Neatorama

Posted: 09 Sep 2008 03:17 AM CDT

Did you know that the current US flag was designed by a high school student for a class project? (He got a B, though his teacher changed it to an A after Congress accepted it as the national flag!). Did you know that the Libyan flag is green (and nothing but green) or that the precursor to the Philippines flag had a Jolly Roger? Read on ...

1. Flag of the United States: The Stars and Stripes

Supposedly, it was George Washington himself who proclaimed "We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty."

Lower Left: Colonial Flag, used chiefly by Colonies of New England before the Revolutionary War. Lower Right: Bunker Hill Flag, used by New England troops at the battle of Bunker Hill. Upper Left: Pine Tree Flag of the Navy, used by the American ships early in the Revolutionary War. Upper Right: Rattlesnake flag, used early in Revolutionary War. Center Left: First National Flag, used in 1776, before the Declaration of Independence. Center Right: The Present "Star Spangled Banner" (Image: History of the US, a high school text book in 1885 [wikipedia])

At the time of the signing of the Declaration Independence, the United States of America had no official national flag. The Grand Union Flag is considered to be the first national flag of the United States, though it didn't have any official status.

In 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution stating that the national flag of the United States has 13 red and white stripes, and 13 white stars in a blue field. But it didn't specify the arrangement of the stars. One popular story is that George Washington asked Betsy Ross to design and sew the flag (Betsy decided to use a 5-pointed star instead of 6 to save time). Though this story is accepted as historical fact by most Americans, historians doubted it as the only evidence was the words of her only surviving grandson.

Since then, a new star is added to the flag when a new state joined the Union (in 1795, 2 stars and 2 stripes were added when Kentucky and Vermont became states, but the number of stripes subsequently reverted back to 13).

When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood, people sent in more than 1,500 new flag designs to President Eisenhower. One of the designs was submitted by a 17-year-old high school student named Bob Heft, who first created it as a school project. He got a B- for it (for "lack of originality"), though his teacher agreed to change his grade if his design was accepted. When Bob's flag design was chosen, his teacher changed the grade to an A! (Source)

2. The Flag of Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south-central Asia. It is not particularly rich in natural resources, but its geographical location made it a crossroad between the East and the West. Throughout history, Afghanistan has probably seen more wars and conquests than any other piece of land in the world.

A true reflection of its history, the Afghan national flag has had more changes during the 20th century than flags of any other countries in the world.

Phew. Image credit: Wikipedia

3. Flag of the United Kingdom: the Union Jack

Image credit: Guilherme Paula [wikipedia]

The national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the royal banner known as the Union Flag or more popularly the Union Jack. Its current design is the combination of the red Cross of St. George (patron saint of England), the ~~white~~ red Saltire (or X-shaped cross) of St. Patrick of Ireland and the white Saltire of Saint Andrew of Scotland.

Why is it called the Union Jack? Some people say because it was named after King James I of Great Britain (after Jacobus, Latin for James) who introduced the flag; others say that the "jack" refers to the jackstaff, a small pole in the bow of the ship used to fly flags - and since Britain's navy was formidable, the name Union Jack stuck.

If you look closely at the Union Jack, you'll notice that the diagonal red and white stripes aren't symmetrical. Here's the story behind it:

In 1801, an Act of Union which made Ireland a co-equal member of the United Kingdom made it necessary to add a symbol for Ireland to the flag, but without obliterating any of the existing symbols. If the St. Patrick's cross had been centered on the diagonal stripes, then St. Andrew's cross would have been relegated to an inferior position, basically serving only as a border for St. Patrick's. But Scotland was the senior of the two kingdoms, so this was unsatisfactory. The solution was to divide the diagonal stripes diagonally, so that the red St. Patrick's cross would take up only half of each stripe, and so that half devoted to St. Andrew would take the place of honor. Thus, in the two hoist quarters, the white St. Andrew's cross occupies the upper position, and in the two fly quarters, the red St. Patrick's cross occupies the upper position. (Source)

But what happened to Wales? The Flag of Wales, The Red Dragon or Y Ddraig Goch, isn't represented in the Union Jack because Wales was annexed by England in 1282. With the Laws in Wales Act 1535 - 1542, it is legally part of the Kingdom of England and thus represented under the St. George's Cross flag.

