What will you get for $9.95?

Hi guys! Today's the day for Neatorama's much anticipated Mystery Sale. What will you get for $9.95? Well, we won't tell you ... that's the whole point of the Mystery Sale!

What we can tell you is this: you'll get something (or a combination of things) worth at least $9.95. It will be a physical product, new, and definitely a lot of fun. If you buy more than one things, you'll get different items.

We continue to listen to your feedback, and have worked hard to make this Mystery Sale the BEST one yet.

Like the last Mystery Sale, it's only for a limited time. The last one didn't last 24 hours. When it's gone, it's gone. So get yours today: Link

Update 5/5/09 #1 - If you don't get in, please try again - the servers are overloaded with traffic right now

Update 5/5/09 #2 - let's try that again, shall we? I'm crossing my fingers the servers will be okay ;)
Update 5/6/09 - Time's up! If you've participated in this Mystery Sale, thank you! For those of you who missed it - catch it next time. Be sure to visit Neatorama regularly as the Mystery Sale is not announced beforehand.

Surely you've used emoticons before, or at least encountered them while surfing the Intertubes, but did you know that they've been around since the 1800s? Or that a computer scientist came up with the smiley emoticon? Here are 10 Things You Didn't Know About Emoticons: 1. The Oldest Emoticons The first emoticons were published on March 30, 1881 by (the now defunct) US satirical magazine Puck. If you want to read that edition, Wikimedia has the scan: Link 2. The Abraham Lincoln Emoticon In 2004, a team from the digital archival company Proquest stumbled across what could be an even older example of an emoticon in print ... in the transcription of a 1862 speech by President Lincoln, no less! Photo: New York Times A flurry of "yes, that's an emoticon" and "no, that's a typo, you dufus" by emoticon experts quickly ensued. NY Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee has the story: Link And if you were wondering, yes "8" is Jennifer's middle name. She was born without a middle name, and chose "8" as a teenager because of the ubiquity of her first name. 3. The First Internet Emoticon On September 19, 1982, Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Scott Fahlman introduced the very first sideway smiley on an online message board to distinguish serious posts from jokes. Since then, Fahlman is known as the "father of the smiley." Links: Transcript of the posts (as retrieved from a backup tape by Jeff Baird in 2002) | The Smiley :-) Lore 4. Western vs. Eastern Emoticons Like hip hop, emoticons have geographical styles; there are western emoticons and eastern emoticons. Western ones are read sideways (from left to right) whereas eastern style emoticons are read upright. It's easier to explain with examples: Western-style Eastern-style smile/happy :) (^_^) frown/sad :( (T_T) crying face wink ;) (^_~) shocked :0 (o_O) 5. Emoticon Statistics In 2007, a Yahoo! surveyed 40,000 Yahoo! Messenger users and found that 82% of them used emoticons in their IM conversations. 83% said that "happiness" and "flirting" are the two emotions (flirting is an emotion?) they expressed most by using emoticons. 57% said that they would rather tell a "crush" their true feelings with emoticons rather than - gasp - words. Yahoo! Messenger users are pretty dedicated to their emoticons: 66% of them had memorized the text characters for 3 or more emoticons. 19% of them had memorized more than 10. (Source) 6. Evolution of Emoticons Driven by instant messaging programs like Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AIM and ICQ, emoticons quickly evolved from text smileys into more complex, animated graphics. Yahoo! Messenger even got a set of "hidden" emoticons that you won't find in the menu, but can be "activated" by typing the keyboard shortcuts: Even Gmail got in the game - they added "emoji" (Japanese for graphical emoticons). If you want them for your Gmail account, simply go to Settings > Labs, then enable "Extra Emoji." 7.Assicons & Boobiecons Since emoticons are so great, why limit oneself to faces? Thus assicons* and boobiecons were born. Examples, my friends, are warranted - strictly in the name of science, mind you (source). Assicons Boobiecons a regular ass (_!_) regular boobies (o)(o) a fat ass (__!__) big boobies ( O )( O ) a tight ass (!) perky boobies ( ' ) ( ' ) a dumb ass (_?_) saggy boobies ( , ) ( , ) a smart ass (_E=mc2_) silicon boobies ( $ )( $ ) There is also the elusive penicon. You can guess what that is all about. If you're interested (naughty!) you can Google that yourself, mmkay? *Indian readers beware: the salacious assicon above is not to be confused with ASSICON, or the unfortunately named Annual Conference of Association of Spine Surgeons of India (ASSI). 8. Trademarking the Emoticon In 2000, Despair Inc., the company that came up with the witty "de-motivational" products, trademarked :-( or the frowny emoticon. Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of the mock press release (Despair's COO Dr. E.L. Kersten threatened to sue 7 million individual Internet users who have used the frowny emoticon in emails), the company got a lot of real flack. Not to be outdone, Russian entrepreneur Oleg Teterin decided to trademark ;-) or the wink emoticon in Russia. In an television interview, Oleg said: "I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder," he said in comments to NTV. Companies will be sent legal warnings if they use the symbol without his permission, he said. "Legal use will be possible after buying an annual license from us," he was quoted by Kommersant as saying. "It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars." (Source) 9. Driving LED EMoticon Think that you can only use emoticons on the Intertubes? Think again! Here's a battery powered LED emoticon for your car, so you can tell the people stuck behind you how you really feel: Link 10. Emoticonman If emoticons are expressions of emotions put in simple text format, what is the reverse process? New Jersey-based multimedia artist Dan Wade takes emoticons and "emote" them out ... This one to the left is his impression of the wink emoticon. You can see a whole lot more at his website: http://www.danwade.com/emoticon/animatedgif1.html Bonus: LOLcat Emoticons What do you get when you combine emoticons with the LOLcat meme? This awesomeness below, of course!

