Neatorama

Neatorama Comic by Ryan Estrada Posted: 01 Dec 2008 04:00 AM PST Ryan Estrada wrote to us about his website, Cartoon Commune, where you can get your own made-to-order (and very reasonably priced) custom comic books, children’s books, illustrations, animations and songs. Cartoon Commune has a team of 5 illustrators, each with their unique styles, so you can select one that matches your taste. What to do with a custom comic? Well, for one, they make a fantastic gift: Turn your significant other into a superhero. Have your kid’s bedtime story adapted into a book they can read themselves. Turn your ‘how we got together’ story into an unique wedding favor, or anniversary gift. Get a new "our song" that’s actually written about the two of you. Ryan Estrada drew for us a fantastic comic book starring Neatoramanaut and Neatoramabot - besides the cute drawing, he even rhymed the captions! Check it out here: Link (and get your own here) - Thanks Ryan!

10 Facts About Diamond You Should Know Posted: 30 Nov 2008 11:48 PM PST Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.                                                                - Confucius Photo: Fotografiert von Mario Sarto There's no denying that diamonds are a traditional symbol of romance and love. Why, a man needs a diamond ring to ask the woman of his dream to marry him, right? But was it always that way? Did you know that someone worked very, very hard to make diamond rings de rigueur in marriage proposals? Or that diamonds aren't actually very rare at all? Or that they make lousy investments? Here 10 Facts About Diamonds You Should Know: 1. The Earliest Use of Diamonds: Polishing Axes If you ask a hundred people what they think of first when they hear the word "diamond," I bet you get 99 who say a diamond engagement ring. Truth is, the majority of diamonds mined today are used for industrial purposes - and that may also be the very first use of diamonds by humans. Harvard physicist Peter Lu and colleagues found that ancient Chinese used diamonds to polish ceremonial burial axes in the late stone age or over 4,500 years ago. The axes, which are made from corundum (or ruby in its red form and sapphire in other colors), were polished to a mirror finish. Corundum is the second hardest naturally occurring substance on Earth and close examination of these axes revealed that they could've been made only with diamond abrasives. (Source) It's quite fitting since today, 80% of mined diamonds (about 100 million carats) are used for the industrial purposes of cutting, drilling, grinding, and polishing. 2. Diamonds Are Not The Hardest Substance on Earth "Diamonds are the hardest substance on Earth" is practically a mantra for jewelers trying to impress you with its physical properties if you're not swayed by its beauty. Too bad it's not true: while diamonds are the hardest natural mineral substance, it is not the hardest substance known to man. In 2005, physicists Natalia Dubrovinskaia and colleagues compressed carbon fullerene molecules and heating them at the same time to create a series of interconnected rods called Aggregated Diamond Nanorods (ADNRs or "hyperdiamond"). It's about 11% harder than a diamond. (Photo: ESRF) 3. De Beers: The Diamond Cartel We can't talk about diamonds without talking about De Beers, the company that single-handedly made the diamond industry what it is today. De Beers was founded by Cecil Rhodes, who also founded the state of Rhodesia which later became Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Rhodes Scholarship is also named after him, and funded by his estate. Rhodes started by renting water pumps to miners during a diamond rush in 1867 at Kimberley, South Africa. He expanded into mines and about twenty years later became the sole owner of all diamond mining operations in the country. Rhodes built De Beers into a diamond cartel (well, they prefer "single-channel marketing" and since they're one company, they're technically a monopoly). De Beers mines diamonds, then handle their sales and distribution through various entities (in London, it's known as the innocuously named Diamond Trading Company; in Israel, it's simply called "the syndicate"; in Belgium, it's called the CSO or Central Selling Organization.) If you want to buy diamonds from De Beers, you've got to play by their rules: diamond are sold in events known as "sights." There are 10 sights held each year, and to buy, you have to be a sightholder (these are usually diamond dealers whose business is to have the stones cut and polished and then resold at diamond clearing centers of Antwerp, New York, and Tel Aviv). The diamonds are sold on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. A sightholder is given a small box of uncut diamonds priced between $1 and $25 million. De Beers set the price - there is no haggling and no re-selling of diamonds in uncut form. It is rare for sightholders to refuse a diamond package offered to them, for fear of not being invited back. And those who dare to purchase diamonds from other sources than De Beers will have their sightholder privilege revoked. In the early days, De Beers controlled about 90% of the world's diamond supply. Today, its monopoly on diamonds has been significantly reduced. It is estimated that the cartel now controls about 60 to 75% of the world's diamond trade (source) 4. So Why The Name 'De Beers'? De Beers was actually named for the brothers Johannel Nicholas