In Nuanquan, China there is a unique tradition dating back about 500 years to celebrate the Lantern Festival. Instead of using fireworks like any old place – or that the fact that fireworks were invented in China back in the 12th century – these folks celebrate it by using something a bit more dangerous and beautiful with molten iron which is then flung at a wall creating a cascade of sparks. What do they use for protection? Sheep skins and a hat…
**I highly recommend watching this clip by clicking on the High Quality button to really enjoy it!
via – Gizmodo
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When the going gets tough, the tough gets … snipped? It may be economic doom and gloom for you and me, but not for doctors performing vasectomies: they see a little boom in business!
They looked at their statistics and realized the uptick started around November as the economic crisis deepened. October went down in the history books as one of Wall Street’s worst months.
Since then, the Cleveland Clinic has seen a 50 percent increase in vasectomies, an outpatient surgery that is the cheapest form of permanent birth control. Vasectomies are less invasive and cheaper than tubal ligation, which involves blocking, tieing or cutting a woman’s fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy.
"It’s unlikely that some guy read the Dow Jones numbers that day and said, ‘Why don’t we have a vasectomy?’ " Jones said. "More likely, people have already been considering it and typically a guy and his wife have spoken a year or two about this."
Jones was told by patients that they were getting vasectomies because they were losing their jobs and health insurance, or concerned about being out of work soon.
"They realize they don’t have the financial security long-term with what’s going on," Jones said. "Several of them have mentioned, ‘We can’t afford to have any more children in this economy.’ My perception is that it’s more of the concept of raising children in an uncertain economic future."
Madison Park of CNN has the rest of the story: Link – Thanks Tiff!
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Remember Maru, the cat who lives in Japan and loves to dive headfirst into cardboard boxes, has become a YouTube international sensation and who has his own blog? He’s back, this time with a bag stuck on his head. Don’t worry, he knows exactly where he’s going with this.
– via arbroath
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Remember the kerfuffle when Re/Max tried to block the trademark registration of rival real estate company Rehava? Well, they’re not the only company that knows how to play hardball.
Consider Apple (yes, that Apple, fellow fanboys), whose lawyers are pursuing the "Pod" trademarks:
What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if its name ended in "pod," it might attract the ire of Apple’s shark-like legal team.
Apple’s obsession with the blockbuster success of its iPod has driven the corporation to chase down many companies attempting to use the media player’s three-letter suffix in their product or business names. Names that have come under fire include MyPodder, TightPod, PodShow, and even Podium. On Monday, Sector Labs, a small business whose Video Pod trademark has been blocked by Apple, took legal action to fight back.
"It appears that Apple is not only trying to put an iPod in everybody’s hands and white earbuds in everyone’s ears but to control the use of our language and most particularly the word ‘Pod,’" Sector Labs’ lawyers wrote in a 239-page response to Apple’s trademark opposition, which has blocked Video Pod’s development. "If we are not careful, in Apple’s quest for dominance, they will soon attempt to take over the words ‘Phone’ and ‘Tunes’ — let us hope they do not attempt a coup over the exclusive rights to the letter ‘i’."
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Image: Atlantic Productions
If you think that Tyrannosaurus rex was the fiercest dinosaur ever, think again: a team of paleontologists from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo and other universities found a 50-foot marine reptile dubbed "Predator X" that made T. rex looked like a puppy:
The 147-million-year old monster was 15 metres long, had 30-centimetre-long teeth and had a bite pressure 10 times greater than any animal alive today, said Jørn Hurum, who led the team that uncovered the fossil.
A new species of pliosaur, Predator X was probably an apex predator at the top of the food chain, similar to the modern-day great white shark, said Hurum, a palaeontologist at Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, Norway.
Link | University of Oslo Press Release
Previously on Neatorama: Strangest Dinosaurus Names
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Is this the beginning of the end of the dominance of the US dollar as the world’s preferred currency? The global economic crisis and the erosion in the value of the dollar has led China of all countries to call for a new "international reserve currency":
[People's Bank of China] Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan’s essay did not mention the dollar by name but said the crisis showed the dangers of relying on one nation’s currency for international payments. In an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for an international audience.
"The crisis called again for creative reform of the existing international monetary system towards an international reserve currency," Zhou wrote.
A reserve currency is the unit in which a government holds its reserves. But Zhou said the proposed new currency also should be used for trade, investment, pricing commodities and corporate bookkeeping.
Beijing has long been uneasy about relying on the dollar for the bulk of its trade and to store foreign reserves. Premier Wen Jiabao publicly appealed to Washington this month to avoid any steps in response to the crisis that might erode the value of the dollar and Beijing’s estimated $1 trillion holdings in treasuries and other U.S. government debt.
Link (Photo: World Economic Forum [Flickr])
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Image: Ray Alma (who went as MODOK himself on Halloween!)
I’m fascinated with blogs that focus so narrowly on a single topic as to become a universe of their own. Take, for instance, this one called MARCH MODOK MADNESS – which as you can tell from the title is dedicated to everything MODOK (technically, artists’ renderings of the supervillain.
Oh, and for those of you who don’t know, the name stands for Mobile/Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. And so far I haven’t seen Ms. MODOK in the lineup: Link
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English artist Ian Davie has a unique canvas for his artwork: discarded swan quills. His feather drawings are absolutely fantastic:
Using feathers collected during the regal birds’ annual moult from a swannery near to his home, Ian has spent the past four years perfecting his craft.
After cleaning the often dirty quills and individually straightening them out with tweezers, Mr Davie, 44, who lives in a converted farmhouse in Snowdonia National Park, Wales, then begins the arduous process of painting onto the swans discarded feathers.
He said: ‘I already have sketched what I want to achieve before the painting begins.
