Neatorama

The Knife Pistol
Neatoramanauts Are Community
Alien Sculpture from 1,200 Pounds of Motorcycle Steel
World's Largest Solar-Powered Boat
Alice in Wonderland - 1903 version
Huge Wallpaper Gallery
Tweeto, Ergo Sum: I Tweet, Therefore I Am
Stealth(ier) Helicopter
How to Fake Your Own Death
Black Penguin
Excel as Illustrator
DIY Retro Pong Clock
Tim Burton's New Remake: Weekend at Bernie's
"The Death of Braille" - Appropriate, or Ominous?
Elizabethans Enjoyed Oysters and Crabs at the Theater
Skiing Blind
Two Feet of Snow
Mouse Usage Visualization

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 11:12 PM PST

Practical? Nope. Badass? Absolutely. Perhaps it’s second only to the Double-barreled Sword Pistol. Who knew that the Gunblade is actually real?

Original photo from the answer page to last week’s What is it? game. Catch us next week!

Neatoramanauts Are Community

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 10:34 PM PST

We’re popping the tops off our Facebook and Twitter accounts this weekend with some cool contests. Think of it as our official social media coming out party with a chance to win some neato door prizes. We’ve disabled auto-update over on our Twitter account so go follow us @neatorama to stay up-to-date with all the neatoramanaut activity. We’re running a contest already! If you get a friend to follow us using your own hashtag + @neatorama, we’ll enter you into a drawing to win a T-shirt from our store. (Use your twitter handle as your hashtag.)

But that’s not all! Fan us on Facebook over on our new page: www.Facebook.com/neatoramanauts and watch for another awesome contest coming real, real soon for a chance to win even more!

Yes, we’re getting serious about our community and we want you to have a voice.

Alien Sculpture from 1,200 Pounds of Motorcycle Steel

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 05:48 PM PST

Robosteel is a Dublin-based art studio that builds frightening-looking sculptures out of scrap metal. Pictured above is one in the image of the alien queen from the movie Alien, made from 1,200 pounds of Yamaha motorcycle parts. The artists assert that their inspiration is a simple Picasso sculpture:

Picasso's sculpture of the bicycle saddle and a handlebar was the first example of a work made from everyday things, using junk or scrap. Like other of Picasso’s firsts this work opened up new possibilities for artists. In this instance – sculptors, who for centuries had employed traditional materials such as stone or wood now instead, many of them began to incorporate junk materials into their work (known as assemblages) or fashion new objects from them. The works are a great example of the inventive genius of Picasso and the ultimate inspiration for RoboSteel.

Link via DVICE

World's Largest Solar-Powered Boat

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 05:36 PM PST

PlanetSolar is a boat powered entirely through solar energy. At 31 meters long and 15 wide, it’s the largest in the world:

The 60 tonne catamaran (or is that trimaran?) has cost 18 million euro ($24.4 million USD) to create at the Knierim Yacht Club in Kiel in northern Germany and will be launched waterside next month with sea trials due between June and September. To achieve to full photovoltaic capture there are solar covered flaps that are extended at the stern and amidships.

SunPower has provided approximately 38,000 of their next generation all black photovoltaic cells, an efficiency of at least 22%, which they believe to be the highest efficiency solar cells commercially available. Maybe it’s buried somewhere on the PlanetSolar site, but I missed what storage medium the boat will use once it has harnessed the sun’s energy.

Link | Photogallery | Photo: Christian Charisius/Reuters

Alice in Wonderland - 1903 version

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 04:52 PM PST

YouTube link

From the British Film Institute Archive comes this first-ever film adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s book.

Made just 37 years after Lewis Carroll wrote his novel and eight years after the birth of cinema, the adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations… With a running time of just 12 minutes (8 of which survive), Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at that time. Film archivists have been able to restore the film’s original colours for the first time in over 100 years.

If you don’t have the requisite time to view the video, you can view a summary at this tattoo.

Via Metafilter.

Huge Wallpaper Gallery

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 03:57 PM PST

Is it time for fresh wallpaper for your computer? Ayesee’s imgur page has 188 fantastic, clever and cute backgrounds to choose from. Clockwise from top left- classic spiral galaxy, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, The mischievous pedobear is watching you, and Domo-kun stomp city.

Link -via Twisted Sifter.

Tweeto, Ergo Sum: I Tweet, Therefore I Am

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 03:39 PM PST

Tweeto, Ergo Sum T-Shirt

If René Descartes were alive today, would he say "I tweet, therefore I am"? From the Neatorama Shop: Link | More Funny T-Shirts

Stealth(ier) Helicopter

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 03:00 PM PST

The aviation company Eurocopter is developing noise-reducing helicopter blades that could minimize the sound that a helicopter makes:

This week Eurocopter unveiled its most recent effort to reduce helicopter noise with the radical-looking Blue Edge rotor blade. The new blade has been tested on one of the company's EC155 helicopters and was shown to reduce noise 3 to 4 decibels, according to the company.

