Curious Expedition has a neat post about "living lights," a compendium of bioluminescence or biological sources of lights - from dinoflagellates in Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico, fireflies, the Sparkling Enope Squid, glowing worms, and many more!
Don't miss this: Link
(Photo: How to Photograph Bioluminescent Bay at islavieques.com)
We've posted about spiffy Japanese bento lunch boxes before, but the ones made by the folks at Obacchi Jacket Lunch Box are special: they make album cover bento boxes! This one above is the Evil Empire album by Rage Against the Machine.
Link | Original website [in Japanese]
Previously on Neatorama: The Best Bento Boxes EVAR: Mario and Homer Simpson | Cute Bento
Nick Dewar is one of those rare artists and illustrators whose work is immediately recognizable as clever at one glance. Born in Scotland and educated at the Art School in Glasgow, Nick is an award winning illustrator whose work you've probably seen in various magazines, books, and newspapers.
Now, you can gawk at his artwork on his website: Link
To advertise its Google Video service in Germany, the giant Internet company put up a "see-through" billboard made like a Google Video window and then filmed the way people interact with it.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via AdFreak
And am I the only one who noticed the irony of this clip being on YouTube (also owned by Google)?
There is a paradox about guns and violence in America - and sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to see it. Here's an interesting article from the BBC about the relative safety of American towns and cities, even as there are more than 200 million guns in circulation:
Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver. [...]
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you. They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Clever: Designing a luxury timepiece
Very Clever: Incorporating pieces of the sunken Titanic - what a gimmick!
Genius: It doesn't even tell the time ... and sells out within 48 hours of its launch at $300K a piece!
Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome's newest watch, "Day & Night," made from oxidized steel salvaged from the Titanic, doesn't tell the time. Oh, it has two complex tourbillons (devices that counteract gravity and other perturbing fource that affects the accuracy of the watch) all right, but the watch can only tell whether it's day or night:
The company’s chief executive, Yvan Arpa, cited statistical studies to explain how the watch better reflects the time-philosophy of today’s wealthy.
“When you ask people what is the ultimate luxury, 80 percent answer ‘time’. Then when you look at other studies, 67 percent don’t look at their watch to tell what time it is,” he told Reuters.
He added that anyone can buy a watch that tells time — only a truly discerning customer can buy one that doesn’t.
And here’s the best part: The watch sold out within 48 hours of its launch.
Link - via digg
UC Berkeley graduate student James Karl Buck, who was in Egypt covering an anti-government protest when he was arrested, helped free himself with ... twitter!
On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. "Arrested."
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt -- the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier -- were alerted that he was being held.
Naturally, when he was released, James sent another one-word twitter: "Free"
CNN Article by Mallory Simon: Link (Photo: James Karl Buck)
The sleepiest animal in the world is the koala, who sleeps 22 hours a day.
Next is the sloth (20 hours), armadillo and opossum (tied at 19 hours each), lemur (16 hours), then hamster and squirrel (tied at 14 hours each).
How about cats? Though some cats can sleep up to 20 hours a day, the average cat sleeps 13 hours a day. In comparison to koalas, cats are downright energetic!
Gotta love Japan! Every year, Maiwa Electronics hosts The Stupid Robot Contest to determine whose robot is the silliest.
The contest rules are simple (and brilliant!):
1. It must be mechanical
2. It must be completely useless from a societal point of view
3. It must make people laugh
From Tokyomango:
Pictured above is Papa Robopucho, a disfigured little box bot that plays the red-flag-white-flag game by himself, and then occasionally topples over and cries for help.
Some of the other contestants last year were a chorus of pregnant wife robots, a child robot that did push-ups, and and a "moe" robot dressed like a maid from a maid cafe.
What's going on with food? Rice price has skyrocketed around the world, leading to riots in third world countries like Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, and the Philippines. Two large warehouse chains in the US (Costco and Sam's Club) have gone so far as to put a quota on how many bags of rice and flours you can buy.
Overall, the price of grocery has jumped tremendously (if you're the grocery shopper of the family, then you'd know what I'm talking about):
Many analysts expect consumers to keep paying more for food. Wholesale food prices, an indicator of where supermarket prices are headed, rose last month at the fastest rate since 2003, with egg prices jumping 60 percent from a year ago, pasta products 30 percent, and fruits and vegetables 20 percent, according to the Labor Department.
The culprit? The skyrocketing price of oil (obvious) and corn (now not a lot of people actually know about it):
Several factors contribute to higher food prices, analysts say, but none more than record prices for oil, which last week closed above $105 a barrel. Oil is not only driving up production and transportation costs, but also adding to demand for corn and soybeans, used to make alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
As a result, corn prices have more than doubled in commodity markets over two years, and soybeans nearly tripled, according to DTN, a commodities analysis firm in Omaha. Meanwhile, with poor harvests in major wheat-producing regions, wheat prices have more than tripled.
These crops have a profound impact on food prices because they form foundations for many products, including oils, sweeteners, and flour. Corn, for example, is a key ingredient in livestock feed. When the price of corn rises, so does the price of feed, and ultimately, so do the prices of meat, poultry, and eggs.
Robert Gavin of The Boston Globe has more: Link
Crafster Sammi Resendes of Geek Central Station made this awesome Indiana Jones amigurumi doll, which comes complete with Indy's whip and hat and indispensable accessories of the holy grail, magic stones, and the golden idol!
The talented Sammi has actually made other sci-fi amigurumi dolls, such as the Star Wars (including Darth Vader and his removable helmet) and Lord of the Rings sets, and a couple of figures (Zoidberg!) from Futurama.
Don't miss an interview with Sammi at the Official Star Wars Blog
Meet Tanya Andersen, a 45-year-old single mother who was sued by the RIAA for music piracy, and won (her case was dismissed after RIAA's own computer experts proved that she did not pirate any music).
Now, Tanya is taking the record industry to court under conspiracy laws, and she appears to be winning:
After being sued by the music industry for stealing songs and winning the case's dismissal, Andersen is now taking the record industry to court. Her case is aimed at exposing investigative practices that are controversial and may be illegal, according to the lawsuit. One company hired by the record industry, she claims, snoops through people's computers, uncovering private files and photos, even though it has no legal right to do so. A different industry-backed company uses tactics similar to those of debt collectors, pressuring people to pay thousands of dollars in settlements even before any wrongdoing is proven. In Andersen's case, the industry's Settlement Support Center said that unless she paid $4,000 to $5,000 immediately, it would "ruin her financially," the suit alleges.
Andersen is going after the recording industry under conspiracy laws. She argues the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry's trade group, and its affiliates worked together on a broad campaign to intimidate people into making financial payoffs. The defendants "secretly met and conspired" to develop a "litigation enterprise" with the ultimate goal of preserving the major record companies' control over the music business. Andersen is requesting class action status for her case, seeking at least $5 million in compensation for the class.
Here's an interesting BusinessWeek article by Heather Green: Link - via reddit (Photo: Brian Smale)
"People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them."
- Dave Barry, author and humorist
In Japan's, oshiyas or "pushers" are employed to squeeze people onto the overcrowded subway and train cars.
They also perform the job of a "puller-off," pulling off passengers who try to get on the train too late or when the train is too full.
Why, there's a YouTube video clip of the oshiyas in action - Thanks Christophe!
"Food?" is a Flickr photoset by Zach Kowalczyk where he takes photos of food that has taken the shape of its container!
This one to the left is cranberry sauce, which comes in a can (I think this is obvious to US readers, but I'm not sure if people outside the US actually eat cranberry sauce from a can)
