Father's Day is this coming Sunday, and if you're looking for a Father's
Day gift, we've got a number of neat items on the Neatorama
Online Store. Like this Pizza
Boss 3000 above, a pizza slicer shaped to look like a circular saw.
Just the thing for your pizza lovin' power tool usin' handyman dad! http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?pizza-boss-3000-pizza-slicer-pid462.html
A few more items from the store:
Glow-in-the-Dark
Zombie Play Set ($15.95) and other weird
action figures
Warning:
Retiree Knows Everything ($9.95) and
other
funny one liner T-Shirts
Bacon
Wallet ($10.95) and other funny
bacon stuff
Stock
Market: The Ride ($9.95) and other
shirts about the economy
Gin
& Titonic Ice Tray ($6.45) and
other
fun ice trays
Occam's
Razor ($11.95) and other funny
science T-shirts
Yay! It's time for this week's collaboration with the always awesome What is it? blog. Can you guess what this um, rather violent-looking tool is used for? Hint: it has a very specific use - and it's not for braining someone!
Place your guess in the comment section. Please post no URL or web links - let others play! No prize this week, so you're playing for fame and glory.
Update 6/18/09 - The answer is: A trucker's tire checker, tires are struck with this tool and from the sound and feel they can tell if the tires are properly inflated. Congrats to Bill Wixon who got it right first!
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), the starship in the original Star Trek TV series
To boldly go where no man has gone before, you'd need a really good starship
- and to launch Star Trek, the pop culture phenomenon that entertained
and inspired millions, you'd need a pretty darned good one! And that is
exactly what the United Space Starship Enterprise delivered. Here are
8 Starship Enterprise facts every Trekker should know:
1. Meet the REAL Enterprise(Several of Them, Actually)
Before Star Trek, there have been many actual ships named Enterprise.
The very first one of note was a French frigate L'Enterprise, which was
captured by the British Royal Navy in 1705 and renamed as HMS Enterprise.
It served as a British gun ship until it was wrecked just two years later.
After this ship, there were 14 other HMS also named Enterprise (sometimes
spelled Enterprize).
The United States have 8 battleships named Enterprise, including the
first nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the world. The very first one
(before the US became a country, so technically it was a ship of the Continental
Navy) was an armed sloop on Lake Champlain in 1775 named the United States
Ship (USS) Enterprise.
During the American Civil War, aeronaut and scientist Thaddeus S.C. Lowe
built a balloon named Enterprise,
to be used by the Union Army to perform aerial recon on Confederate troops.
(L) Enterprise, a gas inflated aerostat (1858); (M) Space
Shuttle Enterprise; (R) Artist rendering of VSS Enterprise
And who can forget the Space Shuttle Enterprise? It was the very first
Space Shuttle orbiter, built for NASA in 1976. The Shuttle was supposed
to be named Constitution, but a write-in campaign successfully persuaded
NASA to name it after the Star Trek starship. (Interestingly, the fictional
Starship Enterprise was a Constitution-class vessel - coincidence? Hm....)
The last actual Enterprise hasn't been built yet but it already has a
name: Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Enterprise and yes, it's an homage to Star
Trek. It's a suborbital spaceplane being built by Sir Richard Branson
of Virgin for the purposes of space tourism.
Ironically, when Sir Richard offered the first flight to William Shatner,
the actor declined and revealed that he's actually afraid of space travel,
"I'm interested in man's march into the unknown but to vomit
in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with
the vomit hovering over me." Shatner added that he's not entirely
against the idea - he just needed some reassurance. "I do want
to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back." (Source)
2. No Rockets, Jets or Firestreams
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who pitched
the TV show as "Wagon Train to the Stars," didn't tell art
director Matt Jefferies what
Starship Enterprise should look like, instead he told the bewildered art
director what he did not want to see. Starship
Concept Art has reprint of a nifty article in Star Trek: The Magazine
by Jefferies about the design process:
"In my approach to Star Trek I wanted to be as practical as
possible," Jefferies says. "I could tell Gene was serious
enough, but I really didn't know where to start. I knew the Enterprise
was going to be on the cutting edge of the future, but essentially he
gave me the job of finding a shape, and I didn't know what the shape
looked like." Although Roddenberry knew a lot about his ship, he
had never visualized it, and consequently made the situation more complicated
since he couldn't give Jefferies a detailed sense of direction. According
to Jefferies, Roddenberry was absolutely clear to avoid any resemblance
to a 1960's rocket ship. "Gene described the 100-150 man crew,
outer space, fantastic, unheard-of speed, and that we didn't have to
worry about gravity. He had emphasized that there were to be no fins,
no wings, no smoke trails, no flames, no rocket.
