Trevor Boyd and Steve Ilett remade the slow-moving bullet-dodging scene from The Matrix. Their official website goes into detail about how they executed the project:

By “frame accurate” we mean that we took all of the video frames from that part of the movie (that’s nearly 900 frames for just 44 seconds of footage) and reproduced them all in Lego.

This was time-consuming to say the least, taking us something like 440 hours to make the completed movie. At that ratio of 10 hours per second we figured we could do the whole film in about 9 years, so long we didn’t need to eat or sleep. As a full-time job then, we’re probably looking at 25 years or so. No thanks.

Early in the piece we decided we wanted to do everything “in camera”. No wire-removal, no special effects, no crazy Photoshop tricks. We pretty much regret this now, but I guess it gives us bragging rights of some sort. We did do some colour correction and image stabilising, and at one point we edited a very small number of frames in one scene so that some minor background shake was taken out, but that’s it.

Official Website via io9

Yesterday, Neatorama featured a Muppet version of Queen’s iconic song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Lindsey Weber of Urlesque has compiled fifteen unusual and creative cover version of that song, including this ukulele version by Ukulele Bartt. Others include a typographical version, an orchestral version, and one in which the musician uses only his hands.

Link | Ukulele Bartt

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

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 rampatmonkey.

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

These festive robots were built from RoboBuilder kits and synchronized to some classic holiday tunes. OK, just pretend that those little squeaks and servo motor noises are jingle bells. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Photo at PictureIsUnrelated

To see the cream of the croppings, the best in WTF photo and video, head on over to Picture is Unrelated, a blog (a Cheezburger Network concoction) dedicated to the absurd.  From their About:

This website is about pictures that DO NOT make sense!  I love images
that don’t make sense and YOU SHOULD TOO!  Can you even understand
how awesome it is when you see a yeti serving in the armed forces?  Can
you grasp the concept of someone creating SCIENCE in a field of daisies on
a beautiful summer day?  I totally can, and that’s why I started Picture is Unrelated.

Link (some pics NSFW).

YouTube Link

In 2007, Tillman the bulldog amazed the world with his video of him riding a skateboard around a park, just as naturally as you please.  Apparently the dog is still refining his moves, via Tony Hawk’s video game.  (Obviously, he’s not playing the game, but he’s definitely into it.)  More videos of Tillman snowboarding, surfing, and of course, skateboarding can be found here.  Tillman’s website.

A cat spruces up a fennec fox. -via YesButNoButYes

Remember A Glorious Dawn, the awesome auto-tuned Carl Sagan (and Stephen Hawking) video clip that went viral? What could be better than that? Well, John Boswell of Symphony of Science made another song, this time featuring Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube Clip] – via Friends of Tuva

Previously on Neatorama: 10 Neat Facts About Carl Sagan

Pedro M. Cruz, a graduate student in information visualization and interaction design, created this time-elapsed representation of the rise and decline of the British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish overseas empires from 1800 to 2000. He writes:

The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. I chose the maritime empires because of their more abrupt and obtuse evolution as the visual emphasis is on their decline. The first idea to represent a territory independence was a mitosis like split — it’s harder to implement than it looks. Each shape tends to retain an area that’s directly proportional to the extent of the occupied territory on a specific year. The datasource is mostly our beloved wikipedia. The split of a territory is often the result of an extent process and it had to be visualized on a specific year. So I chose to pick the dates where it was perceived a de facto independence (e.g. the most of independence declarations prior to the new state’s recognition). Dominions of an empire, were considered part of that empire and thus not independent.

Link via Hit & Run

Il Silenzio from Brandon Noonan on Vimeo.

Some things are so obvious, it only took a quarter-century for someone to think of this. (via b3ta)

Video Link

Relive the past 9.8 years in news stories condensed into seven minutes, peppered with snark and wit.  via AcidCow.

YouTube link

A crimson-crested woodpecker battles an olive whipsnake on Peru’s Yarapa River.  One presumes that the snake was stealing eggs or attacking chicks in the woodpeckers’ nest.  The battle ends by the 3:00 mark.

“Monster Manual” is a song by the band Mixel Pixel. It tells the tale of a role-player’s struggle with a particularly brutal Dungeon Master, who is throwing just about every creature in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual at him. The video is animated by Dan Meth, whose work has been featured extensively on Neatorama.

via Popped Culture | Mixel Pixel | Dan Meth

The list includes Earth 2, The Six Million Dollar Man, and others with video clips of their opening sequences.  Here’s author Kevin Kelley’s take on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century:

We just want to see Buck back on the big screen, where he has never really been (the original TV pilot was edited into a theatrical release). Toss some up and coming young star with good looks and a strong chin in this, and revamp everything. Just keep the cool laser pistols in it, and for god’s sake don’t let Buck disco.

