgary Cannons announced a move to Albuquerque in 2003, they held a contest for Albuquerque citizens to name the new team. The winning entry: the Isotopes.”Isotope” is a term used in nuclear energy, something the fictional Springfield (with its nuclear power plant) has in common with New Mexico, which is home to many of the nation’s nuclear research facilities, including Los Alamos National Laboratory. ON THE SIMPSONS: In a 1992 episode, Homer’s brother Herb – with the help of baby Maggie – invents, markets, and gets rich off a device that understands infants gurgles, whines, and shrieks, and translates them into plain English. IN REAL LIFE: In 2004 the Japanese company Takara announced that it had developed a successful prototype for a baby translator. In addition to analyzing a baby’s coos and cries, it also examines facial expressions and body temperature to tell parents what their baby wants or needs. *No word on whether the product was successfully marketed…or turned to poo-poo.) ON THE SIMPSONS: School superintendent Chalmers remarks to school principal Skinner in a 1993 episode: “We’re dropping the geography requirement. The children weren’t testing well. It’s proving to be an embarrassment.” IN REAL LIFE: In 2007 Washington-state lawmakers dropped the math and science sections of the state’s 10th-grade assessment test. Reason: Too few students passed those sections, severely driving down statewide scores. ON THE SIMPSONS: Marge leads a group that wants to censor cartoons. She abandons the group and the cause when the other members go too far, trying to cover up the private parts of Michelangelo’s statue of David when it is put on display at the Springfield Museum. IN REAL LIFE: In 2001 a store in Lake Alfred, Florida, put a replica of Michelangelo’s David on the grounds outside of its front door. A handful of citizens fiercely protested the “indecent” statue and successfully led a drive to cover up David’s private parts with a white cloth. (The store’s manager later replaced the cloth with a leopard-print bandanna.) ON THE SIMPSONS: While juggling groceries, a dog, and baby Maggie, Homer sees a newspaper inside a paper vending box with the headline “Senator Helms Proposes Donut Tax.” Frantically wanting to read the article, he shuffles his bag of groceries, the dog, the baby, and his coins from arm to arm until he gets the paper while, he thinks, keeping all his stuff safely in his arms. He’s wrong: Somehow, his juggling results in Maggie getting stuck in the newspaper box. IN REAL LIFE: In 2006 three-year-old Robert Moore of Antigo, Wisconsin, spotted a SpongeBob SquarePants doll in a grocery store’s “claw”-style toy vending machine. While his grandmother went to get a dollar to feed the machine, impatient Robert crawled through the dispenser at the bottom of the machine and got stuck inside. (The store didn’t have a key to the machine, so they had to call firefighters, who safely rescued the toddler.) ON THE SIMPSONS: In the 1996 episode “Hurricane Neddy,” a hurricane hits Springfield. Most of the town is spared. In fact, only Ned Flander’s house is destroyed. Rebuilding his house and his life is an expensive test of faith for the extremely religious Ned, who doesn’t have homeowners’ insurance because, as his wife says, he believes “insurance is a form of gambling.” IN REAL LIFE: In 2007 Darul Uloom Seminary of Deoband, a politically influential Islamic school for Sunni Muslims in india, issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring life insurance illegal under Muslim law. Reason: “Insurance is nothing less than gambling.” |
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.
Proving that some things do get better with age, the latest Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with 600 pages of fascinating trivia, forgotten history, strange lawsuits and other neat articles. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!
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If this didn’t motivate the student to study harder, I don’t know what will! via Miss Cellania (today’s links are all about teaching. Excellent as usual!)
Alexander Novgorodov was browsing some NASA photographs of Mars, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, when he ran across something peculiar:
There is a strange door-like structure at the base of the mountain formation from a NASA image of Mars that is causing a stir. The first person to notice it wasn’t a NASA scientist, however, but rather a Russian reader of the portal R&D.Cnews, Alexander Novgorodov. Taking a closer look at an image taken by the spacecraft Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, he noticed an unusual morphology, which looks strikingly like a manmade doorway.
Of course, NASA scientists quickly covered it up, saying that the doorway is simply a boring old weather erosion.
Previously on Neatorama: Martian Cave
COLOURlovers blog posted an interview with artist Richard Sarson (whose work was covered on Neatorama before here).
