Neatorama

Audio Bone Headphones Posted: 03 Feb 2009 04:35 AM PST This. Is. Awesome. I ran into the Audio Bone headphones people at 2009 CES, and was so impressed with their ear-free, bone conductance headphones that I had to carry them in the Neatorama Online Store. The Audio Bone Headphones deliver superb sound through your bones, directly to your inner ear. It lets you listen to music and, because the headphones do not cover your ears at all, still hear everything around you. This lets me listen to music at home at night while working on the computer but still be able to hear the kids if they happen to wake up. The headphones are stylish and lightweight - in fact, it’s more comfortable than regular headphones and earbuds. And because they don’t involve the ear drums, it’s also safer for your hearing. We have 4 different colors of the Audio Bone Headphones, at $179 each. It’s a the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for a gadget lover: Link

Peggy Sue Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:43 PM PST (YouTube link) Now, no matter what you think of rock-and-roll, I think you have to keep a nice open mind about what the young people go for; otherwise the youngsters won’t feel that you understand them. Buddy Holly was one of the hottest rock-and-roll stars of the late 50s. He chartered a plane from Clear Lake, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota, two stops on the Winter Dance Party tour. It took off around 1AM on February 3rd, 1959. That was 50 years ago today. The plane encountered a snowstorm shortly into the flight and crashed, killing the pilot, Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson AKA The Big Bopper. The date became known as The Day The Music Died. Link

My, What a Lovely Nuclear Dump You Have Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:15 PM PST Nowhere is it written that your nuclear waste storage facility can’t be easy on the eyes. As long as the place isn’t glowing too brightly, melting down or shrouded in a mushroom cloud, you can decorate it as much as you like. Habog is an interim for high-level radioactive waste in the Netherlands. Designed to last for up to 300 years, the facility contains waste resulting from reprocessing nuclear fuel removed from the Netherland’s Borsselle and Dodewaard nuclear power stations after the implementation of electrical generation. The lucky artist hired to paint the Habog storage facility was one William Verstraeten. The artist decorated the facility’s exterior in bright orange that’s then covered by Einstein’s equation E=mc2 and Max Planck’s E=hv. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Artistic Masterpieces Created by Trees Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:11 PM PST The next piece of art to adorn your living room wall could be drawn by a tree. British artist Tim Knowles has developed a way of allowing nature to be an artist. His tree drawings are created by attaching drawing tools to the tips of tree branches! Link - via inhabitat From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Philosophers, Math Nerds and Other Super Heroes Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:10 PM PST All the geek-lit coming out this week you need to know about. (Required reading from this week’s pickin’s in the world of books…) Who says philosophy majors never accomplish anything? Well, our fathers and guidance counselors and every woman who has ever slept with a philosophy major. But Simon Critchley’s Book of Dead Philosophers a compendium of the demises of great thinkers, is funny as hell and may have you reconsidering grad school. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by bckids1208.

My Punny Valentine Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:50 PM PST Yippee! We’re now carrying wonderful products from indie artists Ashley and Hannah of Hoopla in the Neatorama Online Store. This particular one above, My Punny Valentine, is a set of 5 revamped 1950’s style Valentine cards that feature really bad - and therefore really awesome - puns. They are perfect for Valentine’s Day! Also, check out the Forever Bouquet, a dozen colorful "freshly cut" paper flowers that will never need sun or water. It lasts forever, and in this economy, that counts for a lot! Link

Molecular Visualization of DNA Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:48 PM PST [YouTube - Link] Here is an amazing CGI visualization of DNA coiling, replication, transcription and translation in real time as is occurring every second in our bodies. For me the most fascinating aspect of watching this is the realization of how the production of DNA in our cells is so industrious. It’s like watching a souped miniature assembly line working non stop! Created by by Drew Berry of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. via - io9

