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Web Urbanist just put up a nice collection of art installations on buildings. They’re all great designs, particularly the tentacle piece above:
An artist calling himself ‘FilthyLuker’ installed inflatable octopus tentacles in the windows of an unnamed building in June of 2009, making it appear as if the building is being devoured by a bright green kraken that somehow emerged from the sea and got stuck inside.
Does anyone know where this building is?
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has figured out how to recreate the “Crunchy Frog” confection made famous in the classic Monty Python sketch (“If we took the bones out it wouldn’t be crunchy would it?”) using Gummi frogs, Pop Rocks, and chocolate.
There are two remarkable things about this recipe. First, Pop Rocks survive being immersed in melted chocolate surprisingly well– they still pop after the chocolate solidifies. Second, the artificial fruit flavor of the Pop Rocks is completely overwhelmed and masked by the bittersweet chocolate. We anticipated a bit of flavor conflict, but the chocolate won out completely, leaving only the pop-whiz-bang of the Pop Rocks.
Marvin Heemeyer spent a year and a half modifying a Komatsu D335A bulldozer into an “armored vehicle of vengeance”. On June 4th, 2004, he rampaged through the town of Granby, Colorado, smashing vehicles and buildings, including the homes of those he felt had plotted against him.
The overencumbered vehicle was obviously difficult to control, and swerved widely through the streets, but Heemeyer was still able to seek out and and hit his specific targets. The bulldozer effortlessly demolished cars and buildings, including the home of a former mayor, the office of a newspaper that had sided against him in an editorial, the businesses of a former city councilman, and the city hall. Despite the destruction of property, no people had been injured or killed. killdozer_city_hallThe remains of Granby city hallThe Granby Police requisitioned an industrial scraper to pit heavy equipment against heavy equipment, but the Killdozer merely shoved the lighter adversary aside.
Over $7 million in damage was done that day. Read the entire story at Damn Interesting. Link
These incredibly lifelike paintings were created by John Pugh who calls his artwork “trick of the eye.”
The Californian-born artist said: ‘It seems almost universal that people take delight in being visually tricked.’
It was 34 years ago tomorrow that Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. Ever since then, the rumors have been flying about where he might be – he’s almost certainly dead, but who did it and what they did with the body is the mystery at hand. Here are a few of the theories.
The FBI doesn’t buy it, though. As you probably know, Giants Stadium is headed the way of Hoffa – it’s scheduled to be destroyed next year when Meadowlands Stadium opens. When asked if they intended to search the grounds, the FBI said they would if they had a credible tip, but they don’t. Maybe they just don’t care because Mythbusters has already answered the question for them: in 2003, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman searched some of the most popular spots using radar – each end zone, the 50-yard line, the 10-yard line, and seating section 107. They found no conclusive evidence that anything unusual was buried at Giants Stadium. And the vice president of public affairs for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority agrees, saying, “He ain’t here.”
Photo from NFLteamhistory.com.
Photo by Paul Sancya/Associated Press, via CBC News.
A deathbed confession by a former Teamster and Hoffa cohort Frank Sheeran caused quite the stir in 2004. Francis Sheeran supposedly wrote a letter saying that he shot Hoffa, then drove his body to a trash incinerator and had it cremated. But Sheeran’s daughter said no way – the letter is definitely a fake. “It’s not his signature,” she told the Detroit Free Press. She thinks the letter and signature was forged by the man who was writing Sheeran’s biography – a similar book was scheduled to be published and he thought it would drum up better publicity for his own book. The biographer said it was a genuine confession from Sheeran and sent the letter to Hoffa’s daughter, who in turn notified the FBI. Sheeran’s backyard had been searched previously after it was alleged that a briefcase containing a syringe used to knock Hoffa out was buried there. Again, no evidence was found.
Another year, another “credible” tip. In 2003, authorities received a tip from an informant who had given them accurate information before: Hoffa was supposedly underneath an above-ground pool near Bay City, Michigan. They dug under the pool, but found nothing. The same year, they dug up the yard of a home in Munger Township and also came up empty-handed. Apparently 2003 was a hot year for Hoffa tips, because in July of the same year, Fox News conducted an investigation based on Frank Sheeran’s confession. They took tile up that had covered the hardwood floors that were present at the time of Hoffa’s death, then sprayed a chemical to detect any traces of blood. And they did find blood, a fair amount of it, in exactly the place where Sheeran said he shot Hoffa. The problem? It wasn’t Hoffa’s blood. By the way, if Sheeran’s stories sound conflicting, that’s because they are – he told various stories to officials over the years and sometimes pled the Fifth. But right before he died in 2004, he said he stood by what he said in his book – he shot Hoffa twice behind the ear in this house and was told the body was later cremated.