After hundreds of drawings, Jefferies came up with this:
In his honor, the crawl spaces on all of the Starfleet starships on Star
Trek are called Jefferies tubes.
3. The Original Name of USS Enterprise
That's
right - the iconic starship wasn't always named USS Enterprise ... in
the original draft, Roddenberry named it USS Yorktown after a World War
II aircraft carrier. The starship was commanded by Captain Robert April,
then Christopher Pike, before Roddenberry settled on James Tiberius Kirk.
By the way, William Shatner was the third choice for Kirk. The role was
offered to Lloyd Bridges and Jack Lord, both of whom declined it.
4. The Origin of NCC-1701
How did the famous USS Enterprise get its registration number NCC-1701
is the stuff of legend. There are conflicting stories, including one where
1701 is a tribute to Roddenberry's childhood neighbor's house number or
that Jefferies got it from the registration number of his airplane.
Here's Matt Jefferies' explanation when he was asked during a BBC
Interview:
NC, by international agreement, stood for all United States commercial
vehicles. Russia had wound up with four Cs, CC CC. It’d been pretty
much a common opinion that any major effort in space would be two expensive
for any one country, so I mixed the US and the Russian and came up with
NCC.
The one seven zero part - I needed a number that would be instantly
identifiable, and three, six, eight and nine are too easily confused.
I don’t think anyone’ll confuse a one and a seven, or the
zero. So the one seven stood for the seventeenth basic ship design in
the Federation, and the zero one would have been serial number one,
the first bird.
5. Land the Ship? Too Expensive, Let's Teleport Everybody Instead!
Originally, Roddenberry envisioned the USS Enterprise to land on various
planets, but it turned out to be too expensive as it would require them
to build expensive sets. The next idea was to use shuttles - but when
filming began, the full-sized shooting model wasn't ready. So, they came
up with the idea of "beaming down" the crew via a teleportation
device and thus the transporter was born! (Source)
In 1994, TIME Magazine interviewed
Star Trek technical expert Michael Okuda about the intricacies of the
transporter:
"It should be possible if we decompile the pattern
buffer."
Transporters can send people instantly from one location to another
by converting their molecules into energy, then reassembling them. Every
living being has a distinct pattern of molecules; the pattern buffer
fixes the configuration by adjusting for the Doppler effect -- the apparent
change in the frequency of the energy waves caused by motion.
"I'll verify the Heisenberg compensators."
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot know
a subatomic particle's exact position and its exact direction and velocity
at the same time. To transport people you have to know all those things,
so the Heisenberg compensator was devised to overcome that problem.
It's an attempt by the Trek writers to signal that they are at least
aware of the issue. And how does the Heisenberg compensator work? "It
works very well, thank you," says Okuda.
6. The Next Gen Enterprise: Hilton in Space
Jefferies
designed the bridge in the original USS Enterprise in the style of a Navy
battleship, with specialized workstations for its crew. When set designer
Richard James updated the bridge for Star Trek: The Next Generation(restriction: no
purple!), Jefferies was asked about the new look. To which he replied:
Gene asked me how I liked the show, and I said that he had taken
the bridge of my ship and turned it into the lobby of the Hilton. And
I have just never watched any of them since. I’m lost.
Ironically, Star Trek and Hilton actually did come together to create
a theme attraction. Star Trek: The Experience opened in 1998 at the Las
Vegas Hilton. It closed in 2008 due to low attendance (though it is due
to re-open in a different location in 2010).
7. The Original Star Trek Enterprise Prop
Photo: Carolyn Russo / Smithsonian
If you visit the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian, definitely
check out the actual
model of the Starship Enterprise used in the filming of the
original Star Trek TV show.
The hull and one nacelle of the original Star Trek Starship Enterprise
model as it was received by the National Air and Space Museum from Paramount
Studios on March 1, 1974. Image WEB11192-2009. Photo: Smithsonian
(with permission)
The model of the Enterprise was sent to the museum in crates, donated
by Paramount Studios five years after the series ended.
Enterprise during its first Smithsonian restoration. SI Neg #74-3977.
Photo: Smithsonian
(with permission)
The Smithsonian performed extensive restoration to put the starship model
back together, and for the first time ever, the photos of the restoration
process are available to the public at the museum's blog.
The Museum Registrar Gregory K.H. Bryant has more on this behind the
scenes look at the icon science fiction model: Link
- Thanks Llori!
8. The Hot-Rod Starship Enterprise
For his movie Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams decided that the USS Enterprise
could use a face-lift and worked with artists at Industrial Light &
Magic to update the starship - like Roddenberry, he gave a simple directive:
"He wanted a hot-rod type of vehicle, but they also wanted
to preserve the Enterprise kind of look," model maker John Goodson
said in a presentation at ILM's San Francisco headquarters earlier this
month.
