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2010/05/05

Neatorama

Neatorama

Is That Your Bag?

Posted: 05 May 2010 12:40 AM PDT

There’ll be no question of mistaken luggage on the airport carousel if you have a handcrafted suitcase by Williams British Handmade. Every piece in their collection of "original fashion artefacts" are bespoke or limited edition, and constructed of hand-stitched bridle leather and brass frames.

While the craftsmanship appears to be of the highest quality, the oddball shapes raise the question: what could you possibly pack in them?

Link – via marieaunet

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

The Whale Whisperer

Posted: 05 May 2010 12:33 AM PDT

Andrew Armour, the owner of Kubuli Watersports on the island of Dominica, has been called the ‘whale whisperer’ for his ability to communicate with the local sperm whales.

“Once I’m in the water I try to reach them acoustically by making this noise in the water, and it’s the same noise all the time so they know it’s me,” he says. “So I’m talking to them all the time in the water, and they start coming.”

“The whales come to us, make friends with us, and interact with us,” says Peter G. Allinson, a Baltimore doctor who has made several trips to Dominica, which is between the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

“The best encounter is when the whales are socializing among themselves and they’ll come over and play with us,” Allinson adds. “A couple of them will rub up against you and try to get you to rub them, and some of them roll over on their backs and let you rub their bellies. It’s quite interesting.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Lego Star Wars Trilogy in 2 Minutes

Posted: 05 May 2010 12:27 AM PDT


[YouTube - Link]


Appropriate for the 4th, this very well produced and funny LEGO animation gives Star Wars its due on Star Wars Day!

– via wired

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by timcanny.

Spanish Face Transplant Patient Shows His New Face

Posted: 05 May 2010 12:25 AM PDT

Spanish face transplant patient known only as Rafael revealed his new face at a press conference. The 30-year old had a partial face transplant surgery to repair deformation due to benign tumors:

Months of rehabilitation await him, but Rafael can now distinguish between hot and cold and feel pain in his lips.

After the operation, Rafael recognized himself in the mirror and liked what he saw, Gomez Cia said. “Not only did he not see himself as a monster, but rather he also thought he looked younger.”

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

First Prom at Age 90

Posted: 04 May 2010 08:31 PM PDT

Ninety-year-old great-grandmother Hasselteen Rumba of Kansas City has something to really celebrate: she attended her first prom. Going to a dance was on her "bucket list".

Great-grandson Ron Blalock said he decided to help Rumba after learning that attending a dance was on her list.

"She never went to a prom and I figured I’m having a prom so she should come with me and enjoy herself," Blalock said.

Rumba said she wasn’t allowed to attend dances as a teenager.

"Well about 60 years ago my folks was real strict," Rumba said. "They said oh no you’re not going to a dance. I couldn’t do that."

Link (with video)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Pencil vs Camera: 8 Hybrid Works of Drawing + Photo Art

Posted: 04 May 2010 07:53 PM PDT

The camera never lies, so they say, but what about the camera overlaid with pencil drawings? Artist Benjamin Heine sought to answer this story by overlaying clever pencil drawings onto photographs. Sometimes these drawings were simple, just filling in what is covered up, and sometimes complex, adding detail or focusing on otherwise hidden aspects of the original photo. In any case, the result is a thought-provoking artistic piece.

Link – via stumbleupon

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

Woman Born with No Arms or Kneecaps Prepares for Black Belt Test

Posted: 04 May 2010 06:08 PM PDT

Sheila Radziewicz of Massachusetts was born without arms or kneecaps. But she hasn’t let that prevent her from accomplishing her goals, including getting a black belt in Taekwondo:

Sheila Radziewicz was scheduled to take her test next month at Bruce McCorry’s Martial Arts in Peabody. The 32-year-old brown belt, who was born with thrombocytopenia-absent radius, or TAR syndrome, told The Salem News she’s been training in martial arts for three years. [...]

The Salem resident, who works as an advocate for victims of domestic violence, said she has never let her disability stop her. At 23, Radziewicz earned her driver’s license. She uses a car that she controls with her feet.

Link | Photo: AP

15 Fictional Boarding Schools We Wish Were Real

Posted: 04 May 2010 04:02 PM PDT

From Hogwarts to Hugglestones, 15 awesome boarding schools way cooler than the real thing. Fancy attending the X-Mansion?

