Bob Rosinsky was asked to restore a tintype photograph from the 19th century. On his blog, he walks us through the process of how he did it. No, we don't watch him change every pixel, but you'll be surprised at the difference between a scanner image of the tintype and a photograph using an ultra-high resolution camera with a macro lens. Here, you see the before-and-after pictures. Link -via Boing Boing

Maze Cafe Cup and Saucer | $14.95

What a neat saucer to put under a coffee cup! It looks like an everyday cup and saucer, but just a drop of coffee on the saucer becomes a game as the drip finds it ways through the maze of grooves. The Maze Cafe Cup and Saucer was designed by artist Erdem Selek and is available now in the NeatoShop. Get your morning coffee and your morning puzzle at the same time! And be sure to check out the many other clever cups and mugs from the NeatoShop!

Hot Dog N Bun Soap | $10.95

Don't eat that hot dog -no matter how tempted you are! Some dogs are made for grilling; others are made for washing up. This dog is really a bar of soap, complete with a soap bun and soap mustard, made with completely vegan ingredients. Get yours at the NeatoShop! The Hot Dog N Bun Soap is only one of a series of delightfully-shaped soaps that will bring a smile to the face of guests in your home. Check them all out at the NeatoShop. And order your hot dog today!

When we Americans are young children, we are taught the basics of our nation's founding. But often those stories get shortened into easy-to-recall sound bites that don't tell the whole story. Most of the historical "facts" you remember are oversimplifications of a more nuanced story. For example, I bet you thought the Declaration of Independence was adopted in the fourth day of July in 1776.

Independence Day is celebrated two days too late. The Second Continental Congress voted for a Declaration of Independence on July 2, prompting John Adams to write his wife, "I am apt to believe that [July 2, 1776], will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival."

Adams correctly foresaw shows, games, sports, buns, bells, and bonfires—but he got the date wrong. The written document wasn't edited and approved until the Fourth of July, and that was the date printers affixed to "broadside" announcements sent out across the land. July 2 was soon forgotten.

Learn other historic tales that were different from what you recall in this article at National Geographic News. Link

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This is what Pac-Man would be like as a first person RPG, if you were playing it in a car. Maybe. -via The Daily What

Canada Day (Fête du Canada) celebrates the formation of Canada on July first, 1867. The holiday was once known as Dominion Day, but was changed after Canada gained full independence from Britain in 1982. You can learn more about the holiday at Wikipedia. Canadian Heritage has information about the celebrations in Ottawa and other parts of the country. http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1292265752243/1292265752246 -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr member Lone Primate)

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Here's your question for the day: In what activity were men once 100% in control, but now women are in almost totally in control?

Did you say, "cheerleading?" Well, you'd be correct if you did. One hundred years ago, cheerleading was an entirely male activity, but by the 1920s (1927 is usually given as the first year), the girls moved in. By the 1940s, girls (and the newly-invented pompon) had almost totally overtaken the males as the nation's cheerleader.

Why did girls so quickly overtake the guys in people's hearts? No one knows the exact reason. Quite possibly, it was the lack of any sports for girls at the time, and they just wanted to get involved. Interestingly, as it usually does, the sex angle played a part. Male cheerleaders still dress almost exactly the same as they did 100 years ago, i.e. full pants, full shirts, and a sweater with the team emblem. The female cheerleaders' outfits, over the years, became skimpier and skimpier.

The well-known cheerleader short shorts or short skirts became the custom. This of course, please the guys in the crowd immensely. Also, by the 1940s, tumbling and gymnastics had become a popular part of cheerleading. The guys would stand and catch the girls, hold them aloft, or throw them up in the air. Obviously, the reverse was not possible, so the ladies became the stars of the act. In any cheering squad with both sexes, the girls inevitably are the center of attention.

Famous Girl Cheerleaders? The list goes on and on and includes Meryl Streep, Ann-Margret, Sally Field, Alicia Silverstone, Halle Berry, Katie Couric, Vanna White, Raquel Welch, Sandra Bullock, and Cybill Shepherd. Madonna was a cheerleader (and a straight A student, too!). Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg (!!!) was once a cheerleader.

