Maddox created an entire blog as an April Fool joke and filled it with annoying things bloggers do, like taking pictures of meals, apologizing for not posting, and adding tons of sharing buttons to each post. He received a lot of mail from people who took it seriously. Most messages were criticism, but there were people who wrote and said they liked it. Link -via Urlesque
Maddox created an entire blog as an April Fool joke and filled it with annoying things bloggers do, like taking pictures of meals, apologizing for not posting, and adding tons of sharing buttons to each post. He received a lot of mail from people who took it seriously. Most messages were criticism, but there were people who wrote and said they liked it. Link -via Urlesque
(vimeo link)
The Maeklong Market has been in business for decades. When they built a railroad right through it, vendors saw no reason to move, or to even give up space for the train, which comes through eight times every day. The second part of the video shows the Damnoen Saduak floating market in central Thailand. This lush video was produced by Terje Sorgjerd, who also brought us The Aurora.
Previously: Train in a Bangkok Market
Flickr user Mr. Thinktank posted this "invention" for levitating cats.
Cats love anti gravity. I bet you didn't know that. This device was invented by Swedish immigrant Per Karlsson in the early 50s, and a small series was produced in Wellington for a while. But people didn't go for it as much as Karlsson had hoped; maybe because they didn't fancy having the cat hover around too much. In case you're wondering what the little cap with the "antlers" is the cat is wearing on its head, it's the mind reader. The cat steers the machine with her thoughts, because, how else would she.
The picture is part of a marvelous set of photographs in his Flickr set Old Anti Gravity Cruisers of New Zealand. Link -via Everlasting Blort
(Image credit: Flickr user Mr. Thinktank)
It was a profitable but outrageous scheme, set forth in a trial going on now. Prosecutors are charging that David Deng recruited Chinese immigrants to join the "U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve" to help their chances of obtaining U.S. citizenship, and that he charged hundred of dollars from his "soldiers." The U.S. military has no such unit. The group is well known in Asian-American neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where community leaders had no idea they weren't government issue.
If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: FBI)
Last year, one Chinese-language newspaper reported that an Alhambra taxi driver was arrested near Los Angeles International Airport after producing counterfeit military identification while trying to get out of a traffic stop.
Investigators learned that the recruits were told that the military IDs could be used to avoid getting traffic tickets and to receive certain types of military benefits and discounts, Eimiller said.
Some of the recruits were so convinced that they were part of the U.S. military that they actually visited real Army recruiting centers and tried to pay their monthly dues directly to the U.S. government, Eimiller said. That was another tipoff when investigators began looking into the group.
Local Chinese American leaders on Wednesday said they were shocked that a group that was such a familiar presence in the community is now being accused of being a fraud.
If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: FBI)
How much do you know about armadillos? Asher Kade had never even heard of armadillos before he moved to Texas and confronted many of them. But he dug up a lot of fascinating facts about the ancient animals. For instance, they can walk underwater and hold their breath up to six minutes! But they are endangered because they don't reproduce well, as you'll learn in this article at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via Look At This
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Kolossos)
(YouTube link)
Here's the story from the YouTube page:
Sophia breaks into Amy's house in Africa, James Bond style, for the sardines we bought earlier. She's a freaking clawed ninja! (Note her hanging on one paw while trying to open the window with the other before she starts hanging.)
-via Arbroath
It is once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Do you know what this object is? Can you make a wild guess?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Be sure to check out the What Is It? Blog. Let your imagination run wild, and good luck!
Update: It took over 50 guesses for someone to come up with the correct answer! Berhard finally said this object is a corn dryer. You stuck it into ears of corn to hang and dry them so you could use the kernels for seed corn. trishlovesdolphins gave us the funniest answer: it's the air freshener from Mad Max's car! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop.
A classic in modern literature, "The Lottery" did more in nine pages than most novels do in nine chapters. Here's how Shirley Jackson outraged a nation with fewer than 3,500 words.
Spoiler alert: this article reveals the ending of "The Lottery". If you haven't read it, hop to it! It'll take 15 minutes, tops.
In 1948, The New Yorker published the most controversial short story in its history: "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, a 31-year-old wife and mother living in Vermont. The simply told tale covers a ritual lottery in a sunny, rural town. But what starts out bathed in warmth and charm grows eerier and eerier, until the horrific purpose of the lottery is revealed in the story's final paragraphs. Soon after the piece was published, angry letters poured in to The New Yorker. Readers canceled their subscriptions. And while many claimed they didn't understand the story, the intense reaction indicated they understood it all too well.