Photo from National Geographic.
When convicted murderer Ricky Powell claimed that he knew where Hoffa was, he seemed pretty credible and his story was not any crazier than any of the others floating around. He said that he was the one who dumped the body in 1975, and if anyone was to search the Au Sable River about 175 miles from Detroit, they would find Hoffa’s remains under 30 feet of water. Boating magazine immediately picked up on the story and offered $10,000 to anyone who could find the body in the river and produce evidence. So far, no one has collected the prize.
A few other theories that have so far turned up nothing:
What do you think is the most likely theory?
Jake Bronstein of Zoomdoggle (featured previously on Neatorama) set a record for longest whisper chain, passing a message successfully through 59 people. The message was a marriage proposal to his girlfriend! Link (embedded video) -via Metafilter
“I personally liked them,” says the former president of the Laguna Beach Art Walk. “And that’s how I select artists. When I connect to the energy and passion someone creates in their art, that’s when I like it.”
Meyer invited Boey to display his cups at her gallery during the monthly Art Walk. They sell for $120 to $220.
Link to story. Link to Flickr set. -via Buzzfeed
Also see Boey’s website.
Robots that served in Afghanistan by remotely detonating explosives are now repurposed as “firebots” in London. These machines can safely get much closer to the source of the fire than human firefighters, which is particularly useful for gas fires.
The three robots are the Talon, a small, manoeuvrable machine with thermal-image cameras; the Black Max, which is similar to a quad bike and has a high-pressure hose, and the Brokk 90, which is a heavy-duty digger that removes debris.
The robots, manufactured by QinetiQ, went into service in London yesterday. Link -via Unique Daily
These drones include both aerial and surface craft intended for clandestine operations:
* Sea Stalker, a torpedo-size underwater robot that specializes in snooping on radio signals and other communications. “The [concept] is to launch these from submarines at night,” Kenny said. “They will transit to offshore, anchor, put their antennas out and begin collection. Ideally you would have a series of these … to cover different ports or hotbeds of terrorist activity. And then you would collate that information on board the ship.”
* Scan Eagle, the 45-pound aerial bot that has seen heavy use by the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kenny says Special Operations Command is looking at boosting Scan Eagle with extra fuel and sensors — and maybe even weapons, like the Air Force’s armed Predators and Reapers. It seems Scan Eagle is launched from a sub’s deck while she is surfaced, but that could change. “We’re looking at launch and recovery from an SSGN payload tube to allow clandestine close-in operations,” Kenny said.
* BUSTER, a 15-pound UAV that Kenny says is particularly useful when working with foreign armies. “We’ve … done some very successful operations with allies, doing foreign internal defense, training them to operate this vehicle.” The allied armies launch BUSTER from land, while the submarine “pull[s] in the full motion video and the infrared, correlate[s] it and fuse[s] it in our battle management centers on board.”
The picture above is of the Sea Stalker. [Correction on 8.3.09: It's the Sea Stalker by General Dynamics and is unmanned, but is a surface, rather than subsurface craft. Thanks, AeroNut!]
Previously on Neatorama: The Navy’s Armed Sea-Bots
Last night, Miss Cellania linked to a video of a five-year old boy playing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” very well. Pop culture blog Urlesque took this idea and ran with it, compiling ten videos of children, aged three to ten, performing rock songs. The above video is of an eight-year old boy playing “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix.
Hasbro could greatly expand its market if it made My Little Ponies like these two based upon the violent video game Gears of War. And it would probably capture the true meaning of what it means to be a My Little Pony.
Link (where there are also Legend of Zelda and Iron Man-themed My Little Ponies)
Previously on Neatorama: Star Wars-Themed My Little Ponies
Would you like to keep your departed loved ones in an urn on the mantle? How about in an urn that looks like the deceased person’s head? Cremation Solutions makes personalized urns using facial reconstruction and 3D mapping software.
The safest place is keep your money is to stuff it into your mattress. Or, alternatively, this mattress-shaped piggy bank which received no TARP funds and comes complete with a miniature pillow.
Link via Nerd Approved
Capri, carpi, what’s the difference? Apparently, about 400 miles. Here’s what happened to a couple of Swedish tourists who mistyped the destination in their GPS:
Officials say a Swedish couple looking for the pristine waters of the popular island of Capri ended some 400 miles (660 kilometers) away in the northern industrial town of Carpi after misspelling the destination on their car’s GPS.