The following is a reprint from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe. A while ago, we posted "10 Things That Science Fiction Got Wrong" but believe it or not, there are many things that sci-fi got right as well. From communication satellites to robotic pets, here are a few of the things that science fiction nailed before they happened. Science fiction is supposed to predict future events - and to be entirely honest, some of us are getting impatient waiting for our own rocket cars to the Moon, which we understood we'd have by now. Be that as it may, here are some things dreamed up by science fiction writers that are part of our real world. 1. Moon Visits Lots of science fiction writers had this one covered, but the question is: Who got closest to the real thing first? The best candidate is good ol' Jules Verne, whose 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon, and the 1870 follow-up, Around the Moon, nailed a lot of the minutiae of a moon visit, including weightlessness, the basic size of the space capsule, the size of the crew (three men), and even the concept of splashdown into the ocean on return to Earth. In one of those fun coincidences, the fictional splashdown in Around the Moon was just a few miles from where the actual Apollo 8 capsule splashed down (and, interestingly enough, the fictional launch pad was just a few miles from Cape Canaveral). Verne was tremendously prolific, writing two novels a year for much of his creative life and dying with quite a few novels unpublished. It's not entirely surprising that he's credited with a number of other predictions, including trips by balloon, helicopters, tanks, and electrical engines. One "discovery" he's famously credited for, the submarine, is inaccurate, since submarines existed prior to the 1870 publication of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 2. Robots (and Robot Pets!) "Robot" comes from the Czech word robota, which means "drudgery"; robotnik is a word for "serf." Since today's robots are typically found in industrial setting doing mindlessly repetitive work, this is a strangely appropriate term. The word "robot" was popularized in Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R., which stood for Rossum's Universal Robots. In the play, robots were manufactured humans who were used as cheap labor. One day they got fed up with this and decided to have a revolution and kill all the humans, proving once again that good help really is hard to find. One thing people don't seem to know about Capek's "robots" is that they're not actually mechanical - they're made out of synthetic flesh, although that flesh was then put into a stamping mill to make the bodies. The concept of robots as mechanical beings came later and was most famously popularized in fiction by writer Isaac Asimov in his Robot series. It's probably not a coincidence that a humanoid robot manufactured by Honda is called "Asimo." Robot pets, like the Sony Aibo robot dog, have also been a staple of science fiction. The most famous example of this is probably Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the Philip K. Dick novel that was the source material for the movie Blade Runner. The main character in the book is saving up to buy a realistic electric sheep for his lawn, so he'll be the envy of his neighbors (the movie had none of this suburban one-upmanship going on). Woody Allen, of all people, nailed the robot dog in 1973's Sleeper, in which we're introduced to Rags ("Hi! I'm Rags! Woof woof!"). Allen's reaction: "Is he housebroken? Or will he be leaving little piles of batteries all over the place?" 