Doesn’t matter what your hot beverage of choice is, the everyday mug has now turned into a mode of communication. This ingenious mug is glazed with a chalk board surface allowing for easy-wipe messaging with a standard piece of chalk. So much better than post-its, it’s great for morning love notes to your sweetie, identifying whose mug is whose when you have a house full of guests, wishing birthday greetings….the list is endless.
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For the Adelaide Fringe Festival, a team of artists known as the Crateman Crew created this Katamari-esque sphere of milk crates:
The crate sphere was designed to be rolled down the street as the final act in the parade. Comprising of 688 milk crates and being over 4.5 meters high, it had an estimated weight of over 700 kilograms. It was hoped that upon seeing us struggle with the beast, members of the audience would join in, and help us roll the sphere to a glorious end!
Unfortunately the reality was somewhat different.
Wooster Collective has what happened next: Link
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Image: Fedrus
Artists and designers get inspiration from a lot of things – even plants. Take cactus for instance. Here’s a round-up of succulent designs inspired by cact (this one above is fit for your house guests that won’t leave!): Link – via Cribcandy
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Georgia Max Coffee chose to redesign the toilets of a number of key ski resorts in Japan. The cubicles were fully wrapped on all sides, so that the person caught short would have a ski jumper’s view when they were sitting on the loo. The person could look down at their skis (simply printed on the floor of the cubicle) and see the steep ski jump slope ahead of them.
Link -via Boing Boing
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People who see Shorty on the banks of the river Test in Redbridge, Southampton, England tend to call emergency services because they are convinced the poor pony is stuck in the mud. Four times Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service’s animal rescue team has responded to find that the pony was fine.
Animal rescue expert Anton Phillips was one of no less than 12 rescuers dispatched to help the animal before realising the pony was not in any distress.
He said: “This was the fourth time we have been called out by members of the public who have seen this pony on the salt marsh.
“It’s basically a cross between a Shetland pony and a New Forest pony and has definitely inherited features from both its mother and its father – it has short legs like a Shetland but a long body like a New Forest pony.
“From 200 yards away it does look like the pony is trapped in the mud, especially when it is stood next to other ponies.
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Roll Up, Roll Up, It’s Thrills, It’s Spills – It’s the Amazing “Wall of Death”!
Derived from normal wood board motordromes the America’s Original Extreme Motorcycle Thrill Show became one of the most daring acts at fairgrounds and carnivals in the early 1910s, achieving peak popularity during motorcycle-crazed 1930s….
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Over 300,000 people lined the route of this years Mardi Gras parade, which marched up Oxford and Flinders streets in Sydney’s inner-city Darlinghurst this Saturday.
If you were there on the night: I tried to capture as much as the event as possible.
Just think: once, filmmakers used models and stop-motion effects to try and make scenes look like they were real. Now filmmakers are taking actual footage and using effects to make it look like a stop-motion claymation project! Link
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It’s been a while since our last What is it? game, but this one should make up for the absence: do you know what the strange tool to the left is used for?
Place your guess in the comment section – the first correct one will win a Neatorama T-shirt. If no one get it, then the funniest guess will win.
Game rules are simple: One guess per comment, please. You can enter as many guesses as you’d like. Post no URLs – let others play.
For more clues, check out the What is it? blog. Good luck!
Update 3/13/09 – The answer: A cannonball sizer, it was used as a gauge to determine if a cannonball was the correct diameter.. Congratulations to Anth who got it right!