de Beer and Diederik Arnoldus de Beer, whose farm Cecil Rhodes bought when diamond mines were discovered on it. 5. Are Diamonds Rare? Diamonds are actually quite rare in the past but not any more. While it's true that the process of extracting diamond is quite laborious (mines move many tons of dirt per carat of diamond found) and that gem-quality diamonds are relatively few (only about 1 in 1 million diamonds are quality one carat stones, only 1 in 5 million are 2-carat; and 1 in 15 million are 3-carat), diamonds are not rare in an economic sense because supply exceeds demand. (Photo: mafic [Flickr]) To maintain the high prices of diamonds, De Beers creates an artificial scarcity: they stockpile mined diamonds and sell them in small amounts. Perhaps De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer said it best: "diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill." (mental_floss, vol 7 issue 6, p. 21 "Diamond Engagement Rings" by Rebecca Zerzan) 6. Moon-Sized Diamond So - diamonds aren't rare on Earth, and it may not be rare in space either. In 2004, astronomer Travis Metcalfe of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues discovered a diamond star that is 10 billion trillion trillion carats! The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk. Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. (Source) According to scientists, if you wait long enough, our own sun will eventually turn into one such large diamond star! 7. Famous Diamonds Just because they're not rare, it doesn't mean that there aren't exceptional diamonds. There's the 45-carat Hope Diamond (and its famous Curse), the mystical Koh-I-Noor Diamond, and the largest diamond ever found, the 546 carat Golden Jubilee. But this is Neatorama, so here's a truly fascinating story about the Bokassa Diamond. In 1977, a crazy Central African dictator named Jean-Bédel Bokassa declared himself an emperor and asked Albert Jolis, the president of a diamond mining operation, for a diamond ring (he made sure Jolis knew that nothing smaller than a golf ball-sized rock would do!) Jolis didn't have the money to buy such a large stone but if he didn't deliver one, his company would lose the mining concession in Central Africa. So he devised a clever ruse: Jolis found a large piece of black diamond bort (a poorly crystallized diamond usually fit only to be crushed into abrasive powder) that curiously resembled Africa in shape. He ordered the diamond polished and mounted on a large ring. A one-quarter carat white diamond was then set roughly where the country is located on the continent. Jolis presented the "unique" diamond to Bokassa, and the clueless emperor loved it! He thought that the $500 ring was worth over $500,000! Just two years later, when Bokassa was overthrown in a coup, Jolis heard that he went into exile with his prize diamond ring, and noted wryly: "It's a priceless diamond as long as he doesn't try to sell it." (Source) 8. The Most Brilliant Advertising Campaign of All Time: A Diamond Is Forever The 1930s was a bad decade for the diamond industry: the price of diamond had declined worldwide. Europe was in the verge of another war and the idea of a diamond engagement ring didn't take hold. Indeed, engagement rings were considered a luxury and when given, they rarely contained diamonds. In 1938, De Beers engaged N.W. Ayer & Son, the first advertising agency in the United States, to change the image of diamonds in America. The ad agency suggested a clever ad campaign to link diamonds to romance in the public's mind. To do this, they placed diamonds in the fingers of Hollywood stars and suggested stories to newspapers on how diamond rings symbolized romance. Even high school students were targeted: N. W. Ayer outlined a subtle program that included arranging for lecturers to visit high schools across the country. "All of these lectures revolve around the diamond engagement ring, and are reaching thousands of girls in their assemblies, classes and informal meetings in our leading educational institutions," the agency explained in a memorandum to De Beers. The agency had organized, in 1946, a weekly service called "Hollywood Personalities," which provided 125 leading newspapers with descriptions of the diamonds worn by movie stars. [...] The idea was to create prestigious "role models" for the poorer middle-class wage-earners. The advertising agency explained, in its 1948 strategy paper, "We spread the word of diamonds worn by stars of screen and stage, by wives and daughters of political leaders, by any woman who can make the grocer's wife and the mechanic's sweetheart say 'I wish I had what she has.'" (Source) In 1948, an N.W. Ayer copywriter named Frances Gerety, had a flash of inspiration and came up with the slogan "A Diamond is Forever." It's a fitting slogan, because it reminds people that it is a memorial to love, and as such, must stay forever in the family, never to be sold (see below). Ironically, Gerety never married and died a spinster. (Source) But equating diamonds with romance wasn't enough. Toward the end of the 1950s, N.W. Ayer found that the Americans were ready for the next logical step, making a diamond ring a necessary element in betrothal: "Since 1939 an entirely new generation of young people has grown to marriageable age," it said. "To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone." The message had been so successfully impressed on the minds of this generation