Famous Guy Cheerleaders include Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Michael Douglas, Steve Martin, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jerry Lewis. But did you know four U.S. presidents were once cheerleaders? It's true, can you guess who they were?

Former president George W. Bush was the head cheerleader for Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts.

Ronald Reagan, "The Gipper" himself, was a cheerleader at Eureka College.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was actually a cheerleader at West Point Academy.

And Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a sad twist of irony, was actually a cheerleader at Harvard in the early part of the 20th century, long before polio befell him.

(YouTube link)

Special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen created cinema monsters and other creatures for decades. In this video, you'll find every one of them, presented in chronological order. See a list of them at the associated website. Link -via Boing Boing

Good magazine has a post entitled The Eternal Shame of Your First Online Handle, in which people share how they selected their first internet pseudonym. In the last few years, more and more people are using their real names online instead of anonymous identifiers.

Those of us who came of age alongside AOL must contend with something even more incriminating than a lifelong Google profile: A trail of discarded online aliases, each a distillation of how we viewed ourselves and our place in the world at the time of sign-on. The dawn of the Internet was an open invitation to free ourselves from the names our parents gave us and forge self-made identities divorced from our reputations IRL.

Here at Neatorama, every author either uses their real name or a made up name that sounds like a real name so they don't have to explain it (except for me, which means I am a dinosaur in internet terms). However, the majority of our commenters use pseudonyms. Would you like to share with us the story of how you selected it -or the story of some abandoned name you once used? Link -via Metafilter

The Dickin Medal is a British award given to animals who served faithfully in wartime. Buzzfeed listed the stories of one cat, several dogs and a surprising number of pigeons who were so honored. One of those pigeons was named G.I. Joe.

G.I. Joe was enlisted in the United States Army Pigeon Service and went on to save the lives of the villagers of Calvi Vecchia, Italy, as well as the British troops occupying it. This village was going to be bombarded by Allied forces, but he delivered the message just in time to prevent it. He was awarded the Dickin Medal for gallantry in November 1946.

Link

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The footage is from a webcam mounted outside the CFHT astronomical observatory in Hawaii (another view of it from a different webcam can be found here; sadly, both webcams are on Mauna Kea, not Haleakala). You see some stars and the horizon, then suddenly an ethereal pale arc pops into view. It rapidly expands into a thin circular shell, then fades away as it fills the view. The whole thing takes a few minutes to expand; you can see the stars moving during the event (some of the pixels on the webcam are very sensitive and make stationary "hot spots" in the field of view).

So what is it? Is it a trans-dimensional portal into the future, some wormhole from the Pegasus galaxy, or two alien spaceships battling it out?

Dr. Phil Plait followed forum discussions of the event and explains how online astronomy geeks figured out the source of the sight. Link

Our earth is a dynamic place that moves and changes with no regard to humans or anyone else. Every once in a while, those changes occur rapidly and powerfully. Cracked looks at five events that left behind some serious scars, like the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa.

The blast was the equivalent of 200 megatons of TNT. For perspective, the largest explosion ever made by humans was the detonation of a Russian hydrogen bomb, which was 50 megatons. That blast broke windows in buildings 560 miles away. Krakatoa was four times that; the cloud it generated wiped entire villages off the map 25 miles away and created a tsunami that traveled all the way to South Africa. That wasn't all Krakatoa's neighbors got for their birthday that year; giant pieces of rock and coral reef fell from the sky as well.

Now get this: Krakatoa is only number five on the list. Link

The latest do-it-yourself project from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories is this footstool made in the shape of a 555 timer chip. It's a heavy-duty design, made from plywood, glue, and paint. Link -via Laughing Squid

A meme finds its way into toenail art. I honestly envy anyone who has the time to do something like this. Link

The Marble Caverns, as the name translates to English, are in General Carrera, a lake that straddles the border of Argentina and Chile. The lake has thrown gravel against the blue marble cliffs for millions of years, gradually carving these beautiful grottos. See more pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

(Image credit: Flickr member Nicolas Aracena)