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If you think dating is hard today, it’s nothing compared to 7,000 years ago: stone-age men "hunt" for women, and will kill for them:
Many archaeologists have argued that women have long motivated cycles of violence and blood feuds throughout history but there has really been no solid archaeological evidence to support this view.
Now a relatively new method has been used to work out the origins of the victims tossed into a mass grave of skeletons, and so distinguish one tribe from another, revealing that neighbouring tribes were prepared to kill their male rivals to secure their women some 7000 years ago.
James O’Neal suffers from neurofibromatosis, which leaves him looking like the modern day Elephant Man (he makes this comparison himself).
Others would probably hide than work, but James is a remarkable man: he is working proudly at the registers in the Safeway supermarket in Kirkland, Washington. And his customers don’t like him – they love him!
Now one of his loyal customers, Katie Knopf has created a website to raise funds for reconstructive surgery for James:
O’Neal knows his deformity shocks people. He knows others with the same genetic disorder would rather hide than work, but for 7 years James has proudly worked the registers at the Kingsgate Safeway on 124th Avenue NE in Kirkland.
"I just tell people this is who I am, it’s the way I am. If you don’t like me, you don’t like me," he said. His customers don’t like him — they love him.
"He is an amazing man and we love him. He’s the kind of person that makes your day," said customer Aubrey Richins. "I really love James," said shopper Katie Knopf.
All of them say they were stunned at first when they saw his disfigured face. "I have to admit I was a little taken back, but when I walked through his line I felt this spirit come over me, this man is out here, not hiding," said long-time customer Cindy Peay.
Links: Article at KOMO News | Friends of James O’Neal Fundraising official website
Also check out: Life in the Fast Lane’s post about Modern Day Elephant Man Heroes
After disappearing from the internet for a few months, deputydog has decided to become a full-time blogger. His first act is to solicit designs for a new logo for his site through a contest at Worth1000. The winning logo will earn $400! He wants green for a predominant color, and if you use any capitals, you’ll probably be eliminated. Link
Photo: OliB
Wow (bow?) – today’s Neatorama and Hobotopia‘s Caption Monkey game is a photo from a fantastic section of the Los Angeles Times that I’ve just recently discovered. It’s titled "Pets Behaving Badly," a gallery where you can submit photos of your pets doing things they shouldn’t be doing: Link – via Your Scene blog
This one above is titled "Separation Anxiety," and is submitted by OliB. I guess the dog really don’t want to be left alone!
Funniest caption will win a free drawing by Adam "Ape Lad" Koford (Check out his blog Hobotopia here). Good luck!
Update 6/5/08 – Adam has picked the winner! Congrats to tripleX who submitted the winning caption: “I hate ‘knock, knock’-jokes.”
So, I’m sure you’ve all seen grainy video of the peeping Alien in the window, shot by Stan Romanek, a Colorado resident who claimed to have been abducted like 100 times by aliens. A ballot is now being sponsored by Jeff Packman to create an "Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission" in Denver (and here I thought that we already did that with Majestic 12 !) Link
What they didn’t show was who popped up after the alien … Say hello to the Neatoramanaut!
Here’s a strange tale of one drug smuggler who sculpted cocaine into a statue of Jesus, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape:
A drug dealer named The Spider is wondering why his Jesus Christ still hasn’t appeared in Dallas. Thanks to an unusual bust by federal agents in Laredo, they’re not going to connect.
Drug traffickers mixed as much as six pounds of the illicit white powder into a paste and used it to make a regal statue of the Christian savior, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape.
Smugglers were likely hoping the statue, which could be worth as much as $30,000 on the streets, would be dismissed by border guards as just another of the hundreds of plaster representations hawked to borderland tourists.
But a dog trained to sniff out drugs confirmed it was anything but another religious memento.
After a decade of research, scientists have come to this conclusion about dark energy: they still have no idea what it is!
Here’s a fascinating article on the most mysterious force in the Universe, the dark energy, by Dennis Overbye for the New York Times (no physics equations, we promise!):
Although cosmologists have adopted a cute name, dark energy, for whatever is driving this apparently antigravitational behavior on the part of the universe, nobody claims to understand why it is happening, or its implications for the future of the universe and of the life within it, despite thousands of learned papers, scores of conferences and millions of dollars’ worth of telescope time. It has led some cosmologists to the verge of abandoning their fondest dream: a theory that can account for the universe and everything about it in a single breath.
“The discovery of dark energy has greatly changed how we think about the laws of nature,” said Edward Witten, a theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
Link – via Blue’s News
Red shirt? Naw, man – She’s too cute to die! And that borg telling the dude that "Resistance is futile"? Subtle. Real subtle.
