One of the weird things about working on the internet is that, while I know what's going on with the weather in Europe, I can be oblivious about what's happening outside my door. Thursday night I got an email from the school that classes were cancelled Friday. What? Friday morning, my town was covered in a sheet of ice. Outside of not having to pack lunches, it didn't affect me at all. Just another perk of stepping through a door from the bedroom to the office. I love this job. Let's recap what's happened this past week at Neatorama.

The Big Top's Top Ten was a list of the most popular circus acts ever, courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

The Annals of Improbable Research gave us Postal Experiments. How far can you go mailing "out of the box"?

10 Jobs You Didn't Hear About On Career Day came from mental_floss magazine.

We've been experimenting with a few new things; one idea is to give you more exclusive Bathroom Reader articles in bite-size form. Last week, we had Survey Says and Musicians' Occupational Hazards, which didn't take but a minute to read. Look for more of those next week.

The Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt #23 is still open for your entry -give it a shot to win a Tokyoflash watch or gifts from the NeatoShop!

In the What Is It? game, the picture is of a a lantern shield, it was in use during the Italian Renaissance (15th and 16th century Italy). Its defining feature is a small circular shield with a hook on the back from which to hang a lantern, its light shining through the hole was intended to blind the opponent at night or in duels fought at dawn. The first one with the correct answer was Berhard, who wins a t-shirt for his efforts! The funniest answer of the week came from Blow and Dry LLC, who said, "It is a blame deflector, used by both houses of Congress, and by both political parties. The example shown is for a leftie." That's certainly worth a t-shirt! You really should go to the contest page and read all the funny guesses. See the answers to all the mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog.

The liveliest comment thread of the week was Should We Stop Using the Singular "They"? That was followed by Subway's 11-inch Footlong®, The Citadel: Doomsday Prepper Paradise, and Can a Library be Bookless? You can still contribute to those conversations, or if you're in a hurry, just leave ♥s on the comments you like or agree with.

The most-viewed posts of the past week were Brooklyn Toile by Beastie Boys' Mike D, followed by Postal Experiments and How a Key Works. And though it's hard to gauge from week to week, I love how people keep coming back to some of our old classics years later, like the 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits and the 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World.

Over at Neatorama's Facebook page, it's like a parallel world, with extra stuff you won't find here and plenty of input from Neatoramanauts. This picture caught my attention, because I had considered writing an article about everyday objects my kids don't know at all, starting with a percolator. Plenty of people still use these …for camping trips. I recall my dad going over and over the necessary steps in the fine art of coffee making when I was young, neither of us having any clue that the knowledge would be obsolete by the time I grew up. Be sure to check out Facebook every day so you don't miss anything!  

We have a bunch of interesting stuff at Pinterest, too. Of 14 boards, it's weird to look around and see how many times I've pinned something on the wrong board… it's a good thing I'm not the only one contributing!  

We're entering February next week, the shortest month with the most holidays. Next weekend we have Groundhog Day and Super Bowl Sunday, then Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, and Valentines Day all happen in the same week, and then there's Presidents Day, because celebrating Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's birthday separately just put too much strain on an already-overwhelmed calendar. Still, it's nice to have lots of rituals and celebrations to get us through that last winter month. The only real gift-giving occasion is Valentine's Day, and you can make that easy on yourself by ordering your sweetheart something unique from the NeatoShop!

Well waddaya know …if you fold Lincoln's portrait on a five dollar bill, you can see him looking like Henry Fonda with a Grumpy Cat frown. But look at the same Lincoln at a different angle, and he's smiling like a goofball. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

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What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object? The question is way older than the internet, but it is theoretical. If it were in a movie promo, it means that two incompatible people will fall in love in a romantic comedy. But to the guys at Minute Physics, it means a much more detailed explanation is in order. -via Laughing Squid

A patient came to Dr. Laennec complaining of chest pains. The doctor knew he should listen to her heart, but that was difficult, as she was fat and had large breasts. After all, this was 1816.

“Percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail,” Laennec wrote of the exam, “on account of the great degree of fatness.” Putting his ear right up to her chest was also “rendered inadmissible” by the Catholic bachelor’s social unease at putting his head that close to a young woman’s bosom. He later said of examining female patients that, “direct auscultation was as uncomfortable for the doctor as it was for the patient…It was hardly suitable where most women were concerned and, with some, the very size of their breasts was a physical obstacle to the employment of this method.”

So what could he do? Invent the stethoscope, of course! Read the story of how he did it at mental_floss. Link

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Six Scottie puppies named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Nigel, and Annalise get their goats milk in one circular dish. And this happens every time! A pup-etual motion machine? No, this one runs its course when the milk is all gone. -via reddit

Pssst! Wanna see a picture of Steve Jobs wearing Groucho glasses? John Brownlee was surprised to find the picture hanging at a restaurant.

That was when I found it. The best photograph of Steve Jobs I had ever seen. It showed the enfant terrible himself in his wilderness years, sitting in front of the Rosetta Stone, playfully grinning at the camera through a pair of Groucho Marx glasses.

