Neatorama

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• New Species of Strawberry Crab Discovered
• Letterheady: A Blog About Letterheads
• Separate Sack Suspensory
• The Evolution of Mr. Potato Head
• 10 Technologies That Will Rock 2010
• The Sunday Funnies Stamps
• Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen and Other Bad Dating Show Ideas
• How Long Could Luke Survive in a Tauntaun?
• Pink Snow in Fargo
• Five Hot Exoplanets Discovered
• Underwater Atomic Explosion Swamps Ship
• 50% More Worcestershire Sauce!
• Cubicles for the Homeless
• Parachute Panorama
• Dog Saved From Freezing Water
• Jewelry You Can Sink Your Teeth Into
• Dragging a Coke Machine Down the Road
• Wooden Car Powered By Wood-Burning Boiler
• The Transatlantic Accent
• 2009 Darwin Awards
• Dezomeshiki - Firefighting Japanese Style
• Dubai's Vertical City Photos
• How Jews Survived WWII in Caves
• Go Go (Inspector) Gadget Facts!
• The Week in Geekery

New Species of Strawberry Crab Discovered Posted: 06 Jan 2010 12:38 AM PST Marine biologist Professor Ho Ping-ho from the National Taiwan Ocean University has discovered a new species of strawberry crab off southern Taiwan.  While there are other species of strawberry crab, this particular one has a unique clam shaped shell. Click the link for larger photos. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Letterheady: A Blog About Letterheads Posted: 06 Jan 2010 12:29 AM PST (L) Walt Disney Productions – via COHASCO DPC (R) Frank Zappa – via Kill Ugly Radio Robot Salesmen Ltd. – via We Made This From Shaun Usher of (sadly now defunct) deputydog and the fantastic Letters of Note blog, here comes Letterheady, an online homage to letterheads: Link

Separate Sack Suspensory Posted: 06 Jan 2010 12:17 AM PST From the March 1992 issue of Physical Culture, as presented by the ever amazing Modern Mechanix blog, let me tell my fellow men three words that will change their lives forever. Ready? Separate Sack Suspensory: You can do the hardest work or play without strain, chafing or pinching if you wear a Separate Sack Suspensory. The S.S.S. has no irritating leg straps, no oppressive band on the sack, no scratching metal slides. It is made just as nature intended. With the S.S.S. you always have a clean suspensory every morning. Each outfit has two sacks, you can clip one fast to the supporting straps while the other sack is cleaned. That’s it. Tramp, er … carry on.

The Evolution of Mr. Potato Head Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:52 PM PST The first Mr. Potato Head (1952) - via National Institute of Health 1949: A SPUD IS BORN Brooklyn-born toy inventor George Lerner tries to capitalize on kids who like to play with their food. Surprisingly, Lerner's idea of creating face and body parts that can be jabbed into potatoes is a hard sell. Toy companies worry that parents who've just lived through World War II-era food shortages will balk at the thought of wasting perfectly good food. [YouTube Clip] 1952: THE TUBER SPREADS Hasbro sees the genius in Lerner's product and agrees to market it, creating the first-ever TV ads for a toy. It turns out that parents have few misgivings about squandering their potatoes; more than 1 million Mr. Potato Heads sell that year alone. Mr and Mrs. Potato Head (1953) - photo via Dnnis Martin's excellent MrPotatoHead.net website (many more photos there) 1950s: FAMILY MAN Mr. Potato Head gets an arranged marriage. In 1953, Hasbro outfits him with an instant family: Mrs. Potato Head, son Spud, and a daughter, Yam. He also gets a car, a boat, and a kitchen in the deal. Within a few years, the likable Spud makes friends with pal Katie the Carrot and Pete the Pepper. 1964 & 1974: ATTACK OF THE ROTTEN POTATOES When parents complain about finding moldy potatoes under their kids' beds, Mr. Potato Head ditches his organic body for a plastic one. Ten years later, new rules about choking hazards compel Hasbro to merge the head and body into one legless lump. 1980s: A SPOKESSPUD IS BORN Mr. Potato Head trades his dapper hat for a green baseball cap and exchanges his loafers for blue tennis shoes. In keeping with his new, sportier look, he also quits smoking in 1987 for the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. To show his support for the anti-smoking campaign, he publicly hands over his signature tobacco pipe to U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. 1992: FRIES ON THE SIDE Arnold Schwarzenegger and the President's Council on Physical Fitness give him an award for abandoning his couch-potato lifestyle. Curiously, his new healthy habits don't stop Mr. Potato Head from endorsing Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, and Hardee's. 1995: SUPERSIZED Mr. Potato Head makes his big-screen debut in Toy Story, the first film ever made using only computer-generated imagery. But perhaps his most prestigious gig is yet to come. In 2000, Mr. Potato Head becomes the official travel ambassador for Rhode Island, "the Birthplace of Fun," where Hasbro is headquartered. The article above appeared in the Jan - Feb 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission. Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!

