HOME |
RSS | 
A Romanian man named Gheroghe Stirbu was accidentally declared dead by government bureaucrats and had to go to court to force the government to re-register him as alive:
Bungling civil servants had mixed him up with another man but although Stirbu pointed out what they had done they refused to acknowledge their mistake until Stirbu won a 12 month legal claim to be declared alive.
Judges renewed his status as alive – and then charged him ?500 in court costs.
Mr Stirbu said: “When the judge ruled in my favour I was absolutely delighted – and then seconds later was absolutely shocked when I found out I would have to pay so much in legal bills.
“I will of course appeal the imposition of the costs but I am already beginning to wonder whether or not I would have been better off staying dead.” – ananova.com
Link via DoublePlusUndead
Image via flickr user ambergis
This post started when I saw The 40 Greatest Uses of the Mario Brothers theme article at Rock the List. I figured I’d play one of the videos and link you guys to the rest. But when I searched for the original Tesla Coil video to share, all of these other video game themes appeared. Who knew?!
Here’s the theme that started it all – Mario:
And here we have Tetris, of course.
Zelda:
Amazing. I still recommend you check out the 40 Greatest Uses of the Mario Theme, though. It’s got everything from the banjo, which I think sounds pretty good, to a dude with a remote control car that drives by a line of glass bottles and hits them to make the appropriate noise for each note.
This animation just confirms what I already knew: Wal-Mart is sweeping the nation like an unstoppable virus. It’s pretty amazing to see how the company has exploded across the States since 1965. Click on the link to see it go from one dot (one store), to a few dots, to several dots, to a handful to dots, to complete domination.
Link via DarkRoastedBlend
A new $2 million surveillance project in Texas lets you patrol the US border with Mexico from the comfort of your own home, and report any suspicious activity you see.
The project results in one crime bust in the six week it has been on, but it was a biggie: "virtual deputies" spotted three suspects trying to smuggle 540 pound of marijuana across the border. According to Wired:
The exact location of the cameras is not disclosed, but according to a press release about the project, "a significant number of Texas landowners" requested that the cameras be placed on their property.
More than 21,000 people from several states, including as far away as Ohio, have signed up to be virtual deputies so far. BlueServo claims its web site has received more than 5 million hits, resulting in about 1,000 e-mail reports of suspicious activity. The average camera watcher spends about eight minutes on the site examining video.
What do virtual deputies get in return for their efforts?
Aside from the satisfaction of knowing they’ve done their part to combat crime, they get the opportunity to become targeted consumers.
Link | Here’s the webcam: BlueServo – via Attuworld
Do you think this guy would have trouble with traveling in the United States? Or getting packages delivered by UPS without being billed as a terrorist? Behold a Nihang from the armed Sikh military order – these people really, really like to wear big turbans!
Yes, it’ll show you how he puts on the huge turban. Hit play or go to Link [Current] – via growabrain | More Nihangs at Flickr
AFS-1 by Robert Steven Connett
I can’t believe it took me this long to find the wonderful artwork of self-taught California artist Robert Connett. His surreal paintings are like a lot like H.R. Geiger’s if he had a dollop of humor.
Check it out: Link | Robert’s Deviant Art page – via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival
Photo: AKIHIRO FURUTA [Flickr]
Sure, many families take family photos, but how many of them take photos like Akihiro Furuta‘s family? They’re like the Rembrandts of family pics! (Well, he is a professional portrait photographer …)
This one above is the from doggie’s birthday, and is one of my favorite in Akihiro’s Flickr photosestream: Link – via BB-Blog, Thanks Marilyn!
Mika and Anna-Lena wanted to elope to Africa to get married where it’s warm, but the couple’s plan was foiled by police. It’s a good thing, too, since the two lovebirds are only five and six years old!
The budding lovebirds, identified as Mika and Anna-Lena, packed bathing costumes, sunglasses and a lilo and headed for the airport. They even had the presence of mind to invite along an official witness – Anna-Lena’s seven-year-old sister. [...]
