Archive Category: Everything Else
Stunning Papercraft Castle
This stunning castle was created by Japanese art student Wataru Itou. It took four years of dedication to bring to fruition. It is complete with electric lights and a working train. The exhibit is called “A Castle On The Ocean” and is on display in Tokyo.
Link Via BoingBoing
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Mickey Mouse Gas Mask
It’s important to keep kids feeling comfortable and happy, even when they need to watch out for poisonous gas clouds -or at least, that must be the theory behind this Mickey Mouse gas mask sold in WWII. Paranoia and consumerism sure make for an interesting combination.
Link Via Consumerist
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Moveable Feasts
Independence Day in the United States is always July 4th. Most people just call it the Fourth of July, so moving it is out of the question. Other commemorations occur on different days in different years. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test your knowledge of 13 such holidays and events. I scored 85%, since I had to guess on two of them, and got them backward. Link
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Fancy Fast Food
Fancy fast food takes regular old fast food and turns it into gourmet (looking) food. I’m sure it doesn’t taste as good as real four star cuisine, but it sure does look delicious. Best of all, there’s plenty of recipes so you can duplicate the efforts.
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Hello Kitty Castle
Welcome to the Hello Kitty Castle in Taiwan. It can help take care of all of your cute needs. The gallery has some amazingly cute things in it, including food garnished with a Hello Kitty chocolate dusting.
Link Via Cute Overload
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Video Games In Legos
This is a really creative stop motion video using Legos to play out our arcade favorites. Only 8 bit could look this good in block form.
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Billy Mays Has Died
First it was David Carradine, then Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Now, infomercial king Billy Mays is dead. Celebrities are dying left and right!
The 50-year-old known for his shouting OxiClean ads was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. The Hillborough County medical examiner will perform an autopsy, Tampa police Lt. Brian Dugan said.
Mays was on the US Airways flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Tampa on Saturday that had a hard landing at Tampa International Airport when the plane’s front tire blew out. There were no reported injuries on Flight 1241, US Airways told CNN.
According to a local Tampa TV station, Mays said: "All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping. It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."
No words whether the a bump in the head, which caused the death of actress Natasha Richardson a couple of months ago, is also responsible for Billy May’s death. CNN has the news: Link
Previously on Neatorama: 5 Shocking Celebrity Deaths
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Jell-o Jewels Sparkle With Deliciousness
Yummy, classy and fat free. These Jell-o jewels have real gold powder in them. They’re part of a Jell-o mold competition in Brooklyn. The cheeseburger and shishkabob ones are fantastic, along with the oyster pearls. It’s all worth a look.
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Women Happiest at 28
A survey of women by hair color products maker Clairol has pinpointed the age of maximum happiness for women:
A spokesman for home hair colour brand Clairol Perfect 10, which carried out the study of 4,000 women, said: "Everything in life hits its peak at some point, and nearly reaching your thirties isn’t so bad now.
"The age of 28 has been pinpointed as the time in a woman’s life their hair looks the best, body shape is at its peak and confidence is at an all-time high.
"The security of your job, having a steady income, being in a relationship and having strong friendships all help create the perfect point in our lives when everything comes together. Reaching and surpassing your twenties no longer triggers the downward spiral of your looks and self-confidence.
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Yann Travaille’s Crayon Scribble Tattoos
Tattoo artist Yann Travaille has made a name for himself in the over populated
field of tattoo design with his astonishingly refreshing designs normally done with crayons, not tattoo ink.
Check out more of his crayon-like tattoos on his website YOUR MEAT IS MINE (Some images NSFW):
Link - via cakeheadlovesevil
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How To Crochet An Eye Ball
These are not only unique and cute, but they’d make a great gift for Halloween parties…of course, if you’re like me, it may take until Halloween to actually figure out how finish a few of them.
