With apologies to Johannes Vermeer. If you don't get this, then count yourself lucky because you're obviously not a nerdy geek ;) That is all. Move along.

Miss Cellania has the classic "a whole bunch of scientists walk into a bar ..." post. It's an oldie but goodie, and I couldn't help but laugh at some of them. For example:

Rene Descartes was sitting at a bar. The bartender came over and asked if he would like another drink. He replied, "I think not." And he vanished.

Heisenburg was also sitting at the bar. After Descartes vanished in a puff of smoke, the bartender walked over to him and asked, "Did you see that?"

To which Heisenberg replied, "I can't be certain."

The bartender then noticed Einstein was there. So he asked him if he could believe what had happened. Einstein replied, "It's all relative."

Then the bartender noticed that Carl Sagan was there. He walked over to him and asked, "Can you believe that all these famous people are here in THIS bar?"

Sagan replied, "No. Why, there must be BILLIONS and BILLIONS of bars out there."

Read the rest here: Link

We've blogged about Dean T. Fraser's blog, Springfield Punx, where he draws characters in the style of The Simpsons ("Simpsonized," I suppose).

Here's a new one that I just couldn't pass up: Rick Astley Simpsonized! Link - via Super Punch

Previously on Neatorama: 10 Neat Facts About Rick Astley

All right, if that's not your thing, how about a poster of the Springfield Punx characters that have graced the blog?

Gasp - these are wonderful ... in a geeky way: behold the Star Trek: The Next Generation light-switch or power-outlet cover plates, perfect
for the Trekker in all of us (these are made by Eugene Roddenberry, son of the Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry)

Link - via GeekAlerts

This would be perfect in the Star Trek House

When times are bad, lots of people go to the movies to escape their troubles. But you're having a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day, there are a few movies that will make you think that your life isn't really all that bad.

Always Watching blog got a list of 8 of such movies. For example:

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

His problem: Suffered an unpredicted stroke, resulting in complete paralysis except for his left eye, and died two years later.

Your problem: Alone on Valentine’s Day.

By all accounts, French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby led a pretty great life. He had found success and fame as the editor of Elle magazine, was a father to two kids, and certainly wasn’t lacking in female companionship. Wealth, family and romance – the rest of us could only be so lucky. But on December 8th, 1995, Jean-Do had a debilitating stroke, leaving him with someone called “locked in syndrome.” Paralyzed everywhere except for his left eye, he could still see and hear but was totally unable to reply to his surroundings in any way.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a very subdued film about hope and inspiration, in that it doesn’t go for the typical “do your best!” platitudes, but instead subjects you to very difficult circumstances and allows the main character to accomplish incredible things in them. The movie is shot primarily in first person, which does a superb job at making you feel really fucking frustrated for Jean-Do as he lolls around without an ounce of control of his own body. The aforementioned inspiration comes from that, even in this state, he managed to write a book by blinking it out one letter at a time. And now he’s got a pretty damn good film about him, too. Kind of makes you feel unaccomplished, huh?

http://www.alwayswatching.org/features/8-eye-opening-movies-remind-you-your-life-isnt-so-bad

What would the Bible look like if it had been written like a blog? Here's an entry from Noah's Blog, chronicling the Deluge:

Day 1
Rain.

Day 2
Rain.

Day 3
Rain.

Day 4
Rain.

Day 5
Rain.

Day 6
So I was loading up the last of the animals last week when I walk past my neighbor Roger, the Molech-worshipper. He looks up and says "Hey, looks like rain."

True story.

Link - via Locusts & Honey

Think that your job is bad? Well, unless yours is listed below, be thankful that at least working doesn't come with the additional risk of on-the-job fatality. Forbes looks at the 10 most dangerous jobs in the United States:

Topping the most-dangerous list: fishers and their staff. Thirty-eight fishermen--112 out of 100,000--died on the job last year, mainly off the frigid coasts of Alaska and Maine. There's a reason that Discovery show is called "Deadliest Catch."

