Look at the size of this moth -it's 11 inches across! This is the Atlas moth, the largest moth species in the world. The wings have transparent "windows" that are not holes, but translucent tissue. See many more pictures of this gorgeous moth at Environmental Graffiti. Link
Hans Feldmeier received a can of lard from supplies distributed to Germans by the United States after World War II. He stashed it away and never opened the can. Feldmeier, who lives in Warnemünde, Germany, near the Baltic Sea, recently found the can and took it to authorities to see if it was still edible.
“Overall, the product has a degree of freshness and material composition necessary to be assessed to be satisfactory after 64 years,” according to the State Office for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Security.
The authorities did, however, find minor deficiencies in the lard’s smell and taste, discovering that it was slightly gritty and appeared old, meaning it could not compete with the quality of a fresh sample. Still, it appeared to be fit for human consumption, they said.
The office credited the air-tight US can and preservatives for maintaining the lard in such pristine condition over the years.
Feldmeier was delighted to hear of the unusually successful preservation, but when he requested his can back from the agency, they gave it back to him empty. Link
You've heard of these people -because they wanted you to! Here are some pointers in the art of publicity from history's greatest masters of hype.
KILL OFF YOUR RIVALS | Benjamin Franklin
During colonial times, the almanac business was cutthroat. The books were the bestsellers of their day -fun compendiums full of facts and witticisms. So, in 1732, Benjamin Franklin decided to enter the game with Poor Richard's Almanack. In an early edition, Franklin jokingly predicted that rival almanac writer Titan Leeds would die on October 17, 1733 at 3:29 PM, the very instance of a conjunction of the Sun and Mercury.
Humorless, Leeds took the bait and ridiculed Franklin publicly. The response only generated more press for Poor Richard's Almanack, turning it into a best seller. After October 17 came and went, and Leeds was still breathing, Franklin kept up the gag, claiming Leeds was dead and pretenders were writing under his name. Five years later, when Leeds finally passed away for real, Franklin thanked the imposters for stopping their ruse. By then, Poor Richard's Almanack had made Franklin a rich man many times over.
STAND ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANT ... TURTLES | Salvador and Gala Dali
Though notorious in Europe, Salvador Dali and his savvy wife, Gala, weren't famous in the United States until 1941, when they took the nation by metaphysical storm. To introduce themselves to Americans, the Dalis threw an unforgettably weird party in Pebble Beach, California, called "Night in a Surrealist Forest." Dali decked the room with 12,000 shoes, 2,000 pine trees, 24 animal heads, 24 mannequins, and a wrecked car. His guest list ranged from A-list stars, such as Clark Gable, to wild animals, including a baby tiger. At one point in the evening, Bob Hope screamed when, after removing the dome from a plate, a toad leapt out at him. After the bizarre bash, Dali conducted an interview for American Weekly from a tall chair -its legs resting on the backs of four giant turtles. Gala claimed the chair "stimulates the artist's creative powers."
This Super Bowl commercial from Budweiser Canada features two recreational league hockey teams in Port Credit, Ontario. No, it's not an original idea, but it is done well in this instance. The ad will not be broadcast in the U.S. so we have to show it to you here. -via Buzzfeed
Methodist Hospital in Houston has some advice for football fans who are looking forward to the Super Bowl this Sunday: don't forget to pee.
"During most sporting events people will get up and use the restroom during the commercials and not have any problem," said Dr. Jeff Kalina, associate medical director of emergency medicine at Methodist. "However, most of the time the commercials are the best part of the Super Bowl, so we have seen people who have to come in and have a catheter put in to relieve themselves."
Super Bowl TV ads: Annoying and dangerous.
Methodist says "people who drink too much and fail to get up and go to the bathroom can also develop a problem called urinary retention, a condition where the bladder gets so full that the muscles are not strong enough to generate a stream."
President Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt on March 30, 1981. This picture was taken shortly before the incident.
The man in the white raincoat is Secret Service agent Jerry Parr; after the shooting, it was Parr who pushed Reagan into a limousine, noticed he was bleeding, and directed the driver to take them to a hospital, probably saving Reagan’s life.