10 Technologies That Will Rock 2010 Posted: 05 Jan 2010 10:06 PM PST Global Thoughtz Technology has a cool list of the latest tech that’s due to blow up this year, including augmented reality.  It’s recently debuted on certain phones that can integrate GPS and object recognition to enhance navigation. Further, the core of the technology will be the mobile camera and the placement of processed information on top of live streaming content from the camera. We are already seeing some of it with mobile GPS applications, but 2010 will be clearly put these applications on the top shelf of mobile apps. This will allows users to get every information by integrating physical reality and virtual world. Apple’s Tablet, the rise of online TV and more at the Link.  (Photo: Wikipedia)

The Sunday Funnies Stamps Posted: 05 Jan 2010 09:52 PM PST Every year, the United States Postal Service release a set of new stamps and this year, one particular set stands out: The Sunday Funnies Collection. Comics Alliance blog has the scoop (and more pics): Based on popular newspaper comic strips, the series will include stamps involving Archie, Garfield, Dennis the Menace, the cast of "Beetle Bailey," and my personal favorites, Calvin and Hobbes! Link | USPS News Release – Thanks Laura!

Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen and Other Bad Dating Show Ideas Posted: 05 Jan 2010 09:47 PM PST Forget Who Wants To Marry a Multi-Millionaire! There’s an even better reality tv / dating show idea: Who Wants To Marry a U.S. Citizen: Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen was a show devised by the geniuses at Morusa Media in California in 2007, and by the end of that year they already had the first pool of contestants and a host signed up. The idea? A lucky, single American woman goes on dates with three handsome but illegal immigrants and at the end picks one with which to spend the rest of her life. Said the host Angelo Gonzales before the show presumably fell through: ‘There are thousands of US citizens seeking a spouse, and just as many immigrants seeking the same. So we want to make it a win-win situation for all involved’. Who can argue? More at Shaun Usher’s The World’s Worst Dating Show Ideas – Thanks David!

How Long Could Luke Survive in a Tauntaun? Posted: 05 Jan 2010 07:14 PM PST Luke Skywalker survived the arctic conditions of the planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back only because Han Solo killed his tauntaun (a native beast of burden) and shoved Luke inside the animal’s warm carcass. This led the blog Wolf Gnards to ask, as a practical question, how long could Luke really survive in a tauntaun’s body? In a normal environment, a carcass gets cold in 8 to 36 hours losing an average rate of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. However, the ice world of Hoth is not an average environment. The Star Wars database lists that Hoth reaches nightly temperatures of -60 F. In a frigid, sub-zero environment, body heat can be lost almost 32 times faster. This means a Tauntaun’s body heat could drop almost 51.2 F every hour. Considering that Han Solo’s Tauntaun died of severe hypothermia even before it was cut open with Luke’s light saber, one could assume it’s core body temperature was already well below normal. The problem for Luke is if the Tauntaun’s body temperature reaches freezing point those once toasty guts, blood, and assorted alien goo, will in fact become a frozen coffin. If the Tauntaun died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia with an average body temperature of 75 F (23 C), and if Tauntaun blood freezes at 28.4 F (-2 C), then Han has roughly 56 minutes to set up a shelter before Luke once again is in danger of losing his life in the barren wasteland of Hoth. It’s an interesting hypothesis, but it should be followed with rigorous scientific testing. Any volunteers? Link via Forces of Geek | Image: Lucasfilm