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The following is reprinted from Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader If you think about it, Pac-Man is a strange game concerning a tiny, pie-shaped creature who ate power pills so that he could catch ghosts. That's an odd premise, but nothing compared to these ... behold, the 14 weirdest video games in history: SOCKS THE CAT ROCKS THE HILL (1992)
Socks, the pet cat of President Bill Clinton, must get to the Oval Office to warn the president about a stolen nuclear bomb. To do that, he must defeat villains including Russian spies, the press corps, and former presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. CHAOS IN THE WINDY CITY (1994)
Basketball superstar Michael Jordan battles an army of basketball-headed zombies that has invaded Chicago. To defeat them, he uses an arsenal of magic basketballs (including fiery-hot basketballs and ice-block basketballs). TOOBIN' (1988)
At the beginning of the game, the player floats down a backwoods river in an inner-tube race. Things suddenly take a turn for the worse as the player is chased by dinosaurs, ancient Inca warriors, and angry hillbillies. BILL LAIMBEER'S COMBAT BASKETBALL (1991)
Basketball is supposed to be a non-contact sport. Not the way Laimbeer played it. As a Detroit Piston in the 1980s, he was well-known for frequent flagrant fouls and starting fights on the court. His notoriety led to this futuristic basketball game in which players punch, kick, push, and throw bombs at each other.
In the early 1990s, 7-Up created a mascot - an anthropomorphic dot (with arms, legs, and sunglasses) based on the red dot in the 7-Up logo. The Spot was licensed for this game, which was essentially one long 7-Up ad in which the character wanders around a beach firing soda bubbles at enemies. MICHAEL JACKSON'S MOONWALKER (1990) A drug dealer named Mr. Big has kidnapped some children and takes them to the Moon, where he plans to use a laser cannon to destroy the Earth. As Michael Jackson, you have to defeat Mr. Big and his cronies by using dance moves that shoot "magic rays." THE TYPING OF THE DEAD (2000)
This semi-educational game is supposed to teach kids to type and spell. In order to fend off hungry zombies, you have to accurately type words. Get them right, the zombies leave you alone. Misspell, and the zombies will eat your b-r-a-i-n. EXODUS (1991) After solving some difficult logic puzzle, you have to answer questions about the Bible. Get those right, and you get to control Moses. The goal is to spread the word of God by shooting large Ws (for "word of God") at ancient Israelites. THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF DIZZY (1991)
DRUM MASTER (2006) In the game Guitar Hero, you get a plastic guitar and play along with well-known rock songs. Drum Master is made for the handheld Nintendo DS - you get to drum along with popular songs with two toothpick-sized sticks. JOHN DEERE'S HARVEST IN THE HEARTLAND (2007)
Using various John Deere tractors and farm implements, you have to plant crops, fertilize crops, harvest crops, and milk cows. (And it's one giant ad for John Deere.) FACE TRAINING (2007) Using a small camera that attaches to the TV, you have to copy the facial expressions the game tells you to make. PRINCESS TOMATO IN THE SALAD KINGDOM (1991)
On a mission from the dying King Broccoli, the noble knight Sir Cucumber has to rescue Princess Tomato from her captor, Minister Pumpkin. Sir Cucumber is assisted by Percy, a baby persimmon. TOILET KIDS (1992) A little kid gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and is sucked through the toilet into another dimension populated by creatures who look like bathroom fixtures. The Toilet Kid must then battle with tough toilet bodyguards and an evil giant urinal. |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader. The Bathroom Readers' Institute has sailed the seas of science, history, pop culture, humor, and more to bring you Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader. Our all-new 21st edition is overflowing with over 500 pages of material that is sure to keep you fully absorbed. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute has published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute.
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Everyone knows cats love cardboard boxes, so here’s a classy prop airplane made of cardboard by SUCK UK for your cat to play in. He or she can pretend to be fighting the Red Baron …
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Decorative and fashion art is often impractical, ridiculous, or just unutterably silly. These pillows probably fit in the latter category – but you have to admire the inventiveness of the person who conceived them.
Behold, the Peanut Butter and Jelly Pillows by Etsy seller named Beth.
Two Pillow set includes one slice of Creamy Peanut Butter and one slice of Grape Jelly, each on White Bread.
Link – via uniquedaily
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Israel company FLIX has Ronen, a "portly, but eager intern" recreate six classic YouTube moments in just two minutes!
