Jay Cowell of River Road Middle School got a fancy haircut with a star, which he said is "for God and all the stuff he made on the earth."
But the school officials saw it differently, and declared the his haircut a "gang symbol" and suspended the eight-grader until he got it all shorn off.
Did the school do the right thing? Or are they just being a fuddy duddy? http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/weird/Boy_Suspended_Over__Gang_Symbol__Haircut_All__National_.html [Flash clip]
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)
Geophysical Survey of the World of Warcraft It turns out that WoW is really, really small: Link |
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Human Slip & Slide (It doesn't end there, folks, there's also an underwear stuffing contest!) Where do I sign up? Link |
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Double Fail at the Motorcycle Race Track |
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Shark Does a Spinning Jump Behind a Surfer Link (about time mark 0:10) |
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History of the Internet (If you like this, check out Neatorama's 10 Things You Should Know About the Internet and Wonderful World of Early Computing, Take a Stroll Down Computing Memory Lane) |
For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
"What's the deal with nunchucks?" by Brandon Bird
We've written about Brandon Bird before on Neatorama, but it's a pleasure to run across another one of his tongue-in-cheek artwork floating on the Web. This one is Jerry Seinfeld/Bruce Lee Remix, found at Urban Retro Lifestyle.
Meet Mao Xinyu, a 38-year-old senior colonel in China's People's Liberation Army and blogger. He's not just any blogger - his blog, which is all about Chairman Mao, was voted most popular by the readers of People's Daily last year.
Oh, and one more thing: Xinyu is the grandson of Chairman Mao.
Mao's blog is largely dedicated to an appreciation of his grandfather, who died when he was six years old. The founder of communist China is still admired by many people here -despite the fact that millions died because of famine and conflict during his rule (an official Communist Party verdict delivered after his death ruled - with precision - that Chairman Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong).
"The greatest happiness of my life and satisfaction come from a real understanding of a great man. And he is my grandfather," grandson Mao writes.
College students (why doesn't this surprise me) Cary Silverman combined two party favorites to create a new snack: alcohol-flavored popcorn.
The popcorn, which doesn't actually have any alcohol content, comes in beer, pina colada and Irish cream flavors. Link - via Unique Daily
TheraminTrees and his brother QualiaSoup collaborated to make this interesting animation called Instruction Manual for Life. There's an unmistakeable (truthful/heavy-handed/blasphemous? Take your pick) message in there - which you don't have to agree with - but all I could think of when watching the clip was all those IKEA cabinets I built over the years!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Bruce!
The Fifty United States and their Mottos (2008) by Emily Wick
Artist Emily Wick created this fabulous map of the United States out of linoleum block prints, with official state mottos carved into each of the 50 States. My favorites are New Mexico's "It grows at it goes" motto and Maryland's "Manly deeds, womanly words" motto.
Link - via Intelligent Travel, thanks Marilyn!
Can you be a Jedi? Well, here's a toy Jedi training device that trains Star Wars fans to use The Force:
The Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films. [...]
In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.
Link
- via The Monkey Buddha, thanks Paul Micarelli!
Barend Massow Hemmes of Massow Concept Cycles along with Polar cycles of Doncaster UK created what is probably the most awesome motorcycle I've ever laid eyes on: the Jaguar "leaper" cat logo concept bike, made from stainless steel.
Just how awesome is that? Link - via Modern Urban Living
Literary Organism, a visualization of Part One of On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
Artist Stefanie Posavec took pieces from On the Road by Jack Kerouac and turned them into various maps, dissecting the literary masterpiece and converting it into a visual one:
Stefanie’s maps capture something above and beyond that of the others. Rather than mapping physical geography, her maps capture regularities and patterns within a literary space.
The pieces featured in On the Map focused on Kerouac’s On the Road. The maps visually represent the rhythm and structure of Kerouac’s literary space, creating works that are not only gorgeous from the point of view of graphic design, but also exhibit scientific rigor and precision in their formulation: meticulous scouring the surface of the text, highlighting and noting sentence length, prosody and themes, Posavec’s approach to the text is not unlike that of a surveyor. And similarly, the act is near reverential in its approach and the results are stunning graphical displays of the nature of the subject. The literary organism, rhythm textures and sentence drawings are truly gorgeous pieces.
Photo: Legohaulic [Flickr]
Flickr user Legohaulic is a big fan of Tim Burton and an avid LEGO hobbyist, so what better tribute to The Nightmare Before Christmas than to create this masterpiece: Jack Skellington made entirely of LEGO!
