Archive Category: Everything Else

Optical Illusion - Impossible Object With a Twist

If one looks closely at the construction of this figure, it quickly becomes apparent that something is just, well…wrong with it. 

This initially-baffling video exhibits how the human visual system can subconsciously interpret and thoroughly "see" a three-dimensional object even though it is impossible for such an object to exist.  Thankfully, the creator reveals how it was constructed.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by flagler.

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Volunteers Work to Save Ash Trees

7.5 billion ash trees are endangered in the United States. (Photo credit Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune)

The culprit is the well-known emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle that first arrived in Michigan seven years ago.  The infestation has spread to Ohio, Canada, and now Minnesota, threatening to do a log power more damage than the famous Dutch Elm Disease.  Federal and state authorities have responded to the emerald ash borer by limiting transportation of timber and wood products, but have been unable to quarantine the disease.

Now volunteers in are spreading out across Minnesota and several other states, collecting seeds which may be needed to restore the white, green, and black ash species if the current epidemic destroys the currently standing trees.  Some of the seeds will be stored in the National Plant Germplasm System, a depository maintained by the Agriculture Department and at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation.  Others will be retained by Native American tribal authorities.

A map showing states and Canadian provinces at risk, with links to sources of local assistance, is available at the Emerald Ash Borer website.

Further details on seed preservation are available in a story written by Bill McAuliffe for the Star Tribune. 

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VideoSift Clips of the Week

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The Official Shotgun Rules

I have four kids who all want to sit in the front passenger seat as I drive. There is an elaborate set of rules they must follow to decide who gets the honor of “riding shotgun”.

You must say the word “Shotgun” to stake your claim on Shotgun. This must be done clearly and loud enough so that at least one other to-be occupant of the vehicle can hear you. No variations of this word are acceptable. After you have rightfully called Shotgun, you have exclusive rights to Shotgun for that ride. However, if no one hears you call Shotgun it is still fair game for everyone.

But that’s just the beginning! There are many more rules to learn, such as the importance of having your shoes on when you yell “Shotgun!” and the crucial “hand on the door” rule. Link -via Bits and Pieces

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Iron Age Gold Treasure Found in Scotland

A young man, using his metal detector for the first time, walked about seven steps from his car and got a signal.

The four gold Iron Age neck ornaments, or torcs, date from between the 1st and 3rd Century BC and are said to be worth an estimated £1m… The find is the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.

Neatorama has previously posted stories about a Viking hoard and an Anglo-Saxon hoard found in the British Isles.  One factor that favors the discovery and preservation of these archeological treasures is the Treasure Act of 1996, an Act of Parliament that requires treasure hunters to turn in their finds to local authorities, but then guarantees them monetary compensation based on a market value of the treasure.  In many countries without such laws, finds such as these would be sold on the black market or melted down for bullion, destroying the remarkable artistry of the pieces.  The Treasure Act does not apply in Scotland, where this was found, but indications are that this fellow will be richly compensated in order to encourage others to report their discoveries.

At the BBC link the other pieces can be seen in a brief video.

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Flags of the World (the Hard Ones)

If you had to learn to recognize the world’s flags in school, here’s your chance to finally put that knowledge to use! In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you’ll be given 12 flags. They are not all national flags. How many can you identify? I was surprised to get 8 out of 12, or 67%. Link

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One-Way Mars Missions?

Going to Mars is costly.  The conventional thinking of round-trip missions is losing more and more ground to an idea made public last year.  Theoretical physicist/cosmologist Paul Davies addressed the NASA Astrobiology Science Conference, and laid out a solid (and sometimes humorous) case for the One Way Ticket plan.

He points out the commercial angle, saying that not only would a patent trade emerge from discoveries, but televised coverage of the pioneers would be lucrative as well.  And those pioneers?  He says our planet is full of risk-takers seeking adventure that would fill the role nicely.

