Archive for November, 2008
Fulfill Your Inner Will Ferrell
Admit it: you’ve always wanted to see what you would look like as an elf. The hat, the shoes with the rolled toes, the tights, the whole nine yards. And now you can, thanks to Office Max. I know Elf Yourself isn’t a new phenomenon, but I got such a huge kick out of it last year that I thought I’d pass it along again this year. Just crop your head out of a photo that you like and stick it on the elf. Then sit back and check out all of your sweet dance moves.
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NaNoWriMo Success!!
I won! 50,039 words with three hours to spare. How did the rest of you NaNo participants do? Will you do it again next year? Are you celebrating? I am, although it’s a pretty meager celebration: a beer and some guilt-free Internet surfing. Leave a comment and let us know how you ended up!
And, previously on Neatorama:
NaNoWrimo is Upon Us
NaNoWriMo Progress
The Ravings of a Mad (almost) Novelist
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Crying Caterpillar Ad
You know…I love the Japanese sense of humour when it comes to their advertisements. They can be funny, bizarre and sometimes insightful. This ad is the type that makes me laugh out loud because of its adorable nature. A father caterpillar and his son just want to get the best tea leaves at the top.
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Butts in Photography
Here’s a collection of rear-view images that are SFW. Some are quite fetching!
A photograph taken from an unusual angle can take an image from the dull to the wonderful in an instant. Instead of concentrating on the face, why not take a chance on that sometimes neglected (and other times overused) part of the anatomy – the butt. Call it what you like, caboose, bum or bottom – its inclusion on film can make a photograph. Have a look at this collection – no ifs or ands, but quite a few butts.
(image credit: mysza831)
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Now that's an Apple Pie!
Windell and Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories used a 45 watt carbon-dioxide laser to score an Apple logo on the top crust of an apple pie. They used a square springform pan to get the crust centered just right, and kept a crust lattice inside the logo to prevent it from distorting while it baked. I heard it was delicious, too. Link
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Minority Report CCTV
Britain has taken one more step in becoming a surveillance society with this: a "crime-predicting" CCTV that seems to be plucked straight out of science fictions:
Computers are programmed to analyse the movements of people or vehicles in the camera frame. If someone is seen lurking in a particular area, the computer will send out an alarm to a CCTV operator.
The operator will then check the image and – if concerned – ring the police. The aim is to stop crimes before they are committed. If a vehicle is moving too fast or slow – indicating joyriding or kerb-crawling, for example – a similar alert could be given.
I admit I had to look up kerb crawling
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Man Held Breath for 18 Minutes Underwater
How long can you hold your breath underwater? Me? A minute, tops!
Well, however long you can hold your breath, I betcha it’s nothing when compared to what Gianluca Genoni just did: he set a new world record for breath-holding, handily beating what David Blaine did (7 minutes) and the previous world record:
Gianluca Genoni held his breath for 18 minutes 3.69 seconds while lying underwater in a Mantua swimming pool, beating German diver Tom Sietas, who managed 17 minutes 19 seconds in September – also on live TV – to unseat Blaine from the Guinness world record book.
Link – via Underwater Times
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Now That's a Chair!
Photo: Alexander Natruskin / REUTERS
Times may be tough for regular Joes like you and me, but the Russian fat cats are partyin’ like it’s 1999 in Moscow’s annual Millionaire Fair. The Russian capital is home to 60,000 millionaires and 30 billionaires (in fact, it has more rich people than any other cities on Earth) – and conspicuous consumption seems to be their mantra.
