HOME |
RSS | 
Instructables has connections to instructions on how to hollow out a light bulb, cleaning the kaolin powder off and making planters and terrariums out of them! For the latter tip, check their comments section. Link.
If you could afford the best, which airline should you fly? First class is pretty spiffy on all of them, but some airlines take the concept of luxury to the upper limits. Take a look inside the top-tier accommodations of the seven most luxury-conscious airlines.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Jared Rydelek has a rather unusual talent: he can hammer a 4-inch nail into his nose without hurting himself or even sneezing.
In National Geographic’s two-part special Humanly Impossible, Jared explains:
When I was a kid, I became infatuated with magic. I wanted to be a magician and bought all the magic sets at the toy store in an attempt to be the next Houdini. I loved coming up with new routines and performing for my friends and family. However, I always hated the fact that I had to keep secrets from them. People would ask me how I did a trick and I would have to say "it’s magic" or "it’s a secret;" they’d get mad, I’d feel like a jerk and everyone would be unhappy.
The blockhead act was ultimately what solved this problem for me. While watching a variety show on TV (in search of magicians of course) I saw a man named Todd Robbins perform the blockhead act. I was caught up into his presentation while doing this act; it was almost like watching a magician perform a trick, only better. I was immediately taken in by the idea of being able to perform something that is seemingly impossible, but is in fact a skill, rather than a trick; the great thing is that if someone asks how it’s done, you can explain it and it only gets more interesting.
So I started watching sword swallowers, fire eaters, escape artists, etc… and found my new love called "sideshow.” But I was still much too young to try any of these very dangerous stunts on my own, so I researched the sideshow and impatiently performed magic until I was old enough to learn. At the age of 20, I moved to New York City and was trained at Coney Island by Todd Robbins himself. I was taught all kinds of amazing stunts, but I have always had a soft spot for the Human Blockhead act.
The blockhead act itself involves overcoming the sneeze reflex. It’s a pretty ugly thing to learn. When you stick something up your nose your body will try to reject it; this amounts to extreme discomfort, watery eyes, sneezing and pain. Your nose is simply not meant to have things stuck in it. But if you trigger this response over and over again, eventually your body will accept the object and you’ll overcome the reflex. Before anyone starts thinking that doing this act is a good idea (which it’s not, for the love of God get a teacher if you are serious about learning it), it should be said though that this act, simple as it is, is very dangerous. In the past I have scratched the back of my nasal passage and had the horrible experience of coughing incessantly for days until it healed. But worse than that, there is also the very real possibility of getting sinus infections. And if someone trips while doing this act… it would be very, very bad, to say the least.
Danger aside, I am proud to be a blockhead, as this simple stunt is what first inspired me to trade in my cards and pick up this crazy profession. I am a full-time circus sideshow performer and contortionist right now, which in my opinion is a good thing, and I wouldn’t have been able to get here without this stunt.
Links: NatGeo Humanly Impossible | Jared’s MySpace page | Human Blockhead carnival sideshow act at Wikipedia
Previously on Neatorama: 10 Things That Are (Almost) Impossible To Do With Your Body
What have Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine (from Seinfeld – if you don’t know that already, stop reading now. It wouldn’t make sense to you) been doing over the past 11 years?
Jimmy Greenfield of Chicago Now’s Arts & Entertainment has the summary from the Seinfeld reunion from Curb Your Enthusiasm:
We learned that George made millions from an iPhone app called "iToilet," which uses GPS to direct the user to the nearest acceptable toilet.
We learned that George invested all his money with Bernie Madoff and is now broke.
We learned that George was so broke he had to move in with Jerry.
Get out! Link – Thanks Mu!
This new muppet clip – made with 70 different muppets – takes on one of the greatest rock hits of all time; Bohemian Rhapsody. The clip stays true to the pure, unadulterated awesomeness that the muppets are meant to be and brings them to life once again. From Gonzo and Animal, to Beaker and Rowlf, they combine to create what I see as both tribute to both themselves and to Queen. I could go on and on, but really, the best thing to do is let the video speak for itself.
Enjoy.
– via nerdist
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Remember the digital pet game Tamagotchi? Well, Japan now has the next step in virtual relationship, a Nintedo DS video game called Love Plus where nerdy males can have their very own anime girlfriends.
Lisa Katayama, Boing Boing’s contributing editor, reports that a man who calls himself "Sal9000" has taken the next logical step:
On Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The wedding took place during a Make: Japan meet-up held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In attendance were a live audience, an MC, the bride’s virtual video game girlfriend — who made a speech — and a real human priest.
