Aw, I had to step out earlier today and came back to the sad news that Robin Williams has died of an apparent suicide. He'll definitely be missed. *sniff*. I guess the genie is finally free.
Alex Santoso's Blog Posts
This store? No that store! We happened upon the That Store when walking around Flushing, New York, last week. I can't wait till the store becomes so successful that they can open more locations. At which point, you can then ask which That Store you're referring to: "This That Store" or "That That Store."
NeatoShop artist Jak Gibberish created this awesome illustration of NeatoramaBot fist bumping BMO from Adventure Time as one of his daily doodle. Like BMO once said, this does compute!
Don't forget to take a look at Jak Gibberish's NeatoShop for neat stuff you can wear! Thanks Jak!
Artist Kurt McRobert drew these lovely archetypes of New York City bicyclists for a Time out New York feature, but one can assume to find most of these kinds of bikers in almost all metropolitan areas. I think he nailed it with the descriptions!
Have you seen one in your city? Or - gasp - are you one of them?
If you love books and maps, then Dorothy Collective (previously on Neatorama) has got the cartographical wonder for you: their Book Map features titles of over 600 books by literature's greatest authors - from Thomas Hardy to Virginia Woolf, and Tolkien to Kurt Vonnegut - in form of a street map in the style of a turn of the century London.
The litho print Book Map features "classics such as Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Bleak House, Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights as well as 20th and 21st Century works such as The Waste Land, To the Lighthouse, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse 5, The Catcher in the Rye, The Wasp Factory, Norwegian Wood and The Road."
Is your favorite book listed? Peruse some detailed shots of the map below:
Photo: C. Galliani/Wikimedia
Quick, what does the word "Vespa" bring to mind? If you say "cute lil' scooter," you probably haven't seen this image above of the Vespa 150 TAP (for Troupes Aéro Portées), a Vespa scooter modified for use with the French paratroopers in 1956.
It's probably safe to say that this is the deadliest Vespa in the world. The military scooter is powered by a single-cylinder 146 cc two-stroke engine. It sports a M20 75 mm recoilless rifle, US-made light anti-armor cannon, and storage for some ammos. The scooter would be parachute-dropped from airplanes, accompanied by a two-man team who'd scoot along in absolutely menacing style.
What? You don't know your progressive house from your deep disco house? What kind of a music lover are you?
But thanks to Every Noise At Once by Glenn McDonald, you no longer have to wonder the difference between "black metal," "pagan black metal," and "dark black metal."
McDonald, who works as "genre taxonomist" over at Echo Nest sure knows his stuff. His website not only displays over a thousand music genres, but you can also explore 30 seconds Spotify clips of music representative of that genre by clicking on the individual link.
McDonald wrote on the website:
This is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 1215 genres by The Echo Nest. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.
For example, clicking on "melodic death metal" plays a tune from that genre. Clicking on the double arrows open another cloud of bands that belong to that genre:
Remember the gruesome devourer of trees that we featured on Neatorama? We've found something equally - if not more gruesome: the Flying Chainsaws of Death, flown by helicopter and used to trim trees nearby powerlines in Johnson City, Tennessee.
We've told you about the strange baby pears before on Neatorama, but I'm sure some of you haven't seen them before. So let's share in the horror joy of these delicious baby pears, found at a supermarket in Beijing, China.
According to Rocket News 24, these "happy/joyful doll pears" are shaped when growing on trees with special molds to make them look like sleeping human babies.
Better eat 'em before they wake up!
In Frank Herbert's sci-fi series Dune, Arrakis is a desert planet, but in this diorama, it's a dessert planet inhabited by gummy creatures. CandyWarehouse created this majestic rendition of Paul Atreides riding the giant sandworm in candies:
Crafted from a 2-foot-long gummy worm, Haribo gummy bears, black licorice string, yellow sprinkles, and rock candy crystals! A scene from the great science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Here we see the giant gummy worm on the desert planet of Arrakis. Ridden by the powerful gummy bear Paul Atreides as he seeks to control the prescious "spice" melange, which gives those who ingest it extended life and some prescient awareness. Muad'Dib!
Like they say, he who controls the sugar, controls the universe! Take a look at more epic pics:
"Hold on Newt. We're coming for you!"
Now this is the coolest LEGO MOC outside of LV-426!
Missing Brick has created iconic scenes from James Cameron's 1986 sci-fi movie Aliens entirely out of LEGO bricks. Take a look at a few examples from the Aliens attack scene:
Ripley: They cut the power
Hudson: What do you mean, "*They* cut the power?" How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Patrol
They're in here
Surf. Sand. Library.
Now those are three words that usually don't go together, but there's no reason they shouldn't. Herman Kompernas built a library on the sandy beach of the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Albena and stocked it with over 2,500 books in 10 languages.
Guy Tarrant [auto-sound] is an artist and a teacher, and he's got the war trophies to prove it. In this "Confiscation Cabinets," Tarrant and contributors Mercedes Philips and Kim Campbell exhibited his collection of some 250 confiscated things over the past 30 years from 150 different schools in and around London.
Toys and sweets make up a big part of the collection, but there are also bottles of alcohol and actual and makeshift weapons that look like they belong in prison rather than grade schools. The exhibition was on display at The Museum of Childhood in East London, and is on display at the Life Science Centre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, until November 2014.
Yes, that's a homemade axe confiscated from a Year 7 boy (students at this grade usually are of the age of eleven to thirteen). Tarrant noted that many of the confiscated items are from students with social, emotional and behavioral difficulties.
With over 20 years of experience, Sam should know that fireworks "will add a special touch to any event" ... including divorces. Because you know, what better way to end your marriage than with a bang?
Fart, as you know, is a terribly effective weapon. It's only problem is aim and distance. You can't aim the bad smell and it's only effective in small areas. Until now.
Japanese prankster FARu ARuFa has created the Fart Cannon that lets you rip one towards an unsuspecting opponent far away.
First, you need a cardboard box and some tape:
Cut a round hole in the box to complete the air cannon, then test it out:
Success! Then, you need a hole in your pants ...