McDonald’s Flooded in the Name of Art Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:13 PM PST Self proclaimed mainstream-subversive art collective Superflex, decided they’d answer a question nobody had ever bothered to ask: "What does a McDonald’s restaurant look like as it slowly fills with water?" Although we should thank them as they took the time to painstakingly recreate a McDonald’s and slowly flood it, filming it all for an exhibition at the South London Gallery. It’s actually quite a satisfying thing to watch a generic boring fast food joint wash away, be sure to check out the video on the page. Their latest work is a short film, "Flooded McDonald's", where they've (shockingly accurately) created a full-size replica of the inside of the ubiquitous fast food joint and then slowly filled it with water. Playing now in an exhibition at South London Gallery, the film is exactly what the title suggests and yet so much more. Link - via reddit From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

ZSL Babies 2008 Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:07 PM PST [YouTube - Link] They are so cute! Take a look at animal babies born in the ZSL (Zoological Society of London) zoos in London and Whipsnade. Guaranteed to make you smile! From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 3oltan.

Cows with Names Give More Milk Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:03 PM PST A cow with a name produces more milk than a cow without, say scientists at the School of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development at Newcastle University in the UK.  By giving a cow a name and treating it as an individual, farmers can increase a cow’s annual milk yield by almost 500 pints. Photo by Volkmar K. Wentzel “Just as people respond better to the personal touch, cows also feel happier and more relaxed if they are given a bit more one-to-one attention,” explains Catherine Douglas, one of the authors of the Newcastle study. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

How Your Passport And Driver’s License Can Be Hacked… Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:00 PM PST … by someone driving by in a car, if those documents have RFID chips installed in them. A fellow in San Francisco installed an RFID reader in his car, with an antenna, and connected it to his laptop on the front seat. He then drove around the city and was able to pick up the signals from passports and driver’s licenses and have the information downloaded to his computer. He could then upload the data to clone the passport. The person doing this is one of the "good guys." He’s demonstrating for the world how insanely easy it is to steal information from an RFID chip, and he’s hoping to convince the public (or, more precisely, lawmakers) that RFID should not be used for personal identity tracking as the Department of Homeland Security wants to do. There is a video at the Engadget link. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.

Solar Blinds Posted: 02 Feb 2009 09:57 PM PST Designed by Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim, the Solar Vertical Lamp takes a typical vertical blind and outfits it with special mini photovoltaic and LED pixels to create a new form of interior lighting. By day the mini solar cells absorb energy from sunlight. However, at night "artfully placed lighting pixels (similar to those used on billboards) illuminate" to create a sustainable lighting system. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

The Hamster Did It Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:59 PM PST [YouTube - Link] Either somebody messed up or the news anchor just got pranked royally. When reporting a sad news about Molly Bish, a 16-year-old girl who disappeared eight years ago, WFSB Connecticut news anchor Kara Sundlund came face to face with an unlikely suspect … - via lemondrop From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by bckids1208.

15 Fantastic Houses: Hobbit House Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:55 PM PST WebEcoist has some truly fantastic homes on their latest post, including this fantastic hobbit house above. The whole collection is quite nice. Link

Green Print to the Rescue! Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:49 PM PST Hayden Hamilton has devised a tool called GreenPrint, software that analyzes what a computer sends to a printer, to eliminate paper waste and save ink. GreenPrint "looks for pages that have no type or just a few lines of type (users can set the parameters). Then, the software automatically eliminates these pages from the print job. Users can reselect the pages if desired and deselect any other pages they don’t want to print — say, the pages of legal jargon at the end of an airline reservation. The software lets users eliminate images from a print job — for instance, the maps generated in online driving directions — thus saving ink. GreenPrint also allows users to avoid printing altogether by saving documents as PDF files." Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Carts of Darkness Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:46 PM PST Carts of Darkness is an interesting documentary film about a subculture of street life involving the homeless and the extreme sport of cart racing. The National Film Board of Canada has recently posted the entire film online along with the usual trailers. The film by Murray Siple "follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver. This subculture depicts street life as much more than the stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The film takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk". Link - via chunnel From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Watermelon Mouth Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:28 PM PST This fruit carving is fantastic. There are some truly amazing ones on the link as well, this one is certainly fun. Link Via BoingBoing