"The Lottery" was published at a time when America was scrambling for conformity. Following World War II, the general public wanted to leave behind the horrors of war and genocide. They craved comfort, normalcy, and old-fashioned values. Jackson's story was a cutting commentary on the dangers of blind obedience to tradition, and she threw it, like a grenade, into a complacent post-war society.
LUCK OF THE DRAW
Shirley Jackson was not the kind of person you'd expect to be a literary firebrand. Shy and high-strung, she dropped out of the University of Rochester in 1935. Her second stab at school was more successful. At age 20, she enrolled at Syracuse University, where she met her future husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman. Together, they published a short-lived literary magazine called The Spectre.
After graduating from Syracuse, the two got married and moved to New York City, where Jackson gave birth to the first of her four children. Soon after, in 1945, Hyman got a job teaching at Bennington College in Vermont. The family moved to North Bennington, a tiny, rural town that later became the setting for "The Lottery." While Stanley taught, Jackson wrote. She penned a few offbeat stories for The New Yorker, but mostly she produced mainstream pieces for women's periodicals such as Good Housekeeping and Ladies' Home Journal. After several years of living in Vermont, Jackson had another child and was carrying a third. From a distance, her life seemed tranquil and wholesome. But something darker was brewing inside.
(YouTube link)
One of the dinosaurs from the show "Walking with Dinosaurs" (previously at Neatorama) visited a school in Bondi, near Sydney, Australia. The kids were, shall we say, excited. Don't miss the foot race! -via reddit
The Husband Chopping Board - $15.95
Do you know someone in the need of a new cutting board? Get them The Husband Chopping Board from the NeatoShop!
I don't know why this cutting board, with an anatomical design of a man, is named The Husband Chopping Board. I can only guess. Whatever the reason, I have a feeling that out there somewhere is one very angry wife and a very sorry husband.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more deliciously fun Kitchen Stuff!
They can't all be wizards and witches, even in the magical world of Harry Potter, someone's got to do the PR, marketing and social media work in Diagon Alley ... BuzzFeed's Amy Sly imagined what the business books of Harry Potter (I wonder if they teach these subjects in Hogwarts): Link
Photo: Dust Mason [Flickr]
I don't know how many of you left your heart in San Francisco, but over 16,000 women left locks of their hair in Cappadocia, Turkey. Welcome to Chez Galip's Hair Museum of Avanos:
Ever since 3000 BC, Avanos has been known for its high quality earthenware, made from the mineral-rich mud of the Red River, but in recent years, the town has mostly been mentioned in relation to a unique hair museum created by skilled Turkish potter Chez Galip. The unusual establishment, located under Galip’s pottery shop, is filled with hair samples from over 16,000 women. The walls, ceiling, and all other surfaces, except the floor, are covered with locks of hair from the different women who have visited this place, and pieces of paper with addresses on them.
The story goes that the museum was started over 30 years ago, when one of Galip’s friends had to leave Avanos, and he was very sad. To leave him something to remember her by, the woman cut a piece of her hair and gave it to the potter. Since then, the women who visited his place and heard the story gave him a piece of their hair and their complete address. Throughout the years, he has amassed an impressive collection of over 16,000 differently colored locks of hair, from women all around the world.
Link - via Street Anatomy
The Ayapaneco language is dying - it's down to the last two speakers, and in a twist worthy of a Hollywood treatment (can we say a linguistic "Grumpy Old Men"?) they're not talking to each other!
There are just two people left who can speak it fluently – but they refuse to talk to each other. Manuel Segovia, 75, and Isidro Velazquez, 69, live 500 metres apart in the village of Ayapa in the tropical lowlands of the southern state of Tabasco. It is not clear whether there is a long-buried argument behind their mutual avoidance, but people who know them say they have never really enjoyed each other's company.
"They don't have a lot in common," says Daniel Suslak, a linguistic anthropologist from Indiana University, who is involved with a project to produce a dictionary of Ayapaneco. Segovia, he says, can be "a little prickly" and Velazquez, who is "more stoic," rarely likes to leave his home.
Jo Tuckman has the story in The Guardian: Link (Photo: Jaime Avalos)
Photo: Philippe Halsman
Is it in a fridge somewhere? Actually, that's Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife, who posed lovingly with a refrigerated prop head of the famed director. Via Dangerous Minds and Cakehead Loves Evil
See previously on Neatorama: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Alfred Hitchcock
