This one's for all you female Neatorama readers. Guys (straight ones, I mean): don't Hit Play or Go to Link [YouTube] - via Miss Cellania
Excuse me while I go wash my eyes. With bleach. :)
Alex Santoso's Blog Posts
Psst! Got a spare $5,200? Then you can buy this lifesize Alien statue from Monster Galaxy:
Stands 7 feet 7 inches
Resin and Rigid Foam Head
Transparent Dental Acrylic Lips
Vacu-Form Dome
Steel Armature, Armature Wire in Tail to pose
Wood Base (4' by 2') Heal Pins into Steel Bracket
Latex and Polyfoam Body & Tail
Link - via GeekAlerts
Aw, too rich for you? How about this Mahogany Hellraiser Puzzle Box? Just $375.
Russian scientists have taken a CT Scan of Lyuba, a 4-month-old baby mammoth found frozen in a Siberian riverbank:
The mammoth is named after the wife of the hunter who found her last year. The body was shipped back to Russia in February from Japan, where it was studied using computer tomography in a process similar to one doctors use to scan patients.
"We could see for the first time how internal organs are located inside a mammoth. It is pretty important from a scientific point of view," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, who has been leading the project.
"Her internal organs were well preserved -- the heart was seen distinctly with all its ventricles and atria, as well as the liver and its veins," Tikhonov told Reuters.
"This is the best preserved specimen not only of the mammoth but of any prehistoric animal."
Link - via Scribal Terror. Photo (Daniel Fisher / University of Michigan)
Previously on Neatorama: Frozen Baby Mammoth
This is Flickr user Joe D!'s idea of art: "refacing" legal tender ... and he didn't limit himself to small bills. Link [Flickr photoset] - via Super Punch
Imagine the shock of this poor ol' tycoon: he wanted to build the world's most expensive home only to find that he has a squatter in the garden!
A billionaire is planning to transform a vacant London stately house into the world's most expensive home - but can't evict a squatter who's been living there for the past 21 years.
Harry Hallowes, 71, was awarded squatters' rights last year, which means he can continue living in his tent in the grounds. His small plot is now worth a staggering £4million.
Link - via One Large Prawn
YouTube Link (wait till 2:07!)
Meet Johann Petursson, the Viking Giant, who at one point was the tallest man in recorded history.
The Human Marvels has more of Johann's story:
Johann Petursson began touring with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show during their 1948 season. Dressed in his Edwardian top hat and tails he began to command a salary of $200 a week. He also began selling giant-sized rings as souvenirs. While these rings fit his finger, one could also pass a silver dollar through them.
Petursson’s time with Ringling Bros. was brief. He soon joined a sideshow managed by Glen Porter and it was under the management of Porter that Johann would develop his most famous trademark. Porter, aware of Johann’s Icelandic and Nordic roots had his wife craft a costume consisting of Viking regalia and a giant helmet. Johann became known as The Viking Giant and his marketability instantly soared.
Photo: Karsten Petersen
On October 1977, the good ship "Stolt Surf," a chemical tanker, left Singapore on a routine voyage across the Pacific Ocean.
The ship was advised by a weather routing agency to keep far to the north, to avoid a storm further south. The captain said that going north at this time of the year was contrary to his sailor experience, but the weather agency had all sorts of satellites and computers and whatnot. And so the Stolt Surf went north against his instinct and years of experience.
A big mistake:
During the storm, it soon became clear, that this one was NOT one of the usual storms with "only" 10 meter waves! No,- on the "Stolt Surf" we experienced to our astonishment, that when the big waves came crashing towards us, we had to look UP in order to see the top of the waves! And that was from the bridge deck, which is already 22 meters above sea level! 22 meters!!! And still you had to look UP!!! Crazy!
Link - Thanks Christophe!
The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting interview with Edward Thorp and Bill Gross. When he was a young math professor, Thorp developed a (famous) system for wagering on blackjack that maximized winnings. He then applied his system to the biggest casino in the world: Wall Street.
Wall Street Journal: How did you get interested in blackjack?