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Nijinsky on Video
When is a video not a video? Some consider Vaslav Nijinsky the greatest ballet dancer ever, but there is no known film footage of Nijinsky, who retired at age 29 in 1919. He would not allow his company to be filmed. However, YouTube has Nijinsky dance videos. How can that be?
Because, it turns out, these aren’t films. They are computer-generated artifacts, made by Christian Comte, a French artist who has a studio in Cannes. Reached the other day, Comte acknowledged his authorship. “These films are animations of photographs, achieved thanks to a process that I invented,” he said. “I work as an alchemist in animated cinema.” He uses still photographs and, by employing a computer to alter them—tilt a head, move an arm—fills in the gaps between successive shots. That’s why his “Faun” footage is so much longer than his other footage. He had all those de Meyer stills. This is basically no different from the way Steven Spielberg got the dinosaurs to run around the jungle in “Jurassic Park.”
Link -via Boing Boing
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Michael Jackson Found Dead
Photo Via Brennheit Bakst [Flickr]
M.J. was just found dead at the age of fifty, apparently from a cardiac arrest.He was scheduled to perform a number of comeback concerts next year.
“We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment website [TMZ] said.
Regardless of how you feel about his personal “issues” this is a sad day for pop music fans and weird art enthusiasts everywhere.
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Blue and Green? No, They are the Same Color.
The reason they look [like] different colors is because our brain judges the color of an object by comparing it to surrounding colors. In this case, the stripes are not continuous as they appear at first glance. The orange stripes don’t go through the “blue” spiral, and the magenta ones don’t go through the “green” one.
If you don’t believe it, see the closeup view at Bad Astronomy. Link - via j-walkblog
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Ancient Well Found, Complete with Skeleton
Archaeologists have unearthed a well in Cyprus that is believed to be between 9,000 and 10,500 years old, making one of the earth’s oldest water wells. Debris at the bottom of the well includes the skeleton of a woman.
Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation’s top antiquities official, said the 16-foot deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation’s southwestern coast.
After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked flints, stone beads and pendants from the island’s early Neolithic period, Flourentzos said.
(image credit: Cyprus Antiquites Department/AP)
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TV Homes
Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental floss will test your memory of classic TV homes. Can you match the exterior shot of the characters’ home with the name of the show? I only scored 40%, so you will have to do better! Link
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Famous Moustaches Shaved Off (Virtually)
Some moustaches are so iconic that they are an essential part - calling cards, if you will - of some men’s characters. Shaving them off seems unthinkable and would yield these men as mere shells of their former selves (I’m looking at you, Alex Trebek).
Thanks to a little photoshoppery, we no longer have to imagine what famous characters from history would look like without their ’staches.
GEARFUSE blog has 6 of these disturbing images. You’ve been warned: Link | More at English Russia
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Post-It Love, an Office Romance Told With Post-It Notes
There’s office romance, and then there’s post-it office romance! Here’s a cute short film by Academy Film’s directors Simon Atkinson and Adam Trowley (better known as Si & Ad) about how two office workers express their love for each other using office supplies.
Cute! Link [embedded YouTube]
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7 Amazing Types Of Invisible Ink
Some types of invisible ink are right there in your kitchen cupboard!
Hundreds of liquids, from fruit juices to specially formulated chemicals, can be used as invisible ink. Here we explore six of the most interesting and accessible types. We hope you’ll be inspired to make your own invisible ink at home. With a bit of practice, you too can become a master of steganography (which is the art of writing hidden messages, in case you didn’t know that already!)
How much money does a professional steganographer make? Link -via Geek Like Me
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Physical Typography: Brilliant Built & Found Fonts
In a way, typography has come full circle - what started as a physical process of setting type in machines has been rediscovered as a physical art by a number of creative photographers and designers. Some of these unusual real-life alphabetic collections were found and photographed in nature while others were acted out, constructed or assembled from bodies and objects but all ten sets of type yield compelling images.