Parr had been inspired to pursue his career by the 1939 film The Code of the Secret Service, in which dashing agent “Brass” Bancroft survives a shooting in Mexico. Bancroft was played by a 28-year-old Ronald Reagan.
You have to wonder what Jerry Parr thought of the coincidence. According to the book Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, Parr believed afterward that saving the president's life was God's plan for him. When he retired from the Secret Service, he became a minister. Link -via Nag on the Lake
If you're so broke that you must stoop to buying a card that screams "economy!" on the front, then you're better off making one from bubblegum wrappers, or not sending one at all.
Cheekily, the message inside reads "My love for you is priceless!"
The card costs 7p. However much that is in American cents, it's pretty cheap. Link -via Metafilter
The word is in: Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his den today up at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and saw his shadow, which means the groundhog crawled back into his den and that forecasts six more weeks of winter weather. If you don't live in Pennsylvania, your groundhog may vary.
We here at Neatorama have a soft spot for silly holidays, including Groundhog Day, so much that I learned how to spell Punxsutawney without copying. We also like the movie named after the tradition. Stacy wrote about it in 2009 in Movie Trivia: Groundhog Day.
This picture was taken yesterday in Mirabel, Quebec. There was some discussion of its location at reddit, where we are assured that in France, stop signs say "Stop" instead of "Arret." Link -via reddit
This Photoshop disaster looks as if someone noticed it was 5PM and went home, fully intending to finish the job the next day, but hit publish out of habit. See the entire screenshot from the J. Crew online catalog (which shows where her hair ended up) at PSDisasters. Link
On February 2 every year, we watch the skies to see if they are clear enough to throw a scary shadow over our local groundhogs. But how much do you really know about these rodents? They’re not endangered, they don’t chuck wood, and they’re not all that great at predicting weather. On the one day of the year that we pay attention to groundhogs, find out more about the habitat and lifestyle of these critters at Environmental Graffiti. Link
You may or may not already know that Neatorama author John Farrier is also a librarian. The two jobs aren't as different as you may think! He wrote about the process of "content curation" in an essay on the skills librarians need and develop in the digital information age. For Neatorama, John sifts through an amazing amount of internet material in order to find the neatest items for the site, then condenses them down to bite-size while still giving just enough information for you to decide whether a link is worth exploring further.
Does all of this sound familiar? It’s what reference librarians do every day. We navigate the world of information to find the best content for our patrons in a timely manner. Have we discerned what the patron is looking for? What are the best sources for it available? Can we get to it quickly? How do we effectively present it to the patron? These are questions that reference librarians ask and answer during the reference interviewing process. They’re also what content curators do.
I’ve noticed that my mental habits and thought processes as a librarian have served me well as a content curator. Many, possibly most, curators are trained as freelance writers, so they know how to write in an amusing and witty manner. That’s important. But my ability to find content efficiently with the readers’ preferences in mind – a skill formed and honed at the reference desk – has given me an edge in the curation business. So I’m proposing that librarians look at digital content curation as a potential career.
You can read more about what goes into content curation, both in blogs and in libraries, at Library Journal. Link
Those who jot the date down in a certain style today may have noticed that it is 2-1-12. Fans of the Canadian rock group Rush are celebrating the date as it is written by listening to the 1976 album 2112. Or any of their favorite Rush songs.
Hopefully most of you know that today’s date is Feb. 1, 2012. Or 2.1.12. If you’re a Rush fan, there’s a good chance that you’re geeking out over the fact that it’s as close as you’re going to get to the year 2112 — barring any success achieving the same immortality already enjoyed by Rock Gods Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart.
“2112? is, of course, the conceptual title track of the veteran Canadian rock trio’s masterful prog rock epic and breakthrough album from 1976 that, when boiled down from it’s far-out, intergalactic plot, basically sets the idea of individual versus the state. More important: it freakin’ rocks!
If you don't have your favorite Rush songs handy, you can listen to eleven fine selections at Reverb. Link -via Rush is a Band
