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Archive for February 26th, 2008

Vote for John McClane!

John McClane is a hero. He’s saved America over and over.

*In 1988, John McClane defused the hostage crisis at Los Angeles’ Nakatomi Tower.
*In 1990, John McClane foiled a terrorist plot to seize control of Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC.
*In 1995, John McClane foiled the New York Federal Reserve Heist.
*In 2007, John McClane stopped the greatest cyberterrorism conspiracy in history.
*John McClane has defeated terrorists in elevator shafts on numerous occasions.

John McClane will keep us safe from terrorists, like he always has. A tough man for tough times. Yippie-Kay-Yay, America! Link -via Cynical-C

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6 Restless Corpses

This article has nothing to do with the supernatural; it’s about real bodies that just can’t seem to rest in peace, or at least had to wait for their chance. You are familiar with King Tut’s mummy and Lenin’s corpse, but I bet you haven’t heard about all of these! Link

Disclaimer: I wrote this, with inspiration from Neatorama authors Gail Hapke and JT Pednaud.

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Sierpinski Carpet Portrait

Waclaw Sierpinski was the mathematician who first described the fractal that became known as the Sierpienski carpet {wiki}. Andrew Pike has created a tile mosaic portrait of Sierpinski, using Sierpinski carpets! Link -via Dump Trumpet

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Singing Kittens

A bank in Australia has a cute advertising gimmick. They want to make you happy, and figure singing kittens will do the job. Enter your name (as long as it isn’t too long), and the kittens will sing a song for you! Link -via Arbroath

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The People’s Mario

This flash animation by Celarent stars Mario as a Soviet-style worker/hero who fights the evil mushrooms. The look is reminiscent of classic propaganda posters. Music by the Russian Red Army Choir, Proshchanie Slavianki, and Nintendo. Link -via reddit

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Food Blog Search

If you want to cook something new, you know someone out there has done it before. Food Blog Search is a specialized search engine for recipes posted on food blogs. When you’ve got hundreds of recipes for “curry chicken”, you’re bound to find one that fits the ingredients you have on hand. It’s also a way to explore new and different sites about food. And it’s not just recipes! I typed in “Leap Day party” and found lots of interesting posts. Link -via the Presurfer

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The Blizzard of 78

I was eight years old when the Blizzard of 78 struck Massachusetts 30 years ago in February of 1978. It was akin to a snow hurricane that got “stuck” over southern New England. My father was trapped in Boston for several days before he could drive home. An aunt and uncle were among thousands trapped in cars along Route 128 west of the city. At eight, it was all fun and games for me. I can remember a warren of tunnels neighbor kids and I built in our front yards. The YouTube video above is an interesting retrospective on the event, albeit with an admittedly annoying voiceover. [Link to Boston Globe page with links to other accounts and photos of the storm].

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Pickup School For Men Who Can't Get Any

Meet Satoshi Fujita, whose Pickup School for Men Who Can’t Get Any, promises to turn any geek into a womanizing pro:

Satoshi Fujita is not a good-looking man. He has oily skin, beady eyes, short legs and a boy-band wig to cover his balding head. But that hasn’t stopped him from becoming Japan’s most sought-after dating coach for geeks.

Fujita’s Pickup School for Men Who Can’t Get Any teaches geeky, insecure men of all ages how to gain confidence, score dates and get laid — all based, he says, on a proprietary "science" he discovered after a decade of careful research.

"I always teach my students that sex comes first," he says. "Then you figure out whether the woman is worth marrying later."

Don’t believe it? Just check out this guy’s sucess story:

"Since joining Mr. Fujita’s school, I have had five successful relationships," says Hachioji Robocop, a 27-year-old civil servant who has been taking the course since 2004. "I lost my virginity six months into the course, and now I can now communicate with women. I’m very grateful."

Link (Photo: Lisa Katayama)

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The Man Behind the Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle Website

By now, you’ve probably ran across the cryptic "Barack Obama is your New Bicycle" website (and the corollary Hillary Clinton one). Y’know, it’s where Barack does only good things and Hillary does the opposite (both purely invented, of course).

Well, it turned out that the whole thing was done by Mathew Honan, a contributing editor to Wired magazine. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn has the scoop:

I came up with the idea for the site last week, on [Wednesday, Feb.]13, while riding the bus up Market Street on my way home for the day. My wife is an avid cyclist, and loves to talk about bikes and cycling. Recently, she’s gotten really active in the Obama campaign, and I had been kidding her that "Barack Obama is your new bicycle." There seem to be a lot of people who feel that way.

I told one of my friends about it, and it made him laugh too. And then the idea just sort of fell into place. I got home, registered the domain, and had everything up just as it is now four hours or so after I thought of the idea. Needless to say, I’m pretty surprised at how it took off.

Link – Thanks Austin Clay!

