Neatorama

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• What Is It? Game 125
• BottleHood: Tumblers Made From Used Beer Bottles
• Spurned Mistress Buys Billboards
• Is Meat Grown in a Petri Dish Kosher?
• Movie Trivia: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Dyalogues: The Anti-Twitter
• Tin House in Gamalakhe Tin Town
• Pandora-Like Disappearing Plant
• 7 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Works of Art
• Google Earth Guys
• 1998 Congrats From George Lucas to James Cameron
• The Zero-Rupee Note Is Very Valuable
• Earth is Becoming Less Detectable to Extraterrestrials
• Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt Now Official T-Shirt of New Hampshire
• The Phone Book Sculptures of Alex Queral
• 14 Monstrous Extinct Beasts
• Pringle of Scotland
• Happy Birthday, National Geographic Society!
• VideoSift Clips of the Week

What Is It? Game 125 Posted: 28 Jan 2010 05:18 AM PST W00t! It’s time for this week’s collaboration with What is it? Blog. Can you guess what the gruesome tool to the left is used for? Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, please. You can enter as many guesses as you’d like. The first correct guess and the funniest albeit incorrect one will win a free Neatorama T-shirt from the Neatorama Shop. You have until the answer is posted at the What is it? Blog tomorrow. For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!

BottleHood: Tumblers Made From Used Beer Bottles Posted: 28 Jan 2010 12:53 AM PST Stone Brewing Co.'s beer bottle tumblers by BottleHood Available from the Neatorama Shop Can you help save the environment, create local jobs and help stimulate the economy? Oh, and did I mention that beer is involved? Two San Diego folks did just that with an idea so simple it's genious: turn used beer, wine and liquor bottles into zany glassware and gorgeous vases. While many of us recycle (Yay! Go us!), more than a billion bottles still end up in California landfills every year. That represents both a problem and an opportunity for artist and eco-activist Leslie Tiano and businessman Steve Cherry who teamed up to create BottleHood. They "rescue" beer, wine and liquor bottles from local restaurants, then wash, cut, grind, and polish them into tumblers, juice glasses, vases, and candle holders. Stone IPA Beer Bottle Tumblers - $7.95 each Tiffany and I met Leslie and Steve at the California Gift Show in Los Angeles recently and asked them a few questions: Neatorama: These are great! How did you come up with the idea of "repurposing" beer bottles? BottleHood (Steve): Leslie presented her first few product concepts from which we first started with vases and tumblers made from wine bottles. I didn't want to cut thin beer bottles glass if you can believe it! Anyway, I thought of the process of repurposing glass based on lapidary techniques as opposed to heat based treatments to repurpose glass which create a huge carbon footprint in the process. My role was in the conception of the manufacturing and distribution strategy, being "neighborhood" based, very scalable and easily replicated geographically. Neatorama: What's involved in making the tumblers and glasses? How long does it take to make each one by hand? BottleHood: We treat the bottles as if they were a gemstone, like quartz, and cut, grind, sand, and polish the bottle turned glassware back to its original luster and finish. It takes about 20 minutes to make each tumbler. Neatorama: What do the breweries and restaurants think of your idea? BottleHood: Most breweries love what we do as it promotes their brand and it's a green socially conscious connection. Restaurants turn out to be both our bottle suppliers as well as our largest client segment. BottleHood is a sustainable business and to complete the "circle of sustainability" our suppliers turned clients offer the glassware back to the folks that drank the wine in the first place! Neatorama: What's next for BottleHood? BottleHood (Steve): We've got our eyes on lots of different neighborhoods, come see us at the SF Gift Show for more! BottleHood (Leslie): There's a steady flow of ideas that comes from discarded bottles, so there will be new products in the very near future by BottleHood. Arrogant Bastard Ale Beer Bottle Tumbler - $12.95 each ... and who can resist: the Double Bastard! Double Bastard Ale Beer Bottle Tumbler - $14.95 each ---------- I'm particularly taken by Leslie and Steve's line of glass tumblers made from beer bottles. They're SO awesome that we just have to collaborate with BottleHood to carry these beer bottle tumblers in the Neatorama Shop. Check it out - they'll make awesome Valentine's Day present for beer lovers everywhere: Link