Neatorama Upcoming Queue: an Update Posted: 02 Feb 2009 05:08 PM PST Hello everyone! It’s been a week since we’ve launched the Neatorama Upcoming Queue and I’d like to give you all a little update. Since we launched on January 26, we’ve had about 400 blog posts submitted, of which about 125 were promoted to the front page. Obviously some submissions are of low quality (spam and copy&paste jobs) and many don’t have the appropriate format, but a success rate of 30% is darn good! Furthermore, what we’re asking you to do isn’t easy: the Upcoming Queue isn’t a simple link submission - we’re asking you to write a whole blog post! But I’m not suprised, really, because Neatoramanauts are smarter than the average bear! If you own a blog, and have unique and original posts, I highly encourage you to submit a post on the Upcoming Queue. As Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips wrote earlier this week, a front page link from Neatorama is worth thousands and thousands of visitors. The throughput from the Upcoming Queue is actually more than the output of all of Neatorama’s authors on a daily basis. We actually had to throttle the Queue back a little, lest the front page is totally overwhelmed with posts. I’m sure that we’ll find a good number of new posts published daily that will keep you coming back regularly to find new stuff, without being overwhelmed by new posts. As with any new (and beta) projects, there are bound to be hiccups. Early last week, our database server tripped over itself - the first outage of its sort since we upgraded our hardware. I hope that the fix we did will prevent this sort of things from happening again. There are also two general areas that we need to improve: Format of the blog submissions Despite having a "Please write this in your own words, do not copy and paste" request in the submission page, some of you insist on copying and pasting stuff straight from your blog or website. This leads to incorrectly formatted post (HTML codes showing), so don’t copy and paste, mmmkay? Duplicates With over 18,500 posts on Neatorama, it’s not easy to remember what has been on the blog before (heck, even I don’t remember!). It’s best to search the blog first to see if something has been posted before, but I do understand that a lot of things we covered some years back are suddenly "hot" again. We try hard not to duplicate posts, but part of the fun of the Upcoming Queue is giving up control over the blog. Finally, I’d like to reiterate our intention of rewarding, rather than punishing, the top submitters. While we obviously like diversity in the submitter pool, the Pareto Principle (or the 80-20 rule) predicts that only a small minority will put in more time and effort into the Upcoming Queue than the majority of readers - and that’s perfectly fine. So, to repeat the promise: The Top Submitter of February 2009 will win a Free iPod Touch, and the rest of the Top 10 Submitters (also listed on the sidebar of the Upcoming Queue) will get a free Neatorama T-Shirt. Want yours? Start by submitting your posts. It’s easy and fun! Links: Neatorama Upcoming Queue | Frequently Asked Questions about the Queue

Star Trek-Themed Cologne Coming Out Soon Posted: 02 Feb 2009 04:19 PM PST Have you ever wanted to smell like a sweaty James Doohan? Well, then, good news! CBS is licensing three Star Trek-themed body fragrances in order to market the new movie in the series. Bonus points: in the comments, give Alex ideas for describe a Neatorama-themed scent. Link via Topless Robot

Staten Island Chuck Takes a Bite Out of Mayor Posted: 02 Feb 2009 03:16 PM PST Obviously upset about the proposed budget cuts to New York City’s zoos, Staten Island Chuck let Mayor Michael Bloomberg know exactly how he feels. As reported by the Staten Island Advance, the mayor tried several times to lure the petite prognosticator out of his home, tempting him with delicious ears of corn. This resulted in Chuck grabbing the corn, and hastily returning to his den. At some point in their back and forth, Chuck bared his wood-cutting teeth and went to work on the mayor’s finger. Personally, I would be upset too if some strange guy tried to pull me out of bed at 7am. Thankfully the Mayor was not badly bit and Chuck was still able to perform his prediction duties: No shadow, early spring! “His hand was nicked,” a Bloomberg spokesman said. The mayor is up to date on his Tetanus shot, so he simply washed his wounded finger and put on a bandage. … The bite happened just before Chuck made his prediction that spring is coming, as the mayor bravely reached into the groundhog’s cottage, and tried to coax him out with some of his favorite snacks. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by TheKeyLime.