Pink Snow in Fargo Posted: 05 Jan 2010 06:13 PM PST It’s not a weather anomaly, but an art project. Stevie Famulari used a weed sprayer to paint the snow on her Fargo lawn pink! Famulari is an environmental artist and a landscape architecture professor at North Dakota State University. She changes the color of her snow with each new layer that falls. She plans to paint the next snowfall a purplish blue and the one after that will be black. She chose her colors to become darker as the season progresses. When the snow melts, she expects the older layers to be revealed. Famulari says she will not paint the snow yellow. Oh yes, she also paints her lawn in the summer. Link -via Unique Daily (image credit: David Samson/The Forum)

Five Hot Exoplanets Discovered Posted: 05 Jan 2010 06:10 PM PST NASA’s Kepler space telescope mission is sending back data on exoplanets we’ve never seen before. Five new planets that the probe recently discovered are large planets that revolve close to their stars, making it easier for us to see them. The smallest of the new planets is about the same size as Neptune, though much more massive. All of the planets are hotter than molten lava and could turn gold to goo, according to NASA temperature estimates. Dubbed Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b, the five new planets range in temperature from 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,090 to 1,650 degrees Celsius), William Borucki, Kepler’s principal investigator, said today during a press briefing at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. One of the worlds, Kepler 7b, is among the lowest-density planets yet found, with about the same density as Styrofoam, he said. The data from Kepler contains the possibility of many new exoplanets, but only these five have been confirmed so far. Link (image credit: William Borucki/NASA)

Underwater Atomic Explosion Swamps Ship Posted: 05 Jan 2010 01:16 PM PST (YouTube Link) A (presumably) abandoned ship near a US nuclear test is swamped by the resulting massive wave. The video is courtesy of Atom Central, a site filled with pictures, videos, and information about nuclear weapons. via Urlesque | Atom Central

50% More Worcestershire Sauce! Posted: 05 Jan 2010 01:16 PM PST This past week we purchased the bottle on the right above – French’s “Classic” Worcestershire sauce, in the 15 oz. size – to replace the old one on the left with the “New and Improved!” label. The label of the new bottle indicates that it has 50% MORE* (with the asterisk). I can’t reproduce the letter size here, but it’s approximately a 48 point font. On the right below that in bold italics is Excellent Value! in a ~14-point font. And beneath that the clarification *Compared to 10 FL. OZ. products. in ~12-point italics. One can’t argue with the mathematics.  The question is whether this is deceptive advertising.  Does this labelling cynically take advantage of inattentive shoppers, or is it a truthful, clever marketing ploy?

Cubicles for the Homeless Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:48 AM PST Entrepreneurs in Tokyo have developed “capsule” hotels with coffin-like cubicles for those needing shelter.  They aren’t free: The rent is surprisingly high for such a small space: 59,000 yen a month, or about $640, for an upper bunk. But with no upfront deposit or extra utility charges, and basic amenities like fresh linens and free use of a communal bath and sauna, the cost is far less than renting an apartment in Tokyo, Mr. Nakanishi says. The concept was originally developed to accommodate travelers in airports or those stranded without transportation, but now they are being rented by the month, and long-term users are registering the sites as their official “home.” Link.  Photo credit Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Parachute Panorama Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:23 AM PST Flugpano Papierfassung in Italy We’ve featured many of 360 Cities’ panoramas on Neatorama, but this one is quite unique: Martin Hertel took this panorama shot while parachuting near Campocroce, Italy!