Professor Xavier’s mansion, known as the X-Mansion, is the base of operations for the X-Men and a school for mutant teenagers, Xavier Institute for Higher Learner, formerly called Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Not only is Professor Xavier the best headmaster you could imagine but the skills and mission preparations learned while attending are second-to-none; after all, the X-Men’s younger future replacements must be ready to save the world when their time comes. You could attend and become a future world-saving expert trained by Professor Xavier, too.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nuiloa.

Take Our Children To The Park...And Leave Them There!

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:45 PM PDT

Lenore Skenazy, a mom and the author of Free-Range Kids has declared May 22nd – the weekend before Memorial Day – as the very first “Take Our Children to the Park… And Leave Them There Day.”

It is all part of Skenazy’s crusade to bring back common sense parenting to what are some very overprotective times. Her basic philosophy is that kids need to get out in the world, and that even though there might be some risk involved, the risk is small and well worth taking.

Most of us used to play outside in the park, without our parents, without cell phones, without Purell or bottled water and we survived! Thrived! We cherish the memories! And if you believe the million studies that I'm always publishing here, kids are healthier, happier and better-adjusted if they get to spend some time each day in "free play," without adults hovering.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by timcanny.

Previously at Neatorama: Would you let your 9-year-old ride the subway alone?

Bishnois: Eco-Conservation as a Religion

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:44 PM PDT

Before the "green" movement became trendy, there is a village in India that takes eco-conservation to the level of religion.

Bishnois, a community following the tenets prescribed by Jambeshwar in the 15th century, teaches its followers to respect nature, be kind to animals and not to cut trees. The followers are so principled as to lay down their lives to protect a tree.

Bishnois do not cut or lop green trees; instead they use dried cow dung as fuel. They do not cremate their dead as Hindus normally do, because it involves the use of firewood; instead, they bury them. Agriculture is the mainstay of the people; they also carve wood during the time they are not busy on their fields. The required wood comes from trees that have have fallen during storms. Each Bishnoi family creates a tank in their field to provide water for black bucks and antelopes
in the arid summer months. They maintain groves for the animals to graze and birds to feed. Solar energy is used to extract underground water to irrigate the groves. The region where they live is a desert (Thar desert), and these groves help to recharge rain water in the aquifers in the desert.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ushankari.

Politician "Outed" by Opponent ... as Straight!

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:07 PM PDT

Mudslinging your political opponent is a time-honored practice, but this one has a bit of unexpected twist. In the hotly contested primary for Pennsylvania state legislative seat, Democrat Gregg Kravitz was "outed" by his primary opponent as straight:

Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district.

"I outed him as a straight person," Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.’ That’s quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy’s a gem."

Kravitz, 29, said that he is sexually attracted to both men and women and called Josephs’ comments offensive.

"That kind of taunting is going to make it more difficult for closeted members of the LGBT community to be comfortable with themselves," Kravitz said. "It’s damaging."

But others said the remarkable quarrel itself was a sign of progress.

"We’ve hit a new high point when candidates are accused of pretending to be gay to win a seat," said Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and a pioneering civil rights advocate.

Link

Meta Meme: Keyboard Cat Goes to the Dentist

Posted: 04 May 2010 02:01 PM PDT


(YouTube Link)

The latest meme is to mix two or more memes together. The result is exponentially more amusing or annoying, depending on your perspective. This video combines Keyboard Cat with David After Dentist. It was made by Charlie Schmidt, the original creator of Keyboard Cat.

via Urlesque

Ironing Man Takes Villains to the Cleaners

Posted: 04 May 2010 01:56 PM PDT


[YouTube - Link]


Tony Starch is forced against his will to press the clothes for the leader of an evil organization.  Using his technical knowledge of dry cleaning technology, he finds a way to fight back!

– via twitter

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Gauldar.

Detailed, Hand-Drawn Map of London

Posted: 04 May 2010 12:57 PM PDT

Artist Stephen Walter made an enormous, detailed, hand-drawn map of London. It’s called “The Island” and is a satire of Londoners’ alleged view that their city is independent of the rest of the UK. In an interview about his work, Walter said:

Discoveries such as the First Earl of Salisbury having honeymooned, in 1589, in what is now a dodgy part of Edmonton caused much amusement. The map charts the birthplaces of famous people such as Alfred Hitchcock, Samuel Palmer, Noel Edmonds and Phyllis Pearsall (the originator of the London A-Z). It notes where Winston Churchill went to school, the gymnasium where Arnold Schwarzenegger trained, where the speed of sound was first recorded, the place where Oliver Twist was taught to thieve, the hotel where Hendrix died, sites of old palaces and prisons and the main encampments of the peasant revolts …

Link via Make | Artist’s Website | Interview

I Blame Hipsters

Posted: 04 May 2010 12:20 PM PDT


I Blame Hipsters – $14.95 | More Funny T-Shirts at the NeatoShop

Hipsters. Everyone knows one (or perhaps you ARE one). It’s a well known and long established fact that every social ill can be attributed to their existence, so here’s a T-shirt that squarely calls ‘em out for it. Hipsters are troublemakers. Link

A Rare Pony Express Artifact

Posted: 04 May 2010 11:40 AM PDT


Photo: National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institute

Before FedEx, there was the Pony Express, an expedited mail delivery system with more than 180 stations across the North American continent from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.