that those who could not afford to buy a diamond at the time of their marriage would "defer the purchase" rather than forgo it. (Source) Then the clever ad agency went one step further. N.W. Ayers noted that when women were involved in the selection of the engagement ring, they tended to pick cheaper rings. So De Beers encouraged the "surprise" engagement, with men picking the diamond on their own (with the clear message that the more expensive the stone, the better he'll look in the eyes of a woman). They even gave clueless men a guideline: American men should spend two months wages, whereas Japanese men should spend three. Why? Because they can: But the guidelines differed by nation. A "two months' salary" equivalent was touted in the United States, whereas men in Great Britain got off the hook with only one month. Japan's expectation was set the highest, at three months. I asked a De Beers representative why the Japanese were told to spend so much compared to the Americans or the English. "We were, quite frankly, trying to bid them up," he answered. (Source: The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire by Tom Zoellner) In 1939, when De Beers engaged N.W. Ayer to change the way the American public view diamonds, its annual sales of the gem was $23 million. By 1979, the ad agency had helped De Beers expand its sales to more than $2.1 billion (Source). 9. Diamonds are Actually Lousy Investments De Beers is quite famous for never lowering the price of diamonds. During the Great Depression, the cartel drastically cut supplies and stockpiled diamonds to prop up their price. But do diamonds make good investments? Unless you're a certified diamond seller, the answer is no: you won't be able to sell a diamond ring for more than what you pay for it. And the reason is simple: with diamonds, you buy at retail and sell at wholesale, if you can sell it at all. In 1982, Edward Jay Epstein wrote an intriguing article for The Atlantic, titled "Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?" In it, he wrote about an experiment to determine a diamond's value as an investment. The [Money Which?] magazine conducted another experiment to determine the extent to which larger diamonds appreciate in value over a one-year period. In 1970, it bought a 1.42 carat diamond for £745. In 1971, the highest offer it received for the same gem was £568. Rather than sell it at such an enormous loss, Watts decided to extend the experiment until 1974, when he again made the round of the jewelers in Hatton Garden to have it appraised. During this tour of the diamond district, Watts found that the diamond had mysteriously shrunk in weight to 1.04 carats. One of the jewelers had apparently switched diamonds during the appraisal. In that same year, Watts, undaunted, bought another diamond, this one 1.4 carats, from a reputable London dealer. He paid £2,595. A week later, he decided to sell it. The maximum offer he received was £1,000. Why is there no active after-market for diamonds? It is estimated that the public holds about 500 million carats of gem diamonds - if a significant portion of the public begins selling, then the price of diamond would plummet. To prevent this from happening, the diamond industry spent a huge sum in making diamonds "heirloom" properties to be passed down for generations, keeping the price of diamond artificially high (so people wouldn't be tempted to unload them for fear of losing money) and discourage jewelers from buying diamonds from the public. 10. Artificial Diamonds The idea of making artificial diamond isn't new. H.G. Wells proposed exactly such a thing in his story "The Diamond Maker" in 1911. Since then, scientists have come up with ways to create synthetic diamonds and diamond simulants like cubic zirconia - but experts could always tell them apart. Until now. In the past decade, scientists have perfected a technique called Chemical Vapor Deposition, where carbon gas cloud is passed over diamond seeds in a vacuum chamber heated to more than 1,800 degrees. In a matter of days, they are now able to "grow" diamonds that are virtually indistinguishable from natural ones, even to the experts: Seeking an unbiased assessment of the quality of these laboratory diamonds, I asked Bryant Linares to let me borrow an Apollo stone. The next day, I place the .38 carat, princess-cut stone in front of Virgil Ghita in Ghita's narrow jewelry store in downtown Boston. With a pair of tweezers, he brings the diamond up to his right eye and studies it with a jeweler's loupe, slowly turning the gem in the mote-filled afternoon sun. "Nice stone, excellent color. I don't see any imperfections," he says. "Where did you get it?" "It was grown in a lab about 20 miles from here," I reply. He lowers the loupe and looks at me for a moment. Then he studies the stone again, pursing his brow. He sighs. "There's no way to tell that it's lab-created." (Source) But if you think that the price of diamond will fall precipitously, think again. Companies that make cultured diamonds like Apollo and Gemesis aren't stupid: they're not going to kill the goose that laid the diamond egg by flooding the market with cheap stones. End Note Whether you love or hate them, diamonds are endlessly fascinating. I'll be the first to acknowledge that we haven't touched topics like blood diamonds, J. Walter Thompson's brilliant campaign to insert diamond engagement rings into Japan's wedding custom, and so on.