Edward Thorp: I went to Las Vegas in 1958. I'd learned a strategy that would let you play just about even, so I decided to play with $10. My $10 lasted a lot longer than anyone else's at the table. I thought there had to be a mathematical way to beat the game, and that would be interesting mathematics. I figured it out and a few years later I wrote "Beat the Dealer."
WSJ: What about you, Bill?
Bill Gross: I picked up Ed's book in early 1966. I got in an automobile accident and had to go into the hospital and had time to practice the card-counting technique he discovered. And it worked! I had $200, so I headed out to Las Vegas. I turned my $200 into $10,000. I didn't care about the money. I wanted to prove that you could beat the system. Then I thought about what I could do that takes the same skills. I realized it was investing.
Mr. Thorp: He started out with $200 and now he manages nearly $1 trillion.
When sailors Jeremy Smith and Tony McJonston aboard the USS Harry S. Truman were collecting Foreign Object Debris (FOD) in the cockpit of a fighter jet, they found something quite unexpected: a cute little screech owl!
Gorman and the flight deck Medical team nursed the owl, or “FOD” as Flight Deck Control liked to call him, back to health. One of Smith’s main jobs is to collect FOD from inside the cockpit of the airplanes,
which is why the bird was caught instead of scared away.“The main reason I grabbed it instead of shooing it away was that I was afraid it would fly into the cockpit of another jet,” said Smith.
If the bird had stayed hidden in the cockpit, then panicked during take off, it may have caused a serious problem for the pilot. “If this owl was hiding in a cockpit while a jet was on the catapult. It could possibly bring a jet down if the pilot freaks out because an owl is flying around in his cockpit,” said Smith.
Ten Thousand Cents by Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima uses Amazon's Mechanical Turk (previously on Neatorama), where thousands of individuals working in isolation from one another painted a tiny part of a bill without knowing what the overall project is all about.
Then the duo captured the painting process and put all 10,000 being drawn simultaneously into one video clip.
Wow! Alex Holden created this fantastic steampunk dalek sculpture out of a plastic Dalek bubble bath bottle:
The main body is made from a plastic Dalek bubble-bath bottle I bought very cheaply at Woolworth's in the post-Christmas sales. At the time I had no idea what I could use it for, but it looked too cool to pass up. I disassembled it and spray-painted the parts with a can of gold Plastikote paint after masking off the two silver arms on the front. The wheels, cylinders, chimney stack, and 'bumpers' came from a rather tacky brass model of Stephenson's Rocket I bought for £5 at a car boot sale.
Link - via Brass Goggles
Those two amazing sets of stairs are from the Didden Village project by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV. The project itself is a rooftop addition in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The exterior is a stark contrast to its surrounding (and may not be to everyone's tastes), as you can see in the link below, but the interior stairs are amazing!
That's the Pedalofit, a clamp-on cycle for wheelchair users so they can a) exercise and b) look cool zooming around the neighborhood with their new ride.
Link - via Boing Boing Gadgets
For those who want a little more speed, there's the Elektra and Elektra Lite motorized version.
Several years ago, Nick of Square America found some strange slides of young women with letters on their faces - and no one knows what the slides are for or why they came to be ...
There are about 50 slides in all- all dating from between 1959 and 1969 and all of young women. Some, like the ones here have letters written on their foreheads, others have press type with their names on it affixed to either their temples or foreheads. Were the slides taken by a dermatologist or plastic surgeon or were these young women part of some now forgotten experiment. In less than fifty years these slides have gone from most likey being unambiguous data for some medical study to being a complete mystery.
Do you know the reason of the mysterious letters? Link - via growabrain
That's not just any foosball table: behold the 11 the beautiful game, a prototype table by GRO design and Tim model makers:
'11' is a collaboration of two companies - GRO design and Tim modelmakers – each contributing their world-class specialist skills to this showcase project. Exhibited during the Milan Design Week 2008, 16th - 21st April, Via Forcella 8, Milan, Italy
For many of us, table football is a game that is close to our hearts, holding cherished memories of our childhood and youth. Its popularity also reflects the passion and love that millions of people around the world share for 'the beautiful game' of football.
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