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TGIF Quiz
In 1989, ABC’s block of Friday night programming became collectively known as TGIF (Thank Goodness It’s Funny). Do you remember the shows that have aired under the TGIF slogan throughout the years? Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will refresh your memory! I didn’t know any of the answers, and still scored 58%. Link
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10 Notable Diamonds
These days, it’s a big deal when celebs like Jennifer Lopez and Katie Holmes get six and five-carat diamonds in their engagement rings (respectively). But compared to these 10 gems, those trinkets are nothing. Here are the stories behind some of the largest and rarest diamonds ever found.
1. The Eugénie Blue
This Titanic-esque vivid blue diamond is 30.82 carats. It’s called the Eugénie Blue because of an old legend that the sparkly stunner originally belonged to Empress Eugénie de Montijo, the wife of Napoleon III. There is no evidence to support this tale, though, so many people prefer to simply call it “The Blue Heart” instead. The gem was cut into its distinctive shape in 1909 or so (some accounts say it was 1910) and was bought by Cartier shortly thereafter. Since then it has bounced around from a wealthy Argentinian woman, Van Cleef and Arpels, a European family, Harry Winston, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and, finally, the Smithsonian, where The Blue Heart has resided since 1964. And although it may look like it inspired the fictional Heart of the Ocean from the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio epic, it didn’t - the Heart of the Ocean was actually based on the infamous Hope Diamond.Photo from DiamondArticles.com.
2. The Centenary Diamond
On March 1, 1988, De Beers was having a big bash to celebrate their 100 years in business. Chairman Julian Oglivie capped off his speech with a little tidbit that stunned the crowd - De Beers’ Premier Mine had recently uncovered a diamond that was perfect in color and weighed 599 carats. It had been found nearly two years before; the company kept it quiet for the sole purpose of flaunting it at their 100th anniversary. It didn’t get to keep all 599 of those carats, though - it had to be cut down to remove some cracks around the edges and it took 154 days to cut 50 carats away. That was just the beginning of the stone’s overhaul - when all was said and done, the Centenary ended up weighing 273.85 carats with 247 facets. It was on loan to the Tower of London for a number of years (have any of you seen it?), but it’s rumored that the stone has since been sold. De Beers remains mum on the subject, saying they respect their clients’ anonymity.
Photo from FamousDiamonds.
3. The Cullinan Diamond
At an insane 3,106.75 carats (that’s about one and a third pounds!), the Cullinan is the largest diamond ever found. It didn’t stay that way, though - it was split into nine big chunks, 96 small ones and 9.5 carats of unpolished pieces. So where are those nine big chunks? They’re all part of the Crown Jewels or belong in the private collection of the royal family:
Photo from DiamondArticles.com.
4. The Golden Eye Diamond
As far as we know, this beauty is the world’s largest flawless Canary Yellow diamond. For quite a few years it remained in its original uncut 124.5-carat state. This particular type of diamond - a fancy intense yellow - accounts for less than 0.1 percent of all natural diamonds, so you can imagine how rare one this size is. The gem was cut to a still-huge 43.51 carats and somehow became entangled in a drug dealing and money laundering ring in Ohio, which was busted in 2006. As a result, the unusual jewel became property of the U.S. government. Just as of May 11, 2009, it was declared that the Golden Eye diamond belonged to the government, and in turn, the government announced that it would be auctioning the diamond off. So if you’re looking for a rare yellow diamond in the neighborhood of $15-$20 million, keep your eyes peeled!
Photo from the Israeli Diamond Industry blog.