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Bottom Trawling As Seen From Space

Photo: SkyTruth

Bottom trawling for fish is so destructive to marine environment that its plume can be seen from space!

"Bottom trawling is the most destructive of any actions that humans conduct in the ocean," said zoologist Les Watling of the University of Hawaii. "Ten years ago, Elliott Norse (of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute) and I calculated that, each year, worldwide, bottom trawlers drag an area equivalent to twice the lower 48 states. Most of that trawling happens in deep waters, out of sight. But now we can more clearly envision what trawling impacts down there by looking at the sediment plumes that are shallow enough for us to see from satellites."

Link – via Treehugger

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Licorne Atomic Bomb Test: Beautiful and Scary

Photo: Pierre J. [Flickr]

There’s something scarily beautiful about an atomic bomb explosion … this one is from the nuclear test "Licorne", where the French Army detonated a 914 kiloton thermonuclear device in the Mururoa Atoll on July 3, 1970. It was the fourth nuclear test and largest.

More info on Licorne can be found at the Atomic Forum:

Licorne was a test of an experimental thermonuclear device for the TN-60 warhead; the fourth thermonuclear test conducted by France. The nuclear device was suspended from a balloon, which was filled with 14,000 cubic meters of helium, 500 meters (1600 feet) feet over the Dindon testing sector. 3,700 men stationed on Mururoa were evacuated for this test.

Newly appointed Minister of Defense Michel Debré observed the test from the De Grasse along with 12 representatives from the French press. The De Grasse was positioned some 30 miles from Mururoa for the shot.

An observer described the Licorne detonation as being a “a stupendously beautiful pillar of fire piercing a perfectly symmetrical mushroom.” Six hours after the explosion, Debré and the visiting correspondents returned to the main base on Mururoa. Debré reportedly swam in the Mururoa lagoon during this time to make the reporters think the radiological effects of the nuclear tests were harmless (Source)

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Song Chart Meme

Psst, here’s a cool meme going ’round Flickr. It’s called the Song Chart Meme, the graphical interpretation of songs, and here are a few examples (see if you can identify the songs):

Pic: boyshapedbox [Flickr]

Pic: slowburn [Flickr]

Pic: boyshapedbox [Flickr]

And the one that started it all …

Found at boyshapedbox [Flickr]

Link [Flickr pool] – via Gawker

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Hervé This: The Man Who Can Unboil an Egg

Meet Hervé This, French physical chemist who, along with physicist Nicholas Kurti, founded the "Molecular Gastronomy" culinary movement (he wrote the famous book with the same title). Hervé is famous for being the man who could unboil an egg.

His specialism is the science of cooking. For him, every foodstuff is ‘a chemical mixture’. ‘When aromatic compounds are formed on the surface of a roast,they are the result of a chemical reaction. When mushrooms turn black after being chopped, it is the fruit of a chemical reaction.’

Over the years, his musings on chemical reactions have led to a number of discoveries. He has worked out how to uncook an egg. He has calculated that you can produce 24 litres of mayonnaise with a single yolk. He has invented a Béarnaise sauce by replacing butter with melted chocolate, as well as ‘chocolate chantilly’ (a form of whipped chocolate prepared in the same way as crème chantilly). He’s baked an egg for an hour at 55°C, managing somehow to leave the yolk ‘exceptionally smooth and tender’.

Oh, and how do you unboil an egg? Hervé explains:

… when an egg is cooked, the protein molecules unroll themselves, link up and enclose the water molecules. In order to ‘uncook’ the egg, you need to detach the protein molecules from each other. By adding a product like sodium borohydride, the egg becomes liquid within three hours. For those who want to try it at home, vitamin C also does the trick.

Link – via kottke (Photo: MenuPages Blog)

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One Of These Puppies Isn't Like The Others ...

The always awesome Cute Overload has a few neat photos of a momma dachshund taking in a momma-less piglet.

Everyone say "awwwww": Link

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Photoshop's First Icon

Sebastiaan de With of the Cocoia Blog was doing a little research for a project when he found the very first Photoshop icon:

It’s actually a tiny little photo shop! I love it, and if I have some free time I’ll see if I can recreate it in a more modern style.

What particularly strikes me is that they’ve gone through great lengths to let anyone be able to determine what it is; the ‘1HR’ signage obviously indicates the ‘photo’ part in ‘Photoshop’ and the man with the teller is the ’shop’ part.

Link

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GMail, the Art Video

Saatchi Moscow ad agency created this excellent video clip explaining how Google’s GMail works to lay people. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Google Blogoscoped, thanks corcholat!

