This woman spotted in Thailand has a cow skull on the front of her bike and rifles mounted on the sides. But what really catches your attention is her pet bird, which alternates from riding on the bike to flying along with the woman! -via Arbroath
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The star who went viral after the Bonnaroo Music Festival wasn't any of the headliners -it was the woman who danced along with them. Holly Maniatty is a sign language interpreter, a professional who works all kinds of concerts. Rap shows are a special challenge as the words fly fast and are often freestyle, wandering far from the recorded version. Maniatty holds her own interpreting on the fly, but she also does plenty of research beforehand. She talked about her first rap show, for the Beastie Boys in 2009.
To prepare for the show, Maniatty says she logged more than 100 hours of research on the Beastie Boys, memorizing their lyrics and watching past shows. Her prep work also includes researching dialectal signs to ensure accuracy and authenticity. An Atlanta rapper will use different slang than a Queens one, and ASL speakers from different regions also use different signs, so knowing how a word like guns and brother are signed in a given region is crucial for authenticity.
Signing a rap show requires more than just literal translation. Maniatty has to describe events, interpret context, and tell a story. Often, she is speaking two languages simultaneously, one with her hands and one with her mouth, as she’ll sometimes rap along with the artists as well. When a rapper recently described a run-in with Tupac, Maniatty rapped along while making the sign for hologram, so deaf fans would know the reference was to Tupac’s holographic cameo at Coachella, not some figment of the rapper's imagination.
Read more about Maniatty's work at Slate. Link -via Metafilter
Meteorologist Kristi Gordon of Global BC was just doing her job broadcasting the weather forecast when a giant spider attacked her on live TV! Luckily, she survived the incident with no lasting effects, except for global recognition on the internet. -via Viral Viral Videos
No, it's not Basement Cat. This is Tommy, today's featured pet, who belongs to Neatoramanaut William Charnley.
Tommy sez, "GET OFF MY LAWN!!!" 'nuff said...
Thanks for sharing him! You can see more of Charnley's photography (including more pictures of Tommy) at his Picasa album.
Send your pet pictures to tips@neatorama.com and your pet too, can be featured here on Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly!
This picture was posted at reddit with the headline "This is what happens when you let primary school kids vote on the name of an animal." Spazzie McGee was the nickname of a character in the movie School of Rock. The emu named Spazzie McGee lives in Tasmania. But he is hardly the only example of folks taking liberties when they achieve naming rights, as many of the commenters pointed out.
What does an animator give his wife for their anniversary? Adam Plouff produced a cartoon!
I secretly spent 2 months of early mornings before client projects building this in the hopes of surprising her. I had fun making it and she cried a bunch. win/win.
She's pregnant and hormonal and you gave her a cartoon instead of taking her out to eat? No wonder she cried! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Biologists Dwayne Gwynne and David Rentz were out looking for insects in Australia when they observed Australian jewel beetles on small brown beer bottles called "stubbies." The beetles were trying to mate with the bottles! But they weren't drunk -they were just doing what nature told them to do.
The answer became obvious when they got a close look at a female Australian jewel beetle. Females, as it happens, are golden brown. They are big — much bigger than the males. But most important, they are covered, as you see here, with dimples, little bumps.
Australian beer bottles at the time (this happened in the 1980s) were also big, also golden brown, and down near the base they also had little bumps, arrayed very much like the bumps on a female jewel beetle.
Clearly, Gwynne and Rentz wrote in their paper, the males were unable to distinguish between beer bottles and lady beetles. They thought — or rather their inner wiring told them — they were mating.
This is what biologists call "an evolutionary trap." It's what happens when birds, turtles, moths, beetles, all kinds of animals, wired to respond to certain cues in nature, bump instead into human inventions and get confused. They try to do the right thing — like having a little baby beetle, and end up spending hours scraping glass.
The post by Robert Krulwich at NPR gives other examples of how man (or man-made objects) interferes with nature in way we didn't foresee -and what happened after the mistakes were discovered. Bonus video of beetle/bottle sex. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
Cats make the best gardening companions. At least they keep the rabbits out of the beans. This is the latest in the Simon's Cat series by Simon Tofield. An accompanying post lists some plants you might grow that are safe and enjoyable for cats. Link
The Cattery Cat Shelter in Corpus Christi, Texas, gets litters of kittens in frequently, and finds homes for them. Then there is Virginia, the cat who works as their foster mother, watching, bathing, cuddling, and keeping the kittens out of trouble until they are adopted. When the kittens leave, there is always another litter to take care of. Virginia might never be adopted herself, because she is disabled.