REUTERS has an interesting photo gallery of this year’s Millionaire Fair (which is filled with beautiful young women looking bored!). This one above is a chair fit for fat cats or super villains, designed by Raw Design: Link – via Oddly Enough
Other Links: BBC News photo gallery of the 2006 Millionaire Fair | ABC News photo galllery
Previously on Neatorama: The Villain Chair
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Cat Haiku
Will Braden, the writer behind the short film Henri, recently featured on Neatorama, is also a composer of cat-themed haiku. Here are a few samples:
oh, I scratched the couch
does that upset you? you mad?
you had me neutered
I love to eat grass
though it makes me sick each time
like you and vodka
I lounge in the sun
savoring the morning scents
have fun at your job
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How To Cook on Your Car Engine While Driving
(Video Link)
Howcast shows you how to bake a meal on your car engine while driving. At the end of a long workday, you can wrap a few ingredients in tin foil, toss it on your radiator, and have a hot meal waiting you when you arrive home. Run time: 2.5 minutes.
Via Bits & Pieces
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10 Incredibly Dangerous Doctors
History is full of medical horror stories you’ve never heard of. Some doctors popularized theories that turned out to be just plain wrong, others made catastrophic misdiagnoses. Still others valued their research over their patients, to the detriment of both. Shown is Dr. Walter Freeman, who promoted the ice pick lobotomy in the mid-20th century.
It became incredibly popular, over 50,000 were performed, with Freeman performing over 3,000 himself in his lobotomobile. Freeman believed in lobotomies even after being discredited. He spent his final years visiting his victims, trying to prove they had benefited from his work.
Read about Freeman and nine other dangerous doctors. Link -Thanks, Sami!
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Geek Gifts
Oooh -a bat-shaped boomerang that’s really a money clip! The Batarang Folding Money Clip is just one of the picks at The Geek Guide to Holiday Gift-Giving. There’s also gadgets, movies, jewelry, and fashions that you won’t find at your local department store, all with links to ordering information. Link -Thanks, Yan!
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Dancing Scientists on YouTube
The magazine Science has announced the winners of the 2009 “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest. Sue Lynn Lau did a ballet to illustrate the role of vitamin D in beta-cell function. Miriam Sach used modern dance to portray cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs. Vince LiCata danced with his graduate students to represent the interaction of pairs of hemoglobin molecules. And Markita Landry tangoed her way through “Single Molecule Measurements of Protelomerase TelK-DNA Complexes.” The judges included the winners of last year’s competition. All the entries were posted to YouTube. Link (with videos) -via Metafilter
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Dragonfly Macrophotography
Dragonflies are beautiful, and even more so close up! Take a look at pictures that illustrate the dragonfly’s anatomy and life cycle. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans!
(image credit: Cessna 206)
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Amazing Optical Illusions
There are some of the best optical illusios I’ve ever seen. They will totally mess with your perception. The best thing is that they are all in real places, not just pictures on a computer.
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One Mile Tunnel Under London For Sale
Need a cool hideout or a secret lair for all your evil plans? A mile long tunnel under central London is up for sale right now for only $7.4 million. This Cold War relic is perfectly suited for all super villians in need of a good “underground” hideout, especially since it comes with a bar, two canteens and a billards room.
Link Via BoingBoing
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The Aurora Borealis From Space
We’ve seen plenty of pictures, clips, and shows all about the gorgeous Aurora Borealis or more commonly known as the Northern Lights on the Internet and on TV several times. But here is something that I bet you’ve never seen before. Astronaut and Science Officer for the International Space Station Expedition Six Don Pettit had the lucky opportunity to film the Aurora Borealis from space!
This first video has Don talking about the airglow and the horizon of the Earth. He also gets to catch the slow movement of the Aurora phenomenon in action at about the 1:30 mark.
In this second video you’ll get to see a sequence of still images animating the movement of the Aurora Borealis.
You may also be interested in checking out these articles previously posted on Neatorama!
Northern Lights in Alaska – Link
The Southern Lights – Link
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This Fish Purse Wants To Eat Your Stuff
This cute, and suprisngly fresh smelling, purse is very well thought out. The bass-mouth opening is very clever and the scales are too authentic.
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6 Weird Baby Names
Who said you have to be celebrity to name your kid something weird? Mental Floss has document 6 very weird names. Imagine being named Eclipse Glasses Banda or having a last name that means “pisses.” It happens, all over the world.
