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In the 11th and 12th century, a Christian sect known as the Cathars swept through France. Amongst other things, they believed that matter was intrinsically evil and that Jesus could not have been both incarnate in the (sinful) flesh and still be the son of God (they believed that he was a prophet and mortal who died on the cross).
The Catholic Church saw the Cathars as dangerously heretical and in 1209, Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade to wipe out the Cathars (in which about 1 million people were killed).
Legend has it that four Cathar priests escaped with a sacred scroll, believed to have been written by Jesus himself, and hid pieces of the scroll around the world for safekeeping. They encoded the locations of these scrolls by weaving codes into cloths (Weaving was big for the Cathars – they even called themselves The Weavers).
And now, according to conspiracy theorists, the surviving Cathars/Weavers have initiated a sinister plan that will change the future of mankind….
Here’s a short clip at History of the Cathars, which you’ll probably find quite entertaining if you like The Da Vinci Code sort of thing: Link [Flash video] – Thanks Sam Alexander!
Over the weekend, there was the "crying sumo" contest for babies:
In crying sumo the babies are held up by amateur sumo wrestlers in a ring, and the baby who cries first is the winner. If both babies cry, then the one that cries loudest wins. A total of 84 babies born last year participated in the contest at the temple.
Link | Photo Gallery at Xinhua – via Arbroath
If you think your commute is horrendous, check out what Liu Suozhu of Henan Province, China, had to drive on:
A Chinese man performed a breathtaking stunt by driving a car across two steel cables suspended 150ft above a river.
Liu Suozhu, 48, of Henan province, completed the 750ft journey over Miluo River in Pingjiang city, Hunan province. Liu, who is nicknamed the Car King in China, drove the motor from a platform in front of tens of thousands of cheering spectators.
You’ve probably heard of this incredibly bizarre and sad story when it broke a couple of days ago: Josef Fritzl is an Austrian man who locked his daughter Elizabeth in a cellar beneath his house for 24 years and fathered 7 children with her.
All this time, Josef’s wife (and Elizabeth’s mom) lives upstairs not knowing that her daughter, whom she was told ran away to join a religious cult, was held captive.
What’s even more bizarre is that three of Elizabeth (and Josef’s) children were allowed to live in the house (they told the wife that Elizabeth couldn’t keep the kids at the cult) and lived normal lives. Three more children (1 died shortly after birth) spent all of their lives in the cellar – and had never seen daylight before the police freed them.
Josef’s crime was uncovered when one of his "dungeon" child was deathly ill and had to be taken to the hospital:
Psychiatrists believe he was obsessed with power and must have been insane to have kept them incarcerated for so long and to have managed to keep it a secret.
Elisabeth is said to be white-haired, mentally and physically frail and traumatised, while Kerstin, 19, is fighting for her life. It was Kerstin’s collapse that prompted the discovery of the dungeon in the basement of Fritzl’s home in Amstetten.
The teenager is in critical condition and in an artifically-induced coma after suffering from cramping fits caused by lack of oxygen. Like her mother, and her siblings, she had been forced to live in the windowless cellar for years.
Because she and two of her brothers were kept there their whole lives, they had never seen sunlight until they were released. [...]
Three other children – Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 – were adopted and brought up by Josef and his wife Rosemarie, 78.
Leopold Etz, a regional police official, says Fritzl apparently chose which of the children would live upstairs with him and his wife according to whether they were "crybabies."
Which is your favorite movie robot?
The time when our TV and cinema screens were full of clunky dustbins and oversized toasters just happy to help has long gone.
Now robots look more like supermodels and want to wipe us out. In fact, some of them are more hard-on than hard disc. Well, that’s progress for you. But we still love them, right? Despite the fact they want to kill us.
Whether you agree with the rankings or not, you can relive some memories with this list, with video clips for each robot. Link -via Digg
19-year-old Broderick Laswell was arrested in Benton County, Arkansas last September on a murder charge. He weighed 413 pounds at the time. Since then, he has lost 105 pounds, and is now suing his jailers for starving him.
According to the U.S. District Court complaint, an excerpt of which you’ll find here, Laswell contends that he is being provided with so few calories that, about an hour after every meal, “my stomach starts to hurt and growl. I feel hungry again.” This purported “lack of nutrition,” Laswell claims, is reflected in miniscule biscuits and cake sizes, the small amount of chips accompanying sandwiches, and the occasional provision of “2 small cookies.” And just in case anyone thought he was only concerned about junk food, the accused killer also complains about the “drizzle of dressing” placed on his “small side of lettuce.”
Authorities report the jail food provides 2300-3000 calories a day. The Smoking Gun has a series of mug shots showing Laswell’s weight loss. Link
Here are is a compilation of some really funny newscaster and weatherman bloopers. Wait until the end, you’ll love that one…I know I did.
