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For a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such an instrument is the turbo-encabulator.

Do you understand? If not, just nod you head and pretend that you do because it's vital that no one else grasps how little you understand about the world. That is the premise of the turboencabulator (or turbo-encabulator or turbo encabulator), a classic joke in the engineering world. Rebecca Linke of Computerworld offers a history of this gag that has been running since at least 1944. It's a long string of total gibberish that sounds right to the uninformed. In short, it's technobabble so good that even Geordi La Forge would approve.

John Hellins Quick, a graduate student, published about the turboencabulator in a 1944 issue of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers Student’s Quarterly Journal. It was republished in the US in a 1946 issue of Time magazine. In 1962, the Instrument Department of General Electric published a professional-looking datasheet on the turboencabulator, complete with a list of accessories, specifications, and ratings. Several companies produced training videos, including the hilarious one embedded above.

-via American Digest and Ka-ching!

Most celebs love to get dressed up, whether in formal wear or a fun costume, so it’s only natural that celebs who attend San Diego Comic-Con each year enjoy channeling their inner cosplayer on the main floor of the convention.

However, celebs generally don’t enjoy getting mobbed by fans, and if they are easily recognizable even in costume they could wind up being the subject of an unwanted fan frenzy.

That’s why celebs are choosing to go to Comic-Con incognito these days, wearing outfits that obscure their identity and allow them the anonymous freedom to roam the floor as they please.

Maisie Williams decided to attend Comic-Con 2014 while wearing simple disguises that kept people from catching Game of Thrones mania and freaking out on the Con floor.

As you can see from her Instagram photo people didn't seem to think twice about the weird little fangirl wearing the Guy Fawkes or Spider-Man mask, and she was able to enjoy the convention without inciting hysteria!

-Via Fashionably Geek

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Bayonne is a city in southern France. Like Pamplona, Spain, there is a festival in which bulls chase runners through the streets. This is 2014, so it’s no longer enough for participants to just enjoy the thrill of angry bulls pursuing them. Now these moments must be immortalized on social media.

In Pamplona, this is actually illegal and police are searching for a man who snapped a photo of himself while a bull was just inches behind him. Police in Houston, Texas are not trying to find another man who made a video of himself while being chased because, thankfully, this is Texas.

Neither of those men appear to have been trampled. But YouTube user lexflex freeman shot this video of a man in Bayonne getting too distracted by his phone. It looks like he escaped with no injuries to his body—only his pride.

-via Daily Telegraph (warning: auto-play)

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I’ve cut up two watermelons in the past week to pack in my kids’ lunches for band camp. I was using the “cut the rind away first” method, but since seedless watermelons became common, there are plenty of watermelon-chopping techniques that work well. I may have to try this one, but with a slight change. I would do his horizontal cutting (almost but not all the way through) before slicing the melon in half. That would eliminate having to cut towards your hand with a wobbly end down, and instead cut down toward the board with the wobbly (whole) melon down. Oh, and make sure you have a really sharp knife. -via Viral Viral Videos

Long plane rides are so booooooooring. Here's a traditional game that helps you pass the time. Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal gives us a primer on the rules. It's really straightforward. Now the man on the toilet must tag his playmate back.

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Note that on some planes, the sign flips up rather than down.

A lot of games require a lot of space and many tables just don't cut it for the really elaborate table games. Over at Geek Chic though, you can be sure to find something just right for your favorite games. The tables all feature a "game vault" playing area and most offer a rail system along the side of the table where you can hook in accessories like cup holders, writing spaces and areas for you to roll your dice. Many of them also offer storage spacce for your games when they aren't in use. 

We've got a lot more details about the tables and tons more pictures of them over at Homes and Hues: Game in Great Style With Geek Chic

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

* Elvis Presley loved reading comic books as a boy. His favorite hero was Captain Marvel, Jr. It is reputed he got the original inspiration for his jet black hair with the curl hanging down in the middle of his forehead was inspired by Captain Marvel, Jr.

* Michael Jackson wanted to play Spider-Man in a movie so badly, he tried to buy Marvel Comics in the 1990's.