By comparison, a one-way trip to Mars would not be so risky. But it does need a spirit of adventure of the sort that the early explorers had, in particular the people who opened up Antarctica. These people often went knowing that there was a high probability that they would not come back, and that if they didn’t come back, they were going to their deaths. I’m not suggesting that going to Mars necessarily means an instant death, but it may mean a premature death, it may mean your life expectancy is shortened by a little bit. But as I said, people attempt that risk in all sorts of other walks of life.

And what I have in mind is not just four miserable people sitting around on the martian surface waiting to die, (laughter) but that they would actually be doing useful job work.

You wouldn’t be going there as tourists, you wouldn’t be going there for fun. You’d be going there to do science, and emailing all this stuff back. Your publication record would be sensational. (laughter) You would no doubt have all sort of honors heaped on you.

But you wouldn’t be coming home.

Link.   Previously on Neatorama: Chart of Missions to Mars

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The History of Daylight Saving Time in the US

Daylight Saving Time ends in most of the United States a 2AM on Sunday, November 1st (Hawaii and Arizona have been on standard time all summer). We remember which way to set our clocks by thinking “spring forward, fall back.” It makes you wonder how we ever got our clocks coordinated in the first place. Believe it or not, standard time and time zones were the railroad industry’s idea.

“In the early 19th century … localities set their own time,” said Bill Mosley, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“It was kind of a crazy quilt of time, time zones, and time usage. When the railroads came in, that necessitated more standardization of time so that railroad schedules could be published.”

In 1883 the U.S. railroad industry established official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. Congress eventually came on board, signing the railroad time zone system into law in 1918.

The 1918 law assigned the Interstate Commerce Commission to oversee the time zones, and legislated Daylight Saving Time. Later, the decision whether to observe DST was left up to the states. Link

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"Descent From Antiquity" - Genetic Trivia, or a Profound Truth?

A seventh-grader in California has collaborated with her grandfather to produce a genealogical chart demonstrating that Barack Obama is related to all previous United States presidents (except for Martin Van Buren).  This happens because Obama and the other presidents have family trees that can be traced back to John “Lackland” Plantagenet, King of England at the beginning of the 13th century.

Van Buren (who incidentally was the first U.S. president to be born in the United States) is excluded from the group because his ancestors were Dutch rather than English.

This young lady’s accomplishment is remarkable in terms of the scholarship and genealogical research involved, but whether the result is important depends on one’s view of the “descent from antiquity” concept, which has been used to demonstrate that immense groups of persons living today are descended from Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Marie Antoinette, and other historical figures.  A diagram at Wolfram Alpha demonstrates the genetic distance between tenth cousins; from that viewpoint such “relationships” are genetically trivial.  A Neatorama post last year discussed the relationship of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Brangelina.  The most scholarly compilation in this regard is probably Mark Humphrys’ “Royal Descents of Famous People.”

The other point of view, of course, is that our relationship with all other humanity is not trivial, but rather a principle that should guide everything from personal ethics to foreign policy.  An article in The Atlantic discussed this concept of “everyone” being related to “everyone else” and noted that it carried another implication:

The same process works going forward in time; in essence every one of us who has children and whose line does not go extinct is suspended at the center of an immense genetic hourglass. Just as we are descended from most of the people alive on the planet a few thousand years ago, several thousand years hence each of us will be an ancestor of the entire human race—or of no one at all.

Story via Reddit.  Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

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Reliving Radio History This Halloween

This Halloween marks the 71st anniversary of the night The Mercury Theater aired a live production of the H.G. Wells story of a Martian invasion, The War of the Worlds.

At least two websites are offering streaming versions of this historic event that “panicked America.”  Produced by and starring Orson Welles, the chilling tale was told as though the radio broadcasters themselves were part of the story at first.

Soon, the conditioned ears of the listeners took the news events coming out of their radios as the truth, and, while there is some speculation of reports like this:

[P]anic ensued, people fleeing the area, others thinking they could smell poison gas or could see flashes of lightning in the distance.

It’s still fascinates to this day.  The actual 1938 broadcast of the show is going to be streamed live at WarOfTheWorldsTribute at 8:00pm EST on the 30th of October, and it’s really worth a listen.