Everybody Run: Ultimate Frisbee Posted: 30 Nov 2008 11:24 PM PST This whole video is great, it keeps getting better. Make sure you watch long enough to see the ultimate frisbee tattoo. Now, the real question is, is that a frisbee tattoo that’s ulimate or a tattoo dedicated to ulimate frisbee? The world may never know. Link Via Gigglesugar

Antique Music Video: 1928 Posted: 30 Nov 2008 11:01 PM PST Good old timey music with Eddie Thomas and Carl Scott playing uke, washboard and kazoo playing “My Ohio Home.” Link via BoingBoing

Zombie Haiku Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:42 PM PST (For Lol-cat connoisseur, this pic is funny in so many levels!) Picking up where John left off with the cat haiku, here are some zombie haikus at ZombieRama: Playing fetch with Spot is dangerous when the bones he brings back still move. I felt your lips, teeth brush against my shoulderblade, but it was not love. The vegan zombie cares not for sweet grey matter they cry out for graaaaaaaaaaains! Link - via Locusts & Honey

Turd Baby Store Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:41 PM PST Photo: Badger 23 [Flickr] - via Miss Cellania No, "Turd Baby" isn’t just a pejorative (look it up at Urban Dictionary, if you must) it is a store in Danshui, Taipei, Taiwan, selling stuff out of little vending machines! It certainly has a unique name!

