Neatorama's a week late on this (what else is new?) neat art project, titled WiiSpray, by Bauhaus University design student Martin Lihs.
Martin created a spray paint-styled casing with a wiimote inside that he used to "spray" virtual graffiti on a monitor. In what can be called as the perfect blend of street vandalism and geekery, the Wii Spray lets you express yourself but without all the mess of paint and being chased by irate landowners ...
The basic idea was to build a computer hardware interface which is similar to an existing analog tool. An new interface will force new experiences. Forget about keyboard and mouse: with WiiSpray we created a new human computing interface (HCI). The use of WiiSpray is similar of using a real spray can – but without the colour and the toxic smells. WiiSpray is based on Adobe Flash, a WiiFlashServer and the Nintendo Wii® device. With this techology and a computer supported technology it is possible to move wireless through the space. You don´t need to learn this device - just start spraying intuitively. And the best is, after finishing your grafitti you can upload it to our website and look at it at any time from everywhere.
We've posted about a disk drive hacked to play the Imperial March and a scanner playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy on Neatorama. Now, listen to this: "Big Ideas (don't get any)" by James Houston re-mixed Radiohead's song "Nude," played on old computer hardwares!
Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows" This was quite a difficult task for everybody that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that's played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It's pretty difficult to seamlessly mix a waltz beat into a DJ set. [...]
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) "Big Ideas: Don't get any" I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to. [...]
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead) Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX
Have you ever been stuck behind someone who's too distracted to drive because he was talking on a cell phone? Well, up to 65% of California drivers have admitted they've done it (I personally believe the number is higher) - and come July 1st, it's going to be illegal to talk and drive with a hand held cell phone in the Golden State.
However, since there are a lot of drivers in California, the state's new law has driven cell phone device makers into high gear. This new funny YouTube "hidden camera clip" clip from Parrot, for example, shows driving instructors driven nuts by a kid who won't stop talking on his cell phone! ("I don't have brake, I don't have brake!")
Have you ever declared your undying love to someone by creating a mix tape?
Well, cassette tapes have gone the way of the dinosaurs, but home taping a compilation of songs is now easier than ever: with this USB Stick "Mix Tape" - it even comes with a faux cassette box.
Gizmodo has a really neat post about the top 10 Rube Goldberg machines featured on movies. Included are clips from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Wallace & Gromit (of course), and my favorite: Ernest Goes to Jail.
You're looking at a figure from a groundbreaking scientific paper published in European Urology by Dr. Ahmed Shafik of the Cairo University in Egypt. In the 1993 paper, Dr. Shafik explored the effect of wearing different types of underpants on the sexual activities of rats. He dressed 75 rats in a) 100% polyester, b) 50/50 polyester/cotton, c) 100% cotton and d) 100% wool underpants for one year.
What did Dr. Shafik find? Rats that wore 100% polyester pants had significantly less sex than those wearing underwear made from other fabric (he blamed it on the "electrostatic field" effect of polyester!)
What? Don't believe me? Here's the abstract from European Urology 1993; 24: 375-380:
The effect of wearing different types of textiles on sexual activity was studied in 75 rats which were divided into five equal groups: four test groups and one control. Each of the four test groups were dressed in one type of textile pants made of either 100% polyester, 50/50% polyester/cotton mix, 100% cotton or 100% wool. Sexual behavior was assessed before and after 6 and 12 months of wearing the pants and 6 months after their removal. The rate of intromission to mounting (IIM) was determined. The electrostatic potentials generated on penis and scrotum were also measured by electrostatic kilovoltmeter. At 6 and 12 months of wearing the polyester and polyester-cotton mix pants, the I/M ratio was significantly reduced compared to the pre-test levels and the controls (p < 0.0001). The reduction was more manifest in the polyester than in the polyester-cotton mix group, and at the 12th month than at the 6th month of examination. The I/M ratio of the cotton and wool groups showed insignificant changes (p > 0.05) at the 6th month of the study and a significant increase at the 12th month (p < 0.01). Six months after removal of the pants, the I/M ratio returned to the pre-test levels (p > 0.05) in the four groups. The polyester-containing pants generated electrostatic potentials while the other textiles did not. These potentials seem to induce "electrostatic fields" in the intrapenile structures, which could explain the decrease in the rats' sexual activity.
The figure above, titled "The underpant worn by the rat," is made famous by Mary Roach's new book about the science of sex called "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex." NPR has a really neat excerpt about the paper:
Dr. Ahmed Shafik wears three-piece suits with gold watch fobs and a diamond stick pin in the lapel. His glasses are the thick, black rectangular style of the Nasser era. He owns a Cairo hospital and lives in a mansion with marble walls. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize. I don't care about any of this. Shafik won my heart by publishing a paper in European Urology in which he investigated the effects of polyester on sexual activity. Ahmed Shafik dressed lab rats in polyester pants.
