Anil Dash wrote a list of ten internet rules, which all make pretty good sense. Here's one that is pretty well known to bloggers. Or should be.
If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault.
That's the rationale behind Neatorama's comment system. We have few rules, but if a commenter breaks them, they are edited/warned/deleted/banned depending on the behavior. That's to make it nice for everyone else, because we LOVE it when people comment to add information, make jokes, tell personal stories, or just give feedback on a post.
People will move mountains to earn a gold star by their name on the Internet.
Well, we don't have gold stars, but we do have ♥s for comments (which anyone can hand out) and the "comment of the week" (which doesn't happen every week, sorry). Besides, if you are a registered Neatoramanaut who has not been edited, chastised, moderated, or banned, you are part of an elite group of wonderful people, so pat yourself on the back. Here's a rule that made me smile:
Given enough time, any object which can generate musical notes will be used to play the Super Mario Brothers theme on YouTube.
The 2012 Tour de France is the 100th such race, as it began in 1903 and was skipped during the World War I and II years. The origin of the race is an interesting story, involving anti-semitism, treason, and journalistic squabbling. The Public Domain Review has pictures of the event, including this one from the finish line. The winner, Maurice Garin, is the one man smiling. Link -via Nag on the Lake
Behold this work of genius. What a way to spend a day on the lake! Redditors had some suggestions for a reality TV show based on these two guys: Dock Dynasty, Pond Stars, RelAX Men, and American Picnickers. Link
What happens when you combine NH4Cr2O7 and HgSCN and expose it to fire? A portal to hell opens up and the most dreaded denizen of the deepest slime is awakened. Whatever these chemicals are, they are dangerous, and the reaction is even more dangerous, so don't ever do this. But it is a guaranteed way to make a class of children yell "Kraken! Kraken!" no matter what their language. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The longest-running scientific experiment in the world is a pitch drop experiment that began in Queensland, Australia, in 1927 (described in this post). The setup is basically putting pitch in a funnel and see if it drips out. The point is to prove that pitch is a viscous liquid that will flow, instead of a solid. The problem is that it takes years for a drop to actually drop, and has never been witnessed. A similar experiment was begun in 1944 at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Now, for the first time, a drop has been recorded!
Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous.
However, the dripping was never witnessed or captured on camera, which would have definitively proved the theory.
A number of weeks ago, scientists in the department noticed that a drip had formed.
In order to finally and definitively end the experiment, they set up a webcam to video the experiment around the clock.
Last Thursday, the drip finally dropped into the jar, and was captured on camera.
The Australian pitch drop has dripped eight times, but has never been recorded on video. See the Trinity College video yourself at RTE News. Link -via Boing Boing
When you tell a story on Twitter, you can only give a line or so at a time. But that just makes it more like listening to a friend tell a story in real time, especially when other listeners jump in with their own comments. And so goes the story Erin Faulk told on Twitter. See, she was in Morocco and bored, and heard Matt Damon was in the country filming a movie. So she convinced her four classmates to go on a quest to find him. Once you get started, you won't be able to "put it down," as if this were a book. But it's a entire story told in Tweets, archived at Storify. Link -via Metafilter
Clara Darko and Brutzelpretzel edited together 139 clips from 93 movies to make a supercut of people in movies going to the movies. After all, this is the kind of behavior that Hollywood wants to encourage! Contains NSFW language. Things get really exciting about halfway through, when the theater experience goes bad. You'll find a list of the films used at Slackstory. Link -via Laughing Squid
Barnaby Legg of Legendary Pictures is promoting the 2014 Godzilla movie with a pop-up exhibition in San Diego to coincide with Comic Con.
Rather than create a staid museum of Godzilla artifacts, Legg and his team spent three months planning, designing, and building an immersive, multi-stage presentation that, in Legg’s words, “physicalizes the impact Godzilla has had on popular culture.” The experience will open to the public starting on Thursday; fans can download a free iTunes and Android app, via a special “Godzilla Encounter” website, that will help guide fans on a merry scavenger hunt leading them to the building pictured below:
Seeing the building is just the very first part of the "experience," which includes, yes, a museum, but also an encounter with Godzilla. Read all about it at Buzzfeed. Link
Firefighter Cory Kalanick always has his helmet cam on during fire calls, and so do many of his colleagues. In the case of a house fire in Fresno a few weeks ago, the video recorded the rescue of a kitten overcome by smoke.
“I looked down and you can actually see the cat shining in the spotlight of my flashlight. And I looked back and that's when I saw the cat and grabbed him,” said Cory Kalanick, the firefighter who found the kitten.