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Wal-Mart Worker Trampled To Death on Black Friday
How crazy are people on Black Friday? Are the deals so good that they would trample someone to death? Here’s a tragic Wal-Mart stampede that left one worker dead and got several people (including a pregnant woman) injured:
The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde. [...]
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. "They took me down, too … I didn’t know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," Overby said.
Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.
Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.
"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour’s sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?
If that’s not bad enough, even after being told that someone was killed, they kept on shopping!
Link (with video tape of the stampede)
(Photo: Augustine for The Daily News)
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The Best Super Mario Galaxy Cake EVAR!
For his daughter’s fourth birthday, Will Turnbow decided that he’s going to make the bestest Super Mario cake EVAR! Behold the Super Mario Galaxy cake, complete with spinning Luigi, flying Mario, and a rockin’ Bowser! It. Is. Simply. Awesome. Link
Here’s a YouTube clip of the cake "in action"
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Dad Found Long-Lost Son on MySpace
Nijhel "IX: Mendoza (that’s pronounced "nine") searched for his long lost son for 17 years … and found him at last on MySpace!
Kristi Tedesco of KVOA Tucson has the story:
Mendoza wrote commented on his son’s profile with an entry that neither he nor his son will ever forget, "Sorry to post on such a public forum but I’m anxious to get in touch with you soon. Love, your father IX Mendoza."
Chea Mitchell says, "Everyone was sitting down for dinner. I was checking my MySpace account and I get the comment saying it’s from my dad with a phone number. I just stared at the screen for a while and said, ‘Hey, mom. That’s his name, right?’"
They talked on the phone. Mendoza tells us, "It was just like old friends that had been apart for a little while."
Even though Mendoza hasn’t seen Chea since he was an infant, there was an instant connection. He says, "We really like zombie movies and sci-fi movies."
Eventually, Chea came to visit. He says, "I had all these brothers and sisters coming at me and hugging me and it was pretty epic."
Link (with video clip)
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Muggle Quidditch (Yes, It's a Real Sport!)
Remember the game Quidditch in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books? Well it turns out that a non-wizard version of the game is taking college campuses by storm. And yes, they do it with broomsticks up their butts:
The earthbound variation is called Muggle Quidditch. The sport originated in 2005 when a student at Middlebury College adapted the game for the nonmagical world. Its popularity quickly spread, and today more than 150 colleges throughout the United States have Quidditch teams. [...]
While the wizards in the Potter series play Quidditch on flying broomsticks, Muggles (author J. K. Rowling’s word for nonmagical people) run holding a broom between their legs. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and just as awkward, says Stack, who is team captain while Culleton is studying abroad.
“We’re a small, kind of ragtag group,” she says. “Not everyone has brooms yet, so some people play with Wiffle bats or lacrosse sticks. And we only have two hoops. You’re supposed to have three on each end of the field.”
As in the fictional game, each Muggle Quidditch team has seven players: three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. Chasers score points by throwing a quaffle, or volleyball, through one of three hoops (worth 10 points) while trying to avoid bludgers, or dodgeballs, that are thrown by beaters. (If chasers are hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle.) The keeper’s job is to protect the three goalposts, while the seeker must capture the snitch — a sock stuffed with tennis balls carried by a person (typically a cross-country runner) dressed in gold. Capturing the snitch nets an additional 30 points and ends the game.
Aah, to be young and going to nerdvana, er … college: Link (with video clip goodness, of course) – via Geekologie
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Springatron 3000: Reverb Made From Slinkys and Cucumbers
Nick of Nick’s World of Synthesizers decided to build a spring reverberator … out of Slinky and cucumber! Here’s the Springatron 3000:
This is basically a giant spring reverb made from 10 slinkys. I was trying to make the best sounding spring reverb possible, I think I achieved this but it is probably the most inconvenient spring reverb ever made. The reverb time (sustain) is so long that the springs need damping and I found that the best material for doing this is a slice of cucumber wedged under the end of each spring, other materials like foam or rubber tend to kill all the treble.