– via urlesque
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The Internet has provided us with some pretty memorable moments in online video over the years – some of them amazing, some ridiculous, and some downright silly. It’s about time that these moments are captured in the ever-popular form of de-motivational posters …
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Someone in New York has a full tummy and a dirty scanner. This is a relatively new blog with scanned images of sandwiches from delis around New York. I can really see this taking off as a calendar!
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Our friend Tokyoflash is asking visitors to participate in a design process by giving feedback and opinions to help with the development of Buetooth necklaces that let you connect wirelessly to your cell phone or computer (to let you answer the phone handsfree while driving or chat on Skype without having to sit down at the computer).
Some of the designs are very interesting: Link – Thanks Paul!
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Broker: what you become after investing
in stocks
-
Wall Street joke
Continuing our quest to unearth fun facts from A to Z, here's the latest Neatolicious Fun Facts article. "D" is for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Given the current economic crisis, here are some timely fun facts about the granddaddy of stock market indices:
1. Origins: Charles Dow
The
Dow
Jones Industrial Average (the DJIA or The Dow) is a stock market index.
It comprises of stocks of select large companies and is used to gauge
the performance of the whole stock market.
The Dow was created by American journalist Charles Henry Dow on May 26, 1896, as part of his research into market movements. That explains the "Dow" in Dow Jones, but what about the "Jones" part? That was named after Dow's business partner Edward Davis Jones, a statistician (not related, as far as I could tell, with the current Edward Jones company). Interestingly, Jones didn't have anything to do with creating the stock index, other than being Dow's business partner in their company Dow Jones & Co.
Dow and Jones didn't set out to be in the business of keeping track of the stock market. They were journalists who had been working for a newspaper before they decided to go into the financial news business for themselves in 1882 (with another business partner named Charles Bergstresser). The trio opened shop in the basement of a lower Manhattan candy store that later became the New York Stock Exchange. (Source)
The Dow, Jones & Company (they later dropped the comma) published daily hand-written news bulletins called "flimsies" delivered by messengers to subscribers. A year later, they came out with the "Customers' Afternoon Letter," which contained the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
You may not have heard of the Customers' Afternoon Letter, but I'm sure you know what the newspaper later became: The Wall Street Journal (the first edition of which was just 4 pages long and sold for 2 cents).
2. Was the Dow Jones Industrial Average the oldest stock index?
Nope - on July 3, 1884, Charles Dow created the first one: the Dow Jones Transportation Average. It consisted of 11 transportation-related companies (most of which were railroads).
3. The first 12 stocks listed and what happened to them
The first 12 stocks listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, published on May 26, 1896 were industrial (or so called "smokestack" companies). Of these 12, only 1 (General Electric) is still doing business under the same name:
| Company | What happened to it |
| American Cotton Oil | Became Bestfoods |
| American Sugar | Evolved into Amstar Holdings |
| American Tobacco | Broken up in 1991 antitrust action, part of which became Fortune Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. |
| Chicago Gas | Absorbed by Peoples Gas |
| Distilling & Cattle Feeding | Evolved into Millennium Chemical |
| General Electric | Still General Electric |
| Laclede Gas | Still Laclede Gas, but no longer listed in the Dow |
| National Lead | Becomes NL Industries, now manufactures titanium dioxide pigments |
| North American | This holding company for public utilities was broken up in 1940s |
| Tennessee Coal & Iron | Absorbed by U.S. Steel |
| U.S. Leather (preferred stock - a hybrid between a stock and a bond) | Dissolved in 1952. |
| U.S. Rubber | Became Uniroyal, then part of Michelin |
(Source: Dow Jones FAQ)
Oh, and the first day's closing is 40.94. If you had invested $1 then, you'd have $169 today, a return of 16,828%.
4. A "Blue Chip" Index
If
you're financially savvy, you'd already know this: the Dow Jones Industrial
Average is a "blue chip" index, meaning it is comprised of just
30 of the largest companies in the United States.
