Neatorama

Rubik Mirror Blocks Posted: 30 Sep 2008 01:55 AM CDT [YouTube - Link] A quirky take on the always frustrating Rubik’s Cube, the Rubik Mirror Block seems to up the ante by not only making the shapes of the blocks of different sizes and shapes it also doesn’t (obviously) have any color to help guide you to the solution. Watching the video I could just feel my blood pressure rise as he began to turn the blocks about. It also doesn’t help watching the way he was using that knife of his to open the box…a little too careless in my opinion. More info on the toy - Link from Technabob. via - Gizmodo

The Google Adwords Panhandler Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:27 PM CDT Sign of the times: even beggars now use Google Adwords! Found via Blame it on the Voices

A True Image From the False Kiva Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:22 PM CDT Photo: Wally Pacholka A bad thing about living in a city is the light pollution that prevents us from seeing spectacular sights like this: the Milky Way galaxy, as seen from the False Kiva in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah. APOD, one of my favorite sites, has the larger pic: Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band’s left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure. Link

Upside Down Homes and Buildings Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:10 PM CDT Photo: Chromatist Photography Are you upside down on your property? Well, maybe you’ll feel better after taking a look at homes and buildings that are actually upside down. Or maybe not. Urlesque has a pretty neat gallery of upside down buildings from around the world. This one above is actually a 1997 art installation at Harbour Green Park, Vancouver, Canada by Dennis Oppenheim titled "Device to Root out Evil." ("A country church is seen balancing on it’s steeple, as if it had been lifted by a terrific force and brought to the site as a device or method of rooting out evil forces," according to his website) Link

Time to Set MS on Fire, a Parody Ad Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:10 PM CDT And now for a geeky pitstop, here’s a parody of The Doors’s famous song, a cheeky ad from Linspire Linux titled "Time to Set MS on Fire": Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via AQFL

Save $-9.99! Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:09 PM CDT Well … technically it’s almost correct! Found via Bits & Pieces

Massachusetts Will Vote on Abolishing the State Income Tax Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:09 PM CDT Whaa? Did I read this right? The citizens of "Taxachusetts" have finally risen against the tyranny of high taxes: there’s a ballot measure to get rid of the state’s income tax. Question 1 would cut the tax by half the first year and eliminate it the next year, and Ms. Howell said the state could compensate by cutting lucrative employee pensions, paring bureaucracies and spending wisely. “We don’t have to cut any essential services or any government programs that are providing a benefit to the people of Massachusetts,” Ms. Howell said. “All we have to do is cut government waste.” Some voters who wanted taxes lowered to 5 percent have decided to support Question 1 to show their anger at the state, said Barbara Anderson, director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which advocated 5 percent but is now producing bumper stickers that read “Hell Yes! Question 1.” Massachusetts does have some experience against that sort of thing - the last time they rallied against taxation, America ended up being an independent country: Link - via Blue’s News

Epic Tow Truck Fail Posted: 29 Sep 2008 05:54 PM CDT The Bailout plan isn’t the only thing that failed today: here’s a YouTube clip of a tow truck that needed to be bailed out itself after bailing out an overturned semi. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks mowog! Previously on Neatorama: Crane Pulling a Bus Out of a River - What Can Go Wrong?

How is the Bailout Failure Affecting You? Posted: 29 Sep 2008 05:09 PM CDT Photo: freemarketmyass [Flickr], at a protest against the bailout in Chicago So. Today, the House of Representatives said no to the Mother of All Bailouts™ (with the majority of the Democrats voted for it, and the majority of Republicans voted against it). The Dow dropped like a rock, falling 777 points, making it the worst single-day point loss ever. Democrats blamed Republicans, Republicans blamed Democrats. Oh, and Citigroup gobbled up Wachovia and the Fed pumped $330 billion into the market anyway. I went to lunch with my lovely wife and had a delicious Korean BBQ meal. I paid cash and left a generous tip to the nice waiter. Then I went back to work, and now, I’m typing up this post. My point is this: Wall Street may be burning (and the New York economy is undoubtedly going to take a lickin’) but I doubt it’ll take the rest of the country down with it, despite the all doom-and-gloom we’ve been told. The economy in general has been kind of sucky - business is down (and we’ve made adjustments to cope with it), but that has been the way it is for a long time - well, before the hulaballoo at Wall Street. I live within my means, own a house we can afford, pay cash for most of my purchases. We save for a rainy day. And I worked my butt off every day for all of this - I don’t think the Wall Street meltdown or a Super Bailout is going to affect us all that much. But I may be wrong. So let me ask your opinion: what do you think of the bailout failure and what it may mean to you? Are you fearful for your economic future? Is it because of the failure of the bailout or something far more fundamental?

Two Very Lucky Climbers Who Cheated Death Posted: 29 Sep 2008 01:13 PM CDT Photo: Hermann Erber Austrian photographer and climbing enthusiast Hermann Erber took this amazing photo of two ice climbers climbing a frozen waterfall when right beside them the falls collapsed! Link

Jules Verne Spacecraft Destructive Re-entry Photo Posted: 29 Sep 2008 01:12 PM CDT Photo: European Space Agency Europe’s first Automated Transfer Vehicle named Jules Verne, has successfully completed its mission delivering fuel, water, oxygen, food, and other items to the International Space Station. The spacecraft was then sent on a destructive reentry path that let it break apart safely over an uninhabited part of the South Pacific. Link - via Gizmodo