Perhaps one day Virginia will find her forever home, but according to Person, it will take "a really special household." Virginia is disabled -- one of her rear legs has been amputated, and the other is paralyzed. Lacking control of her bladder and bowels, she also wears a diaper.
At the Cattery, homeless, abused, or abandoned cats live cage-free and are separated by age groups. Virginia cannot handle the occasionally rough play of cats her own age, so she lives with the kittens -- and she has embraced the role of adoptive mother. And until she finds that special home of her own, Person says, there's always room for her at the Cattery, which is a no-kill shelter.
The staff built a therapy cart for Virginia to help her strengthen and learn to use her remaining hind leg. And she has made some progress. Read more about Virginia and the Cattery at Catster. Link -via Fark
Meet Walle, the winner of the the 25th annual World's Ugliest Dog contest, held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California. Walle was a last-minute entry, and impressed judges with his traits from various dog breeds.
"This dog looked like he's been Photoshopped with pieces from various dogs and maybe a few other animals," judge Brian Sobel said.
Walle's owner, Tammie Barbee, said that she acquired Walle when he was three months old.
"People come up to me and say that dog is not right," Barbee told Associated Press, "but I love him."
Walle is a beagle/boxer/basset hound mix. Link -via Fark
See also: contest winners from previous years.
A couple of weeks ago, Anne Belanger of New Westminster, British Columbia, was heartbroken to see her son's second grade class picture. Seven-year-old Miles Ambridge was smiling brightly, sitting in his wheelchair, off to the side of his class. Miles has spinal muscular atrophy, which does not affect his cognitive abilities, but prevents him from walking. The stigma of being different from the other kids was bad enough without being pushed off to the side in a photo that will last forever. Miles' parents asked the photo company to reshoot the picture, and posted the image to the photo company's website, from which it went viral.
Belanger thinks it was Miles’s smile in the photo that struck a chord with so many.
“He’s just so happy,” she said. “And that’s the thing — he’s oblivious to the whole thing but he’s so happy and he wants to fit in.”
Last week, Lifetouch Canada admitted its photographer made a mistake and said it had already retaken the photo.
Lifetouch said it trains its photographers to arrange students differently when working with a child in a wheelchair. In this case, the composition “wasn’t done right,” said territory manager Dean Cochrane.
In the new picture, Miles appears with his group just like any child.
“You can’t pick him out this time,” she said. “For him, to fit in, this is what it should be.”
Miles was never shown the first picture, and is delighted with the second. Link -via Arbroath
This past week has been very busy here at Neatorama. It's a good thing my kids have been gone to camp, or I'd have never been able to keep up with it all. We've had lots of videos, links, and feature articles in case you've been busy working and need to catch up. Have you been to Neatorama's Pinterest boards lately? They've been completely reworked so they are much easier to see and use. (Thanks, Jill!) I'm going to go over just the highlights of the past week here so you'll know the best things to start with for the weekend.
Alex was very busy bringing us feature articles last week, starting with a Fathers Day treat, 5 Great Pieces of Fatherly Advice.
He also wrote Wonders of the Solar System.
And then Alex collected 7 Fantastic Covers of Daft Punk's Get Lucky.
Jill Harness gave us a photographic look at 15 Utterly Adorable Babies Cosplaying.
A Tribute to Moe Howard of the Three Stooges was written by guest author Eddie Deezen.
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader contributed The Natural History of the Unicorn.
An/The/An Index of Confusion came from The Annals of Improbable Research.
Mental_floss magazine told us about The Poison Sommelier.
Hy Conrad presented the Whodunit: Bus Station Bomber. Did you solve the mystery?
In the What It It? game, the mystery object turned out to be a German Tarantella razor blade sharpener. Read more about it at the What Is It? blog. We had a whole slew of really creative guesses! Among the best, ladybugs said it's "an ocular prosthesis gouger for those too squeemish to remove a glass eye with their fingers." That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! And Gothixhalo guessed it to be "a viewer for old naughty films from the early 20th century. It helps to keep things private for you to view the old films through it." That sounds like a winner, too! Thanks to everyone who played, and watch for the next edition of the game from Neatorama and the What Is It? blog!