Larry Simns--co-founder of Commercial Fishermen of America, a San Francisco-based nonprofit representing U.S. commercial fishermen--knows the pain. Last year Simms' friend Captain Philip Ruhle Jr. went down with his 80-foot squid ship in a storm roughly 40 miles off the coast of New Jersey.

"They all know the risks," says Simms. "There's a chance of getting killed, but you don't put a lot of emphasis on that. You're just extra cautious because you know you can't just get off the boat and walk home if something goes wrong."

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/2008/08/25/dangerous-jobs-fishing-lead-careers-cx_mk_0825danger.html - via mental_floss and I Met a Possum

This is fantastic: a series of vintage "brain maps" as created by one Dr. Alesha Sivartha in the late 1800s (published in his metaphysical book The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man).

You don't have to believe or understand all the New Age-y stuff to appreciate the weirdness of the lithographs: Link - via Quiddity

Inspired by the ubiquitous Sorry We're Closed sign, Aesthetic Asparagus designed a series of 9 signs that cut the crap and say what the closed shop owners truly meant: Link - via Quipsologies

MIT researchers led by chemical engineer Robert Cohen and mechanical engineer Gareth McKinley have created the world's first superoleophobic and superhydrophobic surface (let me translate for you: the "super surface" repels both water and oil):

A group of MIT researchers have created an improved set of design rules for making any surface impervious to any liquid, be it water or gasoline. Such materials could eventually have promise as fingerprint-repelling coatings, fuel filters, self-washing car paints, and stain-resistant clothing. [...]

They started with a polymer developed by the Air Force that contains large numbers of oil-repelling fluorine groups. The MIT researchers made the material even more oil resistant by using lithography to pattern it with overhanging microstructures. These tiny structures create air pockets that help suspend liquids and prevent them from penetrating to the surface. The MIT researchers found that the surfaces are both superoleophobic and also superhydrophobic, or water repelling. Because they repel everything, they're called omniphobic.

Link - via Blue's News

Photo: Anish Tuteja/Wonjae Choi

Spotted at Brass Goggles, the blog of everything steampunk, is this fantastic (and wearable) Steampunk Space Helmet by Herr Döktor: Link | Build progress (long forum thread!)

If you didn't know, yesterday was Domino Day 2008 ("Celebrating 10 Years of Domino Day"). The goal of Domino Day is simple: to set a new world record of highest number of falling dominoes.

Robin Paul Weijers (AKA Mr. Domino) and his team set up 4.5 million dominoes in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, and ended up setting a new world record by toppling more than 4.3 million dominoes. From Wikipedia:

... the record was broken with 4,345,027 dominoes toppled. Also, 9 additional world record were attempted and successfully broken. These additional world records were:

1. Longest domino spiral (200 m)
2. Highest domino climb (12 m)
3. Smallest domino stone (7 mm)
4. Largest domino stone (4.8 m)
5. Longest domino wall (16 m)
6. Largest domino structure (25,000 stone)
7. Fastest topple of 30 metres of domino stone (4.21 sec, time by Churandy Martina: 3.81 sec)
8. Largest number of domino stone resting on a single domino (727 stones)
9. Largest rectangular level domino field (1 million stones)

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Bits & Pieces

"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end - I wouldn't be surprised."

- Dorothy Parker, writer and poet

Dutch artist Anneke Jacobs collected discarded Chiquita banana cartons and stitched them together into a fabulous chandelier with regular office staples: Link

Haruo Suekichi is a Japanese artist who specializes in making wonderful steampunk watches. In the past 12 years, Haruo has made some 7,000 watches - he started out selling them in the flea market, but now his watches are very collectible.

Chief Mag has an interview with the master watchmaker, who recounted an interesting tale of how he got the whole idea because he wanted to design a watch for a one-armed man:

at the flea market, a one-armed man came up to me. And he said to me, well, with only my left arm, I can't put on a watch. Wow, I thought, he's right...I wonder if I could make a watch like that? So I made - and you can see one upstairs in the showcase - I made a watch that you put your wrist in it and it shuts around your wrist.

http://www.chiefmag.com/issues/4/profiles/Haruo-Suekichi/ | Gallery of Haruo's watches [in Japanese]