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A Gallery of Creative Bookshelf Designs

Freshome blog has an excellent post about 30 of the most creative bookshelf designs. Some of them have been featured here on Neatorama, but there are many that I haven’t seen before: Link

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(un)Fortunate Cookie

The Neatorama unFortunate Cookie

You can make your own (un)Fortunate Cookie here: Link

(Please share if you’ve made a funny one of your own in the comment)

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The Blissful Ignorance Effect: Customers Are Happier With Less Product Info

Psst companies, want to make your customers happy? Here’s a secret: don’t tell them too much about your product.

Sounds paradoxical? Read on about a new study by researchers at the University of Iowa that seems to validate that sometimes ignorance really is bliss:

In what they term the Blissful Ignorance Effect, researchers at the university’s Tippie College of Business found that people who have only a little information about a product are happier with that product than people who have more information.

"We found that once people commit to buying or consuming something, there’s a kind of wishful thinking that happens and they want to like what they’ve bought," said assistant professor of marketing Dhananjay Nayakankuppam. "The less you know about a product, the easier it is to engage in wishful thinking. But the more information you have, the harder it is to kid yourself. This can be contrasted with what happens before taking any action when people are trying to be accurate and would prefer getting more information to less."

Link – via Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World Blog

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Echo Park Time Travel Mart

"Behold the fluorescent glory of the ECHO PARK TIME TRAVEL MART Marquee. Check it out in person at 1714 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. The store will open full time on January 15th, 2008."

Just opened in Los Angeles: The Echo Park Time Travel Mart, specializing in everything you need for time travel, such as Mammoth Chunks, Barbarian Repellent (warning: doesn’t work for Ostrogoth), and Time-Freezy Hyper Slushy drink.

The Echo Park Time Travel Mart is a brainchild of Mac Bernett of 826LA, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting kids explore creative writing and helping teachers inspire their students to write. 826LA is looking for someone to help run the Echo Park Time Travel Mart If you knew this already through your time traveling, then you’d be the right person!

Links: Introducing the Echo Park Time Travel Mart at Stefan G. Bucher’s Daily Monster Blog | Photo Gallery | 826LA website

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Kimchi Goes to Space

Wherever Koreans go, kimchi goes with them – even to space:

After millions of dollars and years of research, South Korean scientists successfully engineered kimchi and nine other Korean recipes fit for space travel. When the Russian space authorities this month approved them for Ko’s trip, the South Korean food companies that participated in the research took out full-page newspaper ads.

The other space food Koreans created include the national instant noodle called ramyeon, hot pepper paste, fermented soybean soup and sticky rice.

But kimchi – a must-have side dish at every Korean meal – was the toughest to turn into space food.

"The key was how to make a bacteria-free kimchi while retaining its unique taste, color and texture," said Lee Ju Woon at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, who began working on the newfangled kimchi in 2003 with samples provided by his mother.

Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation. On Earth they are harmless, but scientists fear they could turn dangerous in space if cosmic rays cause them to mutate. Another problem is that kimchi has a short shelf life, especially when temperatures fluctuate rapidly, as they do in space.

If a new breed of lethal mutant bacteria come to lay waste to human civilization, we all know what to blame: that darned kimchi!

Link

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My Paper Mind, a "Stratastencil" Animation

My Paper Mind is a fantastic short film by Javan Ivy. It is made with an experimental animation technique he called "Stratastencil," where stacks of differentially cut paper are used as "frames" in the film. The 30 or so second animation above took about 18 hours to make.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Metafilter | Javan’s website

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Underground Farming in Japan

There’s something unusual going on inside a former bank vault hidden beneath a high rise building in Tokyo, Japan: farming! And no, not the illicit kind:

While we’re on the subject of things agricultural and of things covered by just about everyone long before today, there is Pasona O2, a subterranean farm cultivated inside a former bank vault beneath a high rise building in one of Tokyo’s business districts.

Though walled in from sunlight, weather and geology, it’s unbelievably verdant. Tomatoes, lettuces, strawberries, and other fruits and vegetables, as well as flowers and herbs, are grown in an area covering almost a square kilometer. There is even a terraced rice paddy.

This is all done, by the way, in a very hi-tech fashion. Computers control the temperature and light, which in this case is artificially generated by LEDs, halide lamps and sodium vapor lamps.

Is it a secret lab to genetically engineer the crop of the future? An agricultural experiment so human can survive a doomsday scenario? No, actually it’s to show what farming is like to jobless urban youths in Japan!

Pruned blog has the story (with more pics): Link – via Tokyomango

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Very Cool Iceberg and Ice Cave Photos by Dionys Moser

Iceberg – Way In (Photo: Dionys Moser)

Ice Cave (Photo: Dionys Moser)

Swiss photographer Dionys Moser’s phenomenal photographs of icebergs and ice caves are so incredibly cool! I’m completely in awe at the texture and colors of the ice, as well as Dionys’ ability to capture them on film.

See more here: Link – via Ursi’s Blog

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