Over the years covering the Apple beat, I’ve seen pretty much every photograph of Steve Jobs there is. I’d never seen one like this. Not only did it show a playful side of Steve that I had never seen, but it seemed somehow too iconic to not be known; the Infinite Loop equivalent of that photograph of Einstein sticking his tongue out. I couldn’t believe a photograph like this could be hanging in obscurity on the wall of Buck’s when Apple could have just as easily slapped “THINK DIFFERENT” on the bottom of it and made it known to every Mac lover on the planet.

I had to know more.

And you can read the whole story at Cult of Mac. Link -via Boing Boing

Neatorama featured this picture entitled Sweet Halloween Dreams a little over a year ago. The inspiring artwork by Alex Panagopoulos (DeviantART member begemott) is now getting its due, by being made into a Dwayne Johnson feature film!

New Line Cinema has bought the movie rights of an illustration that became a meme. The future film, tentatively titled Teddy Bear, will star the wrestler-cum-actor known to most as the Rock. But there is no writer attached to the project yet, and the plot is a furry, fluffy question mark.

The picture, drawn by fantasy artist Alex Panagopoulos, features a little girl asleep in bed while a small bear holding a small wooden sword and shield protects her from a monster. It has since evolved into a meme, the caption reading, "Teddy Bears: Protecting innocent children from monsters under the bed since 1902."

There's no word yet on whether the film will be live action or animated. Link

(Image credit: Alex Panagopoulos)

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Enjoy a collage of 1950s clips celebrating consumerism. This music video for "Cirrus" by Bonobo is animated by (you guessed it) Cyriak Harris. -via b3ta

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Ze Frank is back with another of his "True Facts" videos, this one about the tarsier, which I have apparently been mispronouncing. As in previous videos in the series, the facts take a backseat to the pictures of the critters, to which Ze reacts the same way you do. Language just slightly NSFW. -via Viral Viral Videos

Previously: True Facts about the Angler Fish, Sloths, and Baby Echidnas.

The L.A. Times has confirmed that J.J. Abrams, who directed the latest two Star Trek movies, will direct the first Disney film of the Star Wars franchise. The first film is projected to be released sometime in 2015. Link

This, of course, led sci-fi and movie geeks all over the internet to crack jokes about Abrams confusing the two space franchises, and speculate about the signature Abrams lens flare effect, seen in the image above posted by ‏@DaveVzla. Here are some from the Metafilter comments:

Is the USS Enterprise going to do the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs now?

No, but the Millennium Falcon is going to do the Corbomite Maneuver.

There's going to be a great scene where X-Wing Pilots 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 attack a Death Star only to discover its made of smoke.

Spock with a lightsaber would be pretty badass, though.

Revenge of the Lens Flare amirite?!?

The Empire thought it had eliminated all the little vulnerabilities from the newest Death Star, and the rebels could not do anything to stop it... until someone figured out how to beam photon torpedoes into the middle decks.

I heard Peter Jackson is being tapped to direct Episode 8, but he's going to do it in 3 parts.

Electronic bugs are invading your home! Don't worry -you aren't being monitored and you don't have to call an exterminator. These bugs are from a series called "Daily Contaminations" from sculptor/photographer Luca di Filippo.

These itty-bitty bugs with their motherboard bodies and wiry legs are di Filippo’s statement on “the invisible electronic traces we leave in our daily activities.” Like the unseen insects that invade the darkest nooks and crannies of our houses and apartments, these traces surround us even while we remain oblivious to their presence. Of course, we’re occasionally reminded of their existence, but most of us prefer not to think about them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Read more about the bugs and see the other photos at Tech Graffiti. Link

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Red Paper Heart, an art studio working in interactivity and animation, was asked to make a pool "interactive" for a party. Since the surface of water is not an easy medium easy to project upon (especially when people are swimming in it), they poured in 65,000 ping pong balls to float on the surface and reflect the projected light! The balls are fairly easy to swim through, and even when moving provided a stable projection surface. You can see a series of photographs of the project at their website. Link -via mental_floss

Scotland's latest tourism ad series features Shetland ponies wearing handmade cardigans of pure Shetland wool. If that isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen! The ponies are named Fivla and Vitamin. Continue reading to see them getting dressed, and see more pictures at Visit Scotland. Link

(Image credit: Rob MacDougall)

Carlo Zapponi created an interactive graph called peoplemovin that plots the movement of people in and out of nations.

peoplemovin shows the flows of migrants as of 2010 through the use of open data (see Data Sources). The data are presented as a slopegraph that shows the connections between countries. The chart is split in two columns, the emigration countries on the left and the destination countries on the right. The thickness of the lines connecting the countries represents the amount of immigrated people.

By clicking on a country, you not only pull up statistics, but also a visualization of where its citizens emigrate to or immigrate from. It's a large chart; the sample here shows immigration to the US, which is the number one destination country. Link  -via the Presurfer

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Harvey was born with radial agenesis, which in his case means his forearm bones failed to develop. He came to the attention of Cats Protection in Glasgow, Scotland, when his owner placed an ad to sell the kitten and mentioned he had two broken legs. The charity found Harvey was a good candidate for reconstructive surgery, in which metal will be inserted as his forearm bones. Cats Protection raised the necessary £3000 in three days after a public appeal. Harvey won't receive the surgery until he is six months old, so his existing bones will be mature enough to support the pins. Meanwhile, the four-month-old cat is living in a foster home, where he gets along fine on his elbows for now. Link -via Arbroath