Dog Saved From Freezing Water Posted: 05 Jan 2010 11:09 AM PST Photo: Sandy Ferguson A cocker spaniel named Matt decided to frolic across a frozen duck pond in Kilmarnock, Scotland, but broke through the ice and became stuck.  The scene went from peaceful to nightmarish instantly, but thanks to a quick response from rescue crews, Matt was pulled to safety in time. Stevie Logan, Kilmarnock Fire Brigade’s station commander, in turn praised the quick actions of those who dialled 999 warning attempting a rescue themselves could have been fatal. “The people in this case did exactly the right thing by phoning us, and not attempting to rescue it themselves. Too many people have drowned trying to rescue their dogs, and although it is a hard thing to do to stand by and watch the dog struggling, we do have the specialist knowledge and equipment to carry out a rescue.” Link (Daily Mail).

Jewelry You Can Sink Your Teeth Into Posted: 05 Jan 2010 10:17 AM PST Silversmith and offbeat artist Polly van der Glas creates jewelry made from human teeth, hair, and sterling silver.  Aside from rings, she also makes necklaces, earrings, purses and more. All works are handmade in Melbourne, with sterling silver, human hair and human teeth. Human teeth are locally donated and sterilised, and human hair is either locally donated or sourced from India and China. Teeth are particularly difficult to come by, so any donations are gratefully accepted. Link (Photo via OddityCentral.)

Dragging a Coke Machine Down the Road Posted: 05 Jan 2010 10:13 AM PST (YouTube link) Nicholas Nunley needed a little cash, so he did what anyone would do -he hooked a Coke machine to his car and drove off! Deputies from the McMinn County Sheriff’s department in Riceville, Tennessee chased Nunley as sparks flew from the dragging machine Wednesday morning. The Coke machine eventually disconnected from the car, but Nunley drove on. He pulled over after a nearly five mile chase. Nunley was charged with theft and resisting arrest. Link -via Arbroath

Wooden Car Powered By Wood-Burning Boiler Posted: 05 Jan 2010 09:51 AM PST Dutch artist and inventor Joost Conijn refitted his Citroën with wooden panels and installed a wood-burning boiler for propulsion. He then traveled around Eastern Europe, documenting people’s reactions to his odd car. I’m just a bit skeptical because the engine in the video doesn’t sound like steam engine and the car moves at a pretty phenomenal rate of speed for a steam engine. But I have read that during World War II, some cars in Sweden were converted to wood-burning engines due to a scarcity of oil, so a functional steam engine modern car should be hypothetically possible. What do you think? Is this real or a hoax? Link via Make | YouTube Video | Artist’s Website (Google Translator Version)

The Transatlantic Accent Posted: 05 Jan 2010 08:18 AM PST Wouldn’t it be nice to speak English in a manner that was legible, pleasant, and did not peg you as a resident of …anywhere in particular? That is called the Transatlantic accent, which sounds halfway between British and American English. It makes you sound like you have a good education but no one can tell quite where you are from. You hear it in old Hollywood films from the 1930s and 1940s. It is the accent of Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, William F Buckley and (at least in some films) God. There is no town in the world where people grow up speaking English that way. Instead you get the accent in one of three ways: 1. Learn the accent on purpose (actors used to do that). 2. Grow up or live on both sides of the Atlantic (but that can lead to even stranger accents, like those of Loyd Grossman and Madonna). 3. Pick it up at a top boarding school in America before the 1960s. Abagond has some tips to help you cultivate a Transatlantic accent. Link -via Cynical-C

2009 Darwin Awards Posted: 05 Jan 2010 08:16 AM PST The Darwin Awards for 2009 have been announced. These annual awards recognize “those who improve our gene pool… by removing themselves from it.” All the awards are posthumous. The winners for 2009 are a pair of bank robbers in Belgium. The city of Dinant is the backdrop for this rare Double Darwin Award. Two bankrobbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM died when they overestimated the quantity of dynamite needed for the explosion. The blast demolished the building the bank was housed in. Nobody else was in the building at the time of the attack. Among the runners-up is the first ever female Darwin award, given to a woman who drove her moped into flood waters, and then leapt back in after she was rescued to retrieve her bike! Link