Service Dog Got an Honorary “Dog”tor Law Degree! Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:40 PM PST Amy Jones has a really, really smart dog - and she can prove it: her 6-year-old service dog Skeeter actually has a "dog"tor degree from Baylor University School of Law! The 6-year-old service dog received an honorary law degree from Baylor University two weeks ago, when his owner, Amy Jones, graduated alongside him. The black Labrador deserved the degree, Jones said, as he has been present every step of the way over the past two-and-a-quarter years of intensive study. Baylor University’s dean and professors appeared to agree with Jones, as they presented Skeeter with his signed and authorized honorary degree on Saturday, Nov. 8. "Whereas he is now an older, wiser and even a bit fatter dog; Whereas those who survive Baylor Law School are entitled to all barking rights, entitlements and appearances thereto," Skeeter’s diploma reads. "Therefore, be it hereby decreed that Baylor University School of Law confers upon Skeeter the Labrador this honorary juris ‘dog’tor degree." Link - via Rue The Day (Photo: Amy Jones)

Behind The Scenes Star Wars Photos Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:39 PM PST Photo: Michael Heilemann [Flickr] Earlier this month, we told you about Early Star Wars Storyboards which Michael Heilemann of Binary Bonsai uploaded to Flickr. Well, Michael has just uploaded hundreds more of Star Wars photos to his Flickr account, many of which are fantastic behind the scenes photo like this one above of Luke Skywalker’s jump scene: Link - via Super Punch

Stitch Humidifier Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:38 PM PST I love this little humidifier shaped like Stitch, the little blue alien in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch cartoon! The water vapor looks like Stitch is belching off something foul, but the only bad thing about it seems to be the price tag. At $120, this Stitch humidifier may just be leaving your wallet in tatters. Link

Smiley Sky Over Australia Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:38 PM PST If you live in Australia, then you’ve probably already know this: tonight, a cosmic alignment of the planets and the moon will result in a smiley sky! From soon after 8pm until just before 11pm the planets Venus and Jupiter will stare down from the western sky like two brilliant eyes. Directly below, the crescent moon will form a happy mouth. "I think it will be very spectacular," Sydney Observatory’s astronomer, Nick Lomb, said. "The three brightest objects in the night sky will all be in the same patch of the sky." As the night draws on, Dr Lomb predicted, "the smiley face" - with Venus playing the left eye and giant Jupiter the right - "will improve and become a little more compact". Link

Where Have All the Acorns Go? Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:37 PM PST First it was the bees. Then, something strange is happening to acorns: this year, there are no acorns in "I’m used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it’s something I just didn’t believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It’s a zero year. There’s zero production. I’ve never seen anything like this before." The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn’t a climatic event. "Let’s hope it’s not something ghastly going on with the natural world." To find out, Simmons and Arlington naturalists began calling around. A naturalist in Maryland found no acorns on an Audubon nature walk there. Ditto for Fairfax, Falls Church, Charles County, even as far away as Pennsylvania. There are no acorns falling from the majestic oaks in Arlington National Cemetery. "Once I started paying attention, I couldn’t find any acorns anywhere. Not from white oaks, red oaks or black oaks, and this was supposed to be their big year," said Greg Zell, a naturalist at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington. "We’re talking zero. Not a single acorn. It’s really bizarre." Link

Buying “Made in America” Left a Woman Hungry, Broke, and Half-Naked! Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:36 PM PST Nicole McClelland conducted an experiment where she buys only American-made goods. It seems simple, but it’s anything but. Going "Made in America" for a week left her hungry, broke, and half-naked: In 1990, when I was in grade school, I watched a union-sponsored commercial in which a mother told her little boy that they would have to move because Dad had lost his job—too many people were buying imports. As union jobs dried up, so did that campaign; now, 14 years into nafta, buying local is hot, but buying American is, at best, a joke (though in August Barack Obama dusted off the sentiment with his "Buy American, Vote Obama" slogan). When I told Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, that I was going to buy only American for a week, he laughed. "I’m very sorry to hear that. "It’s exceptionally hard, if not impossible, to be 100 percent pure," he explained. "There are just some things you can’t buy. It’s incredibly difficult and depressing." Link

Corleone Family’s New Business After Quitting The Mafia Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:34 PM PST Photo: Mucha Man @ Forumosa forum What did the Corleone family do after they got tired from all that mafia stuff? Well, they moved to Taiwan and opened a credit service!