4. Flag of Albania

Albania has one of the most kick ass flags around: the two-headed eagle design was derived from a 15th century Albanian warrior named Gjergj Skanderbeg, the Dragon of Albania (who, ironically, had a two-headed eagle as a seal, not a dragon). Skanderbeg, in turn, got the design from an ancient Byzantine heraldry.

The evolution of the flag of Albania is as follows:

5. Flag of Libya

The flag of Libya is ... green. Green, and nothing but green - in fact, it's the only national flag in the world with only one color and no design or insignia. Green is the traditional color of Islam, the state religion of Libya, and also symbolizes Gaddafi's "Green Revolution," where he overthrew the Libyan monarchy in 1969.

6. Flag of the Seychelles

Seychelles is an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean east of Africa. The country has 3 flags since its independence in 1976 from the British Commonwealth.

In the current flag, the blue band represents the sky and the sea that surrounds the island nation, the yellow band is the sun, the red symbolizes the people, the white band represents social justice and harmony, and the green band depicts the country's land and nature.

7. Flag of the Philippines

The present-day national flag of the Philippines has elements of the flags flown by the Katipunan secret society during the Philippine Revolution. The Pambansang bandila ("National Flag") was first conceptualized by General Emilio Aguinaldo during his exile in Hong Kong in 1897 and hand sewn by Marcela Agoncillo, her daughter Lorenzo and a friend named Josefina Herbosa de Natividad.

Though the Katipunan flags aren't considered national flags (and thus not a direct precursor of the current flag), their varieties and designs deserve a mention (plus what other national flag has a Jolly Roger?)

Some of the Katipunan generals have their own personal flags:

Anyway, here is the evolution of the Philippine national flag:

Actually, the blue color has been changed at least 5 times in the Philippines flag (read more about the blue shade debate here)

Obviously this article is woefully incomplete. There 193 recognized countries (more if you count special entities and territories) in the world, and we've only covered a handful. So if your country isn't listed and you think that its flag deserves a mention, please write about it in the comment section.

Attack of the Killer Balloons

Posted: 09 Sep 2008 02:20 AM CDT

The following is reprinted from Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again

During World War II, Japan had a secret weapon designed to spark a massive forest fire in the United States. Thanksfully, the device - which was partly made by Japanese schoolgirls - was a dud. Here's the bizarre story of the Fugo killer balloons:

On May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell, his wife Elsie, and five children from his Sunday school drove from the tiny southern Oregon town of Bly for a picnic on Gearhart Mountain. While Reverend Mitchell parked the car, his wife and the children explore. They came upon a device the U.S. government knew about but had kept secret. When one of them touched the device, it exploded: Mrs. Mitchell and the five children were killed. The six Oregonians became the only known fatalities on the U.S. mainland from enemy attack during all of World War II.

MADE IN JAPAN

The exploding contraption was a Japanese Fugo balloon bomb, the brainchild of Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba of the Japanese Ninth Army Technical Research Laboratory. The balloons measured 33 feet across and 70 feet long from top to bomb. They were constructed (by Japanese schoolgirls) from bits of a tough paper called washi, made from mulberry trees, and glued together with potato paste. The bomb parts were made in a factory - not by schoolgirls.