Link (with MP3 audio clips) – via Make
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Dinner Set in Rocks, Gems and Minerals
The folks at Extreme Craft blog spotted a dinner at the Eureka Gem Show at Redwood Acres fairground, California, that rocks (literally!) The food are made of rocks, gems, and minerals. I think they cheated on the parsley, but who could resist that yummy rock bacon?
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Pants Don't Fit Post-Thanksgiving Binge? Try the Waistband Stretcher
Did your stuff yourself so much on Thanksgiving that your pants no longer fit you? Well, don’t worry – here’s a gadget that will solve your problem:
When your waistband feels too snug, reach for the Waistband Stretcher. You don’t have to get rid of your favorite jeans, skirts or slacks thanks to this simple waist-band stretching device that lets you add from 1-5 inches (depending on size of garment) to the waist of cotton pants, skirts, and shorts. Just moisten the garment’s waistband, insert the waistband stretcher, extend the garment to the desired size and let dry – voila, a more comfortable fit!
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LEGO Turkey Mecha
Photo: brickfrenzy [Flickr]
Thanksgiving may be over, but turkey-related madness continues! Here’s a weaponized turkey mecha that is both whimsical and technically elaborate by Adrian Drake of Brickfrenzy: Link – via The Brothers Brick
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Movies That Never Were
“For every movie that gets made there are a hundred that never happen. And for every version of a movie you see in theaters, there are a dozen other versions that never made it past the script stage.” Thus begins an article that Devin Faraci has written at movie site CHUD, chronicling the rise and fall of versions of movies you probably didn’t even know existed. Among the theoretical films discussed? A Star Trek IV starring Eddie Murphy, a Planet of the Apes film directed by controversial helmer Oliver Stone, and the tantalizing possibility of an ultra-realistic Batman directed by the visionary Darren Aronofsky:
Aronofsky wasn’t interested in making anything that resembled a Batman film that had come before. He also wasn’t interested in hewing close to Miller’s original comics. This film saw Bruce Wayne wandering the streets after the murder of his parents; he’s taken in by an auto mechanic named Big Al (Aronofsky’s version of Alfred). Bruce grows up a borderline psychotic who begins taking violent vengeance on street thugs. He turns an abandoned subway station below Big Al’s auto shop into his version of the Batcave. He puts a bus engine in a black Lincoln Continental as his version of the Batmobile. Over the course of the story he assembles the elements of the costume and persona of Batman (or The Bat-Man, as he’s called).
This Batman is the reality of what a guy in a costume beating up criminals would be like – insane, overdramatic, barely likable.
Who among us hasn’t seen a movie and wondered what might have been? Have any similar thoughts? Think that some of these movies would have been better as the alternate versions described here? Feel free to discuss in the comments below.
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Aerial Battle of Eagles
Photo: Jose Hernandez / National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine has just announced the winners of their 2008 International Photo Contest. Amongst the fantastic entries is this particularly amazing shot by Jose Fernandez:
This is a shot of three eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle.
See the gallery of winning photos here: Link – Thanks Marilyn!
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Ju Duoqi's Vegetable Art
Mona Tofu by Ju Duoqi
Chinese artist Ju Duoqi, 35, specializes in a unique art medium: vegetables! (well, technically digital veggies – but who cares?). Behold her masterpiece above, the veggie Mona Lisa ("Mona Tofu") made out of rice, sea kelp, and tofu.
In The Vegetable Museum series, she revisits in a stunning way some masterpieces of the western painting. Making use of vegetables and food of China’s everyday life – tofu, cabbage, ginger, lotus roots, coriander, sweet potato… – and through digital manipulation, she presents a puzzling series of vegetable compositions representing world famous paintings like Mona Lisa, The Cene by Leonard Da Vinci, The Dream by Pablo Picasso or Marilyn Monroe by Warhol.
Here are a few more:
Napoleon on Potatoes by Ju Duoqi
Van Gogh made of Leek by Ju Duoqi
See many more at Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery: Link – via Compass WebWorks
Previously on Neatorama:
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Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Black Mustang with White Stripes shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life! |
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