In addition to the Blue Edge rotor blade, the company also introduced something called Blue Pulse technology. Also designed to reduce helicopter noise, the Blue Pulse system uses three flap modules in the trailing edge of each rotor blade. Piezoelectric motors move actuate the flaps 15 to 40 times per second in reduce the "slap noise" often heard when a helicopter is descending.

Both of these technologies are able to reduce noise by minimizing the blade-vortex interaction of the main rotor on a helicopter. Blade-vortex interaction is the source of the pulsating sound most of us are familiar with when helicopters fly overhead. The noise is created when a rotor blade hits the wake vortex left behind from the blade in front of it.

Video at the link.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: Eurocopter

How to Fake Your Own Death

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 02:30 PM PST

The following is an excerpt from The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
by Ransom Riggs

Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem. Art by Sidney Paget (1893)

“I owe you many apologies, dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have written so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not yourself thought that it was true.”

- Sherlock Holmes, “The Empty House”

Any consulting detective as successful as Sherlock Holmes is sure to rack up an impressive list of powerful enemies, and sometimes—as Holmes decided was the case in “The Final Problem”—the best way to escape their vengeance is to fake one’s own death. This is by no means an option for the faint of heart. Not only is it a cruel thing to inflict upon those who care for you, but it requires an exceeding amount of bother to execute the deed properly. Pray that you never have to embark upon the steps outlined here!

1. Design a persuasive death scene. The best kind—and your only option, really—is a death that leaves no recognizable body behind. Explosions or fires are good choices, provided you plant a skeleton in the wreckage that may plausibly be identified as your own. Water-related tragedies in which the corpse is unrecoverable are also ideal, as was Holmes's choice in “The Final Problem”—he made it appear as though he’d tumbled over the lofty Reichenback Falls, the treacherous bottom of which authorities didn’t even bother to search for his remains. Holmes’s footprints led up to the precipice and disappeared, leading all concerned to conclude he had fallen to his death—when in fact he merely climbed over a nearby ledge, where he hid until the scene was deserted and he could make a stealthy escape.

2. Skip town. As long as you remain near your old familiar haunts or anyone who might recognize you, you’re in danger. Get as far as possible from your home and the scene of your “death,” as quickly as you can. When Holmes miraculously returns to London in “The Empty House,” he tells Watson about the exotic places he’d lived in the intervening three years: Tibet, Persia, Mecca, and Egypt, among other distant locales. Those were extreme choices, to be sure, but extraordinarily safe ones—the chances of his meeting someone there whom he had known prior to his “death” were low indeed.

3. Assume a new identity. Though your body lives on, your former identity must die. Grow facial hair, change your walk, and develop a new accent to help bury obvious traces of your former self. While traveling far and wide, Holmes went undercover as a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson, whose exploits and discoveries were fantastic enough to make international headlines. Yet he was never recognized as Holmes himself, so convincing was this disguise.

4. Arrange access to a supply of money. Travel is expensive, and you’ll no longer have access to bank accounts or lines of credit established under your real name. You can always bring cash with you or deposit money into an anonymous offshore account, but keep in mind that making any sudden, last-minute transfers or withdrawals into that account before your death is extremely suspect behavior. If you’re able to plan your death significantly in advance, make gradual, monthly transfers over a period of several years to avoid suspicion. Less advisable was Holmes’s technique: He revealed himself to his brother Mycroft, who became Holmes’s sole confidant and source of funds. Had Mycroft been compromised in some way, Holmes’s secret would’ve been revealed, and his life put into considerable danger. Which brings us to the next point:

5. Reveal yourself to no one. The wrenching heartache endured by your loved ones is your enemies’ most convincing proof you’re really dead. Should their grief-stricken ululations seem forced or overly theatrical, someone is sure to smell a rat. This profound separation from friends and relations will undoubtedly be the most trying aspect of your ordeal, as even cold and logical Holmes admits---“Several times during the past three years I have taken up my pen to write to you,” he apologizes to Watson—but such cruel alienation is necessary. Holmes explains why: ”I feared your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret.”

6. Wait until your enemies are at their weakest to return. With time, the fires of your enemies’ vengeance will cool, and their guard will fall. They may themselves die or be jailed (for such are dangers of the criminal life) and when they are at their most defenseless, as Holmes judged his to be shortly before his dramatic resurrection, it’s time to return home.

7. Minimize the shock to your friends and family. When Holmes finally revealed himself to Watson, he does it in such a shocking way—which Holmes himself later confesses was “unnecessarily dramatic”—that poor Watson, a veteran of war and a man of sound constitution, faints on the spot. Imagine the effect such an appearance would have on the elderly or the anxious, and do your all to introduce yourself to them gradually. Save surprising flourishes for your enemies!

__________

The article above is excerpted from The Sherlock Holmes Handbook: The Methods and Mysteries of the World's Greatest Detective by Ransom Riggs.

There are many guides and handbooks written over the years, but I dare say that this is one of the most fun (and most useful, if you want to become a world-famous detective).

The Sherlock Holmes Handbook: The Methods and Mysteries of the World's Greatest Detective, published by Quirk Books and written by our pal Ransom Riggs - a lifelong Holmes aficionado and regular contributor to mental_floss magazine and blog - features the skills that would-be sleuths should know.