Famous People Who Were Homeschooled Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:33 PM PST Quick: what do Agatha Christie, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Woodrow Wilson and Mozart got in common? They’re all homeschooled! Here’s a neat quickie article at our pal mental_floss about 10 famous people who were homeschooled. For example: 1. Agatha Christie. Agatha was a painfully shy girl, so her mom homeschooled her even though her two older siblings attended private school. [...] 4. If Thomas Edison was around today, he would probably be diagnosed with ADD – he left public school after only three months because his mind wouldn’t stop wandering. His mom homeschooled him after that, and he credited her with the success of his education: “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” 5. Ansel Adams was homeschooled at the age of 12 after his “wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers” disrupted the classroom. His father took on his education from that point forward. Link - via i met a possum

Fulfill Your Inner Will Ferrell Posted: 30 Nov 2008 07:40 PM PST Admit it: you’ve always wanted to see what you would look like as an elf. The hat, the shoes with the rolled toes, the tights, the whole nine yards. And now you can, thanks to Office Max. I know Elf Yourself isn’t a new phenomenon, but I got such a huge kick out of it last year that I thought I’d pass it along again this year. Just crop your head out of a photo that you like and stick it on the elf. Then sit back and check out all of your sweet dance moves.

NaNoWriMo Success!! Posted: 30 Nov 2008 07:16 PM PST I won! 50,039 words with three hours to spare. How did the rest of you NaNo participants do? Will you do it again next year? Are you celebrating? I am, although it’s a pretty meager celebration: a beer and some guilt-free Internet surfing. Leave a comment and let us know how you ended up! And, previously on Neatorama: NaNoWrimo is Upon Us NaNoWriMo Progress The Ravings of a Mad (almost) Novelist

Crying Caterpillar Ad Posted: 30 Nov 2008 01:42 PM PST [YouTube - Link] You know…I love the Japanese sense of humour when it comes to their advertisements. They can be funny, bizarre and sometimes insightful. This ad is the type that makes me laugh out loud because of its adorable nature. A father caterpillar and his son just want to get the best tea leaves at the top.

Butts in Photography Posted: 30 Nov 2008 11:26 AM PST Here’s a collection of rear-view images that are SFW. Some are quite fetching! A photograph taken from an unusual angle can take an image from the dull to the wonderful in an instant. Instead of concentrating on the face, why not take a chance on that sometimes neglected (and other times overused) part of the anatomy - the butt. Call it what you like, caboose, bum or bottom - its inclusion on film can make a photograph. Have a look at this collection - no ifs or ands, but quite a few butts. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans! (image credit: mysza831)

Now that’s an Apple Pie! Posted: 30 Nov 2008 11:23 AM PST Windell and Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories used a 45 watt carbon-dioxide laser to score an Apple logo on the top crust of an apple pie. They used a square springform pan to get the crust centered just right, and kept a crust lattice inside the logo to prevent it from distorting while it baked. I heard it was delicious, too. Link

Minority Report CCTV Posted: 30 Nov 2008 10:37 AM PST Britain has taken one more step in becoming a surveillance society with this: a "crime-predicting" CCTV that seems to be plucked straight out of science fictions: Computers are programmed to analyse the movements of people or vehicles in the camera frame. If someone is seen lurking in a particular area, the computer will send out an alarm to a CCTV operator. The operator will then check the image and – if concerned – ring the police. The aim is to stop crimes before they are committed. If a vehicle is moving too fast or slow – indicating joyriding or kerb-crawling, for example – a similar alert could be given. Link I admit I had to look up kerb crawling