5. The Koh-i-noor
The Koh-i-noor has a long, storied history and, according to some legends, is more than 5,000 years old. We know for sure it has been around since at least 1526, which is the first time it was identified by name in writing. For hundreds of years it was in the possession of various Indian Emperors and was even installed into the Peacock Throne of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (the guy responsible for the Taj Mahal). But in 1851, it was decided that the bauble would be presented to Queen Victoria, who immediately put it on display at the Crystal Palace Exhibition. After people expressed disappointment at the famous diamond’s lack of brilliance, she ordered it to be recut for a better display. After it was cut down by about 80 carats to its current 108.93 size, the diamond was moved from a tiara to the centerpiece of the Queen consort’s crown (used by both Queen Alexandra of Denmark and Queen Mary of Teck) and finally to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s crown in 1936. It remained there until her death in 2002 and was set in the Imperial State Crown afterward. It’s probably best that it’s now locked up in the Tower of London, because there is supposedly a curse upon it that says, “He who owns this diamond will own the world, but will also know all its misfortunes. Only God, or a woman, can wear it with impunity.” Do you think it’s a coincidence that only female members of the Royal Family have worn the gem?
Photo from National Geographic.
6. Spirit of de Grisogono
The largest cut black diamond in the world is also the world’s fifth-largest diamond of any kind, weighing in at 312.24 carats. It was 587 carats before it was cut. The Spirit of de Grisogono is set in a ring that contains 702 white diamonds and is thought to have been sold to a private collector.
Photo from DiamondArticles.com.
7. The Earth Star
When this huge sparkler was found at a South African De Beers mine in 1967, it was a whopping 248.9 carats. As you can imagine, it caused quite the stir in the industry, and not just because of its massive size. It was actually the color everyone was talking about: The Earth Star was brown. The Baumgold Bros. jewelers bought the enormous jewel and cut it into a pear shape that ended up weighing 111.59 carats, which was the largest brown diamond in the world at the time (it’s still the third largest brown diamond… we’ll get to the largest in a minute). It was Baumgold that gave the diamond its name. For more than 15 years, the Earth Star traveled the world in various exhibitions, but it was bought by a private citizen in 1983 for the staggering sum of $900,000.
8. The Golden Jubilee
Sure, the Golden Jubilee is widely celebrated now - it’s the largest faceted diamond in the world. But when it was first discovered in 1985, people in the industry refered to the 755.5 uncut rock as “The Unnamed Brown” and “The Ugly Duckling.” Since it was kind of homely, De Beers decided to let jewel cutter Gabriel Tolkowsky try an experimental method of cutting using some untested tools. They figured if he messed it up, it was no great loss - the thing was going to be unmarketable anyway. Under Tolkowsky’s hands, though, the Ugly Duckling turned into an amazing yellow-brown diamond of epic proportions. It was presented to the King of Thailand for his Golden Jubilee in 1997, which is when it finally received an appropriate name. It’s still a part of the Crown Jewels of Thailand today.
Photo from DiamondArticles.com.
9. The Ocean Dream Diamond
The Ocean Dream may be small - a mere 5.51 carats - but it’s the only diamond in the world of its kind. No other diamond is known to naturally possess a blue-green hue like this one. The color is thought to have come from being exposed to natural radiation in Central Africa for thousands of years. It’s currently owned by the Cora Diamond Corporation, but you might have seen it at the Smithsonian as part of “The Splendor of Diamonds” exhibit a few years back.
Photo from the Smithsonian Institute.
10. The Hope Diamond
That’s how Harry Winston ended up owning it until 1958, when he decided that it belonged to the Smithsonian and sent it there in an uninsured brown paper envelope. It’s still part of the Smithsonian today, and so is the envelope (that’s it above). And if you want to read a list of some of the people supposedly killed off by the Hope’s curse, you can find a few here.
Photos from the Smithsonian Institute.
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Mean Cards
Sometimes Hallmark just doesn’t have the card that expressed exactly how you’re feeling (case in point, the Prizon Greeting cards).
When Julianna Holowka lost her job, her apartment and her studio all in the span of a week, she was devastated. With her last $13.25, she bought art supplies to draw her gloom away. She gave them to friends (who loved the humor) and started selling them as uh, shall we say, anti-Hallmark greeting cards, and thus "Mean Cards" was born.