After you ask her to marry you, ask this question next: "So, Star Trek or Star Wars wedding?" If she said yes to either, then she’s a keeper!
Miss C wrote a really neat article for mental_floss about science fiction wedding: Link
According to Lance Greathouse, “It was made for the disabled person looking for something a little different, why drive something that looks like a medical device when you can drive something lethal?”
Link to story. Link to website. -via Unique Daily
Comments Off
Update: Boing Boing posted this and commenters provided more information.
It was made at the Savannah College of the Arts, and was written and directed by Christian Simmons. Heres a high-quality version of the film. Here’s a behind-the-scenes video.
| The following is an article from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader
Alferd G. Packer holds a unique spot in Born in rural Colorado in 1847, Packer drifted into the Utah Territory, GOLD FEVER With Packer leading, they plunged into San Juan Mountains and promptly Ouray gave them supplies and advised them to follow the river upstream The exception was Alferd Packer. He was broke, and returning to Salt When his strength returned, he packed enough “human jerky” WELL, YOU SEE, OFFICER … Packer’s explanations were vague and contradictory. First, he claimed He made his way back to Utah and lived quietly for 10 years as “John Packer claimed innocence but as the evidence against him mounted, he “Alferd G. Packer, you no good sonofabitch, there wasn’t but SAVED BY A TECHNICALITY His lawyer appealed the decision, citing a legal loophole. The crime On April 21, 1907, Alferd G. Packer, horse wrangler and cannibal, died |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom
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Alferd Packer achieved somewhat of a cult status in pop culture. In 1968,
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We all know that the compass needle points north because of the Earth’s magnetic field, but how exactly does the that field come about?
Geophysicist Dan Lathrop at the University of Maryland wants to find out … by building his own planet!
His latest effort at the University of Maryland towers over him, a massive stainless steel sphere that looks like a prop from some old science fiction movie. Later this year he plans to fill it with molten metal and set the whole 26-ton ball spinning. At top speed the equator will whirl by at 80 miles an hour.
"It was a little scary the first time we spun it up," he says.
"Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come home."
– Bill Cosby, comedian and actor
Image: Mark Changizi, RPI
Look at the image above: the red lines are completely straight, but if you stare into the central (vanishing) point, then they appear to curve outward. Now, researcher Mark Changizi of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York has discovered the secret to not only this optical illusion, but many other optical illusions: it’s because the brain sees into the future!
When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.
Changizi now says it’s our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. That foresight keeps our view of the world in the present. It gives you enough heads up to catch a fly ball (instead of getting socked in the face) and maneuver smoothly through a crowd.
That same seer ability can explain a range of optical illusions, Changizi found. "Illusions occur when our brains attempt to perceive the future, and those perceptions don’t match reality," Changizi said.
Here’s how the foresight theory could explain the most common visual illusions — geometric illusions that involve shapes: Something called the Hering illusion, for instance, looks like bike spokes around a central point, with vertical lines on either side of this central, so-called vanishing point. The illusion tricks us into thinking we are moving forward, and thus, switches on our future-seeing abilities. Since we aren’t actually moving and the figure is static, we misperceive the straight lines as curved ones.
You’re looking at something that is quite strange: these are rocks found in Romania called "trovants." The locals call them "growing stones," and for a good reason: after the rain, small round protrusions appear as the rocks grow!
During a road trip, the gas light on Justin Davis’ car went on and he pondered the question that has puzzled mankind since the invention of the automobile: just how far can you drive after the gas light comes on?
The "Tank on Empty" concept is simple: Your light comes on, you hit the trip meter, drive for as long as you can — or dare — and then go to the site to submit the number of miles you travelled beyond E. For example, 129 drivers have entered data for the Toyota Corolla, which I drive, logging an average of 44 miles after the light.
Davis continues: "The feedback I receive usually identifies three types of people: The ones who think it’s a fun idea (my favorite); people who don’t think the information is detailed enough because it doesn’t take into account engine size or number of passengers or something (the pedants); and, the people who have to warn against driving on low gas because it’ll hurt your car or could kill you or something (the overreactors). It’s fun to categorize them as people leave messages."
Link: Davis’ website Tank on Empty | Article on Network World by Paul McNamara
A metajoke is a joke that references itself as a joke.
Here’s an example:
An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender turns to them, takes one look, and says "What is this – some kind of joke?"
Or for all you scientists:
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have
no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations
the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few
minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself
happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a
paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he
had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote,
and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar
anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary
to be significant, let alone funny. (Source)
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