Need to decode ciphers and analyze fingerprints? Check. Disguise yourself and outwit a criminal mastermind? No problem. For avid Holmes fans, history buffs, and armchair sleuths of all sorts, The Sherlock Holmes Handbook will satisfy "Baker Street Irregulars" of all ages.

Black Penguin

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 01:51 PM PST

Photo: Andrew Evans

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Evans (@Bus2Antarctica) snapped this photo of a rare black penguin during his travels around the world to Antarctica.

He wrote that it’s a "rare melanistic trait that’s practically undocumented" on king penguins – Thanks Marilyn!

Excel as Illustrator

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 01:38 PM PST

We have seen Microsoft Excel used as a drawing tool before, but not like this. YouTube user and artist shukei01 put this time-lapse video together that shows almost 13 hours of work. ”Autoshape can be used to do lineart, colors, shadows, lighting effects and layers, like some drawing software.”

(YouTube Link)

Anyone know who does the music?

DIY Retro Pong Clock

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 01:16 PM PST

If I weren’t all thumbs, I’d definitely give this one a try: Hardware hacker Limor Fried (Ladyada) of Adafruit Industries has released an open source retro Pong clock for two called the MONOCHRON.

She promised that "even if its your first soldering project, it shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 hours to put together" but it probably doesn’t include time spent in the ER for soldering my fingers.

Links: MONOCHRON on Vimeo [video clip] | Project Page | Open source files at github – Thanks Phillip Torrone!

Tim Burton's New Remake: Weekend at Bernie's

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 12:50 PM PST

Forget Alice in Wonderland! This is Tim Burton’s masterpiece remake of the year. Behold, Weekend at Bernie’s. I’d give it an 8.3.

Hit play or go to Link [Babelgum] – Thanks Matt!

"The Death of Braille" - Appropriate, or Ominous?

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 11:08 AM PST

A fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine explains that knowlege about and usage of Braille by visually impaired people is declining as they shift to electronic means of acquiring information.

The trend is real and significant; nowadays fewer than 1 in 10 blind children learn Braille. Part of the problem is that Braille is intrinsically an inconvenient medium:

Braille books are expensive and cumbersome, requiring reams of thick, oversize paper. The National Braille Press, an 83-year-old publishing house in Boston, printed the Harry Potter series on its Heidelberg cylinder; the final product was 56 volumes, each nearly a foot tall.

The replacements for Braille are audiobooks, computer text-to-speech, and other auditory technologies. The upside for the visually impaired is a much more rapid acquisition of knowledge. The potential downside is a flawed understanding of language itself.

"What we're finding are students who are very smart, very verbally able — and illiterate," Jim Marks, a board member for the past five years of the Association on Higher Education and Disability, told me. “Now their writing is phonetic and butchered. They never got to learn the beauty and shape and structure of language."

Horror stories circulating around the convention featured children who don't know what a paragraph is or why we capitalize letters or that "happily ever after" is made up of three separate words.

The question extends well beyond obvious things like spelling words or distinguishing homonyms to the broader concept that the acquisition of the ability to read actually shapes the brain itself, and that people from literate societies actually think differently from members of oral societies.

Link. Image credit Tom Schierlitz.

Elizabethans Enjoyed Oysters and Crabs at the Theater

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 10:30 AM PST

The two great theaters of Elizabethan London were the Rose, where Christoper Marlowe’s plays were performed, and the Globe, home to the works attributed to Shaksper. Ongoing archaeological work at the sites is revealing information not only about the structures, but also about the theatergoers seated in the galleries and milling about the stage.

“Food remains and seeds indicate that the preferred snacks were oysters, crabs, mussels, periwinkles and cockles. Walnuts, hazelnuts, plums, cherries, peaches, dried raisins and figs were also popular…”

The distribution of food remains over the site suggested that there was a class divide in the consumption of snacks. [Museum of London archaeologist Julian] Bowsher explained that remains found underneath the gallery seating suggested that the wealthier classes munched on crabs and sturgeon, as well as imported treats like peaches and dried figs. Meanwhile, oyster shells were found scattered all over the yard area, where commoners stood.

“At that time, oysters were indeed the staple diet of the poor,” Bowsher said.

Link. Image credit: Museum of London Archaeology

Skiing Blind

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 09:47 AM PST

The final day of the Winter Olympics this Sunday has only two events: the gold medal men’s hockey game and the 50km cross-country skiing race. Brian McKeever will be skiing for Canada. This race will make him the first Olympian ever to participate in both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year. McKeever is legally blind.

In 1998, McKeever was a promising 19-year-old skier when he was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease, a type of juvenile macular degeneration that gradually leads to blindness. Twelve years later, McKeever only has 10 percent of his vision, and that tiny fraction is in his peripheral vision.

Rather than rolling over when he lost his sight, though, McKeever got back on his skis.

Read about how McKeever does it at mental_floss. Link

Two Feet of Snow

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 07:05 AM PST