Dezomeshiki - Firefighting Japanese Style Posted: 05 Jan 2010 07:13 AM PST In early January Tokyo’s Fire Department struts its stuff with a large exhibition known as Dezomeshiki which has parades, firefighting vehicles, and firefighting techniques. It’s a 5-year old’s dream come true! Professional firefighting in Japan goes back centuries starting with the hikeshi, acrobatic firefighters who are now one of the highlights of the Dezomeshiki. They scale bamboo ladders and perform acrobatics stunts. There have been professional fire fighters in Japan since the 17th Century. They were known as hikeshi. Unlike modern firefighters who seek to extinguish fires, the hikeshi's main task was to pull down buildings near the fire so that the flames would not spread. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by samuraidave.

Dubai's Vertical City Photos Posted: 05 Jan 2010 07:07 AM PST Neatorama readers have followed the construction of the Burj Dubai. At times it seemed as if it would never be completed. Now the new tallest building in the world, renamed the Burj Khalifa, is finished. See photographs of the grand opening and find links to stories about the event. Fireworks light up Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest buildin during the official opening ceremony in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Jan. 4, 2010. In a surprise move, Dubai renamed the gleaming glass-and-metal tower in a nod to the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi – the oil-rich sheikdom which came to its rescue during the financial meltdown. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by digimouse.

How Jews Survived WWII in Caves Posted: 05 Jan 2010 07:03 AM PST For nearly two years in the early 1940’s, the Stermer family and other Ukranian Jews hid from their oppressors using a system of underground caves. The majority of Ukranian Jews in the western region of that country were shipped to ghettos or concentration camps. That they were able to survive and adapt was made all the more remarkable in that none of them had any experience with caves. The discovery of “two partially intact stone walls and other signs of habitation” within the Grotto piqued his team’s interest. Locals told the team about a group of Ukrainian Jews that had lived in the caves, but whether there were any survivors remained a mystery. Nicola devoted the next decade of his life to figuring out the full story, until he finally “located six of the cave survivors, most of them members of the extended Stermer family.” In an interview with National Geographic Adventure, Nicola explained what made the cave dwellers’ story so special. “The chance of a Jewish person surviving at all [in western Ukraine] was less than 5 percent. But what made this story different, and what is rarely seen in any Holocaust survival story, is how these families stayed virtually intact,” Nicola is quoted as saying. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Go Go (Inspector) Gadget Facts! Posted: 05 Jan 2010 04:50 AM PST If you grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s and had access to Nickelodeon, no doubt you found yourself watching Inspector Gadget at one point or another. The cartoon about a bumbling detective and his genius niece Penny and her dog Brain who are constantly saving the day only ran for two seasons, but the reruns lived on (and were popular enough to warrant a 1999 live-action movie). Because Neatorama is always on duty, here are a few wowser facts about the good Inspector, Penny and Brain: 1. If some of the voices from the cartoon sound familiar, it's because you've almost certainly heard them elsewhere. Cree Summer, the voice of Penny, has also been in Tiny Toon Adventures as Elmyra, Rugrats as Susie Carmichael and Drawn Together as Foxxy Love (among lots of one-off voice appearances and guest spots).    2. Even if you were never a fan of the cartoon (or the movie, for that matter), you might be familiar with the Inspector Gadget theme song. In 1984, Doug E. Fresh sampled it for his classic song The Show, which resurfaced in the 1991 Wesley Snipes movie New Jack City. 3. The original song was inspired by a classical work – “Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. 4. In 2006, a couple of the original voice actors reprised their roles for a Robot Chicken skit. Sadly, Don Adams had died the previous year, so Gadget was voiced by Joe Hanna. But the voices of Penny, Brain and Dr. Claw are all done by the originals. Chief Quimby was voiced by Robot Chicken co-creator Seth Green. If you've ever wondered what a cross between Gadget and the Terminator would look like, here you go: 5. You might remember Gadget's best gadgets: binoculars, skates, springs, extra hands. But those are just the tip of the iceberg. Gadget also had a necktie-lasso, a parachute, a respirator, skis, pulleys, eyeballs that could pop out of his head and spy on people, and even radar (among other things). Those are but a fraction of the gadgets the inspector has at his disposal, though – he was said to have about 14,000 gadgets in all. 6. The 1999 movie starring Matthew Broderick revealed a lot of things the cartoon never did. For instance, Inspector Gadget's name was John Brown and Dr. Claw's name was Sanford Scolex. A 2002 cartoon called Gadget and the Gadgetinis, however, tells us that the Inspector’s nemesis was born as “George Claw” and he has a twin brother named “Dr. Thaw” who wears dishwashing gloves instead of a menacing spiked glove like his sibling. 7. You know you’ve got a classic theme song on your hands when street performers add it to their repertoires. Check out this busker in Australia playing the catchy tune by hitting beer bottles with a wooden spoon. It’s pretty awesome. 8. Inspector Gadget had a mustache in the 1983 pilot episode. Almost immediately after the show, DIC, the company who created Gadget, received a “friendly” letter from MGM saying that their cartoon seemed to closely resemble a character they had recently created. Thus, Gadget was clean-shaven for the rest of the series. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out which MGM character that might refer to – anyone have any guesses? Photo from SearchforVideo.com. 9. Fans already know that Don Adams – probably most famous for playing a somewhat similar character in Get Smart, Maxwell Smart – was the voice of Inspector Gadget. What you might not know is that it wasn’t Don’s first venture into the world of animation. In the ’60s, Adams endeared himself to children as the title voice on Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales (you’ll see that Tennessee Tuxedo sounds just like Inspector Gadget). 10. Dr. Claw is a spoof on a famous Bond villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who was seen in several films including You Only Live Twice and Thunderball. In fact, he may be one of the most spoofed Bond villains of all time – Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers series is the spitting image of Blofeld. 11. There was a way to see Dr. Claw’s face prior to the 1999 movie – back in 1992, a Dr. Claw action figure was produced. But there was a catch – a large sticker on the package obscured Claw’s face, so to get a glimpse, you actually had to buy the toy. Clever. Here’s what he looked like when you bought the action figure: Pictures from ProgressiveBoink.