Across the Atlantic in a Human-Powered Submarine Posted: 02 Feb 2009 03:14 PM PST Inventor and entrepreneur Ted Ciamillo is planning to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean later this year in a one-man submarine he designed. The sub will use a pedal-powered propulsion system based on a dolphin’s tail. (It’s already available in a swim-fin model that can propel swimmers fast enough to nearly leap out of the water like a whale.) If he succeeds in making the 2,300-mile trip from Cape Verde to the Caribbean, Ciamillo may also help open a new window in marine science: It may sound like a crazy stunt dreamed up by an adrenalin junkie, but the plan, dubbed the “Subhuman project”, has attracted serious attention from marine biologists. That’s because the sub, when it takes to the seas later this year, could for the first time allow them to explore the upper layers of the ocean silently and unobtrusively, revealing marine life as it has never been seen before. Link - via juliansmith From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gottabefunky.

Bead Me Up, Scotty Posted: 02 Feb 2009 03:13 PM PST Earlier this year Devorah Sperber’s Star Trek art was featured in a show at Caren Golden Fine Art in New York. The show, entitled “Mirror, Mirror”, takes its name from a classic episode but also refers to the way viewers are meant to view the art – via reflective materials. The unique artwork is comprised only of beads and thread. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

When You Just Want to Break Things… Posted: 02 Feb 2009 03:12 PM PST We all have our days, the ones where the slightest thing can light our fuse and set us off. Maybe it was a horrible day at the office, trench warfare with a significant other, the swerving idiot at the intersection, economic woes or you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sometimes the only way to feel better is to vent that frustration. Before you go berserk in public and get yourself arrested maybe it’s time to pay a visit to Sarah’s Smash Shack. The Smash Shack offers a variety of plates, glasses, vases and other smashable items for patrons to choose from, or they can bring their own. All smashing is performed in soundproof Break Rooms where patrons, clad in boots, gloves, coveralls and a protective mask, hurl objects at a stainless steel wall. Call it a form of artistic self-expression. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Super Bowl Viewers Saw Porn Instead! Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:44 AM PST In 2004, Janet Jackson’s "wardrobe malfunction" caused a storm of a controversy, but this year viewers in the Tuscon area  saw a whole lot more than that. Viewers  were astonished to see a woman unzipping a man’s trousers to reveal "full male nudity" followed with what was described as "a graphic act" between a couple. With less than three minutes left to the game, viewers were "treated" to a 30-second excerpt from Club Jenna, an adult cable TV channel featuring Jenna Jameson, one of America’s most famous porn actresses. Somehow, the feed for the Super Bowl got mixed up: I just figured it was another commercial until I looked up,” Cora King, of Marana, told the Arizona Daily Star newspaper. “Then he did his little dance with everything hanging out.” Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by angstrom.

Human-Powered Ferris Wheel Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:35 AM PST [YouTube - Link] No motor? No problem! In India, this ferris wheel is powered by men climbing up and using their body weight to rotate the wheel. I guess you’d want to try this ride early, since the operators must be exhausted at the end of the day! From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

The ‘New’ Martha Washington: Sex Appeal Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:31 AM PST For generations Americans have grown up with the image of an old and frumpy Martha Washington.  Like many other icons, historians are giving her a fresh new update. “We always see Martha with a withered face in her old age. But she was quite a beautiful woman in her younger years, and Washington loved her deeply,” said Edward Lengel, senior editor at the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. “What’s happening now is revisionist. But I think it’s a whole lot closer to the reality of what she was.” Contrary to popular opinion, even among some historians who should know better, Martha was not fat when she married George. Yes, she liked to read the Bible, but she devoured gothic romance novels, too. She capably ran the five plantations left to her when her first husband died, bargaining with London merchants for the best tobacco prices. And unknown to most, while George was courting her she had another suitor, a Virginia planter with much greater wealth and stature. In a little-known letter, Charles Carter wrote to his brother about what a beauty she was and how he hoped to “arouse a flame in her breast.” Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

