Archive for July 1st, 2008
Family Loses Belongings in Foreclosure Mixup
Imagine coming home from work to your new home and finding everything gone!
Bobo and Joy Dickson bought a house had been headed for foreclosure, but JPMorgan Chase apparently didn’t get the message that the former owners had moved out and the new owners were in residence. So, naturally, they hired a firm to drill the Dickson’s locks and take everything they owned, including their food. Now JPMorgan Chase is “taking it seriously.”
The prosecutor’s office declined to press charges against the reclamation firm, Field Asset Services Inc. saying there was no criminal intent. The Dicksons have filed suit against JPMorgan Chase. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Deborah Cannon/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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Amelia Earhart
It was 71 years ago today that aviator Amelia Earhart, along with navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific, never to be found. It was Earhart’s second attempt at flying around the world.
The disappearance of the celebrated flier remains perhaps the most tantalizing unsolved mystery in aviation history. In the age of Charles Lindbergh and other daredevil fliers, Amelia Earhart became a household name in 1928, after becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. True, it was as a passenger with a male pilot and copilot, but she soloed across the Atlantic in 1932.
Wired has the story of what happened on July 2, 1937. Link
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Make Your Own Foaming Soap
I received a bottle of foaming soap as a gift and had wondered if I could refill it, since it measures the proper amount for hand washing so well. A comment at Consumerist led me to an Instructable on exactly this question. Foaming soap costs more than regular liquid soap, but the difference is the container. And the secret is that the foaming soap you pay more for is regular liquid soap that has been watered down! Now I know what to do with all this “bath gel” my family got for Christmas. Link
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Automotive Bee in Your Bonnet: Truck Carrying 12 Million Bees Overturned
Bad: Car accident on the highway …
Really Bad: It was an overturned big rig …
Neatorama-worthy: … carrying 12 million bees!
BBC has the story:
Motorists on Canada’s biggest highway ended up with a bee in their bonnet after a truck transporting 12m of the insects overturned. The lorry was carrying 330 crates of honey bees when it tipped over on a ramp in St Leonard, New Brunswick.
Bee experts were called in to help deal with the accident on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police said a downpour of rain helped to contain the bees in and around the vehicle. "Bees don’t like the rain… thousands of bees are hanging on the back of this truck and on the pavement right behind," said police spokesman Derek Strong.
Link (with video clip) – Thanks Paul!
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Take a Dump In Your Pants If You Have To!
Marathon runners are hard core, and their supporters are too! Here are a few funny signs that people hold during races (the last two are the best!) at Elite Feet: Link – Thanks Matt!
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Afternoon Snack in Tanzania
Next time you eat a Twinkie for a snack, think of the children in Tanzania. Here’s what they eat for an afternoon snack (I won’t tell ruin the surprise and tell you what it is, but if you’re squeamish, this video isn’t for you!).
Video by David Lipps, a college student working for an NGO in Tanzania.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Dan Danbom!
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Sunny Day Sky, Fun Flash Game by Ferry Halim
I’m a big fan of Ferry Halim’s flash games ever since Miss Cellania posted one a while ago, so I’m pleasantly surprised when this one got recommended to Neatorama.
Sunny Day Sky is a fun (and easy) Flash game where you get to guide a cute little critter fly jump over cars using only an umbrella! (This being a Ferry Halim game, pleasant music is a given… )
Link – Thanks Nalden!
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Steampunk X-Wing Biplane Fighter
Amoeba Boy (who made the awesome steampunk R2-D2) has come up with another neat thing: steampunk X-wing fighter biplane papercraft.
This time, he’s even provided the cutout plan if you want to make your own: Link – Thanks Mark Edwards!
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Sustainable Dave is Half-Way in Saving His Trash for a Year
We’ve blogged about Sustainable Dave’s attempt to save all the trash he generates in a year. This month marks Dave Chameides’ 6th month anniversary of his effort (he blogs everything – and I mean everything – that he throws away).
Check out his progress here: Link | An interesting interview with Dave by Annie Tsai at Epic Fu – Thanks Dave!
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Grandma Found Out What "WTF" on Her License Plate Meant, Didn't LOL.
A grandma in North Carolina was not amused when her granddaughter pointed out what the "WTF" in her license plate stands for.
So, after her complaint to the DMV, she got the state government of North Carolina to offer a free replacement to the 10,000 people who got the unfortunate license plates. (Oh, if only those replacement plates have "LOL" on ‘em!)
Link – via khumptydotcom, thanks Kyle!
In other news, the WTF Group and Mac Store are not amused …
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12 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes
Here’s a list of twelve curious facts about the Nobel Prizes. For example, however well-deserving, Mohandas Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was once withheld for a year in his honor:
Amazingly, the person probably most likely to have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize was never awarded one. Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, Indian leader who advocated non-violence in the struggle for Indian independence from colonial rule, never won the award. He was nominated five times, but failed each time. He was assassinated just two days before the nominations for the 1948 prize were due, which, since he was deceased, disqualified him from the nomination and, therefore, the prize.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee considered selecting Gandhi for the award in spite of the rules, but because he left no legal heirs, they were not sure of who to award the prize to. Instead, the committee elected to withhold the award that year, stating that “there was no suitable living candidate” for the award, a clear reference to the recently-deceased Gandhi.
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Happy Canada Day!
Today is Canada Day, {wiki} formerly Dominion Day.
On June 20, 1868, a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, called upon all Her Majesty’s loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1st.
Please leave your favorite Canada Day traditions in the comments. Link
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Skype Laughter Chain
(YouTube link)
Skype is putting together a laughter chain, and you’re invited to be a part of it! Watch the chain (the latest version is much longer than this video) and record yourself laughing along with those who’ve gone before. You’ll recognize the distinctive laugh from the guy in the classic video Dad at Comedy Barn. Look under “help” for the instructions. Link -Thanks, Alex!