The kitten was limp as Kalanick picked it up and took it outside. He grabbed a mask and an oxygen tank, setting the kitten on his glove to protect it from the hot asphalt. After pouring water on him and using an entire tank of oxygen, within 15 minutes, Kalanick massaged life back into the tiny animal. He affectionally nicknamed "Lucky the Cat."
Kalanick edited the video to resemble a movie trailer. You can see more of the raw video with the news story. Link -via PetaPixel
It's hard to believe it's been three years since our friends Michael Powell and Jürgen Horn embarked on the experiment to live in different places of the world for 91 days and write about them. The two recently left Istanbul, Turkey, where they not only chronicled their own adventures, but built a side project around the many cats in Instanbul. This picture blog is called Daily Cat Istanbul.
CATS CATS CATS - Cats are everywhere in Istanbul and I can't resist taking their picture. Here you will find fresh cat content once a day - maybe even more often!
The cat pictured here was photographed in the Hagia Sophia. Enjoy pages and pages of cat pictures and video. And where are Michael and Jürgen now? They are settling in at their new home in Iceland.
You’ll need more than a map and a shovel to find these cultural gems. But trust us, it will be worth the effort.
1. The Makings of a Very Pricy Omelet
From 1885 until the Russian Revolution in 1917, Saint Petersburg’s House of Fabergé created 50 Imperial Easter Eggs as special commissions for the Tsar’s family. These baubles weren’t just encrusted with the world’s most precious stones and metals; each shell opened to reveal a “surprise”—anything from a ruby pendant to a tiny bejeweled train with working mechanics.
When Communists seized control of Russia, they didn’t have much use for these decadent symbols. In 1927, Joseph Stalin’s young regime was dangerously low on cash, so the Soviets decided to hold what amounted to an extended high-end yard sale. Foreign collectors snapped up the Fabergé offerings, and today only 10 of the 50 original eggs still reside at the Kremlin. Of the remaining 40, 32 are in museums or private collections. But eight have vanished entirely. Estimates value the missing Imperial eggs at as much as $30 million apiece! Whether they’re lost or residing in private collections, these Easter eggs are definitely worth finding.
2. Hitchcock's Missing Ending
Just a few years into his career, 24-year-old Alfred Hitchcock was already wearing a lot of hats. On 1923’s hastily produced The White Shadow, Hitchcock served as writer, set designer, assistant director, and even editor. Unfortunately, he didn’t reap much reward for all that effort. The film about twin sisters, one of whom was good while the other was—brace yourself—evil, quietly bombed at the box office. Before long, all known copies had disappeared.
That is, until 2011. In a twist straight out of one of his own films, three of the movie’s six reels turned up in New Zealand. The reels had been nestled safely in the New Zealand Film Archive’s holdings since 1989.
How did the British film stock end up on the other side of the world? Blame nitrate. In movies’ early days, reels of nitrate film circled the globe as a picture played in one country after another. Because the reels were incredibly flammable, transporting them was risky and expensive. And because New Zealand was often the end of the theatrical line, studios usually destroyed a film’s reels there rather than shipping them home.
One projectionist, Jack Murtagh, couldn’t bear to trash the art, so he built up a formidable collection of terrible films—including half of The White Shadow—in his garden shed. When he passed away, his grandson donated most of the shed’s contents to the Film Archive, where the reels sat patiently for nearly 22 years.
Surprisingly, the first half of The White Shadow held up quite well during its stay in Murtagh’s shed, but the last three reels remain lost—as do several of Hitchcock’s other early projects. Today, any one of those films would fetch millions of dollars on the market.
3. Lincoln's Speech That Wasn't Fit to Print
Contrary to what your history teacher said, Abraham Lincoln’s finest speech didn’t begin with the phrase “four score.” Instead, it was a thunderous antislavery oration delivered to the first convention of the Illinois Republican Party on May 29, 1856. Schoolchildren don’t recite these words for a simple reason: Nobody wrote them down.
It’s not clear how the text of the speech became lost, but the traditional explanation is that the speech was too powerful. Instead of transcribing Lincoln’s fiery words, entranced journalists forgot to take notes. The Chicago Democrat reported, “Abraham Lincoln for an hour and a half held the assemblage spellbound by the power of his argument, the intense irony of his invective, the brilliancy of his eloquence. I shall not mar any of its fine proportions by attempting even a synopsis of it.”
Some modern scholars have a different theory; they speculate that the speech was suppressed, not lost. Lincoln’s words may have been such an intense rebuke of slavery that their publication had the potential to shake a fragile nation. The speech’s reputation only grew as Lincoln’s national stature skyrocketed. Several “firsthand accounts” of the speech have surfaced over the years, only to be debunked, leaving historians hungrier than ever for an accurate transcript.
More than a century ago, Christian fundamentalists invented cereal to promote a healthy lifestyle free of sin. Little did they know, their creation would eventually be used to promote everything from radio and cartoons to Mr. T and tooth decay.