The Hidden Door Company Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:23 AM PST Everyone loves a good secret passageway. The idea alone sparks curiosity and makes the brain buzz with thoughts of mystery and adventure. Normally these hidden doors are relegated to ancient sites and historic buildings, but what if you could put one in your very own home? Whether you have secrets to hide or just want to confuse guests, The Hidden Door Company specializes in creating practical secret doorways for the home. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Sailfish Roll a Huge Sardine Katamari Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:22 AM PST This sailfish is keeping an eye on group of sardines that he and some 100 other sailfish have driven together to form a ball the size of an elephant. Sailfish hunt in packs and work together to drive bait fish up from the depths to shallow sunlit water where it’s easier to see them.  When the ball is dense enough, they will drive into it with the long bills and startle the bait fish by opening their big dorsal fins (the "sail" of the sailfish) with a sudden whoosh, and at the same time they flash irridescent colors along their bodies. They use these scare techniques to separate out smaller, more manageable groups of fish for easier eating.  You can see these spectacular fish driving and cutting a baitball in this video, as photographer Paul Nicklen explains what’s going on. Photo by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Heeeeere’s Punxsutawney Phil! Posted: 02 Feb 2009 11:05 AM PST I’m not very happy with that little rodent’s prediction this morning, but the Pennsylvania Tourism Office did make me laugh with this little video clip from a couple of years ago - it’s what happens when the pressure of predicting the weather finally gets to old Phil. See more videos here.

Do-it-yourself DNA Analysis Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:11 AM PST Five-year-old Beatrice Rienhoff suffers from a rare genetic disorder that leaves her with very little muscle mass and a range of medical problems. Doctors don’t know exactly what’s wrong, nor how to help her. Families facing this kind of medical uncertainty are often paralyzed by their distress. But rather than give in to his anguish, Hugh Rienhoff made an extraordinary decision: He would dig into Beatrice’s genetic code and find the answer himself. A biotechnology consultant by day, Rienhoff has been an avid student of clinical genetics since he earned his medical degree nearly 30 years ago. Now he has used this expertise to transform his Bay Area home into a makeshift genetics lab. Surrounded by his children’s artwork and bookshelves loaded with his wife’s political literature, Rienhoff set about sequencing a number of Beatrice’s genes, preparing samples using secondhand equipment and turning to public databases to interpret the results. On the desk in his attic workspace are a pair of white binders stuffed with charts detailing 20,000 of Beatrice’s base pairs; the data for nearly 1 billion can be accessed from a nearby PC. Whenever he has a spare moment, Rienhoff sequesters himself in this cluttered, carpeted room and sifts through his daughter’s DNA, one nucleotide at a time. He is hunting for the single genetic quirk responsible for Beatrice’s woes—an adenine in place of a guanine, perhaps, or an extra cytosine in a key location. If he can find the culprit, he figures, maybe he can find a treatment, too. Reinhoff’s research hasn’t cracked the mystery yet, but he has found a treatment that helps his daughter somewhat. Along the way, he also became an advocate for other parents who are looking for answers to their children’s baffling conditions. Link (image credit: Ye Rin Mok)

Periodic Table Duvet Cover Posted: 02 Feb 2009 10:07 AM PST A duvet cover goes over an ordinary blanket to turn it into a comforter. Forum member cherry_blossom55 made this awesome duvet cover for her boyfriend, who is a chemistry major. It has the entire periodic table of elements on it! She ran each square through a printer to attach the proper element. See lots more pictures of the process at Craftster. Link -via Unique Daily

Skrew-Doo? Posted: 02 Feb 2009 06:35 AM PST Ok here’s something I’ve never seen before that dates back to pre-World War II. This contraption consists of a tractor and some form of corkscrew drive system. After a bit of research, it appears that this invention originates from Russia. Call it Russian mechanized genius/madness, you decide. Via - LiveLeak

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