* The Incredible Hulk was originally gray, but Marvel changed him to green after problems with ink in their presses.

* When Joe DiMaggio was playing with the New York Yankees, he loved reading Superman comic books, but he was too embarrassed to buy them himself; he thought it tarnished his image. So he would send other Yankee players to go to the local newsstand and buy the latest issues for him.

* The 1940's comic book superhero called Red Bee fought the Nazis using trained bees. His favorite bee was named Michael and lived in Red Bee's belt buckle.

* Comic book letterers avoid words like "clint" and "flick" because during printing the letters can run together, making the words look like profanity.

* In Archie Comics, Jughead had a real name. His full name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones II. He has a sister named Forsythia “Jellybean" Jones.

* The word “Brainiac" comes from a Superman villain of the same name.

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And it's completely charming!

This is the Diana Isaac Retirement Village in Christchurch, New Zealand. 60 residents and members of the staff made this shot-by-shot remake of the original music video by Pharrell Williams. They made it to show their friends and family that they're happy. The Daily Mail describes the dapper fellow who plays Williams:

The star of the video, complete with a Pharrell-esque smart white shirt, bow tie and iconic hat, is 79-year-old former engineer Alister Leckie who Mr King said 'had never done anything like that before, and absolutely loved it'.

The residents stay in shape with regular exercise and flashmobbing, so they were up for the demands of the video.

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Yes, really! They hold flashmobs. The residents converge on malls and dance. Skip to 4:00 in this video to see them in action.

-via 22 Words

Artist Hector Janse van Rensburg feels that Facebook profile pics are looking a bit too human these days, so he has taken it upon himself to bring a bit of critter color to the world of social media by slothifying random Facebook profile pics: 

The UK based artist has become known for his offbeat watercolor works, which he shares with the web under the name S**tty Watercolour, and if you are familiar with Hector’s works you know there is nothing serious about his artistic interpretations:

Hector has painted portraits of Redditors and celebrities, and now he’s tackling the ever changing world of social media, whether the Facebook users in question like it or not. Who knows, you might be his next slothification victim…

-Via Bored Panda

(Photo: Darwin Correctional Centre by Bidgee)

It was a cunning plan. During the night, the four inmates at a prison in Darwin, Australia climbed over the fence, where they met partners on the outside. These colleagues gave them alcohol and marijuana. After partaking of those refreshments for a few hours, the prisoners climbed back over the fence and got back into their cells, hoping they wouldn't get caught. 

Then they repeated the process a few times.

Finally, early on the morning of July 20, guards noticed these thoroughly drunk prisoners in the yard, fighting over a cell phone. They have since been transferred to a higher security unit. Authorities are not sure if the four will be charged with attempting to escape from prison. 

-via Ace of Spades HQ

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Their legs can barely hold their weight, and they can’t get no (da da DA da) decent traction. These kittens are just discovering their new ability to get around on their own, and they are the cutest things ever! -via Tastefully Offensive

If you're a native Japanese speaker traveling to an English-speaking country, you might wonder how you will be able to conduct business and everyday transactions in a language that is very different from your own. How will you order food at a restaurant, check into a hotel, or make a business deal?

Thankfully, in the Anglosphere, you can get most of this done by selectively quoting Star Wars. Darth Vader's own dialogue is a particularly good starting point, which is why the publishing company Gakken has produced a phrasebook which translates Lord Vader's English into Japanese. Here are some sample pages.

-via Rocket News 24

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Sadie just learned that her little brother will eventually grow up, and won’t always be the baby he is now. That’s an overwhelming concept for her, and she’s not taking it well. I can’t say that I blame her; he’s got an adorable smile. She also doesn’t want to die, no matter how far away that is. Some things are just hard to deal with. -via Buzzfeed

Chris Hallbeck of Maximumble has a point. But I think we've reached serious danger only when you decide to stay on your couch and watch a different movie instead. Or if you're hungry, but decide to stay on the couch instead of getting up to go to the kitchen.

