Almost three-year-old Gram wanted to be Robocop for Halloween, so his dad went to work and made this costume. They went out for a photo shoot and met some real Detroit police officers!
They even let him sit in the police car. He in awe during the whole encounter. Detroit's finest were there to help protect a movie or TV Show that was filming on that block. While we were talking, some Hollywood-type rushed over to take a picture of the kid with his camera phone. "I'm good friends with Peter Weller, the guy who played Robocop on the movie," he said. "He's gonna get a kick out of this." The guy proceeded to e-mail the photo to Weller, so chances are the real Robocop has seen my little Robocop. Then we headed back to the first precinct for some repairs (after such an eventful shift, the paint was peeling off the suit and parts were falling off).
The post includes many more pictures, and how the costume was created. Link -via Metafilter
There are many familiar terms you read on the internet, but if they came up in conversation, you might not pronounce the words the same as other people do -because you've only seen them typed! Geekosystem has a pronunciation guide for 21 words and phrases that you may not have ever heard spoken out loud. But if you ever do, you'll be correct. Take, for example, the word "Cthulhu".
4) Cthulhu
Created by H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu is a humongous cosmic entity resembling a blend of an octopus, dragon and humanoid. Bordering on a ridiculous mishmash that would be found laughable in today’s horror scene, Cthulhu is still widely-known and loved amongst literature buffs and geeks the world over.
* The Mystery: Probably doesn’t need a list of common mispronunciations, but it’s safe to say every letter in the name other than the “l” can be pronounced one way or another. * The Answer: Wikipedia says H.P. Lovecraft once transcribed the pronunciation as “Khlûl-hloo,” though didn’t pronounce it that way at other times. Now commonplace, the accepted pronunciation is “ka-thoo-loo;” that is, if you accept a pronunciation from a source other than the creator of the word. Lovecraft didn’t seem to have any consistent way of pronouncing it though, so we’re all better off settling on the common way described above.
You'll also want to check out the best way to pronounce FAQ, Ubuntu, and meme, among others. Link
During the NFL draft in 1946, the Washington Redskins were giddy when they nabbed UCLA running back Cal Rossi. By pairing Rossi with star quarterback "Slingin' Sammy" Baugh, Washington hoped to build a backfield that would give opponents nightmares. There was just one problem: Rossi was still a junior in college, and in those days, only seniors were eligible for the draft. How did the Skins fumble so badly? The team's owner, George Marshall, was too cheap to send scouts across the country; instead, he just picked new players by scanning the sports page.
The team selected Rossi again the next year, but amazingly, it was yet another wasted draft pick. As soon as the team selected him, the Redskins learned that Rossi had joined the Navy and had no intention of playing pro football.
HOT POTATOES
As a 1987 minor-league baseball game, catcher Dave Bresnahan made what looked to be a critical blunder. He threw the ball over the third baseman's head, and the opposing team's runner trotted home as the ball rolled into the outfield. But when the player arrived at home plate, Bresnahan tagged him out. How could the ball be in left field and in Bresnahan's mitt? A quick investigation revealed that the so-called ball Bresnahan had thrown into the outfield was, in fact, a potato. In his spare time, the catcher had carved a tuber to look like a baseball and stashed it into his mitt.
Creative? Definitely. Successful? Not so much. The umpire scoffed at the ploy and called the runner safe at home. The bush league play also enraged Williamsport's manager, who yanked Bresnahan from the game, fined him $50, and kicked him off the team. The fans, on the other hand, loved the stunt so much that Williamsport retired Bresnahan's number the following season. At the ceremony, he joked, "Lou Gehrig had to play 2,130 consecutive games and hit .340 for his number to be retired, and all I had to do was bat .140 and throw a potato."
FISHY BUSINESS
Back in 2005, Paul Tormanen looked like a rising star on the bass-fishing circuit. When other anglers struggled to find a decent catch, he managed to fill his boat with trophy bass in less than an hour. But unbeknownst to his rivals, Tormanen was arriving at each tournament a little too prepared. He would hit the lake before the competition, catch a mess of fish, and then leave the biggest ones tethered to a stump underwater. On tournament day, he'd simply retrieve his catch and collect the prize.
Tormanen got away with the scheme for several months, but his plans went awry after another fisherman stumbled onto his stash one day. Fish and Wildlife agents secretly marked the illicit catch, and when Tormanen netted the fish, he was arrested for contest fraud. The dubious tactic earned hm 120 hours of community service and a lifetime ban from fishing competitions.
Tormanen's dirty tactics may seem crude, but they're masterful compared to those of Robby Rose. During 2009's Bud Lite Trail Boss Big Bass Tournament, Rose tried to make his bass seem bigger by stuffing 16 oz. weights down their throats. Contest officials realized something was fishy when Rose's leaden catch sank to the bottom of the holding tank.
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The above article by Ethan Trex is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
When you produce a skull every day, what are you going to do for Halloween? Noah Scalin at Skull-a-Day carved a pumpkin and found the skull inside! Link -via The Daily What
Misery Bear encounters zombie teddy bears in this Halloween offering from Chris Hayward and Nat Saunders for BBC Comedy. Not recommended for young children. -Thanks, Nat!
It's once again time for the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! Tell us what goes in the speech bubble and win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Good luck!