Filled with hydrogen gas, the payload consisted of 36 sandbags for ballast, four incendiary bombs, and one 33-pound antipersonnel bomb. Launched to rise 35,000 feet, the balloons were designed to use the prevailing Pacific eastward winds to reach the west coast of North America. As the balloons leaked gas and lost altitude, barometric pressure switches caused the sandbags to drop off and the balloons to rise back to the jetstream. The trip took three to five days. By the time they reached the United States, the baloons, now out of sandbags, were supposed to drop the bombs and then self-destruct. The Japanese hoped the bomb would cause forest fires and panic the American public.

FUGO, FUGO, FUGO!

Between October 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched 9,300 of these balloons. Estimates are that fewer than 500 balloons reached the United States or Canada; the rest fell into the Pacific Ocean.

In November 1944, one balloon was discovered in the ocean off San Pedro, California. In January 1945, a balloon bomb landed in Medford, Oregon, without exploding. At some point, a rancher in Nevada discovered a balloon and used it as a tarp to cover his hay; police later discovered that two bombs were still attached to it.

WHAT BALLOONS?

Most of the balloons either exploded harmlessly or failed to detonate on impact. Approximately 90 of them were recovered in the United States as far east as Michigan. Strict censorship kept their existence out of the newspapers, and those who knew of their presence were sworn to secrecy. It was feared that news of the balloons arrival would encourage the launching of more balloons. They weren't seen as much of a danger, but the hush-hush handling of the situation worked: the Japanese abandoned the project because they didn't hear of any success.

But after the Mitchell family tragedy in Oregon, the public was warned. The last balloon bomb was found in Alaska in 1955; its bombs were still capable of exploding. Ironically, on March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons desceded near Hanford, Washington. The balloon landed on electrical power lines, shutting off the Hanford nuclear reactor for three days. The Hanford reactor, part of the top-secret Manhattan project, was producing plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, five months later.

The Fugo balloon bombs are considered a failure as weapons system. There were no proven bomb-caused forest fires, and they caused little other damage. Elsie Mitchell and the five children were the tragic exceptions.

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John's first plunge into history was a smash hit - over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

The Flying Carpet Sofa

Posted: 09 Sep 2008 01:52 AM CDT

Behold the carpet sofas, creations of Dutch artist Tonio de Roover. The sofas, called "East Meets West," look like you’re sitting on magic flying carpets! Link

See more neat looking sofas at Freshome’s 35 of the Most Unique & Creative Sofa Designs

The REAL Man Trap

Posted: 09 Sep 2008 01:51 AM CDT

How well do you know your animal traps? Our pal Rob H. of What is it? Blog has a neat featurette: a quiz of 28 of the strangest and most gruesome-looking animal traps.

This one above is the man trap:

A man trap, it was used by a wealthy land owner in England to catch poachers. It takes a key to open the jaws and they can’t be pried apart. It was designed so as not to break the leg, a small consolation since the victim probably paid with his life.

The stick was used as a trigger, it kept the jaws open and when stepped on, the trap was sprung.

Check out the entire list here: Link

Guess the Website Logo

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:04 PM CDT

Remember the "Guess the Movie Logo" game from Empire Online we featured a while ago on Neatorama? Well, here’s something similar from Axonoïd: Can you guess the website from one letter of its logo?

Link - Thanks Mike Hill!

The Ultimate Guide to Banksy

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:03 PM CDT

Web Urbanist blog did a really neat (and thorough!) job exploring the artwork of the world’s most infamous - and mysterous - graffiti artist, Banksy:

And although the pseudonym and the signature style of the artist are well known, there’s not much else that we know for sure about Banksy. A few tidbits of information are widely accepted: he is from Bristol, UK, and got involved in graffiti art sometime in the early 90s. He began to gain widespread notoriety around 2003. He was born in or around 1974 and sports a silver tooth. He is, according to the few people who have met him as Banksy, an unassuming and typical-looking man.

His refusal to be interviewed in person or even to reveal his real name has added to his mystique over the years. In the UK (and, increasingly, in other parts of the world) Banksy-spotters claim to know the artist’s real identity on a fairly regular basis. Although he’s been caught on CCTV a few times, he is clever enough to keep his identity a mystery.