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Top Ten Things Kids Stick Up Their Noses
I don’t know if these are posted in rank order or not, but they are the most common things kids tend to stick up their noses.
1. Crayons
2. Beads
3. French fries
4. Fingers
5. Marbles
6. Spaghetti
7. Tissue
8. Cheerios
9. Small toys
10. Beans and peas
Babyzone has more information, such as what you should do in each case. Link -via Bits and Pieces
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Diamond Rings Found in Toilet -12 Years Later!
10-year-old Cameron Delonde was retrieving a dropped toothbrush from the toilet when he found a set of diamond rings! Cameron and his father traced the rings to the former homeowner who had lost them 12 years earlier. The rightful owner’s daughter, Mary Trainor was delighted to see them.
Trainor said her mother passed away five years ago and she and her brother searched in vain for the family heirlooms, to no avail. She said she was thrilled to have them back and still can’t believe they’ve been returned.
Cameron’s father said he’d had a ring stolen years ago and remembered how that loss felt. He said he was determined to return the rings.
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Web in the Windows
The name of the window dressing business is Nets2go, but that is not usually interpreted as “internet”. One customer, however, asked for very specific designs on all the different window blinds in his home. Besides the Digg blind, he also commissioned blinds with the logos from Facebook, StumbleUpon, Firefox, Wordpress, YouTube, and more! His ‘net blinds didn’t go over well with his wife; the two are now separated.
“It was coming anyway”, Mr Schofield told us, “but my design choice for the blinds was pretty much the nail in the coffin. She doesn’t understand the intense geek in me. And anyway, the only one she’d even heard of was Youtube”
Link -Thanks, David!
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The Three Bears of Alarms
Photo: TACD
It’s the three bears of alarms: the sprinkler bell, the smoke bell, and the ever-mysterious "trouble" bell! Hm …. I wonder what that one would be for!
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Supergas: Biogas Brewed From Dung
Those large orange balloons are a portable biogas system called Supergas by Superflex and Unversity of Tropical Agriculture in Cambodia.
Supergas is designed to produce 4 cubic meter of gas – enough for a day’s worth of cooking and to run a gas lamp for one night for one family – from dung of 2 to 3 cattle. The set-up above was made from $50 worth of material – but it seems that until today the system has yet to be commercialized.
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Teaching a Child Not to Steal
My old car stereo doesn’t work too good anymore, but it still works for AM – and I’ve been listening to Michael Josephson’s commentary on ethics while driving to and from work.
This one is from a while ago, but it’s a goodie. Here’s a story that someone told him about stealing:
More than 50 years ago, when I was five, I was at my granddaddy’s house in a dress and white gloves. He told me I could go into the kitchen and get a cookie. Next to the cookie jar was a stack of quarters. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I took one.
I must have looked guilty when I returned because my granddaddy looked at me funny and asked me to show him my white gloves. I had the quarter in my right hand so I held out my left.
"Show me the other hand," he said. When he saw the quarter, he looked at me sadly.
He hugged me and said, "Darlin’, you can have anything in the world I have, but it breaks my heart that you’d ever steal it."
I’ll never forget the shame, and I never stole anything again.
Michael has a pretty good commentary on why the grandfather’s approach worked better in instilling the sense of right and wrong in the then-little girl: Link
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The Vicious Cycle of Staying Up Late
Jorge Cham of PhD Comics (stands for Piled Higher and Deeper, a cheeky acronym for the graduate student comic strip) nailed the essence of the vicious cycle of staying up late. It’s ironic because I’m staying up late to do this post … Link
Previously on Neatorama: Newton’s Law of Graduation
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Eating Expired Food
My wife throws away perfectly good food when they reach the expiration date stamped on the package – as if they know that – ding! – it’s time to go bad.
Jonathan Maitland of the Daily Mail has a similar problem with his wife, so he decided to embark on a two-week experiment of eating increasingly out-of-date supermarket food in attempt to discover the truth about use-by and best-before dates:
One Asda ’smart price’ Chicken Breast Fillet. My wife, realising the meat was six days past its Use-By date, reacted like a vampire seeing a crucifix. I devoured it. Granted, it lacked a little tenderness, but that may have been because I had roasted the living daylights out of it. Ill-effects: none.
Cooking, or the lack of it, is crucial in all this. Microbiologist Doctor Lee Humpheson, who runs a food-testing laboratory, says: ‘There is a 100 per cent greater risk from food that hasn’t been cooked or prepared properly, even if it is really fresh, than from food which is past its Use-By date, but which has been cooked and prepared properly.’
In other words, wash your hands when handling food, don’t use the raw meat knife to spread butter and follow cooking instructions to a ‘T’. Then, even though your sausages are, say, three days out of date, you will be fine.
Expiry dates are there for a reason, but, according to Dr David Jukes, a senior lecturer in Food Bioscience at Reading University: ‘The longer you leave food after its Use-By date has expired, the more its bacteria will multiply, posing a greater risk to your health.’
But how do manufacturers decide on an expiry date in the first place?
When new products come on the market, tests are run to see at what stage bacteria in the food become harmful. More tests are then carried out, taking into account the effect of variables such as packaging, transportation and storage temperatures.
Dr Jukes says many supermarkets will err on the side of caution when deciding on an expiry date. ‘Inevitably, the food industry plays safe. Use-By dates have a degree of safety built in, in order to protect the industry.’ So how great is that degree of safety? Quite big, if my experience is anything to go by.
Link (Photo: Les Wilson/ITV)
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