Link - via The Brothers Brick
AskMen has a pretty nifty post about the 5 things you didn't know about Shakespeare. Take, for instance, the word "torture" - yep, good ol' Will invented it (well, technically he made the noun "torture" which existed at the time into the verb form):
3- Shakespeare invented "torture"
Shakespeare didn't just invent "torture," but also "excitement," "addiction" and "savagery." Another of the five things you might not have known about Shakespeare is just how much he's influenced the English language. Our man Will invented about 1,700 words in the English language. A remarkable number of the phrases and words we use every day first appeared in Shakespeare's work. Shakespeare converted verbs into adjectives or nouns into verbs whenever it suited him. Amazingly, his linguistic inventions stuck, and we still use them today.
Guys, are you unlucky in love? Thanks to science, there may just be hope for you yet: a love spray!
Neurobiologist Larry Young of Emory University, Georgia, explains:
Animal testing is beginning to shed light on the complex neural and genetic components of love in the same way they have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders.
The behavioural scientist Professor Larry Young, of Emory University, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature, said: "For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away."
Experiments have already shown a nasal squirt of the hormone oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions.
Flickr user Astro-Lopithecus has a photoset of an amazing birthday cake shaped like a dragon clutching a 10-sided die. I'd venture a guess that whoever was celebrating his birthday is a D&D lover ...
The Dragon Cake is made by Mike McCarey of Mike's Amazing Cakes [warning: Flash and self-starting audio]
Neatorama's influence goes beyond its readership size - the blog is watched by social media experts and other influential blogs. Many of our posts go viral. For example:
The
Crasher Squirrel
We posted this cheeky squirrel on August 9, 2009 on the suggestion of
our friends over at National Geographic. On 8/13, it was picked up by
the Canadian
Broadcasting Company.
The next day, it appeared on BoingBoing.net, Buzzfeed.com, and Mashable.com. On 8/17 it appeared on NBC Today Show and Daily Telegraph.
Insect
Egg Looks Like They Came From Alien Worlds
We posted photographs of insect eggs by Martin Oeggerli on August 28,
2010. It was picked up by Gizmodo
the next day that attracted over 50,000 views, and then by Treehugger
a day later.
On September 1, Oeggerli's photos appear on the Daily Mail.
Penguins
Chasing Butterflies
A loyal reader named Marty McGuire submitted his YouTube video clip of
cute penguins chasing butterflies on August 15, 2010. At the time, the
video had less than a dozen views - after it was posted on Neatorama,
the clip was picked up by BoingBoing.net,
TheDailyWh.at,
CuteOverload.com,
and ICanHazCheezburger.com.
The clip was featured on Yahoo! and on CNN
(earning Marty the "CNN
iReporter Superstar" status). The clip is also picked up by the
Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK).
Full story at: Penguins Go Viral.
The Roman Multitool
We posted a picture and description of an ancient Roman version of the Swiss Army knife, now in the collection of the FitzWilliam Museum in the UK. It was promptly featured on Make, Wired, and Gizmodo. The post generated so much attention that The Daily Telegraph contacted the museum and wrote an article about the artifact.