If dark humor is your cup of tea, definitely check out her work and blog: Link - via The Zeray Gazette
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Laugh with Your Fingers
Laugh with Your Fingers is a soundboard of laughs; all different, but all apparently from the same guy. Press them all as fast as you can and create your own laugh track! Link -via the Presurfer
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Japanese Men in Underwear Run Around with Giant Computer Screen Cursor
I’m not really sure how to describe this website, but it is maddeningly addictive. Click the link and then move your mouse around. There’s automatic sound, so you may want to turn your speakers down a bit.
Maybe some Japanese-speaking Neatorama user can translate for us. Assuming that they’re speaking Japanese.
Link via Radley Balko
image by flickr user Rufus Gefangenen used under creative commons license
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For Sale: Saliva From Pretty Girls Taken When They Were Sleeping
We’ve seen many strange things for sale on eBay (our pal Urlesque blog even has a regular feature called Today in eBay about the strangest things sold on the popular auction site), but this one is really, really weird: drool.
The seller [of a China's equivalent of eBay] claimed the saliva was a ‘tonic’ and was asking the equivalent of £2 a small bottle, reports Hunan Online. Listings for the bottles included pictures of the 18-year-old girls the saliva was supposedly taken from. [...]
"The drool was all collected from 18-year-old pretty girls when they were sleeping. And buyers can pay later after they certified the authenticity of this product," he said.
The listings were pulled, and the seller didn’t even sell a bottle: Link
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Greatest Moments in Pop Culture Fatherhood
Next week is Father’s Day, and in the spirit of celebrating dads, Asylum has put together the greatest moments in pop culture fatherhood:
Ah, the pop culture dad. Is anyone more bumbling? Film and TV have provided us with a bevy of memorable dads, all perpetuating the stereotype of the well-meaning, but dim-witted (or borderline psychotic) pop. (Actually, sometimes it isn’t borderline.) In honor of Father’s Day, we salute a few of the greatest moments in pop culture dad-itude. They all deserve a "Father of the Year" novelty award … and possibly psychiatric counseling.
From martini-mixing lessons to murdering mobsters, see some of the best moments [of pop culture fatherhood]
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Woman Threw Away Mom’s $1 Million Mattress
An Israeli woman named Annat decided to surprise her elderly mother by giving her a new mattress to replace the rattty old one she had been sleeping on for decades. But what was supposed to be a pleasant surprise turned to be a nightmare:
Annat, who did not want to reveal the rest of her name, told Israel Army Radio that she woke up early Sunday to get a good deal on a new mattress as a surprise for her mother.
She fell asleep that night, exhausted after lugging up the new mattress and hauling down the old one to be taken out with the trash.
When her mother realized the next day what her daughter had done, she told her that she had been using the mattress to stash away her life savings and had nearly $1 million padding the inside of the worn-out mattress.
Annat ran downstairs, but it was too late. The garbage truck had already taken away the money-stuffed mattress.
And thus the hunt for the $1 million mattress began in Israeli landfills: Link
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Loving Day
In the not-too-distant past, it was against the law in many states for people of different races to marry. Richard and Mildred Loving got married in Washington, DC in 1958 and returned to their hometown in Virginia as criminals.
When they went to trial, the judge found them guilty and sentenced them to a jail term of one to three years. However, the judge told the Lovings that he would suspend the sentence if they agreed to leave Virginia for a period of twenty five years. Given the choice between imprisonment and banishment, they chose banishment. The Lovings moved to Washington, DC.
The Lovings filed a suit challenging the law. After a nine-year battle, on June 12, 1967, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Loving vs. Virginia that did away with the remaining miscegenation laws. The Loving Day project promotes the celebration of this milestone on or around June 12th. Link -via Drug Monkey
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…Goes to Washington
Several movies and TV shows have featured the plot line of someone heading to Washington, DC to become involved in the business of running our nation. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss features trivia about nine of these stories. I scored 67%. Link
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