A wife with an on/off switch! I don’t know if this is crazy or genius – maybe both: Link (with embedded YouTube clip) – Thanks Xeni!
A man asking for money approached two nuns in a California parking lot. When the nuns refused to give him money the man made off with sister De Leon’s purse instead. This guy is on Santa’s naughty list for sure.
Sister Mary De Leon was with another nun and had just finished their shopping at the Food 4 Less. They were loading groceries in the trunk of their car when the suspect approached them in broad daylight two weeks ago. Surveillance video captured the crime on tape…
“She was blaming herself for leaving her purse in front of the car,” said Sister Mary Fatima Guevara of the Poverello of Assisi School.
Guevara said De Leon has already forgiven the suspects for the crime.
From the cartography blog Strange Maps comes this Portuguese-language chart of per capita wine consumption around the world, shaped like a bundle of grapes. It was created by Brazilian graphic designer Alexandre Suannes. Luxembourg appears to be the largest consumer, with 5.91 liters per person. You can view a larger image at the link.
YouTube user willito has a video of Battlestar Galactica cake that has a shifting, glowing red eye.
YouTube Link via DVICE
Designer Andrew Byrom has developed a font derived from Venetian blinds opened and closed at various angles and lengths. Byrom, a native of Liverpool, UK, studied design at the Cumbria Institute of Art and Design and now teaches at California State University in Los Angeles. He has won numerous awards for his typographical work in the past few years.
Link via DudeCraft | Artist’s Website
Artist Olly Moss, previously featured on Neatorama for his parody of Shepard Fairey, has created a poster summarizing the weaknesses of foes that you regularly encounter. Whether you’re fighting Pokémon, vampires, AT-ATs, or Achilles, this poster will keep you focused on a quick victory.
Link via Geekologie | Artist’s Website
A mother squirrel was caught on camera protecting her baby from the jaws of a large black dog. The first image shows the dog about to start pouncing and playing with the baby as the mother looks on, but then the rest of the series depicts the mother diving down and attacking the dog so the youngster has a chance to escape. It looks like all three parties involved came out mostly unscathed, but the dog might have some scratches where the squirrel bit him on the neck and face.
Link Image Via Daily Mail
Food artist Prudence Staite, previously featured on Neatorama, recently recreated scenes from the movie Snow White using fourteen different types of apples to express different colors, shapes, and textures. The works were commissioned by Disney to promote the film. You can view three more at the link.
Link via Urlesque | Artist’s Website
Photo: Michael Johnson
The Big Picture blog is showcasing 25 entries in this year’s photography contest that National Geographic hosts, asking the world to send in their best. You can vote on each entry here. Michael Johnson took this shot and wrote the caption:
This bee was unfortunate enough to land in my pool, but he made some amazing patterns buzzing around in the water. He later escaped.
Howard, the kitten whose front paws were amputated after an assumed encounter with farm machinery, has a home. The kitten was adopted by the family of Kyle and Bryce Billingslea, the two boys who originally found the kitten in a ditch and sought help for his injuries. A video from the Lansing State Journal shows Howard adjusting well to house cat life. Link -via Arbroath
Pioneering professional nurse Florence Nightingale {wiki} was already 70 years old when she recorded this snippet for Thomas Edison and posterity in 1890. This recording has been redubbed to different formats and speed-corrected at least once, so the legibility after 119 years is due to Nightingale’s slow and overdramatic delivery. -via the Presurfer
For the first time, evidence from an fMRI was introduced as evidence for the defense during the penalty phase of a murder trial. Brian Dugan was convicted in Chicago of the rape and murder of a ten-year-old. Dugan’s scan was introduced to show his brain was psychopathic. It is not clear how this information was supposed to mitigate his culpability, as Dugan was ultimately sentenced to death.
“I don’t know of any other cases where fMRI was used in that context,” Stanford professor Hank Greely told Science.
While the possibility of using fMRI data in a variety of contexts, particularly lie detection, has bounced around the margins of the legal system for years, there are almost no documented cases of its actual use. In the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court allowed brain scans to be entered as evidence to show that adolescent brains work differently than adult brains.
That’s a far cry, though, from using fMRI to establish the truth of testimony or that specific structures within an individual defendant’s brain are legally relevant.
It’s difficult to tell whether the Dugan case will be a watershed moment in the use of brain scan evidence in court, or if the evidence impacted the decision in this case.