An impressive fan-made intro to that show…   Link to Cinematical.

YouTube Link

Mickey Mouse made his public debut in the cartoon Steamboat Willie on November 18, 1928 -81 years ago! The character appeared in Plane Crazy a few months earlier, but the Walt Disney Company doesn’t count that because it was a silent film. Link

Animator Jeremie Duval remixed Super Mario Bros. with the tone and sound of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Content warning: not for mushroom lovers.

Via Geekologie

You can debate the wisdom of making an otter into a pet, but you have to agree that Sidney is adorable. -via Buzzfeed

Transit officials have been touting the benefits of public transit for years and apparently these goats got the message. But when they tried to board the C-Tran bus in Vancouver (update 11/18/08 – that’s Vancouver, Washington, by the way, as pointed out in the comment – Thanks John Milligan!), they were turned away, as you can see in this surveillance video.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Tiffany!

Let’s have a little fun: punniest comment will win a free Funny T-Shirt from the Neatorama Shop. One entry per comment, please. You can enter as many as you’d like. Good luck!

YouTube link

“Own goals” (kicking a ball into one’s own net) are uncommon in soccer (”football”) and ice hockey.  Because this one occurs in a youth sporting event, it is just indescribably cute.

Via BuzzFeed.

X-Flex wallpaper is designed to hold together even under extreme stresses, such as a bomb detonation. It’s hoped that this invention by Berry Plastics will make buildings more secure from attack in dangerous places like Iraq and Afghanistan:

[...]this lifesaving adhesive is designed for use anyplace that’s prone to blasts and other lethal forces, like in war or natural-disaster zones, chemical plants or airports. To keep a shelter’s walls from collapsing in an explosion and to contain all the flying debris, you simply peel off the wallpaper’s sticky backing, apply the rollable sheets to the inside of brick or cinder-block walls, and reinforce it with fasteners at the edges. Covering an entire room can take less than an hour.

X-Flex bonds so tightly, it helps walls keep their shape after blast waves. Two layers are strong enough to stop a blunt object, like a flying 2×4, from knocking down drywall. During our tests, just a single layer kept a wrecking ball from smashing through a brick wall. The wallpaper’s strength and ductility is derived from a layer of Kevlar-like material sandwiched by sheets of elastic polymer wrap.

The video above is a demonstration by Popular Science of the technology’s effectiveness.

Link via DVICE

Children’s author and photographer Walter Wick decided to balance 117 toys of various sizes and shapes on a LEGO block to create the shot that he was looking for. And then, with some difficulty, he knocked it down.

I created this photograph for the Kids Gallery of the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. It shows 117 objects balancing on a single Lego block. No adhesives, glue or hidden supports were used. The stability of this improbable pile of objects is helped by positioning the center of gravity of each horizontal section directly above the Lego block and by lowering the center of gravity of the entire structure as much as possible through the use of hanging objects.

The process involved about a week of trial and error, with many, many crashes along the way. After settling on a design for the lower half of the structure, I worked on the horizontal segments separately, adding them to the stack with temporary supports in place. This allowed me to swap out different objects and shift them around until all the parts were in balance. I then removed the supports and took this photograph. The stack remained up until I decided to knock it down (captured on video!)

Resulting Photograph via Gizmodo | Artist’s Website

YouTube Link

Goons is a Chicago-based street artist who, with the help of director Ace Norton, and sponsor Orbit, created this stop-motion one minute clip.  You can see that Goons has a theme to his work at his website.  (via Bifurcated Rivets)

That reminds me, I need to clean my house.  Music: “Keep it Clean” by Camera Obscura.

This amateur video shows us how small everything is compared to the mighty Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

How else would one propose marriage to the woman with the world’s largest Pokemon collection? Especially if you met her at a Pokemon competition? JC Fletcher writes for Joystiq:

When Chris Herbert decided to pop the question to his girlfriend of three years, Belle Starenchak, he picked the most romantic place he could think of: Anime Weekend Atlanta, with both dressed as Pokemon. It … kind of makes sense for them.

Belle, or “PikaBelleChu,” is featured in the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamer Edition for her massive Pikachu memorabilia collection, and Herbert met her by staging a Pokemon auction. So while we might be tempted to laugh, it would seem that the pursuit of ‘em all is a major component of this couple’s lives.

Link via Geekologie

Walter Beckett, a junior CIA agent, receives a briefcase that controls a nuclear missile. The hand-off goes smoothly, until a pigeon gets trapped inside. Pigeon: Impossible is a six-minute short film by Lucas Martell. It is his first animated film, and it took him almost five years to complete it.

Official Website via The Presurfer

YouTube Link