If this doesn’t work, CLICK HERE
College Humor presents an instant classic: A funny road trip on the Street View highway, with actual Street View shots used as animated backgrounds and settings.
Comment (12)
Permalink
Please share:  email
this 
|
Considering the earlier story of Falcon Heene and the flying saucer, this Public Service Announcement by Ebru strikes home. She named it “The Truest Venn Diagram I Have Ever Made.” Link -via Buzzfeed
|
Comment (7)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Recycle, reuse, rethink how we look at garbage. Tires are an especially volatile item, as they take up space and emit terrible fumes when burned. Check out Oddee’s collection of creative sculptures made from discarded tires.
Link | Above example found at mo_metalart’s Flickr set.
Previously on Neatorama – Tired.
Update 10/15/09 by Alex: The artist is Mirko Siakkou-Flodin, and this particular tire sculpture is at the Jumeirah Beach Residence in Dubai, UAE. Oddee is a great source of many interesting things, and they usually credit their photos, so I wonder why they didn’t do it in this instance.
|
Comment (6)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Researchers Qiang Chen and Tie Jun Cui of Southeast University in Nanjing, China created a device that partially simulates the effects (to a limited scale) of a black hole. It bends light differently from a the way that a black hole does, but it will readily absorb it:
The hole is the latest clever device to use ‘metamaterials’, specially engineered materials that can bend light in unusual ways. Previously, scientists have used such metamaterials to build ‘invisibility carpets’ and super-clear lenses.[...]
The new meta-black hole also bends light, but in a very different way. Rather than relying on gravity, the black hole uses a series of metallic ‘resonators’ arranged in 60 concentric circles. The resonators affect the electric and magnetic fields of a passing light wave, causing it to bend towards the centre of the hole. It spirals closer and closer to the black hole’s ‘core’ until it reaches the 20 innermost layers. Those layers are made of another set of resonators that convert light into heat. The result: what goes in cannot come out. “The light into the core is totally absorbed,” Cui says.
Link via Popular Science | Image: NASA
|
Comment (12)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
This cake inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night was created by flickr user megpi of Silver Lake, California.
Link via Make | Starry Night at the MoMA
UPDATE 10/14/09: In the comments, basketcasey points out that the bottom two layers are inspired by works of Monet.
|
Comment (11)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
A 6 year old boy climbed into a hot air balloon and floated away, and officials are scrambling to find a way to rescue him. The balloon has the potential to climb to 10,000 feet.
The balloon was last sighted in Milliken, about 40 miles north of Denver.
– via usatoday
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Update 10/15/09 – he’s been found hiding in the attic. Also, Urlesque has a compilation post about the Balloon Boy meme (wuz that fast or what?)
|
Comment (29)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Princeton neuroscientist David Tank wanted to study individual neurons in a mouse’s hippocamus as it moves. But the movement of the mouse’s body prevented accurate readings. So he placed the mouse on a giant trackball and let it run through a virtual maze from the video game Quake 2 displayed on screens. Brandon Keim writes in Wired:
Studying individual neurons has been possible in cell cultures, but brains in a dish behave different than real, living brains. Tracking individual neurons in moving animals has been impossible.
“The neurons move back and forth while you’re trying to measure things,” said Tank. “So we developed a way to keep the head fixed in space, but still have mice perform behaviors that are usually studied in mice running through a maze.”
Tank’s team designed an apparatus in which a mouse, its head firmly held in a metal helmet, walks on the surface of a styrofoam ball. The ball is kept aloft by a jet of air, so that it functions like a multidirectional treadmill. Around it are sensors taken from optical computer mice, which read the ball’s movement as the mouse runs.
Those readings were the input for the researchers’ virtual reality software — a modified version of the open source Quake 2 videogame engine, tweaked to project an image on a screen surrounding the mouse. Tank called it “a mini-IMAX theater.”
Link via Popular Science
|
Comment (12)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
A skunk in Tulsa, Oklahoma got his head stuck in a jar. Now you’ll know what to do when this happens in your neighborhood. -via Blame It On The Voices
|
Comment (9)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Artist Karolina Sobecka and software designer Jim George created Sniff — a computer generated projection of a dog that responds to the actions of people passing by a storefront. Here’s how it works:
People on the sidewalk are monitored by an IR camera in openFrameworks. In oF each individual person is isolated and assigned a unique id for the duration of their interaction. Each persons’ position and gesture information is continually sent to Unity3d via OSC networking protocol. In Unity, an artificial intelligence system representing the dog forms relationships with the individuals. He chooses which person to pay attention to, is able to move towards them or back away, responds to their gestures and initiates gestures of his own. Based on the interaction he gets excited or bored, friendly or aggressive, which is reflected in his behavior.