The following morning, as their parents slept, the intrepid trio walked 1km (0.6 miles) to the local tram station at Langenhagen, where they hopped aboard a tram for Hanover central station.
But the group aroused the suspicion of a guard as they waited for a train to the airport, and police were called in.
Officers persuaded the children they would not get far without tickets and money, but consoled them with a free tour of the police station, where they were shortly picked up by relieved parents.
Link – via Blue’s News
Can you tell I’ve been sort of addicted to flash games lately? Crazy Doors of Rainbow Colors isn’t too hard, but it’s fun and colorful. Well, there is one tricky part, I thought: figuring out the code for the door. Have fun!
Link via Jayisgames (Hint: the Jayisgames link has a walkthrough if you get really stuck)
We’ve always known that golfers are particularly blind to fashion, but now, it turns out that the sport may also cause hearing loss:
Players who use a new generation of thin-faced titanium drivers to propel the ball further should consider wearing ear plugs, experts advise.
Ear specialists suspect the "sonic boom" the metal club head makes when it strikes the ball damaged the hearing of a 55-year-old golfer they treated. [...]
The doctors trawled the web for reviews of the King Cobra LD club and said they found some interesting comments.
One player reported: "Drives my mates crazy with that distinctive loud ‘BANG’ sound." Another said: "This is not so much a ting but a sonic boom which resonates across the course!"
The doctors decided to recruit a professional golfer to hit shots with six thin-faced titanium clubs from manufacturers such as King Cobra, Callaway, Nike and Mizuno.
All produced a louder noise than standard thicker stainless steel drivers. The worst offender was the Ping G10 at over 130 decibels.
Every year since 1927, the editors of Time have named a Person (or Machine or Planet) of the Year. The honor is bestowed upon “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill.”
Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will find out how familiar you are with Time‘s person of the year over the years. I scored 7 out of 12, or 58%. I’m surprised I did that well. Link
The folks at iBored posted this about a month ago, but now that we’re getting closer to the Oscars I thought it might be interesting to see what you guys think.
Here’s my two cents: I thought Heath Ledger was awesome, and I don’t usually even like those movies. I really hated Batman Begins even though I love Christian Bale. Katie Holmes kinda ruined it for me. On second thought, maybe that’s why I liked The Dark Knight. I digress. Back to your thoughts – Is this poster a prediction of how the Oscars are going to go this year? Do you think it should be? Let us know in the comments. Either way, I think the poster is neat.
Psychology professor Stephen Greenspan recently published a book about gullibility. He also lost a lot of money to Bernard Madoff’s financial shenanigans.
…I was a participant — and victim — of the Madoff scam, and have a pretty good understanding of the factors that caused me to behave foolishly. So I shall use myself as a case study to illustrate how even a well-educated (I’m a college professor) and relatively intelligent person, and an expert on gullibility and financial scams to boot, could fall prey to a hustler such as Madoff.
Greenspan (no relation to Alan Greenspan) explores the social situations and emotions that lead people to invest their money in scams like Ponzi schemes, and how the Madoff situation got out of hand.
The real mystery in the Madoff story is not how naïve individual investors such as myself would think the investment safe, but how the risks and warning signs could have been ignored by so many financially knowledgeable people, ranging from the adviser who sold me and my sister (and himself) on the investment, to the highly compensated executives who ran the various feeder funds that kept the Madoff ship afloat. The partial answer is that Madoff’s investment algorithm (along with other aspects of his organization) was a closely guarded secret difficult to penetrate, and partly (as in all cases of gullibility) that strong affective and self-deception processes were at work. In other words, they had too good a thing going, for themselves and their clients, to entertain the idea that it might all be about to crumble.
Link -Thanks, Eli Schwimme!
(image credit: Dan DeVore)
Tired of late deliveries with FedEX, Postal Sevices, DHL or even Purolator? Then get UPS to do the job quick and cheap. “Here’s your porcelain figurine collection ma’am…have a nice day”! – via LiveLeak
Kelsey Timmerman, author of Where Am I Wearing? – a book about the countries, factories and people that make our clothes and a similarly named blog, was in Dhaka, Bangladesh, when he discovered a local amusement park named Fantasy Kingdom.
