Want to like someone, but he's not on Facebook? Want to mark something about her as a favorite but she's not on Twitter? Now you've got an option. Social Planes are paper airplanes marked with the colors and logos of Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and SnapChat. You can download them for free as PDF files here.

It's a project by designers Rafael Ochoa, Caio Andrade, and Linn Livijn Wexell. They're interested in promoting the idea of getting offline and experiencing life beyond screens. Here's a video showing how people in a park responded when they received these offline notifications.

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We're not a social network, but you should feel free to print out a Neatorama post and throw it at someone.

-via Nerdcore

(Photo: Jake Schoellkkopf/Los Angeles Times)

During World War II, the United States searched for means to protect its secret military communications in the Pacific from being intercepted by the Japanese. In 1942, the Marine Corps discovered a brilliant way of doing just that: recruiting men of the Navajo Nation to speak in their own language, which was unknown to the Japanese.

(Photo: US Navy)

The Navajo Code Talkers, as these 400 Marines came to be known, contributed to Allied victories in the Pacific. Because their code was never broken, it could be used again. So the program was not declassified until 1968. It was only in 1992 that the code talkers were honored collectively for their work.

The last member of this team, Chester Nez, died today at the age of 93. Nez was among the first Navajo men to join the program. The Los Angeles Times reports:

In his memoirs, Nez said he knew he made the right decision to join the fight.

“I reminded myself that my Navajo people had always been warriors, protectors," he said. "In that there was honor. I would concentrate on being a warrior, on protecting my homeland. Within hours, whether in harmony or not, I knew I would join my fellow Marines in the fight."

The code, which they had to memorize, was based on a system in which the Navajos used their own words to substitute for the 26 letters in the English alphabet. For example, the word "wol-la-chee" means "ant" and it might have stood for the letter A in a coded message.

Because the Navajos had no words applicable to modern warfare, they settled on hundreds of descriptive words in their own language.

A tank was a tortoise; a submarine, an iron fish; a dive bomber, a chicken hawk; a grenade, a potato; a battleship, a whale. Bombs were eggs, and the commanding general a war chief.

-via Marilyn Terrell

Jay Freestyle says, "Give me a piece of your skin and I'll give you a piece of my soul." Other artists might hesitate to work so unrestrained in a medium so permanent. Yet this self-taught artist living in Amsterdam has proven that he can render beautiful tattoos without stencils or sketches.

But wait--wouldn't a client want to go into a tattoo with a clear plan of the outcome? Maybe at the beginning. But Jay Freestyle knows how to build up trust:

People try to come to Jay with extremely detailed ideas, but after talking it through and hearing his extreme knowledge about aesthetics, placement, colouring, size and symbolism; almost all turn around and say: 'Go for it, I trust you blindly' - and he never disappoints.

He regularly tattoos first timers who feel no fear and fully trust in his respect and understanding of his clients' wishes.

You can see more of his work here.

-via Twisted Sifter

(Safely Endangered/Chris McCoy)

It's a traditional way to express your romantic feelings. You can also give chocolate, which slowly rots and becomes bitter over time. Next step: propose marriage.

-via Pleated Jeans

(Photo: Neil Conway)

Inmates at the Berlin Tegel jail in Germany have to work at regular shifts inside the prison. To many of them, this makes them not just prisoners, but employees. So they've formed a union to represent their interests as workers.

Starting next year, Germany will have a minimum hourly wage of approximately $11.56 (USD). But prisoners at the jail earn only about $12-20 per day. So the prisoners hope that their union will raise their wages and provide for a pension scheme so that elderly inmates do not emerge from prison penniless. This is important to them because under the current law, prisoners are not allowed to participate in Germany's national pension plan. Philip Olterman of The Guardian describes the history of prison labor organization:

While there have been past attempts to set up union-like structures within prison walls, they have usually been short-lived and ceased to exist once individual inmates were released. In Britain, an organisation called Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP) was set up in the early 1970s but eventually faded away.

On Tuesday, Rast's cell was searched by prison staff, who reportedly confiscated documents relating to the foundation of the union. Rast was sentenced to prison in 2009 for his involvement in the leftwing organisation militante gruppe, which committed a series of arson attacks on government buildings between 2001 and 2009.

-via Marginal Revolution

We've seen Snorlax floor pillows and beanbag chairs. But I don't think that we're even close to peak Snorlax. Etsy seller Catherine Kim made made this bed that's perfect for a young Pokémon trainer. It's almost 6 feet long. That's a great start. Now let's see one that's the same dimensions as a king-size mattress!