"J.J. Abrams kept saying, 'Make it a bigger movie. Make it
a bigger shot,'" creative director David Nakabayashi added. "I
think that's one thing you see in this film, at least: The stuff I've
seen is just everything is big."
SCI FI Wire has the interview with model maker John Goodson and visual
effects supervisor Roger Guyett about the new Enterprise: http://scifiwire.com/2009/04/how-ilm-came-up-with-the.php
The official website for JJ Abram's Star Trek movie has a nifty 360°
panorama of the bridge of the new starship:
Another one for the CakeCentral Star Trek Cake contest,
this one is simple yet very chic: the Star
Trek Uniform groom cake by CakeCentral user tenmeows.
USS Reliant Birthday
Cake complete with blue LED, by Victoria Sgro-Konopka of SunShine's
Cake Creations
This one is quite beautiful: Jonathan Lane's groom cake, over at USS
Angeles.
The four sides of the cakes include messages from the Klingons ("Where
do you keep the chocolate" - chocolate is an aphrodisiac for Klingons),
Ferengis ("You humans still owe us for this cake"), Romulans
("The Praetor says hello"), Cardassian ("Hey, why weren't
we invited to the wedding"), Bajoran ("May the Prophets guide
you both in your lives together") and Vulcans ("Live long and
prosper") - in their native languages.
The Star Trek Enterprise Cake by Edward and Antoni Frys of
European Cake Gallery
(ironically, in Texas) - via Cake
Wrecks
Remember Sonya the Slow Loris? While it's illegal for people to own a slow loris in most countries, it's not the case in Russia. And while some of you objected to someone adopting a slow loris as a pet, it seems to me that Sonya leads a pretty darned good life!
If you can't get enough of the cuteness, check out this two-minute clip of a day in the life of Sonya the Slow Loris: Link
Sometimes Hallmark just doesn't have the card that expressed exactly how you're feeling (case in point, the Prizon Greeting cards).
When Julianna Holowka lost her job, her apartment and her studio all in the span of a week, she was devastated. With her last $13.25, she bought art supplies to draw her gloom away. She gave them to friends (who loved the humor) and started selling them as uh, shall we say, anti-Hallmark greeting cards, and thus "Mean Cards" was born.
If dark humor is your cup of tea, definitely check out her work and blog: Link - via The Zeray Gazette
For years, Russia's Hermitage museum has employed a secret army to protect over three million works of art dating back to Peter the Great.
Recently, the identity of this secret force has come to light: cats!
Although no longer allowed to roam freely through the galleries, around 60 felines earn a living in the basement of the huge former Tsarist palace.
Maria Khaltunen, Hermitage State Museum: "They (cats) work here. They execute, so-called, preventive activities so that rats and mice will stay away or are kept at a minimum. All the museum visitors can see them in the summer. Generally they walk on the square and on the embankment, and also they come out into the big yard. But these (cats) are only those who like to deal with people. Others who prefer living in their community stay in basement."
The priceless treasures of the museum are under the watchful eye of these cats. These four-footed employees are always on guard against rats and mice that can damage the Hermitage collection. They work in the labyrinths of the basement, hunting by day and night.
Cats have been guarding the museum for the last 200 years since the Tsarist period. They first appeared during the reign of Peter the Great's daughter, Empress Elizabeth. Fed up with hundreds of rodents running through the palace Elizabeth signed a decree ordering the best rat and mice-catching cats to be sent to Her Majesty's court.
Coming soon to a seaport near you: a robot dubbed the "cargo-screening ferret" that will detect drugs, weapons, explosives and even illegal immigrants hidden in cargo containers.
Recent advances in both laser and fibre optic technology now make it possible to detect tiny particles of different substances. The EPSRC-funded project team is developing sensors which incorporate these technologies and that are small enough to be carried on the 30cm-long robot, in order to detect the specific 'fingerprint' of illegal substances at much lower concentrations than is now possible.
When placed inside a steel freight container, the ferret will attach itself magnetically to the top, then automatically move around and seek out contraband, sending a steady stream of information back to its controller.
It's not bad enough that soon we'll run out of bluefin tuna, now scientists are saying that we may also lose wheat. The stem rust fungus could wipe out 80% of the world's wheat as it spread from Africa.
Enjoy your bread while it lasts! Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times has the story of a "time bomb" for wheat:
Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus could wipe out more than 80% of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from eastern Africa. It has already jumped the Red Sea and traveled as far as Iran. Experts say it is poised to enter the breadbasket of northern India and Pakistan, and the wind will inevitably carry it to Russia, China and even North America -- if it doesn't hitch a ride with people first.