Link: Metacafe
Photo: Club.chinaren.com
There was an anti-France/anti-Carrefour/anti-Tibetan independence protest in China over the weekend (Carrefour is a large supermarket chain based out of France), and this taxi driver was quick to capitalize on the anti-French mood! Maybe it’s just because the French don’t tip well …
If you think that running the marathon is tough, that’s cakewalk as compared to this: Marathon Des Sables, or Marathon of the Sand, 156 miles over 7 days (that’s like running 6 marathons back to back) … across the Sahara Desert!
Here’s a very interesting report by Clarissa Ward of the ABC World News Webcast: Link
Meet Mondex, a 5-year-old chihuahua that just won a dog fashion show in the Philippines … by dressing up as a scuba diver!
Five-year-old Mondex wore a four-legged wetsuit, air bottle, four little flippers and goggles for the day.
Mondex was joined by other pampered pooches in the pet fashion show held in a mall in suburban Manila.
He faced stiff competition from Tucker, another five-year-old chihuahua, who was dressed as a cowboy but eventually emerged victorious.
Don’t smoke your cigarettes … drink ‘em! Here’s an idea so crazy it’s brilliant: Cigarettea by Schnaider.
Cigarettea are tea bags that look like cigarettes. All you have to do is dip one in a cup of hot water and let it steep (the "filter" will act as a fluotation device). Instead of tobacco, the cigarettes have tea leaves! Link – via GearFuse
Think that gas prices are high? According to Dan Dorfman of The New York Sun, we may be seeing much higher gas prices in just three years. How high? Try $10 a gallon.
The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years. [...]
Early last year, with a barrel of oil trading in the low $50s and gasoline nationally selling in a range of $2.30 to $2.50 a gallon, Mr. Gaines — in an impressive display of crystal ball gazing — accurately predicted oil was $100-bound and that gasoline would follow suit by reaching $4 a gallon.
His latest prediction of $200 oil is open to question, since it would undoubtedly create considerable global economic distress. Further, just about every energy expert I talk to cautions me to expect a sizable pullback in oil prices, maybe to between $50 and $70 a barrel, especially if there’s a global economic slowdown.
While Mr. Gaines thinks there could be a temporary decline in the oil price, he’s convinced an overall uptrend is unstoppable. In fact, he thinks his $200 forecast could be conservative, and that perhaps $250 could be reached. His reasoning: a combination of shrinking supply and increasing demand, especially from China, India, and America.
Link – via Boing Boing
Can you imagine putting years of time, effort and money into a life-changing invention that you think will:
a) Make you tons of money
b) Make you famous
c) Change the world
d) All of the above
And instead, your amazing invention ends up being your kiss of death? It happens… maybe infrequently, but it does happen. Below, check out five examples of inventors who might have prolonged their lives if they had never dreamed up their creations.
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov was a Russian Renaissance Man – his interests included physics, philosophy, economics, science fiction, the universal systems theory and, his downfall – the possibilty of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. Bogdanov was interested in the theory that a blood transfusion could possibly hold the secret to eternal youth, or at least slow the aging process. He actually performed a blood transfusion on Vladimir Lenin’s sister, Maria Ulianova. He tried 11 of these procedures on himself, with one of his friends remarking that Bogdanov appeared to be 10 years younger.
In 1928, he completed a blood transfusion on himself that ended up resulting in his death. The transfer was from a student who had malaria and tuberculosis. Some suspect that the death was, in fact, a suicide – Bogdanov wrote a very “nervous” political letter shortly before his death.
William Bullock is the man responsible for the 1863 invention of the web rotary printing press. It completely changed the printing industry because of how quickly it could produce.
This was one of his many inventions – others included a roof shingle cutter, a cotton and hay press, a seed planter, a lathe cutting machine and a grain drill (which won him a prize from the Franklin Institute).
He perfected his web rotary press in 1860. Although a rotary press was already in operation, Bullock’s allowed continuous large rolls of paper to be used, eliminated the need to hand-feed paper through. The press could print up to 30,000 sheets an hour.
In 1867, though, the machine turned against Bullock. He was adjusting a new press that had been installed for the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper and tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley. His leg got caught into the machine and was completely crushed. He died a little more than a week later during an operation to amputate his leg.
Before the Wright Brothers, there was Otto Lilienthal. Known as the “Glider King”, he was the first person to make successful gliding flights more than once. Publications ran pictures of his successes, which helped to make the idea of inventing a “flying machine” more plausible to the public.
After many years of successes, failure finally caught up with him. On August 9, 1896, he fell from a height of 56 feet and broke his spine. He died the next day, but said “Kleine Opfer müssen gebracht werden!” (“Small sacrifices must be made!”).