Spurned Mistress Buys Billboards Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:25 PM PST When most people feel cheated by their lover, they complain to friends or maybe trash some of the other person’s property left at their house. But YaVaughnie Wilkins is not most people. After seeing that Oracle President Charles Phillips was going back to his wife, she bought $250,000 worth of billboards in Atlanta, San Francisco and New York that featured her and Charles together. The billboards also featured a link to her website, but it has since been taken down. I think this is going a bit far, but I’ve never been in an eight year long affair with the president of a major company, so maybe I just don’t know what it’s like. What do you guys think? Link Via San Francisco Family Law Blog Image Via Gawker

Is Meat Grown in a Petri Dish Kosher? Posted: 27 Jan 2010 05:52 PM PST So scientists can now grow meat in a laboratory — that is, animal muscle tissue without starting with an actual, living animal. This has brought up all sorts of interesting ethical questions, particularly among vegetarians. But here’s the angle that Tim Barribeau of io9 took: is artificially-produced meat compliant with Jewish food traditions? We talked to Rabbi Arnold Bienstock of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla, a Conservative Synagogue in Carmel, Indiana, and asked his opinion on the matter. “The way any religious issue comes down, in the Jewish community, is the more traditional, pious Orthodox Jews have a hard time accepting change, the Reform embrace it, and the Conservatives fight about it,” said Bienstock, with dry humor. So it will vary greatly along the various degrees of observation. Bienstock thinks the Conservatives will be hesitant to adopt artificially raised meat, unless it’s seen as something completely different to its original form. The Rabbi compared this to two previous cases with kosher food: cheese and gelatin. Both contain animal products which may not be kosher, so specific variations have to be made for people who are strictly Orthodox. On the other hand, the Conservative movement viewed these objects as being so far changed and removed from their original source, that they don’t need to be kosher. Says Bienstock, “these elements are re-defined as not really being meat, as the substance is so incredibly transformed. So using [this technology] the Conservative movement might say it’s not really meat because it doesn’t come from an animal.” Link | Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Movie Trivia: Who Framed Roger Rabbit Posted: 27 Jan 2010 04:07 PM PST Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a staple in our household, which is funny, because I remember being quite scared of the steamroller scene near the end when I was a kid. Now that I'm older, I appreciate it more from standpoint of how much work it took to get such a groundbreaking movie made – and here are some of the inside details on exactly what it took to make that happen. For the record, I still find the steamroller scene a little creepy. Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Like so many movies, this one was a book before it ever hit the screen. In this case, the book was named Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, by Gary K. Wolf. But the film doesn't follow the book exactly. For instance, the book took place in present day – which was 1981 – not 1947. And instead of famous animated cartoon characters making appearances, famous cartoon strip characters pop up to chat with Roger, including Dick Tracy. Most Toons like Tracy "spoke" in the book the only way they knew how – through word bubbles. Some became "bilingual" and could speak without balloons. The only line in the whole book that made it to the silver screen was spoken by Baby Herman – "I've got a 50-year-old lust and a three-year-old dinky." In the book, though, Baby Herman was actually 50, not 36. The ending is a lot different too, but I won't spoil that for you (Google will tell you pretty quickly, if you're dying to know). After the movie became a success in 1988, Wolf wrote a second book (though not necessarily a sequel) that fell more in line with the movie than with his original book. It's called Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? Who Discovered Roger Rabbit? It's probably music to the ears of Roger Rabbit fans: a prequel. According to the prequel, Roger grew up on a farm in the midwest and headed out to California to try to find his real mother. That's how he falls in love with Jessica Krupnick (Jessica Rabbit has a much better ring to it, don't you think?) and eventually meets not only his mother, but his father too – none other than Bugs Bunny. The movie would have been a direct-to-video release. As of 1997, Michael Eisner was onboard for the prequel and commissioned a rewrite of the script; in 1998 some test footage was even shot. After estimations brought the cost of the movie to about $100 million, the idea was more or less shelved. However, just last year, Robert Zemeckis said he was interested in doing the prequel and it's rumored that the script is being worked on again. I guess we'll see. I'd certainly go see it. Who Trivialized Roger Rabbit? I did. Here are some other fun facts from the movie. Although Roger and his cartoon pals have largely been abandoned at Disney, you can still find traces of them here and there. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled the next time you're at Disney Hollywood Studios – if you look in the right place, you'll find Eddie Valiant's office, complete with the "hole" where Roger busted through the glass. There's also a billboard for R.K. Maroon Studios. Kathleen Turner famously provided Jessica Rabbit's sultry voice, but Amy Irving – then Steven Spielberg's wife – was her singing voice. This was the last film Mel Blanc provided his famous voices for, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Porky Pig and Sylvester the Cat – with one exception. He did provide Daffy's voice one more time in 1988 before passing away in 1989. The movie's original budget was $29.9 million dollars – the most an animated movie had ever cost at the time. But the price tag could have been even more astronomical – Roger was slated to cost $50 million at first, but Disney refused to shell out that much and wouldn't approve production until costs were slashed. Rumor has it that by the time production was finished, the budget had soared to around $70 million. Despite the cavalcade of characters from across the cartoon universe, a few that Disney wanted are missing: Popeye and Olive Oyl, Tom and Jerry, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Deputy Dawg. They couldn't secure the rights for these in time for the movie. Before the final title was finally settled on, others that were considered included Murder in Toontown, Dead Toons Don't Pay Bills, Trouble in Toontown and Eddie Goes to Toontown. The book has a question mark after the title, but the movie doesn’t – ending a movie title with a question mark is considered bad luck in the industry, apparently. This hasn't stopped Who's Harry Crumb?; What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?; or Dude, Where's My Car?. The principle does apply to What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Who's That Girl, however. Warner Brothers would only allow the use of their toons if they got the same screen time as Disney's toons. Thus, when you see Bugs, he's usually with Mickey, and when you see Daffy, Donald is probably there too. Screencap from Obsessed with Film. To make Judge Doom extra creepy, Robert Zemeckis had Christopher Lloyd refrain from blinking during his scenes. I'm tempted to watch just to see if I can catch him. Tim Curry auditioned for the role of Judge Doom, but he was so disturbingly sinister that Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner all nixed him for fear that he would give children nightmares. The inspiration for Jessica Rabbit was taken from a bunch of Hollywood glamour girls, including Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake. Zemeckis and Spielberg both really wanted Bill Murray for the role of Eddie Valiant, but Murray is notoriously hard to get a hold of, so it never happened. Murray has said that when he later found out that he was the number one choice for the role, he screamed out loud because he would have loved playing Eddie. If you haven't kept track of all of the animated cameos in the movie, here's a list to watch for the next time you catch Roger on T.V.: From Disney: Mickey; Minnie; Pluto; Donald; Goofy; Pegleg Pete; Horace Horsecollar; Clarabell Cow; the dwarves from The Merry Dwarfs; the flowers and trees from Flowers and Trees; the Three Little Pigs; Snow White and the seven dwarves; many of the characters from Fantasia (though not Chernabog); Dumbo; his mom and the crows from Dumbo; Br'er Bear; Tinkerbell; the penguins from Mary Poppins; Mr. Toad and his horse from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad; Bambi and some that are a little more obscure. From Warner Brothers: Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Sam the Sheepdog and Speedy Gonzales. From Paramount: Koko the Clown and Betty Boop. From Walter Lantz: Woody Woodpecker From MGM: Droopy You can also catch Felix the Cat, but he's not an animated cameo. Instead, his face appears as the comedy and tragedy masks on the entrance to Toontown. He's also shown in a photograph shaking hands with R.K. Maroon.