There Kelsey got a crazy idea: get as many kids, many of whom live just outside of the park but couldn’t afford the ticket price, into the Fantasy Kingdom for a day of fun!
Sixty Dollars admits one child for one day to Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
Sixty dollars admits 20 people for one day to Fantasy Kingdom, near Dhaka, Bangladesh.
I discovered this not long ago when I was in Dhaka. Now all we have to do is find those 20 Bangladeshi children to take to Fantasy Kingdom, I thought.
Behind us were the gates of Fantasy Kingdom, the brightest, cleanest, and most out-of-place sight in all of Bangladesh. The walls are plastic but look like sandstone. Standing atop them are two very happy cartoon kids – sentinels looking out to the crowded streets and the surrounding garment factories.
"One girl and one boy would be best," Ruma said. She is a 20-something Bangladeshi sportswriter who had taken the day off to help me with my crazy idea: Take as many kids as we can – who live in the park’s shadow but haven’t been inside – into the amusement park. Riding a roller coaster is a luxury they’ll probably never know otherwise and, as a lifetime roller-coaster enthusiast, something I hoped to change.
"I want 20," I replied.
Ruma approached three boys. As she talked, they stared at me before running off to find more kids. It wasn’t long before we had a crowd.
Read more of Kelsey’s fascinating account of the day trip at The Christian Science Monitor: Was it a frivolous gift or a lifelong memory?
The following is reprinted
from Uncle
John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe.
The question of which science fiction books are the best ever is a pointless
one for most people, since many of the "greatest science fiction
novels" are books that no one but science fiction fans will read.
A better question to ask might be: What are the best science fiction books
that you don't have to be a hard-core science fiction fan to enjoy? We
scanned our library and came up with these 10 (well, 12) books that not
only provide great SF fun, but also are approachable enough for the casual
reader. Some old, some new - but all good reads.
Dune by Frank Herbert David
Lynch made this book into a 1984 film that was so incomprehensible that
the actual novel - 600 pages on the future of religion, politics, desert
ecology, and drug trafficking - look positively streamlined in comparison.
When the book came out in the mid 1960s its multiple story threads were
daunting. (Photo: Robert E. Nylund, via Wikipedia)
But (ironically) thanks to shows like The X-Files and even The
West Wing, in which several things are happening all at once, people
got used to following intersecting story lines. The result is that Herbert's
magnum opus now comes across more like an epic historical novel that happens
to be set in the future, not the past.
Herbert wrote several Dune sequels of varying quality. More
recently, Herbert's son Brian teamed up with SF author Kevin J. Anderson
to write a trio of prequels that Uncle John doesn't think are on par with
the rest. Stick with the original.
Links: Dune
| More
by Frank Herbert 
Earth by David Brin Scientists
in the near future create a tiny black hole and - oops - allow it to sink
into the earth's core; in the process of digging it out, they discover
there's another black hole down there, and that one's origin
is a mystery - and a problem. (Photo: David Brin)
This plot line is the skeleton on which author and real-life physicist
Brin hangs some fascinating episodic story lines that involve problems
the world faces today (global warming, privacy, energy crunches), carried
out to their possible outcomes 50 years from now.
Originally published in 1991, Earth has already pegged a couple
of items correctly (such as a version of the World Wide Web and the idea
of futzing with old movies using new computer graphics). Plus, scientists
have begun trying to generate tiny little black holes in labs. So imagine
what else Brin might (eventually) be right about.
Links: Earth
| More
by David Brin
Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card Supersmart
child-warriors are used by the military to battle an invasion of buglike
aliens. That's the setup of Ender's Game; the meat of the story
comes from the struggle of one of these extraordinary children (named
Ender) to keep a grip on his humanity even as he's being turned into the
perfect killing machine. (Photo: nihonjoe via Wikipedia)
Card sets up a lot of questions about morality, war, and man's purpose
in Ender's Game; in the sequel, Speaker for the Dead,
these questions get a payoff as the grown-up Ender finds himself in a
position to save a new sentient species or allow it to be destroyed. Proof
that interesting philosophical questions can be asked (and even answered)
in the form of a purely entertaining story.