Children’s television shows used to walk a fine line between enchantingly adorable and unnervingly creepy.

There have been so many kids shows that have come and gone over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them all, but Mental Floss’s Ransom Riggs went down the YouTube rabbit hole and came back with a few shining examples, to remind us how creepy some kid's shows used to be:

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Maybe it had something to do with the strange (and typically low budget) critter costumes, or the slowed speech meant to keep the whole thing kid friendly, but the creepiness most definitely DID NOT have ANYTHING to do with the puppets!

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Okay, maybe it had a little bit to do with the puppets, because they usually weren't friendly looking Muppet style puppets- more often than not they looked like the stuff nightmares are made of.

And speaking of creepy puppets, there's one show missing from Ransom's list of creepy kid's TV shows, one puppet filled program that used to simultaneously fascinate and disturb me to the core as a youngster- The Letter People.

The animated sequences were delightfully folksy, and totally meant to appeal to a Flower Child's child, but there was something about those maniacally grinning puppets with the totally blank expressions that used to haunt me in my dreams!

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Are there any old kid's TV shows that used to creep you out as a kid? Let us know in the comment section and we'll compare notes!

Maternity photo shoots are a thing now. The results are often funny or sweet photos of expectant mothers showing off their baby bumps. But the pregnant wife of redditor DruishPrincess69 (Funny--he doesn't look Druish) didn't want to have a photo shoot. So he hired a photographer and did it himself. You can view the entire set here.

It looks like he's about 6 months along. That's when the back pain tends to set in. Be careful, DruishPrincess69. Don't push yourself too hard.

The Muppets are the funniest puppets in the land, and when they make a comedic puppet movie where they star alongside comedians famous for their fabulous sense of humor you know some funny business is bound to go down on the set.

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Tina Fey is one funny lady, and she’s also a fan of The Muppets, so when she has a blooper moment during filming you know it’s going to make you LOL, and if we could watch more than thirty seconds of hilarity folks would definitely end up ROFLing.

This Tina Fey blooper reel comes to you courtesy of The Mary Sue, who were given an exclusive look at The Muppets Most Wanted bonus features before the Blu-ray version is released on August 12th.

  Image: Imgur

People who take a ton of pictures know all too well that snapping the shot at the right split second is imperative when it comes to capturing good photos. They also know that doing so is harder than it seems. At times, the "perfect" shots are accidents, or the products of continuous high-speed (burst) shooting mode. Even if one plans a shot, if they're working with one or more moving subjects, it still takes a photographer with fast reflexes who is ready for anything to make the intended capture.

All the above verbiage to make the point that even if some of the shots featured in "33 Pictures Taken at the Right Moment" that appear spontaneous were actually planned, the execution was just right. (However if they're 'shopped, that's another matter.) Via Bored Panda. 

  Image: Imgur



Image: Reddit


Image:Imgur
 

Image: Imgur

Con cosplayers usually try their best to make their costumes at least presentable, if not amazingly detailed and mind-blowingly realistic, but some cosplayers walk a much more crooked road with their costumes:

These cosplayers, or Halloweenies or simply "creepy guys in masks", aren't trying to capture the likeness, attitude and heroic stature of their costume's inspiration, they're just sporting the cape and cowl for the fun of it, and giving poor Bats a bad reputation at the same time:

Bad Batman cosplayers are becoming harder to find on the Con floors, so when you spot a schlubby guy sporting a bad rendition of the Dark Knight's batsuit make sure you snap a pic, to remind the world what not to do when playing the role of Batman!

Check out the rest of the Bad Batman Cosplays over at The Soup

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The unpredictable, boorish personality of President Lyndon B. Johnson has been featured previously on Neatorama in a great reprint from Mental Floss. Yet while descriptive, that article doesn't quite get down to brass tacks (or brass bungholes, as it were). 

In a moment in which L.B.J. appears to be an early model for Mike Judge's Beavis, he gets on the phone with his tailor and orders some pants. However, in the same indelicate style for which he was famous, Johnson requests that the tailor let out a seam to make room for his "nuts" and his "bunghole." The tailor seems to take the conversation in stride. 