Dyalogues: The Anti-Twitter Posted: 27 Jan 2010 03:00 PM PST Our pals Jason Menayan of HubPages and Kevin Lee have created what is probably the perfect antithesis to Twitter. Their new website, Dyalogues, aims to facilitate meaningful back-and-forth discussions between two (and only two) people. Jason explains: Dyalogues are online conversations between exactly two people. It’s like blogging and tweeting back and forth with another person, about a topic that you want to discuss with each other and share with the world. Dyaloguers can debate politics, review a movie together, or even interview each other. The best part is that you have total control over the pace and whom you dyalogue with. It’s an interesting concept that’s actually a lot easier to show than to explain (Dyalogues’ "about us" page illustrates the concept perfectly). So far, there have been almost 300 "dyalogues" completed during their beta period, with topics ranging from Does Rush Limbaugh deserve the flack he gets? to Jersey Shore: Inspirational or Trash? To kick start the website, Jason and Kevin have created a contest, called Dyalogues Around The World, with the Grand Prize of $500 and 5 Runner Up Prizes of $100 each. All you have to do is have a dyalogue with someone in the month of February Link (Disclosure: Yes, Neatorama is listed as a sponsor but there’s no financial compensation involved here, folks – we agreed to spread the word about Dyalogues in exchange with them putting our logo on the contest webpage.) Now, who wants to have a dyalogue with me?