Technorati Top 100 is most popular method of comparing the popularity of blogs in the blogosphere. Neatorama's Technorati Profile |
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| Neatorama is ranked in the Top 100 most popular blogs in the world by the blog search engine Twingly. Neatorama's Twingly Profile | |
| Neatorama is ranked in the Top 300 of out of nearly 4 million RSS-enabled websites (including but not limited to blogs) in the United States by ://URLFAN Neatorama's ://URLFAN Profile | |
Partner Websites |
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| Neatorama is one of only 21 websites featured with full RSS feed in Thomas Marban's popular aggregator website Popurls. The blog is displayed side by side with the who's who in the Internet, including digg, delicious, reddit, Yahoo! Buzz, and Slashdot. | |
| Neatorama is a partner of ABC World News Webcast by Charlie Gibson. We've been featuring their annual Top 5 Viral Videos for two years running: ABC World News Webcast Top Viral Videos of 2008, 2007 | |
| Neatorama isn't just a partner of VideoSift, the largest video clip aggregator website on the Internet. We are a "Friend O' the Sift," (yay!) and regularly sends over 20,000 monthly visitors to their website through our weekly feature. | |
| mental_floss is a magazine co-founded by Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur. Since its first issue in 2001, the magazine grew to be one of the largest trivia/fun facts publications today. Neatorama helped mental_floss popularize their magazine and fledgling blog in 2006 by regularly featuring their articles online. This collaboration continues until today. | |
| The Bathroom Readers' Institute is the publisher of the wildly popular Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, a series of books on various trivia and quirky topics, ostensibly for reading in the bathroom. (Yes, Uncle John is a real person) Neatorama is a partner of the Bathroom Readers' Institute and regularly features articles from their books online to introduce their publications to Internet readers. | |
| From a reference letter by Paul Cooper of Tokyoflash Japan: "Tokyoflash has worked with Neatorama on various collaboration projects, including articles, competitions, contests and reviews. We have found Neatorama to be one of the best websites for featuring up and coming news, new products, trends, and interesting, appealing content. Our first collaboration was highly successful and created a significant level of interest which also resulted in a high level of interest on social networking sites. Neatorama has a loyal, unique audience that consistently returns due to the continual content renewal and as such provides continued exposure to a wide group of different people. Neatorama is also read by decision makers in the media and therefore acts as a feeder for promotion in print. We have found Neatorama to be highly efficient and professional in their working manner and consider Neatorama to be an excellent partner." - Paul Cooper, Tokyoflash Japan | |
References |
"Neatorama consistently chooses the best content from all over the web, and their original content is second to none (as evinced by the fact that it's constantly imitated (and shamelessly stolen) by others). I cycle through a lot of RSS feeds trying to pick fresh content to submit to social news sites like Digg, but Neato's one site I always rely on, and never leaves my feed reader." - Andy Sorcini, top user on digg.com (Mr. BabyMan) "Neatorama is my favorite source for an eclectic collection of news, opinion, short stories, pictures, videos, and lots more. Always fresh, informative, interesting, exciting, and frequently odd and surprising, the site features a great group of writers with a strong emphasis on unique content that readers of all ages can enjoy. Not only is the original content great, but the writers have a knack of finding the coolest links from across the web to showcase on the site. While I visit mostly for content, the site also has a frequently updated store with unique items for yourself or to give as presents." - Muhammad Saleem, top user on digg.com (msaleem) and social media maven "Neatorama is a one-stop shop for everything awesome online - a source of information and oddities like none other on the web. With its age and frequency of articles it has carved a niche that is unique and even trend-setting." - Kurt Kohlstedt, top user on digg.com (suxmonkey), StumbleUpon (allsux) From Top Bloggers "Neatorama is the first blog I visit each day, because I like to start my mornings with a blast of novelty." - Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing "I love it when Neatorama posts one of my cartoons, it invariably drives a mob of traffic to my site. Neatorama is one of those rare blogs that is endlessly interesting day after day. I'm thrilled I'm one of their regular partners, it's a big part of my readership." Dan Piraro, creator of internationally syndicated Bizarro daily comic strip "... fun & addictive site ..." Matt Cutts, Google Software Engineer in SEO advice: interpreting inurl "I read Neatorama because it consistently has content that surprises and entertains me. Although I read many blogs every day (I track 153 of my faves on Bloglines), I find that nearly every irresistibly curious story I find has appeared first on Neatorama. Almost every day I find a story that I feel compelled to pass along to another blogger, because I know they'll be fascinated too." - Marilyn Terrell, Chief Researcher, National Geographic Traveler Magazine, Intelligent Travel Blog "Neatorama is one of my favorite destinations on the web, expertly covering the amazing and the unusual - in a concise, entertaining manner. I constantly check it as part of my workflow, and always amazed at the quality and quantity of material that they cover. I wish them all the best in the coming year." - Avi Abrams of Dark Roasted Blend "In my mind there are two things that make a good blog: good editors and a good audience. Neatorama has them both. Some