But why "blue chip"? The term comes from casinos, where blue chips have the highest values. Its first use to describe stocks was coined by Dow Jones staff Oliver Gingold in the early 1920s:
That term apparently got its start in 1923 or 1924 when Gingold was standing by the stock ticker at the brokerage firm that later became Merrill Lynch. Noticing several trades at $200 or $250 a share or more, he said to Lucien Hooper of W.E. Hutton & Co., that he intended to return to the office to "write about these blue-chip stocks." Thus the phrase was born. It has been in use ever since, originally in reference to high-priced stocks, more commonly used to day to refer to high-quality stocks.
5. How Now, Dow Jones
Marlyn Mason, Tony Roberts and Brenda Vaccaro in How Now, Dow Jones
(Photo and more on the musical by Skip Card of Playbill: Link)
In 1967, lyricist Carolyn Leigh came up with the idea of a Broadway musical comedy based on the stock market. She collaborated with Elmer Bernstein (music), Max Shulman (libretto) and David Merrick (producer) to create the musical How Now, Dow Jones. (Source)
Though How Now, Dow Jones was considered a Broadway failure, one song titled "Step to the Rear" became quite popular and was later adapted into The Fighting Gamecocks Lead the Way, the fight song of the University of South Carolina.
6. The best and worst days in the history of the Dow
Given the current economic crisis, it seems that every day brings us bad economic news and even lower stock prices. Indeed, we have seen an incredibly volatile stock market and record-setting daily point gains and losses.
The largest daily point loss was recorded on Sept 29, 2008, when the DJIA lost 778 points (7%). The largest point gain happened about two week later (gain of 936 points or 11% on October 13, 2008) only to be followed with another big drop (733 points or 7.9%). You know what happened next: right now, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by about 45% from last year.
Riding
the Dow T-shirt at Crazy Dog T-shirts
The largest percentage loss occurred in Black Monday of 1987, when the stock markets around the world crashed. The Dow lost 508 points or a drop of 22.6%. Even today economists and financial analysts couldn't come to an agreement as to the reason behind such a crash (some blamed program tradings, others blamed market psychology).
7. Dowism
I
can't bear to close on such a DOWn note (get it? it's
a double pun), so let's end with this pun: dowism. It's a play on the
words Taoism, a Chinese philosophy, and Dow Jones, used to represent the
philosophy of consumerism.
Columnist and radio personality Steve Bhaerman, under pseudonym Swami
Beyondananda wrote in Duck
Soup for the Soul
That day, the Swami swore off sects completely. Spirit was immaterial, he decided, and he now sought fulfillment by filling himself full of all the material goodies life could provide. He moved to New York to study with the renowned guru of the stock market, Yuan Tibet, who instructed him in the Dowist path. Swami became more and more dependent on the stock market prophet, buying soybean futures like there was no tamari. Suddenly, the price of soybeans plummeted (due, it was later revealed, to a rumor planted by unscrupulous dairy- heir that tofu actually came from between the toes of Himalayan hikers). Swami frantically tried to call Yuan Tibet for his sage advice, but he could not be found. Tragically, there had been some prophet-taking on Wall Street, somebody took him, and he was never heard from again.
(Source)
"Prophet-taking?" Oh hohoho! (by the way, "tamari" is a kind of soy sauce. Clever guy, that Steve Bhaerman).
Next up: "E" (which I haven't decided yet) - in the meantime, check out these articles on Neatorama:
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Got
a neat story? Share it with the world by writing your very own Neatorama
blog post with the Upcoming
Queue. Who knows, you might just win something ... 
COOL
SPOT (1993)
A
walking egg named Dizzy must save his family from an evil wizard by solving
puzzles. One of the puzzles: Dizzy must pick certain plants and mix them
in a bottle to make medicine for his sick grandpa egg.
