Hunting down the animals in each of these wildlife photos by Art Wolfe is no easy task, they've blended into their surroundings so well that even a trained eye will have trouble spotting them.
And don't let the giraffe pic above fool you, the rest of the hidden critters are much harder to find!
With all the craziness and harsh realities trying to trample on our good vibes these days, it's nice to know that watching a fun little video like Paraphernelia (by John Williams) can still raise our spirits and show us that all is not lost.
The premise:
When young Atari Withers gets annoyed with the little robot that follows him everywhere, he tries to leave it, sell it and smash it up... But this robot is more than just a toy.
We hope you enjoy this imaginative trip to the lighter side of life!
--via GeekTyrant
Old time comedy routines don't come much more recognizable than that old chestnut "Who's on first?", and lovers of classic funny are always waiting for a chance to put their own personal spin on the tried and true routine.
Join fellow funny fans Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon and Billy Crystal as they take a crack at the comedy big leagues with "Who's on first- the sequel".
--via Laughing Squid
In an apparent attempt to compete with Yelp, the publisher of a phone book listed a Montana barbeque restraurant under the section for businesses that dispose of dead animals:
Lacey's lawsuit claims a Dex salesman deliberately published the free listing under the "Animal Carcass Removal" section after he refused to buy an advertisement in the phone book. The salesman no longer works for the company.
Lacey claimed the negative publicity caused business to drop off at his Bozeman and Belgrade restaurants and his brand's reputation to suffer. His lawsuit alleged negligence, defamation and slander, among other charges.
The two parties settled out of court.
Link -via Dave Barry | Unrelated photo via goodiesfirst
Beer lovers rejoice! The White House has released the secret recipe for its homemade brews, the White House Honey Ale and the White House Honey Porter. Check out the complete instruction by Assistant Chef Sam Kass over at the White House Blog: Link
Jeff Wysaski at Pleated Jeans renames consumer goods to make their purpose more clear. Makes plenty of sense to me! Link
Hi-yah! Karate experts are able to generate extremely powerful punches - much more powerful than what could've been generated by muscle strength alone - so what's their secret?
Turns out, it's all in the brain:
The study, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, looked for differences in brain structure between 12 karate practitioners with a black belt rank and an average of 13.8 years’ karate experience, and 12 control subjects of similar age who exercised regularly but did not have any martial arts experience. [...]
Brain scans showed that the microscopic structure in certain regions of the brain differed between the two groups. Each brain region is composed of grey matter, consisting of the main bodies of nerve cells, and white matter, which is mainly made up of bundles of fibres that carry signals from one region to another. The scans used in this study, called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), detected structural differences in the white matter of parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the primary motor cortex, which are known to be involved in controlling movement.
The differences measured by DTI in the cerebellum correlated with the synchronicity of the subjects’ wrist and shoulder movements when punching. The DTI signal also correlated with the age at which karate experts began training and their total experience of the discipline. These findings suggest that the structural differences in the brain are related to the black belts’ punching ability.
Do you fiddle with your cell phone while eating at a restaurant? Owner and chef Mark Gold of Eva Restaurant is waging a brave battle against "distracted dining" with this new policy: a 5% discount if you check your cell phone at the door.
"For us, it's really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to connect again," he explained. "It's about two people sitting together and just connecting, without the distraction of a phone, and we're trying to create an ambience where you come in and really enjoy the experience and the food and the company."
Gold said instating the suggestion reminds him to keep cell phone usage at bay, too. "I'm guilty of it as well. When [my wife and I] go to dinner it seems like the cell phone is part of the table setting now. Every table you look at, it's a wine glass, the silverware and the cell phone," he joked.
Link (Photo: Shutterstock) - via LA Times
Mark Peters went albacore fishing off Santa Cruz, California, when he got some unexpected visitors ... Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] to find out who dropped (technically, swam) in!
In the science fiction love story Six Months, Three Days, the first line sets up the scenario: "The man who can see the future has a date with the woman who can see many possible futures." But can two people who recall the future the way the rest of us recall the past ever find happiness together?
Once they’ve broken the taboo on talking about the future in general, Doug suddenly feels free to talk about their future, specifically. They’re having a romantic dinner at one of those restaurant/bars, with high-end American food and weird pseudo-Soviet iconography everywhere. Doug is on his second beer when he says, “So, I guess in a couple of weeks, you and I have that ginormous fight about whether I should meet your parents. And about a week after that, I manage to offend Marva. Honestly, without meaning to. But then again, in a month and a half’s time, we have that really nice day together on the boat.”
“Please don’t,” Judy says, but she already knows it’s too late to stop it.
“And then after that, there’s the Conversation. I am not looking forward to the Conversation.”
“We both know about this stuff,” Judy says. “It’ll happen if and when it happens, why worry about it until then?”
“Sorry, it’s just part of how I deal with things. It helps me to brace myself.”
Read the entire tale by Charlie Jane Anders at Tor.com. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Sam Weber)
[Updated - see below if Neatorama looks unformatted in your browser]
Hello, Neatoramanauts!