At each station, a rider would leap onto a fresh horse and gallop at full speed to the next.

Sometime in 1860, a Pony Express rider, whose name is long lost to history, vanished while crossing the wild lands of Nevada. Two years later, his mail pouch was found. Today, only a few artifacts remain from that pouch, including the envelope above. This envelope is only one of two known pieces of "interrupted mail" mail to exist from the Pony Express.

The rare 1860 envelope attests that hard riding was not the most daunting aspect of the job. Routes passed through deserted, often forbidding, territory. A note scrawled on the front of the artifact alludes to its tragic backstory: "Recovered from a [sic] mail stolen by the Indians in 1860." The nameless victim is thought to have been the only Pony Express rider killed, though a few station agents died when Indians attacked their outposts.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

Happy Star Wars Day, Everyone! May The Fourth Be With You

Posted: 04 May 2010 11:14 AM PDT

How could I nearly forget? Happy Star Wars Day, everyone! May the Fourth be with you.

The picture above is but a small version of one of many amazingly detailed fan-made Star Wars poster, lovingly created by Zoltán Simon (SimonZ): Link (don’t miss the Sagaposter)

Update: Miss Cellania wrote a neat list of ways to celebrate Star Wars Day over at mental_floss blog – Thanks Chrome!

Dying Man Sells Ad Space on His Own Urn

Posted: 04 May 2010 10:41 AM PDT

Aaron Jamison, a colon-cancer patient, expects to die in only a few months. Because of the costs associated with his care and expected cremation, he was quite worried that his wife would go into debt. So he did something he thought would solve the problem: sell ad space on his urn.

Thanks to good ol’ capitalism, he was able to raise more than his original $800 goal, as well as a pair of tickets to the Ellen show.

One advertiser is familiar: PETA bought an ad to push their agenda, even beyond the grave.



PETA will pay $200 for the space on Jamison’s urn. The ads will read “I’ve Kicked the Bucket-Have You? Boycott KFC” and “People Who Buy Purebred Dogs Really Burn Me Up. Always Adopt.”

Link – via mediabistro | Aaron’s blog

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

Stephen Hawking Says Time Travel May Be Possible

Posted: 04 May 2010 10:05 AM PDT

In The Daily Mail, Stephen Hawking writes that time travel may be possible. Since time and space are “wrinkled”, people might use these wrinkles as shortcuts in time:

Nothing is flat or solid. If you look closely enough at anything you’ll find holes and wrinkles in it. It’s a basic physical principle, and it even applies to time. Even something as smooth as a pool ball has tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids. Now it’s easy to show that this is true in the first three dimensions. But trust me, it’s also true of the fourth dimension. There are tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids in time. Down at the smallest of scales, smaller even than molecules, smaller than atoms, we get to a place called the quantum foam. This is where wormholes exist. Tiny tunnels or shortcuts through space and time constantly form, disappear, and reform within this quantum world. And they actually link two separate places and two different times. [...]

Given enough power and advanced technology, perhaps a giant wormhole could even be constructed in space. I’m not saying it can be done, but if it could be, it would be a truly remarkable device. One end could be here near Earth, and the other far, far away, near some distant planet.

Theoretically, a time tunnel or wormhole could do even more than take us to other planets. If both ends were in the same place, and separated by time instead of distance, a ship could fly in and come out still near Earth, but in the distant past. Maybe dinosaurs would witness the ship coming in for a landing.

Link via Geekologie | Image: NASA

The Quoll - Cute Cousin of the Tasmanian Devil

Posted: 04 May 2010 09:48 AM PDT

Does this little guy look unfamiliar?  It is a quoll, a rather strange but cute marsupial.  There are six species of quoll all told but they are now considered endangered.