blog editors take content and just slap it on their site. Alex helped shape my guest post to best reach Neatorama's audience, and the audience took it from there. A lively and thoughtful discussion ensued. Not to mention, my blog got a boost in visitors and I'm sure my book sales did, too. I highly recommend for other authors to guest post on Neatorama." - Kelsey Timmerman, author of Where Am I Wearing? Post: Meet the People Who Made Your Clothes "If I were banished to the moon tomorrow, and could view only one novelty blog, Neatorama would be my blog of choice. No one should pass up the experience of stepping through this wild and wonderful portal into the fantastic and unpredictable world that we call our home. Neatorama is also a goldmine for authors. Having a book featured at Neatorama is one crucial step to fame and fortune." - Dr. Cliff Pickover, author of over 40 books Post: 5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them "My feature on Neatorama more than doubled the unique visitor traffic to my own website. Based upon the comments left on my Neatorama post, I'd conclude that the site attracts an intelligent, open-minded readership. Guest blogging for Neatorama couldn't have been easier. I received friendly, supportive, highly-professional, timely responses every step of the way." - Craig Conley, author of Magic Words: A Dictionary Post: Magic Words: A Dictionary "With its broad influence and extensive reach, Neatorama provides an excellent showcase and terrific exposure for books and their authors. To any author, I would highly recommend taking advantage of a guest post opportunity." - Charles Horn, Emmy-nominated writer of Robot Chicken and author of The Laugh Out Loud Guide to the SAT Post: The Laugh Out Loud Guide to the SAT "I recently had the privilege of being a guest author of a feature article on Neatorama. It was a fantastic experience in many ways. Alex was incredibly helpful in guiding me through the process in everything from suggesting article length, to highlighting particular parts of the subject matter. He did a great job sourcing photos and adding captions. I was very pleased with the response to the article. The commenters were insightful and appreciative of the article, my webstats skyrocketed as a direct result of the article, and I started to find more frequent mentions of my work posted online by neatorama readers. Thank you so much Alex and everyone at Neatorama!!!" - Collin Palkovitz, author of the LETHAL iPhone App Post: The Most Dangerous Places in the United States "Having my Tax Form Dress featured on Neatorama changed my life! I'm a musician and my dress was something I created for a gig on Tax Day. I soon started hearing from people all over the world. Other websites soon picked up the story it spread to blogs, newspapers, TV and CBS Radio Network. I was contacted by World Entertainment News Network in London and my dress appeared in The Financial Times in Germany! I was a guest on "Tennessee Mornings" and "FOX 17's Evening News. With all the buzz about the dress, I was able to sell it on ebay for $306- all going to my favorite charity, Heifer International. Thanks making it all possible. What a fun ride!" Just wanted to say how pleased we have been with the results from our first posting on Neatorama. Aside from the product sales, we received an abundance of positive feedback on our product, a number of inquiries from retailers around the country, and even a few folks looking to help us set up BottleHood operations in their part of the country. I have to say that Neatorama really delivers an audience in all aspects from buyers to influencers. We wouldn't hesitate to participate in any of the promotional programs on the blog as we see them as tremendously valuable and effective! - Steve Cherry / BottleHood "This site is an author's dream. Alex posted an excerpt from my pseudonymous book: That's Disgusting : An Adult Guide to What's Gross, Tasteless, Rude, Crude, and Lewd Immediately, I saw the effect in my amazon sales numbers. My book is usually in the 750,000-1,000,000 million mark for popularity/sales (oh boohoo) but the day of the posting it went down to 25,000 while the number of copies sold rose! Even now a month later, it's in the 200,000 area, about l/5 of what it was earlier. And I know it's because of.neatorama because my other book: Greta Garbage's Outrageous Bathroom Book, which always ran about the same in ratings, but which Alex hasn't yet excerpted, hasn't budged. (Oh boo hoo) Neatorama got its name for a reason ... It's not just the content; it's really neat for those in it as well. " - "Greta Garbage" "I love Neatorama! When they linked to 1000 Awesome Things my traffic surged and I was buried in cheers from a cool cross-section of fun and interesting people from around the Web. Yes, Neatorama is a hot breeding whirlpool of the Internet's best and brightest. It's where they come to play, swirl, and multiply." - Neil Pasricha, author of The Book of Awesome |
s selected one website out of millions as a featured "pick of the day." In January 2007, Neatorama had the honor of being the Pick of the Day. |
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| Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read/Write Web included Neatorama as one of the Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things. We are listed alongside blogs such as Boing Boing, Waxy, Josh Spear and NotCot. | |
| Neatorama is listed in the Top 100 Favorite Blogs by Alan Henry of PC Magazine, who wrote: Neatorama is your go-to destination for everything quirky, weird, and extraordinary. From rare albino koalas to blog themes you've never seen, from incredible photos to cool facts about fashion, politics, medicine, and more, Neatorama is updated every day with new videos, images, and articles guaranteed to keep you entertained. | |
| Aaron Brazell of Technosailor and Lijit.com wrote a list of 10 Blogs That Describe My Life for Blogs.com. Neatorama is listed alongside Lifehacker, Textually, VentureBeat and Read/Write Web. | |