Links: Ender's
Game
| More
by Orson Scott Card
Grass by Sheri Tepper Like
Dune, this is a large tale involving nobility, religion, politics,
and the fate of the human race - but for a change, the hero is a heroine.
(Photo: Charles N. Brown, via Locus
Online)
Marjorie Westriding is dispatched with her family to a far-off planet
to find a cure for a plague, but she ends up confronting questions of
original sin among aliens. Lots of philosophy, and even some sex (well,
sort of), but also lots of action, plus a group of purely malevolent creatures
who love nothing better than to toy with humans. Hand this to someone
who enjoys those massive romantic epics for a change of pace.
Links: Grass
| More
by Sheri Tepper
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Earth
is destroyed to make an intergalactic bypass, launching the interstellar
travels of one completely ordinary and befuddled human being named Arthur
Dent. (Photo Jill Furmanovsky, via DouglasAdams.com)
Geeks love this one, but for the right reasons - namely because it'll
make you laugh so hard that you may vomit involuntarily. Note that this
is humor of the distinctly British, Monty Python-like variety, so if you're
not into that, you may wonder what the fuss is about.
But if you ever laughed at Monty Python and the Holy Grail (or
even A Fish Called Wanda), you'll be laughing at this one, too.
Hitchhiker has several sequels, each progressively less funny
than the one before (but still worth a chuckle or two).
Links: The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
| More
by Douglas Adams
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons It
takes guts to snatch the format of The Canterbury Tales and use
it to crank out epic science fiction, but the extraordinarily talented
Dan Simmons (who also writes bang-up horror and action novels) is just
the guy to do it. (Photo: Dan
Simmons)
Over the course of these two novels, Simmons creates a galaxy-wide human
civilization that's pitted against a mysterious enemy. Hyperion
uses the overlapping stories of a clutch of pilgrims to paint the picture
of this future civilization; Fall of Hyperion describes its downfall,
as seen through the eye of a clone of the great Romantic poet John Keats.
Great storytelling, great action, great plotting; not just a couple of
the best science fiction novels ever, but two of the best adventure novels
in a long time, period.
Links: Hyperion
| The
Fall of Hyperion
| More
by Dan Simmons
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury This
one shows up on a lot of high school reading lists, and for good reason.
It's a fine combination of science fiction and fantasy and an increasingly
neglected literary form - a series of short stories, hung together with
a single thread: they all take place on Mars. (Photo: Alan Light, via
Flickr)
The stories include encounters with real live Martians (who may or may
not be happy to see humans), the stories of the humans who leave Earth
to come to Mars, and, in the end, the stories of the humans who are left
behind, each short enough to be read in a single sitting.
It's Bradbury at the top of his form, which means these are some of the
better short stories you'll find almost anywhere.
Links: The
Martian Chronicles
| More
by Ray Bradbury
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville The
perfect book for anyone who thinks that science fiction can't be literary
and/or adventurous in form. Miéville's genre-buster of a novel
is not unlike what you would get if you spliced together the genes of
Charles Dickens and horror master H.P. Lovecraft and raised the resulting
creature on the writings of Orwell, Huxley, and Philip K. Dick (the fellow
who wrote the story that was the basis of the movie Blade Runner).
(Photo: Andrew M Butler, via Flickr)
It's difficult to describe the novel, except to say that it involves
mad scientists, interspecies romance, vampiric moth creatures, Tammany
Hall-like urban politics, the value systems of alien species, interdimensional
spiders, and a rip-roaring final action scene that takes place on the
rooftops of a city you really can't imagine. All written by someone who
uses the English language like Yo-Yo Ma uses a cello. Fabulous writing,
regardless of genre.