Man Held Breath for 18 Minutes Underwater Posted: 30 Nov 2008 10:36 AM PST How long can you hold your breath underwater? Me? A minute, tops! Well, however long you can hold your breath, I betcha it’s nothing when compared to what Gianluca Genoni just did: he set a new world record for breath-holding, handily beating what David Blaine did (7 minutes) and the previous world record: Gianluca Genoni held his breath for 18 minutes 3.69 seconds while lying underwater in a Mantua swimming pool, beating German diver Tom Sietas, who managed 17 minutes 19 seconds in September - also on live TV - to unseat Blaine from the Guinness world record book. Link - via Underwater Times

Now That’s a Chair! Posted: 30 Nov 2008 10:36 AM PST Photo: Alexander Natruskin / REUTERS Times may be tough for regular Joes like you and me, but the Russian fat cats are partyin’ like it’s 1999 in Moscow’s annual Millionaire Fair. The Russian capital is home to 60,000 millionaires and 30 billionaires (in fact, it has more rich people than any other cities on Earth) - and conspicuous consumption seems to be their mantra. REUTERS has an interesting photo gallery of this year’s Millionaire Fair (which is filled with beautiful young women looking bored!). This one above is a chair fit for fat cats or super villains, designed by Raw Design: Link - via Oddly Enough Other Links: BBC News photo gallery of the 2006 Millionaire Fair | ABC News photo galllery Previously on Neatorama: The Villain Chair

Cat Haiku Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:48 AM PST Will Braden, the writer behind the short film Henri, recently featured on Neatorama, is also a composer of cat-themed haiku. Here are a few samples: oh, I scratched the couch does that upset you? you mad? you had me neutered I love to eat grass though it makes me sick each time like you and vodka I lounge in the sun savoring the morning scents have fun at your job Link

How To Cook on Your Car Engine While Driving Posted: 30 Nov 2008 09:33 AM PST (Video Link) Howcast shows you how to bake a meal on your car engine while driving. At the end of a long workday, you can wrap a few ingredients in tin foil, toss it on your radiator, and have a hot meal waiting you when you arrive home. Run time: 2.5 minutes. Via Bits & Pieces

10 Incredibly Dangerous Doctors Posted: 30 Nov 2008 06:12 AM PST History is full of medical horror stories you’ve never heard of. Some doctors popularized theories that turned out to be just plain wrong, others made catastrophic misdiagnoses. Still others valued their research over their patients, to the detriment of both. Shown is Dr. Walter Freeman, who promoted the ice pick lobotomy in the mid-20th century. It became incredibly popular, over 50,000 were performed, with Freeman performing over 3,000 himself in his lobotomobile. Freeman believed in lobotomies even after being discredited. He spent his final years visiting his victims, trying to prove they had benefited from his work. Read about Freeman and nine other dangerous doctors. Link -Thanks, Sami!

Geek Gifts Posted: 30 Nov 2008 06:09 AM PST Oooh -a bat-shaped boomerang that’s really a money clip! The Batarang Folding Money Clip is just one of the picks at The Geek Guide to Holiday Gift-Giving. There’s also gadgets, movies, jewelry, and fashions that you won’t find at your local department store, all with links to ordering information. Link -Thanks, Yan!

Dancing Scientists on YouTube Posted: 30 Nov 2008 06:08 AM PST The magazine Science has announced the winners of the 2009 “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest. Sue Lynn Lau did a ballet to illustrate the role of vitamin D in beta-cell function. Miriam Sach used modern dance to portray cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs. Vince LiCata danced with his graduate students to represent the interaction of pairs of hemoglobin molecules. And Markita Landry tangoed her way through “Single Molecule Measurements of Protelomerase TelK-DNA Complexes.” The judges included the winners of last year’s competition. All the entries were posted to YouTube. Link (with videos) -via Metafilter

Dragonfly Macrophotography Posted: 30 Nov 2008 06:05 AM PST Dragonflies are beautiful, and even more so close up! Take a look at pictures that illustrate the dragonfly’s anatomy and life cycle. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans! (image credit: Cessna 206)

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