3. Cloning and Genetic Engineering Humans haven't been cloned yet (as far as we know), but sheep, cats, cow, and rabbits have. And humans have used genetic engineering and gene therapy to improve their bodies. In June 2002, for example, it was announced that genetically modified cells helped to create functioning immune systems in two "bubble boys" who were born without immune systems of their own. The most famous work of science fiction with cloning and genetic engineering is also one of the earliest: 1932's Brave New World , by Aldous Huxley. In it, humans are "graded" into jobs and social classes based on the number of clones that were made from their originating embryos; the higher the number of clones, the less bright they are and the more menial their jobs (this was backed by a social agenda that assured each level of humanity that they were actually the best, so everyone went along with it). 4. The Internet Okay, now, who wants to be blamed for this one? There are so many culprits. Author William Gibson is credited with coining the term "cyberspace" in his 1981 short story "Burning Chrome," and kick-started the whole media fascination with computers and the Internet and all that geekiness with his seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer. But even before Gibson, John Brunner's 1975 novel, The Shockwave Rider, posited a continent-wide information net, "hackers" who broke into the net, identity theft (when someone pretends to be someone else online), and most famously, computer viruses and worms - the terminology for these, in fact, comes from Brunner's book. Brunner imagined using viruses and worms as part of warfare - something that worries today's military quite a bit. It should be noted that in 1975 a proto-form of the Internet did exist, thought not in the scope and complexity imagined by Brunner. It existed in the form of ARPANET, a decentralized computer system that the US Department of Defense created and which by 1975 also included several research universities as "nodes." Internet features created by 1975 include E-mail, online chat, and mailing lists. The most popular mailing list in 1975? One on science fiction, of course. 5. The World Wide Web ... which, despite the propaganda of the 1990s, is not the whole Internet, just a subsection of it - was created in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee and hit the big time with the creation of the Mosaic Web browser in 1993. The dynamic of the Net had been described before then. In 1990's Earth, David Brin imagined a streaming audio and video and clickable hypertext links. And in a 1989 short story, "The Originist," based in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" universe, Orson Scott Card also created a linking system similar to today's hyperlinking. 6. Webcams? Imagined (sort of) by every single science fiction author who ever wrote about a picture phone. There are too many of those to bother counting. 7. Waterbeds Yes, waterbeds. Robert Heinlein used them in 1961's Stranger in a Strange Land ; the first modern waterbed was created in 1967 in San Francisco by design student Charles Hall, who dubbed it the "pleasure pit" (naughty boy). Heinlein also thought up the idea of remotely controlled machines to manipulate dangerous materials; he called them "waldoes," and that's what they're called today. 8. Communications Satellites Science fiction master Arthur C. Clarke is famous for having thought of these in 1945. 9. Space Tourists When millionaire Dennis Tito put down his $20 million and hitched a ride into space with the Russians, he became the first tourist in space. The idea of punting rich folks beyond the stratosphere is not new; in 1962's A Fall of Moondust , Arthur C. Clarke told the tale of some rich tourists who get stranded in a moon crater. More whimsically, author Roald Dahl imagined a "Space Hotel, USA" in 1973's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, complete with a staff of "managers, assistant managers, desk-clerks, waitresses, bellboys, chambermaids, pastry chefs, and hall porters." 10. Miniaturized Surgery Doctors these days use miniaturized tools to perform surgery that's less invasive and more precise than traditional surgery, a practice suggested by Isaac Asimov in his 1966 novel, Fantastic Voyage. It's worth noting, however, that along with miniaturized surgical tools, Asimov also shrunk the doctors to fit into the patient's body. We haven't managed that one yet.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