The Wright Brothers credited him with as their inspiration for pursuing flight. “Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century,” Wilbur Wright said, “Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important.”
Thomas Midgley, Jr. held more 100 patents, had a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell and worked for a subsidiary of General Motors. He discovered that adding tetra-ethyl lead to gasoline prevented internal combustion engines from “knocking”. However, this also released huge amounts of lead into the atmosphere, causing health problems and massive pollution. After people at the GM plants started hallucinating and dying of lead poisoning, though, Midgley was assigned to develop a non-toxic refrigerant for household appliance. So, he discovered dichlorodifluoromethane (please don’t ask me to pronounce that), AKA Freon. Turns out that Freon is a chlorinated fluorocarbon, which is insanely bad for the ozone layer. This guy just couldn’t win!
Midgely wouldn’t live much longer to discover other toxic substances, though – in 1940, he developed polio. The disease left him extremely disabled, but, being the inventor that he was, he developed a system of pulleys and ropes to lift him out of bed. It was this invention – and not the hazardous exposure to lead and CFCs – that killed him. In 1944, he got tangled up in the ropes of his contraption and strangled to death.
Franz Reichelt was a tailor who was convinced that the next big thing was a coat that doubled as a parachute. So he got busy sewing and developed just that. To test the coat/parachute (coatachute? Paracoat?), Reichelt climbed up to the first deck of the Eiffel Tower. He told authorities that he was going to use a dummy to test the invention, but at the last minute he strapped himself in and jumped to his death in front of a large crowd of spectators. If you YouTube his name, you’ll find video of the entire event. Since this is a family blog, I wasn’t sure that I should link to a man plummeting 60 meters to the cement below.
Apparently there’s a long-standing story that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin died at the “hand” of his namesake invention, the Bowie Knife. I’m just kidding. He helped conceive of the guillotine, obviously. He suggested the beheading machine as a way to humanely execute criminals. Guillotine was actually against the death penalty and hoped that his invention would be a step toward more humanity, which would eventually abolish the death penalty altogether. At the time, people who couldn’t afford to pay for a quick death were decapitated, but it often took quite a few blows and the axe or sword was usually rather dull. Although Guillotin was arrested and imprisoned in the late 1700s, he was not executed. He was freed and died of natural causes in 1814.
Oh the irony! Thousands of the Snow Lion Flag or the "Free Tibet" flags turned out to be … made in China!
Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say. The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning. But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.
Link – Thanks Justin!
What do you get when you cross tetris with arm wrestling? Behold the next revolution in video game by Tom Gerhardt: Tresling!
They said it couldn’t be done. Mixing Tetris and arm wrestling… not possible. But just like Stallone in "Over the Top," the impossible happened, dreams came true, tears were shed. I give you Tresling: Not just a two-player version of best game on earth, not just a fist-pumping, back ally arm wrestling match to end all matches… but a mash-up so heroic Zeus himself could not imagine it.
Link | YouTube Link – via Make
Remember the post on the Shipping Container House in Wellington, New Zealand? Well, Neatorama reader Marten told us about entire buildings built from shiping containers in the Netherlands.
A little search brought me to Keetwonen, a student housing project in Amsterdam by a company called TempoHousing:
Keetwonen, a student housing project in Amsterdam, turns shipping containers into 1000 units and provides all the amenities a student could ever want. And aside from the obvious green usage of surplus shipping containers, Keetwonen has integrated a rooftop to accommodate efficient rainwater drainage while providing heat dispersal and insulation for the containers beneath. [...]
Containers are home to not only the 1000 units that each have a private balcony, but a cafe, supermarket, office space, and even a sports area. Units are arranged in “blocks,” each block containing a service unit with centralized electricity, internet, and networking systems.
Link – Thanks Marten!
A controversy had erupted over the photo of the 15-year-old teen superstar Miley Cyrus (better known as Hannah Montana):
One photo shows Cyrus topless but clutching a sheet to her chest, her bare back exposed, looking toward the camera over one shoulder.
A caption alongside the photo reads: "Um, was Cyrus — or Disney — at all anxious about this shot?" It then quotes Cyrus as saying: "No, I mean I had a blanket on. And I thought, ‘This looks pretty, and really natural.’ I think it’s really artsy."
The photos were taken by Annie Leibovitz, a renowned photographer known for her portraits of celebrities.
The magazine refers to the "topless but demure portrait" as Leibovitz’s idea and quotes Cyrus as saying, "It wasn’t in a skanky way … And you can’t say no to Annie. She’s so cute. She gets this puppy dog look and you’re like, ‘O.K.’"
A Disney Channel spokesman, Patti McTeague, said in a statement on Sunday that the photos were meant to sell magazines.
"Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines," her statement said.
My respect for Annie Leibovitz, an accomplished photographer known for her portraits of celebrities, had just gone to zero. I’ve never had any respect for Vanity Fair. Ugh.
Link | DListed has the controversial pic (I think it was yanked off the Vanity Fair website) – Thanks Geekazoid!
Wouldn’t you know it, the conveyor belt sushi is 50 years old this month!
Yoshiaki Shiraishi (1914-2001) opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958. The concept has revolutionised the Japanese food culture, with thousands of conveyor belt sushi restaurants operating around the world.
According to Wikipedia, Yoshiaki was inspired to invent the conveyor belt sushi after watching beer bottles on a conveyor belt in an Asahi brewery.
Link | Wikipedia entry on Conveyor Belt Sushi – Thanks Jee!
(Photo: mstephens7 [Flickr])
A motorcycle with one wheel? No, it just looks that way. The Uno has two wheels, side by side. It runs on electricity and is controlled by body language. The only controls are an on-off switch. To go forward, you lean forward. Lean further to go faster. The Uno was invented by 18-year-old Ben J. Poss Gulak. Motorcycle Mojo has the story of how the Canadian engineering prodigy built the prototype Uno. Link
Photographer Joshua Hoffline stages his photos like small movie sets. The results are ever so creepy!
I believe that the horror story is ultimately concerned with the imminence and randomness of death, and the implication that there is no certainty to existence. The experience of horror resides in this confrontation with uncertainty. Horror tells us that our belief in security is delusional, and that the monsters are all around us.
This gallery may bring back memories of nightmares, but they are beautiful in their own ghastly way. Link -via reddit
In honor of the upcoming Iron Man movie and the new monthly comic series by writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larroca, Project: Rooftop and Westfield Comics held the Iron Man: Invincible Upgrade fan-art contest.
They’ve just chosen the Grand Prize Winner: the artwork to the left, drawn Daniel Krall.
What Daniel’s done here is not simply show off a neat alternate version of the character. With this one illustration, he’s rebuilt him, including character traits and building a story that informs the design. This Iron Man is the Howard Hughes-inspired Tony Stark. He’s proud of his work. He’s bringing us into the future. The actual design goes far beyond the fun of this magazine ad illo, though. It looks functional. It’s stainless steel and rivets.
Find out more about Daniel’s winning design and the rest of the winners: Link – via Super Punch
Previously on Neatorama: Wonder Woman Wardrobe: Wonder Woman Redesigned by Fans | Superhero Costume Redesign
University of Michigan researchers have just discovered the reason why married women always have so much housework to do: their husbands!
A new study from the University of Michigan shows that having a husband creates an extra seven hours of extra housework a week for women. But a wife saves her husband from an hour of chores around the house each week.
"It’s a well-known pattern. There’s still a significant reallocation of labor that occurs at marriage — men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor," said Frank Stafford, of the university’s Institute for Social Research (ISR), who directed the study.
"And the situation gets worse for women when they have children," he added in a statement.
Link – via Miss Cellania
Y’know, it’s only after I became a father that I truly – and I mean truly – appreciate a baby’s laughter. There’s nothing like it in the world.
I’d say that a baby’s laugh is proof that God exists and that he loves us, except that Benjamin Franklin had already used the phrase for beer.
Say No to Crack blog has a pretty neat compilation of 7 YouTube clips of babies laughing – some we’ve seen before on Neatorama, and some we haven’t: Link
Last month, Julia Di Sieno of the Animal Rescue Team in California noticed a dead sharp-shinned hawk while driving.
But it was no ordinary dead hawk: it had a small bird claw protruding out of its chest, a small songbird that perhaps wasn’t too happy to be eaten and decided to fight back! (Yes, maybe it had nothing to do with the hawk’s death at all, but that’s boring …)
Link – Thanks Phreedo!
This summer, over 50 movies are slated to be released – and keeping track of them all is a big chore. Fortunately, the good folks at Always Watching have put out a guide on which movies to watch and which to skip.
I’m looking forward to this one (oh, do I love silly comedy) : Tropic Thunder, Directed by Ben Stiller, Starring: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey, Jr.
Synopsis: A group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are captured by enemy forces and find themselves needing to become the soldiers they’re portraying.
What to Expect: Robert Downey Jr. as a black man. That alone has guaranteed my ticket bought. The fact that the rest of the film looks great as well is just a bonus. It really seems like they’ve worked out the perfect combination of action, comedy, parody, and shit blowing up. And I gotta admit, it’s nice to see Ben Stiller taking another temporary break from playing the whiny, awkward dork we always see him as.
And why, here’s the trailer, of course:
Excellent! Here’s Always Watching’s Ultimate Summer ’08 Movie Guide
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