Tin House in Gamalakhe Tin Town Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:14 PM PST Tin House in Gamalakhe Tintown in Margate If you’ve seen Neill Blomkamp’s movie District 9, the tin house above should be familiar. Indeed, the slum that housed the alien prawns is similar to the Gamalake township in South Africa, down to its purported "temporary" nature. John Gore of 360 Cities wrote: “This is a typical Tin House after which this area of Gamalakhe township got its name: Tin Town. Originally erected as temporary housing for these displaced people, these tin houses have become permanent residences for over 20 years. This home owner has been fortunate enough to now have a brick house as well, but the old tin structure is still used as a residency.” The poverty is palpable – the spartan house has bare walls and floor, and as far as I can tell, open windows (no glass panes). Yet, it’s not completely devoid of technology though the choice of what appliance to have is strikingly logical: a refrigerator. (Compare this to the poor in United States where 91% own color TVs!)

Pandora-Like Disappearing Plant Posted: 27 Jan 2010 11:39 AM PST (YouTube Link) In the movie Avatar, there is a plant that disappears into the ground the instant it’s touched.  The good news for those afflicted with Pandora Depression it that we have a similar plant organism, right here on Earth!  The Sea Pen (a soft coral)  expels water from its body when touched, so as to avoid being eaten.

7 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Works of Art Posted: 27 Jan 2010 10:38 AM PST This article highlights seven interesting things you can see if you look closely at masterpieces. It includes paintings with a baby flipping off the pope, UFO’s in the sky, and the shape of a brain that surrounds God as painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While some might dismiss this as a coincidence, experts suggest that it would be harder to explain that this was not Michelangelo’s intention. Even complex components within the brain, such as the cerebellum, optic chiasm and pituitary gland can all be found in the picture. As for that sassy green sash running down the pons/spinal column/dude-holding-God-up, it follows the path of the vertebral artery perfectly. Along with drawing, painting, sculpting, St. Peter’s Basilica building and generally being among the universe’s top bananas, Michelangelo counted cadaver dissecting as a favorite way to pass the time. He was so mad about corpse-cutting, in fact, that a friend once presented him with a perfectly formed dead Moor as a gift. NSFW. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by dentboy324.

Google Earth Guys Posted: 27 Jan 2010 10:19 AM PST (Video Link) When we last left the Google Street View Guys, the pair had the simple task of photographing every address on every road on earth. Their new assignment is for Google Earth: to photograph everything on earth from every angle and every altitude. Animation by Dan Meth. Content warning: NSFW language.

1998 Congrats From George Lucas to James Cameron Posted: 27 Jan 2010 10:02 AM PST When Titanic blasted Star Wars off the top of the earnings throne, George Lucas had a congratulations illustration made to honor fellow director, Jim Cameron.  See the whole thing at the link.  Interestingly, if you look just above Leia, the backwards shadow of the word “television” can be seen, making me wonder if this was actually doodled on the back of some other document. Now, what will Jim send to himself now that Avatar has sunk Titanic? Link via Digg

The Zero-Rupee Note Is Very Valuable Posted: 27 Jan 2010 09:25 AM PST Fumiko Nagano of the World Bank writes that petty bribery is a normal part of government bureaucracy in India. If you need some license or form or permission, you’ll probably have to pay a bribe. An organization attempting to reform this practice has begun distributing rupee notes with a designated value of zero, to be offered to government officials when they ask for money: According to Anand, the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the organization has collected many stories from people using them to successfully resist engaging in bribery. One such story was our earlier case about the old lady and her troubles with the Revenue Department official over a land title. Fed up with requests for bribes and equipped with a zero rupee note, the old lady handed the note to the official. He was stunned. Remarkably, the official stood up from his seat, offered her a chair, offered her tea and gave her the title she had been seeking for the last year and a half to obtain without success. Had the zero rupee note reached the old lady sooner, her granddaughter could have started college on schedule and avoided the consequence of delaying her education for two years. In another experience, a corrupt official in a district in Tamil Nadu was so frightened on seeing the zero rupee note that he returned all the bribe money he had collected for establishing a new electricity connection back to the no longer compliant citizen. Link via Marginal Revolution | Image: 5th Pillar

Earth is Becoming Less Detectable to Extraterrestrials Posted: 27 Jan 2010 09:21 AM PST Scientists meeting for a SETI conference have been told that recent developments in communications technology are rendering the Earth less detectable to alien civilizations. In the past, TV and radio programmes were broadcast from huge ground stations that transmitted signals at thousands of watts. These could be picked up relatively easily across the depths of space, astronomers calculated. Now, most TV and radio programmes are transmitted from satellites that typically use only 75 watts and have aerials pointing toward Earth, rather than into space… “Very soon we will become undetectable,” he said. In short, in space no one will hear us at all. People will react in different ways to this news, depending on whether one’s vision of alien life is that of a Reese’s Pieces-munching E.T., an all-knowing elder race, a Grey, a Predator, or any of an endless number of other possibilities. Link.  Image credit.

Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt Now Official T-Shirt of New Hampshire Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:46 AM PST State officials have declared the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt the official t-shirt of state economic development. The shirt was designed by a firm in the town of Keene, so the state is claiming it as its own: “The Mountain’s Three Wolf Moon is a true New Hampshire success story,” said Steve Boucher of the Division of Economic Development. “What started off as a tongue-in-cheek take on a cool T-shirt has resulted in worldwide acclaim for a very creative and growing Granite State business.”[...] Boucher said that regardless of the truth of the claims of mystical properties possessed by the shirt, he’s optimistic about the effect it will have on New Hampshire’s economy. “If it can generate half of the results that Amazon shoppers are experiencing, we’re in awesome shape,” he said. “Every CEO should be wearing this shirt.” Link via Urlesque | Photo: WUMR Previously on Neatorama: Three Wolf Moon Shirt Three Wolf Moon Shirt Parodies Three Keyboard Cat Moon Shirt Also: a good video about the shirt from College Humor

The Phone Book Sculptures of Alex Queral Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:11 AM PST Philadelphia-based artist Alex Queral carves the faces of celebrities into phone books, then coats the results with acrylic: For me, the human head was a natural choice of subject matter because of its inherent expressiveness. I carve the faces out of phone books because I like the three-dimensional quality that results and because of the unexpected results that occur working in this medium. The three-dimensional quality enhances the feeling of the pieces as an object as opposed to a picture. In carving and painting a head from a phone directory, I'm celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community. In addition, I like the idea of creating something that is normally discarded every year into an object of longevity. Gallery at the link. Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Projects Gallery

14 Monstrous Extinct Beasts Posted: 27 Jan 2010 06:55 AM PST Scientists keep discovering extinct species that hardly seem possible outside of cartoons. If they were still around, we might not be! Web Urbanist shows us some of the biggest, fiercest, and weirdest of animals that are no more. For instance, the whorl shark had its own “jaw saw”! Whorl Sharks were similar to their modern cousins despite jetting along almost 300 million years ago. While modern sharks have rows of serrated teeth ready to replace any that fall out, the whorl shark has an interesting lower jaw that looked like a circular saw, where newer teeth would push older teeth further along the line. There's some debate about the placement of the tooth structure, but regardless of its location in the mouth or deeper in the throat, it had a startlingly unique appearance. Link

Pringle of Scotland Posted: 27 Jan 2010 06:53 AM PST (YouTube link) Pringle of Scotland is an old and established sweater company which has nothing to do with potato chips. They commissioned artist David Shrigley to make a humorous video about the firm. The result is strange and delightful! -via Flotsam

Happy Birthday, National Geographic Society! Posted: 27 Jan 2010 06:50 AM PST On January 27, 1888, a group of 165 prominent men in Washington, DC incorporated a club called the National Geographic Society. Its first president, lawyer Gardiner Green Hubbard, was the father-in-law and early financier of inventor Alexander Graham Bell, another founding member. Hubbard was also the first president of the Bell Telephone company, known today as AT&T. The society's publication, National Geographic magazine, began printing just 10 months after that founding meeting. It was initially a drab-looking scholarly journal sent to 165 charter members. Now its hallmark photography and more mainstream writing reach the hands of more than 40 million people per month. Wired takes a look at the history of the Society and how it grew from its humble beginnings into a multi-faceted organization that includes the magazine and its various spinoffs, a TV channel, research grants, educational programs, and a vast website. Link (image credit: Steve McCurry/National Geographic)

VideoSift Clips of the Week Posted: 27 Jan 2010 05:10 AM PST (Links open in a new browser window/tab) The Matrix Pill It’s just so hard to swallow! Link Re-enactment of half court shot prank goes awesomely wrong “High School tries to re-enact the College Humour half court prank on a teacher – awesomeness ensues.” Link Awesome Hand Ninja An amazingly lifelife ninja made from a hand, a bit of cloth and some marker. Link Critical Thinking QualiaSoup gives a thorough and thought provoking introduction to critical thinking and how to apply it to life. Sounds a little dry, but they make it very good with simple diagrams and well thought-out ideas. Link The coolest feather star you’ll ever see What haven’t seen many of these? Well this will definitely be the coolest then. Very interesting colorful, fast motion for this type of animal. Link

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