Link - Thanks Kurt!

(Photo: Noisehead [Flickr])

You’re a Babe. Wait, No You’re Not!

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:03 PM CDT

Suzanne Broughton of Emphasis Mine blog was going through her sixth grade yearbook when she came across this inscription from James Cox:

From the looks of it, he originally thought he was writing in Wendy’s yearbook.

When he realized his mistake, he quite appropriately crossed out her name and replaced it with mine …then he crossed out that whole "I think you are a total BABE!" bit.

He could have made a tad more of an effort. At least he still wanted me to have a "rad summer!"

Link - via Miss Cellania

3D Tattoo

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:02 PM CDT

Photo: Boucherie Moderne / Bizarre Mag

Is this the next step in tattoo technology? Here’s a 3D tattoo by Jean-François Palumbo of Boucherie Moderne:

The diamond uses the same crimson and blue, but to different effect. Don 3D glasses and the stone ‘jumps out’ at you. In fact, this three dimensional optical illusion even works to some extent without 3D specs. I’d like to create something more complex in my next tattoo – fish that appear to be swimming beneath a 3D layer of water, for example.

Link - Thanks Kate!

62 MPH … on a Skateboard!

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:02 PM CDT

Cops in Berlin are looking for a speeder, who was caught on videotape blazing down a steep stretch of a highway at 62 MPH (~100 km per hour), way above the speed limit … on a skateboard!

A video of the skateboarder, broadcast on German television networks on Wednesday, showed a helmeted figure wearing a red and white protective suit building up speed by holding onto the back of a motorcycle before letting go and freewheeling.

"We put out an all-points bulletin and have received information that gives us useful clues to who the man may be," Stoeckle said. "We are particularly concerned about copycats who may imitate the stunt, putting their lives at risk."

Link - Thanks Brian!

Here’s the obligatory YouTube clip:

Gentlemen’s Guide to Calling Cards

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:01 PM CDT

In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the practice of "calling" upon or visiting relatives and friends was a refined affair: people used calling cards as as a mean of introducing themselves, as notes of thanks, or even as a polite brush off!

Calling card, which has since fallen out of favor, is making a big comeback. In their timely article, Brett and Kate McKay of The Art of Manliness explain the ins-and-outs of calling cards.

Here’s an interesting fact about calling cards I’ve just learned:

Generally upon a gentleman’s initial visit to a home, he would simply leave a card and then depart. If the new acquaintance wished to formally visit with him, he or she would send a card in return. If no card was sent, or the return card was sent in an envelope, this signaled that the new acquaintance did not wish for a personal visit to occur. This signal (the card in an envelope) could indeed be sent after any visit in which the visited party no longer wished to be called upon by this particular person. It was basically the well-mannered brush off.

Link - Thanks Muhammad!

Previously on Neatorama: Here’s My Calling-Emailing-AIMing-Twittering Card

My Document Laptop Sleeve

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:01 PM CDT

Here’s a fun and geeky way to protect your portable computer: a "My Document" laptop sleeve!

The "My Documents" folder on your laptop’s file system is the location where most of your files live. The whole "folder" metaphor was first developed by Xerox Parc for its ground-breaking Star desktop system. Those folders were designed to mimic the real-life paper-and-manilla-folders offices use to file paperwork. Now, that metaphor is carried on by all graphical user-interfaces. No matter what operating-system you’ve got on your laptop, you’ve probably got something like a "My Documents" folder.

So, we figured, why not extend that already abused metaphor by storing the device that stores your "My Documents" folder in a "My Documents" folder of its own? Behold - this neoprene laptop sleeve is big enough to snugly house your laptop, up to 15.4 inches, inside. The inner fleece lining keeps everything shiny and scratch-free. Plus, we’ve included the pixilated cursor-pin to ram that concept home.