Spider-Man’s Next Partner: Stephen Colbert! Posted: 29 Sep 2008 01:11 PM CDT Guess who’s coming to star in an upcoming Spider-Man comic? It’s none other than Stephen Colbert, who’s running for president in the Marvel Universe! Marvel is proud to reveal that Spider-Man and acclaimed television personality Stephen Colbert will join forces in an all new eight-page story featured in the extra-sized AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #573! Acclaimed writer Mark Waid and fan favorite artist Patrick Olliffe present Stephen Colbert, a candidate for the U.S. Presidency in the Marvel Universe, teaming up with Marvel’s most iconic crime fighter. Link

Honeybees Can Count (Up to 4) Posted: 29 Sep 2008 01:11 PM CDT We may not have been giving honeybees enough credit: turns out the insect can count (well, up to four anyhow)! Also at the Australian National University, Marie Dacke and Mandyam V. Srinivasan trained European honeybees to pass a particular number of colored stripes in a tunnel to get a food reward, which was placed by a stripe. When they removed the food, the bees still returned to the same stripe. Next, they mixed things up on the bees: they varied the spacing of the stripes, and even replaced stripes with unfamiliar markers. The insects consistently passed the same number of markers to approach the former reward site, demonstrating that they could count, up to four. The studies burnish the impressive list of honeybees’ known cognitive abilities, all achieved with a brain the size of a sand grain. Link

America’s No. 1 Export is … Debt! Posted: 29 Sep 2008 01:10 PM CDT When you think of a country’s export, what comes first to mind? For most people, japan means cars. Saudi Arabia? Oil. China? Everything else. How about good ol’ United States of America? It turns out that our no. 1 export is debt. Lots and lots of debt. Here’s an interesting article by Justin Fox for TIME about how US has been selling $700 billion in debt securities to foreigners every year (the number is the same as the bailout plan, but that’s just a coincidence) and how the party’s coming to an end (maybe): Our quandary is that we are apparently not capable of safely manufacturing $700 billion in debt securities to sell to foreigners every year, as we’ve been doing since 2005. (That this is the same total as Treasury’s bailout plan is just a coincidence.) If we keep trying to borrow that much from overseas–as you’ve probably gathered, selling debt means borrowing money–today’s quality problems may soon seem petty. For now, we can still reassure buyers around the world by slapping that GUARANTEED label on our debt. But as financial crisis and economic slowdown cause government debts to burgeon, and as commitments to Social Security and Medicare loom closer as baby boomers retire, that confidence could easily fade. Link (Illustration: Harry Campbell/TIME) - via reddit

The Hills Have Eyes Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:44 AM CDT French street artist JR, best known for his technique of photographing inhabitants of an area & pasting the resulting imagery up on grand scale around the community has taken to the favelas of RIO DE JANEIRO in a grand project to honor the residents of one of the world's biggest slums. The scale of this project never siezes [sic] to amaze me. One day we will plan on doing something of this level. See more pictures at DNA Imagery. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Does the Moon Orbit the Earth or the Sun? Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:43 AM CDT I had never heard the argument that the moon orbits the sun, but it does go around the sun as it revolves around the earth. The question, which does it orbit more? Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog lays out the argument and explains. Turns out, it orbits the Earth, despite these claims. The above claims are true, but are not important in this argument. Instead, you have to look at something called the Hill sphere. Basically, it's the volume of space around an object where the gravity of that object dominates over the gravity of a more massive but distant object around which the first object orbits. OK, in English — and more pertinent to this issue — it's the volume of space around the Earth where the Earth's gravity is more important than the Sun's. If something is orbiting the Earth inside Earth's Hill's sphere, it'll be a satellite of the Earth and not the Sun. The derivation of the math isn't terribly important here (and it's on the Wikipedia page if you're curious), but when you plug in the numbers, you find the Earth's Hill sphere has a radius of about 1.5 million kilometers. The Moon's orbital radius of 400,000 km keeps it well within the Earth's Hill sphere, so there you have it. The Moon orbits the Earth more than it orbits the Sun. In reality it does both, and saying it orbits one and not the other is silly anyway. Link (image credit: NASA)

Famous Preserved Body Parts Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:41 AM CDT If you become famous enough, someone may want to keep at least a part of you around after you die. This list looks at ten body arts: brains, fingers, even a bladder, that were preserved for posterity. Or study. Or reverence. The leg bone shown belonged to Civil War general Dan Sickle. Link -via Look at This

Suspect, Killer, Law Enforcement, or Deceased? Posted: 29 Sep 2008 11:40 AM CDT Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss deals with the TV show CSI (Crime Scene Investigation). You’ll be presented with 14 guest stars. Do they play: 1) a suspect, 2) the killer, 3) the deceased, 4) a law enforcement member, or 5) they never even appeared on the show. Although I’ve seen CSI, it’s been years ago, so I scored 29%. You will do better! Link

Private Rocket Goes to Space Posted: 29 Sep 2008 08:52 AM CDT (YouTube link) SpaceX has succeeded in their attempt to launch the Falcon 1 rocket into space. The company, headed by eBay co-founder Elon Musk, had made three unsuccessful tries before yesterday’s launch. The tensest moment came just before stage separation. At that critical juncture, the third launch attempt had failed. This time, it worked out perfectly. Eight minutes after leaving the ground, Falcon 1 reached a speed of 5200 meters per second and passed above the International Space Station. “I don’t know what to say… because my mind is just blown,” said Musk, during a brief address to his staff after the successful launch. “This is just the first step of many.” The feat is a giant leap forward for privately-funded space ventures, and follows the spectacular 2004 suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne. Link

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