Angelo Giovannini, a spokesman for the Carpi town hall, near Modena, said Tuesday the couple drove into the main square last week and asked the local tourist office how to reach Capri’s famed Blue Grotto sea cave.
[YouTube]
Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom is a silly yet utterly fascinating collaboration between our pal, animator and T-shirt designer extraordinaire Nathan Mazur of Scared of Bees and Parry Gripp (of the pop punk band Nerf Herder). In the version above, Nathan added animation to Parry’s notoriously catchy tune (I apologize beforehand for getting the song stuck in your head).
If you like that, there’s *a lot* of similar songs over at Parry’s Song of the Week website: Link
Previously on Neatorama: He’s a Cat, Flushing the Toilet!
Takin’ a break from weighty science research like finding a cure for cancer and whatnot, scientists have now solved the riddle of why we swing our arms when walking:
Swinging one’s arms comes at a cost. We need muscles to do it, and we need to provide energy in the form of food for those muscles. So what’s the advantage?
Little or none, some experts have said, contending that arm-swinging, like our appendix, is an evolutionary relic from when we used to go about on all fours.
But a trio of specialists from the United States and the Netherlands have put the question to rigorous tests.
They built a mechanical model to get an idea of the dynamics of arm-swinging and then recruited 10 volunteers, who were asked to walk with a normal swing, an opposite-to-normal swing, with their arms folded or held by their sides. [...]
Arm-swinging turned out to be a plus, rather than a negative, the investigators found.
For one thing, it is surprisingly, er, "’armless" in energy costs, requiring little torque, or rotational twist, from the shoulder muscles. Holding one’s arms as one walks requires 12 percent more metabolic energy, compared with swinging them.
The old ad slogan "Guinness is good for you" may actually be true: a study showed that drinking just over a pint of Guinness at mealtimes may help reduce the blood’s ability to form dangerous clots that may lead to heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.
Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago – and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.
They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.
Link (Image: spleeney [Flickr])
Previously on Neatorama: Stories Behind 7 Famous Beer Logos
Neatorama Server Issues
Late last night (two nights ago for our readers in the East Coast), our data center and hosting service SoftLayer was hit with a massive distributed denial-of-service attack. The attack was aimed at their DNS service, which caused many websites hosted at the company – including neatorama.com – to fail to resolve.
For those who don’t know, DNS servers (or name servers) translate domain name (like neatorama.com) into IP address of the website’s server. Without it, your browser wouldn’t "know" where to contact the website’s server.
The DDoS attack caused browser errors for some, but not all of you who try to visit the blog. I had trouble visiting the blog all night yesterday from home (with Comcast cable Internet) and all day today at work (with AT&T DSL). Anyways, the issue was finally resolved late today afternoon.
Softlayer is one of the largest data centers in the world (with over 21,000 servers). It’s DNS servers use anycasting, so I couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of DDos would bring them down for so long.
Mystery Sale – Quickie Update
We’ve shipped out about 3/4 of all orders – if you haven’t received yours
yet, please be patient! It’s on its way! (Again, our thanks for participating in the latest Mystery Sale). We’ll do another update after we’ve completed shipping all of the orders.
The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey has a permanent display called “Musical Machines & Living Dolls”, featuring over 700 antique automata, including quite a few fancily-dressed mechanical monkeys from France.
Though largely lost on passing schoolchildren and tourists at the Morris Museum, these monkeys were once a scathing critique on French aristocracy. There is a monkey on a early sort of bicycle called a velocipede, a monkey harpist, a monkey violinist, two small monkey musicians, and an incredible monkey dandy under a large glass dome. All are dressed in fine silks with hair done up in the style of French Royalty. These automata were a post-French-revolution joke on the former rulers and current dandies of France. So popular was the theme of foolish aristocratic monkeys that it was common in French homes, and whole rooms were decorated around the theme.
Read more about the mechanical monkey fad at Curious Expeditions. Link
Ever played the children’s board game Mouse Trap? These Britons decided to build a life-sized version in order to raise money for a hospice:
“Over a few pints a group of friends decided it would be a great idea to build a life size replica of the Mousetrap game… and here it is – The complete giant Mouse Trap day at the Lamb pub in Surbiton. We raised over £2000 for the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice… brilliant day…”
Here’s a video of the construction phase of the project:
Via Urlesque
The fastest submarine in the US Navy can go only 25 to 30 knots. But the Electric Boat Corporation, the primary designer for US Navy submarines, is trying to design one that can reach up to 100 knots. It plans on testing a 1/4 scale model off the coast of Rhode Island next year:
The sub utilizes the phenomenon known as supercavitation. Supercavitation is the process wherein an object moves so fast through the water that it creates a gas bubble around itself, nearly eliminating drag. Unencumbered by the high drag of water, the object is free to speed along at much higher speeds than otherwise possible. Supercavitation has been known since the end of World War Two, and the Soviets succeeded in creating a torpedo that utilizes supercavitation for high-speed travel, but so far no one has succeeded in scaling the effect up to the size of a whole submarine.