The jury is still out, so to speak, on the reliability of brain scans for its many possible uses in law enforcement. Link
Even if you’re not a particularly athletic person, there’s a sport out there for you. Whether you’re an avid ironer or are known for launching your cell phone 300 feet after dealing with an exceptionally annoying telemarketer, there’s something in the world that will play to your skills. Here are 10 of them.
1. Toe Wrestling. Yup – there’s arm wrestling, thumb wrestling… and now toe wrestling. As you might imagine, it’s a lot like thumb wrestling – competitors just use different digits. It apparently started when a group of men at a pub decided to find or invent a game that “the British could actually win,” and after a few beverages, they came up with just the thing. Ironically, the first-ever World Toe Wrestling Championships ended with a Canadian victor. Competitors have their own phalange-related nicknames: two of the most accomplished athletes are called the Itatoelion Stallion and the Toeminator. The face of the sport would probably be Alan “Nasty” Nash, a five-time champion who has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to show off his technique. “I don’t think the size of your toe has anything to do with it as I have short, stumpy toes,” he has said. Picture from Metro.
2. Cheese Rolling. You’ve likely heard of this one, but it’s too weird to leave out of the article. Every year at Cooper’s Hill in England’s Cotswolds, a large wheel of cheese is sent tumbling from the top of the hill (pictured)… and a bunch of Cheese Rollers come tumbling after. The first person to reach the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. This may not seem like an outstanding prize, but be assured that the race for the Double Gloucester round is a heated one: injuries have included concussions, broken bones and sprained ankles. Injuries are usually incurred by the Cheese Rollers themselves, but on at least one occasion the cheese (which usually weighs seven or eight pounds) took a wicked bounce at the bottom of the hill and careened into a spectator. Picture from Cheese Rolling.
3. Poohsticks. Children’s lit fans (or Disney fans) will be familiar with Poohsticks from The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne’s 1928 book. Milne actually played the game with his son, although we’re not sure if the game was invented for the book and then played by Milne and his son Christopher Robin or vice versa. Fans started actually playing the game, which involves dropping sticks in a stream or river to see which one crosses the designated finish line first, in 1984. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution needed some money and the lock keeper thought a Poohsticks competition – donations accepted – might help their cash flow. His hunch was correct – since its inception, the World Poohsticks Competition has raised more than £30,000. Every winner receives a gold medal and a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear.
4. Extreme Ironing. There are a lot of us out there that probably dread the tedium of pressing wrinkles out of clothes, but there are others who look at it as the opportunity for an adrenaline rush – namely, Extreme Ironers. It started out as just a fun, quirky hobby, but for the past several years an actual competition sponsored by Rowenta has taken place. EIs send in a photo of themselves ironing in strange and extreme places and points are given for place and style (just standing there with an iron will get you minimal points; striking a graceful pose while ironing underwater will get you more). Bonus: the sport has inspired cellists to do the same thing. Photo from OneInchPunch.
5. Buzkashi sounds like something made up for Borat, but it’s a real sport in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, among others. It’s kind of like polo, except the focus of the game revolves around a decapitated goat or calf instead of a ball. If you’re a Rambo fan, you might remember seeing the game depicted in Rambo III. Photo from AfghanNetwork.
6. Cell Phone Throwing. Fed up with your cell phone? Join the club. But now you can do something legal to vent your frustrations (as opposed to going Naomi Campbell on someone). Since 2001, the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships have been held in Finland. Categories include the traditional toss, freestyle (points for creativity!), team, and junior. If you’re not near Finland and don’t care to travel there just to chuck a phone, never fear: the U.S. held its first event in Massachusetts in 2008. And if you love your cell phone but hate outdated technology, you can join in the Rotary Phone Throw at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.
7. International Regatta of Bathtubs. La Regate des Baignoires was created to boost tourism in Dinant, Belgium. As you can imagine, bathtubs don’t float very well, so it’s a pretty entertaining “race.” In fact, speed really doesn’t matter at all when it comes to winning this thing. It’s more about the creativity of your tub and whether your tub actually makes it across the finish line or not. Photo from P&O Ferries.
8. Chess Boxing. The old stereotype of chess being for skinny, geeky guys with no athletic ability to speak of is totally out the window with this extreme sport. The game started out as kind of a joke in a graphic novel, but people eventually picked up on it and thought it had merit in reality. The first world championship was held in 2003 and regulated by the World Chess Boxing Organization. I like to think that when you call a checkmate, you get to punch your opponent in the face… but it doesn’t work like that. Boxing rounds are alternated with chess-playing rounds; the winner can be determined by knockout, checkmate, or a decision made by the referee. Photo from Time magazine.