Links: Perdido
Street Station
| More
by China Mieville
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson William
Gibson's Neuromancer may be considered the first "cyberpunk"
novel, but the fact is, it's kind of a deadly bore. Snow Crash,
on the other hand, is a real hoot right from its first scene, which involves
a madcap pizza delivery and is written with the same sort of delirious
cinematic urgency that you'll find in the best novels of William Goldman
(Marathon Man). (Photo: Bob Lee via Flickr)
The novel's plot involves a computer virus that (get this) dates back
to Sumeria, but it doesn't really hang together, so instead, enjoy the
book for its portrayal of both an insanely Balkanized America and a huge
cyberworld so vividly imagined that a whole bunch of Internet companies
bankrupted themselves in the 1990s trying to create a world just like
it.
Also, any book that features a large Aleutian with a nuclear bomb in
a motorcycle sidecar and the words "Poor Impulse Control" tattooed
on his forehead is one you know you're going to have fun with.
Links: Snow
Crash
| More
by Neal Stephenson
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein The
expiration date for this novel and its ideas regarding love and sex and
human transcendence has sort of passed (people used the novel for years
as a foundation for their own desire for hippie polygamy, and now they
don't so much), but it still make for a good read for two reasons. (Photo:
Dd-b, via Wikimedia
Commons)
One, Robert Heinlein wrote damn fine dialogue, which makes him more fun
to read than most other writers today (and how sad is that, since
Heinlein's been dead coming up on 15 years now). Two, Heinlein thought
seriously about the nature of God and the interrelationship between God
and His followers, which is interesting to contemplate even if you're
not interested in the polysexual hijinks.
Also, Jubal Harshaw, the cranky old man who counsels the "Stranger"
is like a dyspeptic Yoda advising an extraordinarily horny Luke Skywalker,
is one of the great curmudgeons of the 20th century writing, and you don't
want to miss out on a character like that.
Links: Stranger
in a Strange Land
| More
by Robert A. Heinlein |
|
 |
The article above is reprinted with permission
from Uncle
John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular
books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure
yet fascinating facts.
If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom
Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
 |
| What have we missed? Let us know in the comment section! | |
YouTube user Tchazzar built himself a gaming room centered on the theme of XBox 360.
I think this conclusively answers the question "can you be too nerdy?"
– via videosift
If you’re a dog, beware of a tiny Texas town of Ferris, about 20 miles south of Dallas. Oh, stray dogs are rounded up by animal control officers all over the US, but in Ferris, Texas, they shoot ‘em:
The rural North Texas town of Ferris — about 20 miles south of Dallas — has approved a policy that allows authorities to shoot “wild” roaming dogs.
Ferris City Manager David Chavez said the Ellis County town approved the policy because it was becoming a dumping ground for unwanted pets. People drive out to the country to release pets they no longer want, but the starving animals breed, form packs and wind up scavenging for food, he said.
Ferris Police Chief Frank Mooney said the city would shoot only “potentially violent dogs,” and only as a last resort — after attempts to humanely capture the animal had failed.
(The photo is from the iconic January 1973 cover of National Lampoon humor magazine, and yes, it’s not neat but isn’t it remarkable?)
In 2000, the publishing giant Random House assembled a board of authors and literary critics to list the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
The Zeray Gazette blog has the list (of which I reprinted the top 10) and I’m sad to say that I’ve only read 4 of these:
1. (1922) Ulysses James Joyce
2. (1925) The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. (1916) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
4. (1955) Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
5. (1932) Brave New World Aldous Huxley
6. (1929) The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
7. (1961) Catch-22 Joseph Heller
8. (1940) Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
9. (1913) Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
10. (1939) The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
How many of the 10 (and 100) have you read? And what’s missing from the list? Link
If you like to water the lawn in the middle of the night, this is the garden hose for you. Behold the Lighted Garden Nozzle, which comes with a built-in LED light to let you see exactly what you’re watering after dark.
The Raptor is a short yet clever video clip (1:37) about Jurassic Park, but without any real dinosaurs. Just a hallway and two dudes who managed to be quite entertaining!
Link [embedded YouTube]
Tin man jungle gym "Playground" by Tom Otterness, photo by Kat Sterck
Sculptor Tom Otterness created this amazing bronze tin man jungle gym as a private commission. That’s one lucky kid who has his or her own Otterness creation as a playground! Link – via Super Punch