Also, on Halloween night, student radio station WKNC will do the same with a modernized version here at 7:00pm.

via kottke. | Photo: Orson Welles (Wikimedia Commons)

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10-foot Shark Nearly Bitten in Half by 20-foot Shark

A 10-foot Great White Shark had been hooked already by a baited drum line off the coast of Queensland, Australia when it was attacked and bitten by a much bigger fish. Based on the bite marks, the attacker is presumed to be a 20-foot long Great White shark. Swimmers were warned away from the area of Stradbroke Island.

“That cannibal thing is what great whites do; they’ll eat anything, including their own kind,” Hugh Edwards, a local shark expert, told Australia’s 7 News. “It would be sensible not to swim in that area for a little while.”

Link -via Dave Barry’s Blog

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Repairing a Railroad Track

This is described as a “complete thermite weld.”  It’s much more complicated than you might have anticipated.  You will know within the first minute or so whether or not you are fascinated by the technology, the tools, or even the workmen’s accents.  There are also some cool fireproof “Donald Duck boots” near the end.  For those with an interest, Part 1 of the video is here.

YouTube link.

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The M*A*S*H Quiz

It’s hard to believe 26 years have passed since the TV series M*A*S*H aired its final episode. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test how much you remember about the series. I was embarrassed to score only 80%. Some of the questions are hard! Link

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World's Smallest Working Model Train

Model train enthusiast David K. Smith has built a miniscule train layout which works – the train travels in an ellipse, including through a “mountain.”

“Thus, what was intended to be a Z scale model of a 4- by 8-foot HO scale layout became a Z scale model of a 2- by 4-foot N scale layout! After I picked myself up off the floor, I made a few quick calculations… the modeling scale would be an eye-popping 1:35,200, and the finished layout would measure .125 by .200 inches…”

The video shows the basics of the layout and the clever solution re the motor.  Further details re the construction are here.

Neatorama has previously posted links to about 80 of the world’s smallest things.

YouTube link.  Via Nothing to do with Arbroath.

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Colors of the World's Flags

Media designer Shahee Ilyas has created pie charts showing the colors of the flags of over 200 nations.

Using a list of countries generated by The World Factbook database, flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined.

Embedded on top is a screencap of a portion of the display, alphabetically arranged (Afghanistan, Albania…); the original at the artist’s website will display the name of the country when a mouse is passed over the pie chart.  The larger pie chart on the bottom is a composite of all the colors from all of the flags.

Via The Life and Times of Michael5000, who notes that the color violet/lavender/purple is notably absent from world flags (as is gray).

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Busy College Undergrad Got a Job For You: Be His Personal Assistant

Psst! Need a job? Here’s an opening for you: $10 to $12 an hour, with the possibility of an occassional bonus. All you have to do is cater to the "everyday tasks" of a Georgetown University sophomore.

That’s right. Charley Cooper is a busy kid. He’s got classes, homework, and even a part-time job at a financial services company. So he’s looking for a personal assistant to handle the mundane part of everyday living like doing laundry, organizing his closet, and so on:

Cooper, 19, logged on to the university’s student employment Web site last week and posted an ad for someone to tackle "some of my everyday tasks," such as organizing his closet, dropping him off and picking him up from work, scheduling haircuts, putting gas in the car and taking it in for service, managing his electronic accounts and doing laundry (although the assistant will be paid only for the time spent loading, unloading and folding clothes, not the entire laundry cycle).

The successful applicant can expect to work three to seven hours a week and make $10 to $12 an hour, although "on occasion it will be possible to work additional hours and/or receive bonuses at my discretion." Preference will be given to Georgetown undergraduates, Cooper says in the listing, and the assistant can spread his or her tasks throughout the day.

"As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9:00 am with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task," Cooper wrote in the job listing, which was first reported by the student newsmagazine, Georgetown Voice. "Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis). At the end of the day you will send me an email telling me what tasks are incomplete or that all tasks have been completed."