ThinkGeek has it: Link - via GeekAlerts

The Well of Chand Baori: If M.C. Escher Were an Architect, This Would be His Building!

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:00 PM CDT

Photo: Doron [wikipedia]

What if M.C. Escher designed a real life building? It’d probably be something like the Chand Baori stepwell near Jaipur, India. The amazing 13-stories well was built in the 9th century and has 3,500 narrow steps. Don’t fall - at 100 feet (~30 m) deep, it’s a long way down.

Oddity Central has more: Link - via Scribal Terror

The REAL Secret Behind Crop Circles

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 02:00 PM CDT

It’s actually an ad for the Belgian State Bond (huh? Really - with a gallery and video clip no less!). The costume is made by Gareth of Alien Costume - via Super Punch

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Here’s Why You Can’t Sleep: There are 11 Types of Insomnia. Eleven!

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 01:59 PM CDT

Can’t sleep? Here’s an article from Health.com that explains everything you’d want to know about the 11 types of insomnia (Yes, there are 11! If one didn’t get you, the others will.)

One of the weirdest is paradoxical insomnia, where people complain of sleeplessness, but actually slept through the night:

Paradoxical insomnia is a complaint of severe insomnia. It occurs without objective evidence of any sleep disturbance. Daytime effects vary in severity, but they tend to be far less severe than one would expect given the expressed sleep complaints.

People with this disorder often report little or no sleep for one or more nights. They also describe having an intense awareness of the external environment or internal processes consistent with being awake. This awareness suggests a state of hyperarousal. A key feature is an overestimation of the time it takes them to fall asleep. They also underestimate their total sleep time.

Another feature is that the degree of sleep deprivation reported seems improbable. Their level of daytime functioning is likely to be only moderately impaired. Objective findings of fairly normal sleep duration and quality tend to result from an overnight sleep study. These findings are much different from their perception of poor quality sleep.

Link - via One Large Prawn

Beakman’s World

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 11:17 AM CDT

Beakman’s World was a kids’ science show in the nineties. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss tests how well you remember the show. I am shocked that I scored 82%, since I never saw the show! Sometimes common sense (and a bit of TV production knowledge) comes in handy. Link

Fortune Cookies in China

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 11:04 AM CDT

(YouTube link)
Fortune cookies are a strange, unfamiliar food in China. They were developed in Japan and popularized in the US. Nana Shi began selling them online in China and found that she needed to include instructions! Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

World Record Marrow

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 11:01 AM CDT

I’m not familiar with a vegetable called a marrow (it seems to be some kind of squash), but this one is apparently the biggest ever at 113 pounds! There were lots of huge vegetables at a giant vegetable show in England.

The skin is craggy and dark, indicating it might not make the best offering at dinner, but it overtook the current world record by a whopping three kilos.

Grown by Ken Dade, from Norfolk, it had benefitted from the wet conditions during the spring and summer.

Show organiser Roy Davey is hopeful the show could yet produce another giant vegetable record. ‘We have hopes for a record cucumber,’ he said.

There’s a picture of the cucumber at The Daily Mail, but I can’t tell how long it is. Link -via Unique Daily

Top 10 Amazing Prison Escapes

Posted: 08 Sep 2008 10:59 AM CDT

Any of these prison escape stories would make an exciting movie (and some of them already have). Not all of the escapees were hardened criminals; some were prisoners of war, and Alfréd Wetzler (pictured) along with his partner Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz by hiding inside a wood pile for four days! He later provided extensive details of the death camp to Allied forces.

The 32-page Vrba-Wetzler report, as it became known, was the first detailed report about Auschwitz to reach the West that the Allies regarded as credible.

The evidence eventually led to the bombing of several government buildings in Hungary, killing Nazi officials who were instrumental in the railway deportations of Jews to Auschwitz. The deportations halted, saving up to 120,000 Hungarian Jews.

Read about Wetzler and nine escape stories at The List Universe. Link -via the Presurfer