Neatorama

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:53 PM CDT

Photo: computationally.intractable [Flickr]

The Royal Pingdom blog has a pretty neat run down of the 23 license plates for geeks: Link - via Miss Cellania

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:52 PM CDT

If glossophobia is the irrational fear of public speaking, what is the unusual love of public speaking? Whatever it is, here’s the gadget for it: a PA System in a briefcase!

Link | Orator Briefcase PA System

Klingon Victory Song on the Guitar and Harmonica

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:52 PM CDT

Here’s something you don’t hear every day: the Klingon victory song "YIjah, Qey’ ‘oH" performed on the guitar and harmonica.

Sing along:

Bagh Da tuH mogh / ChojaH Duh rHo
yIjah, Qey’ ‘oH (x3)

majaq. ‘o’ tugh / jiDaq. majun.
pa’Daq jagh baH! / ou’ lo’ tlhuHQo’!
tep lagh negh ‘uH / mughato’ tu’
yIjah, Qey’ ‘oH (x3)

wo’ naj, cha’ DIch / Do’ chIj, wa’DIch
‘ejDo’ ‘el Da’ / Qib’a’ bopar

yIjah, Qey’ ‘oH (x3)

He should do the Klingon Opera next! Link [embedded YouTube]

Three Klein Bottles Inside (Outside?) One Another

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:51 PM CDT

What’s more awesome than a Klein bottle? Why, three Klein bottles inside (outside?) one another! Here’s the glass sculpture by Alan Bennett for the Science Museum in London:

It consists of three Klein bottles, one inside another. A Klein bottle is a surface which has no edges, no outside or inside and cannot properly be constructed in three dimensions. In the series Alan Bennett made Klein bottles analogous to Mobius strips with odd numbers of twists greater than one.

Link - via Mad Rabbit, Dead Hare

Say Goodbye to Star Trek: The Experience

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:50 PM CDT

Aaaw! Star Trek: The Experience, a hoaky but charming attraction at the Las Vegas Hilton is closing:

After a decade at the final frontier, Star Trek: The Experience is going where no Las Vegas Strip attraction wants to go. With a decommissioning ceremony — as befits any great vessel — the exhibit and its replica of the starship Enterprise are closing Monday. [...]

In the end, the frontier the USS Enterprise couldn’t breach was earthly: The attraction’s owner, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., and the Las Vegas Hilton, its landlord, couldn’t agree on a new lease. They worked as a typical landlord and retail tenant, with Cedar Fair keeping all revenue from the attraction, said hotel spokesman Ira David Sternberg.

Trekkies are incensed. They’ve scrawled reminiscences about the exhibit on the walls inside, and they’re calling Cedar Fair and the hotel to complain. But their online rumor that the space the exhibit occupies will become a theater for pop star Michael Jackson is unfounded, Sternberg said. He said nothing’s decided.

Link - Thanks Tiffany!

Ghettoblaster + Car = DJ Mobile

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:49 PM CDT

What do you get when you supersize the ghettoblaster and attach it to a car? Behold, the DJ Mobile:

The idea for the DJ Mobile is inspired by the song "God is a DJ" [from faithless] and the car of our HOLY-POPE. These two things were mixed together and there it was the DJ Mobile. The DJ Mobile is a functional artwork with a PA System built in. It can be used for a lot of different events.

Link - via Super Punch

Project Façade: Plastic Surgeries of World War I

Posted: 01 Sep 2008 02:48 PM CDT

The medical discipline of plastic surgery (a reconstructive surgery, not to be confused with cosmetic surgery) has its origins in the horrors of World War I. The massive use of heavy artilleries in the war resulted not only in greater number of deaths, but also of horrific facial injuries.

Artist Paddy Hartley of Project Façade uses photos and surgical notes from The Gillies Archive to create an art exhibition about the birth of plastic surgery, detailing the work of Sir Harold in putting back the lives of the injured servicemen by reconstructing their faces:

The First World War was a war dominated by high explosives and heavy artillery. Battlefield casualties included an unprecedented number with horrific facial injuries - injuries so severe the men were commonly unrecognizable to loved ones and friends. Often unable to see, hear, speak eat or drink, they struggled to re-assimilate back into civilian life. This secondary tragedy - the living unable to "live" - catalyzed Surgeon Sir Harold Gillies to transform the fledgling discipline of plastic surgery based on his unrivalled observation of the profoundly wounded and his ability to push the parameters of the profession beyond all known techniques.

Link: Project Façade | Article on Telegraph - via Look at This (BTW, Happy Birthday to webmaster ILuvNUFC)

Photo: In 1917, gunnery warrant officer Walter Yeo was presumably the first patient treated by Sir Harold Gillies, the "father of plastic surgery," to undergo a new skin graft procedure called a tubed pedicle. More on him here: Link