-via Toxel

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Thimble the pig has big dreams. She wants to be a rockstar. Specifically, she wants to play in a band with punk and alternative rocker Dave Hause. Her skills need a bit of work--especially on the guitar. But a pretty face alone can take a person a long way. Maybe that will be enough to land her a debut album.

-via Incredible Things

Literally, grammar Nazis https://t.co/IvuXGP1WpO pic.twitter.com/gbLrX4x0fu

— Benjamin Ramm (@BenjaminRamm) June 3, 2014

Apparently if you're a member of the master race, you've got to demonstrate a proper command of the English language. The American Nazi Party tweeted out this message to its members. Presumably some of them were able to read it.

-via Geekosystem

It's not easy being a vampire because people can treat you cruelly. But as Chris Hallbeck points out, you must have a trusting relationship with at least one person: your barber.

You also have to shave carefully. The mirror thing seems like a small problem, but it gets to be a hassle.

(I Heart Robots t-shirt now on sale at the NeatoShop)

Deep Knowledge Ventures is a venture capital investment firm in Hong Kong. It's governed by a board of directors that decides if it should invest in particular projects.

The newest member of that board is VITAL, a computer program that examines data about potential projects and considers their prospects as investment opportunities. Like the other members of the board, this program will get to vote. Jordyn Taylor of Beta Beat explains:

Yes, that means it’ll have exactly the same power as a living, breathing, presumably college-educated human being.

VITAL uses machine learning to predict which life science companies will make for successful investments, the press release explains. That’s why it’ll be of use to Deep Knowledge Ventures, which “routinely invest[s] in both private and public companies specializing in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, oncology, drug discovery, bioinformatics and personalized medicine,” according to their website.

We’re trying to imagine what Deep Knowledge’s future board meetings will look like. Will there be ten humans sitting around a table, plus one awkward computer just tryin’ to fit in? When all the board members are going out for after-work drinks — will they feel obligated to invite VITAL along?

What would it be like to have a robotic co-worker? Or a robotic boss?

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Jonathan Coulton warned us where this leads.

-via Marginal Revolution

Color's, a beauty salon, makes incredible works of nail art. Many of the nails they will put on your fingers are inspired by the hit anime series Attack on Titan. I'm particularly impressed with how the beauticians rendered the Colossal Titan. Like the skinless monster on the show, they're slightly disgusting.

The artists haven't limited themselves to Attack on Titan. You can see nails inspired by Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, Kill La Kill, and other anime series at Crunchyroll.

Arminas Stanulevičius is an artist in Vilnius, Lithuania. I found these works of his particularly striking. At the top we have a morbid monument to Mickey Mouse that is made partially of mouse traps. Below we have a jackahuman that some hunter thought worthy of mounting, though it is only a four-pointer.

Content warning: some of the art on Stanulevičius's site is NSFW.

-via Moshita

70 years ago this Friday, the free nations of the world launched the largest amphibious invasion in history on the beaches of northern France. To mark the occasion, CBC News took pictures of these beaches and the towns inlands from the vantage point of photos taken at the time of the invasion.

Here is the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer. The beach is known by its Allied codename: Juno. Here the Third Canadian Division overcame serious underwater obstacles and fierce resistance to capture the beach on the first day.

If I understand it correctly, the photo on the left shows Germans prisoners being marched off to captivity. Now the beach is a pleasant seaside retreat.

You can see more photos in the series here.

By the way: it was at Juno Beach that Lt. James Doohan of the Royal Canadian Artillery lost a finger.

-via Nag on the Lake

Every dream wedding features a major structural failure. Dan and Jackie Anderson, thankfully, got that experience when they got married at Crosslake, Minnesota last weekend.

An hour before their wedding was planned to start, Dan and Jackie asked videographer Megan Fritze to shoot pictures the entire 22-person wedding party standing on a dock. Fritze gladly obliged and kept filming as the overloaded dock fell apart.

Some of the bridesmaids escaped a serious soaking, but the groomsmen and the couple took the plunge.

Despite this problem, the wedding started just 10 minutes late.

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Here's a video of the dock collapse. Content warning: foul language.

-via Geekologie

DeviantART member bandoodie looooooves Comic-Con! And who wouldn't? She's collected bags from it for several years and used them to create this dress that proclaims her geek identity. Then, of course, she wore it to Comic-Con. It's a one piece wrap around dress based on the Butterick B4790 pattern.