Link

More at Gawker and Georgetown’s Blog Vox Populi.

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Remote-Controlled Human

Image: Edgadget

Look at the picture. When the man moves his joystick to the left, the helmet on the girl’s head pulls her left ear, signally that she should go left. When he moves his joystick to the right, the opposite occurs.

Thomas Ricker of Engadget speculates about the most obvious application for this device from Kajimoto Laboratory: a navigation aid for the blind. With a GPS system added, it could be used to give the visually impaired greater independence.

Four years ago, Alex wrote about a similar gadget.

Link (Google Translator version) via Engadget

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Itchy and Scratchy Episode or Cheesy Horror Film?

The Itchy & Scratch Show is a “show within a show” featured on The Simpsons. If you are at all familiar with it, you’ll enjoy today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. See if you can decide which title is an episode of Itchy & Scratchy, and which are actual names of horror films. It’s not easy! I scored only 50%. Link

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The Scubacraft Submersible Powerboat

Photos Property of Scubacraft

You’re cruising along in your speedboat, when suddenly the urge strikes to just flip a switch and dive deep into the waters with your boat.  No problem.  That dream is now possible with The Scubacraft.  Loaded with everything you need to pretend you’re James Bond, this can be yours for the low low price of  $165,000.  But wait, there’s more!

Advanced safety features include -an automatic depth control (ADC) system that assists the operator in maintaining depth, controlling ascent and descent.  -VHF radio, underwater communications, lights and GPS are accessories that further enhance safety and performance in operation.  -With no exposed propeller and the ability to operate in very shallow water, the technology has advantages over conventional surface craft even before it submerges underwater.

Choose your model – one seats three, the other six.  Twisted Sifter has all the details on this dreamboat.

Link |    Previously on Neatorama – The Hypersub

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Launching Anvils 200 Feet Into the Air

(YouTube Link)

Gay Wilkinson likes launching iron anvils high into the air. He’s not entirely sure why and has a lot to say about how men and women respond differently to his hobby.

Anyway, he places one anvil on top of another and fills the reservoir in between with gunpowder.

Next Wilkinson herds the crowd to a spot about 50 feet from the loaded anvils and delivers a well-rehearsed introduction. “It’ll be loud, but ya won’t hardly remember that ’cause there’ll be so much else goin’ on,” he says. “There’ll be a slight second of fear after that anvil goes shootin’ up and starts comin’ back down. It’ll look like it’s going to land on top of you. It won’t. Unless you hear me yell, ‘Run!’ Then you might wanna move.

“Now, some of you might be wonderin’,” he continues, “‘Why in the heck we would want to do somethin’ like this?’”

“Because we can?” guesses a middle-aged man sporting a camouflage baseball cap.

“That’s exactly right!” Wilkinson says with a mischievous smile. “It’s a whole lot of fun! People talk about the joy of sex, but it don’t last nothin’ like shootin’ anvils.”

Link via Gizmodo

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Mushroom Madness

Watch slime molds and mushrooms grow in this time-lapse video. I was particularly taken with the Stinkhorn Mushroom, which casts a net! Link

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10 Absolutely Pathetic Packaging Fails

Most of what we buy is packaged, and that can only be bad news for our environment because all that paper and plastic needs energy, water and oil to create and lots landfill space to get rid of it. Even wore is the fact that the vast majority of it is used only once, making this waste even more abhorrent.

A preoccupation with cleanliness, however, is fuelling ever-greater demand for packaged food products and other goods. While wrapping meat, for example, demonstrates good hygiene, packaging individual bananas and dried fruits is clearly insane!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Arby.

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Protests That Turned Heads

If you want the world to listen to your cause, shouting just won’t work.  You have to get weird.  That’s what Alice Newstead did last summer to raise awareness about shark endangerment.  With oversized fish hooks, a Paris boutique, and silver spray paint, Alice hung around briefly, but it got people’s attention.