An amusing animation of the phone conversation done by Put This On is featured here; see the full transcript of the call at Dangerous Minds.  

Each of the twelve enumerated incarnations of the Doctor appear on Robin's 5-inch tall dodecahedron which is charmingly cross stitched in vibrant colors. She writes that the numbers on opposing sides add up to 13, so presumably Peter Davidson is opposite Paul McGann, and so on.

The War Doctor is, I gather, not included. Could one created a 13-sided polyhedron with identical faces? I am not sure. One could certainly do so with non-identical faces. But I was hired to work at Neatorama for my good looks, not my math skills.

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Previously at Neatorama, there has been talk (and even song) about how to load a dishwasher. The people at Lifehacks put together a list that tells us things we might be doing wrong on a daily basis, and number four is loading a dishwasher. Their demonstration of the "right way" is this video by Chow.

Personally, I think it would kill me to load in dishes that dirty without pre-rinsing. I'm not certain that my dishwasher would get all of that mess off my dishes, which the video assures me is wrong. Maybe I'll do an experiment around that premise... or maybe not. Time will tell. 

But regardless of my dishwasher babble, check out the other nine things you might be doing wrong on a daily basis and let me know what you think of their list. Via Unique Daily.  

Redditor HaHaBird built an 8-foot wide spirograph. It’s big enough to take out into the streets and make chalk drawings on pavement. He says,

I built this giant version of the classic Spirograph drawing toy in my spare time over the last six months. The diameter is just under eight feet (2.4 meters). It uses sidewalk chalk to draw the lines.

I didn't keep track of the total time or the total cost, but I would estimate the latter at around $150 not including the new tools I had to buy.

Why? Because I wanted to see if I could, and because I love making things that surprise and delight people when they see them. Mission accomplished on both fronts.

Wouldn’t you just love to see a giant spirograph pattern on the road as you’re driving or walking by? Or even better, if you were to get a chance to draw one! -via Metafilter

 At age 23, after only five years of practicing photography, physics student Mohammad Reza Domiri Ganji has an amazing mastery of the subject. He is particularly interested in architectural and panoramic photography, as shown here in these stunning photographs of mosques in northern Iran. Mohammad said in an interview,

"In Iran, we have many historical sites - but some of the greatest are places of worship like mosques. As we have a grand mosque in every big city there are many historical buildings with lots of beautiful mosaics to capture.

I like looking for the symmetry, mosaics and artworks in these temples. I like how they let the light come inside and columns are special too as they divide interior space and give some depth.

Maybe some of these historical sites will not exist in 20 years or change a lot during that time. When I am capturing these pictures, I think about how they will be recorded and in future I hope pople will be able to see their beauty."

As an enthusiast of photography, I'd be willing to bet that this won't be the last time I see the work of this photographer in the press. Visit his website, Facebook page or 500px site to see more. 

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Small farmers in Ivory Coast find out what their cocoa beans are used for when they taste a chocolate bar for the first time. Chocolate is out of their reach economically, and cocoa beans aren’t much without the sugar, milk, and other ingredients. But how could it be possible that these farmers don’t even know about chocolate? A commenter explained that chocolate is not part of the tradition of West Africa.

I know its weird, but in West Africa a bunch of the stuff we produce is for export only. It wasn't part of the traditional food, thus people never cared to eat it, or even knew how to finish production of it. The raw materials are just sent off.

It's not just cocoa. We produce coffee but don't roast it or drink it. We produce mangos, but not mango shakes. Chicken, but the variety for export is considered 'too soft' for the local palette.

It’s touching that the first thing the farmer does is to gather his friends and show them what chocolate tastes like. However, the kids will only get to see the wrapper. The video is a clip from the Dutch show Metropolis. You can see the whole chocolate episode here. Oh, and if you begin listening to the video because you know French, be aware that most of it is in Dutch. You may still need subtitles.  -via reddit

(Image: Paramount Pictures)

David Tate of McSweeney's rewrote the Ten Commandments to make them more clickable. Here are the first five new BuzzFeed headlines:

YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAID TO THIS MAN…

• What You Need to Know Now About the Lord Totally Being God
• At the Beginning He Had Me Confused, But by Minute Two I Knew That I Shouldn’t Have Other Gods.
• Are You Making This Common Mistake with Graven Images?

