Neatorama

Posted: 25 Feb 2009 05:38 AM PST

Did you know that cheetahs lived in Algeria? Not too many of them. This is one of the first-ever camera-trap photos of an extremely rare Saharan subspecies taken in late summer of 2008. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that these cheetahs number only about 250, putting them on the critically endangered list. Research fellow Sarah Durant of the Zoological Society of London, who co-led the cheetah camera survey, admits that no one knows why this subspecies is in such bad shape, and that no one has been studying them to find out.

Link

(image credit: Farid Belbachir/ZSL/OPNA)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Google’s Cafeteria Doesn’t Suck

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 07:28 PM PST

As if we needed another reason to be insanely jealous of people who work at Google, here’s one more: not only is the food there free, their cafeteria doesn’t suck. Not by a long shot. The Google people periodically bring in guest chefs to cook for a day - even Mario Batali has stopped by. The baker who blogged about her experience is Kelli Bernard, the owner of Amai Tea and Bake House in New York. She brought in several varieties of cookies, including chai almond, green tea and pumpkin chocolate chip. I’m so envious.

Link

The World’s Smallest Manned Helicopter

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 06:32 PM PST

The GEN H-4, designed by the Japanese, is apparently the world’s smallest manned helicopter. It weighs in at a waifish 155 pounds and can be yours for one easy payment of $35,000.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by interweber.

Government: You’re Cleared of Child Abuse, But It’s Too Late to Have Your Children Back

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 05:36 PM PST

Mark and Nicky Webster’s children were taken away by UK’s social services after doctors found small fractures in their son’s leg, mistakenly thought as caused by physical abuse but later found to have a rare medical cause.

When they went to clear their names and get their children back, the courts said that it was too late …

The couple’s nightmare started in October 2003 when Mrs Webster took their second son to hospital with a swollen leg.

He was found to have a number of small fractures which doctors said could be caused only by physical abuse.

The following year they were permanently removed and put up for adoption after a one-day court hearing.
Medical experts later concluded that the injuries were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, but were symptoms of rare case of scurvy. [...]

The Appeal Court ruled on Wednesday that even though the Websters ‘may well’ have been victims of a miscarriage of justice the adoption order on their eldest three children could not be revoked because the youngsters are now settled with their adoptive parents.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by philosophile.

Cancer-sniffing Dog Saves Owner’s Life

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 05:29 PM PST

Maureen Burns in Rugby, England has a 10-year-old mixed breed collie named Max who probably saved her life. Max started actingly strangely, sniffing his owner’s breath and rubbing against her right breast.

Mrs. Burns discovered a lump but it did not show up on a hospital mammogram. She convinced doctors to do a biopsy and sure enough, the tumor was malignant.

She’s had surgery to remove the lump, followed by radiation treatment, and her prognosis is excellent. Mrs. Burns is convinced that she is alive today because of her dog’s keen sense of smell.

“It was his peculiar reaction that alerted me to the fact that something was wrong. At first I thought he was just getting old, he was not so playful and his eyes were sad. He’d sniff my breath in an odd way — I even asked my husband Roger if I had halitosis.”
– Maureen Burns

Link - via arbroath

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Electronic Embroidery Kit

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 05:07 PM PST

How cool is it to have a light up needlework project sold complete with the lights, wiring and battery to make it work? Way too cool, that’s how cool.

Link

Un-Bee-lieveable Artwork

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 03:21 PM PST

This is some incredible artwork by Hilary Berseth, and a few thousand helpers…

Artists from Rodin to Warhol to Mark Kostabi have outsourced the construction of their work. Hilary Berseth goes them one better: He constructs basic frameworks of wire and wax, then lets teams of tiny yellow-and-black art fabricators finish the job. "I knew they were ordered and regimented," the Pennsylvania artist says about his honeybees, which built the three otherworldly sculptures on view at Eleven Rivington. "I had an intuition that I'd be able to organize that, architecturally."

Link - via notcot

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.

Mini City of Sweetness

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 03:18 PM PST

Artist Meschac Gaba imagined a city of sugar, and then built it. He filled it with instantly recognizable landmarks from around the world, such as the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the London Eye, Petronas Towers, the Reichstag, the Empire State Building, and more. There are 600 buildings in the fantasy city, which measures 30 feet by 20 feet and took two years to build.

The granulated cityscape was part of an exhibition called Port City at the Greenland Street gallery in Liverpool, England, last summer.

Yes, you can say it’s a waste of sugar, but think how many children’s teeth were saved from cavities!

Link - via liverpooldailypost

(image credit: Flickr user Chrys Omori)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Caption Monkey 56: Family Photo

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 12:16 PM PST

Photo from: Black is the New Black blog (I won’t pretend to know my Japanese monster, so can someone point out what it is?)

