Jon Dyers is on a quest to grow every type of beard (and sideburn) known to man.
This one on the left is The Anchor: "A beard without sideburns that extends along jawline and is styled into a point. It is combined with a pencil-style mustache to resemble an anchor"
And the one on the right is Federation Standard: "Sideburns that are cut from the top of the ear at a 45 degree angle towards the front to form a point. The style was worn in the original Star Trek series."
Link - via Laughing Squid
Why do casinos have such ugly carpets? David G. Schwartz of The Die is Cast blog and avid collector of casino carpet photos (amazing gallery here, blogged previously on Neatorama here) said that "Casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble."
Alex Boese of The Museum of Hoaxes has other explanations, including:
Colorful carpets better hide the stains (blood, vomit, etc.)
and
The intricate patterns are designed to conceal chips that gamblers accidentally drop. The High On Poker blog writes, "Rumor has it, casinos make lots of money with a machine not traditionally on the casino floor: the vacuum. The rumor goes that every night/morning during clean-up the vacuums pick up all sorts of chips that have fallen on the casino floor. The kaleidescope vomit [pattern] with its reds ($5 chips) and greens ($25 chips) would serve as a perfect way to fool patrons into losing their dropped chips."
I'd like to offer an alternative explanation: have you seen the decor of casinos? Obviously the garish carpet is to distract you from the ugly room!
The crazy guys at EVil Mad Scientist Laboratories made this awesome fractal Sierpinski cookies out of contrasting colors of butter cookie dough. Who knew that fractal could be so yummy?
Here's the DIY guide: Link - via Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival
Previously on Neatorama: Sierpinski Carpet Portrait | Sierpinski Triangle
Photo: Lilly McElroy
Lilly McElroy throws herself into her art project - literally! For her "I Throw Myself At Men" series, Lilly photographs herself leaping into the arms of male strangers in bars and restaurants (most of them looked like they were going to catch her!): http://lillymcelroy.com/splash.html [Flash] - via shape+colour
The moving image to the left is the winning soccer goal by Andreas "Andi" Herzog for Austria in 1997. The goal is a source of national pride as the Austrian national team defeated Sweden in route to their 1998 World Cup.
Now, Austrian Post is putting this moving image using lenticular printing (remember those winkie sticker when you were a kid?) on a postage stamp!
Tony Servies of Stamps of Distinction has more info:
The stamp is valid for postage, although I think it doubtful that people would use the stamp to mail something. I doubt that anyone would use such a novel stamp to mail something, preferring to hoard the stamp as a keepsake. Also, the stamp is of a large denomination, 5.45 Euros (about $8.50 US), that is would not be used for typical mail, but for packages or expedited services.
The stamp is very large. It measures 6.5 cm (2.6 inches) wide by 4.7 cm (1.9 inches) tall. With its size, denomination, and the novelty of moving images, it is sure to stand out in a stamp collection.
Link | Austrian Post web page - Thanks Tony!
John of Kid Overdrive spent 3 months measuring, stenciling, painting and retouching by hand to create this Megaman 2 wall for his bedroom: Link - via Boing Boing
When photographer Phillip Toledano (blogged previously on Neatorama here) started his project of photographing deserted offices of bankrupt companies, he found that it is "more archaeology than photography." Everywhere he went, he found signs of life, interrupted - as if a calamity had struck and the people were suddenly forced to flee.
Image: Erwan Roussel
John Parkes has been hunting for life in unusual places for over 20 years and recently, his discovery of bacterial life deep beneath the oceans might mean that we'd have to rethink the definition of life and the possibility of finding it on another planet:
This means it is conceivable – but unproven – that some of the cells are as old as the sediment. At 1.6 km beneath the sea, that's 111 million years old. But in an underworld where cells divide excruciatingly slowly, if at all, age tends to lose its relevance, says Parkes.
Parkes' interest in prokaryotes goes far beyond those that are buried deep in the Earth. He thinks the cells found there could lead to life on other planets.
Previously, he has shown that the rocks beneath the oceans could be home to the largest population of prokaryotes on Earth, and account for one tenth of all living carbon. He estimates the combined undersea biomass could be equivalent to that of all the plants on Earth.
"We are all dominated by our surface existence where everything relates to photosynthesis and oxygen," he told New Scientist.
The possibility that there could be more forms of life beneath the surface than above it suggests that they have different and effective ways of surviving – ways that could be independent of light and oxygen. And if these "new" forms of life exist on Earth, they could exist on other planets too.
Here's an intriguing article by Catherine Brahic: Link - via reddit
Untitled, 1950 - 1980 by Miroslav Tichý
What's so interesting about an old blotchy photo of a woman's face? It's a photograph taken by Miroslav Tichý, one of the greatest "finds" of unknown artists who worked on the fringe of the art world.