Update: The winning line is from Matt, with the entry That's the last time I try the "Knock knock. Who's there? Bananna." joke! Matt, however, did not select a t-shirt.
Early this year, scientists heard of a new and different monkey in the Kachin state of Myanmar. When they arrived at the site, they found the monkey had been "discovered" by the hunters who killed it. It was eaten soon after.
Scientists first learned of "Snubby"—as they nicknamed the species—from hunters in the remote, mountainous Kachin state (map) in early 2010, according to the U.K.-based conservation group Flora & Fauna International (FFI), which announced the discovery Wednesday.
The hunters told the team of R. strykeri's fleshy lips, upturned nose, and odd respiratory issue: Rain falling into the monkeys' noses possibly causes the animals to sneeze, so they often spend soggy days with their heads tucked between their knees, the hunters said.
Local hunters told the FFI team that the rainy season was a good time to look for the monkeys because they made more noise during rain. Eventually, more of the snub-nosed monkeys were seen, but they moved so fast no photographs could be taken. Link
This music video for the song "Mecha Love" by Hadouken is a compilation of people doing awesome things. A very few are from viral advertising and use special effects, but the vast majority of these clips are just people doing what they do, awesomely. -via Laughing Squid
Mike Szczys went all out this Halloween and installed a matrix of 70 LEDs in a pumpkin! The result is a way to scroll messages in the dark for visitors and trick-or-treaters. See a video of the Jack-o-Lantern in action, and the complete process of building it at Hack a Day. Link-Thanks, Mike!
From the folks who brought us Growing Up Heroes comes another nostalgia blog, this one dedicated to Halloween. You are invited to submit photographs of your childhood Halloween costumes, and enjoy pictures of trick-or-treat long ago. Personally, I don't see this adorable Ewok from 1985 as "long ago", but there are pictures from different eras as well. Link
Animals that live underwater as so different they never fail to astound us. Marine invertebrates may flop like jelly when we see them on land, but in their own environment they can be as rigid as they need to be, thanks to the fluid skeletons they formed by compressing water within their organs. Read about how they work and see some gorgeous underwater pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via the Presurfer
The slogan is "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but since Neatorama sponsored my trip to the BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2010, I had to report my experiences to Alex -and I might as well share some of them with you. It was my first excursion to any kind of trade convention, and my first trip to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, or at least the big resort casinos, are designed to extract as much money as possible from every visitor and then send them home. Rooms are relatively inexpensive compared to other cities, despite the fact that my room rate went up between the time I made reservations and the time I checked in. I skipped the $10 sandwiches in the airports and later regretted it, because the cheapest hamburger at the hotel was $15. Try the all-you-can-eat buffet, it's only $42. However, once you leave the hotel, you can find normally-priced food -IF you can figure out how to get there! I played the slots just enough to say I'd gambled in Las Vegas, but not enough to rate the free drink treatment. If there is one tip for a Las Vegas trip, it's bring more money.
Friday night I wandered down the strip and checked out the other casinos. Distance is deceiving in Vegas. The hotel and casino buildings are massive compared to buildings in other cities. You look out the window and tell yourself, "The Luxor is just next door -and Excalibur is the next building. No problem to walk!" But each resort covers many acres and "two buildings down" can easily be a half-mile walk. I walked as far as the Bellagio and probably put five miles on my feet. I was rewarded with a fairly nice video of the Bellagio Fountains (nice except when that woman stuck her camera in front of mine) and blisters on my feet. My legs were sore for a week afterward. That didn't stop me from doing the same walk in the sunlight on Saturday! When planning the particulars of your trip to Vegas, take your age and physical condition into consideration.
3. Las Vegas is built for tourists.
The strip has lots of wonderful street performers: costumed characters posing for pictures, musicians and magicians, a woman with a snake, and one fellow who invited me to his Facebook page. It was like Times Square, except in New York there are some locals in the crowd. Here, you can tell the residents because they are working.
Christoph Neimann illustrated the laws of physics as they apply to our daily lives. I can really relate to this one.
But back to Newton: he discovered that any two objects in the universe attract each other, and that this force is proportional to their mass. The Earth is heavier than the Moon, and therefore attracts our bodies with a much greater force. This explains why an empty refrigerator administrates a much smaller gravitational pull than, say, one that's stacked with 50 pounds of delicious leftovers.
He also explains physics as it relates to waking up, subway crowding, and hair loss. Link -via The Daily What
Just because we like to keep you on your toes, this week we have a second round of the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Steven M. Johnson comes up with all sorts of wacky inventions in his weekly Museum of Possibilities posts. Can you come up with a name for this one? The commenter suggesting the funniest and wittiest name win a free T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Contest rules: one entry per comment, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Please make a selection of the T-shirt you want (may we suggest the Science T-shirt, Funny T-shirt, and Artist-designed T-shirt categories?) alongside your entry. If you don't select a shirt, then you forfeit the prize. Good luck!
Update: Congratulations to our winners, Noah, who suggested "Colostocamp", and Hannah for "Loitering Within Tent". Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop!
Honorable mentions: CB Dragon "The Tuggie", Old Geezer "The Sleep-walker Outdoorsman", Deathbyawesomeness "Porta-Tent", Michael Hicks "Roam Dome Tent", Trevor "The Burkamper", Trevor "The Eskimove", and John P "Dome of the Walk".