Since today is Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you), perhaps it's only fitting that two of the movie series' best fans are getting married ... in full costume, of course!

The guests were told: 'Members of the Galactic Empire, Duncan and Sammi met a long time ago, in a place far, far away. The force is strong with these two.

'If you do not underestimate the power of marriage then together you can rule your house as husband and wife.'

Duncan and Sammi exchanged their own unique vows, using their favourite moments from Lucas's timeless movies.

One of Duncan's vows to Sammi said: 'I promise to protect you from carbon freezing and promise to protect you from the Dark Side, through hyperspace and into the far reaches of the galaxy.'

Link

Previously on Neatorama:

- Best Star Wars Wedding Ever: I Declare You Mon Calamari and Wife
- Honey, Do You Want a Star Trek or Star Wars Wedding?

Legend has it that Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear after a falling out with Paul Gauguin. But a new study by German art historians Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans claimed that it was actually the result of Gauguin's sword attack - not van Gogh's self-mutilation:

Gauguin, an excellent fencer, was planning to leave Van Gogh's "Yellow House" in Arles, southwestern France, after an unhappy stay.

He had walked out of the house with his baggage and his trusty épée in hand, but was followed by the troubled Van Gogh, who had earlier thrown a glass at him.

As the pair approached a bordello, their row intensified, and Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's left earlobe with his sword – either in anger or self-defence.

He then threw the weapon in the Rhône. Van Gogh delivered the ear to the prostitute and staggered home, where police discovered him the following day, the new account claims.

Gauguin had undoubtedly been staying with Van Gogh, but most experts think he had disappeared before the ear incident.

Although the historians provide no "smoking gun" to back up their claims, they argue theirs is the most logical interpretation, and explains why in his final recorded words to Gauguin, Van Gogh writes: "You are quiet, I will be, too".

Link

So - I posted Snowball the parrot, the subject of a very scientific experiment to see if birds can dance. But Snowball might well just have two left claws when compared to a bird named Frosty.

Here's a clip of Frosty the parrot shaking its tail feather to Ray Charles and the Blues Brothers' Twist It (Shake Your Tail Feather): Link [embedded YouTube clip, video by Karla K. Larsson)

Which Disney princess are you? Just answer these 10 probing (kidding!) questions over at Brainfall to find out.

Apparently, I'm Pocahontas:

You defy convention and sometimes do what is considered taboo. Unfortunately, others do not always appreciate your differences, so it's good that you are so strong-willed. You are loyal and you believe in fate. Your true love will find you one day.

Link - via The Zeray Gazette (Maybe they'll do villains next, now that will be fun!)

So, which Disney Princess are you?

In this short and sweet Serbian video clip, cops stopped a grandpa and administered a breathalyzer test ... they didn't even have to turn the thing on to bust him for drinking.

See what happened: Link [embedded YouTube clip]

Photo: frankh

Remember the mobile treadmill posted on Neatorama a while ago? Well, Flickr user frankh spotted a DIY version at MIT (where else?). Apparently, it's what you get when you cross a bicycle with a treadmill - via GadgetLab

[YouTube Clip]

Cancer schmancer, scientists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego have finally solved the age-old question that has eluded science for centuries: can birds dance?

Cats, dogs, and lab monkeys spend lots of time around human music. But no animal had ever been confirmed as moving to a beat—leading to the common belief that animals ain't got rhythm.

For one of two new studies on animal dancing, Aniruddh Patel at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego and colleagues worked with Snowball the parrot, which seems to love "dancing" to the likes of Queen and Backstreet Boys.

To test whether the sulphur-crested cockatoo was really keeping a beat, the scientists would change the music's tempo—represented in these videos as "BPM" (beats per minute).