I'd like to welcome you to the new Neatorama (all you RSS readers, come and take a look). We've been working on this version for quite some time and we're excited that it's finally here. The new blog is not simply a redesign - it is actually the biggest change since the inception of this blog. Our developer Rommel Santor has built a new blogging engine from the ground up. As a result, we now have a custom software system that will enable us to do new and neat things in the coming months.
There are quite a few changes, so let me give you a tour:1. Larger photos and easier to read text
We've made the blog column a bit wider, the typeface a bit bigger
and the leading (that's line-height to you CSS geeks and line spacing
to you word processor users) a bit more for easy readin'.
2. Love a post or a comment? Heart it!
Click on the grey heart in the post or comment to show your appreciation - we'll use this metrics to help improve Neatorama's postings and reward great comments.
3. Built-in Poll
New built-in polling capabilities will let us do quick and fun surveys to see what you guys are thinking.
4. Comments on the homepage
This is quite nice: you can read and leave comments straight from the
homepage. Click the to
open the comment window:
The comment thread is nested two levels deep. You can reply to an existing comment, or start a new comment thread on a different topic. We've also updated our Comment Policy, so please take a minute to read it.
To begin with, you can only post text comments, but with participation, you'll be able to post links and images, as well as embed video clips in your comments.
5. Keyboard shortcuts
If you're reading this on a desktop or a laptop, give this a try: Hit J/K to go forward and backward a post, and hit C to open and close a post's comment window on the homepage.
6. Neatorama Account
In order to leave a comment and participate in giveaways and contests,
you'll need to have a valid Neatorama account. Because we've changed our
blogging engine, we require that you register a new account (even if you've
registered one in the past - the system will recognize if you've had an
account with us before, and your past comments will then be associated
with the new account.)
Registration is easy, and you can use a pseudonym/screen name or real name if you'd like. You do, however, need a valid email address as we will email you an activation code to verify your account.
After you register an account, we'll send you an activation code via email:
You can also sign in with Facebook or Twitter. If you sign in with Twitter, you'd have to provide a valid email address afterwards so we can send you the activation code.
One big benefit of registering an account is that you won't see banner ads when logged into the blog ;)
7. User Dashboard
Your Neatorama Dashboard includes a neat Chartbeat counter showing real-time
visitors on Neatorama this very instant (yes, there are that many of you
on this blog right now), as well as your comment statistics and NeatoShop
orders and wish lists:
The Dashboard also has a feature called "My Discussions," which lists all replies to your comments in one place. You can reply to these comments there (just hover your mouse over the comment), so it's easy to maintain conversations going across different posts:
You can change your commenting preference - for example, whether to get email notification when someone replies to your comments and whether to automatically follow a discussion by replying to a comment, at the Dashboard's Preference page.
8. User Profile
You can update your user profile in the Dashboard to tell other
Neatoramanauts a bit about yourself. Other users can view your user profile
by clicking on your Name in the comment, then initiate a conversation
with you either publicly or privately:
9. More Neat Stuff to Come!
That's just the beginning - we've got plenty of neat new features in the
pipeline. Stay tuned for a system to reward our best commenters with free
NeatoShop stuff, niche blogs under the Neatorama umbrella, and so on!
-----
There will, of course, be bugs. Layouts of many of the blog posts will be off, and many comments will be missing (we're working to fill them all back in).
If you found a bug, please email bugs neatorama dot com. Please let us know in as much detail as possible what you encountered, as well as a screenshot (if appropriate) and browser details. That will help us out a great deal.
I'd like to thank Rommel for the long hours and great effort that he has put into the project. I'd also like to thank a lot of other people who helped as well. Robert Nienhuis of Nienstudios provided input on some of the styling elements in the new blog. Many Neatoramanauts who participated in the alpha release helped us tremendously by testing it out.
Lastly, I'd like to thank all of you who read this blog regularly - your continued support makes this blog possible.
Update 8/5/12: Neatorama looks unformatted? You probably need to clear your browser's cache. Here is Google's guide on how to clear your cache in Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. If this doesn't work for you, it maybe an issue with our static content server not resolving for your browser. We're on it!
Update 8/6/12: Static content server issue is fixed - if you still see Neatorama not formatted correctly after clearing your cache, please email us!
This video is a bit disturbing. The cat seems to never move, but it gets closer and closer. This may give me nightmares. I'm glad my cats aren't that sneaky. -via reddit
If the word "opera" brings an image of a fat lady singing and sends you running away, you're missing out. Many operas are so famous that they've entered into pop culture. In fact, you probably already know more about operas than you think. Here are the 10 Operas You Didn't Know You Already Like*:
Note: Belay that hate mail - I know that technically these are arias, but let's not quibble, mmkay?
This is one is my personal favorite: Dame Joan Sutherland and Jane Berbié sing the Flower Duet [YouTube Link], lyrics
Read the rest of the article:
| A very, very cool collections of optical illusions - wait, it may just be you going crazy... Be sure to check out the rotating face mask, the Thatcher Illusion, and the Face in the Bean. Link |