There were seventy-five rats. They wore their pants for one year. Shafik found that over time the ones dressed in polyester or poly-cotton blend had sex significantly less often than the rats whose slacks were cotton or wool. (Shafik thinks the reason is that polyester sets up troublesome electrostatic fields in and around the genitals. Having seen an illustration of a rat wearing the pants, I would say there's an equal possibility that it's simply harder to get a date when you dress funny.)
Dr. Shafik published five studies on the effects of wearing polyester, and then moved on to something else. If you print out a list of Shafik's journal articles—and you will need a roll of butcher paper, because there are 1,016 so far—it is hard to say what his specialty is. He has wandered through urology, andrology, sexology, proctology. If you ask him what he is, what he writes under "Occupation" on his tax form, he will smile broadly and exclaim, "I am Ahmed Shafik!"
Dressing rats in underpants is not the only good thing Dr. Shafik has done: he has invented not one, but three new methods for male contraception (one of them caught my eye: testicular suspension - i.e. putting one's balls in a sling!)
There's scientific research and then there's scientific research. I hereby nominate Dr. Shafik for Neatorama's Most Awesome Scientist of the Year Award!
Now that is a fire pit! Artist John T. Unger created the Beach Burner Portable Bonfire, an awesome fire bowl from recycled steel that looks good both with or without fire.
Did you know that Star Wars almost didn't happen because Universal Studios turned it down? Or that Harrison Ford was an unknown actor working as a carpenter when George Lucas chose him to play Han Solo? Or that Luke Skywalker's original name was Luke Starkiller? Here are some fascinating facts about Star Wars, one of the highest grossing sci-fi film series in history:
"There's a whole generation growing up without any kind of fairy tales. And kids need fairy tales - it's an important thing for society to have for kids." - George Lucas
BACKGROUND
In July 1973, George Lucas was an unknown director working on a low-budget 1950s nostalgia film called American Graffiti. He approached Universal Studios to see if they were interested in a film idea he called Star Wars. Universal turned him down. It was the biggest mistake the studio ever made. Six months later, Lucas was the hottest director in Hollywood. American Graffiti, which cost $750,000 to make, was a smash. It went on to earn more than $117 million, making it the most profitable film in Hollywood history - even today. While Universal was stonewalling Lucas, an executive at 20th Century Fox, Alan Ladd, Jr., watched a smuggled print of American Graffiti before it premiered and loved it. He was so determined to work with Lucas that he agreed to finance the director's new science fiction film. Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, and by the end of August it had grossed $100 million - faster than any other film in history. By 1983 the film had made over $524 million in ticket sales worldwide - making it one of the 10 highest grossing films in history. [note: this article was written in 1993; Star Wars is currently the 24th highest-grossing films]
MAKING THE FILM
It took Lucas over two years to write the script. He spent 40 hours a week writing and devoted much of his free time to reading comic books and watching old "Buck Rogers" episodes and other serials looking for film ideas. - Lucas insisted on casting unknown actors and actresses in all the important parts of the film - which made the studio uneasy. Mark Hamill had more than 100 TV appearances, and Carrie Fisher had studied acting, but neither had had much experience in films. Harrison Ford's biggest role had been as the drag racer in American Graffiti, and when he read for the part of Han Solo he was working as a carpenter.
THE CHARACTERS
Luke Skywalker. At first Lucas planned to portray him as an elderly general, but decided that making him a teenager gave him more potential for character development. Lucas originally named the character Luke Starkiller, but on the first day of shooting he changed it to the less violent Skywalker.
Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas got his idea for Obi-Wan Kenobi and "the Force" after reading Carlos Castaneda'sTales of Power, an account of Don Juan, a Mexican-Indian sorcerer and his experiences with what he called "the life force."
Darth Vader. David Prowse, a six-foot, seven-inch Welsh weightlifter, played the part of Darth Vader. But Lucas didn't want his villain to have a Welsh accent, so he dubbed James Earl Jones's voice over Prowse's. Still, Prowse loved the part. "He took the whole thing very seriously," Lucas remembers. "He began to believe he really was Darth Vader."
Han Solo. In the early stages of development, Han Solo was a green-skinned, gilled monster with a girlfriend named Boma who was a cross between a guinea pig and a brown bear. Solo was supposed to make only a few appearances in the film, but Lucas later made him into a swashbuckling, reckless human (allegedly modeled after the film director Francis Ford Coppola).