Tichý was born in 1926 in what is now the Czech Republic and studied painting at the Academy of Art in Prague until one day in the 1960s he was thrown in prison camp for no particular reason other than that he was "different" and was considered subversive. Eight years later, he was released and spent his days taking photos of women - at times surreptitiously while they were sunbathing (which landed him in trouble with the police when he got caught).
But that's not why he's on Neatorama: it's how he took those photos. Tichý couldn't afford a camera, so he cobbled one up from tin cans, children's spectacle lenses and other junks on the street!
Link | Miroslav Tichý's photos at Michael Hoppen Gallery | Tichý with his homemade cameras at his official website
When the Wizard of Omaha called it a recession, does that make it official? Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's most prominent investor, had just said that United States is "already in a recession":
He said the United States was "already in recession" and added: "Perhaps not in the sense that economists would define it" with two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
"But the people are already feeling the effects," said Buffett, the world's richest man. "It will be deeper and last longer than many think."
What do you think? Are we in a recession yet?
What separate us humans from animals? Is it the ability to think? To use tools? Compassion?
Kate Douglas wrote a very intriguing article for New Scientist about the 6 "uniquely" human traits now found in animals.
For example, take morality:
A classic study in 1964 found that hungry rhesus monkeys would not take food they had been offered if doing so meant that another monkey received an electric shock. The same is true of rats. Does this indicate nascent morality? For decades, we have preferred to find alternative explanations, but recently ethologist Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder has championed the view that humans are not the only moral species. He argues that morality is common in social mammals, and that during play they learn the rights and wrongs of social interaction, the "moral norms that can then be extended to other situations such as sharing food, defending resources, grooming and giving care".
Not convincing enough? How about emotion:
Emotions allow us to bond with others, regulate our social interactions and make it possible to behave flexibly in different situations. We are not the only animals that need to do these things, so why should we be the only ones with emotions? There are many examples of apparent emotional behaviour in other animals.
Elephants caring for a crippled herd member seem to show empathy. A funeral ritual performed by magpies suggests grief. Was it spite that led a male baboon called Nick to take revenge on a rival by urinating on her? Divers who freed a humpback whale caught in a crab line describe its reaction as one of gratitude. Then there's the excited dance chimps perform when faced with a waterfall – it looks distinctly awe-inspired. These days, few doubt that animals have emotions, but whether they feel these consciously, as we do, is open to debate.
Link | See also a video round-up of animals with "human" abilities, compiled by Sandrine Ceurstemont for NS - via popurls
Photographer Justin Guariglia has just published a book called Planet Shanghai, which captures the day-to-day life of the people of Shanghai, one of the largest cities in China.
An intriguing set of Justin's photos reveal a strange trend over there: wearing pajamas as outdoor wear. Here's more info from James Danziger's blog:
The prevalence of pyjamas, Guariglia explained to me, was due to both the extreme summer heat and the lack of plumbing. Most Shanghaians share outdoor communal toilets and thus the boundaries of what was considered one’s home have expanded past people’s houses to the public bathrooms. Once that relaxation of the dress code became acceptable (starting around the 1980s) the perimeter for p.j.-wear just kept expanding until many people were wearing them day in day out.
This is kind of creepy: authorities in British Columbia, Canada, have found a right foot wearing a sock and sneaker washed ashore near Vancouver. This foot is the fourth discovered in just less than a year:
RCMP Cpl. Nycki Basra of Richmond said on Thursday that the case is one of the strangest she has heard of.
"Well, for us, it's our first time. In my 12 years of service, this is the first time I've seen it," she said about the most recently found foot.
Police are working to trace where the foot came from, Basra said. It could be the result of a suicide, an accident, or foul play.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/05/22/bc-severed-foot-richmond.html?ref=rss (Photo: CBC)
Meet Nicholas Berggruen, a homeless billionaire. You read that right. Nicholas is worth billions but doesn't even own a home (he stays in hotels) because he's lost all interest in acquiring things:
After making his billions, Mr. Berggruen, 46, lost interest in acquiring things: They didn’t satisfy him, and in fact had become something of a burden. So he started paring down his material life, selling off his condo in New York, his mansion in Florida and his only car. He hatched plans to leave his fortune to charity and his art collection to a new museum in Berlin.
For him, wealth is about lasting impact, not stuff.
“Everybody is different and I think that we live in a material world,” he told me. “But for me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal. Whatever I own is temporary, since we’re only here for a short period of time. It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value.”
When I pressed him on why he no longer got much enjoyment from acquiring more “things,” he said this: “First, I don’t need it. Secondly, maybe in a bizarre kind of way, I don’t want to be dependent on it or have the responsibility. I don’t get that much enjoyment out of saying ‘I own it.’ ”
More at Robert Frank's The Wealth Report blog: Link
Logólogos, a neat blog by Argentinian bloggers Javier and Luna, is all about transformation of logos through clever use of ... um, quasi-mathematical formulas. I particularly like what they did for Wikipedia and the Italian gas company Agip: Link