‘I only have a canvas that is around one foot long and around three inches wide so I have to know exactly the course my painting will take.
Link | Ian Davie’s website (Photo: Ian Davie / Barcroft Media)
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Why are teenagers so lousy at chores? Is it laziness … or biology? Monica Luciana of University of Minnesota and colleagues have the scientific answer:
Blame it on "cognitive limitations." [Teenagers'] brains can’t multitask as well as those of the taskmasters. [...]
The part of the brain responsible for multitasking continues to develop until late adolescence, with cells making connections even after some children are old enough to drive, according to a new study in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development.
The frontal cortex, which starts just behind the eyes and goes back almost to the ears, figures out (or doesn’t) what to do when a person is asked to juggle multiple pieces of information. Imagine, then, how "make your bed and bring the laundry down" might befuddle a 13-year-old.
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or North Carolina, either–odds and ends– observations at random on Taiwanese daily life
Once again, Neatorama welcomes guest blogger Joel Haas, North Carolina sculptor and author, as he posts his adventures in Taiwan.
Culture shock happens when you pick up the live wire of daily life in another country, particularly another continent. It can be the big thing such as finding yourself a racial minority and oddity in the street, or small things such as wondering what all those fires in front of every business and home mean–it’s not the least bit cold. Why do people stuff their sales receipts in special clear plastic boxes on the sidewalks–and, speaking of sidewalks, why is the sidewalk a different height and design in front of each business or home? and speaking of home and business, what is it like to have the family living room open out into the street and double as a place of business where every body who wants to, say, have your dad fix their scooter, can bring it right up to the family couch and television? Does everybody have their family shrine right over the TV and DVD player?
Before we get into the genuinely amusing, strange stuff (from an American perspective) about Taiwan, let me get several things off my chest:
Don’t they all look alike? I mean, really how can you tell those people apart?
This is the one comment that pushes my button. Really. Stand around on any street here for five minutes and you’ll see Taiwanese don’t look any more alike than Caucasians. Even without the admixture of the American Armed Forces stirring the genetic pot for decades, the advent of modern hair coloring means the average school girl with blond hair here is no more likely to be a real blond than an American one. There has been a disquieting fad for wearing enormous blue contacts in their eyes.
a shot of this promotional poster is as well as I can do since I couldn’t take photos of the elevator operators in Shin Kong Department Store
Don’t they eat dogs and other odd stuff like snakes?
No. They don’t eat dogs. Most dogs I’ve seen here are as pampered as ones in America. On the way to a concert today, I saw no less than three dogs in, so help me God, knitted sweaters. In this heat, that may cook them, but not by design.
What people eat is always an interesting question. Food often is a major definition of culture. My culture in North Carolina is only a generation or two removed from widespread consumption of chitlin’s, possum, squirrel, and fat back. Frog legs are considered a delicacy in French restaurants, so let’s not get carried away with what other people think is down home cookin’. There is a place in Taipei called Snake Alley that sells snake meat. It’s mostly a tourist attraction now. The average Taiwanese eats no more snake than the average American eats rattlesnake or alligator meat.
Don’t you get tired of eating rice?
No. Mainly because they don’t serve a lot of rice here. Look back through all my food photos, in my travel letters and my extra photos on Flickr; don’t see any rice do you? Rice is served like a roll might be served to you in the States. I have been served rice three times in the more than two weeks I have been here. Each time it was simply in a small bowl to the side, a bowl no bigger than a coffee cup at home. The average Taiwanese’s reaction to a serving of Kung Pow chicken from an AMERICAN Chinese restaurant would be about the same as an American’s if served field peas, collards, carrots and fried pork chops glopped together on a bed of twelve slices of bread.
WITH THOSE ITEMS OFF MY CHEST, LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT SOME STUFF THAT AIN’T LIKE IT IS AT HOME.
7-11s run this country. It’s not a democracy nor a dictatorship. It is “quick-stop-ocracy.”
There are competing chains, Circle K, Family Store, Happy Store, etc. but they’re all the same as a 7-11 which remains the dominant brand. You can do anything at a 7-11; pay your bills, taxes, traffic tickets; buy French wine, pickled duck eggs, Love Milk, and videos.
Every receipt comes with a lottery ticket. Now wouldn’t that just get all the Baptists’ panties in a twist back home in the South!
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The remains of a 14th century teenager, believed to have been beheaded on charges of witchcraft and buried in unconsecrated ground, has been laid to rest in a proper funeral…700 years after her death.
The girl, named Holly by archaeologists because her remains were found beneath a holly bush, had had her head laid at her side, a sign that she might have been suspected of witchcraft.
Dr Paul Wilkinson, director of the Kent Archaeological Field School, said the decapitation – which it was believed would deny eternal life – meant Holly was ’shamed’ and was either a teenage witch, a criminal or had committed suicide.
A crowd of more than 200 mourners – who had responded to an appeal to give the suspected witch a respectable funeral – gathered to pay their respects to a teenager whose identity remains a mystery.
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Previously at Neatorama: Matt Hoyle’s Encounters and Vintage Boxers.
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You probably already heard you can turn gummi bears into alcoholic delights by soaking them in vodka for a few days. If you want more details than that, or you’ve already tried this experiment and it didn’t work so well, this site tested a method that worked and posted a how-to with lots of pictures. (Turns out you can do this with sugar-free gummis, too!)
The how-to part of this is pretty simple, so I decided to make things a little more interesting. In addition to regular vodka gummi bears, I made vodka sugar-free gummi bears, vodka gummi worms (purely to see if they turned out any cooler looking than the bears) and vodka Red Fish (these were disgusting, but in the interest of science I will share my mistakes as well as my triumphs).
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