Chewbacca. Lucas got the idea for Chewbacca one morning in the early 1970s while watching his wife Marcia drive off in her car. She had their Alaskan malamute, Indiana (the namesake for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark), and Lucas liked the way the large, shaggy dog looked in the passenger seat. So he decided to create a character in the film that was a cross between Indiana, a bear, and a monkey.
Princess Leia. Carrie Fisher was a beautiful 19-year-old actress when she was cast to play Princess Leia, but Lucas did everything he could to tone down her femininity. At one point, he even ordered that her breasts be strapped to her chest with electrical tape. "There's no jiggling in the Empire," Fisher later joked.
R2-D2. Lucas got the name R2-D2 while filming American Graffiti. During a sound-mixing session for the film, editor Walter Murch asked him for R2, D2 (Reel 2, Dialogue 2) of the film. Lucas liked the name so much that he made a note of it, and eventually found the right character for it.
C-3PO. Inspired by a robot character in Alex Raymond's science fiction novel, Iron Men of Mongo. Raymond's robot was a copper-colored, polite robot who was shaped like a man who worked as a servant. Lucas intended that C-3PO and R2-D2 be a space-age Laurel and Hardy team.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The spaceship battles were inspired by World War II films. Before filming the special effect began, Lucas watched dozens of war movies like Battle of Britain and The Bridges of Toko-Ri, taping his favorite air battle scenes as he went along. Later he edited them down to a 10-minute black-and-white film, and gave it to the special effects team - which reshot the scenes using X-wing and T.I.E. fighter models. - None of the spaceship models ever moved an inch during the filming of the flight sequences. The motion was an optical illusion created by moving the cameras around motionless models. The models were so detailed that one of them even had Playboy pinups in the cockpit.
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS
The executives at 20th Century Fox hated the film the first time they saw it. Some of the company's board of directors fell asleep during the first screening; others didn't understand the film at all. One executive's wife even suggested that C-3PO be given a moving mouth, because no one would understand how he could talk without moving his lips. - The underwater monster in the trash compactor was one of Lucas's biggest disappointment in the film. He had planned to have an elaborate "alien jellyfish" in the scene, but the monster created by the special effects department was so poorly constructed that it reminded him of "a big, wide, brown turd." Result: The monster was filmed underwater during most of the scene - so that moviegoers wouldn't see it.
The article above is reprinted with permission from The Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader. 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!
Archaeologists in Jordan have discovered what could be the oldest Christian church in the world: an underground cave that may have been used by the first disciples of Jesus Christ.
Archaeologist Abdel-Qader Hussein, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, Abdul Qader al-Husan told The Jordan Times:'We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD.
'We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians - the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ.'
Mr Hussein said there was evidence that the underground cave was used in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.
The cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.
Debbie and Andrew Keeble noticed something strange about a newborn piglet on their farm: it's scared of the mud!
So the couple put boots on the pig, now named Cinders after Cinderella (glass slipper... rubber boots, get it?) and the little swine is now as happy as, well, a pig in the mud!
It has never been easy to be an albino in Tanzania - they are shunned as outcast and often die of skin cancer before they reach 30. Now, there is another more imminent danger: albinos are being hunted for their body parts, as Tanzanians believe they have magical powers.
But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighboring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also said that witch doctors are selling albino skin in Congo.
The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives.
Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.
When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in.
“They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands. The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.
Jeffrey Gettleman wrote this gruesome yet fascinating and sad story for The New York Times: Link
Bad idea: Robbing a Starbucks Really bad idea: Returning to the scene of the crime (for coffee, no less) ... Neatorama-worthy: ... in the same clothing you wear when you robbed the place, and while the cops are there to interview the employees!
Vying for this year's Stupidest Criminal Award is David Howard Isberg, a 42-year-old Boulder man who really, really liked his coffee:
Police said David Howard Isberg on Tuesday walked into the Starbucks in the 2400 block of Baseline Road at about 11:45 a.m. and stood in the customer line wearing yellow gloves, a red backpack and wire-rimmed glasses — clothing the suspect had on when the same Starbucks and a nearby King Soopers grocery store were robbed Sunday night.
Detective Kurt Foster was in the coffee shop Tuesday to meet with employees and interview the manager when he noticed Isberg, whose physical features also matched the man suspected in the weekend robberies.
Talkin' bout stupid criminals, check out this mugger in Bromley, London, who actually tried on the stolen necklace and admired his reflection ... on the tram's CCTV lens!
Dc Dan Arundell, of British Transport Police's robbery squad, said: "The CCTV images are very clear.
"It was quite clear that he was checking himself out in the reflection of the CCTV camera.
"The general consensus is that he is not the brightest spark. He was there for a long time and either didn't care or wasn't aware he was being filmed."
