Yep, 2013 is crazy. Luckily, I don't have this many friends, songs, or movies. My photos are all over the place, so I can't find anything when I need it. My documents are all on one computer, although the older ones are obsolete and have to be attached to mail before I can copy them to a non-obsolete form or read them. So I guess this applies to me, too. From Doghouse Diaries. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
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Some little piggie might have gone to the market, but this little piggie is who I want to hang out with on a hot summer day. He knows how to relax on a hot summer day, complete with a nice ice cream cone.
Why did Apple make this 1987 Macintosh computer with a translucent case? Possibly to examine the airflow over the components while it was turned on.
This is one of several unusual Apple products recently auctioned at Christie's, including one of the very few hand built Apple 1 models. You can view photos of these antiques at the link.
(Photo: Christie's)
When you squeeze into your Speedo, you're not just baring your skin -you're celebrating centuries of technological breakthroughs.
3rd Century C.E. Sicilian mosaics depict women wearing bikini-like outfits to exercise, but all Roman swimming is done in the nude.
18th Century Women hit the beach in long formless smocks that hide their shapes. Some women sew lead weights in their hems to make sure the fabric doesn't rise and offs a scandalous glimpse of their calves.
1813 The next time you're lugging gear to the beach, be glad you're not living in the 17th or 18th century. Back then, beachgoers used bathing machines to protect their modesty. Swimmers would step fully dressed into horse-drawn cart topped with a hut. As the horse plodded out into the surf, the swimmer would change into his long-sleeved bathing suit. Only when the cart had reached a suitable distance from the shore would the swimmer emerge to frolic. When finished, he'd climb back into the cart and raise a flag to alert the cart's driver he was ready to head in. As the cart approached the beach, the swimmer would change back into street clothes and emerge on the sand looking dapper. Was this system a lot of trouble? You Bet! But it was a small price to pay to avoid baring the elbow.
1860 English waters banned men from swimming in the buff, giving rise to the striped knit bathing costume.
Mid-19th Century
It looks like a cake covered with disgusting savory toppings, but it's actually a tasty layered sandwich with smoked trout mousse, smoked salmon, cucumbers, mustard sauce and topped with a sour cream and cream cheese "frosting" and salmon, shrimp, eggs, radishes and parsley. Even if you aren't big on the fish filling, try your favorite sandwich fillings instead...just imagine a Reuben Smorgastarta. It might not be authentic, but man would it be satisfying.
Filmmaker Robert Philipson studied the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century as part of his research for a course, and became intrigued with the hints of gay culture in the music of the era. That led him to produce two documentaries, first Take the Gay Train in 2008 and then a followup on lesbian performers, T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s. He tells us how those of the New York City blues scene differed from black Americans on the outside, who were striving to become "respectable" citizens.
The blues community, however, had no such concerns about respectability, and that’s where Philipson found the most references homosexuality. Which is why, three years after “Gay Train,” he followed up with another documentary, this time focusing exclusively on female blues singers with lesbian proclivities.
As it turns out, the blues world was the perfect realm for people who were thought of as “sexual deviants” to inhabit, as it thrived far outside the scope of the dominant white American culture in the early 20th century. In Jazz Age speakeasies, dive bars, and private parties, blue singers had the freedom to explore alternative sexuality, and on a rare occasion, they even expressed it in song.
Those songs are still available to us, in lyrics if not in recordings. And the lyrics were risky, because same-sex relations could get you jailed. Read about Gladys Bentley, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and others whose racy lyrics made them stars, at Collector's Weekly. Link
What could be better than a tasty cinnamon-sugar pastry? A cinnamon-sugar pastry mixed with cheesecake. According to the recipe creator, "two squares later these babies changed my life!"
This incredibly cute duckling loves his man. He also loves to swim, get his feathers blow-dried, and cuddle. Be warned you might melt from the cuteness. Also, in this video, we learn what webbed feet sound like on a wood floor: wappity-wappity-whap! -via Daily of the Day
Kai Tak Airport was the international airport in Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. The city had little available space, so the runway was built on reclaimed land out over Kowloon Bay. As Hong Kong grew during the 20th century, tall buildings went up dangerously close to the airport, and air traffic grew exponentially. In later years, Kai Tak was ranked as the sixth most dangerous airport in the world. It has since been replaced by the new and bigger Hong Kong International Airport to the west of the city.
I flew in and out of Kai Tak airport (twice) in June of 1998, just days before the airport closed for good. No one prepared me for the terrifying landing. I went from pure excitement over being in Hong Kong to HOLY SH…. as the plane appeared to weave between skyscrapers and then land on a runway that looked to be inches from the sea on either side.
The Daily Mail has a collection of scary photographs of Kai Tak landings, taken by English teacher Daryl Scott Chapman, who lives in Hong Kong. Link -via Digg
(Image credit: JetPix)
Phil Postma of Minion Factory (previously on Neatorama) is tired of eating ho-hum cereals. That's why he created these awesome Superman-inspired alternatives. Continue reading to get a good look.