Oops - I’ve been so busy that little did I notice we haven’t posted a Caption Monkey game in a while (sorry, Adam!). So here it is!

The game is simple: come up with the funniest caption, and win an original Laugh Out Loud Cat comic by artist extraordinaire Adam Koford. One entry per comment, but you can enter as many captions as you’d like.

For inspiration, check out Adam’s blog (and new Kitteh and Pip wallpaper!)

Neatorama Update - February 2009

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 12:06 PM PST

Hello everyone! Just a little update on the going ons in the world of Neatorama:

Mystery Sale: Thank you to everybody who participated! This was our third and best Mystery Sale ever! Due to the high volume of orders, it’ll take our warehouse about two to three weeks to ship out the Mystery sale orders - regular orders won’t be affected and will ship out in just about one business day.

Some of you didn’t get the automatic email receipts from the store: for some reason it seems like sbcglobal.net as well as a couple other ISPs decided that our emails are spam and nuked it en route. This is a problem we’ve discussed before on Neatorama, so if you have one of these emails, perhaps it’s time to switch to Gmail.

And of course, we’ll have a "reveal" update posted in the next few weeks.

Neatorama Upcoming Queue: A few naughty submitters were caught gaming the system - so we’ve instituted a few safeguards. For instance, now the submitter’s info is anonymized during the voting period. This ensures that the focus of the vote is the post, and not the poster.

Rogue Ads: I’ve gotten an email saying that there’s been a rogue banner ad on Neatorama. I spent all morning hunting for it, and it seems that we’ve located and banned the guilty party, but if you do see a NSFW ad on the blog, please let me know!

Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt Winner: Last week, we had our 8th Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt. The winner has been announced in the answer page.

Gaping Hole Halloween Costume

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:44 AM PST

Evan Booth created this awesome "gaping hole" costume for Halloween using a travel DVD player with video feed from a digital camera strapped to his back.

I don’t know what is more awesome, Evan’s wig or the gaping hole costume! Link - via Unique Daily

Wall of Coca-Cola Cans

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:44 AM PST

Xander of Colaplaza is an avid collector of Coca-Cola cans. He now has over 8,000 different Coke cans. Check out his Wall of Coke Cans here: Link

Previously on Neatorama: 25 Strangest Collection on the Web

Mini Moscow

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:43 AM PST

LiveJournal user Makzer posted a fantastic set of photos from a 1:500 scale model of the Russian capital of Moscow. Every year since 1986, workers wipe dust from each building and keep the model updated whenever new buildings sprung up.

Link - via Oddity Central

Previously on Neatorama:

Fail Sticker

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:42 AM PST

Design studio Go Media has just released "the most usable sticker for real-life FAILS". Behold, the Fail Sticker.
Oh, I can think of many uses for this little puppy!

Link - via Zoomdoggle and Urlesque

Li’l Che by Chip Zdarsky

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:41 AM PST

Photo: chipzdarsky [Flickr]

Chip Zdarsky created this set of illustrations of every hipster’s favorite political deity figure: Look out, it’s Li’l Che! (Shouldn’t it be chequito?) Link - via Warren Ellis

“Oo De Lally” in 13 Languages

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 09:05 AM PST

The 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood has been translated into languages all over the world, which has to be a difficult job because so much of the story is told through songs. Andy Baio at Waxy has collected over a dozen translations of the opening song “Oo De Lally” for your listening pleasure. The singers are quite talented! My favorite is the Arabic version. Link -via mental_floss

World Pancake Stack Record

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 09:04 AM PST

That’s a lot of pancakes! 672 of them, to be exact, and a pair of chefs at a Scottish hotel think the stack of pancakes may get them into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Sean McGinlay and Natalie King of Glasgow’s Hilton Grosvenor hotel measured their pancake tower at 29.5 inches (75cm) - beating the current title by 0.4in.

The chefs mixed about 100 eggs, more than 17 pints of milk, 11lbs of flour and 6.6lbs of butter for the challenge, a hotel spokeswoman said.

The hotel’s general manager Stuart Nelson said: ‘It was a bit shaky towards the end but somehow we managed to pull it off.

The current pancake stack record is 29.1 inches, set by a Slovenian team last year. Link -via J-Walk Blog

“Poor Man’s Meal” - a Depression-era recipe

Posted: 24 Feb 2009 08:23 AM PST

[YouTube - Link]

91-year old Claire shows how she cooked meals during the Great Depression. Nothing special - potatoes and hot dogs - but her commentary does make today’s problems seem less intense.

"I had to quit high school because we couldn’t afford socks…we couldn’t afford anything to wear."

- via consumerist

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.