9. Unicycle Hockey. It would seem to me that unicycling and hockey each have enough opportunity for injury all on their own, but combine them and you’re almost guaranteed to get a cool scar at some point. There are a few extra fouls, such as “sibbing,” which is poking your hockey stick in an opponent’s spokes to trip him or her up, but for the most part, the unusual mode of transportation is the biggest difference from regular hockey. Oh, yeah, and the lack of ice. Really, ice + unicycle = asking for a shattered femur. Here’s a group playing unicycle hockey in Telluride:
10. Rock Paper Scissors League. Yes, there’s a Rock Paper Scissors League (to be known as RPSL from now on), and yes, it’s serious. The world competitions take place every year in Las Vegas with Bud Light sponsoring. There’s skill to the game, for sure, but it’s more mental than anything else. For example, statistics have shown that women tend to start off a game with scissors and men tend to start with rock. Know your opponent and you could be a $50,000 winner like Sean Sears, who beat more than 300 contestants at Mandalay Bay last year. If that’s not your cup of tea, there are plenty of other tournaments to participate in: there’s the National Xtreme RPS Competition, the UK RPS Championship and the World Series of RPS.
Behind Every Great Man Is A Woman Rolling Her Eyes – $9.95, modeled by Katie
"Behind every great man, there’s a great woman" isn’t exactly right. This T-shirt is closer to the truth: Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes!
From the Neatorama Shop: Link | More Funny T-Shirts (perfect for Christmas gifts!)
Christie’s auction house in London is offering the original articulated model of King Kong as part of a pop culture sale. This is the model that was used in the stop-animation sequence in which Kong climbed the Empire State Buiding in the movie’s final sequences.
It is estimated to reach between $168,000 and $252,000 when it is auctioned Nov. 24.
The Washington Post has an additional full-length photo. Credit for this photo Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.
39-year-old Sara Foss of Derby, England is already the mother of 13 children and is expecting her 14th. She says as soon as the new baby is born in April, she’ll try to get pregnant again. Foss vows to keep on having babies until she has twins or triplets!
Her mammoth brood now comprises Patrick, 23, Stephen, 13, Malachai, 12, Peppermint, 11, Echo, 10, Eli, nine, Rogue, eight, Frodo, seven, Morpheus, five, Artemis, four, Blackbird, three, Baudelaire, two, and nine-month-old Voorhees.
No word yet on what number 14 will be named. Link -via I Am Bored
(image credit: Flickr user Mick 0)
The story of Rom Houben was posted earlier today on Neatorama, and is being carried on every major online news site – a Belgian man paralyzed for 23 years and diagnosed as being in a vegetative state has been found through new technology to be alert but “locked in.” With an assistant helping him communicate by means of a keyboard, he is now reportedly describing what this experience has been like. The case adds fuel to the fiery controversy regarding end-of-life planning and the right to die.
Every site that I have encountered has taken the story at face value. The one exception has come from the James Randi, who has written an essay entitled “This Cruel Farce Has to Stop!“ He notes that the communications from the subject all occur via a “facilitator” who “supports” the patient’s hand as it traverses the keyboard…
The “facilitated communication” process consists of the “facilitator” actually holding the hand of the subject over the keyboard, moving the hand to the key, then drawing the hand back from the keyboard! This very intimate participatory action lends itself very easily to transferring the intended information to the computer screen. In the video you have just viewed, it is very evident that (a) the “facilitator” is looking directly at the keyboard and the screen, and (b) is moving the subject’s hand. The video editing is also biased, giving angles that line up the head of the subject with the screen, as if the subject were watching the screen.
At the essay, Randi states that he has previously investigated “facilitated communication” when it was used to communicate with severely autistic children; he found the technique to be faulty and subject to observer bias in the manner of the “clever Hans” effect.
This patient is clearly severely impaired but is clearly not brain dead. Brain imaging studies have shown evidence of consciousness and awareness, which is fully compatible with his impairment. The controversy is whether the communications are valid representations of his thoughts, or whether they are (consciously or subconsciously) creations of the facilitator.
The video embedded above is a brief excerpt from the MSNBC video. Several other videos are available at the BBC, Telegraph, and other news sites.
Addendum: Subsequent controlled trials failed to show any validity for “facilitated communication.”