The painful stunt went on for 15 minutes, as shoppers came to have a gander at the weird protest in the window of cosmetics store Lush. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) some 100 million sharks are caught in commercial and sports fishing every year, and several species have declined by more than 80 per cent in the past decade alone.

Oddee has nine other strange protests we have been subjected to… and took notice of.

Link

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Eye Candy

I wasn’t all that impressed with these swirling colors until I started playing with the sliding controls. You can change the size of the colored splotches, the amount of blur, the color change rate, and other dimensions until you find a very pleasing sequence of eye candy. Link -via Gorilla Mask

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Apology Form for Drunkeness

Letters of Note has a form letter from the 9th century found in western China produced by the Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette. They had insisted officials issue letters of apology to dinner hosts after any embarrassing drunken escapades. The offender was supposed to recopy the characters in their own hand while inserting the recipient’s name. The translation:

Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was intoxicated as to pass all bounds; but none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state. The next morning, after hearing others speak on the subject, I realised what had happened, whereupon I was overwhelmed with confusion and ready to sink into the earth with shame.

Link -via reddit

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Ever Dream This Robot?

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?

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Ever Dream This Man?

In 2000, a psychiatric patient drew a picture of a man who appeared in recurring dreams. The picture was left out on the doctor’s desk, where another patient recognized it from his dreams as well! With a bit of investigation, other patients who saw the same face in their dreams were found. As of now, at least 2,000 people recognize the face as one they’ve dreamed about. How about you? Link -via the Presurfer

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Guess The Nerd Movie

UGO’s Guess the Movie quizzes are challenging.   This one I thought I’d ace, but had to settle for 6/10.  All of their quizzes are hard, and categories vary from Coen Brothers Movies to the Halloween movies, and more.

Link

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Nero's Rotating Dining Hall Discovered

Back in 1st century A.D. (or C.E., if it pleases you), the Romans were really starting to crank things up.  Things like debauchery, poisoning of rivals, fratricide…basically setting the stage for their own eventual downfall.

Of the many Emperors who ruled over this lifestyle, Nero stands out as one of the nastiest.  But you gotta give the guy points for trying to throw a serious bash.  At the time of his rule, a Roman historian named Suetonius chronicled everything, including the construction of a dining room that rotated.

Now, archeologists think they may have finally discovered this room, which was filled in and built-over in 80A.D.

Quite how the rotating dining room worked is still a bit of a mystery; some think it was by the motion of canals under the room and others think it more likely that it was manually cranked by slaves but hopefully the new funding will enable the archaeologists to confirm one way or the other.

In addition to the rotating floor, the opulent room featured fretted ivory ceilings which would pour flower petals and perfume down on Nero’s guests.  Jackie118 has more fascinating history of Nero’s Rome at the link!

Link | Image: Daily Mail

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7 Highly Successful High School Dropouts

It’s a common belief in America these days that without a high school diploma, you have no future. This opinion may be true to some extent, but it’s certainly not a hard and fast rule. There are a lot of highly successful people in this world who never even completed high school.

One of these successful people is Flava Flav, who dropped out of school when he was only 13, although, admittedly, it shows. He’s now planning to return to school to get his G.E.D., and the ordeal may even become a reality show on VH1. He’s not the only celebrity that dropped out of high school and still did well though. In fact, some high school dropouts are actually pretty brilliant.

Image Via Jeremy Farmer Photography [Flickr]

Dave Thomas

The founder of Wendy’s, Dave Thomas started working in the restaurant industry at only 12 years old. His family was constantly on the move and at age 15, he refused to keep moving with his parents. He was working part time at the Hobby House restaurant in Fort Wayne and dropped out of high school to start working at the business full time.

After working as a mess sergeant during the Korean War, he began working for KFC, where he was able to help turn several of their failing franchises around. In 1969, he sold of the KFC franchises he owned and opened his own restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. He named the restaurant after his daughter, who was actually called Melinda, but was nicknamed Wendy. These days, Wendy’s is the third largest burger chain in America.

In 1993, Dave decided that he didn’t want to set a bad example for any youngsters out there, so he enrolled at Coconut Creek High School and earned his GED.