Not one to miss a beat, Snowball quickly picked up the new rhythms, stomping and head-bobbing in time. "We were surprised by the degree Snowball could adjust his tempo," Patel said.

Link

Forget people! The real concern for farmers is not that humans get swine flu from pigs ... it's the other way around!

Humans have it. Pigs don't. At least not yet, and U.S. pork producers are doing everything they can to make sure that the new H1N1 virus, known around the world as the "swine flu," stays out of their herds.

"That is the biggest concern, that your herd could somehow contract this illness from an infected person," said Kansas hog farmer Ron Suther, who is banning visitors from his sow barns and requiring maintenance workers, delivery men and other strangers to report on recent travels and any illness before they step foot on his property.

"If a person is sick, we don't want you coming anywhere on the farm," Suther said.

Link

Previously on Neatorama:

- Scientists: Swine Flu Milder Than Run-Of-The-Mill Winter Flu
- Swine Flu: Bacon's Revenge
- What is Swine Flu? How Does an Animal Disease Spread to a Human Host?
- 5 Deadliest Pandemics in History

Putting a man on the moon, solving Fermat's Last Theorem, or firing a tenured teacher because of incompetence or even criminal behaviors: which is harder?

While most teachers are good, decent people with the thankless jobs of teaching unruly kids with dwindling resources and ever-increasing class sizes, there are a few bad apples that really ruined school for a lot of children. But why is it so difficult to fire them?

Jason Song of the Los Angeles Times investigates:

Joseph Walker, a former principal of Grant High School in Van Nuys, was sued by a special education teacher whom he tried to dismiss for alleged repeated sexual harassment. A civil jury sided with Walker -- but the review commission decided the teacher shouldn't be fired. The case, now in the courts, has dragged on seven years.

Confronting uphill battles like this, Walker said: "You're not going to fire someone who's not doing their job. And if you have someone who's done something really egregious, there's only a 50-50 chance that you can fire them."

Walker is now principal of Discovery Charter Preparatory Academy in Pacoima, where he said he had fired three teachers so far this year. None were fired during his three years as head of Grant. The difference: His school's teachers are not unionized and can be fired at will.

Link

(Photo: Joseph Walker. Photo credit: Liz O. Baylen / LA Times)

Cooks in Liberia are wily geniuses when it comes to recycling stuff. No oven? Not a problem - just take an old Blockbuster Video Quik Drop box and make it into one!

Details over at AfriGadget:

They showed me the oven, a big metal cabinet against the far wall; looks like a refrigerator on legs, to allow a coal pit to fit under the bottom, but when I get near it, I see it’s a Blockbuster Quick Drop Booth! The front, where the slit had been closed, faces the wall and the back door is to access the oven; inside are several fridge trays, on which they lay the pans. The door is then locked with a simple bolt and sealed all around with wet cloths.

The cake was fabulous.

Link - via BB Gadgets

Photo: Least Wanted [Flickr]

We're always looking out for number one - or criminally speaking, those on the most wanted list. But not Mark "Least Wanted" Michaelson. He has spent years collecting tens of thousands of mugshots of "punks, sneaks, mooks and miscreants. Hookers, stooges, grifters and goons" going back to the 1870s. In other words, the least wanted.

Link [Flickr Photoset] | Least Wanted on Amazon - via Wooster Collective (with a video clip of a walk through of an art exhibition called JUSTICE, which included art by Least Wanted)

I wonder if he's got mugshots of Henry Earl ...

Can people tell the difference? Not necessarily, according to a new study by Robin Goldstein of the American Association of Wine Economists and colleagues:

Researchers provided 18 volunteers five food samples to try in a blind taste test. Only three were able to identify the canine fodder. [...]

The five samples came from a wide price range and were processed to have a similar consistency. The foods were duck liver mousse, pork liver pâté, two imitation pâtés -- pureed liverwurst and Spam -- and Newman's Own dog food.

Eight participants believed the liverwurst was the dog food, and four thought the Spam was the culprit.

Two people identified the high-end pâté as dog food, and one identified the duck liver mousse as dog food.

Link