We've already featured one crochet creation by DeviantArt user smapte, but with amazing geek crafts like this, it's hard not to feature her work again and again. This piece is particularly impressive because it comes equipped with a sound module that plays the Hypnotoad sound when it is pressed.
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.
Ever heard of North Sentinel Island? Probably not …even thought's one of the most unusual places on Earth. What makes it so odd? The people -they've been there a long time, completely cut off from the rest of the world.
MAROONED
Late on the night of August 2, 1981, a Hong Kong freighter navigating the choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal ran aground on a submerged coral reef. The ship, called the Primrose, was hopelessly stuck. But there was no danger of it sinking, so after radioing for assistance, the captain and crew settled in for a few days' wait until help arrived.
The following morning, as it became light, the sailors saw an island a few hundred yards beyond the reef. It was uninhabited, as far as anyone could tell: There were no buildings, roads, or other signs of civilization there -just a pristine, sandy beach and behind it, dense jungle. The beach must have seemed like an ideal spot to wait for a rescue, but the captain ordered the crew to remain aboard the Primrose. It was monsoon season, and he may have concerned about lowering the men into the rough sea in tiny lifeboats. Or perhaps he'd figured out just which tiny island lay beyond the reef: It was North Sentinel -the deadliest of the 200 islands in the Andaman Island chain.
SOME WELCOME
A few days later, a lookout aboard the Primrose spotted a group of dark-skinned men emerging from the jungle, making their way toward the ship. Was it the rescue party? It seemed possible …until the men came a little closer and the lookout could see that every one of them was naked.
Naked …and armed, but not with guns. Each man carried either a spear, a bow and arrows, or some other primitive weapon. The captain made another radio distress call, this one much more urgent: "Wild men! Estimate more than 50, carrying various homemade weapons, are making two or three wooden boats. Worrying they will board us at sunset."
A WORLD APART
(Image credit: Captain Robert Fore)
After a tense standoff lasting a few more days, the crew of the Primrose were evacuated by helicopter to safety. They were lucky to get away: It was their misfortune to have run aground just offshore of one of the strangest islands on Earth, and probably the very last of its kind. Anthropologists believe the men who appeared on the beach that morning in 1981 are members of a hunter-gatherer tribe that has lived on the island for 65,000 years. That's 35,000 years before the last ice age, 55,000 years before the great woolly mammoths disappeared from North America, and 62,000 years before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza. These people are believed to be the direct descendants of the first humans out of Africa.
The outside world has known about North Sentinel Island for centuries, but the islanders have been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world all that time, and they fiercely maintain their isolation to this day. No one knows what language they speak or what they call themselves -they have never allowed anyone to get close enough to find out. The outside world calls them the "Sentineli" or the "Sentinelese," after the island. It's estimated the the 28-square-mile island (slightly larger than Manhattan) is capable of supporting as many as 400 hunter-gatherers, but no one knows how many people live there.
We know beer is one of the oldest concoctions man has ever made, but it has been improved a lot over those thousands of years. Have you ever wondered what ancient beer tasted like? A collaboration between the University of Chicago and the Great Lakes Brewing Company aimed to find out. They used a 5,000-year-old recipe from a Sumerian poem to make a batch of ancient brew.
To help ensure authenticity, they even used recreations of ancient wooden tools and ceramic fermentation pots based on artifacts found in Iraq in the 1930s, malted the barley on a roof, and hired a baker in Cleveland to prepare the bappir (“beer bread”) they used as the source of their yeast. And they heated the beer during the brewing process the old fashioned way: over a manure-fueled fire.
How did it turn out? Find out at Uncle John's Bathroom Reader blog. Link
Twenty-six servo motors make this robot move like a real spider. Add a realistic 3D-printed tarantula costume shell and you get this terrifying toy.
The Robugtix T8 is an eight-legged robot that can move so much like a real spider, you’ll be tempted to smash it. But it’s expensive — don’t smash it.
Each leg of the robot contains three motors, and two more are in the abdomen just to make the movement extra realistic and creepy. The outer shell is produced in a 3D printer, but it’s really just for show. Underneath it’s just your basic eight-legged terrifying robot.
You control the spider, but you only have to tell it where to go; it calculates the necessary movies on its own. And it moves like a real spider -until it starts dancing the boogie! Want to make your own? The kit goes on sale in August. Link -via Digg
Edward Tufte is a statistician, sculptor and professional in the field of data visualization. He calls his artwork "a prankish concoction of cartoonish engineering." His "Airstream Interplanetary Explorer" is ready to bring comfort to long journeys. It features a parody of the famous plaque from the Pioneer spacecraft is designed to trick aliens into believing that humans can levitate objects.
Link -via American Digest
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