Source

George Bernard Shaw

Famed Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw held an outright animosity towards schooling that he maintained throughout his life. He was quoted as saying, “schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent.” Not surprisingly, the writer never completed his own education, having dropped out of the Dublin English Scientific and Commercial Day School.

His main complaints about schooling was the standardization of the curriculum, which he believed deadened the spirit and stifled the intellect. He also deplored the corporal punishment being used in schools, although most modern teachers and parents would agree with him on this issue.

Source Public Domain Image Via Wikipedia

George Eastman

Creator of the Kodak Camera Company, George Eastman, was forced to drop out of school due to financial circumstances. At only 14, his father died and the only way George could keep his two sisters and mother alive was to quit school and begin working as an office boy full time. By the age of 26, Eastman found his true calling and began working to improve the emulsion process involved in photography. He thought the liquid emulsions proved quite a problem as they were excessively sticky and had to be used quickly before they dried. In only three years, Eastman had perfected his dry emulsion plates and he started his own photographic business in 1880.

Source Public Domain Image Via U.S. Library Of Congress

Quentin Tarantino

While a lot of famous directors hone their skills during college, Quentin Tarantino built up his film knowledge by working in a video rental store in Manhattan Beach, California.

He not only never went to college, but he quit going to Narbonne High School in Harbor City, California in his freshman year. He started learning the acting craft in acting school at the James Best Theatre Company in Toluca Lake, but it really wasn’t until he started working at Video Archives with Roger Avery, also a director these days, that he really began sharpening his future skills. Some people complain about Tarantino’s movies having too much focus on the dialogue, but for a high school dropout, I’d say that’s not such a bad thing.

Source Image Via pinguino [Flickr]

Richard Pryor

If comedy really is born from tragedy, then it is only logical that Richard Pryor became one of the top comedians of the seventies. Pryor had anything but an easy life.

He was raised in his grandmother’s brothel, where his mother “worked” and his father served as her pimp. At only ten, his mother abandoned him and his strict grandmother took over his care, beating him whenever she thought he was acting “eccentric.” With a home life like this, it’s not all to surprising that he ended up being expelled from high school at 14.

In the end, Pryor ended up proving the adage that “whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” and his comedy career was one of the longest lasting and most successful of the last fifty years.

Source Image Via Alan Light [Flickr]

Peter Jennings

Peter Jennings started broadcasting when he was only nine years old. He followed the footsteps of his father, a respected radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and operated as the host of a CBC children’s program called “Peter’s People.” Surprisingly, his father was out on assignment when Jennings was chosen for the gig and he was furious at the network for hiring his son solely because he was the son of a broadcaster.

When it came to schooling, Jennings was a great athlete, but a terrible student, which he said was due to “pure boredom.” He failed to pass the 10th grade and dropped out as a result. He tried to attend Carleton University, but “lasted about 10 minutes” before he dropped out there.

After school, he started working at The Royal Bank of Canada, but he dreamed of being a professional broadcaster. I’d say did pretty well at meeting those goals, wouldn’t you?

Source

Peter Jackson

Before he directed the Lord of The Rings, or even his cult classics like Meet The Feebles, Peter Jackson was just a film-obsessed kid. He was trying to make his own film by age of nine, complete with the special effects he loved to see in shows like “Thunderbirds.” After he saw the original King Kong, he started trying to mimic the stop-motion from the film. He spent his entire childhood and all of his teenage years making short films and developing his own special effect techniques, which even included making his own minuscule models.

When he was 16, he dropped out of high school and started working as an apprentice engraver in a newspaper photography department. He kept living with his parents so he could save money for film-making supplies, which he soon used to begin production on what would become his first full-length film, Bad Taste. When you know that your future is film you don’t have a real need for the three Rs of “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.”

Source Image Via Natasha Baucas [Flickr]

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Neatorama Shop » Computer & Office » Road Mice
	Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams? Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Black Mustang with White Stripes shown to the left. It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life!
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