As funny as this is, it proves what I've always said: every editor needs a proofreader. Link -via Ed Yong
(Image credit: Michelle N Meyer)
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Children on the way to school in the village of Seyatel in Russia encountered a lion cub. Lions are not native to that part of Russia, so the children took the cub, believed to be about five months old, to school with them.
The children who found the young wild cat brought their find to school number 84, where he was put in the sports hall. The director of the educational institution Angelica Chemerisova called the police and the emergency services and reported that there was a lion cub at the school.
The lion was scared and very thirsty, so authorities do not know how long it was loose. No one has so far claimed the cub, which was taken to a zoo for safekeeping. The linked story is a translation and uses both male and female pronouns for the lion cub. Link -via Arbroath, where you can see a video report.
This is an old trick, but still impressive. Capillary action draws water into the fibers of the wooden match sticks, and the fibers expand. In the place where the matches were broken, this expansion causes them to revert to their natural alignment somewhat. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The bird, a white winged Chough named Cha Cha, gives treats to Skye the dog and a cat named Kitten. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
It's finally December! That early Thanksgiving threw me off a bit, but I got our Christmas lights up. I believe they are visible from the ISS, and more than once friends have driven right past our house because it looks so different. The neighbors breathe a sigh of relief when I shut them off about midnight. If I can ever catch our family photographer home during the evening hours, I'll show you a picture.
We've all been busy this week here at Neatorama, and have a lot to share with you. Last weekend, Jill Harness posted Adorable Photos and Videos of Critters and Kiddos Enjoying Fall Foliage.
Alex Santoso gave us 8 Famous Mascots Whose Names You Didn't Know.
Tiffany Norman had some shopping advice for us in 7 Neatest Gifts for Photographers. She also posted photos of her experience with Popping Popcorn On The Cob at NeatoBambino.
In honor of the actor, who passed away a week ago, Eddie Deezen told us A Few Facts About Larry Hagman.
A Phylogeny and Evolutionary History of the Pokémon came from the Annals of Improbable Research.
The Bathroom Reader Institute gave us I Yam What I Yam: The Story of Popeye.
And Curious George's Great Escape was the weekly contribution from mental_floss magazine.
A couple of our other items went particularly viral this week and deserve your attention if you haven't already seen them: The one about Niels Bohr and his beer pipeline, the one about the alarm clock that shoots a cannon, and the one about the fox who stole a phone and then used it. Well worth sharing!
In the What Is It? game this week, the mystery object is an old depth gauge, "for sounding in depths of from one hundred fathoms." Read more about it at the What Is It? blog. No one guessed that! For a minute I thought Lord_Dissident was going to have the correct answer:
There is some sort of plastic can in the weathered remains of a wooden cabinet, a clock or something leaning on the side, and a large metal plunger on top of it all. Synopsis: it's a pile of rubbish sitting outside with a man (whose shadow can be seen in the grass) hovering over it.
Well, no, but that one was the funniest answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Here's a little hint for the rest of you: the What Is It blog often posts the answer quite some time before we do, in case you want to look there when no one has it right. Thanks to everyone who played this week!
The post with the most comments this week turned out to be a tie between Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors? and I Am Bitterly, Bitterly Disappointed. In third place was A Few Facts About Larry Hagman. All those comment threads (and others) are still open for your input. However, if you just want to tell us you like a particular post, it's as easy as clicking the little ♥. That goes for every post we have.
Until we get some front-page buttons, I'll need to remind you of our new sub-blogs. At Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly we saw adorable ducks, parakeets, and cats, plus a White House Christmas tour by Bo, the First Dog. Also, Neatolicious is gathering up more and more holiday recipes and food news. And Mad Skills need to be in your feeds and bookmarks as well. The Halloween blog is still diligently recording the best scary stories and costumes of 2012, and NeatoBambino has babies and kids and everything about them.
And if that isn't enough Neatorama for you, we have extra content and fun at our Facebook page, Twitter feed, and Pinterest pinboard. For mobile users, Flipboard makes it easy to keep up with Neatorama. Oh yeah -look for Neatorama in Instagram, too!
And last but not least, we have the NeatoShop where you can do all your Christmas shopping and also help ensure the longevity of the blog. You have plenty of time to order before the shipping deadlines, but don't wait too long because the hottest items will sell out!
The arcade game Pong was released upon an unsuspecting world of pool and pinball players forty years ago this week. I recall vividly the day one of the games was set up at the local college student center. Dozens of young people gathered around to watch and wait their turn to play. Pong wasn't the first video arcade game, but it was the one that introduced a generation to interactive digital entertainment. Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney, and Al Alcorn left decent jobs at Ampex to form their own company, Atari, to develop video games. In September of that year, they delivered the beta version of a tennis-like game to Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California.