The Week in Geekery Posted: 05 Jan 2010 04:29 AM PST Here at Neatorama, we’re always looking for ways to make our site more entertaining, which is why I found this recent comment by giltwist useful: Neatorama’s biggest strength and biggest weakness is that there is no specialization to the stories. I think you might attract more users if there was something, anything that was a Neatorama staple that made me check back looking for particular weekly columns. The closest to that you have right now are those bathroom reader things, and those are pretty hit-or-miss for me. What ever became of Miss Celania’s video blogging? I remember the raisin milkshake then nothing. We aim to please, which is why Alex has graciously allowed me to experiment with this post: a weekly tour of interesting tidbits in geek culture. Do you like it? Would you like to see more? Share your feedback in the comments. 1. Star Wars With a Laugh Track (YouTube Link) YouTube user CaptainChirac added a laugh track to the Luke/Vader confrontation scene in The Empire Strikes Back to turn this dramatic epic into a comedy. (via Topless Robot) 2. Star Trek Cross-Stitch Craftster user coincollect408 made this amazing cross-stitch that looks as precise as a low-resolution photograph. (Link via Geek Crafts) 3. Buffy/Twilight Mashup (YouTube Link) Buffy thinks of Edward as a creepy stalker rather than as a sultry, romatic figure. (via Jockeystreet) 4. Giant Welded 12-Sided Die Paul Edward Carson made this huge, welded d12 for those occasions when he needs “to generate a random number between 1 and 12 while destroying my house….” (Link via Make) 5. Superheroes/Dr. Seuss Mashups Artist Ryan Dunlavey offers these mashups of superhero comics and Dr. Seuss book covers. (Link via io9) Is this something that you would like to see more of? Let us know — we take your feedback very seriously.

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