Meat Is Murder (on the Colon)
During the early 19th century, most Americans subsisted on a diet of pork, whiskey, and coffee. It was hell on the bowels, and to many Christian fundamentalists, hell on the soul, too. They believed that constipation was God's punishment for eating meat. The diet was also blamed for fueling lust and laziness. To rid America of these vices, religious zealots spearheaded the country's first vegetarian movement. In 1863, one member of this group, Dr. James Jackson, invented Granula, America's first ready-to-eat, grain-based breakfast product. Better known as cereal, Jackson's rock-hard breakfast bricks offered consumers a sin-free meat alternative that aimed to clear both conscience and bowels.
While Jackson's innovation didn't appeal to the masses, it did catch the attention of Dr. John Kellogg. A renowned surgeon and health guru, Kellogg had famously transformed the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan into one of America's hottest retreats. Socialites from the Rockefellers to the Roosevelts flocked to "The San" to receive Kellogg's unorthodox treatments. But shock-therapy sessions and machine-powered enemas weren't the only items on the agenda. Kellogg also stressed such newfangled ideas as exercise and proper nutrition. It wasn't long before he started serving bran biscuits similar to those of Dr. Jackson—only now with the Kellogg name on them. To avoid a lawsuit, he changed the name of the cereal by one letter, dubbing it "Granola."
By 1889, The San was selling 2 tons of granola a week, despite the fact that it was barely edible. The success inspired Dr. Kellogg and his brother, W.K., to produce more-palatable fare. After six years of experimentation, a kitchen mishap by W.K. yielded the breakfast staple known as cereal flakes.
Making Red Blood Redder
In many ways, the cereal flake is the perfect consumer product. It's easy to produce, easy to sell, and surprisingly lucrative. To this day, cereal comes with an eye-popping profit margin of 50 percent. These merits became clear to Charles Post, a failed suspender salesman who moved to Battle Creek in 1895. Post began selling knock-off versions of Kellogg's products with a twist of his own—advertising. At the time, advertising was associated with snake-oil salesmen and con artists. But Post, who had a background in sales, didn't mind drizzling a little snake oil on his product. He published pamphlets with titles such as "The Road To Wellville" and claimed his cereal, Grape-Nuts, could cure appendicitis, improve one's IQ, and even "make red blood redder." By 1903, he was clearing $1 million a year.
Across town, Dr. Kellogg refused to sully The San's reputation with heathen advertising, and his profits suffered as a result. W.K., however, had no such qualms and set out to emulate Post. In his first national campaign, he told women to "Wink at your grocer, and see what you get." (Answer: a free box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes.) Within a year, he'd sold 1 million cases of cereal. With the leading cereal makers embracing such unabashed hucksterism, it was clear that cereal's connection to its fundamentalist roots had come to an end.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
"She loves you yeah yeah yeah!!"
This is where Beatlemania begins. To countless millions around the world, this was also the beginning of the '60s.
Along with the then-shocking Beatle haircuts, this incredible song is the symbol, the signature tune of the early Beatles -the four happy, cheerful, chipper, and harmless mop tops. This is the Beatles before drugs, before Yoko Ono, before the facial hair, before the Maharishi, before the in-house fighting and bickering, before John said they were "more popular than Jesus." The song seems to encapsulate the image of the early Beatles, an image still held indelibly in the minds of millions of fans the world over.
"She Loves You" was written by John and Paul in very unremarkable circumstances. The two brilliant co-writers sat down in a hotel room on June 26, 1963, and dutifully knocked it out. They finished it up at McCartney's childhood home a few days later. This, by the way, was the first Beatles record of any kind with the publishing credit rendered as "Lennon-McCartney" rather than the other way around.
All songs written by John and Paul, even if one had written 90% or even the entire song themselves, were credited to John and Paul jointly. "She Loves You" seems to have been a genuine 50-50 collaborative effort.
At the time they composed it, the boys were on a bus tour, as a backup act for a teenage girl named Helen Shapiro. The song itself is unusual for a love song, in that it is a guy talking to another guy about a girl who loves the second guy.
John and Paul's original idea was an answer, back and forth, type song. According to Paul, the original plan was "a couple of us would sing 'she loves you' choruses and the others would do the 'yeah yeah yeah' ones. Then John and I agreed it was a pretty crummy idea… but at least we had the basic idea of writing the song." The answer Q&A was ditched, and instead, the "yeah yeah yeah" was tacked onto the opening line, a chorus in the middle, and the finish. The gimmick worked and the "yeah yeah yeah" became an early Beatles catchphrase. (Paul's father, a very proper Englishman, actually chided Paul for not using the more proper "yes yes yes" as the chorus.)