Alcorn headed out to the local Walgreens, picked up a $75 black-and-white television set, hid the Hitachi logo inside a rudimentary orange casing, which housed the logic circuits and a coin box made from an upturned sawed-off plastic milk jug, and dragged it into the corner of Andy Capp's, next to the pinball machines, the jukebox, and the Computer Space machine. “There were seven or eight machines in the back of the bar,” Alcorn says. "Andy Capp’s was one of our favorite places because we knew the owner, and we trusted him. If something went wrong, we knew he’d call us.” It was September 1972.
The Atari designers and engineers decided to linger for a while. “It was really interesting,” Bushnell says. “You put it in place and stand back and watch people play it.” What they saw was encouraging, but not extraordinary. “We watched for a couple of hours, drank a couple of beers, then went home.” Bushnell was catching a flight to Chicago the next day, a portable version of Pong in an aluminum case under his arm.
Within a few days, Bill Gattis, who ran the bar, was on the phone to Atari. “The machine had stopped working; I was told to go fix it,” Alcorn explains. ”I stopped over on my way home from work, and much to my surprise, the coin box was overflowing, gushing with quarters.”
The story of how Pong came about and revolutionized the video game industry is a fascinating read at Buzzfeed. Link -via Metafilter
December is here- let the caroling begin! This song is from the Muppet Christmas Carol 20th Anniversary Collectors Edition album.
Who is teaching who to speak here? They probably both think they are they teacher! -via Tastefully Offensive
They call it Pinokio, but it sure looks like Luxo, Jr. the Pixar lamp! It was created by Shanshan Zhou, Adam Ben-Dror, and Joss Doggett. From the vimeo page:
Pinokio is an exploration into the expressive and behavioural potentials of robotic computing. Customized computer code and electronic circuit design imbues Lamp with the ability to be aware of its environment, especially people, and to expresses a dynamic range of behaviour. As it negotiates its world, we the human audience can see that Lamp shares many traits possessed by animals, generating a range of emotional sympathies. In the end we may ask: Is Pinokio only a lamp? – a useful machine? Perhaps we should put the book aside and meet a new friend.
Learn more about how it was done at the project page. Link -via The Daily What
Don't become so focused on the destination that you forget to enjoy the journey. This animation was produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone with audio from a lecture by Alan Watts. -via Boing Boing
Platinum Dirt is a company that fashions one-of-a-kind leather jackets, purses, and accessories from the upholstery of luxury vehicles. Other parts of the automobile are incorporated where possible, such as zipper pulls and decoration. Shown here is a VIN jacket made from a Cadillac. No word on how much this jacket costs, but other jackets start as low as $1,690. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Flickr user Rusty Blazenhoff)
If you were intrigued by the Whiskey Advent Calendar but thought it too pricy, here's a project you'll love. Instructables member mikeasaurus designed an advent calendar that dispenses a different beer every day! He made it as a gift for a friend. The cover is printed, so you can customize it as you wish, or you can download mikeasaurus' pattern. Get the complete directions at Instructables. Link -Thanks, Karen!
The video isn't all that exciting, but you'll get a kick out of the song -especially if you've ever studied music theory. The YouTube page has a link to a .pdf of the sheet music. And some lively but geeky music arguments in the comments! -via Metafilter
Kirsten Hively loves neon signs, and has photographed more than 800 of them for her Project Neon. In an interview at Collector's Weekly, she explains how she finds, photographs, and maps those signs, as well as the history of neon signs and why they mean so much.
Neon signs are a fascinating combination of a high-tech chemical reaction that seems magical and an artisanal hand-crafted good. When you look closely at the letters, you can often see that no two are exactly the same because they’re usually handmade. Plus, the quality of the light from a neon sign is just so amazing.
I like how a neon sign becomes attached to a place, especially the big, elaborate, animated signs. So even if you haven’t ever been in the store, you know the sign, and you can direct people based on the sign. People will say things like, “Turn left at the neon sign” or “It’s two doors past the neon sign.” That sense of place is what makes the best signs.
You'll also find lots of pictures of the best neon signs in New York. Link
Have you noticed that on many "reality" TV shows, the producers feel the need to add English subtitles over people who are speaking English? If it's so difficult for people to decipher speech, how in the world can we expect a computer to do it? The process of speech recognition involves seven very complicated steps, as explained at mental_floss. Link
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