This week's Brainteaser from the Bathroom Reader Institute was called Legs. Y'all came up with some great alternate answers!
If you check in with Neatorama's sub-blogs, you got to see Alex's Fathers Day card at NeatoBambino. It looks just like him!
We want to see your pets! If you have a picture of your cat, dog, or other pet, we'd like to feature him or her on the pet sub-blog Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly. You can email a photo to us at tips@neatorama.com any time. Check out all our sub-blogs to find things you may be particularly interested in; the buttons for each are at the top of the page.
We also had a really neat response to the post The Most Hilarious Bootleg Superhero Toys Ever. Molly Carroll saw the picture and was inspired to create her own artistic rendition of The Sense of Right Alliance. Thanks, Molly!
The post that gathered the most comments this past week was Wedding Gift Spat Goes Public. Obesity is Now a Disease was in second place, followed by J is for Jail: Sesame Street Muppet with Dad in Jail.
The comment of the week came from Benjamin Eugene NElson. In yesterday's story about the horse who got stuck in a tire, he said, "Poor guy must've been tired afterwards... or maybe before."
The most popular post was Hairy Stockings, followed by A Tribute to Moe Howard of the Three Stooges and Brainteaser: Legs. But all those were dwarfed by the performance of 5 Modern Problems Even Superman Can't Defeat, from last Friday, which just barely missed the cutoff for being "this week."
The posts that drew the most ♥s this week was a tie between Baby Bunnies in the Barracks and Twins with Rubber Bands. Coming in third was the Adventure Time Children's Room. Thanks for the ♥s!
Right now at the NeatoShop, we're running a Doctor Who sale, where you can save 20%, 30%, or 40% off select Doctor Who items. Get them before they are gone!
Thanks for visiting Neatorama this week! We've got some great stuff coming up this coming week, too!
C. Rob Cosplay built his own Iron Man suit and uses it to make appearances. This photo catches the imagination! Is Pepper Potts getting a gift? His explanation:
We were in the mall for the High Heel Hike for Autism and after that event on the way out we were just having some fun and messing around while I was still suited up...
Aw, Pepper will be disappointed. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
The full moon on Sunday will be the closest that the moon gets during its full phase this year, so some are calling a "Supermoon." Yes, the moon will appear larger because it's closer to us, but according to Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, the effect is not as pronounced as it has been hyped to be. The moon will appear about 1% larger than last month's full moon, or about 10-15% larger than the smallest full moon of the year. Here's the science behind the moon's differing appearance:
As it happens, the Moon orbits the Earth in an ellipse, not a circle, so the distance between us and the Moon changes all the time. When the Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit we call it perigee, and apogee when it’s farthest. These happen once per lunar orbit, of course, about 13 times per year each. This year, the average perigee distance is about 363,000 kilometers (225,000 miles), and the average apogee distance about 405,000 km (251,000 miles) [Note for math and astronomy pedants: astronomers measure distances using the centers of objects, so the distance to the surface of the Moon from the surface of the Earth is a bit smaller than this, by the sum of the radii of the two objects: about 8000 km.]
But those are averages; the actual numbers month by month are all a bit different. The full Moon on June 23 will occur when the Moon is just a hair under 357,000 km (221,300 miles) away, the closest perigee of the year. The phase of the Moon and its distance from Earth are not connected in any way; a full Moon can happen when the Moon is at apogee, perigee, or any point in between. It so happens this June 23 full Moon occurs just 20 minutes after perigee, so it really is about as close as it can get. That’s pretty nifty timing!
So while nothing out of the ordinary will happen during the "Supermoon," you should still go take a look, because the moon is always neat! Link
(Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)
The results of the American Human Development Index are out, ranking each state on livability by taking into account wealth, health, and education. This year, Connecticut edged out Massachusetts as the best overall state to live in.
* In terms of the overall index—a measure of how well states are “improving people’s well-being and expanding their freedoms and opportunities”—Connecticut and Massachusetts are followed by New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Maryland.
* The bottom five states are Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
The report also has some interesting data, if you compare states that score closely to each other on one value, such as wealth, but very differently on others. Read the highlights at Slate. Link
Explore each state's results in an interactive map. Link
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