Richard’s artwork is like drawings made by the toy Spirograph, but on steroids!
Puny bloggers, here’s something that will turn your scrawny physiques ito magnificent Charles Atlas-like bods: SpringFlex – the desk workout machine!
Just follow this regimen: 1. blog, 2. push the thingy up and down (huff puff), 3. blog about the searing pain as your out of shape, teeny muscles aren’t used to pushing anything heavier than a mouse.
Link – via Random Good Stuff
Over at Say No to Crack blog, behold the "Hand-Shredder" – part of the Top 5 Most Unfortunately Named Products: Link (the no.1 item is … um, interesting).
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Great pic at found One Large Prawn.
Update 1/7/08: Neatorama reader Binks, WebElf told us where we can buy one: Link – Thanks Binks!
Canadian musician and comedian Michel Lauzière plays unusual musical instrumets. Here’s a clip of him playing the horn. Actually, make that "horns" and to make it more interesting, they are attached to his suit!
Link [YouTube] – via Miniature Brainwave
That’s not all he could do… See, Michel is a Master of the Unusual … as he demonstrated by playing the "Toreador Song" from the opera Carmen, using wine bottles while rollerblading!
Link [YouTube]
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I have trouble sleeping an unbroken night’s sleep – and I’ve alway thought that it was something wrong, until I read about about how people used to sleep in times past, at Gail Hapke’s Scribal Terror blog.
… A. Roger Ekirch, author of At Day’s Close, [wrote] on an interesting and little known detail of sleep in times past:
For many centuries, and perhaps back to Homer, Western society slept in two shifts. People went to sleep, got up in the middle of the night for an hour or so, and then went to sleep again. Thus night — divided into a “first sleep” and “second sleep” — also included a curious intermission. “There was an extraordinary level of activity,” Ekirch told me. People got up and tended to their animals or did housekeeping. Others had sex or just lay in bed thinking, smoking a pipe, or gossiping with bedfellows. Benjamin Franklin took “cold-air baths,” reading naked in a chair.
Gail went on to explain the "segmented sleep" phenomenon: Link – Quote is excerpt from a New York Times article on the "sleep industry" by Jon Mooallem
And yes, the photo is Maddy yawning, when she was just 2 months old a while ago!
Meet Eugen Sandow, father of modern-day bodybuilding:
In the Victorian era, Eugen Sandow must have physically appeared godly. While professional strongmen existed long before Sandow appeared, none possessed such a chiselled physique previously. [...]
He was initially known for his impressive barbell routines and for breaking a chain locked around his chest. However audiences quickly became far more fascinated by Eugen Sandow’s bulging muscles than by the amount of weight he was able to hoist. As a result, Sandow developed and performed poses. He dubbed these displays ‘muscle display performances’ and the routine was a precursor to the bodybuilding competition posses we see today. [...]
In training, Sandow actually measured the marble artworks in museums. He viewed them as ‘The Grecian Ideal’ and as a formula for the ‘perfect physique’. Sandow eventually built his physique to the exact proportions of Greek and Roman Sculpture and, in the process, became one of the first athletes to intentionally develop his musculature to pre-determined dimensions. Today he is considered by many to be ‘The Father of Bodybuilding’.
Here’s a video of Sandow performing in 1894, as recorded by none other than Thomas Edison himself:
Link [YouTube]
Note: We’ve actually written about Sandow previously on
Neatorama, as part of this post, The
Wonderful World of Early Photography
This marvelous piece of retro technology is an iPod Tube Amplifier/Charger station, which eschews solid-state electronics for the "the warmth, the harmonic richness and the pure tone of tube-based circuitry."
Plus, it looks good on your desk (but murder on the pocketbook: it’s $800!): Link
From Bricks to Bothans Forum (dedicated to LEGO Star Wars) is having a Steam-Wars Contest, where fans get to submit their LEGO creations of Star Wars vehicle done in steampunk style.
The contest will run until January 31st and no entries have been posted yet (so it’s a thread to watch). This one above, by Brickshelf user Jerrec is a fantastic steampunk X-Wing fighter!
Link (love the steampunk R2-D2!) – via Super Punch
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