The Northern Quoll is the smallest of the six species and rarely grows longer than thirty centimeters in length. A peculiar feature of the Northern is that after mating the males invariably die and the females are left alone to raise the young. They live mostly on fruit and small vertebrates but despite their size and timid appearance they are happy to scavenge in campsites.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Couple Renovates Abandoned Public Bathroom into House

Posted: 04 May 2010 09:18 AM PDT

Tracy Woodhouse and Graham Peck found a century-old abandoned public bathroom on the shore of Scarborough, UK and decided to turn it into a home:

The £35,000 project is now finished and the couple have settled down in their new home, which they have named The Lookout. Their television is situated where the men’s urinals used to be, and their bathroom is in the former ladies’ toilets. [...]

Metal gates at the separate entrances for Gentlemen and Ladies are signs of the building’s original use as well as the bay window – which used to be the toilet’s kiosk, but once they started digging much of its past was revealed.

The couple filled six skips with maroon glazed earthenware bricks and dug out the drains of the old urinals and a dozen cubicle

Link | Photo: Ross Parry/Daily Telegraph

New Technique Keeps Heart Alive 10 Days After Removed from Body

Posted: 04 May 2010 09:12 AM PDT


(YouTube Link)

Most organs that are removed from bodies for transplants can last only four to eight hours before they become useless. But Harvard researcher Hemant Thatte and his team have developed what they call “Somah” — a chemical mix that can preserve organs. The above video shows a pig heart being revived using this process a day after it was removed from the pig.

The researchers harvested hearts from female pigs, stored them in one of the two solutions, then biopsied them at several points over the next four hours. They observed the function of the cardiomyocyte and endothelial cells–both of which must be preserved in order for the transplanted heart to survive over the long term. By measuring key proteins, they determined that the rate of cell death was significantly slower in the Somah-preserved hearts than it was in those stored with Celsior. Their experiments in pigs suggest that Somah keeps hearts and livers viable for at least 10 days. By contrast, solutions such as Celsior can only be counted on to preserve hearts and livers for about four and 12 hours, respectively.

Link via Popular Science

Mammoth Blood Brought Back to Life

Posted: 04 May 2010 07:24 AM PDT

Using ancient DNA extracted from specimens of woolly mammoths preserved in the Siberian permafrost, researchers from the University of Adelaide and other universities managed to reconstruct the hemoglobin of these long-extinct beasts. The researchers converted the protein’s DNA sequences into RNA and inserted it into E. coli bacteria, which then manufactured the ancient mammoth protein. Does that mean we’ll be seeing woolly mammoths strolling the streets of Adelaide any time soon?

No, says the study’s co-author, Professor Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide. "This is not going to bring the species back to life.  We’ve only done this with one protein."



“It is the same as if we went back 30,000 years and stuck a needle into a living mammoth,” says Professor Cooper.

“This is true palaeobiology, as we can study and measure how these animals functioned as if they were alive today.”

Link – via io9

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Rest in Peas: The Unrecognized Death of Speech Recognition

Posted: 04 May 2010 07:12 AM PDT

Speech recognition technology reached 80% accuracy in 2001, then leveled off. The human ear has about 98% accuracy. Why haven’t computers improved in this area? Robert Fortner looks at several reasons.

Many spoken words sound the same. Saying "recognize speech" makes a sound that can be indistinguishable from "wreck a nice beach." Other laughers include "wreck an eyes peach" and "recondite speech." But with a little knowledge of word meaning and grammar, it seems like a computer ought to be able to puzzle it out. Ironically, however, much of the progress in speech recognition came from a conscious rejection of the deeper dimensions of language. As an IBM researcher famously put it: "Every time I fire a linguist my system improves." But pink-slipping all the linguistics PhDs only gets you 80% accuracy, at best.

We can take comfort in knowing that the human brain is still way ahead of machines. Link -via Metafilter

(image source: Creative Coffins)

Color Name Survey

Posted: 04 May 2010 07:09 AM PDT

Randall Munroe of xkcd conducted an online color survey, the results from 222,500 user sessions are ready. The aim of the survey was to find what names people associate with colors. As you can see, no one knows how to spell fuchsia. I had to stop and roll in the floor at the “disproportionally popular” color names by gender section. Link -via reddit

12 Most Amazing Dog-shaped Cakes

Posted: 04 May 2010 06:58 AM PDT

These are excellent examples of cakes shaped like dogs. The dog shown won an award!

Michelle Wibowo celebrated a triumph in the Patisserie Showpiece Section of the international Culinary Olympics. She cooked up a storm with a life sized hound dog-shaped sugar sculpture, which won her gold.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by chrome.
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