• How I Work: Read This Life Hack from God Your Only Creator.
• She Admitted to Doing What Every Sunday?

Moses, rewrite everything. You've got to get those traffic stats up! Remember that there's a dozen 23-year old journalism majors who would part the Hudson River to get at your job.

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Here's a bonus video from Mel Brooks's History of the World, Part I.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Poor Steve, he put so much effort in his coiffure. But when you’re born with one big hair, there’s no competition. I can’t put my finger on why, but as I scanned through the internet’s webcomics, I keep coming back to this particular scenario by John McNamee of Pie Comic.

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In a video he calls "I'm starving, man," the reason being "this happens every time I go to eat," YouTube user Aslam Hossein reminds viewers that music can be made with almost any ordinary item. I'd love to see this man let loose on a drum kit. Via 22 Words. 

In England during World War II, clothing and fabric was rationed, woman had to register for wartime jobs, and money was scarce. Everyone was expected to do their part. But Winston Churchill was concerned with what such privations would do to morale, and companies still wanted to sell beauty aids. To encourage women to keep their appearances up, the Beauty as Duty campaign was born. It was supposed to make women feel okay about indulging in beauty regimens made that them feel normal, but it was dressed up as part of the war effort so they wouldn’t feel guilty about such self-indulgence.   

The Beauty as Duty concept first appeared in popular advertising. In December of 1939, an advertisement for Evan Williams Shampoo was accompanied by the caption “Hair Beauty — is a duty, too!” It was already a woman’s job to serve her country and her family; cosmetics ads began to promote maintaining one’s personal appearance as another responsibility women had to fulfill. It was an idea that made a lot of marketing sense. Manufacturers wanted to continue selling their products during a time of international crisis, and like everyone else, they shared the desire for the Allies to win the war. It was natural to connect their products to patriotism, and mainstream media’s encouragement of consumption helped validate an activity that may have otherwise been considered frivolous or unnecessary.

Lipsticks, soaps, and other cosmetics came with slogans such as “Beauty Is Your Duty” or emphasized the message that it was a woman’s “duty to stay beautiful.” These ideas were so strongly discursively linked that beauty and resisting the enemy seemed two sides of the same coin. British cosmetics company Yardley ran advertisements in 1942 with the heading “No Surrender,” which claimed that ideal women honored “the subtle bonds between good looks and good morale.”

Churchill latched onto the idea and made it official government propaganda. An article from WORN Fashion Journal looks at the campaign from both the 1940s point of view and how it would be received today, which you can read at Buzzfeed.   

Cosplayers put a lot of time, energy and skilled effort into constructing their costumes, often spending weeks if not months putting their outfit together, building accessories and getting the overall look just right before hitting the Comic-Con floor.

However, one very famous geek named Adam Savage went above and beyond when he constructed his Alien themed spacesuit for Comic-Con, a classic costume ten years in the making.

Clearly Adam didn’t spend ten whole years making the suit, and the last decade has been a rather busy part of his life, but his incredible patience finally paid off when Mr. Savage became Adam Incognito on the Con floor:

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Here’s why Adam chose this particular sci-fi spacesuit as a decade long cosplay project:

  "The Alien spacesuit, which was designed by Moebius, is one of my favorite spacesuit designs ever, and I'm a spacesuit fanatic," Savage revealed. "I've got a bunch of replicas of real ones and fake ones. I've been working on this this particular suit over the last 10 years. It's the final culmination of a decade of obsession — it was worth every minute of labor put into it to see the responses from all the cosplayers out on the floor."

I must admit I had no idea that Adam Savage was in the suit when I passed him on the Con floor, and his costume was so well made and intricately detailed that it looked just as good up close as it does in photos, as you would expect from something built by that talented buster of myths.

-Via Yahoo