"It's a time bomb," said Jim Peterson, a professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis. "It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter of how long it's going to take."
Though most Americans have never heard of it, Ug99 -- a type of fungus called stem rust because it produces reddish-brown flakes on plant stalks -- is the No. 1 threat to the world's most widely grown crop.
Is it a prank or is it a modern-version of the Biblical Plagues? You decide:
About 70 more dead tadpoles have been found in Ishikawa Prefecture, local officials said Friday, as the mystery over how they came to be in areas with no paddy fields or other habitats continues.
The latest findings, Thursday afternoon, were in the cities of Nanao and Wajima. More than 100 dead tadpoles were found in Nanao and Hakusan last week and tiny dead fish were found Tuesday in the town of Nakanoto. [...]
Masafumi Matsui, a professor at Kyoto University's graduate school of human and environmental studies who specializes in amphibians, said: "It is hard to comment without actually seeing these tadpoles . . . but considering the circumstances reported by the media, someone could be pulling a prank."
People have speculated the tadpoles might have fallen from the sky after being sucked up by waterspouts or carried by birds. But there have been no reports of strong winds, and ornithologists dispute the bird theory.
When other kids are going to kindergarten, the children of the nomadic Indian tribe of Vadi are also going to school of sorts. Except that the ABCs aren't in the curriculum - instead, these kids are learning to be snake charmers with real cobras:
Divided between the sexes, the act of snake charming with traditional flute is the role of the men, while the Vadi women care for the snakes and handle them when their husbands or brothers are not around.
'The training begins at two, the children then are then taught the ancient ways of snake charming until they are ready to take up their roles in our community,' said chief snake charmer Babanath Mithunath Madari, 60.
'At twelve the children will know everything that they can know about snakes.
'They are then ready to continue the traditions of the Vadi tribe which can be stretched back over one thousands years to India's great Raja's (kings).'
Before you eat that oh-so-delicious piece of salmon sashimi, consider this: sushi (as well as undercooked fish) may be contributing to the growing problem of urban tapeworm ...
Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense. The parasite, which can reach lengths of 39 feet (12 meters), has been steadily increasing its global distribution and prevalence – mostly among yuppies with a hankering for sashimi and ceviche.
One hospital in Japan reported 14 cases last year, up from 3 cases in 2000. And starting in 2006, the tapeworm has been popping up for the first time in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, farm-raised salmon from South America have been plagued by a closely related tapeworm that normally infects perch and other freshwater fish.
Did Leonardo da Vinci paint a nude version of the Mona Lisa? Maybe so, according to a newly revealed painting, hidden for a century within the walls of a private library:
The lady in the portrait does not exactly resemble the original Mona Lisa, but there is little doubt it has parallels with the painting hanging at the Louvre museum in Paris.
"The frontal look, the position of the hands, the spatial conception of the landscape, with columns at the sides, show a clear link with the Mona Lisa's iconographic theme," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the museum, told Discovery News.
It's good to be a princess! You can run up a £15 million (US$24.7 million) shopping bill and then refuse to pay it due to "diplomatic immunity"!
One of the most senior members of Saudi Arabia's royal family, Princess Maha al-Sudairi, is claiming diplomatic immunity in France after running up unpaid shopping bills of more than £15 million including £60,000 on designer lingerie.
She has ignored her furious debtors and locked herself in her £2,500-a-night suite at the George V Hotel in Paris.
When a royal aide was approached about settling the underwear bill he replied: "I'm afraid we can't go around settling bills for the Princess's knickers."
Princess Maha, whose husband, Prince Nayef, is interior minister and second-in-line to the Saudi throne, is said to have spent millions on designer clothes, jewels and other luxury products in the French capital over the past year. Her weekly dry cleaning bill alone was said to be £30,000.
Every time the Princess and her entourage visited a shop a representative would offer staff an embossed document stating "Payment to Follow".
Link - via Arbroath | The BBC reports that she has paid up after a judge ordered bailiffs to confiscate the knickers
Why do whales beach themselves? A new study may have answered the question that baffled scientists for decades: it's the bends ...
A new study offers evidence to support the theory that beaked whales get the bends when they surface rapidly, possibly after being startled by naval sonar.
The report could help scientists understand why beaked whales appear to be more vulnerable to the potentially harmful effects of sonar than other marine mammals.
Together with other studies, the results may also help scientists and regulators think of how navies could adjust their sonar use during training to prevent beaked whale strandings and deaths.
"It provides more evidence that beaked whales that are being found dead in association with naval sonar activities are likely to be getting decompression sickness," said Robin Baird, a marine biologist at Cascadia Research Collective and one of the report's authors.