Some jobs could be done by a trained monkey. So it’s all the more impressive that an untrained monkey on a farm in India herds 75 goats out to and back from the fields every day. National Geographic reports:
Martin K, Estate Manager- “She takes out the goats for grazing and brings them back. A shepherd is usually required to accompany the goats all day long and bring them back in these hills. But because of her, manpower can be spared. She is as good as a shepherd. The only thing is that she does not speak, but otherwise carries out all responsibilities.”
They say they feel confident that the goats will be safe when Mani accompanies them.
Mani is said to make a strange sound when she discovers a goat is missing or when danger lurks.
There’s a (non-embeddable) video of the monkey at the link.
image by flickr user eirikref used under creative commons license
Researchers weren’t looking for the effects of blue dye on spinal cord injuries, but there it is. What researcher were looking for was any chemical that was similar to the P2X7 receptor that blocks ATP, which causes inflammation of spinal cord injuries. FD&C blue dye No. 1 just happened to fit the description.
By lucky accident, researchers discovered that the commonly used food additive FD&C blue dye No. 1 is remarkably similar to a lab compound that blocks a key step in nerve inflammation. When rats with spinal cord injury were given an infusion of blue dye, they recovered much faster than rats that didn’t get the treatment. And researchers reported only one adverse effect: The rats turned blue.
“One of the reasons no one had done this before is that food science is very separate from neuroscience,” said neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center, who co-authored the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. “Those two fields don’t interact at all.”
The only problem with further research is the funding. The blue dye is so common that no underwriting company is likely to reap a profit from any medical breakthroughs. Link
Brian Dereu makes and sells hollow spy coins, bolts, and spikes to safely hide data and other information. The Coins hide microSD cards, the bolts and spike can hold messages and other items.
During the Cold War, Spies from both the East and West used Hollow Coins to ferry secret messages, suicide poisons, and microfilms undetected. On May 1st, 1960 U2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union and taken captive. In his possession was a hollow silver dollar containing a poisoned needle that was to be used to take his own life in such a circumstance. For one reason or another, he did not use it and was held for 21 months by the Soviets. He was then exchanged for Soviet spy KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) at the Glienicke Bridge, in Berlin, Germany. Colonel Fisher was also no stranger to hollow coins…his original capture by the United States FBI was directly related to a hollow nickel that was used to transport microfilm.
Link – via boingboing
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by liquidanbar.
The Kish Qanat is an amazing feet of human engineering that covers over 10,000 square metres underground. The tunnel complex, built before the Roman Empire, serves as a way to transport water from Iran’s mountain region to less arid land several kilometres away.
The ancient water provision technology can be described as the greatest contribution made by Iranians to hydraulics. This system must have been started at least 5000 years ago in Iran. The water from the qanat flowed in a natural underground stream between a layer of corals on the surface of the island. The drinking water flowed from northeast of the Island to the sea and after 10 centuries it continues to flow.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.
The Sahara Desert is growing, consequently reducing food production in the area and therefore inducing poverty. But architect Magnus Larsson has an ambitious and fanciful plan to use bacteria to create a calcite wall on the desert’s southern edge:
Bacillus pasteurii is commonly found in wetlands, and is able to chemically create calcite. By unleashing the bacteria on areas of the desert, sand could be solidified into sandstone within a few hours. The way Larsson proposes to do this is fill massive balloons with bacteria and station them along the Sahara’s southern border, where the weight of the oncoming waves of sand would pop the balloons. The released bacteria would then quickly set up a protective wall to block future sand shifts.
Sarah Kaufmann carves sculptures out of blocks of cheese. A native of Wisconsin who studied art and worked in the dairy industry, she was born for this work. The picture above is of Kaufmann and her sculpture of Neil Armstrong. Click the link for a video of the artist in action.
22-year-old Tyler Bradt plunged over Palouse Falls in eastern Washington and set a world record for a kayak descent. The fall was 186 feet, which he covered in less than four seconds.
As rescue teams waited at the base of the falls Bradt calmly steered his fiberglass kayak into the raging water.
After disappearing under the water he emerged within six seconds with his broken paddle and sprained wrist.
‘Considering the waterfall, the injuries were pretty minor,’ he said.
The previous record for a kayak descent was 127 feet. Link -via Unique Daily
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