Link via Urlesque | Artist’s Website
|
Comment (5)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
An anonymous reader of the Italian-language site Motoblog.it made a Vespa-shaped rocking horse for his nephew Diego. Who wants to take it out for a spin?
Link (Google Translator version) via CrunchGear
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Most people I encounter in my offline life do not surf the internet, and I think about all the rich content they are missing. The people I encounter on the internet work hard to spread interesting content, and are rarely rewarded for their efforts. But in the last few years, quite a few interesting ideas that broke on the web are now breaking through to “meatspace” through book publishing, which is where the real money is -for the lucky ones. This has led to blogs that are started for the express purpose of landing an eventual book deal. Urlesque has compiled a list of blogs that have turned into books, which may be useful in Christmas shopping for your relatives who would enjoy such things but won’t spend time online. Link -via the Presurfer
|
Comment (3)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Jarrette Schule found a rocket launcher in his backyard in rural Comal County, Texas on Tuesday. Against all common sense, he took it in his house, then began calling authorities to report it. He called the FBI, the sheriff’s department, and Homeland Security.
“Everyone was handing it off to everybody else,” Schule said.
He was surprised at the amount of work it took to get the military to pick up its lost missile launcher.
Schule initially was nervous when he found the weapon. But as the hours passed, he did what most guys would do — marvel at the mind-blowing awesomeness of finding a missile launcher. He posted photos on Facebook and called his buddies, saying: “Guess what I found?”
Schule called the military police at Fort Sam. But their jurisdiction doesn’t extend off the post. Schule’s information was passed along to an Army criminal investigator, who visited Schule on Wednesday morning — about 19 hours after he started making phone calls.
Three hours later, an Army ordinance disposal team retrieved the weapon. There is still no word on how it got to Schule’s yard. Link -via Queuebot
|
Comment (15)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
This amazing animation is a wonderful combination of real public space & cardboard animation filmed stop-motion, by Dutch animator Sjors Vervoort with audio by Steven Aerts.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
|
Comment (4)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Possibly the most beautiful pigeon too, the Victoria Crowned is not at all what you might expect when used to the hordes that haunt our towns and cities. Thanks to the Dodo becoming defunct, these turkey sized blue niceys are the largest pigeon on the planet. They have a rather odd secret too. Birds don’t produce milk to feed their young, right? Well, these do! Unfortunately, these birds seem to be dying out in the wild for several reasons. The facts that they 1. aren’t afraid of people and 2. taste good do not bode well for their survival.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
|
Comment (5)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)
 |
World’s Largest Firework
Though perhaps a contentious claim, this is reputedly the world’s largest single firework. |
 |
Apocalyptic looking cloud formation in Moscow
From the comments, we learn that these are called “failstreak holes” and do not actually portend the end of the world. |
 |
Sculpting Demo by Philippe Faraut
Faraut is an amazing sculptor who has been featured on Neatorama before. This time he shows us how he does it. He makes it look so easy- but I know it’s not. |
 |
Yellow Cake
The latest animated epic by Ottawa animator Nick Cross. In production since 2006, Yellow Cake is the follow-up to Nick’s The Waif of Persephone. Quick warning that it may be a bit dark but the animation is superb. |
 |
Pushbutton Balcony
Have a window? Push a button, now you have a balcony– if you live in Holland, France, Spain, or Portugal. |
|
Comment (3)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event in which participating bloggers post about a particular issue to raise awareness and trigger global discussion that will – hopefully – bring about positive change. This year’s topic is climate change – which, shall we say, is a wee bit controversial.
We’ll get to some Neatorama-worthy posts on the blog today, but first I’d like to ask YOU what you think about global warming/climate change. Do you believe that it is happening? Or is it just a passing hysteria, much like the concern over global cooling in the 1950s to 1970s?
Loading ...It’s an open mike – let’s hear your opinion.
|
Comment (85)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Port-A-Pint Portable Beer Glass – $7.95
Don’t go unprepared to your next party. Forget those clumsy disposable cups, bring your own portable beer glass. The Port-A-Pint Beer Glass pops open in seconds with a flick of your wrist. From the Neatorama Shop: Link
|
Comment (10)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
Miss Cellania’s post of the mysterious man in people’s dreams reminded me of my own personal nightmare. Here’s the robot that’s been haunting my dreams. Have you been dreaming of the same bot?
|
Comment (13)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
A stylish new fan has been creating a buzz in the world of technology.
In this clip, inventor/engineer James Dyson, famous for his vacuum cleaners (you may have seen his commercials with his vacuum that can round corners), introduces his latest product, the bladeless air multiplier fan. It uses a system of low pressure area and suction device in the bottom to create a smooth, continuous flow of air.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by
|
Comment (18)
Permalink
Please share: email
this
|
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 ... 
