Neatoramanaut Steffan Gilbert sent this picture of himself and his wife. If you can't see him, it's because he is well-camouflaged.
The story behind the photo is simple: my lovely wife and I were attending a Witches (costume) Ball in Nashville some years ago. While figuring out what kind of costume I might wear, I noticed that a really nice wool suit of mine had become severely moth ridden, but rather than consign it to the scrap bin, I asked my lovely wife if she would make me, rather than a GreenMan suit, an AutumnMan suit, and she did so. We won a lovely statue of Kwan Yin as the prize for best costume, and all in all the evening was quite splendid.
They had such a good time, they didn't want to "leave." Ha! Thanks, Steffan!
I was asked to build a Man on a Broom for a British TV show so I started cutting Depron. He is a great flyer but a difficult build. I will be posting a build log in rcgroups.com.
We said goodbye to summer when school started. Then we said goodbye to summer when Labor Day came and went. Now we say goodbye for the final time, as it becomes official. The autumnal equinox is tomorrow, at 4:44 Eastern time, to be precise. From that point on, the nights will be longer than the days in the Northern Hemisphere. But that also means fun stuff like Halloween, football, colorful trees, Thanksgiving, new winter clothes, and fatty foods!
The What Is It game this week had a mystery object that turned out to be a fisherman's surf sinker, also called a breakaway sinker, spider weight, or grapnel sinker. Neatoramanauts had much better answers. Berhard said it was the "matrix bug" that crawled into Neo's belly (in the "only" Matrix movie). That's funny -and worth a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Another t-shirt goes to DrWhatwho said,
I'm just going to go ahead and state the obvious. It's an electric marshmallow roaster. You poke one marshmallow on each of the four wires and then connect the two leads to your power source. A few seconds later, toasted from the inside out all ready for s'mores.
Congratulations to both! See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
We can all learn a lesson in procrastination from Alex. I offered to write congratulatory posts for a couple of contests we had some time ago, but he graciously said he'd do it. A few weeks later, we found out who won the last Neatorama New T-shirts Giveaway and the Dream Picnic Pin to Win Giveaway. However, the actual winners knew much sooner.
Speaking of giveaways, we're having a Halloween costume contest of sorts, but you don't have to dress up -just send pictures! Send in a picture of a costume you've worn or made for Halloween, even if it was a long time ago, and we'll feature them on the Halloween blog during the month of October. Also, the top costume pictures will win t-shirts from the NeatoShop! It doesn't even have to be a good costume -we'd like to see your funny and/or embarrassing Halloween costumes, too! Send your picture, and the story behind it, to tips@neatorama.com and join the roster of featured costumes that we'll start posting in October (that's only ten days away) on the Halloween blog!
John loves polls, even when there's no question in the post. In South Korean Government Workers Are Given Romance Training, the poll he tacked on shows that y'all think the Neatorama crew should not be given romance training because "it should be harder, not easier, for you to reproduce." I did not even see that poll until this morning.
The big hit on G+ was Custom Car is Driven from the Back Seat, which was shared 605 times. That's outstanding! Thanks to everyone who shared our posts on social media.
There's more to Neatorama than what you see on this main page. Over at the Neatoramanauts Facebook page, you'll see extra stuff like this poster on comma usage. Twaggies has an entire archive of great punny illustrated Tweets. And if you love puns, you'll want to browse the funny t-shirt section of the NeatoShop! Speaking of the NeatoShop, that's where you'll find Halloween costumes, decorations, and accessories to make your party stand out. And don't forget to check out the Halloween blog, which we are in the process of beefing up to help you get ready for a great Halloween!
The technical history of the internet is condensed into bite-sized (heh) descriptions with links on a timeline from Web Directions. The timeline begins in 1910, but gets crowded in the late 20th century. You can click on any of the milestones crowded into the bottom of the screen to bring up more information. Link -via The Verge
More and more evidence of feathered dinosaurs comes to light as scientists look in different places. Paleontologists in Canada began digging through large museum collections of amber searching for tiny pieces of feathers that no one would bother with before.
The researchers combed through thousands of minuscule amber nuggets from nearly 80 million years ago. Among them they found 11 M&M-sized globules with traces of ancient feathers and fuzz. A number resembled modern feathers—some fit for flying and others designed to dive. And unlike fossils, the amber preserved colors too: white, gray, red and brown.
But a few hollow hair-like structures stumped researchers. The unidentifiable filaments weren’t plant fibers, fungus or fur, so the researchers surmise that they are protofeathers (thought to be the evolutionary precursors to feathers).
See more pictures at Discover magazine. Link -via Digg
Every fan has their theories and flights of fancy about how Breaking Bad should end, or predictions about what will happen in the final episodes, so the Key of Awesome wrote a little song about them. Does it contain spoilers? Possibly, if you are only one or two seasons into the series. Otherwise, it's all speculation and nonsense, wrapped up in a funny song. -via Tastefully Offensive
CDZA presents 50 years of guitar solos, performed by Mark Sidney Johnson. How many so you recognize? I knew all of them through the mid-90s, then I was lost. -via Viral Viral Videos
Batdad is a Vine user with four kids and a Batman mask. That leads to some ridiculous 6-second videos, compiled here for your amusement. More at Vine. Link -via reddit
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich has announced the winners of their Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The photograph shown here is "Moon Silhouettes" by Australian photographer Mark Gee, which won the award in the People and Space category. You saw this image earlier in Gee's video Full Moon Silhouettes. Gee also won the overall competition with a photo called "Guiding Light to the Stars." See all the winners at the Royal Museum. Link -via Bad Astronomy
Now that the song "The Fox" is a bona fide hit (40 million YouTube views) and Ylvis has been on The Ellen Degeneres Show, the question remains: What does the fox say? We don't know!
Fortunately, some people do, and they’ve recorded foxes making those sounds. Wired points us to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library, which catalogs audio and video of thousands of species.
So, what does the fox say? Like other animals, foxes have a lot of different calls that they use for different situations.
...none of which roll off the tongue as easily as “Gering-ding-ding-ding-ringerdingering.”
Hear audio clips of what foxes actually sound like, which vary depending on species and purpose, but all defy translation into human language. Do not neglect to read the comments at mental_floss. Link
Blue whales are the biggest animal to ever exist -but it's an animal. But what's the biggest living thing of any kind? It depends… is that biggest in width, height, mass, or weight? The crew from Minute Earth breaks it down for you. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Branding a Baby? Although it doesn't burn as much as branding cattle, the principle and purpose is the same. In 1938, some hospitals used ultraviolet light to "sunburn" the parent's initials onto a baby to ensure that the right babies left with the right parents. A plastic bracelet works just fine these days. This not-so-bright idea is part of a gallery of 11 Terrifying Childcare Inventions From The Early 20th Century at PopSci. Link -via Boing Boing
Artist Toby Allen created an series called Real Monsters, meaning psychological conditions that haunt real people, illustrated as monsters. It's a work in progress, with more to be added. Link -via Laughing Squid
